Today’s nerdy news is that, because of increasing problems with the e-mail account that I use to send out Logical Tips, I’m going to kill it and send out the ezine using a different one. So be ready.
After reading my article on printing labels from Word, a reader suggested that you print out the labels on paper first then hold your printout and a sheet of labels up to the light to make up they line up correctly. This advice makes sense for those of us (like me) who are really cheap and don’t want to goof up a whole sheet of expensive labels.
Here in the sticks, this week has been marked by vast quantities of snow. It’s pretty much snowed non-stop and the weather gurus seem to think it’s going to warm up, which will turn it all to slush. Yuck.
Naturally, because of the level of snow, we lost power. As I’ve noted in the past, it’s always quiet at our house, but it’s really quiet when there’s no electricity. It’s also dark, even at 10 am. I’m a big fan of living a simple life, but I draw the line at electricity and indoor plumbing.
Losing power also means no heat. So I had to fire up the wood stove. I have an adversarial relationship with our wood stove. On the one hand, it works, which is good. On the other hand, it’s old and small, and starting it is an enormous production. The problem is partly because the chimney gets really cold, and partly because I’m incompetent.
So obtaining warmth requires spending a lot of time crouching in front of the wood stove and scrunching up lots of paper. Then hoping the chimney will heat up before the struggling fire smolders into a charred mess.
Sometimes you read predictions that we’ll all move to a paperless society and newspapers won’t be printed anymore. I figure we’re in no danger of that happening until every wood stove is gone. I know plenty of people who subscribe to the newspaper, not because they read it, but because they need it to run the wood stove.