Snoopin’ with the Snoop

Embedded is an Access Tutorial created for my sister. She asked for my help in a database she created for herself.

Saw these today when filling up the bird bath next to the half whiskey barrel that they are in. I looked up what they are before I killed them. Does anyone recognize the little critters?

It all started with wanting to look at my mom’s original genealogy database. But PAF 2.31 is only on 5.25 inch disks… and disk 2/2 has a corrupted sector… so it’s a no-go on copying to a 3.5 and then onto my laptop.

So I have the old Compaq set up, because that operating system works, and the PAF files are still there, but it has only a 5.25 drive. The Tandy has a memory configuration error and apparently no operating system, but allows me to copy from drive b (5.25) to drive a (3.5). However, the notes2.dat file on the Compaq is a whopping 456,000 byte file (0.4M), and I so far have been unable to find a 500K 5.25 that is not corrupted! Most of the disks can handle at most a little under 350K. (For those who may have a small 1GB flash drive, the file I’m trying to copy equals 0.000424683 gigabytes.)

Anyway, the following is a list of the books I read over the summer of 1994, from a list that I had saved onto a 5.25 disk. I assume it was for Book-It:
Witch…………………………………..Christopher Pike
The White Dragon…………………………Anne McCaffrey
Little Women…………………………..Louisa May Alcott
Island of the Blue Dolphins………………Scott O’Dell
Martin’s Mice…………………………..Dick King-Smith
The Secret Life of Dilly McBean……………Dorothy Haas
No One To Call Me Home…………………..Rev. James Close
Up the Chimney Down………………………Joan Aiken
2061: Odessy Three……………………….Arthur C. Clarke
The Woman Who Rides Like A Man………………Tamora Pierce
Alanna: The First Adventure…………………Tamora Pierce
In The Hand of the Goddess………………….Tamora Pierce
Her Majesty’s Wizard…………………Christopher Statsheff
Emily Of New Moon…………………………L.M. Montgomery
Emily Climbs……………………………..L.M. Montgomery
Emily’s Quest…………………………….L.M. Montgomery
A Whisper and A Wish…………………….Robin Jones Gunn
New Girl In Town……………………………Judy Baer
Trouble With A Capital “T”…………………..Judy Baer
Jennifer’s Secret…………………………..Judy Baer
Journey To Nowhere………………………….Judy Baer
Broken Promises…………………………….Judy Baer
The Intruder……………………………….Judy Baer
Silent Tears No More………………………..Judy Baer
Fill My Empty Heart…………………………Judy Baer
Mandie and the Dangerous Intruders……..Lois Gladys Leppard
Julie………………………………..Catherine Marshall
Too Many Secrets……………………Patricia H. Rushford
Silent Witness……………………..Patricia H. Rushford
The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints…………
The Sweet Running Filly…….Pat Johnson and Barbara VanTuyl
Calico Captive…………………….Elizabeth George Speare
The Sign of The Beaver……………..Elizabeth George Speare
Something Old, Something New…………………Judy Baer
Vanishing Star……………………………..Judy Baer
No Turning Back…………………………….Judy Baer
Second Chance………………………………Judy Baer
Lost and Found……………………………..Judy Baer
Unheard Voices……………………………..Judy Baer
Lonely Girl………………………………..Judy Baer
More Than Friends…………………………..Judy Baer
Never Too Late……………………………..Judy Baer
The Discovery………………………………Judy Baer
The Gathering Dawn…………..Sarah Laity & Dianna Crawford
Black Like Me………………………John Howard Griffin
The OnePrince………………………………..Bill Hand

I highlighted those books that I have read multiple times in this past year.

Among the other documents I found were: “Bottle-Nosed Dolphins” | Submitted by Jeannette | Prepared for Mrs. Schmidt, 5th Grade Science, October 25, 1990 and “Ancient Egyptian Science,” which was done for Mr. Lockett the next year in 6th grade. Ha! Also my old mtricks file, which is password protected… now what did I use…?

Daniel Sackett died in Troy, Rensselaer County, NY in 1845. After ordering images of his probate record from sampubco in the beginning of November (2009), I’m finally finished with the transcription.

Because I’ve worked for an attorney in a legal assistant/paralegal capacity for the past two years, I easily recognized many words, which in years past have been undecipherable:

• heretofore
• that is to say
• pursuant to the statutes in such case made & provided
• thereof
• as aforesaid
• made due & satisfactory proof
• in manner and form
• in pursuance of
• thereupon
• afterwards
• affidavits
• whereof
• the hand caused the seal … to be hereunto applied (in otherwords, the person signed the document)
• instant
• annexed
• deponent / depose
• abovementioned
• herein
• thereon
• hereunto
• thereof
• attesting Witness
• thereto
• whereas
• said (as in “said person”, “said document”, “said date”, “said place”, …)

I also think it is interesting, that back then, they had to different “and” symbols. A lowercase “and”, which is most like “+”, and an uppercase “and” — ” &”, though, in my transcript, I did not differentiate between their appearances.

Thankfully, attorneys have ceased, for the most part, being wordy, and have caught on that the best writing is simple and direct. Nightmarish legal writing hasn’t totally fled from existence, but it is less common to find documents as redundant and wordy as this court document. My favorite sentence from the will (p.396)  is “And it is further ordered by said surrogate that said Will & Codicil thereto annexed together with the proofs thereof be recorded as a will of real Estate which said proofs so ordered to be recorded are here and before recorded & contained, and which said will so ordered to be recorded is recorded in the words and figures following to wit.” That and of course the common phrase “my hand caused the seal to be hereunto applied.”

p.386]
at the City of Troy in said County on the 17th day of June
1845
Present Stephen Reynolds Jr Surrogate
In the matter of the }
last Will & Testament of}
Daniel Sackett deceased} Be it remembered that heretofore that is to say at a Surrogates Court held for the County of Rensselaer at the City of troy in said County on the 12th day of April 1845 before Stephen Reynolds Jr Surrogate of said County personally appeared Charles H. Kellogg an Executor named in the last Will and Testament of Daniel Sackett late of the City of Troy in the County of Rensselaer deceased & made application to said Surrogate to have the Will of the deceased proved and recorded pursuant to the Statutes of the State of New York in such case made & provided & thereupon presented a petition for the proof thereof both as a Will of real and personal estate verified by his oath setting forth that the said Daniel Sackett died a natural death at his residence in the City of Troy in said County of Rensselaer on or about the 8th day of April 1845 and that said will relates to both the real & personal estate.
And the Said Charles H. Kellogg Executor as aforesaid then & there made due and satisfactory proof before said Surrogate of the names, ages & places of residence of the Widow (& next?) all the heirs at Law & next of Kin of the said Daniel Sackett deceased so far as the same could be ascertained according to the form of the statutes in such case made and provided.
And thereupon said Surrogate did then & there issue a Citation to the Widow and heirs at law & next of kin of the said Daniel Sackett deceased requiring them to appear before the said Surrogate at his office in the City of Troy aforesaid to attend the probate of the last Will & Testament of the said Daniel Sackett deceased in manner and form & in pursuance of the Statutes in Such Case made & provided. And thereupon afterwards that is to say at a Surrogates Court held for the County of Rensselaer at the City of Troy in said County on the 2nd day of June 1845 the said Charles H. Kellogg Executor as aforesaid again appeared & the Citation heretofore issued not being returned the said Surrogate by an order duly adjourned the hearing of the matter to the 17th day of June 1845 at 10 o’clock at the office of said Surrogate in Troy aforesaid.
And thereupon afterwards that is to say at a Surrogates court held for the County of Rensselaer at the City of Troy in said County on the said 17th day of June 1845 the said Charles H. Kellogg Exectuor as aforesaid again appeared before the said Surrogate

Names mentioned on page 386:

• Stephen Reynolds, Jr
• Daniel Sackett
• Charles H. Kellogg

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Japanese Beetles like to eat my:
   • wild rose brambles
   • rose of sharon
   • lemonbalm
   • rhubarb
   • Hey! Japanese beetles love the taste of Bindweed leaves!
   • velvet leaf
   • okra
   • sunflower
   • purple thistle

   Beware of using traps, as they tend to more often attract the beetles:

   A question I am often asked is whether Japanese beetle traps provide control,” says Jones. “Unfortunately, research has revealed that frequently many more beetles are attracted to a trap than are actually caught. So, using traps can have the effect of increasing your beetle problem, rather than eliminating it. (University of Illinois, “Japanese Beetles: A Real Pain for Everybody”)

   And though the same article says that the damage is more localized than widespread, that statement totally depends on your field of reference. Sure, if you’re a corn or soybean farmer with hundreds of acres of fields, then yes, their damage swath is localized. It’s much harder for the small gardener to consider lost plants as localized damage when the plot total equals a handful of plants.

2. Margined blister beetles¹ love(d) my Tiger-Eye Amaranth. They devoured the plants until, back in the beginning of August, I uprooted a stand of three-foot grass on the edge of the garden, which happened to be about five feet from the T-E Amaranth. They disappeared immediately, and I didn’t see them until weeding out more grass on the other side of the garden yesterday. My T-E has since recovered, though each plant is still only about 6 inches tall. I haven’t seen the blister beetles munching on anything else since they deserted the amaranth, but apparently they’re still in the garden.
3. Monsanto.
4. Not a garden pest, but we have moles in our yard. Sigh. Their foraging tunnels look like mini-chaotic-crop circles all over our backyard. I have flooded their tunnels (which according to the article merely forces them to the surface but does not get rid of them); however, given that they eat bugs and grubs, I’d like to keep them around, but know that is probably not acceptable to anyone but me. If only they didn’t cause grass root damage.

1. Blister beetles are beetles (Coleoptera) of the family Meloidae, so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin. Wikipedia. [↩]

I played with programming all day.  Created a site to search up to 31 different surnames based on sound matching from a given surname (google limits their searches to 32 words, and one of the words is the site to search): Sound search. Only problem is, it takes a really long time to load (running sound matches through 30,000 names will do that). Thinking of putting a javascript game as a body onload script, but not sure how that will impact the time, or if that will load before the surname list and search does. Also updated my “404 not found” page over on the ‘www’ subdomain.

All-in-all, 11.5 hours. Guess it’s kinda good that winter came back for a weekend, otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten done. Not that it had to be done. But most of these things I create for myself anyway. Eases in searching for surnames with a variety of spellings, like ‘Phettiplace’ or ‘Raner’.  Same thing for the Sound-based Database for the Syracuse Baptisms journal. When I originally received the journal issue in late 2006 and offered to do look-ups, I figured it’d be a lot easier to do a thorough job if all the names were in a database and I could search based on sound calculations instead of how I thought they might be alternatively spelled. Hence a multi-year (decade?) project, complete with accusations of copyright violations from I-know-everythingers on the NY Onondaga listserv (not including the transcriber; I have his permission).

As for the character in the ‘missing’ image for the 404 not found page, it is the capital H from the LTOffix character set over at fonts.com.

She lied to her teacher one day, but it wasn’t really a lie. Her teacher wanted to know how recess had gone; she wanted to know if the other girls had taunted the child with calls of “I wish you were dead” for another day. They hadn’t, but recess hadn’t been fine like the first-grader said. It had been worse.

She had a crush on a sixth-grader who rode her bus. He was tall, quiet, and dark-haired. He would later sign her yearbook — in cursive — and she wouldn’t read it until she was older.

With a kickball in her hands, up on the hill next to the warm brick of the building, with the noon-hour sun trekking up the southern sky from east to west, she smiled when she saw Aaron sitting with his lunch tray on his lap.

Bright and yellow was the day.

“Hi Aaron,” she called, bouncing the kickball high off the ground. Stretching her hands to retrieve it, she missed, and the kickball bounced happily into his mashed potatoes.

She blushed brick red and ran far across the playground to the swings and slider and spent the rest of recess dreading the coming question.

“How was recess?”
“Fine.”

But not really…

After giving up on consumer-level digital photography in low-light fast-action conditions, I went back to shooting basketball in the Shirk Center with my mom’s dad’s old Minolta XRTII manual SLR (no batteries needed!), and shot with a variety of film in order to choose the one I like best. All three of these films were developed by Cooper’s Imaging in CT. The summaries:

FOMAPAN action 400 black/white negative film

• Picks up detail well, but a little grainy.
• Needs slower shutter speeds (~250)
• Dark photos don’t have a lot of contrast
• Excellent dark/light contrast
• Out-of-focus shots really pull out the graininess

From the package: B/W negative film with good resolving power, low granularity and wide exposure latitude.

Ilford HP5 Plus 400 Black & White Film

scanner won’t read the photos – too dark. Think the stop-down communication between the lens and the camera body was not accurate. Too many photos too dark. Nonetheless…

• A very dull and dark negative switched into lab mode and then an auto-levels applied. Wow. Definitely can work with that, but it only works with some negatives.
  

  Original		Auto Levels		Curves
  009-01 original	–>	009-01 lab mode auto levels	–>	009-01 curves

• The negative edges curl, which makes it annoying to place in the negative holder for the scanner

Kentmere 400 Black & White Film

BH’s summary:

This is a fast black and white film geared for general use. It produces sharp images with fine grain. As a high speed film, it is suitable for normal and low light photography.

• Looks nice and bright until enlarged, and then not in focus. Humph. (But that’s my fault, not the films… unless it isn’t fast enough, but it’s bright enough to kick up the shutter speed one notch.)
• Sometimes bright, but not much contrast, which comes out when they aren’t too bright. BH says it has good contrast, but apparently not in low light conditions.
• I think this would be great for something other than Shirk photography.
• Then again, I kinda like it. There is no grain! It is a very sharp and clear film. This contrast puzzle bears a second look
  

  Icky		Nice
  Original: not much contrast	vs.	Original: better contrast; too bright?

Decision?

By the time I decide, basketball season will be over! Oh well. At least IWU’s celebration of 100 years of men’s basketball is this weekend, and I have approximately seven rolls of film (mostly Ilford).

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I upgraded my wordpress installation to 2.9 this evening, and it locked me out of my uploads folder (meaning that I could upload files, but could not view either through wordpress or by typing the address in the bar – 403 error). After hours of searching for a fix, I created a new uploads folder, transferred everything into that folder, deleted the uploads folder, recreated it, and transferred everything back in.

And it works…