Excavation - Today had predictions of rain, but they didn't pan out. Well, maybe they will later tonight, but it was dry today.
After taking Claire to piano and gymnastics, I worked on a yard project I had been discussing with Michelle for some time. The stretch of yard on the north end of our property has the worst soil and hence most difficult lawn to maintain. In one section there's a patch about the size of a dining room table where no grass grows. Nothing grows there: grass, clover, not even weeds.
I stretched out a tarp adjacent to it and started digging. As I predicted, there were a bunch of rocks just under the surface. They ranged from golf ball sized to football sized. This is the granite town of the granite state. I really shouldn't be all that surprised. The kids helped here and there, especially Claire, Abby, and Daniel. Once we got most of the rocks out of the top 8-10 inches, we filled it back in, added some quality top soil, and seeded it with grass and clover seed. We'll see how it does. It can't get any worse. The worst consequence would be that I spent a few hours digging and sifting with no improvement.
About - Over the past week or so, weblog entries have been sparse. I've been investigating something I've been wanted to do for a few months: an about page. The technology used on mine leverages what's known as a CSS and Javascript to build a static HTML page that hides and shows small chunks of content dynamically as the user clicks on the links. It took me a while to settle on an open source framework that had the features I was looking for. CSS and Javascript are two of the technologies that make the site's webnotes possible.
Thus far I've only flushed out about half a dozen sections, but will keep working on it over the next week or so. Once it's stable, I'll put an 'About' link on the front page. In the mean time you can tinker with it here to get a feel for it. It's pretty neat! Be forewarned of two things. It needs a recent browser to function correctly. Recent versions Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari all seem to work fine. It also gives you the false impression that you can edit the content. Only I have the ability to save the changes. Of course, if you save the HTML to a local file on your computer, you can edit that to your hearts content.
Graduation - Congratulations again to Suzanne who received her masters degree today. It's been a busy time for you recently. Hopefully you can use the time ahead to decompress and recharge your batteries. Best of luck in finding a good position near River Grove. We hope things went well at the party tonight.