zeke

With a round and a flat file you can turn a rake tine into a pick in 15 minutes. If you can find street-sweeper tines, you can bend them to make good turning wrenches. It is not an efficient use of time compared to buying, but still fun.

One hint I have not seen here: while in input mode use <Cntl>n to auto-complete the word you are typing. This is very good for longer variable names and ensures your name matches what you have typed already.

regarding "Read trashy literature", the tabloids are harder to read than normal newspapers. They seemed to just be colloquial ways of saying, "crazy, wild", and never had a point. I found lay science magazines to be great practice; interesting, clearly written and short enough to work through.

April 2, 2010, Jones Gap State Park in Northwest South Carolina. There is no mobile phone service due to the mountains on either side so they keep a pay phone available.

I am red-green color blind. Still this works, the colors chosen are easy to differentiate. Also the large letters next to each section help. It might be possible to add a bit more contrast in the "F" section.

Not too long ago Amazon did not return anything if one word was wrong. They had "The Chocolate Bible : The Difinitive Sourcebook" and would not find it in a search with "definitive" spelled correctly. They have a better search now.

Have someone proofread. For searches on misspelled words "Type Less Words" s/Less/Fewer/, though your search doesn't match fewer results when more search words are added. "Type Words Correct Spelling", perhaps just "Correct Spelling". But, if a word does not match anything, run it through aspell with an aspell dictionary created from your product lists.

I have half a dozen locks behind my monitor. But I made a starter kit for my niece by removing pins from four locks and gave her my picks. Need to pull another tine from the the lawn rake and make a new pick.

A temporary phone forwarding service where you can give a number out freely but say "It will only work for seven days." Same idea as the onetime email address but for phones.

I would delay quitting. You should be able to gain skills in four hours per day programming outside of work. Back when I would quit jobs to take care of stuff, I would have two productive weeks, but this would dwindle to days of reading after that. Only do it if you have enough of a goal and drive, or if this can force you into programming.