Snow day (Daily log)
Dec. 3rd, 2007 09:29 pmSo, no Alice did not have school today. We woke up to 4" of wet, heavy snow, with slush still falling. So we shoveled. And I used to tractor to do what the tractor does best: make a mess. But I did manage to re-locate the street-plow snow wall to somewhere other than the driveway entrance. ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chocorua decided that he would work from home today, so I had his help with the snow and another project witch turned out to be way over my head anyway. (more on that below) I braved the roads and ran errands, including getting dog food and vacuum cleaner bags, and feeding cows. MOOO. I got a couple of phone calls off the list (heating guy, chimney sweep and others) and then went on more errands in the other directions. By the time I went into Amesbury it was snowing again and the roads sucked mightily. But Amesbury Industrial Supply had the things that J. wanted for the model RR project ongoing in the attic and the Stop & Slop had my Rx's. Then I went a rode Skip. Yes, it was chilly, and no, I hadn't ridden in a week.
Skip has now proved himself to be a horse that can miss a bunch of days and not be totally wacko. He was, as usual, himself. He did try to convince me that he had forgotten how to do some things (like bend, and put his nose down) but he remembered in the end. I have been having trouble with Trump's blankets being way too big for Skip, so today I tried one of Julius'. Um, Well... that fits perfectly. Skip really does have a pony body. Julius, for those who never met him, was all of 14h 3". But enough attitude to make him seem much bigger at times. May his pony soul be resting in peace.
So, the technical thing J. did for me: Installed GnuCash on my Mac. This is NOT RECOMMENDED for users who are not comfortable mucking about where the word 'root' is relevant. I could not have done this install at all. For windows users, there is a windows binary which was very easy to download and install for even me, a mere user. So far I like the program. But All I've done so far has been to set up some account names. Oh, and a read a good part of the manual. The manual is a work of art. It covers the basics of double-entry bookkeeping in very easy-to-understand terms. I really, really like the manual. Yes, it does say *how* to do things, but more importantly, it says *why* first. Which can save the beginner a lot of angst. Not that I'm a beginner anymore, but it makes some of the things that I've been doing 'because J said so' make a lot more sense. I'm hoping on my third set-up of financial software that I'll finally do it right. (peachtree back in 1995, Quickbooks followed by 1998) And even if I screw up a little along the way, it looks like GnuCash has easy ways to fix things, as in the ability to combine and/or rename accounts. It does say that I can import .qif files, which means supporting downloaded bank statements and importing data from quicken (possibly not quickbooks, but I may be mistaken). So, for those who were interested, GnuCash, the program, = good. Install on Mac = get an expert.
chocorua decided that he would work from home today, so I had his help with the snow and another project witch turned out to be way over my head anyway. (more on that below) I braved the roads and ran errands, including getting dog food and vacuum cleaner bags, and feeding cows. MOOO. I got a couple of phone calls off the list (heating guy, chimney sweep and others) and then went on more errands in the other directions. By the time I went into Amesbury it was snowing again and the roads sucked mightily. But Amesbury Industrial Supply had the things that J. wanted for the model RR project ongoing in the attic and the Stop & Slop had my Rx's. Then I went a rode Skip. Yes, it was chilly, and no, I hadn't ridden in a week. Skip has now proved himself to be a horse that can miss a bunch of days and not be totally wacko. He was, as usual, himself. He did try to convince me that he had forgotten how to do some things (like bend, and put his nose down) but he remembered in the end. I have been having trouble with Trump's blankets being way too big for Skip, so today I tried one of Julius'. Um, Well... that fits perfectly. Skip really does have a pony body. Julius, for those who never met him, was all of 14h 3". But enough attitude to make him seem much bigger at times. May his pony soul be resting in peace.
So, the technical thing J. did for me: Installed GnuCash on my Mac. This is NOT RECOMMENDED for users who are not comfortable mucking about where the word 'root' is relevant. I could not have done this install at all. For windows users, there is a windows binary which was very easy to download and install for even me, a mere user. So far I like the program. But All I've done so far has been to set up some account names. Oh, and a read a good part of the manual. The manual is a work of art. It covers the basics of double-entry bookkeeping in very easy-to-understand terms. I really, really like the manual. Yes, it does say *how* to do things, but more importantly, it says *why* first. Which can save the beginner a lot of angst. Not that I'm a beginner anymore, but it makes some of the things that I've been doing 'because J said so' make a lot more sense. I'm hoping on my third set-up of financial software that I'll finally do it right. (peachtree back in 1995, Quickbooks followed by 1998) And even if I screw up a little along the way, it looks like GnuCash has easy ways to fix things, as in the ability to combine and/or rename accounts. It does say that I can import .qif files, which means supporting downloaded bank statements and importing data from quicken (possibly not quickbooks, but I may be mistaken). So, for those who were interested, GnuCash, the program, = good. Install on Mac = get an expert.
