The sun.

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It has been dark for, it seems, the whole last week.  Nearing the winter solstice, on top of heavy cloud cover, made it seem like there wasn't a sun.  I can only guess that, at certain times of the year, some parts of the far North experience that.  What we went through was an illusion, but a strong one.  To see the sun, and blue sky, is worth the extra chill that came with it.

While opening a curtain to let some sun in, I noticed that only a bit more snow fell.  That could be called the perfect snow.  Just enough to add white, and brighten the sun more.  Sweeping did a great job on everything, though the walk will need just a touch of salt, then maybe another sweep.  Salt is great, but eventually it simply dilutes and washes away, without removing the ice, if the slush it creates isn't also removed.

Sleep was good.  A few beers, a show or two, putting everything up, I even prepped a bit for a load of dishes, roughly, last night.  I may hit the dishes, do some cleaning in the kitchen, then work on pie crusts today.  I also need to figure out security software for the new machine.  With a thumbdrive, I might be able to put something on without having to risk hooking it up first.  There are some other programs, to clear bloatware, I might want to use as well, before connecting the laptop.  It's nasty out there.  Then again, who knows how many bugs are already on the hardware.  Any device within a computer that has memory, from printers to hard drives to... lots of things... come with viruses that probably can't be detected.  Since I don't have a version of the OS, I can't flash it all.  Though I doubt flashing memory will work either.

Still, you won't be able to keep states and big corps off your machines.  You might be able to thwart some of the lower level hackers.  Just remember a computer is completely insecure, even "offline", and go from there.  Oh, right, and tape over the camera.  I need to get that done on both the laptop and smartphone.  I'm not sure if the cameras can see through certain things though.  I'll do some research on it.  Duct tape?  Ugly, but probably stops most cameras.  I wish they made lead impregnated tape.  Hmm....  I doubt if the camera has extra capacity, but who knows what can be done with a simple camera and firmware updates, or end-user editors these days.

Well... on to waking.  I hope you get a little something today.  I, for my part, will be enjoying the sun as much as possible.  An easy trade for a dip in temps.  Later.