Sunday, 30-Mar-25 21:24:34 CEST

Week 13 of 2025, 24 March until 30 March

This week, I am not doing daily blogs. I have used every free spare moment to work on the lyrics editor. We have also been doing other things, but let us start talking about the lyrics editor first. I think that in a way that can give a refreshing new perspective on the story arches playing this week.

Lyrics editor

The previous songs led to a trail of thought about improving the lyrics I am writing. Before the holiday to Sweden, I made songs where I sometimes got the word flow and the syllables right in some parts of a song, but it flowed less well in others. I drove to the train station with the neighbor, who also addressed that.

In the previous song, I used MS Excel to better understand how I used syllables, and it worked. It was not fun to write the song that way. I want to have some level of fun when writing a song. When the song was finished, I realized that despite all my efforts, I had a couple of errors in my syllable counting. I can as well admit that I hate to count things. It is perhaps a personality treat. I don't count things for fun, so it would no longer be fun if that is the core of making a good song.

No worries, because I am a software engineer. I can change the reality to be how I like it. Here comes the idea of the lyrics editor. I want an editor that counts for me. Things about stressed and regular syllables exist, but I leave that for the future.

I asked ChatGPT to create a program for me as people do today. It produced a surprisingly good result. I think I saved quite some time on that in the beginning. It did not have all the features I wanted, and I still did not know how to proceed with certain things. That sounds vague, and that is how my lyrics-editor idea was initially. I got boxes for each word in a line. I got boxes with lines. I got boxes for sections.

Initially, I thought I had to have everything driven by mouse commands, but that did not look or feel right. Each word box had icons for making new words, deleting them, and the syllable count. In that, the screen got crowded. It looked messy. As I tested, I concluded that I could drive the actions by the text.

Adding a space at the beginning of a word could create a new word box to the left and put the focus in that box. Likewise, when writing a space in the middle of a word, it was split into two boxes. The most common thing is to write regularly; a new box is created whenever a space is entered at the end of the word.

Counting the syllables could be done on the fly in the background, so to speak. That worked very well. The algorithm for detecting syllables is not flawless, though. ChatGPT stole it from a person, and there are a couple of algorithm variations. I have been thinking of improving the detection of syllables, which is possible, but I need to dig into that later. For now, I just put failures into a table with the correct answer, and if the syllable algorithm encounters a word in that table, it returns that value first. This way, I do not need to look at the failures. I can amend that table if I discover a failure while using the editor. I will do it this way until I have the basic version of the editor finished.

I will publish the editor when it is done so that anyone can use it. In that scenario, I will allow people to submit syllable count failures. I might even make the editor into a paid service where people pay by submitting syllable count failures. That way, I will get the test data to analyze the issue better. We will see how I solve this.

There is much to learn. I am not entirely fluent in jQuery and Javascript. I have to search for how things are done.

It was not until Sunday morning that I got so far with the editor that I could sit down and blog regularly. That was on the late side, I can admit.

The southeast field

It has been dry weather for a long time now. I dearly want the grass ready for the sheep to graze earlier in the upcoming season. During the lunch break on Tuesday, I bought a water sprinkler for the field. I could not use it immediately because I had too little water hose. I have enough hose, but it was not long enough in one piece, so I bought connectors on Wednesday and started watering the grass field.

In my head, it would be easy to water the grass. In reality, it was more work. The water did not reach as far as I had hoped. I had to move the sprinkler to new places. The watered parts got patched. I also tried to set up beams in the shed's ceiling simultaneously, and it did not feel like it combined well with running out and moving the sprinkler ever so often.

Eventually, the field had a layer of water, and I was happy. Now I wonder when I have to do it again.

The final delivery of insulation material

On Friday morning, we received the final batch of insulation material. We moved the bales into the barn as soon as we could. There was no immediate risk of rain, so that was not the issue. We had other things to do the rest of the day, so getting the bales into the barn as quickly as possible was better.

I made a ramp of restboards for our little wagon. Then, DW and I dragged the insulation into the barn.

Moving the PILs

After moving the insulation into the barn, we went to the PILs. They got an apartment, and the family clan was gathering this weekend to move the PIL's stuff to the new apartment.

It is, of course, not just lifting things up and carrying them away. There needs to be a plan, and we figured out what MIL had in mind. In matters like these, she is the boss. Her husband is the boss in other matters. I suppose this is like DW, and I have also arranged it. The PILs did not help with the move. They stayed at their old house.

The new apartment is not large, so some hard decisions had to be made. It was important to recreate a pleasant, homely atmosphere. They brought paintings, chairs, and their coffee table. They also needed a couple of cupboards, tables, etc. They brought two chairs for the balcony. On Friday, we brought just one cupboard to the apartment.

Saturday, we connected the large trailer to the car. This was the moment we were going to bring the more significant stuff. Luckily, the apartment was not far from their original house, so we did not have to do any complex packing. We put the stuff on the trailer, strapped it, and drove it. It was sunny, with the wind still and completely dry. It was perfect for moving things with an open trailer. The majority of the large stuff got moved on Saturday.

The roads in the area are not that wide. I did not like driving on narrow roads with the large trailer behind the car. After some tours on narrow roads, I decided to take the large road so that I did not need to drive into the shoulder with the trailer when meeting traffic.

In the evening, we ordered Chinese food from a local restaurant. We had this meal with the boards on our laps at the old house because the large table had already been relocated to the apartment. It was delicious, and the atmosphere was great. MIL was happy. When she is happy, I am happy. FIL also got a say, but he was not busy making decisions. He let MIL handle that.

We parked the trailer at MILs for the night. That way, we went home without the trailer.

On Sunday, it was daylight saving time. I was almost confused about when we agreed to arrive at the PILs, but we arrived well on time. I hooked up the trailer again, and we brought one load with a cabinet to put a television appliance on top. It was much more windy this day. The wind came from the north, and it was chilly as well.

In the afternoon, we had a show of the apartment with the PILs. Our activities were approved! There are some minor adjustments to be made. Some things will still be added. I don't think the trailer is necessary for the remaining things. You never know. The move will take place next week. The old house will not stand empty. BIL will stay there most of the time. I suppose the house will be emptied and sold at some point.

Here ends this week's blog. Welcome back next week! I wrote 1563 words this week. That is not bad, considering that I did not blog until Sunday.