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WEEK 18 2021
Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week
Saturday -Windy and warm.
I went out and started cleaning junk out of the garden enclosure. It makes a nice storage spot for stuff, convenient to the yard and yet out of sight and out of the wind, so it tends to collect stuff off-garden-season.
So I did that, gave the straw bales a good drenching, and even put in some privacy slats that someone gave me into the gate. There aren't anywhere near enough to do the whole enclosure, but this looks a lot better than the piece of plywood that was there before.
After that I went around a blew spiderwebs and dirt out of the yard lights. They were looking very dim and yellow. Naturally this resulted in a couple of spider bits on my arms. I didn't see anything bite me, but I have the itches and welts developing.
After that I didn't do much, feeling kind of wiped out.
I need to finish the garage shelf demolition and re-construction.
Instead I read and watched TV.
I did collect up some spare telescope eyepieces and stuff for my brother in Carson City. I couldn't find all the high power eyepieces for some reason, but I'll send him a reasonable collection of plossl's with a budget Barlow lens that I had, and even a belated birthday present, a 7-24mm zoom lens.
I put it all in a box and S says she'll mail it for me from Lancaster next week.
Friday - Pleasant early, so I took the opportunity to clean the roof a/c unit, run de-scale through it, empty and refill, cut and install new pads (doubling up). It works as well as ever - and it was in the 90's by the afternoon, so the timing was perfect.
As usual the first use blew vast amounts of dust and dirt out of the vents onto everything.
I did some checking online, and calculated that this house needs around 7,000CFM of flow. The existing unit is, I think, around 4,500 (it might be any one three similar models from 4,300/4,500,4,700CFM).
I even checked with the neighbor, and he says his, a Mastercool, is 6,900CFM. My understanding is that Mastercool's, with their single thick pad, seem to work better than the old style, so that's about right.
Next chore is to clean up the garden enclosure and plant the tomato plants cluttering up the kitchen table. S bought me even more whilst hitting nurseries in Ojai with her Dad, so it's about that time, last freeze was officially April 15th.
The damn dog down the street is still barking, almost every night.
Book #27 was Network Effect (Murderbot #5), by Martha Wells. This was a full sized novel, and pretty well done. We see some growth and change in Murderbot and his various comrades, both human and AI.
Thursday - More warm weather.
I went to town and picked up some pads for the roof a/c. I couldn't find any aspen pads that didn't require cutting both length and height, so I gave up and just got a large roll of the blue stuff which is much easier to cut. I'll double pad, there's just enough in the roll.
When I arrived home it was too warm to work on the roof, so instead I just installed the new Haier Serenity ultra quiet unit in the west office window. It didn't take long, apart from some stupidity of my own in installing the 'wings' backwards, and it is much quieter than the old one.
Neighbor's dog, down the street somewhere, is still barking at night.
Book #26 was Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6), by Martha Wells. This is the next in the chronological sequence after Exit Strategy, so I read it first, and will read book #5 as the sixth book.
I should say that most of these have been novelette's really, barely 200 pages, and in the case of FT even less. The last book, (not yet read by me) is full novel sized, 348 pages, and there is some angst in the comments about it not being as "fast paced".
Well, yes, it's a full sized novel.
Is OK. Boris, still entertaining.
Wednesday - Windy overnight again.
AH called, he was out of propane. It surprised me a bit, but I had scented odorizer the other day, and checking my calendar, it's been 7 weeks. So we went into town in the morning and refilled our tanks at CostCo.
After that, and the trip last weekend, I was pretty tired, and didn't do much.
Book #25 was Exit Strategy (Murderbot #4), by Martha Wells.
Tuesday - OTR. Strong winds overnight, but calm and pleasant in the morning.
I did use some more cleaning and chores around the boat.
The shower (singular) is still pretty gross, though better than last time - I made a point of complaining to the marina about it, and mentioning that I was coming down again in a couple of weeks. It used to be kept very clean, so I know it can be done.
Late morning I headed back up to Ojai, the weather was beautiful up there, and S and Don and myself walked to downtown and had cheeseburgers for lunch, then S and I headed home. The drive wasn't bad, though traffic north on the I-14 was already heavy by 2:30pm.
Book #24 was Rogue Protocol (Murderbot #3), by Martha Wells.
Monday - OTR. Windy and a bit cold overnight.
I used the sleeping bag, but it was borderline too warm for that, but too cold for just a blanket.
I went up to the marina office and complained about the water, and the tub of someone else's barbeque ashes left in my lock box, signed a few papers and so on.
I then went over to West Marine and picked up a few varnishing supplies, and some new boat padlocks, but it was a bit too warm and windy by the time I got back to the boat to do anything paint related.
The boat got a quick spritz using the hose from another slip. I need to get a broom and some boat soap it looks like.
Book #23 was Artificial Condition (Murderbot #2), by Martha Wells.
Sunday - OTR. No issues driving down to Ojai, I left S with her Dad and (after a nice lunch) went down to the boat.
No serious issues. There is still no water at my slip, and someone had hit my power cord so hard that it bent the prongs on the plug and pulled it out, so the de-humidifier wasn't in operation.
I cleaned up a bit, wiped down the inside of the fridge with cleanser before turning it it on, and just hung out - it was too windy to do much.
Book #22 would be All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1), by Martha Wells. This was pretty good. Its the distant future and a security cyborg has hacked it's "governor" without the corporation that owns him knowing about it. It secretly refers to itself as 'Murderbot' because of a past incident that it can't remember well (the hardware portions of it's brain have been memory wiped).
In reality it's more of a knight in tarnished armor, like Travis McGee or any world weary detective in a novel. It does the right thing, despite it's complaints and posturing.
Entertaining.
