travels and images

WEEK 29 2019

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Oxnard Weather Underground

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Saturday 20 July 2019

Saturday - On this day, fifty years ago:

Buzz Aldrin and the American Flag, 20 July 1969.

Friday 19 July 2019 Friday - Hot.

Feeling a bit better, still no energy.

I made lunch with the Foreman Grill, a hamburger patty with the grill sitting on the stove top with the fan going. The fire alarm didn't go off, but 5:30 wasn't enough cooking time, it needs a bit more. Not raw, but not done as well as I'd like.

Book #24 was Octavia Gone (Alex Benedict #8), by Jack McDermitt. Kind of a science fiction mystery novel.

Thursday 18 July 2019 Thursday - Hot-ish, and very windy. I'm not sure how windy, but probably gusting into the 30mph range. A good test of the sun sails, which came through fine.

I'm not sure how windy because everything reported by Weather Underground was obviously wrong, 5mph gusting to 11mph for one site, and so on. And they no longer use KWJF as a source (the airport) but rather little in town stations which just report local micro-climates. Oh well.

In any case I was under the weather, really dragging with flu like symptoms from the shingles shot yesterday, so I didn't do much other than read and watch some tv. Not as bad as two months ago, but definitely knocked down.

In the evening I was feeling better, mostly just tired.

Wednesday 17 July 2019 Wednesday - Hot again, not as hot as the last couple of days.

I went into town in the morning and received my shingles booster shot.

Afterwards I went by Lowe's and picked up some new gravel for the turtle tank, then to Harbor Freight to get a pump to empty the 80 gallon tank easier, and an inexpensive torque wrench, since I can't find either of the two I own.

By late afternoon I was feeling the effects of the shot: tired and listless, despite an energetic start to the day.

The other day I received in the mail a letter from the Los Angeles Public Health Department. The county has given them the go-ahead to start charging septic system owners fees. They actually don't do anything for the owners, but they are going to collect a fee regardless. Like the rest of Blue California the county is broke, and scavenging under the cushions for change. The tens or hundreds of thousands of homeless living in the county are a real health threat (can you imagine the quantity of feces and urine being deposited daily in the dry river beds and arroyos?), but there is no way to get money from them.

I assume the cost will go up every year.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

Tuesday - Hot again. I was working out in the back yard (east side of the house) and actually felt a bit dizzy from the heat, so I took some breaks and hydrated like heck.

I assembled the sun sail bits and placed it where it will shade the east (main) office window. Since this is the third one it went pretty fast. The design is actually just the 'temporary' design I used as shade for the dogs earlier in the year. Eventually I will have a real patio out back, and don't really want to spend too much money on it.

I called the termite people and scheduled the work for next week, Tuesday and Wednesday, and went over a few things with them. I'll have to clear stuff away from the walls in the house and garage, and find a place to keep the cats while they are drilling holes and injecting poisons. I'll probably figure a way to put them in the storage container - build a temporary door/window and enclosed area, with an a/c to keep things cool.

Dr. G and I exchanged texts, it's been a couple of months since we communicated, I was honestly getting a bit worried.

There was an interesting documentary on TCM about the Apollo project. It was a bit confusing, because I didn't realize at first that the film clips were jumbled, shots from one flight intermingled with another. This was Al Reinert's "For All Mankind", released in 1989. It was good, lots of shots I hadn't seen before.

The moon was full, and a definite yellow/orange, as opposed to yesterday's silver. A friend who had 'gone below' said the air pollution was horrible, so that may explain it.

Monday 15 July 2019

Monday - Hot. Up around 103 I think, but reasonable humidity.

A brilliant silvery moon in the evening. I would think that indicates a clear sky, as compared to the red or orange moons, but so few stars were visible that it was hard to tell. I went outside at 3am, but the moon had not yet set, and the moonlight glare off of the RV structure washed out any celestial sights.

I found my old Telrad finder box the other day, I think the Celestron 8 Classic has an attachment plate on it already. I'll have to see. Not that one needs a finder for the moon, but Jupiter and Saturn are visible I think. It will be prudent to fill the yard's remaining dog holes before stumbling around in the dark...

This would have been Dad's 96th birthday. Hard to imagine.

I remember once telling him that we were going to throw him a huge party for his 100th. His reply was "100 years old? Don't wish that on me!"

In the morning I went into town for the shingles booster, only to discover that they had been trying to contact me as the injection had been rescheduled for Wednesday. My fault, I hadn't checked my phone beforehand. Bah.

Since I was in town I picked up another sun sail and ancillary hardware at Home Depot.

This was annoying, as usual, taking maybe twice as long as it should have because of mislabel and unlabeled products. I bought a 10' piece of chain, for example, and memorized the number since I didn't have my phone and there was no pen nearby to write the number down. But that turned out to be pointless because that number was for buying the whole spool, 100', the price-per-foot SKU was a completely different number and they had to have someone go do a stock check on it.

Later at home I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the yard - the dogs dug dozens of holes, each one needed filling and packing down. I picked up the old bones, and a bunch of other debris. Most animals won't poop near where they eat and rest - Chihuahua's have no problem with that.

Sunday 14 July 2019

Sunday - Hot again. It was about 105F, but only 9% humidity, so the house stayed tolerable. As in high 70s indoors, when I would run the cooler on high.

I bundled up all the dogs and their appurtenances and brought them back to S & R in the morning. Afterwards we did some shopping in town.

S had picked up a new bread machine at the coast, only $5 at the senior center thrift shop for use there, so she gave it to me on return (she has three or four already). We made a point of buying some bread flour and gluten whilst shopping.

It was nearly noon by the time I returned home and put away groceries, and I didn't do much for the rest of the day, just some reading. Dinner was next door, and was delicious steak.

The new anime season on Crunchyroll is pretty bad.

Picture of the Week

Antelope Acres sunset

Antelope Acres after sunset.

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