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WEEK 2 2014

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Saturday 11 January 2014

Saturday -Kind of an odd day, a big cold cloud over the valley, cooling down what would have been another 70F day.

Worked around the house a bit in the morning, went to lunch with friends.

Friday 10 January 2014

Friday - Warm and sunny again. Went by Home Depot, picked up the hardware to use in the guest bath. Didn't start on it just yet. Went by Staples, picked up a few items for the office, and a monthly receipts folder for 2014.

Quarterly taxes are due next week, Wednesday. Bah, and humbug. Which reminds me: I need to take down the Christmas lights. I turned them off on the 1st, but I need to stash them away again.

Thursday 9 January 2014

Thursday - Spent the morning working on the plumbing issues. I borrowed a big fan from a friend, and it's making real progress on drying out the carpet. She also loaned me a heater, but it has a tilt switch and I can't pivot it far enough to get heat on the floor...

The borrowed squirrel cage fan, and the little house fan I was using before....

Anyway, cut down the overflow tubes in both upstairs baths, fixed the leaky feed line in the guest bath, turned the water on, made sure everything was OK, and left. On going back to pick up the tools...squish. A leak there, too. This time it seems to be the tank bolts. Weary of plumbing I stopped for the day. I'll fix it on the weekend.

I had picked up the new laptop from S and played around with it a bit. It's pretty nice. I installed GIMP and Libre Open Office. Then I checked to see if it would support a high resolution external monitor: yes. Both my 22" 1680 wide and the 27" 1920 wide ran fine, at 60Hz. You have to run it in single (external) monitor or it defaults to the laptop monitor specifications of 1388x768. It seems to be running an Intel HD4000 graphics chip, so it may support 2048 or higher.

On a lark I plugged the TV's HDMI input into it - works fine:

The Toshiba C55 running GIMP, output to the TV via HDMI.

S stopped by and picked it up in the early evening. Even brought a couple of burritos! Since all of the above pretty much took up the day I didn't make much progress on the app.

Sitting on the couch in the evening Suzy wormed her way behind me. I didn't think much of it, cats and kittens like small tight dark spaces - until I realized that she had found a way inside the couch. For cryin-out-loud! So, I had to sit there, with the cushion off, preventing Jimmy from going in, while waiting for her to come out, until nearly 11pm.

Kittens.

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Wednesday - The leak in the master bath repeated. I hadn't used the commode, but apparently the tank overflowed anyway. So I have a couple of fans going, trying to dry out the carpet there.

Other than that, not much going on.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Tuesday - A bit warmer in the morning, some overcast keeping it hotter overnight. But the daytime temperatures were cool - I didn't open the garage door, since temperatures were maybe 50F outside.

It was an average day, just working on the app for the most part. Upstairs, hiding in the office from the playful attentions of the kittens.

My friend Can stopped by with her kids, who wanted to play with the kittens. Who, for some reason, decided to be shy. The shyness actually started a couple of weeks ago - some sort of kitten development phase I guess. I understand that human infants go through something similar a little before their first birthday. Anyway, they couldn't resist toys and playing in the end.

Apparently the fill valve on the upstairs master bath commode failed, and the tank overflowed - a wet floor and a damp carpet. Discovered by foot in the early evening. It turns out that the fill tube was too high, being well above the hole for the tank handle, so rather than overflowing down the drain it overflowed onto the floor.

I'll cut it down tomorrow, and see why the mechanism is sticking in the first place. One more chore...

I actually have the urge to go out and work in the yard on several things, but am trying to be responsible about working on the app.

Monday 6 January 2014

Monday - A cool Sunday night. They were predicting mid-30's, which seemed weird to me. What we actually got was 20F, which makes more sense for a clear January night in the high desert.

I've been opening the garage door from about noon until 4pm. The temperature was a frosty 48F in there at midday, and it's a bit like walking through a freezer. Since it has a common wall to the living room and the ceiling is the floor of the master bedroom this means my house heater has to work more. Hopefully the afternoon temps in the 60's and 70's will help.

My gas bill was almost $100 this month. Yikes. I collected some leftover branches from R&S, and they say there is more around the back, so maybe I'll use the fireplace a bit more.

I forgot to mention, S wanted a copy of The Gimp Bible for Christmas. I fouled up the order, or Amazon did, but it finally arrived on Saturday and she can return the (very overdue) library copy she'd been using.

I'd given her a copy of Joel on Software instead. I got a call at about 11pm one night, blaming me for her inability to put it down and go to sleep. Heh. The best kind of present is the one that surprises!

Which reminds me, we saw a Post Office truck delivering on Sunday before Christmas. I wanted to follow it to see if it was doing Amazon deliveries, but was overruled by my fellow travelers (we were on our way to lunch).

Stepped on Suzy's tail this morning, she was immediately behind me while I was brushing my teeth. Kicked her, by accident, this afternoon: she was asleep under the edge of the beds coverlet. I feel bad, but she forgave me.

Both cats were being rather pesty around noon - I finally realized that the midday bowl of dry food was empty!

Sunday5 January 2014

Sunday - Warm and sunny. Continued cleaning up, I actually filled my trashcan. Cleaned the bathrooms. Went out and bought various sundries.

The 49er's won. It was a close game, I think the 49ers usually had the edge, but it wasn't a pushover for them by any means. I think they go up against the Panthers next week. I sort of wish I still had HD on the basic channels, but it isn't that big a deal.

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: Cayucos flower.

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