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WEEK 48 2020
Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week
Saturday - Pleasant during the day, colder at night. We have some sub-freezing nights coming up now. I have enough pellets to get by for a while, but I really should pick some more up soon.
Not a lot to say, just doing small things around the house.
Did some research, it looks like the model of the solar light I bought from Home Depot is out of stock, everywhere. And they had none similar in the physical store for a reasonable price - there were one or two at $25 each, which is silly.
What I should do is get a low voltage set, and use that in the back yard for now, since I can turn it off when I'm out observing - in which case the three back there can be moved to the front. I need two or three more there, so it would work out.
Friday - Another nice day.
Talked with S a bit. She was trying to set her mother up with an option to read some newspapers on line, and we spent some time going through options. Finally I suggested that her mom "cast" from her phone to the TV. This seemed the best bet, as she is reasonably competent with the phone and the TV inputs.
One of my early suggestions was an old Kindle DX from Ebay. Which reminded me that I once owned a Kindle Graphite 3G. Which, when I dug it out and re-charged it, still works. AND has a newspapers option, though we didn't go that direction. I even bought something with it, and that still worked. Remarkable. That was a 2012 purchase I think, after the failure of the Sony Reader and the Nook readers to have any appreciable content.
It defaults to WiFi, but I wonder if the ancient 3G tech still works?
And it is so very very light, compared to the iPad, or even the Kindle paperwhite I replaced it with several years ago.
Technically it's "Black Friday", but reports are that the physical stores have almost no foot traffic. I saw of picture of Macy's in NYC: almost empty.
Corona Virus lock downs have instigated a huge transfer of wealth from small and medium businesses to the big dogs, Amazon and Walmart online in particular.
Thursday - Happy Thanksgiving to my vast number of readers!
I went by S's place and picked up some biscuits and gravy for the feast at my brothers - I think S misses cooking for T day, though she denies it - and also she had a few for my friend C who lives not far from Mike in Quartz Hill.
I stopped by, dropped of the biscuits and gravy, and talked with them for a bit, R is now program manager for a contractor out at Dryden Armstrong. He didn't really want the job, but it just sort of happened. He said he's puzzled as to how to do yearly performance reviews when he works remotely with Zoom, as do most of the people he "manages".
It was a great dinner and visit over at Mikes. K is a good cook, and I brought some wine and beer along with me. We were going to watch some football, but it never happened, we just sat around and talked.
Wednesday - Warm, almost 70F, almost windless.
I pulled weeds all morning - there were a lot more than I expected, and I filled both the green waste and normal trash barrels. And this was just the front yard, not the back or side yards.
Mike & Co. are happy with having some delivered home made biscuits, so that's good, I'll stop by S's house tomorrow and pick them up.
He texted that Bob showed up just about 6pm.
Tuesday - Decent weather, much like yesterday. No serious yard work, but I did some organization and cleaning of the garage.
What I thought were potential volunteer flowers in summer turned out to be another kind of thorn. Sigh. I'll have to pull them and a number of smaller tumbleweeds - everything is drying out and and I'm tracking burrs and thorns into the house again.
Did some iOS and Linux Jupyter work in the west bedroom/office. Cats are puzzled by the relocation from the east bedroom, but pleased to join me and lay in the sun puddles.
While out and about I noticed a lot of RV's and trailers on the freeway. People are getting together, no matter what the incompetents who claim to be health "experts" say.
Monday - It's OK, weather wise. A bit of wind in the mornings.
S offered to make biscuits for Thursday, when I visit my brother's place. I'll inquire and make sure the cook doesn't feel their toes are being stepped on.
Bob is coming down to Mike's as well. He agonized over it for a while, until a friend of his said "Just Go! I'll watch your cat!!" I recognize the emotion, a kind of panic attack at doing anything out of the ordinary.
I set up the TV in the west office and it seems to work OK as a monitor. It's actually a slightly different model from the reviews, lower end, but has the full 4:4:4 chroma which is the thing that makes text clear. It is a giant piece of spyware for Google and company, but there isn't much it can do when I use it as an output device only. One of it's HDMI ports was two-way (ACR), I didn't use that one.
BTW, it weighs almost nothing. My old HD sets weigh 40 or 50 lbs each, this maybe 10 or 15 pounds.
Sunday - Pleasant.
No shopping in the morning, with S. I was still pretty tired from last weeks trip.
She went, and said it was a madhouse at the grocery store: Thanksgiving is Thursday next.
S also had a birthday lately, and gave herself the new Kindle waterproof. I guess she likes to read in the tub?
I can't remember the last time I took a bath, tubs are just too small and cramped for me. When I remodel the master bath it will have a decent sized tub that I can soak in, sitting. This is something that's needed as I age and get a little more creaky and sore with each project.
I headed over to Lowe's later, to look for solar yard lights (none found at a reasonable price!) and then went by Target across the street. They had a larger 4k monitor. Since OSX Big Sur won't recognize my 2nd monitor adapter I'd have had to either buy a new one, or get single bigger bigger monitor. For $167 I was able to pick up the TCL 43" monitor, which is huge, but seems to work pretty well, according to reviews. We'll see. If not I can use it as a TV and replace the old Vizio.
A physical Apple TV unit is only $5 less, so maybe two birds with one stone.
