Good Day

I had a good day!

1.  Received notice from the County Court that my request to be permanently excused from jury duty was approved.  I feel bad about that in a way, but I just can't sit for hours istening to lawyers argue making bad arguments if I can't be part of the discussion.  And I'm certain most of the people in the waiting room won't wear masks.

2.  Grocery shopping - Peaches and plums are back!  I love those.  Had to laugh recalling the produce staff guy saying they only carried them "in season".  I know thew start getting them from the southern hemisphere about now.  And he did too, but just wanted an excuse to not fulfill the weekly ad.

3.  Cleaned up a lot of mess from The Mews.  They run around a lot and tip stuff over.  That's OK.  Active cats are better than boring ones.  But I did a lot of sweeping and stuff.

4.  Cleaned all the litter boxes as I di every day or two (depends on usage).  The new high-side litterboxes are working well.  Loki likes to pee straight backwards, which went over the sides of the regular ones. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7JKP75J?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

5.  Pork stir-fry and 2 shrimp rolls.  Home-made.  I discovered the Safeway has them in small bags in the produce section.  

6.  It snowed a few inches last week, twice.  When it melted I discovered the earliest crocuses were blooming!

There are about a dozen patches of them, but those are the 2 best.  

7.  Replanted a lot of pansies.  They were frost-heaved up before the established new roots. We had unusually low temps a couple weeks ago. Hopefully, there is still time for them get set with new roots and bloom.

8.  Received a new M/W.  The old one was deteriorating at the top where the magnet is.  Seemed dangerous, so I bought a replacement.  Best Consumer Reports rating (that fit my needs) of course.  Out with the old, in with the new!

9.  Took down the Holly branches I trimmed for height and attached to the front door and mailbox as Xmas decorations.  The leaves were heading to "pale", so it was time.

10.  Filled the 2 thistle seed feeders (for the finches) and the black oil sunflower seed feeder (for most of the others.  And replenished the 2 suet feeders.  Counted 6 pairs of cardinals there just an hour later and many other smaller birds too.  Well, male cardinals are easier to count.

11.  Covered much of the raised garden beds in black plastic.  By planting time in May, the weeds should be dead.

12.  Cleaned muddy work shoes.  They got bad enough when I had to bury Laz.  And worse when I had to bury Ayla.  And it was hard, so I just left them in the basement.  But you have to go on, so I cleaned them top to bottom.  After a few days, when they dry, I will polish them and the wipe "boot wax" on them.  They are 20 years old and fit my feet like a glove.  I would hate to have to replace them.

Enough for 1 day, right?  LOL!

A Couple Of Good Productive Days

Some things have not been going well around here lately.  Nothing life-altering, but when things go wrong (broken birdfeeder pole, lettuce plants died inside the house,  roof shingle blew off in a storm, etc) it adds up, it can get pretty annoying.

So I am happy to mention a few successes!

1.  I cooked a standing rib roast a couple days ago, and I don't think I've ever done that before.  I marinated it overnight (red wine, garlic, onion, herbs) and cooked it to "rare". I don't eat meat rare, but I was slicing it in 1/2" pieces to freeze and reheat later (so that it wouldn't be "well-done" after reheating.   Came out great!

2.  I went grocery shopping (hence the standing prime rib) and also bought a spiral sliced ham (for slicing and freezing for sandwiches).  I check the receipt before I leave the store to make sure I got my Safeway loyalty card discounts and the digital ones from their website.  They were there.  But when I got home, I realized that they had charged me for the ham twice.  

I wasn't sure how to prove I hadn't bought 2 hams.  But in the middle of the night, it occurred to me that the repeated price of 2 hams would be exactly twice the cost on the label.  Which would be really unlikely if I had bought 2 different hams.  So I brought it back to the store (in a cooler with ice-packs around it) and explained it to the customer service manager.

She finally agreed and refunded the cost of the "2nd ham".  Yay!  If she hadn't, I would have demanded they check their videotape of the purchase.  I'm glad a didn't have to.  Actually, it occurs to me just now that I benefited from the refund more than I should have.  

I used a 10% discount coupon I got from them for getting my RSV vaccine.  And I got credit toward a future gas purchase (every $100 spent there gets me 10 cents per gallon off at their gas station).  I don't think I will go back to complain about that because I think it would just be too difficult to calculate and it would be about $2 at most.

3.  A very minor thing, but I advised 2 different people that they had dropped a glove, and a 3rd person that they had dropped their covid mask.  Little things matter.

4.  I've mentioned having laser printer color problems.  The Canon agent finally concluded (after an hour-long discussion and fix-attempts) that I most likely needed new toner.  So I bought some.  And when I got home and looked at the boxes, suddenly I saw similar ones in the computer room.  I had already bought new ones!

So yesterday, I went to return them.  I was concerned they would accept toner back.  But the boxes were unopened and pristine, and they didn't even argue about it.  But when they scanned the receipt on the 1st (black) box, it refused to register.  I figured there was a special policy refusing toner returns.  Bt when I suggested scanning the actual box bar code, it was accepted.  As were the color boxes.  

That was a great relief.  Toner lasts a lot longer than inkjet cartridges but is more expensive per cartridge.  If they had refused the return, I would have been out more than $250!  But it all worked out and I am very happy about that

5.  My good neighbors gave me a small box of Xmas goodies.  I had already bought a small box of chocolate-covered cherries for them and was waiting to add some banana/walnut muffins.  I finally made the muffins last night.

I was delayed on that because I kept not quite having all the ingredients.  Banana/walnut cake is a rather complicated recipe usually cooked in a bundt pan.  It came to me via Mom from Dad's mom.  I've loved it from childhood to the present.  Mom said she would only leave me the recipe in her Will, and she came darn close to that.  Thankfully she relented when she realized she couldn't cook any more.

It is sort of like a spice cake, but only like a standing prime rib roast is like a rump roast.  There is the usual flour and sugar and baking soda.  But you have to separate the egg yolks and whites.  You have to chop walnuts.    You have to mash 2 ripe bananas.  You have to "sour" some milk (milk plus some vinegar).  You have to whip the egg whites.

Then stir various ingredients together in a certain order for a couple minutes each (and it is thick and hard to stir).  Finally, you gently fold the whipped egg white in.  Add that is just for the bundt cake method.  But I wanted to make cupcakes/muffins for the neighbors present.  

I get in over my skills sometimes.  Muffins cook differently from cakes.  I had to look that up and got so many different instructions.  350F vs 375.  15 minutes or 20.  Cupcake papers or parchment paper circles on the bottom.  Top oven shelf or middle.  Fill 1/2 way or 2/3.  I went with cupcake papers and averaged the rest.

Because there is always "the toothpick test"...  The final arbitrator of doneness, LOL!  I was nervous about the results the whole time they were cooling.  After an hour, I finally gave one a taste-test (I had 22).  It was perfect...

I don't bake desserts often.  Brownies or tollhouse cookies a few times a year.  I hadn't made a banana/walnut cake in 5 years.  I 'm not sure I had made them as muffins before.  You experienced bakers may smile, but I feel insufferably pleased!  For me, that was a big deal.  And they worked out.😁

6.  And finally, I did something that might be useful to all cooks.  I've been frustrated about where to place my recipe cards while using them.  I've previously propped them up on the back of my cutting board, but stuff gets splashed around sometimes.  I wanted something better.  I could have glued a plastic clip to the base of the cabinet door above where I do my food prep.  But that seemed ugly.

So I stuck a small piece of double-sided tape in the center of the bottom of the door.  Then I stuck a small refrigerator magnet on the tape.  Then I put a small magnet with a handle on that.  I just take the top one off and trap the recipe card between them. 

 

So I've had a great couple of days.  Successful returns, error-adjustments, cooking a few things, and a nice little invention.  

More Things I Did

OK, nothing major.  Just small things I did staying busy and productive...  As I've said before "try to do something useful every day".

1.  My clock/radio has a backup battery to keep the clock running in a few hours of power outage.  One of those old-fashioned rectangular 9 volt types (its a very old clock radio but it still works).   The last few times when there was a brief blip in the power, it failed.  I get tired resetting it.  So I turned over the clock/radio and found the battery.  The plug-in attachment was broken.  How something that does not move "breaks" is beyond me.  

And it took a while to even see that "something was broken.  My initial response was to buy a new rechargeable battery.  But it would attach.  That's when I discover part of the old battery was broken off in the plug.

I have a lot of good tools.  One is a tiny, thin needlenose plier (and this one is really "needlenosed").  But I don't have the steadiest of hands these days.  So it was really hard to get the plier to grab the old  broken-off battery attachment.  Sometimes I scream in frustration trying to work at tiny things!  And the plug-in didn't offer any firm leverage. 

It took 15 minutes to get the broken battery attachment loose from the plug-in.  That may not sound like very long, but 15 minutes of frustration is like an hour of real time.  

The tiny little bit of broken metal suddenly popped out!  The new rechargeable (and newly charged) battery connected perfectly.  I can't wait for a 1 minute power outage to see if it works.

2.  Checked the snow-blower.  That meant dragging out 150' of heavy-duty extension cord to reach the toolshed.  And remembering to plug it into the outside outlet before I went, LOL.  It has an electrical power-start which I love.  I can't pull those damn "cord-pulls" like I used to.   

We aren't forecast to have heavy snow this Winter, but surprises happen.  So testing the snow-blower made sense.  But it wouldn't start.  OK, I tend to leave gas in equipment.  Purists say to drain gas every month, mechanics say once every 6 months, and there are additives that extend gas life to a year.  I don't do that.  Most equipment starts when I want it to.

But the snow-blower didn't.  I checked a few obvious things.  Then looked in the gas tank.  Couldn't see a thing!  So I found a 3' bamboo stick and put it in to see if there was gas.  No gas.  I actually stored it properly (drained of most gas and then run til it stopped).  I had forgotten that.

Added a little gas and pushed the priming button a dozen times.  It started right up.  So, I'm ready for any serious snow...

3.  Filled the thistle seed birdfeeders ( a daily thing - I have a flock of about a dozen goldfinches here and I bet no neighbor can claim that) and the black oil sunflower birdfeeder (for the other songbirds).  Filling the sunflower feeder is wearing me out.  I need to drag over the 8' stepladder to reach the top to dump in a bucket of the seeds.  It gets harder every year.

What I need is a pole that lowers and raises the sunflower seeder.  I've looked for one to buy for years but I never find one.  I think I'm going to have to build my own. I 'm thinking a pipe through the center with a rope through it, a couple of pulleys, and a small winch.  I need to sit down and draw the details.  But there is always something else higher on the To Do List.

4.  Went shopping at Walmart.  I go there for odd items.  Or maybe I should say their "profit-losers".  There are some things I buy there that are way under-priced compared to competitors.  So I take advantage of that.  Fancy Food canned cat food is cheap there.  Tidy Litter is cheap there.  Milk and Ice Cream is cheap there.  Some other things aren't, so I buy them elsewhere.  I have NO store loyalty.

5.  Bought a steamship round roast at the meat.deli/liquor store.  Roast beef is $7.99 a pound and too often "medium-to well" cooked.  I like medium-rare.  So I marinate and cook my own.  I have an electric slicer and do my own sandwich-thin slicing (set into 2-day batches in zip-lock bags).  And a few 1/2" slabs for different meals.  

6.  Took one of my 24"x6"x6" planting trays and dumped the soil into a bucket to mix it up with organic slow-release fertilizer .  Put it back in the tray and planted more lettuce.  I love salads, so I can't really have "too much" lettuce.  Red leaf, green leaf, and romaine.  And since lettuce has jumped from $2/pound to $4.50, that's a sensible thing to do.

7.  I've been collecting fallen branches.  I don't often have fires in the basement fireplace, but a short one would be nice to watch.  Sadly, my little electric chainsaw is giving me problems.  The chain just doesn't want to adjust in tension properly.  A project for another day...  But the fallen branches are small enough to cut with my "saws-all".

8.  I use a drywall tape tool to scrape the litter boxes clean.  It works great for cleaning the edges and loosening everything from the bottom for scooping after.

But it has always "caught" on the middle of one of the litter boxes.  So I empties the litter into the other boxes and scrubbed it.  There was a slight raised spots in the center.

Hurray for sharp chisels!  I scraped away the high spot!  Perfection in scraping is available again.

9.  Sorted out a 10" stack of bills and notices.  I have a very good system of file folders, but I am terrible at keeping up with the filing.  I got 90% of them divided and filed in subjects.   That was a relief.  The other 10% is hard to decide where to file.  And I only did it because of possible bad cat.vet records as you see below.

10.  Looked up a lot of stuff on email and websites.  First, I think my new vet was sent bad records from the old one.  I don't yet want to say it was deliberate, but a lot of what the new vet is telling me doesn't match up with my mental recollections of annual visits for shots.  I have the previous vet receipts on the dining table and will make a list on times and dates.  Then I will bring that to the new vet so that we can compare records.

Second, some poster (elsewhere) suggested "diclophene" for knee problems.  The stuff seems almost lethal.  I'll stay with generic 4% lidocaine and Walmart 'Equate' equivalents.  

11.  Almost time to start planting some slow-growing perennial seeds.  I mix my own starter-soil .  Made a list of the parts I don't have enough of.  Time to visit Lowe's or Home Depot.

Catching Up

Sometimes, you get behind plans.  Sometimes, there are just too many plans and too little time.  Sometimes, it takes all you have just to make the daily meals and do the laundry.

I've been lucky lately.  Kind of caught up on some things.  Still behind on others, but "catching up" is good.

On the good side:

1.  Picking beans now.  Yum!

2.  Picking wild blackberries in the backyard.  Yum!

3.  Went loose with the hedge trimmer and lopper.  Cleared out some big weeds and brambles that grabbed at me as I mowed the lawn before.

4.  This will seem weird, but my electric mower has 2 batteries and they don't last long (bought cheap - always a mistake) and they are difficult to remove.  So I tied a twine loop around them.  Those came loose, so I used duct tape to hold the twine in place.  Duct tape solves almost everything.

5.  Was missing hearing old CDs because my connections are all messed up (GOT to pull out the rack and fix that).  But then realized my portable multipurpose portable stereos can play them (DUH!).  Been enjoying Simon & Garfunkle all night.

6.  Gave the tomato plants a good soaking of foliar spray.  If that is unfamiliar, it means adding nutrients to the plants on the leaves.  It soaks in.

7.  Had some newly-leaking hose connections.  So I took every one apart and wrapped them with plumber's tape.  Thin plasticy stuff that gets squeezed into the hose threads.  Works great.  No more leaks.

8.  The cucumber and melon plants are beginning to climb the wire trellis.  

9.  I can expect a Tonkinese female kitten in mid September.

On the bad side:

A.  The back yard is "bramble city".  I HAVE to get the brush mower working again.

B.  I need to redo my Will.

C.  I need to get the car in for scheduled maintenance.

D.  I REALLY need to mop all the floors and they are SO clutterred.

E.  I REALLY need to completely redo the stereo/TV connections.  I mean I still have a VCR attached!

F.  I REALLY need to learn how to clip The Mews's claws.

G.  I am very overdo for a dentist visit, an annual physical, and a haircut.

H.  The kitchen ceiling fixture needs to be changed from attached-to-the-ceiling to "suspended".  It never works in Summer because of the hot attic.  Or maybe I need an attic fan.  I'm not sure which is easier.

I.  Weeds have taken over too much of the flowerbeds.  Periwinkle, English Ivy and Poison Ivy mostly.  Thanks to my neighbors...  I might just dig up the best and cover the whole area with black plactic for a year.

J.  The garden beds are probably infested with tomato-killing diseases.  One plant is already entirely yellow.  The solution is to surround the beds tightly in clear plastic for a year for over-heating the soil from trapped sunheat.  It's called solarizing.  I should have done it last year.

K.  I have old furniture.  Some  much of which is junk.  Time to get rid of a lot of stuff.  I've been living like a broke college student for too long (my desires are simple).  Not that I need "house beautiful" with rosewood tables and granite counters, but I could some better stuff.  

L.  Too many junk trees on the edges of the yard.  One day, there is a spling.   Next thing I notice it is 12' tall.  And the neighbor's maple tree roots are making mowing the lawn like driving over railroad ties.      I need to get them grinded out of my lawn.

Isn't there always more on the "To Do List" than you can do?  I'm just going to hire a general contractor to come in and do everything on the list I'm making.  3 bids, of course....  I think my major D-I-Y days are over.

An Unusual Day

It started last night.  I had been struggling to adjust to the 1.25" towing attachment on the new Subaru.  The hitch pin from a local store was too short, I had to use force, had an traier ball for a 2" hitch,  finally bought some parts on Amazon.  Yadda, yadda, yadda. 

I discovered it was simpler than it seemed and I asked Amazon if I could return some.  They said "OK", offerred me a printable return label.  Good, thank you...  But I noticed returns were free at some "Kohl" department stores.  IF I returned it today! 

So there I was playing Civ 2 (downloadable/playable to a Mac only from some Russian site (OMG!) through some iffy "portal kit").  Well, I have "best" antivirus/firewall stuff and made sure it was "up-to-date".  I checked to make sure nothing funny was going on on the Mac.  And I will offload the app to a stand-alone later today.  That was 6 am.  So I decided to stay up at a discussion board until I could do early errands.

The Kohl's store opened at 10 am.  I had things to buy at Walmart which opened at 9 am, and grocery shopping to do.

Went to Walmart and found most of the things I wanted (kitty litter, cheap store brand stuff, and "on sale" brand name items.   Got back home and put it away.

Went straight to the nearest Kohl's store.  Never been there before (and wn't be returning (their prices are way too high).  But I was relieved to see a "Amazon Returns Accepted Here" sign on the door.  Wrong door of course.  I had to haul the box of heavy metal around to the side door downhill and over a rock bed... 

On the other hand, the return was a breeze.  It was so easy, I was almost suspicious.  But they gave me a printed confirmation and a 25% purchase coupon for "today only".  Even that left the prices too high.  Hey, I'm selectively cheap.  Some things are worth spending money on, some aren't.

So I had the cheap stuff bought at Walmart put away at home, and the Amazon return done.  And I realized I was going to pass my favorite grocery store (Safeway, great produce selection).  And (not coincidentally) I had my spreadsheet grocery list in my wallet (I'll show a link to that soon but it needs updating).

So I stopped and bought groceries.  Told the produce manager their egg roll wrappers were junk.  Well, their old brand was great.  A dusting of cornstarch between each wrapper and and rolled up nicely (I like to make shrimp eggrolls sometimes) and the new brand (Wing Hing or something like that) was all crumbly and impossible to roll.

He promised to look into it (yeah, right).  I often have to help the produce guys.  Seriously, they can barely tell one apple from another.  I'm not in the "oh damn, here he comes again" reaction yet, but they do notice when I point out the labels are wrong and they are selling "Red Delicious" as "Staymans".  And I try not to bother them often. 


I smile to myself when the sales clerks ask if a head lettuce is "cabbage" or beets are "radishes.  I shouldn't because it means that they aren't familiar with fresh veggies in their own lives.  OK, come to think about it, let's say I'm more sad than smiley... 


Pushing my cart to the car, I noticed a woman poking around at the hood-up engine and mostly looking at the battery.  I put my bags in the car.


An older guy does not approach a strange woman carelessly.  There is no telling what the reaction might be.  But I went back and asked if she needed a batterry jump.  She did.  I could tell she was hesitant about a stranger asking for help.



I just recently bought a new car.  And it was partly because the battery in the 2005 Toyota wouldn't recharge well.  The dealership couldn't find the problem.  They said the batterry seemed fine and the charging system checked out OK. 

So I bought a "batterry-minder" to keep it charged in the garage, but I never was sure it would start again during errands.  So I bought a portable power-pack for emergencies.  *I* never actually needed it, but it came in handy today.    It is "the mother of all rechargeable batterries". 



In spite of having a new car, I kept it in the car.  There's room for it, and "you never know".  So I carried it to the woman's car (and noticed a scared little girl inside).  The woman was probaly afraid I would ask for money.  Nah, I'm the Boy Scout type.  Hooked up the clamps, told her to start the car, everything worked.  I told her to make sure to drive the car at least 20 minutes to recharge the battery (and maybe have it checked by a professional).  Batteries do fail.  And I wished her a good day and left.




I've gotten help from strangers before.  My first personally-purchased car once died in the dead of night in a bitterly freezing 1980 Winter on a major highway.  It was SO COLD, my roommate and I were exchanging the one good coat every 5 minutes to stay SLIGHTLY warm.  The ONE person who stopped to ask if I needed help was a Reagan conventioneer.  He asked who I supported and I said "Carter".  He smiled and not only called AAA to tow my car to a repair shop, but drove us home (way out of his way).  Good people do good things. 

Remembering that, I try to pass it on.  I could have just driven home from the Safeway store.  But how hard is it to help another?  We are all of us in this world together fighting off the cold and sadness.



So today, I was my 16 year old Boy Scout again, and did my good deed for the day.  And I thank the opportunity more than the deed...  The deed was fine, the opportunity was priceless. 

Resolved Issues

This past week...

1.  Planted the Fall veggie garden.
2.  Got new checks.
3.  Attached trailer ball on riding mower.
4.  Bought new car.
5.  Figured out new edging better than that plastic crap.
6.  Got non-subscription 2019 MS Office for Mac.
7.  Made a pizza from scratch.

Email Accounts

This is long and has a pretty good ending, but you'll have to read to get to it!  And I'm writing this is relatively good humor, as you'll see by the end.  Consider it "a novel to read in 20 minutes".  I'm done complaining.  LOL!

I originally set up 3 email accounts on Verizon mail years ago (2008).  It was quite easy.  So I set up a primary email for myself (friends, family, shopping, my Cavebear's Lair blog).  That is me "in general".

I set up one for the cat blog (Mark's Mews).  That one gets 95% of all my emails of course.  Mostly notifications on comments.  It is easier to read them in email than actually going to the blog.  And all of those are saved that way "just in case".

I set one up for my garden posts and forums (Yardenman).

I was happy as a pig in mud.  I loved being organized in my slightly different 3 personas.  No deceit intended, but it was just easier to have family, cat blog, and garden forums separate.

And then, in 2017, Verizon sold their email accounts to AOL.  "Rest assured", they said, "you keep your email addresses forever, and will get more experienced service at no cost.  This is for YOUR benefit".  I ask, are there more chilling marketing words than that?

AOL is used to people having one email.  But they worked hard to get my 3 accounts transferred.  And they did succeed.  I ended up with a dozen different passwords and I wasn't sure which went to which email account, but they assured me they could always find it or give me a new one.  No cost.  I was a legacy from Verizon, and free service was part of the contract.

Nothing is forever...

When I foolishly downloaded Mac OS 'Catalina'  last November, everything to Hell in a Handbasket, as they say.  Catalina was a 64-bit system and none of my 32-bit apps worked.  And it was not reversable.  Apple WANTS everyone to "progress" and that meant 64 bit.  I kicked like a mule and I bit like a crocodile.  Didn't do me any good.  Catalina wasn't leaving my computer. 

So I pulled out the previous Mac Mini (that didn't have 'Catalina') and started migrating the Catalina one to it.  I had some short cables, so I had to snuggle both Macs on one desk.  Along the way, I moved one that still had an overlooked cable attached

That cable caught my wine glass and spilled it onto the Catalina Mac.  It's OK to laugh.  I'm trying to write this as a comic-tragedy...  The Catalina Mac was immediately fried.  Dead.  No power.  Drowned.  Zombied.  6' under.  You get the point....

So I had the older one I stopped using in 2017.  But I also had an external backup from a few days before.  On Mac, it is called "Time Machine".  Theoretically, you can restore your computer  down to the last email setting from it. 

But what they don't tell you is that it has to be the same computer.  To a different computer, it is just a collection of apps and docs and folders.  Guess who was on "a different computer"?

I tried everything for a couple months.  Ceiling Cat KNOWS I tried (I'll get some credit for that somehow someday, I'm sure, but not NOW).

I bought a new Mac Mini, not realizing that it was a cloud computer and had little memory.  I was able to return it.  I bought a real one.  1TB and faster stuff.  So I confidently went to use "Migration Assistant".  Apple says it will copy everything from an old computer to a new one.  Guess what doesn't work as claimed?  It copied most of the old Mac, but not the photos or email or settings. 

I'm going to guess it is partially my fault.  I customize and organize my computer files freely and in ways the designers probably didn't expect. 

When we got our first office computers (Convergent Technology, aka C3) in the early 90s , the spreadsheet was called Multiplan.  It had a way to link files together.  I linked freely.  I crashed the system.  Not to the point where our Data guys were upset, but to where the Multiplan programmers and C3 managers called me asking what I had done.  Well, it was more like "What the F ing H*ll did you do

I told them that I had explored their spreadsheet and used the features.  They had to rewrite large parts of their spreadsheet code to allow what I did.  I am very likely infamous at C3 and possibly mentioned in some software articles from the time.  

So I can get around software given a half a chance, and I find things the programmers didn't think of.  I couldn't fully migrate the old mac to the new one.  The Photos would NOT go (too many I suspect).  The settings wouldn't transfer (I had to many alterations?) maybe.  My mail wouldn't go at all!

I got the photos transferred one folder at a time using an external HD.  The new computer didn't like it the way I did it, but it has to copy files directly if you are determined enough.  On tyhe other hand, you can't MAKE it copy "settings" apparently.

So then I called AOL about the email.  Remember that part about free service forever?  Forget that. Never heard of it.  And they hate us legacy Verizon email users.  They ARE stuck with keeping our email addresses working though.  I have no idea why that and not the free service, but that is money and who really knows what the contract actually says.

They demanded I have a separate phone to receive temporary codes.  I only have the landline (yeah, I'm THAT primitive).  Call waiting would work, but I had never set that up and wasn't even sure I had it.  AND they wanted me to pay $5 monthly for a support account for each email account.  I went for one for the Cavebear email account.  If I had to live with one, that's "me".

They got that working, but refused to touch the others unless they could send a text or voice code to a separate number.

Well, after finally getting the photos moved and setting up new setting all around, I set up a "chat" with a Verizon agent.  She told me I had call waiting and how to activate it.  Stupid me, it was right there on a phone button!

But armed with call-waiting, I confidently called AOL again, expecting to have to pay $5 per month for tech support for each account.  And expecting to have trouble understanding what the agent was saying.

And THIS is why I am so thrilled.  First, imagine an Asian Indian/Irish accent (it sounded beautiful whatever it was).    Second, imagine not being asked to sign up for a year's worth of monthly payment for 3 accounts.  Third, imagine someone who cheerfully led me through all the stages of all 3 accounts (correcting a few previous mistakes by the previous AOL agents) for over an hour and got all 3 accounts working AND even helped me get the email accounts under my Inbox.

I even asked her if she enjoyed her job when it takes so long for a customer like me and she said she really does enjoy helping people with difficult problems.    She seemed sincere.  OK, I get that.  Sometimes I spend hours at a gardening site answering questions that will never benefit me in any way.

And another thing.  They always tell you a name when they start and you never remember it.  So when I told her at the end that she was the most helpful tech person I ever dealt with and wanted to commend her to AOL, she requested I didn't.  I was stunned.

After we tested sending a few emails between my accounts to be sure it was all working, I thanked her and hung up.

And I immediately emailed AOL.  I told them I didn't have her name, but I gave them the case number, and that they had better make her "Employee Of The Year" because she did what 5 other of their agents didn't! 

I do have 11,000+ emails to sort out, but that is sure better than none.  I can do that.

And I did an internet search about where my Firefox bookmarks are.  I learned I can't "import" them because they don't get the idea of importing from Firefox to Firefox.  I'll bet I can import them to Safari and THEN to Firefox.  I LOVE "workarounds", LOL!

I have duplicate pictures that won't go away using a "duplicate-remover" app.  I'll remove them manually over the next few weeks. 

BTW, I learned the difference between email settings of POP and SMTP.  Email providers love POP because it is simpler.  SMTP files are recoverable.  POP files aren't.  Take a look at your email settings and see which you have...  If they are POP, call your email provider and demand a change.

But nearly everything is re-established on my new computer.  3 months of misery.  But you know what?  Next year, I will hardly even remember it.   Times heals all wounds.  And in the grand scheme of things, the past 3 months will not matter next year. 

Happiness to all.  My computer life is finally coming back into order...

And thanks to all who read this far.

Mark

Storm Drain

I have a County storm drain at the street end of a long non-County drainage easement.  It is a constant problem, as is wanders down though the higher neighborhood through semi-wild woods.  Every storm brings more tree debris to rest on the top.  I remove them when I notice.  But after severe storms, the debris collects in inter-woven layers. 

Well, after storms this year, they were really tightly bound.  I refuse to stand on the grate because it might collapse.  So I emailed the County office about it a few weeks ago.  2 decades ago, I complained about the whole drainage easement and they advised me that they were "only responsible  for the drain".  So I have reminded them of that the past years whenever the drain got covered so much that it caused flooding in my lower yard. 

The previous times it took them almost 6 months to send out some people to clear it.  And that was done by hand (and poorly).  I don't want to get TOO political, but those were Republicans in charge at the time.  This time there are Democrats in charge, and a crew showed up in a few WEEKS.

They not only did a SUPERB job, they were polite, friendly, and understood how frustrating the flooding the covered grate caused.  WOW!

So here is what it looked like before.

And here is what it looked like today.

And just to be helpful, they cleaned the other one I had not even asked about...

New Chair

Back in late February I placed a 1-click order on Amazon.  I glanced casually at the cart first, but I didn't notice I had a big recliner chair on the list that was a serious "maybe".    And when the order confirmation email came back I was all "yeah, yeah" and didn't review it carefully.  So I had ordered a big recliner chair I wasn't certain I wanted...  My bad!

So when I did look at the order confirmation, I was somewhat surprized to see I had ordered the chair.  I contacted Amazon and they told me that, since it was a 3rd party order, I could cancel but would be responsible for return shipping.  I contacted the manufacturer and they said that since the order was already in production, it was not cancelable.  I asked if I could get it in black to match my decor better, but they said it only came in "chocolate". 

The whole time schedule was kind of a joke.  I received an email in early March saying it would be delivered on April 20th.  When I looked up the tracking history recently, I discovered the chair had been shipped to a local freight company on March 15th and was sitting in a warehouse only 90 miles away.  It took them 5 weeks to deliver it from there?

A little history...  Back in the mid 90s, I found a cushioned upholstered rocker/swivel chair I liked at a local store.  It came in peach, aqua, or butter.  Aaccckkk!  But, liking the chair, I emailed the manufacturer and told them I loved the chair but could I get it in black and an ottoman as a special order?  They replied that they were flattered and willing, but I would have to order 2 chairs AND send them the fabric (and told me how much was required for 2 chairs and the ottoman).  Well, I wanted 2 chairs anyway...

I had to visit several fabric stores before I found one with enough black fabric that seemed durable enough.  I send the fabric to the manufacturer along with their email and a letter from me with more details.  2 months later, the chairs arrived.  The freight company told me that delivery was merely off-truck, so I had to arrange for a local delivery company to pick it up from the freight company and deliver them in "room of choice" (as I learned the term was later).  I only discovered afterwards that the chairs were lighter than I thought and I could have just carried them from the freight truck at the street into my house on my own, but you live and learn. 

I was happy enough with those chairs was over 20 years.  But springs sag, upholstery wears out, and everything begins to fall apart eventually.  I spent a lot of evening time sitting in one of the chairs, and when Dad was her for 2 years, he practically lived in the other.  Time for a new chair!

I considered a cushioned rocker/swivel arm computer chair.  I find them comfortable.  But when I stretch my legs out on the ottoman and cat curls up on my legs, that gets a bit uncomfortable with the weight on my unsupported knees.  So I decided to get a recliner.

OK, so much for the previous chairs.  I got my money's worth out of them.

So, I had spoken to a freight representative and she explained that they would do "inside delivery", which was great because the chair weighed 175 pounds.  I live in a "split-foyer" house with the basement on surface level.  The front door is up 6 outside steps.  You enter the door and there is a 3'x5' landing.  You can go up down a half flight of stairs to the basement or up a half flight to the main level.  It's a ranch house built on a surface basement and there is an attic.

So "inside delivery" sounded good.   I sure can't get 175 pound chair up the half flight of stairs myself.  But 2 days ago, I called to confirm the delivery date and confirm the "inside delivery" (I've had some surprises before when truck drivers didn't agree with company policy).  Sure enough, it turns out "inside delivery " means through the front door (or garage or side door) AND NO FURTHER.

Well, damn, if it just goes into the landing inside the front door, I can't even close the door!  So I considered possibilities.  My first thought was a bribe.  If the deliverers had to carry the box up the outside steps annyway, maybe $20 (or $40 dollars if there was too much hesitation) would get it up the half flight of stairs.  I could deal with it from there.  My second thought was to have it delivered into the garage, so I pulled my car out the morning before delivery.  The third possibility was to let them bring the box to the front steps and then threaten to refuse delivery and point out that "up the stairs" was a shorter distance than "back onto the truck".

As an aside, one of my first government jobs was getting furniture delivered to Congressional State and District Offices, and I learned a bit about whgat it took to get deliverers to bring furniture into awkward offices, LOL!  I will add that option 1 about cash bribes was not an allowed option.

The delivery was scheduled between 8am - 5 pm (and you thought cable companies were bad).  But I know that the delivery routes are carefully planned and the items are packed on the truck to empty from the back to the front.  So first thing this morning, I called the freight companies and asked approximately where I was on the route.  The person I spoke to checked and said, "Well, you seem to be in the middle of the delivery route, so my best guess is between 11 and 2".  Well, that was better than 8-5... 

He arrived at 4:40...  You can't win even when you ask the right questions sometimes.  And he arrived alone.  No helper.  And he said the box looked "pretty beat up".  Those are NOT words you want to hear!

But lest you think this is a disaster post, rest assured all worked out better than I expected!

First, he said "Let me bring the box to the front door and we will open it up and examine it for damage.  [My jaw drops]. 

Second, he rips the box apart and we examine the 2 parts of the chair in great detail.  I mean, HE is looking for damage too as if it was his chair.  We couldn't find the least bit of damage. 

Third, he picked up the back of the chair and went in the front door.  I helpfully pointed to the top of the stairs, and he brought it right up to the top of the stair!

Fourth, he was not so sure about getting the heavier base of the chair up the stairs, so I grabbed one end and said "we both can".  It was awkward for me holding the top end and walking backwards up the stairs, but it went fine.

And he handed me the e-ticket to sign and walked back to the truck and drove away.  I owe him a very positive review to his company about his help.  I hope it gets him a bonus...

So I had these 2 pieces of chair sitting at the top of my stairs...  I have things for that.  I built a wooden base with wheels years ago and put the the base on it to push to the spot in front of the TV.  The back was simply carryable. 

I had expected more assembly (like attaching the chair legs and the handle that lifts the human leg support), but everything was installed.  Attaching the back to the base was easy.  It fits down onto 2 heavy metal tapered attachments.  There was a satisfying "CLICK" as they meshed.

And then I sat on it.  More properly, I should say I :SANK: into it.  The recliner handle isn't exactly where I would have put it (being a little forward of easy reach), but it worked fine.  The back is high enough to provide great head support in soft comfort.  I was a bit confused at first that the reliner handle didn't ALSO unrecline the footrest, but discovered that the footrest returned to "unreclined" position with just a little downward pressure.

I miss the swivel ability of the previous chairs, but you can't have everything.

The cats are in love with it!  The arms are so wide and cushioned that Iza fell asleep on my right arm and Marley purred awake on the left.  I'm sure I will see Ayla there soon.

Pictures!

Now, knowing the size of this chair, I need to build a nice end table to match the space between the chair on the wall.  Right now, I am using 2 TV trays to hold remotes and the telephone.  And I need to move some pictures behind the chair.  With the small desk that was next to the smaller old chair removed, I need horizontal space for "stuff"!

New Soil Harder Than I Thought!

I got outside to prepare the bare front yard for new grass seeds, and the condition of the new topsoil wasn't as good as I thought!  It seemed loose enough when the contractor left on Tuesday, and I thought the track-tread of the spreader was light enough to not compact the soil, but I was wrong.

Yesterday, I realized the new soil had hardened like cement and there were deep tread-tracks embedded on it.  YIKES!  I sure can't plant grass on THAT. 

Well, I had expected to have to haul out my old Troy-Bilt Roto-Tiller anyway. 

I did that today.  I hadn't used it in many years, and equipment that sits around unused for 5-10 years doesn't like to start up right away.  But I filled up the gas tank, checked the oil, set the lever to "choke" (that's a good thing, if you don't know), set another lever to "start", and pulled the starter cord. 

Nothing!  20-30 tiring pulls later, nothing!  No big surprise, but I had hoped to get lucky.  I'm no expert with gas engines, but I know some basics.  So... I checked the levers to make sure they seemed to be working.  They were.  I checked the spark plug wire.  It was firmly attached and clean.  So I removed the spark plug itself.  Naturally, my socket set didn't have the right size cushioned spark plug socket, but fortunately it is slightly raised (sensible design) and I could loosen it with a regular wrench. 

I fully expected it to be fouled with old oil or needing to be cleaned and gapped, but it looked perfect!  Damn...  One always hopes for easy problems to fix.

Well, whenever I have repairmen around, I watch them carefully.  The last time I had a guy here to get a different piece of equipment (lawn mower) running, he said the fuel line/carburator was probably gummed up.  Now, you can either take the parts off and clean them, or get them running sneakily and they will clean themselves.  He did a "sneaky". 

He took the air filter off  (exposing the carburator) and sprayed a (flammable) cleaning solvent into it.  It loosened a stuck part and the lawn mower started right up on the next try.

Well, I don't have any fancy cleaning solvents, but gasoline is a basic solvent for old gasoline.  I took the air filter off to add a little gasoline into the carburator.  But I sure couldn't just pour gasoline from a big 5 gallon can into that small hole when I only wanted about a tablespoon of gasoline. 

I could have gone back into the house and gotten an actual tablespoon.  But I like to be resourceful.  So I decided that the socket that didn't fit the spark plug would work as a small container if I kept my finger tightly on the bottom.  It took a little work to splash just a small bit of gas out of the can, but I managed.  Then dribbled it into the carburator.  Puttng the air filter back on I pulled the starter cord.  Nothing.  Damn...

A second pull, and I'LL BE DAMNED, IT COUGHED A COUPLE TIMES, TRYING TO START.  ANOTHER PULL AND IT STARTED...  I had to play with the choke lever for a minute, but it settled down running smoothly.  I could barely believe it! 

Since it was running, I decided to use it on the hardened soil in the front lawn.  More about that tomorrow...

The Garden Enclosure

It progresses.  I discovered some real problems as I went recently.  I want the top of the enclosure to be level.  But the ground slopes front to back and right to left.  That makes digging the holes for the frame real tricky.

I tried to measure the slope of the ground first.  That got me a general idea that is dropped 1.5' in both directions, but it wasn't very exact.  I suppose I could have lived with that, but my Dad was always one to point out minor flaws in anything I ever built (no matter how well built), so I have a reaction to that even though he is gone now.  Old habits die hard.  And there IS a point to seeking perfection in any project, Dad criticisms or not.  A few extra days work means years of admiring work well done.

So I wanted to make sure that, even though the ground was sloped, the top of the frame should be level.  If I had surveyor's equipment, that would have been easy.  But I don't.  So I thought about it a few days.  With some complicated ways that seemed really awkward in reality.

As I was trying to get to sleep the previous night (and I did the construction yesterday, so that was 2 nights ago), I kept turning the problem over in my mind.  It finally struck me...  A water level!  I would build the enclosure from the top down!!!

For those of you not familiar with the idea, water in a bucket with a long tube attached will stay at the same level as the bucket even when you move the tube around.  It's not a new invention, but it was a new thought to me.  I found a nice (free I hope) picture to describe it...

Well, saved me the effort of drawing and scanning it myself.  And I wasn't cutting off the tops of the PVC pipes, I just dug my holes a bit deeper to make them match at the top.  I marked each PVC pipe 8" down from the top and made the water level match it THERE.  So the tops of all my PVC frame uprights are level.

The garden enclosure is 20' by 20'   with the raised framed beds I built, that gives me 2' between each bed and 2' around the outside of them (inside the enclosure).  I hope that makes sense.  When I post this in a few weeks as an instructional post, I'll add diagrams.

But the point is that it finally solved my difficulties with the sloped ground.  Some pictures of the general steps...

The holes dug.  The digging was horrible.  The basic soil in the back yard is gravel, clay, and more gravel.  A post hole digger wasn't sufficient.  I had to use a breaker bar.  That's a 5' solid iron rod about 1.5" in diameter, with a chisel point at the bottom.  It weighes 12-15 pounds.  You lift it, you pound it down, you swivel it about.  Its the "breaker bar 2-step dance".  LOL!  THEN you use the post hole digger to scoop the loosen debris out.  It's great (but unwanted) exercise.  Good for causing hand blisters too.

This is the lowest end of the yard.  The higher end holes got to 2.5' deep

Here are the PVC pipes sitting in the holes at one end.  They may not look all in a row, but they are.

As each one was individually set at the proper depth so that the top was level, I shoveled dirt back in and stomped it down hard.  There is still some "wiggle" room to allow for attaching more pipes at the tops.

 Here is a corner, showing the connections.  It's not easy, being just me to be at both ends of the pipes, but I set up ladders to hold one end of each pipe while I set the other end in tightly.  I'm used to having to construct "helper" supports on projects.  A 6" spring clamp atached to a ladder makes a nice "V" shape to hold the far end of a pipe temporarily...

I initially thought it would be easiest to start at one corner and work my way around the perimeter, but it  wasn't.  Doing all the north/south first was easier for supporting the pipes!  BTW, see the spring clamp attached to the ladder there?  It was a very good "third hand".

And a secret.  The PVC pipe is too flexible for a good solid structure.  Metal is better.  But I couldn't find the kind of connectors I needed that fit the metal conduit pipe (unlike a site I found about building such a structure said I could).  So to get the rigidity of metal conduit pipe AND the connections that fit PVC Pipe, I put metal conduit pipe into each PVC pipe! 

THAT solution took a few days thought last Winter...  And metal conduit pipe is inexpensive, so that was not a concern.

I have most of the uprights and half the crossbeams in place.  Took two days but it will be worth it.

Why am I doing this?  Well, the squirrels and groundhogs developed a taste for my garden seedlings a few years ago and basically ruined my garden 3 years in a row.  When I cover this frame with chicken wire, they won't be able to get in.  And I will place bent chicken wire at the bottom to stick out 2' to prevent any tunneling.   Bwa-Ha-Ha!

I will have a garden yet...

A Food Interlude

I've been talking about losses, finances, and projects too much lately.  There is also food...

The medical charts I see say I should weigh 153 pounds.  I weighed 162 this morning, but its hard to get rid of those last pounds.  I don't worry about that TOO much.  The insurance charts say people about my weight over the medical charts live longer.  Living longer seems good.

But let's talk food here.  And not lots of it, but GOOD food!  And I don't mean really fancy food either.  I mean just good basic food.  I like fresh food I prepare myself.  I don't mean that I grow and grind the wheat for the bread for my sandwiches or anything like that.  But I do grow some food myself and shop mostly through the produce department of the local Safeway and bake some great bread (with my bread machine and lots of herbs and spices).  I buy my meat at a local butcher and liquor shop (it's an interesting place).

My garden wasn't much this year, as I am tearing it up to rebuild it.  But I did manage to grow bicolor corn, russian fingerling potatoes, and leeks in containers, and cukes and italian flat beans around cages in the old asparagus bed.

So here's what happened yesterday...

I cooked 3 chicken thighs (bone in for additional flavor) in the oven, and the thighs were coated in my home-mixed "shake and bake" .  I like thighs because they have more flavor and you can't really overcook them (anything from 175 to 190 is "just fine").  I had a small ear of corn-on-the-cob from my garden.  I won't get many, but they sure are sweet straight from the cornstalk.  I picked a dozen flat italian beans and simmered them 4 minutes dropping in the ear of corn after 1 minute.  I made a salad of a home-grown heirloom Aunt Gertie's Gold tomato, a home-grown 4" (and therefore seedless) cucumber, and a slice of a vidalia onion (purchased) and minced, with home-made italian dressing.  And I had a dessert of cut-up fresh peach, strawberry, green grapes, cantelope, a navel orange, and a plum.  With 2 glasses of old vine zinfandel...

And with a dark chocolate and a white chocolate Lindor truffle and a Dove caramel...

While watching my local Washington Nationals baseball team beat our closest rivals again, (sorry to all you Atlanta Braves fans) on TV and Marley AND Iza on my lap and feet... Wearing fleece-lined leather slippers...

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't get better than that.