An Odd Combination Of Problems

I fixed a problem with the Heat Pump today, more about that later...  But there have been some odd problems over the past few weeks that may or may not be related, so that might fit in.   Here is a list of problems..

1.  The Heat Pump started intermittingly leaking water onto the basement floor.

2.  The hot water smells odd first thing in the morning and sometimes it is slightly discolored.  The cold water is fine, so it isn't the city water supply.

3.  I detected a slight sewer smell in the showerstall bathroom.

4.   Some cat started pooping in the shower stall and then on the bathroom mat after I scrubbed the shower stall with general cleaner.  Nice little firm connected poops that fall right off the mat into the toilet when I lift it.  No pee, just poops.

5.  The Heat Pump air filter vanished.

So, I started trying to find the easiest solutions first.  Most obvious was that I don't use the showerstall and have detected odd smells in the past.  I assume the water in the trap drys up and lets gases emerge.  I usually just turn on the shower for a minute each month to make sure it is refilled and that solved the problem in the past.  Not this time.

I can't identify the mystery pooper.  Its not Marley, his are larger.  Laz is stressed  (but slowly improving).  Ayla is stressed by Laz.  She spends a lot of her time on the showerstall bathroom windowsill watching the birds, but Laz is often in there too.

I washed the mat.  I moved the mat to the main bathroom.  More poops.  So I suspect Laz but still no proof.  I have a wildlife camera, but I need to set it up from scratch because the batteries have been dead for years.  And I am worried about using it because of the infrared beam.  The instructions say not to look at it while on due to danger of blindness and I fear a curious cat might do that.

Since Iza left, the litterboxes don't get half the usage (she was a prodigious pee-er).  I have 4, and sometimes a couple aren't even used for a couple days.  I slacked...  Maybe Laz is fussy, or maybe Ayla wants to stay in the bedroom are so much she won't go to the basement.  So I made sure my daily schedule included cleaning no matter how little they were used.  That made no difference.

The Heat Pump has occasionally leaked water over the years.  It has usually meant that the condensation reservoir output tube has gotten but blocked by mineral deposits of mold.  I repairman (here for a more serious failure) mentioned putting a spoonful of bleach in the reservoir when I changed the air filter once every 3 months, but as maintenance habits tend to go, you forget after a few years when nothing goes wrong.  I forgot.  And one time the water collection tray got out of level and spilled over to the floor.  I fixed that. 

So I decided the output tube was blocked again.  Well, I looked around for a solution and found a coil of stiff wire.  I used pliers to form a small ball at the end  and fed it backwards through the tube and pulled it back and forth.  It empties into the laundry tub, so I put a small bucket under the tube (since any overfill would drain out safely).  The reservoir water was utterly clean.  So not the problem.

Meanwhile where WAS that missing air filter?  Well, for whatever reason, there is a couple of feet of "nothing" below the air filter.  On my Heat Pump, the incoming (to-be-filtered house air enters that bottom area and moves up.  There wasn't anywhere UP for the filter to go.  It had to be below in the collecting water.

The slot where the filter fits is only an inch wide and hard to get into.  I took a small bamboo stick and pushed it in.  The collected water was 3" deep.  It is apparently well-sealed, or all the water would have just drained out.  So I tried a few ways to grab the fallen air filter.  The flexible spring-loaded grabber didn't work.  The bamboo stake didn't work.  I finally took that coil of stiff wire and bent a hook at the end.  That worked!

It was squishy and awkward to get the bent filter out of the narrow 1" slot, and I almost lost it a couple times, but eventually I pulled it out intact.   I swear, I have some "MacGyver genes" in me.  For those of you unfortunate enough to not be familiar with the show, he took on bad guys with the creative use of common everyday items.  For myself, I just look around the cluttered basement awhile and suddenly "there it is", the thing I need that was never intended for the purpose.

For reasons I cannot explain, the smell in the showerstall immediately went away.  Maybe the collected stuff on the filter was reacting with the water and fermenting or decaying.  As long as it stopped...

That left the water on the basement floor and the smell of morning hot water (not that the cat poop problem was solved but I haven't solved that yet).  

Here is the Heat Pump fix I mentioned ate beginning...  

Today, I tackled the Heat Pump water leakage.  I had been resisting doing that (hoping it would just "go away").  But it wasn't going away.  And the water was between the rest of the house and the cat litter boxes.  Marley didn't care, as he walks through wet grass.  But it might have been bothering Ayla or Laz.

Machinery has odd little screws with slots and hex heads.  Well, I have tools.  One of them fits over the sheet metal screws.  You have to be careful with them.  They only screw into metal about 1/16th of an inch thick so you can strip out the threads.  

I sat there in front of the Heat Pump and considered the drainage PVC tubes on the outside, 4 square plastic nuts on them, and where they PVC tubes came from and went to.  And what parts of the front were removable.  And the PVC tubes had tops and bends where I thought didn't need to be.  Which suggested they were for access and therefore "removable'.

Sure enough, the highest one twisted right off.  And some water spilled out.  That meant something was blocked.  And I had already made sure the lower reservoir ans output tube were cleared.  I pushed the stiff wire down and heard some waterflow.  AHA!   

The tubes were too bendy to plunge that way.  But I noticed that the top cap was loose and the end went into the water reservoir, so I checked to see what other connections were were held by friction.  The entire PVC pipe can off in my hands.  More water on the floor, "oh joy".

Well, at least I could examine it.  It was filled with "stuff".  I carried it to the laundry tub and forced water though it.  You wouldn't believe such muck!  It looked like a slight folding of mayonnaise, jelly, and motor oil.  It was thin enough to move but thick enough to not move fast, so I slammed a rag over the drain to prevent it going down.  I scooped it up with a trowel and duped it it into a small bucket.  

After that, I used a long bottle-brush to scrape the PVC clean and set it level enough to fill with bleachy water and scraped it again in 10 minutes.    I also bottle-brushed the PVC pipes still in place.  Keeping in mind that it had taken 5 years since installation to get this bad, I don't expect a similar problem soon.  But a few years ago, I bought a package of 1/2" bleach tablets intended for such cleaning. 

They will fit into the condensation tray through a removable plug.  I shoved it through the plug in a mesh bag with a wire ring so I can remove and replace it easily.  And I have posted a reminder on the heat pump to change it once a year (as I also have a reminder of when to replace the air filter).  So that problem is probably solved.  Now I just have to wait for the collected water at the bottom of the heat pump to evaporate.  Well, a Heat Pump IS a dehumidifier, so that shouldn't take long.

That leaves the odd hot water smell.  I think I need to replace it.  A water heater has a rod on the inside to resist corrosion (and maybe absorb water minerals, I'm not sure).  And some minerals fall to the bottom.  There is a little hose-fitting outlet at the bottom.  I used to be good at draining the tank every 5 years.  I forgot about that.  

But the water heater is about 20 years old.  I bet the rod is completely gone.  And modern water heaters are far more efficient.  Time to replace it.  I'm researching standard ones, heat pump ones, and "instant-heating" tankless electric ones.  I like the "instant-on idea but these is more routine maintenance but I can tell I'm not as good at routine maintenance as I used to be.  

So It will be a good high volume standard type (when I use hot water, I use a lot) or the heat pump kind.  Depends on what Consumer Reports magazine recommends for my usage pattern).  But I'm going to drain the current tank (garden hose to the storm drain downhill) to see what comes out.   I bet it is gray.

It is possible I have solved most of the indoor problems I've had recently.  I will have to see if the bathroom pooping stops though.

 

Collective Cats

So I was sitting here for a while at the computer and I finally stood up.  And what do you think I saw?  

The Mews.  

They weren't hungry or asking for scritchies or even requesting laptime.  They just sort of collect around me when I don't notice.  It isn't the first time.  Just the first time I really thought about it.  

If I stay in any room long enough, they are all there.  If I deliberately look around, they aren't there.  Its when I'm not looking that they are well, "just sitting around" the room.  

And if I get up and move to another room for a while, it isn't like they follow me. But after a bit, there they are.

I must be the luckiest person in the universe!

9-11

I usually write at some length about 9-11.  I have decided to just stay silent this year.

Elections Are Frustrating Here

I live in Maryland, USA, which is so overwhelmingly Democratic the past few decades that it almost doesn't matter whether I vote or not.   The State Electors will be voting for the Democratic Presidential Candidate even if half the Democrats didn't bother to vote.  And my own Congressional District has Congressman House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer representing it and he is so overwhelmingly popular that he isn't even challenged seriously. 
When I moved to this County, it was somewhat Republican  but new arrivals from nearby Washington DC changed that competely.
Can you tell from that who I support?  Not really.  I could be a happy Democrat or a frustrated Republican.  As it happens, I started out as a Republican (though a progressive one) in the 60's.  Just for info, non-conservative Republicans tended to be called "Progressives" and non-conservative Democrats were called "Liberals".  There wasn't much difference but Progressives were a bit more economically "middle". 
The Nixon political inversion (he made Democratic Dixiecrats" Republican) chased me away.  It was a close call back then.  Unions were TOO powerful but Dixiecrats were MORE too racist.
I don't actually indentify with "party", but I've been forced to vote Democratic since Nixon from lack of ethical choices.  I supported 3rd Party Candidate John Anderson in 1980, but it was so hopeless by Election Day, I didn't bother to stand in the 3 hour line to vote (voting has become much faster since then).
Yeh, I vote Democrat.  It hasn't even been any hard decision.  Bill Clinton was better than Bush I , Al Gore was better than Bush II, Obama was better than McCain (hard decision as McCain was always honorable and trustworthy) and Romney had that election-killing "47% speech".
I thought Hillary Clinton was a walk-in against Trump.  An experienced Senator and Secretary of State VS an inexperienced sexist racist buffoon.  Easy choice and I settled in front of the TV to watch the blowout. 
OMG!  Election night 2016 was a horror show.  I was so horrified that I considered leaving the US.  But I had so much stuff it really would have been a serious bother or else Canada or Australia might have had me (and my retirement pay).  But I hunkered down and waited for Trump to be impeached as any honest Congressmen and Senators should have done.  That didn't happen, but, well, the next election wasn't far away. 
I'm worried.  Trump has arranged government in ways that could get him re-elected.  Voter polls are being purged of legitimate voters, voting locations are being shut down in places where he knows he will lose.  Mail-in ballots are being contested before they are even cast.  The Post Office, a trusted institution created in our Constitution. is being slowed so that ballots will arrive late.  Some places are demanding that mail-in voters come to prove their identity.
I find some comfort that many lifelong Republican strategists and power-brokers are fighting Trump.  But I don't know if they are enough.  All Trump needs to do is report the actual election day votes to declare victory and cause a crisis.  His supporters tend to vote ON Election Day.  The mail-in ballots are counted after the day.  And some investigations suggest that mail-in ballots are routinely dismissed/trashed and not considered "real".
Further, Trump has recently suggested that his followers deliberately try to mess up the system by voting twice.  Once by mail and once on Election Day.  Never mind that voting twice, trying to vote twice, or even encouraging people to try to vote twice is a felony...  There seems to be nothing Trump won't try to stay in office.  And he has expressed a desire for "12 years".
When Benjamin Franklin emerged from the building in 1776, someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”  He replied “A republic, if you can keep it.”  It is sometimes debated, but he did say that in a letter to a friend though.
So the question is, can we keep a republic (because we are not actually, technically, not  a "democracy" if we were, then  Al Gore and Hillary Clinton would have been Presidents by legitimate popular vote) and can we keep it.  This election will decide that.
Vote as if your children's future will depend on it.  Because it will...
Trump wants to be Putin.  Biden wants to be a normal US President.  That's all there is to it.

Labor Day 2020

This day, dedicated to working, is important.  It is a celebration of effort to make our human world work.  I am retired.  Have been since March 1, 2006.  And I enjoy it. 

These days, I celebrate it for the people who work now and make my life easier.  The people at stores, the people who keep the electricity and internet working, the farmers who grow the things I eat, the people who make the clothes I wear and the appliances I use.  The people who do things I don't even know they do...

So today is a good day to review my own working career.  Read it if you wish, don't if it seems boring and routine.  Some of it is certainly more exciting than other parts.

To start, let's just say that, as The Eldest Child, I got assigned work early in life.  Trash removal, dishwashing, weeding the garden, etc.  I did advance to kitchen helper at 10 (a duty I enjoyed).

From there came mowing the lawn.  That was actually too early, but apparently Dad hated doing it.  The handlebar of the mower was about as tall as I was.  I mowed the lawn for 6 years until I went to college.  But mowing was something I did know how to do even if it was difficult.

So my first paying job was mowing some neighbors' lawns.  After that, I worked at a gas station each Summer.  Below minimum wage of $1.25/hr.  The owner said it was justified because the cash register was always a bit short (never mind that he took money out and put it in his pocket.  But it was a paying job, and I still know how to clean a windshield properly.

The next Summer, I took my experience mowing lawns to a job mowing an Army Base.  Talk about "endless grass"!  8 hours in Summer heat.  I always thought i was going to die by the end of the day.  But I didn't and that was a good lesson.  And at 16 I was also working a Saturday and Sunday newspaper delivery with a neighbor friend.  Sunday was night work and I learned to keep odd hours as a result.

When I got out of High School, I took a Govt test for jobs for Summer work in an office.  The local Naval Base was transferring old paper records of retired naval personnel to microfishe and 6 of us had to go through a folder at a time, organize it by date, and remove everything older than some year I forget now.  The removed files were reviewed by the Office Manager (he had a Naval rank, but I've never been able to remember any military ranks). 

He met with us individually once a week for accuracy ratings and suggestions.  After a few weeks, he showed me the group chart.  He said he was showing it to me because I had the highest productivity and greatest accuracy of the group.  Not by just "a little", I was almost off his chart.  And because he wanted me back the next Summer.  And he suggested I had a talent for administrative work and might want to consider that for my future.

But I went off to college.  I wasn't all that interested, but my parents assumed it and I wasn't about to argue against getting out on my own a bit.  Classes came in 2 kinds.  Stuff I easily understand and stuff I couldn't figure out,  And it was 1968 to 1972  and I became very politically active.  Let's just say I took some courses that were easy for me and learned some stuff, but failed at some rquired ones and left.

So I spent a few years in department stores.  Worked my way up to being in charge of 1/4 of one and realized I was going nowhere.  The difference between being a floor clerk at minimum wage and "1/4 store manager" was 25 cents per hour. 

A friend suggested the US Government "Professional and Administrative Career Exam and I took it.  Scored in the 100th percentile in all 5 categories.  I got an offer from 1 Federal Agency (General Services Administration).  One was based on knowing Fortran 4 and COBOL programming languages (saw no future in computers, LOL!).  One was based on my SAT math skills in the Finance Office  (sorry, but skills at geometry and solving simultaneous equation doe NOT mean you are good with a caclulator and an accounting sheet).  The last was a more general administrative support office. 

I went there.  General stuff is more my forte.  Jack of all trades, Master of none; that's me.  I fit right in.  I went from Temporary Hire to Permanent in 4 weeks.  We kept track of furniture and office equipment.  As with my Naval Base job, I was outstanding at it.  The office kept track of GSA stuff, but also Presidential Committees and Committees and Senate and Congressional Offices. 

I was quickly assigned the latter inventories.  And then we gained Pennsylvannia as part of out "Region".  The Congressional inventories were all crap.  I spent 6 months conducting furniture and equipment inventories in PA and then tracing all the purchases and transfers from the earliest records.  When I was done, we had a clean inventory of all Government furniture and equipment.  I got an award.

After that, I was competed for in various office.  I stayed where I was, but changed to Fleet Management, Space Management, and finally Telecommunication Management as a GS-12.  But I couldn't advance beyond that there.

I would have had to become "Management".  And quite frankly, I'm not good at it.  I hate to tell other people what to do.  As a self-starter, I tend to think you either know what you should be doing, or you are just incompetent.  And I only met one "Manager" in my career who was actually good at "management".  I am a strong proponent of 'The Peter Principle'.  Most Managers are people who are no longer productive, but can transmit orders from above...  I still routinely read 'Dilbert' for reminders of basic management stupidity.

I had to move to a new office with a higher non-management pay-grade to get a promotion. Fortunately, most of my suoervisors left me alone to do my work.  I benefited, they benefited, the agency benefited.  I basically saved the agency $1-2 million a year. 

And that's not mentioning being the Team Leader for White House inventories for 2 years.  At GSA, we had one 50character code for executive desks.  The White House is full of them, and wanted differentiation.  So I created a 6 digit code complete with pictoral examples of the differences.

My last job was to manage voice telecommunications costs.  We got digital records from our vendor, but they were unreadable (proprietary).  It took 6 months, but I learned how to read the data.  Databases are weird.  The useful data can be divided in many ways, usually punctuation or spacing.

The vendor was pissed.  The agency contractor was impressed (they hadn't figured it out).

I told management that I would be retiring in March 2006 (the first day eligible).   I told them about 3 regional employees who were qualified and willing to take over my job, but they didn't want to offend a Regional Office. 

So we interviewed newbies. None were qualified, but one did have some computer skills and a customer-friendly attitude.  I taught her everything I knew for 6 months.  But she was mostly just a clerk. 

After I left, a co-worker emailed me to say the entire program had fallen apart.  The new hire had immediately moved to an IT support position, and Management had eventually assigned 3 full time people to do what I had done and they all said it was "impossible".

So I leave off today saying that I was a "worker" and never "management" when I could avoid it all the useful days of my working life.  I worked hard at mowing the grass on my first days and I never ordered other people around after that.

So, Happy Labor Day to all...

MANY ODD THINGS

Sometimes, a few days are just odd stuff:

1.  Got a first cucumber.  Mmm, good!
2.  First tomato fruit on the vine.  I planted late because I kept waiting for the rain to stop.  It hasn't yet.
3.  The flat Italian beans are finally coming in.  I have some every day.
4.  Watched a hornet catch some bug and eat it.  I made sure not to bother it.
5.  Found a dead possum in the backyard.  I put it in the drainage easement (wearing heavy rubber gloves).  There, it will decay fast and produce no smell as the water carries everything away. 
6.  Finally figured out the new car "Auto Stop&Start".  The description from the dealer was useless.  Finally looked it up in the manual.  Obvious.  Could have saved 3 months of annoyance.
7.  Figured out the cruise control, too.  The buttons to push made sense after looking at the manual, but icons are never clear UNTIL you see what the designer meant by it. 
8.  Have to call the bank.  They ordered checks for me at "no charge" and charged me.  I called in August and they agreed to issue a credit.  And they ordered new checks because there was an error in my name.  The new checks arrived perfectly, and the statement showed the credit.  But then they charged me for the new checks.  So, another call to fix that.
9.  I called a tech support place for help in getting my AOL email to my Apple email (much easier to use).  It cost #9.95 but "OK, they fixed it".  But the credit card statement had another 6 charges of $0.10 each for a bunch of "charities.  I issued a complaint to my credit card company.  They probably wondered why I bothered about 6 $0.10 charges.  Well, the charges would have continued.  And the credit card company had to do all the work resolving the issue. 
10.  My new Subaru came with an oddly small towing hitch.  1.25" coupler bar.  I ordered larger parts to adapt from Amazon.  Then realized it didn't matter.  The towing capacity is only that of the weakest part.  Amazon let me return them for free.  I love Amazon!
11.  Black-eyed Susans are taking over spots in my yard.  It started with a volunteer  10 years ago.  They have been finding places they like better ever since.  And since they bloom all Summer, I'm spreading them to let them find more places they like..
12.  Same with purple coneflowers.  They don't spread as quickly, but they do spread.  A yardful of yellow Black-Eyed-Susans and Purple Coneflowers wouldn't be the worst thing (and I have other perrenials.
13.  The Washington National baseball team is driving me crazy.  They won The World Series last year, but can't win a game this year.  They are the 2nd worst team.  They either win by like 12-2 or lose 5-4. 
14.  The basement heat pump has a tube to the laundry tub for pumping out collected water.  Heat pumps are also de-humidifiers.  Various things can go wrong.  The collection reservoir can get blocked with algae, the pan in the inside can get tilted over time and spill into the bottom (caused water to seep out at floor level.  I got overflow 2 weeks ago.  I cleared the tube with stiff wire, added a bit of bleach to the reservoir,  and laid down old towels to absorb the floor seepage.  It worked.
15.  If the rain doesn't stop for a few days, I am going to go quite mad.  The oil squishes everywhere I walk.  The grass lawn loves it!  And do the weeds everywhere.  And the Asian Tiger Mosquitos!!! 
16.  I really have to solve the chair problem.  The old one has a back to short to support my head, te new one doesn't allow me to cross my feet so the cats have "The Lap".  A big recliner I bought falls forward so much I slide off it.  I need to turn the big one over and limit its forward movement.  It's a great chair otherwise. 

There is more, but I have to stop somewhere...

Civilazation 2 Game

Well, I've gone and done it now!  I found a way to play the old 32-bit Civ 2 Microsoft game on my modern Mac.  Addictive to me as ever.  I LOVE this game.

The World I've explored.  My Part of The World (the gridline places).

 I won a couple nights ago.  I built a spaceship and landed it on Alpha Centuri while the other 3 Civilizations (English, German, and Mongol) tried to join to kill me.  First time I had played in almost a year.  Now I have to try the next level up (where the AI begins to cheat to make things harder).  But I needed one good win to get used to the game again.

Each game takes about 40-100 hours to play.  And I win about 50% of the time.  I say the game "cheats", because it builds military units and city advances faster than it should.  That isn't a complaint; that's just how the game makes things harder as you advance.

When I used to play it obsessively a decade ago, I won 1 game of the 4 I tried at the top level.  I want to get back to that.

It's a detailed game.   If your people become unhappy, that city goes into anarchy and your Government  falls.  But if you build a Temple to make them happy, you are not building a Marketplace to gain gold or a military unit (and there are many from Warrior to Armored Vehicles and Stealth Bombers).  Tech advances go from spears to Nuclear Weapons.  And there are Wonders Of The World to build that provide some advantage to all or some cities. 

The levels are Chief, Warlord, King, Emporer, and Deity (or something like that).  So I won at Warlord.  Next is King.  You have to adjust some strategies at each level because what works best at one level doesn't work best at the next.

It is altogether complicated.  Well, that's why I play it.

I guess I will start a new game at the next level next week. 

Spring Rolls And Stir Fry

I love egg rolls and stir fries.  The stir fry is fairly easy if yu make sure to have everything prepared before you start cooking.    A co-worker of my Dad once said "cook til crisp".  It s easy to overcook the veggies in a stir fry.

The eggrolls are trickier.  Actually, I make Spring Rolls.  If I understand it correctly, Spring Rolls have meat,  Eggrolls don't.  I  buy baby Bok Choy mostly for the leaves.  They make a good start for holding the contents.  But spinach works and even green leaf lettuce.

I usually make a mix of roughly-chopped shrimp, shallots, boy choy stems, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes.  Some minced water chestnut or celery for crunch.

The Fry Baby works great for them.  Just wide and deep enough.  I deep fry in lard.  Fries better, and I don't make them so often to worry about it.

A good tossed salad, 2 small bowls of Duck sauce and hot mustard, and I'm set!

I have to mention that Egg/Spring Rolls from local chinese restaurants USED to by crisp and tasty.  Now they are mostly mush.  I bet they buy them now pre-made and frozen.  So that's why I make my own.

I also make my own fried shrimp.   A local place sells good large fresh deveined shrimp.  After removing the shells, I toss them in some cornstarch, dig each in a scambled egg and then in Panko or Italian canned bread crumbs.  Fry for a couple minutes til the coating in light-to-medium tan (depends on how cooked you like your shrimp).

BTW, I have a large-mesh skoop for the fried stuff and a fine-mesh scoop to scoop out the crumbs.  Removing the crumbs keeps the Veggie Crisco or Meat Lard fresher longer.

And I use Angel Hair Spaghetti in place of Chinese Noodles. It is just easier.  And the meat in my stir fry was cubed smoked pork shoulder.

I buy one about 3x a year, cut it into 2" slabs, smoke it, and cube it.  Divide it into 4 ounce portins and set each into sandwich bags for future use.    Same with steaks.  Chicken thighs get packed whole.

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. 

Meal Prep

I enjoy preparing and cooking food.  Slicing, chopping, peeling, etc is relaxing in a way.  I have a good set of Wusthof Classic knives and holding block that I bought from a cutlery store going out of business that was literally putting up the "Going Out Of Business" sign as I walked past.  25% of original price.

I added some individual knives later at regular price online but they weren't worth it mainly.  I find I don't really use the slightly curved "chef knives" often.  But there were 2 real gems.  The "Deli Knife" is great.  Though designed for cutting sandwiches without tearing them apart, the serrated blade and offset handle makes it easy to cut anything.
 

The Santoku knife has airpockets on the sides to reduce food sticking.

I use the Santoku for almost everything, the deli knife frequenty, and my paring knife next most. 

I use the Santoku daily, the deli knife frequently, and my 2 paring knives often (one is a mini santoku).

I have other cheaper sets, some knives of which are not bad.  And a set of Ginsu knives (they are actually decent.  Someday, I am going to built a knife block to hold them all.  The construction is not all that complicated, but it would be about 2' wide.  I would lose some counter space, but gain some drawer space.  But at least that "once in a month knife" would be easily available.

Like that "scary-as-hell-cleaver"...  I almost cut off a fingertip the first time I used it!  Sharp AND heavy with a round slippery wood handle.  What could go wrong with THAT?  I think I should reshape the handle..  It might be safe after that.  Or in case of zombies or werewolves...

But I'm not writing this about knives and prep work.  I'm writing about cooking food.  I'm not really great at it.  I forget to start the timer for simmering spaghetti while I am cutting up my salad.  Or the timer goes off and I turn of the wrong burner.  I do a lot of M/W reheating to adjust, LOL!  It all works out well enough in the end. 

I'm somewhere between the harried parent cooking boxed mac and cheese, that show "Worst Cook", and Iron chef.

Partly, I try to do too much.  When Dad was here in his last days, he said "Wow, you cook Sunday Dinner every night".  Maybe...  I got into the habit of a small amount of meat, a green veg, a red or yellow veg, sometimes a starch, and always a fancy tossed salad.  Yeah, healthy, but I like that stuff.

Dad was a "meat&potatoes guy.  I could give him a small piece of steak and a potato, and he wanted bread with it (starch city).  But he hadn't had green veggies that hadn't been boiled to death before and was a bit surprised by them.  Mom learned to cook from her Mom and she was French, so veggies were boiled within in an inch of their lives. 

The first time I ever had "Chinese Food" a whole world of veggies opened up for me.  "Chewy veggies?"  what a concept!  I learned streaming, I learned stir-frying, and later M/W all of which delivered a "crunch" to veggies.  Dad said the best meals he ever had were here.  Which did lead me to think why he hadn't learned to cook and share that duty with Mom.

But even THAT is not why I'm writing.

I'm writing because sometimes I DON'T cook.  No, not "takeout" or "delivery".  The cold plate...

This was a recent dinner when I was too tired to actually cook.  Sliced hot sausage, cubed cooked ham, cooked shrimp, chicken breast, olives, diced tomatoes, reheated potato, reheated spinach, and the small container has homemade cocktail sauce.  The glasses have Zinfandel wine and a cocktail of gin/pomegranate juice/gingerale (I call it a "Cavebear Sling").  And not a SINGLE thing I cooked that day.  LOL!