Even More Stuff

Well, as long as I'm in painting mode, why not paint the rusting BBQ smoker?   I had a can of Rustoleum high temperature black.  So I opened it and went to stir it up.

Bad!  It was like tar.  I ruined a shirt and jeans from the splashes.  The stuff CANNOT be cleaned off

Off to the DIY store...

Back with new stuff (and shaken in their machine) I went about painting the smoker.  Its not like a good paint job inside the house, but will serve.

And since I was trying to improve the smoker (I had cleaned it thoroughly of all grease and ashes), I thought why keep doing that?  Why not put some pans under the cooking rack to catch the fats that could be removed and cleaned separately?

Ahh, my friends, the world is designed to not provide pans that fit.  Every pan I could find was just too narrow or long or deep.  Well, "almost".  You know those cheap roasting pans that come with the oven?  They fit perfectly.

OK. so then I needed new roasting pans.  Those pans that come with the oven?  They don't sell them anywhere I can find.

Darn, now I need to buy fancy ones for actual oven use...

More Stuff

Since I painted the broom, I decided to make some planting pots a color I liked better.  I had bought a pack of eight 12" wide pots that were orange in a basketweave look.  I wanted them in blue.  So I bought a spray paint in "Wildflower Blue" described as "for plastic".

Painting the pots was tricky.  I couldn't just hold them and spray.  I like blue, but not on my hands.

I finally set up a 4"x4" post wedged into a cinder block and set the pots upside down on the top.  With a latex glove on my left hand, I sprayed, turned, sprayed, turned and sprayed.  Set each one on a newspaper to dry.  Then sprayed the top of the insides.

It is impressive!  Orange is now blue.

And having matching planter pots is great.  I used 2 for repotting Dracena and 1 for a Poinsettia.  I'll be moving other plants to the remaining matching pots soon.  Well, I do like blue...

Lots Of Stuff

I didn't post here for a while because things got busy.  Part was the stress of the World Series I was sure we would lose (yes, I am a fan of little faith).  Well, optimists may be happier, but pessimists are right more often...

But during that time, I just kept doing small things.

Some may sound silly, but they were important to me.  For example, I painted a broom.  I bet few people have ever done that.  There was a reason...

I loved the bristles on this one broom I had, soft but effective at catching dust.  But the handle broke.  I tried to find a similar broom without success.  So I cut the broken part cleanly and found a PVC pipe that just fit inside it.  I used construction adheasive to join the 2 pieces together.  That failed (I think the adhesive needed air exposure). 

So I drilled holes and put screws in.  That failed too.  The handle stayed wobbly.  But one thing I am is persistent.  I discovered the broom head unscrewed from the handle.  So I brought the broom head to the locval DIY store to see if I could find a matched replacement handle.  None on the replacement handles fit the threaded broom head.

But wandering through the hardware section, I noticed extension poles for roller paint brushes.  They fit!  But the broom head was green and the handles were bare wood or red metal.  I bought the red one.  And spray-painted both the broom head and handle green.

I am insufferably pleased with myself...

The Baseball World Series

I cant believe it.  The Washington Nationals won the World Series!  It was a record-setting sequence of games...

It was so weird.  As a Wild Card Team they played a one game contest against the other Wild Card Team, the Milwaukee Brewers.  The Nationals won.

Both of the best-of-five National League Division Series went the full five games. This was the first time since the 2012 NLDS that both series went to five games.

The Washington Nationals, winners of the National League Wild Card Game, upset the top-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers. The Nationals were 19–31 on May 23, then went 74–38 the rest of the season to finish in the top NL wild card spot.

They then played the St Louis Cardinals, winning in a 4 game sweep.

That meant they would play the Houston Astros, the team with the best record in MLB this year.

The Nationals won the 2 games at the Astro's stadium, suggesting an overpowering series.  But then, at home, the Nationals lost all 3 home games.  All the Astros had to do was win one of 2 games at home.

They didn't.  For the first time in MLB history, the home team lost every game.  From down 2-3 games and having to win both of the last 2 games on the road, the Nationals won both.

The Washington Nationals are the World Series winners.  On Saturday, the town held a parade.  Basically, all the roads were closed.  People went crazy. 

We are used to having winning teams here.  Yeah The Washington football won a few decades ago.  But suddenly, we have the Championship Hockey Team, the Championship Womens Basketball Team, and now the Championship Baseball Team.

I don't expect that will last, but it sure is enjoyable while it does!

US Baseball World Series

In a little over an hour, the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros are going to start game 1 of the US Baseball World Series (I phrase it that way because "they" call it "The World Series" even though the Rest Of The World is not invited and that annoys me).

However, this is the 1st time the Washington Nationals or the team they came from (the Montreal Expos) have ever appeared in the World Series.

I am a pessimist when it comes to local sports teams.  When they have a good year, they struggled.  Even when one occasionally wins some championship, it is "just barely" and certainly not repeated the next year.  Some cities have sports dynasties that last a decade.  On rare occasions, we get "a year".

I am accustomed to seeing the local teams choke.  But The Nationals have gotten this far and hope springs eternal...



Midnight update:    ------  We won...

A Political Thought

People have different political opinions.  I accept that.  I don't always agree with the majority but I try to understand varying points of view.  And political thought has been more divisive lately. 

I spend a part of my day watching political commentary, reading politics in the Washington Post newspaper, and thinking about news.

I majored in Government and Politics at the University of Maryland.  I am not active in politics, but I think about politics a lot.

Last night, as I lay in bed hoping for the sweet release of sleep, I found myself considering President Donald Trump.  I dislike him.  But that's not the important thing that came to mind.

As I laid in bed, an odd thought occurred to me.  What if some person managed to become President with the specific intent of ruining US American democracy internally and also set out to ruin our international trade/political alliances/reputation for helping others.

Well, that would be pretty horrible wouldn't it?  And then it occurred to me that such a person would be doing exactly what President Trump as been doing. 

Seriously, what would a person deliberately trying to ruin the US reputation overseas and domestically do that President Trump hasn't already done and is continuing to do?

I'm not going to list all sorts of things he has done.  There are sites that list them and are easily findable with a simple web search.  My concern is that I actually can't tell the difference between what President Trump has done and is doing and someone deliberately trying to ruin the US.

Am I the only person who has had this very uncomfortable thought?

Washington Nationals Baseball

The Washington Nationals, my local team, swept the St Louis Cardinals 4 games to none to win the National League Championship.  They will be playing in The World Series in a few days.  It is the first time a Washington baseball team has competed in The World Series since 1932.

The Washington teams have a long history of failure.  The joke used to be (playing on George Washington) "Washington, First in War, First in Peace, and Last in the American League". 

Teams moved away to other cities.  IIRC, one team became the Minnesota Twins, one later became the Texas Rangers, and the area was without a team for about 30 years.  I moved to this area the year the last team left, so I never had a local team.

The current team came from Montreal where the fanbase vanished after years of failure.  It was so bad, the MLB actually took over the team and moved them to Washington DC and sold them to a local wealthy family group in 2005.

The first years were difficult but the the new owners dedicated themselves to improved organization, new players,  and built a minor league farm farm system from scratch.  They traded for and drafted young players showing talent, hired creative coaches and managers, and treated players well with long contracts and fair pay.

The Nationals have experienced considerable success in recent years, winning division titles in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017, and winning the National League pennant tonight.  Some players have been with the team 10 years and new players have joined the team with great success.

One aspect of the team that impresses me is that the players enjoy playing together.  Good hits result in the player getting a "whole team dance" when he returns to the dugout.  And it doesn't matter if someone can't dance well so long as they try enthusiastically.  The excitement is contagious.

The Nationals started out the season badly.  They were 19-31 at one point and were written off by all the professional sports commentators.  And then things changed.  Injured players started returning.  The manager pushed 2 phrases:  "Tomorrow we go 1-0" and later "Stay in the Fight".

In August and September, the Nationals caught fire.  From failure, they became the hottest team in baseball.  They earned a Wild Card one-game playoff spot and won that.  Then they beat the LA Dodgers who had won 106 games (serious lots of wins). 

They earned the right to play the St Louis Cardinals who have a lot of experience in recent playoff games and won that series.  They not only won, they killed them.  They held the Cardinals to no earned runs for 35 innings.  The Cardinals got 4 runs tonight, but the Nationals had gotten 7 in the 1st inning. 

They will now play the winner of the NY Yankees and Houston Astros in the World Series.  I have no idea what will happen, of course.  But the Nationals have won something like 15 of their last 17 games and they are ready to play anyone.

If they lose, they lose (one team has to), but it has been a fabulous comeback from a bad start.  Whatever the outcome, I will remember this season.

Washington DC has a history of losing teams (other than the football team back in the 80s).  But the Washington Capitals Hockey team won the championship last year, the Washington Mystics Womens Basketball team won the championship last week, and now here come the Washington Nationals into the World Series...

It actually feels rather weird to think of Washington DC as a sports powerhouse...

I'm not actually much of a sports fan.  I don't watch games between top teams.  I do watch local sports teams when they are doing well.  Yeah, I'm a "Homie". 

But I'll watch every minute of the World Series games.  Because things like that don't come around often...

Wasted Food

Sometimes, you just don't finish doing something!

Two weeks ago, I bought a pork Boston Butt, a beef Steamship Round, and a package of 10 chicken thighs.  The pork is for smoking and cutting into cubes for pork stew and stir-fries. I pack the cubes into plastic sandwich bags 4oz per bag and I get enough for several months.

The beef is for roasting rare and slicing for sandwiches and a few 1/2" slabs to cube later with noodles and gravy.  The chicken was for "anything", so I just boiled it.  I normally bread the chicken with Panko bread flakes and bake it or saute it skin side down, and that works well.

What a disaster!  The chicken was mushy, but I did freeze them immediately.  For some reason, I kept putting off slicing the beef and cubing the pork.  Everyday, I saw them in the fridge and said "I've GOT to get at that today".  I didn't.  For over a week...

When I did, the beef had some discoloration.  The pork looked fine and it WAS smoked in 1" thick slabs, so I thought it would be preserved.  But last night, I decided I just didn't want to risk any of it.  I tossed it all into the trash.  $50 worth of meat, wasted.

I hate wasting food, but not at risk to my health.  Better safe than sorry.

I redid the chicken a couple days ago and it all turned out perfectly and I froze each thing individually.  I'll buy another Boston Butt and Steamship Round  next shopping trip (soon, I miss my pork stew and I'm out of fresh fruit too).

This time I'll chill them both and process them the next morning!  But I sure hated to waste all that...

Computer Fun

"Computer Fun" and I say that sarcastically.  I just spent 4 hours restoring processed and organized pictures that suddenly vanished.  Some background...

I use a Mac Mini.  It is small, but sufficient.  And I like the fact that it is solid state and doesn't need a fan.  It could use a few more ports, but I I have just barely enough and haven't needed more yet. 

I keep my files organized, especially the pictures.  IPhotos holds all the full-sized pictures by date.  When I crop, filter and resize them for blog use, they go into a new folder (like documents and applications do).  I think most people keep their pictures by subject.  I take too many to be able to find them that way.

So, in the Photos folder, I set up 6 subfolders"  Cats, Family, House, Other, Videos, and Yard.  Each of those folders gets a new subfolder each year (2018, for example).  Each year folder gets monthly folders (January 2018 is 1801).  Daily subfolders when I need one (January 20, 2018 would be 180120).  That may or may not seem seriously complicated, but I can navigate to any subject and day in about 5 seconds.

I did spend my career organizing information after all...  ;)

Now, also, Mac has an app called "Time Machine".  Connected to an external hard drive, it keeps automatic backs of all changes in files and by some program I know NOTHING about,  it connects to all past saves so that you can restore individual files, individual folders, individual programs or your entire computer.

And that has saved me more than once for individual files to the whole thing!  I LOVE TIME MACHINE!

So I went to add a Flashback Friday post on Marks Mews.  I choose them by scrolling through IPhotos It displays dates, and when I find one I want to use, I just go to that date in Photos (IPhotos is an app; Photos is a saved personal folder).

The original full-size picture was in IPhotos but the processed picture I wanted was not in my Photos subfolder.    And I discovered that half the pictures in my subfolders from 2016 and earlier were gone!  ARRRGGGHHHHH!

I should mention that while Mac computers have strong anti-hacking software built-in, I do use one called MacKeeper to look for adware, malware, useless files, etc.  And I was using it frequently the past few days.  I made the mistake of trying to download a TV show I wanted a quote from and ended up with a pop-up ads.

I didn't realize how aggressive MacKeeper could be defining "useless files".  It allows you to look at the list of files to be deleted, but file names can be difficult to interpret.  After reading a dozen and not seeing anything that worried me (most seemed to be if I needed to read something in a foreign language), I went ahead and clicked "OK".  It deleted almost a 1,000 files and gave me back   about a Gb memory, so I was rather pleased. 

Until I discovered a lot of processed pictures missing...  Now I'm not saying that MacKeeper did that, just that both things seemed to happen at the same time.  Maybe I got hacked at the same time.  But I am suspicious of coincidences!

So I went into Time Machine and tried restore individual folders from 2 days ago, iy didn't work.  So I looked at the Time Machine backups from a week before and those were blank.  I had to go back to August, and there they all were!

Not to get too technical (unless someone has a question), but I had to select specific folders for Cats, Family, House, Other, Video, and Yard one at a time and save one then then go back and do another. and double check because once it didn't restore (probably my fault, but that's why you check).

BUT!  They are all back now...  The Flashback Fridays post on Marks Mews is proof.

MacKeeper is a good app.  It does find adware, some tracking malware, and actually non-essential files.  But I will be a LOT more careful in the permissions I allow it in the future, LOL!

Locked CD Rom Drive

For What It Is Worth - 

I had a CD locked in the D drive and it suddenly just rattled.  I couldn't get it to play and I couldn't get the tray to open.  I was going NUTS.  Then, searching for an answer, I found a 15 year old post that said to stick a straightened paperclip into the small hole in the front.

I remembered about that soon as I read it, but I had forgotten!  Look for yourself on a Windows PC...

I didn't solve the "failure to play", but at least it got the CD out, LOL!

But when I got the CD out and tried it in the 2 tray it played fine.  I have to laugh that I'm keeping a Windows 95 (offline) working.  But I suspect I'll have to find a repair shop soon.

9-11

I will never forget 9-11.


My parents remembered The Great Depression and WWII as defining moments.  We both remember the John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assasinations.  I remember Vietnam and 9-11 and Mass Shootings more.

We think of animals as "wild" and sometimes "cruel".  They are just trying to survive.  We are the wild ones.  We don't do things like that for survival.  We do them because some of us are afraid, scared, cruel, uncaring, and fanatical.

We humans are sometimes inspired creators of beauty, invention, creative thought, and civilization.  Discoverers of mysteries of the universe.  So far as I know, no other living creature has ever looked at the stars and wondered what they were or deliberately took action to find out.  No other animal has ever contemplated its own death or what happens afterwards.

Only we.  And yet we kill each other not for food.  We cause pain for no purpose.  We commit mayhem, destruction, and death to our own kind.  We create the 4 Horsemen Of The Apocolypse in our own image because they are US...

Too many of us think "it's not the Earth the meek inherit, its the dirt". *   Way too often, we don't value those who just live peacefully; we admire those who command others and take without helping.

In the past 2 decades, we have seen the rise of hate-filled people finding each other (when once they were isolated and feeling alone) organizing themselves via the internet.  Mass murders are becoming common, as individuals are encouraged by each other to commit mayhem.

As an even minor matter, flash mobs are increasing.  Lately, people driving ATV have started to swarm areas of some cities, terrorize pedestrians and car drivers and then suddenly disappear along paths where police cars cannot follow.

Does that remind you of A Clockwork Orange"?

I'm not saying this is new.  And I don't want to say society is falling apart or that the newest generation is evil.  The ancient Greeks even complained about that.

What I'm saying is that we need to reorganize our society to provide more early intervention and therapy rather than just build more prisons and punish those different from we more peaceful types.  I think there are usually causes for hate.  And if those are addressed, the later problems won't occur as often.

* One of the most perfect songs ever written about unethical attitude was "The 7 Deadly Virtues" sung by Mordred in 'Camelot'.

"The seven deadly virtues, those ghastly little traps

Oh no, my liege, they were not meant for me

Those seven deadly virtues were made for other chaps

Who love a life of failure and ennui

Take courage-now there's a sport

An invitation to the state of rigor mort

And purity-a noble yen

And very restful every now and then

I find humility means to be hurt

It's not the earth the meek inherit, it's the dirt

Honesty is fatal, it should be taboo

Diligence-a fate I would hate

If charity means giving, I give it to you

And fidelity is only for your mate

You'll never find a virtue unstatusing my quo or making my Beelzebubble burst

Let others take the high road, I will take the low

I cannot wait to rush in where angels fear to go

With all those seven deadly virtues free and happy little me has not been cursed"

I have to add more.  I was sitting at the computer today and listening to the radio and they mentioned  the exact time the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon.  I worked sort of near there. 

I felt a thump up through our solid building.  I didn't know what it was at the time, but I understood after.   We were all focussed on the World Trade Centers at the time.  Part of our office was "Emergency Management", so we had several TVs around.  We were watching the towers fall in disbelief.

I don't recall the timeline of events all that well now.  We were just shocked and stunned.  I could know better even just re-reading the posts from the time, but that not the point. 

I was and still now so angry that anyone could do such things. 

My day went something like this (and if I have some events out of place, forgive me):

1.  Hey (Division Director) a plane just crashed into one of the Towers in NYC.

2.  OMG, a 2nd one hit (dawning awareness).

3.  I feel a thump through the building.

4.  Smoke on the horizon.

5.  The first Tower falls in real time. 

6.  We realize the Pentagon has been hit.

7.  The second tower falls.  Many in the conference room think it is a replay but I shout "its the other one".

8.  We are all just stunned.  Thought the first was a horrible accident.  It all seems incomprehensible. 

9.  It all starts to sink in. 

10.  All employees are dismissed.  "Leave now"!

11.  My office is on the top floor.  We have some roof access.  We see smoke from the Pentagon.

12.  The streets are clogged.  No one is moving.  I tell my carpool, we aren't leaving.  We are only a couple blocks away from The White House, but this old building is all stone.  We are safer her until the streets clear.

13.  We hear about a 4th plane coming for DC.  Most remaining people head to the basement.  I stand on the roof watching.  We aren't the target.  If it hits us, I want to watch.  OK, I 'm crazy.  But I wanted to see.

14.  That plane went down in Pennsylvania the radio says.  We don't know why.

15.  I watch fighter planes circling around DC.

16.  The streets are clearing.  I tell the carpool we can leave.  I'm the driver that day.

17.  Some roads are blocked.  I end up up on an unfamiliar path, but finally recognize a road,  The roads there are completely empty. 

18.  My whole carpool is crying.  So am I.  I use nearly a whole box of tissues keeping my vision "sort of' clear.  The roads are empty though...

I don't recall much the next couple of days.  I don't even remember if I went to work the next day.  That doesn't matter. 

What matters is that I developed a hate of the specific people who did that and I will not let it go. 

"Never forgive, never forget".