It only sounds like a lot of stuff happened

[howeird]

When I got home late Friday night after the show, I uninstalled the Comcast freebie version of Norton Anti-virus, and installed the company's freebie enterprise version. After I uninstalled the first one, a little note showed up embedded in the lower right hand corner of the screen saying the build number, and it was not a genuine Microsoft product. Outlook gave the same error when I opened it, and closed the program. The instructions on how to troubleshoot this on Microsoft's support site all led to a page saying "pay $115 for a genuine copy".  I finally gave up at about 2 am.

First thing in the morning, which was about 9:30, I called MSFT customer service, and a fellow named Reuben with a horribly thick Hispanic accent asked all the right questions and few of the wrong ones, and after hitting the same dead ends I had hit, we did an RDP session and he did some things on his end with my product ID and license key, which let him activate the copy and fix whatever glitch was causing the problem. It took 45 minutes, but it solved both the Windows and Outlook issues.

So knowing that my machine was not going to shut itself off or something, I attacked the 2013 calendar project. I had about 40 photos, and could only use 13. It was not quite that bad, because some were sets or pairs of photos out of which I knew I could only use one. Like which one of the 3 Thailand eagles photos, the the two angles of the same roller derby girl, or the two angles of the longboat in front of the limestone island. In the end, I narrowed it down to only two of the Pangnga Bay photos. I could have done a whole calendar of that one trip. One of my sisters decided "no snakes" which took away three photos. And the picture of the shuttle piggybacked on the 747 was definitely the cover.

The routine for these calendars is the image needs to be signed (I have a macro for that) resized to 3300x2200 pixels and wrapped into the middle of a 3450x2700 pixel frame (I created a new macro for that). Then a caption is added to the bottom of each frame, which has to be done by hand.

I uploaded all the photos to Costco, and used their reshuffling feature to move the ones I liked most into the first 13 slots. Somewhere along the way I decided not to use any of the close-up portraits. I also wanted a mix of locations, not just Thailand. Ironically three of the winners were shot at the Thai temple in Fremont. I created a calendar from the top 13, added some Jewish holidays and put my Flickr URL at or near the last day of each month, and dropped it into my cart. They should be done in a week, but I won't start sending them out till next month.

While I was doing that I also did laundry, and even put it all away.

I watched the end of the Stanford game, took some boxes to the dumpster which is way overflowing. They need to collect twice as often as they do.

The music and text for Brigadoon callbacks finally arrived late afternoon. The song is too high for me, the text I can do but it will take some work to nail down a Scottish accent.

On my to-do list was get litterbox refills and nail clippers at Petco, some bullion cubes and Klondike bars from Safeway, but first go to the container store on Santana Row for something to replace the linen closets which I don't have in this apartment. That turned out to be a disaster. It took half an hour to get close enough to see they were not letting anyone else into the parking garage, and traffic was at a crawl. SJ Police only had one officer on hand, he was making traffic breaks on one of the main roads so people who could not find parking in the garage could exit onto the street. They needed two or three more at the main intersection, and maybe one of those portable electronic signs a couple of blocks away warning people off.

Petco was a win. They now have a newly remodeled SPCA adoption center in the back, so I took a look, and hung around in the adult cat room. There was one gorgeous cat I really liked, except he seems to have the same hands-off personality as Domino. And I don't think I really want another cat.

They only had one litterbox refill, and the price went from $16 to $23. Online it's $13.50 each for a 6-pack. They had about a dozen brands and models of clippers, I bought the house brand which looked like what I lost in the move.

Did not find the Safeway, GPS couldn't figure out which across the street it was. So I headed toward home, thinking I would stop off at a massage place I saw on the way there. I did, nice newly remodeled place, pretty lobby, new massage tables. Average massage. Went next door to the Country Inn for dinner. Very slow service, the soup and main dish had obviously sat out for a while before the waitress picked them up. Okay ribs, veggies were 95% broccoli and cauliflower  :-( rice was short grained and cold on top, lukewarm underneath. Dessert was a winner, and arrived quickly - huge-ass Napoleon, with real pastry top & bottom and a ton of custard in between. Only the one layer, but I'll suffer.

On the way home, a block away is a Lowe's, I stopped in and found a light assemble-it-yourself plastic rack similar to the one I have for T-shirts, and bought one. It is now set up in the bedroom, with much duct tape (silver on the back, white on the front) where I put my foot through the base shelf whilst pushing the stand-offs in place. Now I need to get the stuff off the floor in the office & livingroom onto the rack. Maybe tomorrow.

Plans for tomorrow:

Watch football
Look at my lines
Load up the rack & break down the boxes it frees up
Callbacks
Watch football, maybe at Hooters


Home, watched Oregon clobber Cal and UCLA walk all over Wazoo, who made a good run at the end for a comeback. 

Made myself some chocolate milk, and discovered Domino likes lactose-free milk.