Days of Our Lines
Sep. 4th, 2017 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeird59 on the Hgl meter at 6:30 am, two Klondike bards, 30 minutes in the recliner then back to bed. Spook woke me up at around 10, and led me straight to her treats. Usually I wait till after I'm showered and dressed, but it *was* late.
Showered and dressed. Ripped a couple of Thai CDs then grabbed the camera and drove to Ardenwood, which was massively crowded. They had me park way at the back of a plowed field. My sandals loved grabbing loose clumps of dirt. Had I known how long the line was to get into the park, I would have turned around at the "park here" sign. Which was, actually, a sign.
It was about half an hour, would have been more but the park staff went down the line, and told families to just leave one person in line to pay for them all, and the rest could walk right in. That got a lot of the obligatory screaming babies out of line, which was fine by me. They offered seniors the chance to walk in now, pay on the way out, but that seemed a false economy, what with how many people would be leaving when I was.
The next surprise is for this event, they doubled the admission fee.
The tiny steam engine was fun to watch, but riding on the train was, as usual, a trap. It was about an hour's wait, and there was no round trip - the passengers all have to get off on the other side of the park and walk back. It's a long walk.
There were three model railroads set up, a tiny guage one in the granary, and two larger guage ones outside. The one by the Bay Area Garden Railroad Society was an amazing collection of knick knacks. I will post photos when I get them processed.
The milkweed plantation has grown a lot, another photo op. No caterpillars, but nearby in the sunflower garden there were a handful of monarch butterflies courting and mating. Got some good and not so good photos.
Thanks to the outrageous temps this weekend, most of the animals were out of sight. Sheep were out to pasture under the trees, there were some goats and a couple of pigs, and the chickens. Impossible to get good photos of the chickens due to the chicken wire. Irony. Or maybe aluminumy.
There was a woman by the goats speaking Thai to her little boy, but when I asked her if she was Thai she ignored me. Very odd.
The popcorn on a cob people were out in force, giving the kids cobs and kernel strippers, then making popcorn on the wood stove using a cast iron popper.
Another pair of lines ate up another half hour. Long line to order a hot dog & soda, another long line to pick up the hot dog but no line for the bar.
Peacocks were out and about, there was a peacock courting a peahen on the roof of the kitchen.
Lots of walking. There was some eye candy, here and there, mostly with children.
Left at about 3:30, it was a lot easier to find the car and exit than I expected, 3/4 of the lot was empty by then. Not a big surprise, it was hot, overcast, we had some rain droplets and a severe inversion layer, lots of smoke in the air from all the fires.
On the way home, stopped at the east bay Home Depot, and though they were out of the washers I was looking for, there were two tub stopper repair kits which looked like the washers in them may be winners. Low priority repair, I rarely take baths.
Home, the trip across the bridge was sad - so much smog you couldn't see anything past a hundred yards or so. Usually there's a glimmer of SF and Oakland.
Home, the garbage bin had been taken in for me, but I needed to wheel in the recycle bin. Plugged in the car, the trip to Ardenwood had drained the battery, I was on gasoline on the way back. My car app is malfunctioning, according to it, I have not driven since Saturday.
Dinner was Marie C turkey & stuffing, with defrosted mango chunks on chocolate ice cream. Note to self: eat the mango chunks while they are still frozen. Way too chewy.
Delivered was the logitech home hub. Set it up, copied the devices/activities from my remote, linked it to Smart Home and Alexa. Not as useful as I had hoped, it can turn on the Tivo with the home theater and TV, but it can't change channels by voice command. Or change the volume. The phone app can give me the program guide, but not a numeric keypad, so changing channels can be tedious. I was also hoping I could program an activity which would start up on ESPN or any other specific station, but no, it isn't that granular.
Watched the Pac-12 channel's 60-minute recap of the USC/Western Michigan game. Many bad calls, but they kind of evened out. WMU held their own until the last quarter, when the defense fell apart.
Ripped all the Thai CDs I wanted to rip, and sorted them by artist/album and did a lot of renaming, some of which went south.
The changes to the USB drive this morning did not take, so I may have to reformat it and copy everything all over again. But not tonight.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Home
Process photos
redo the music USB
Showered and dressed. Ripped a couple of Thai CDs then grabbed the camera and drove to Ardenwood, which was massively crowded. They had me park way at the back of a plowed field. My sandals loved grabbing loose clumps of dirt. Had I known how long the line was to get into the park, I would have turned around at the "park here" sign. Which was, actually, a sign.
It was about half an hour, would have been more but the park staff went down the line, and told families to just leave one person in line to pay for them all, and the rest could walk right in. That got a lot of the obligatory screaming babies out of line, which was fine by me. They offered seniors the chance to walk in now, pay on the way out, but that seemed a false economy, what with how many people would be leaving when I was.
The next surprise is for this event, they doubled the admission fee.
The tiny steam engine was fun to watch, but riding on the train was, as usual, a trap. It was about an hour's wait, and there was no round trip - the passengers all have to get off on the other side of the park and walk back. It's a long walk.
There were three model railroads set up, a tiny guage one in the granary, and two larger guage ones outside. The one by the Bay Area Garden Railroad Society was an amazing collection of knick knacks. I will post photos when I get them processed.
The milkweed plantation has grown a lot, another photo op. No caterpillars, but nearby in the sunflower garden there were a handful of monarch butterflies courting and mating. Got some good and not so good photos.
Thanks to the outrageous temps this weekend, most of the animals were out of sight. Sheep were out to pasture under the trees, there were some goats and a couple of pigs, and the chickens. Impossible to get good photos of the chickens due to the chicken wire. Irony. Or maybe aluminumy.
There was a woman by the goats speaking Thai to her little boy, but when I asked her if she was Thai she ignored me. Very odd.
The popcorn on a cob people were out in force, giving the kids cobs and kernel strippers, then making popcorn on the wood stove using a cast iron popper.
Another pair of lines ate up another half hour. Long line to order a hot dog & soda, another long line to pick up the hot dog but no line for the bar.
Peacocks were out and about, there was a peacock courting a peahen on the roof of the kitchen.
Lots of walking. There was some eye candy, here and there, mostly with children.
Left at about 3:30, it was a lot easier to find the car and exit than I expected, 3/4 of the lot was empty by then. Not a big surprise, it was hot, overcast, we had some rain droplets and a severe inversion layer, lots of smoke in the air from all the fires.
On the way home, stopped at the east bay Home Depot, and though they were out of the washers I was looking for, there were two tub stopper repair kits which looked like the washers in them may be winners. Low priority repair, I rarely take baths.
Home, the trip across the bridge was sad - so much smog you couldn't see anything past a hundred yards or so. Usually there's a glimmer of SF and Oakland.
Home, the garbage bin had been taken in for me, but I needed to wheel in the recycle bin. Plugged in the car, the trip to Ardenwood had drained the battery, I was on gasoline on the way back. My car app is malfunctioning, according to it, I have not driven since Saturday.
Dinner was Marie C turkey & stuffing, with defrosted mango chunks on chocolate ice cream. Note to self: eat the mango chunks while they are still frozen. Way too chewy.
Delivered was the logitech home hub. Set it up, copied the devices/activities from my remote, linked it to Smart Home and Alexa. Not as useful as I had hoped, it can turn on the Tivo with the home theater and TV, but it can't change channels by voice command. Or change the volume. The phone app can give me the program guide, but not a numeric keypad, so changing channels can be tedious. I was also hoping I could program an activity which would start up on ESPN or any other specific station, but no, it isn't that granular.
Watched the Pac-12 channel's 60-minute recap of the USC/Western Michigan game. Many bad calls, but they kind of evened out. WMU held their own until the last quarter, when the defense fell apart.
Ripped all the Thai CDs I wanted to rip, and sorted them by artist/album and did a lot of renaming, some of which went south.
The changes to the USB drive this morning did not take, so I may have to reformat it and copy everything all over again. But not tonight.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Home
Process photos
redo the music USB
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