Boring Day, less boring night
Jan. 11th, 2018 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdSlept well, did not wake up as soon as the alarm/lights came on. Close, though. Zoe was on the bed most of the night, toward the end near my ear purring, but she bolted when I got up. Then came back to inspect the shower, tub and sink. She decided the sink had too much stuff on it to climb up.
Packed lunch, was on the road on time, phoned AG partly as a test of the Pixel phone's BT, and partly to say hi. The good news is the connection and cell signal stayed strong, even in the work parking lot where I usually lost it with other phones. I was early enough to chat in the parking lot for 10 minutes. AG has started taking CalTrain to work, parking at SJ Diridon and taking the Amazon shuttle from PA to EPA. He missed his train and was waiting at the station. One thing he brought up is yesterday trains hit cars and people three times, so why don't they make all the train crossings go away and use underpasses/overpasses? More on this later. **
Banana, egg, Kind bar scored in the break room.
Watched a lot of CES live feeds. A couple were clips from the power outage & the floods. Signed up for pre-sales of an aromatherapy item called OBlend. 50% off when they start shipping. Looks like they will make most of their $$ on the oils. One of them is a legal cannabis derivative. All the vloggers were jazzed about an LG TV which was hidden from public view, but somehow everyone with a press credential saw it. All 10,000 of them. It's a TV which rolls down into a box about 65" long and 8" tall. With handles. Prototype, no ETA on production. Looks like a fad to me.
Way too much not-ready-for-prime-time VR gadgets. One company with a name which will get them sued is selling a full-body haptic suit which can deliver impacts a player might feel during a game - hits, punches, bullets, etc. Problem is they have no game companies signed up yet.
Peeve: What marketing cretin came up with calling it "The Internet of Things"? STUPID. and inaccurate. We've been calling it the interoperable network for 30 years. Interop for short. Also toasternet, because the first "thing" ever shown working on a trade floor by remote internet commands was a toaster. It even had a bagel setting. Humans had to load it. At the same show, someone in Australia controlled a boom box via Intenet in Las Vegas. I was there. It has also been called the connected home, connected office, etc. But things? Give me an effing break.
Lunch was tuna salad sandwich and diet Coke, and a small bag of fruit from one of the Safeway tubs. Unfortunately most of the mango was unripe.
Also found a beautiful Hawaiian live cam, which shows views of a whale protection facility, though I saw no whales. And there were baby eagles in a nest at a real estate office, of all places. Very happy a business went to the trouble to set up a quality cam feed.
Got a call from a Dexcom rep, who explained that I am qualified to get one of their Hgl stick-on monitors, they provide a reader so no phone app is needed (Medicare will not pay for it if you use a phone app). We talked about Kaiser, and later I received email from them that Kaiser has been asked to send a PO to them under Medicare, and I should hear from Kaiser some day. I will also send email to my diabetes doc.
Boss couldn't come sync, she has the start of the plague. She was okay with me WFH tomorrow to wait for the thermostat installers. And she reminded me that Monday is no-work/no-pay MLK Day. I truly do not like honoring that person with a national holiday, especially at the expense of a President who did way more for equality than any loudmouthed gospel spouter.
5:30, drove to the garage, plugged the car in and went upstairs expecting a quiet cafeteria (they normally don't open till 6:30). But there was some kind of special event, which meant lots of people, food being served, and limited seating because the event had converted the cafeteria into an auditorium. I found a seat anyway, and read from the tablet for an hour.
**While I was reading, AG interrupted with messages saying his train was stuck in PA because a previous train had hit a car in Sunnyvale. My guess is it was at the south end of the station, where the crossing is designed to kill. Two lanes become a right-turn lane and two straight-ahead lanes, which then merge into a single lane very quickly, and people often get backed up onto the tracks with traffic close behind. And it is not a very visible crossing gate. He was delayed almost an hour, which is odd because Sunnyvale can be single-tracked easily. Bottom line is they need traffic police at that gate to keep cars off the tracks. Or an overpass.
6:30, car was 80% charged, more than enough to go home, and traffic had let up some. Also, the exit from the garage has no stop lights and is an easier turn onto Shoreline than the road from the Hole. Back roads traffic was light, and there were no bicycles.
Home, swapped the cats. Spook is out, Zoe is in the room.
Delivered was an LED torchiere lamp for the office. A long time ago I had replaced the low wattage CFL lights - 6 of them - in the office lamp with 60W or 75W equivalents, and recently noticed the lamp shade (plastic) closest to me was melting. Pulled out the lamp and saw that they all were melting. The LED lamp looked like a FAIL at first, very dim, until I saw the +/- button, and now it is as bright as the old lamp. WIN!.
Prior to that task, I pushed, pulled and heaved the smaller (but not small) recliner from the office, where I had parked it to get it out from under the thermostat, to the far side of the livingroom, under the windows. Had to re-position all the throw rugs and sheepskin before & after. Whew. Spook saw that as a challenge to get onto the window sill behind it. But the shades were down. Vacuumed where the recliner had been.
At work I almost bought a round table for the train set, something on the back burner for a couple of months, but I needed to measure the tracks again. The two standard sizes are 48" and 60". Turns out the tracks will fit on 48", so I ordered a table.
Watched another episode of Oak Island. They are making progress, but the producers keep repeating stuff several times an episode, which makes a 1-hour segment worth 15 minutes. Also watched an episode of Shark Tank, which was almost all enthusiastic amateurs with stupid ideas and wildly over-valued companies. Two guys selling gym shorts which look just like standard lined men's swimsuits wanted $800k for 1.5% of the company. Usually sharks want 33-50% for that big a stake. There was also an update on a company which had made a deal with Mark Cuban, but could not come to terms, so Kevin O'Leary hijacked the deal and made them into a billion dollar business.
No PTI, I know not why.
Plans for tomorrow:
Fire up the MacBook, log into work email. Monitor it till the thermostat people arrive
Fire up Amazon Prime and watch highly recommended The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
There may also be some live CES feeds on YouTube. I think there's one more day of the exhibition.
Hopefully the Nest thermostat gets installed & connected to Google Home & maybe the Samsung hub
Packed lunch, was on the road on time, phoned AG partly as a test of the Pixel phone's BT, and partly to say hi. The good news is the connection and cell signal stayed strong, even in the work parking lot where I usually lost it with other phones. I was early enough to chat in the parking lot for 10 minutes. AG has started taking CalTrain to work, parking at SJ Diridon and taking the Amazon shuttle from PA to EPA. He missed his train and was waiting at the station. One thing he brought up is yesterday trains hit cars and people three times, so why don't they make all the train crossings go away and use underpasses/overpasses? More on this later. **
Banana, egg, Kind bar scored in the break room.
Watched a lot of CES live feeds. A couple were clips from the power outage & the floods. Signed up for pre-sales of an aromatherapy item called OBlend. 50% off when they start shipping. Looks like they will make most of their $$ on the oils. One of them is a legal cannabis derivative. All the vloggers were jazzed about an LG TV which was hidden from public view, but somehow everyone with a press credential saw it. All 10,000 of them. It's a TV which rolls down into a box about 65" long and 8" tall. With handles. Prototype, no ETA on production. Looks like a fad to me.
Way too much not-ready-for-prime-time VR gadgets. One company with a name which will get them sued is selling a full-body haptic suit which can deliver impacts a player might feel during a game - hits, punches, bullets, etc. Problem is they have no game companies signed up yet.
Peeve: What marketing cretin came up with calling it "The Internet of Things"? STUPID. and inaccurate. We've been calling it the interoperable network for 30 years. Interop for short. Also toasternet, because the first "thing" ever shown working on a trade floor by remote internet commands was a toaster. It even had a bagel setting. Humans had to load it. At the same show, someone in Australia controlled a boom box via Intenet in Las Vegas. I was there. It has also been called the connected home, connected office, etc. But things? Give me an effing break.
Lunch was tuna salad sandwich and diet Coke, and a small bag of fruit from one of the Safeway tubs. Unfortunately most of the mango was unripe.
Also found a beautiful Hawaiian live cam, which shows views of a whale protection facility, though I saw no whales. And there were baby eagles in a nest at a real estate office, of all places. Very happy a business went to the trouble to set up a quality cam feed.
Got a call from a Dexcom rep, who explained that I am qualified to get one of their Hgl stick-on monitors, they provide a reader so no phone app is needed (Medicare will not pay for it if you use a phone app). We talked about Kaiser, and later I received email from them that Kaiser has been asked to send a PO to them under Medicare, and I should hear from Kaiser some day. I will also send email to my diabetes doc.
Boss couldn't come sync, she has the start of the plague. She was okay with me WFH tomorrow to wait for the thermostat installers. And she reminded me that Monday is no-work/no-pay MLK Day. I truly do not like honoring that person with a national holiday, especially at the expense of a President who did way more for equality than any loudmouthed gospel spouter.
5:30, drove to the garage, plugged the car in and went upstairs expecting a quiet cafeteria (they normally don't open till 6:30). But there was some kind of special event, which meant lots of people, food being served, and limited seating because the event had converted the cafeteria into an auditorium. I found a seat anyway, and read from the tablet for an hour.
**While I was reading, AG interrupted with messages saying his train was stuck in PA because a previous train had hit a car in Sunnyvale. My guess is it was at the south end of the station, where the crossing is designed to kill. Two lanes become a right-turn lane and two straight-ahead lanes, which then merge into a single lane very quickly, and people often get backed up onto the tracks with traffic close behind. And it is not a very visible crossing gate. He was delayed almost an hour, which is odd because Sunnyvale can be single-tracked easily. Bottom line is they need traffic police at that gate to keep cars off the tracks. Or an overpass.
6:30, car was 80% charged, more than enough to go home, and traffic had let up some. Also, the exit from the garage has no stop lights and is an easier turn onto Shoreline than the road from the Hole. Back roads traffic was light, and there were no bicycles.
Home, swapped the cats. Spook is out, Zoe is in the room.
Delivered was an LED torchiere lamp for the office. A long time ago I had replaced the low wattage CFL lights - 6 of them - in the office lamp with 60W or 75W equivalents, and recently noticed the lamp shade (plastic) closest to me was melting. Pulled out the lamp and saw that they all were melting. The LED lamp looked like a FAIL at first, very dim, until I saw the +/- button, and now it is as bright as the old lamp. WIN!.
Prior to that task, I pushed, pulled and heaved the smaller (but not small) recliner from the office, where I had parked it to get it out from under the thermostat, to the far side of the livingroom, under the windows. Had to re-position all the throw rugs and sheepskin before & after. Whew. Spook saw that as a challenge to get onto the window sill behind it. But the shades were down. Vacuumed where the recliner had been.
At work I almost bought a round table for the train set, something on the back burner for a couple of months, but I needed to measure the tracks again. The two standard sizes are 48" and 60". Turns out the tracks will fit on 48", so I ordered a table.
Watched another episode of Oak Island. They are making progress, but the producers keep repeating stuff several times an episode, which makes a 1-hour segment worth 15 minutes. Also watched an episode of Shark Tank, which was almost all enthusiastic amateurs with stupid ideas and wildly over-valued companies. Two guys selling gym shorts which look just like standard lined men's swimsuits wanted $800k for 1.5% of the company. Usually sharks want 33-50% for that big a stake. There was also an update on a company which had made a deal with Mark Cuban, but could not come to terms, so Kevin O'Leary hijacked the deal and made them into a billion dollar business.
No PTI, I know not why.
Plans for tomorrow:
Fire up the MacBook, log into work email. Monitor it till the thermostat people arrive
Fire up Amazon Prime and watch highly recommended The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
There may also be some live CES feeds on YouTube. I think there's one more day of the exhibition.
Hopefully the Nest thermostat gets installed & connected to Google Home & maybe the Samsung hub
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