Late

It was a medical morning. The plan was to get to Kaiser at 9 for a fasting blood glucose test, get my blood pressure checked and recorded, then attend a 10 o'clock group physical therapy session for the kneedy.

Got there at 8:45. Took a number: 92. Now serving #66. Had the needle in my arm at exactly 9 am. Found the blood pressure lady, she is in a corner of the lobby on the other side of the building and she has no connection to Kaiser's system, so though I get a reading, it isn't official. Boo hiss. Ducked into the cafeteria for orange juice and a muffin and took my morning meds, then got to the PT class 5 minutes early, which was late because they had a form to fill out.

Good class, teacher is a young man who obviously has some serious ballet background. Very good presenter, knows his stuff, and had us do a range of isometrics which mostly worked. Actually they all worked except the last one, which was weight-bearing and hurt my knee too much to put on my agenda. Ironically it was a quad stretch which he said I didn't need because that's a very strong and limber muscle in me.

A couple of nit-picks, it took one of the class members three tries for teacher to figure out that he was being asked to describe the physiology of why knees poop out with age. Once he got it, teacher pegged the answer. I was disappointed that he didn't describe any swimming pool exercises. And I need to find out if the exercise room at the apartment is free or if I need to pay extra for it. Need to get on a bike again.

It was a 2-hour class, lots of individual attention. Most of us had issues with our left knees, which makes sense to me if we're all right-handed.

Got to work at about noon, actually had some work to do for an hour, then lunch at IHOP, enjoyed the egg nog pancakes a lot. Back at work, there was a new build and I was able to close one bug which it had fixed.

Email from HR saying I needed to take the Harassment in the Workplace online course again. It is required every two years and the last time I took it was 5 years ago. It is incredibly stupid, and the bottom line is you have to be psychic to know if you are being offensive because it's the other person who decides that. It's to the point where a lot of the friendliness is sucked out of the workplace because you never know when you say something like "nice outfit" he/she will hear "wanna fuck?".  There are three women at work I would love to take to lunch, but there's no way I'm going to ask with the draconian rules Moto has in place. The whole course took 15 minutes, I got 100% right on the test, but only agreed with two of their answers.

Back to my real job, ad hoc testing on software for most of the rest of the day.

Needed windshield washer fluid, cold compresses and an Ace bandage so headed for the nearest Walgreen's, which is in a mostly deserted shopping center which once had a supermarket and some other huge store which turns into a Halloween store each year. There were dozens of kids on bicycles making like the parking lot was their motocross. Almost called 911 to report gang activity, just to be a curmudgeon.

Home, had dinner while watching OK State get put in their place by Iowa State. Both teams played very very well, and it ended in double overtime. It could have ended in regulation if OK's coach hadn't wimped out and gone for a field goal (missed) when they had 4th and 1 on about the 11 with almost 2 minutes left. Or if Iowa hadn't taken a knee with 38 seconds left. Mostly I was pleased to see a lot of good sportsmanship during the game, and after.

Plans for tomorrow:
Model rocket launch at NASA, though with the low clouds and rain forecast, this will probably be canceled
Talk on Mars at NASA in the afternoon
Assemble the second daylight reading lamp and hook it up in the bedroom. I have one here in the study. It sucks as a stand-alone light but is a great enhancement to the off-color CDLs which light the room.

Chrip

• Сб, 08:51: http://t.co/d3DADv4V rocket launch is still a go, but too cold & wet for me.

Rain Rain

 It is no fun taking photos in the wet&windy&cold  on an airport runway, so I did not go to this morning's lunar.org model rocket launch. I watched TV. Sat in the recliner with my feet up, an ace bandage on my left knee and a cold compress on top of it. Saw another entertaining upset, Michigan walked all over Nebraska, 45-17. If anything the game was more lopsided than the score. Also watched LSU clobber Ole Miss, and was thoroughly disgusted that one of the announcers thought it was rude of LSU to take a knee four times when they found themselves at the 1 yard line with about 3 minutes to go and ahead 52-3. It's called sportsmanship, idiot. He thought they were insulting the Ole Miss defense. No, the insult would have been to go for it.

Pumpkin has managed to use up a litterbox in a day, a new record. He is  back down to 13 lbs. I need to figure out how to check his Hgl levels. It's time for insulin, I think.

And in other cat news, 3 nights ago I set out the usual two canned food bowls, putting the brand X low-carb in the one on the left and the Friskies normal carbs on the right. The Friskies was completely consumed, the brand x almost untouched. Just for grins I swapped bowls, putting the empty one on the left and the full one on the right. In 8 hours it was empty. Next I only put out one bowl, with Brand X. It disappeared too. I have no idea what is going on.

Went to OSH and got 2' of Astroturf-like carpet, and then went to NASA for a lecture on the Mars missions, with a focus on Curiosity which is the next gen rover due to launch Friday morning. Then to Pet Club for a couple of litterbox refills.

Home, laid out the carpet under the study windows, and set up both litterboxes on it. The windows have inserts which would allow me to keep them open a couple of inches, I just need to ask Maintenance how they deploy. Anyhow, the small bathroom is a bathroom again, or will be when I vacuum it. Keeping the door closed for now, don't want any presents left in there.

The Big Game is on, but random samplings have shown it to not be living up to the name. I suspect Stanford was shaken more than they should have been by last week's blowout by a bunch of quackers.

Finally dumped out onto the livingroom floor the box with the stuff from the TV stand cabinets. Threw out a lot of manuals for things I no longer own, and a lot of cables and wires ditto, and bundled up a lot of other wires and put everything in its place. Except a power strip and heavy duty extension cord which came out of the bedroom and don't belong anywhere anymore.

Packages received today included something which claims to be a battery charger for my Droid Bionic, but it has no illustrations, and no English. There is a lot of Chinese on the box. But even if I get a friend to translate, the device looks iffy. I was expecting something like the charger for the HTC batteries, where you slap the battery into the charger. This one has two sliding prongs - plastic on the top, metal on the bottom - which are supposed to grab two contacts on the battery by the edge. Don't know which two, and even if I did I wouldn't trust it.

Also incoming was a pair of wireless speakers which I wanted to put in the study so I could hear the TV, but I need to build a connector. Or I may find something at Radio Shack. Or Fry's.

Plans for tomorrow:
None.

Pleasant surprise

I was wondering when the bill for cleaning my former apartment would come. I left it in a shambles, mostly blame the movers for not hauling lots of stuff to the dumpster which I'd asked them to do, since they had the people and equipment right there. But the place was also inches deep in cat hair, and probably needed heavy duty spot removing. I'd told the manager it was a mess, and arranged with him to bill be for anything which needed to be done. I was expecting a bill for about $800-$1,000. Got the invoice today, it came in at $460. I'd forgotten I had paid a deposit on more than just the cats, so instead of a bill, there was a check for $1,200. Yay!