No Food + Exercise = low blood sugar

But I planned for it, so no biggie.

Lots of Hard Work™ today. Starting with hauling the tall trash can of clumped litter out to the dumpster, I think it weighed about 60 lbs. Vacuuming up under the litterboxes was nasty - I need to fashion something to cover the gap between the edge of the litterbox and the crap receptacle. Duct tape may work. Anyhow, while I was vacuuming, the stupid machine ripped up a rubber litter catcher mat because the rollers didn't disengage when I pulled the hose out of the holder so I could use it without the roller part. The litter is basically sand, and it clogged the machine. Twice. Burning rubber smell, and no suction from the machine, it appears to be dead. They were on sale online so I ordered a new one tonight.

But to finish up I pulled the spare out of the storage room (when I lived in a townhouse, I had one vacuum upstairs and one downstairs). It works fine, but it needs bags, and the last one I have is in it right now. Ordered more of those too.

All of that was hard work. After rehydrating and reclining and being a cat magnet, it was time to get on with the plans.

Fry's, picked up copies of Doom 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV for about 1/3 of GameStop prices. Also got a USB 3 hub because the Nexus guide said I could use USB to transfer my music from the phone. I looked at vacuum cleaners but those are commission items, and I couldn't get rid of the clueless salescreature in the cheap brown plaid jacket, and I didn't like the prices. Good thing, it was cheaper online. Also on the shopping list was a stand for the Nexus. I found a case similar to the one I have for the Kindle Paperwhite, and also a very nice compact folding stand. Bought them both. The stand worked great, the case not so much - the photo on the package showed the case becoming a portrait direction stand, which is what I wanted, but when I got it home and opened it up, it was landscape mode, so that's going back.

Next stop, Starving Musician, bought a music stand very similar to the one I already have, with the differences I wanted: more intuitive way to raise the height and fold/unfold the legs. Got it home and found that the holder did not fold down, which is a FAIL, but the one from the old stand does, and was easy to swap (they are made by the same company). So I'm set. While I was there I also picked up a couple of their world famous bumper stickers, and got the biz card for the guy who does the used instrument buying, whom I have dealt with before, and he's now the owner. He may have been the owner then, too, I don't know.

Next stop, Petco, I had a 20% off coupon good for everything if I bought $20 or more of pet food. The cats have emptied the food tower in the dining room, and the one in the kitchen is low, and the 20-lb bag I ordered online won't arrive in time so I bought two $14/7# bags of food - one of their usual, anmd one of the hairball prevention version, which I mixed up at home and it filled both towers with a little left over. While I was standing up, mixing in a big bowl on the tray table, Kaan jumped up on the recliner and started eating out of the bowl. He followed me to both towers as I poured the stuff in.

Back to Petco. I spent a lot of time looking for a bed for Kaan to put on the patio. None of the cat beds were half big enough, neither were the affordable dog beds. Finally splurged and got him a medium sized dog bed for $50. But with the coupon it was $40. And I also got some Littermaid litter, because the Arm & Hammer odor-free isn't.

The new huge Safeway is next door to Petco, and I needed bananas and ice cream and frozen dinners, which I got, as well as splurging on 12-oz bottles of diet Coke instead of the much more affordable cans. Buy 3, and it's at a discount, so I have 3 8-packs. They fit in my lunchbox better than the 20-oz bottles, but the funky sawtooth bottoms don't stand up well on the fridge wire racks. But being able to cap them means they won't go flat overnight. A miracle - got everything on my list and nothing I didn't need.

Home, it took three trips to unload the car, what with the music stand, pet stuff, Fry's bag and groceries. The it was patio time.

Kaan loved his new bed:


Next was the USB hub connection from the Galaxy phone to the Nexus. Total FAIL, Google music did not see the phone. Not a total loss, I can use the hub in my laptop survival kit.

Propped up the Nexus, launched the Kindle App, read a little, almost fell asleep so I took a nap for an hour. Felt low, took a reading, Hgl was 70. Had two Mounds snack-sized bars, and made dinner, ate it outside and finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of The Flood. Not her best work, I was glad when it was over, and did not want to read the sequel. About 10 years ago I read what could be called a prequel, Oryx and Crake, which was a better read as I recall.

Next up is David Gerrold's The Voyage of the Star Wolf because it was on sale for 99¢ and because the last thing I bought of his was garbage - a compendium of his dreams. Actual REM sleep dreams, not his dreams and aspirations. Ho hum. So far this new book is not thrilling, he spends too many words describing the surroundings (as Pournelle says in his intro, it reads like a screenplay script). But I suspect it will get better once the setups are out of the way.

Dinner was a Marie Calendar beef pot pie - they have changed their cooking technique and the crust no longer browns. And there seems to be less inside the pie.

Hooked up the Nexus to the PC and uploaded a bunch of music. Worked fine. Speakers in the Nexus are okay, but not nearly as good as Marketing claims.

Plans for tomorrow:
Fry's return
YOTB concert
Watch some football