Need to learn how to step away...

Slept really well. Only woke up once instead of 2-3 times, and was roused from sleep by some idiot banging on my door at 7:15, which I ignored because there are doorbells on each door and they work. And who the eff bangs on doors at 7 am on a weekend? Spook was spooked, so I checked to make sure the car was still there and there were no police/fire vehicles out front. Went back to sleep, about 10 minutes later someone was knocking on next door neighbor's door, on the side nearest my bedroom, which set both their dogs to barking, which sent Spook to the side windows to check it out.

Back to bed, didn't wake up again till 9:30. The lights go on automatically then on weekends. 7:30 weekdays. Even though I'm outta work, I'm keeping those times.

On my white board was a note to go to lowe's and look into a more trouble-free toilet, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't think this was the time to spend that much $$.  So I made a note to go to CVS or Target instead, and get some diabetic supplies I was running low on. BD alcohol wipes is at the top of the list. I almost bought those my two trips to Kaiser yesterday, but the lines were way long. Too long to justify a similar price to what I can get somewhere with shorter lines.

As I was out the door, I was going to put my unemployment form in the mailbox, but the mail was already delivered. In the box was a used iPod Touch which I was going to load up with tunes and see if it does a better job than the iPod classics which the Ford manages to brick. The classics have lame firmware which shuts down the device if it thinks it is low on battery, and keeps it locked for days, but it will eventually take a charge and work again. There's also something wrong with the Ford's firmware, because it will be playing fine, but at random times it just stops, and tells me the device is not connected.

So I took that inside, plugged it into the big PC, but iTunes said there was a problem with iTunes, and it could not support the new device. That turned out to be a lie, the problem is in Windows 10. But I didn't figure that out till I'd uninstalled all the Apple bits on the PC and got a Win10 error trying to re-install it. Several variations of tries later, I decided to just walk away.

I drove to Target, they didn't have BD, and they also didn't have coated Vitamin C, so I left. 

By now it was almost 4 pm, and about time to go to MV and be an hour early to meet Janice. She's off to Yosemite tomorrow with someone who has never been, and knows nothing. I gave her the two DVDs I'd made for her, which I thought I was making for her, but she thinks they are fo her friends in Fiji. Which is ridiculous, because they have no power or wi-fi or internet or DVD player. The village was leveled in the cyclone. She has a DVD player in her laptop, which she'll bring with her this summer, meanwhile the DVDs are for her to have.

There was some supermodel quality eye candy there, both as I played on the laptop killing time, and when J was there. One was at the table next to us, holding her phone so we could all see her engagement ring. Very tall, not particularly good looking Asian man joined her after about 15 minutes. She was dressed in High Maintenance™, he was in jeans and a thin denim shirt.

After, I stopped off at the CVS downtown MV, they also only had generic alcohol swabs (those are too thin, and too many of them dry up) but they had lancets and Vitamin C 500mg in liquid caps, so I bought those. I had to survive a very slow worker who was putting sale labels on every single house brand vitamin, while carrying on a conversation with an out of work bum friend of his who refused to take a hint and get lost.

Home, opened the vitamin jar (it is opaque) and was bummed to find that the gel caps are twice as big as they should have been. Back to the drawing board.

Dinner was stuffed cabbage & sourdough bread, and the last of the cantaloupe.

Watched enough of the NFL channel to know the 49ers still have 2 QBs. But rumors are rampant. IMHO, Colin K is not going to make a full recovery from his recent injuries, and he wants to get traded because he know that with the lightweight O-line, he would be injured again pretty quickly. He needs a team which has a great front 4. That isn't Denver, which may be why he didn't leap at that opportunity. Opportunity is the wrong word, since he's under contract, and can be traded wherever the 49ers want, now that he has invoked his "play me or trade me" contract clause.

Tried some more moves with the iPod, but iTunes refuses to install. What's holding it up is a WIn10 error which won't allow the USB driver to install, which means now I can't even connect the device to my Win10 Monkey Media iTunes replacement software.

So I've ordered an android music player instead.

One of the things I ought to do in my now-free time is rip all my CDs, starting with the show tunes.

Today's second time eater was firing up the replacement Tivo and telling it not to show me any of the Spanish language stations, or the SD channels, or the handful of subscription-only channels I don't subscribe to but it seems to think I do.

It's expected to be raining again. I've decided that SJC's rain gage is busted, and shifted to one in Los Altos, which is at a higher elevation (500') which means its readings will be higher than Sunnyvale's actual, but closer than SJC's. Los Altos showed 2" of rain in the past 3 days, SJC claims only 1/4".

Most of my labs have come in, and they are far better than September's. I'm sure that my September tests were all botched, especially my A1C, because all my results this time were way better, which makes little sense with the binge eating I've done in the past 3 weeks. Yeah, I've also skipped a lot of meals, but still. I've gotten less exercise, too. But what the doc will see is more than a full point reduction in my A1C, some of my lowest ever readings for the liver and kidney diseases, and an anomaly of off the scale potassium, for no reason I can think of.

BofA failed to download my data tonight, so I went to the web site and found out they wanted to annoy me. They had botched my account info, putting two versions of my address on (one with and one without zip+4) and it reminded me to nuke my work phone. And it wanted to email me a verification code for my PC, which I verified weeks ago. While I was doing that, I saw that they were processing a direct deposit from my ex-company, but it was way too small to be the severance pay. Turns out to be out annual bonus. Worth 2.5 weeks of salary. So maybe I'll get that toilet after all.

Plans for tomorrow:
None.
Maybe go to Lowe's & Home Depot and buy a better toilet.
Read
Play online
Take out the garbage

What do you mean, weekend?

So I found myself online at 1:20 am, which is not a rare occurrence, but when my Boston cousin asked me on FB if I had insomnia like her, I told her it was not quite 1:30 am here and I was waiting for it to become 3:00 in half an hour.

So I did.

And I went around the house changing all the clocks. About half of them just needed a DST switch set, some needed just the hour changed, at least two needed to be rolled up a minute at a time. I retired all my internet radios because the lawyers ruined that for me, but I was surprised to discover that the atomic clock connection in the weather station on my night table, which had never, in the 20 years I owned it, synced before, had automatically updated.

Got to sleep shortly after that, Spook "helped" by attacking my feet. Only woke up once, at 5:30, and again when the alarm went off at 7:30. I should have disabled that. Back to sleep because I needed it, and at 9:30 the lights came on (that's my weekend programming) and I felt very confused, thinking it was Monday. Took a blood sugar reading, it was a very low 60, so I grabbed the last Klondike bar, sat in the recliner and turned on the TV morning shows. There was a story about bulldozing an apartment complex on a hill in Pacifica which was about to slide over the cliff into the ocean. After the story, the anchorcreature said that the weekend update would continue "right after this", and I'm all "Weekend? What weekend?" It took a few minutes (like maybe 15) for the ice cream to click in, and I remembered it was Sunday.

Back to bed, not to leave it again till 1 pm.

Did my usual morning stuff, and after a bunch of "should I? Shouldn't I?" I drove to Lowe's, found exactly the toilet I was looking for (it advertises that it's tall and it can flush a bunch of golf balls without clogging). But there was no one around to help me order it and arrange installation. I went to the customer service desk, they paged the guy, he called back and claimed he was with a customer. I went back to his section, and there was no one helping any customers. So I left, figuring I could just as easily order online. More easily.

Next stop, Safeway, stocked up on ice cream, lactose-free milk, sugar free preserves (yesterday while pulling some crackers out of a cabinet, a glass jar of apricot preserves fell out onto the floor, a whole 2 inches, and shattered. It left a jar-shaped glob of orange goop on the floor. And lots of little shards of glass).

I did not buy an ice cream cake, $20 seemed usurious. Also did not buy a black forest cake, because they had none. Almost bought a German chocolate cake, but decided that while this was my childhood favorite, they no longer make the cake with devil's food, it's barely chocolate at all. Unlike the BF cake.

On the way from the car to returning the cart, I thought there was something I could get at Rite Aid next door, but the thought flew far away, never to return.

Last night at CVS I was disappointed to only see milk chocolate hollow bunnies. I prefer dark. Maybe that was it. Somehow I think not.

Home, watched some TV. A NatGeo special on cats caught Spook's attention for about 30 seconds


I love this photo!

Went online and the toilet was selling for $30 more than the in-store price, and no option to install it. :-(

It has been raining lightly all day, but it has been warm, so I sat on the porch in the rocker and nodded off a few times. Finally it got nippy and the wind picked up, so I went inside. Caught up on way too much online stuff.

Still have not had dinner. Had a late lunch of the rest of the home made chicken soup from yesterday, with added water, bullion and won tons. And I've been drinking a lot of the lactose-free chocolate milk I bought at Safeway.

Took out the garbage & recycles. Cut up a bunch of boxes, bundled them for pickup and set them alongside the recycle bin as directed. And it started to drizzle again. I hope the cardboard doesn't get soaked.

My short trip meant a short re-charge session for the car.

Today also was the all-day full backup of my E drive, the one with the photos and DVDs and all the big stuff. A little over 2.5 TB. So the PC was on all day.

Email from the unemployment office said I could do my forms online, so I did, since the snailmail version I mailed yesterday may not get to them in time.

Plans for tomorrow:
Expecting indecipherable east coast Indian recruiter calls way too early in the morning.
2 pm I'm supposed to call for my 15 minutes with the career counselor
Maybe we'll hear back from Dolby or one of the other jobs I've applied for
Lowe's, maybe on a work day there will be someone working