More space less clutter

Went to bed early so woke up early. But it didn't help much, just made me look for ways to make up for it.

Thing the first: Dumped a bunch of frozen mixed veggies in the slow cooker, added a cut up onion, several cloves of garlic, water to cover, tore up some fresh basil from the plants on the dining table, and some bay leaves and Thai lime leaves from the trees on the porch and tossed them in. Atop that went one of the two corned beef briskets I got on sale, and on top of that the pickling spices which came with it, plus thyme, and dill seeds. Set the cooler to slow/8 hrs.

Finally hauled out to the car the broken all-in-1 printer which had been occupying too much space on top of a pair of empty storage tubs in my office . And with it a set of 4 SIM cards which failed to sell on eBay a few times. And some electronic junk which had been on the dryer for months. Then I grabbed two trash bags and filled one with old shoes and the other with working electronics, and put those in the back seat.

Drove to the dump SMART Station and recycled all the broken and un-sellable things, then a couple of miles to the nearest Goodwill drop-off, and handed over the two bags. That drop-off is near the Chinese supermarket, so I stopped in for mangoes The mangoes and longons, but the mangoes were harder than baseballs, and they had no longons.

But they did have huge carrots, mushrooms, a potato and a bunch of celery which had "corned beef slow cooker" written all over them.

They also had huge limes for 19¢ each, but I already have enough.

Home, chopped up a carrot, potato, mushrooms and some celery and added those underneath the brisket.

Relaxed on the porch with Tom Robbins, watched some mindless NFL network blather, and then went online and did some more job searching.

More porch, more blather, and then back online to connect on LinkedIn to the last two recruiters who had found good video jobs for me. Looked at another recruiter in the video space who had emailed me a lot, but he's strictly LA, and never got me as much as a call-back, so I'll leave him unconnected.

One of the biologists from yesterday's class hit me up for a LinkedIn contact, so I added her. I had sent her the biologist job description yesterday, telling her I knew it wasn't the kind of job she was looking for, but the recruiter was. She struck me as a very good candidate.

Browsed FB, saw that two of my friends were in a play tonight, bought a ticket.

Killed time doing something online which kept me occupied, I forget what. Oh wait, now I remember. I looked at the possibility of going on a short vacation next week. Puerto Vallarta first. Way too expensive both on Alaska and Southwest. Half Moon Bay seemed like a good compromise, but also way expensive for the good hotels, so I booked just Mon-Tue, check out Wed am, in the least expensive one convenient to the whale watching boats. Looked for whale watching or fishing trips, but nobody is going out on weekdays. Boo, Hiss. There's a nice beach nearby.

Picasso At The Lapin Agile was much better than a play by that hack Steve Martin ought to have been, but like all of his stuff, there were really no memorable lines, the comedy was all from built up running gags which "you had to be there" to laugh at. One of my friends had a tiny part which was all about one of those gags, and she stole the show for her 30 seconds on stage. The other friend pretty much mailed it in, though she had a lot more stage time and as much opportunity to shine. There was someone allegedly from BASFA playing Einstein, and he was excellent (actually everyone except Picasso was superb) but I have no idea who he is. I don't recall seeing him at BASFA meetings. He's a very tall, wide person who resembles Penn of Penn & Teller, so he'd be hard to miss.

In the audience was my crush Elizabeth. We got in some hugs and a chat after the show. She lights the place up. She lights me up. Long ago she LJBFed me. :-(

Home, dished out some of the veggies and cut off 1/4 of the brisket, grabbed some horseradish sauce and had a delicious dinner. Veggies needed salt, which I didn't add. One would think that with all the spices...

And here I am.

Just checked Kaiser's web site, it shows I am now fully Medicare Part D covered. It also shows a bill which I already paid.

Plans for tomorrow:
Drive to Bayshore park, set up my camp chair and watch the RC copters and planes.
UPS, drop off the RMA defective android music player
Try to reschedule the ultrasound - have to call Kaiser to find out what it will cost.

Was It Friday Yet?

My multitasker went all haywire today, but it was okay. Been using the new toilet, and the installer put a new seat on which is heavy and slams with a loud BANG! when he could have just kept the slow-soft-close one from the existing toilet. Had enough of that, so "get a better toilet seat"  went to the top of the day's list. But also on the list was:
- drop off the RMA at UPS
- Find who sells, and buy some dark chocolate Lindt easter bunnies
- Spend some time at Baylands Park and watch the radio controlled planes/copters and enjoy the sun and the Bay breeze

As soon as I went into the kitchen to take my meds, a higher priority arose:
- Decant the slow cooked veggies into containers and put them in the freezer
- Cut up the remaining corned beef, zip lock it, and put it in the fridge freezer drawer

So that took a while, but before I got to the kitchen I was online, checking email and FB. There was one feeler from a recruiter at a startup Cisco bought, asking for a resume. I had applied for a position at that place yesterday, which may or may not have triggered the feeler. Either way, it was welcome as the job is something I'd love to do. Content analysis for streaming media.

Phoned Kaiser customer service and found that the co-pay for the ultrasound was going to be $60, called radiology and re-scheduled. It took two tries because the default on the scheduler is 1/2 an hour, but mine is going to take an hour.

Also online, canceled my Half Moon Bay hotel for next week because the weather is turning lousy.

Food put away, breakfast banana eaten, it only took 10 minutes to get to Lowe's and buy a better toilet seat. Put that in the back seat of the car and drove to the park. It was a lovely day, started as shirtsleeve weather but got breezy & nippy. Since I expect to be visiting a few times, at $6 a pop, I sprung for the $25 season pass.

There was a small gang (4 or 5 people) of hard core homebrew quad copter addicts, very friendly (which they have to be to keep from stepping on each other's radio frequencies) and I learned a lot by hearing them chat. One fellow who knew a lot, it was revealed, is a NASA engineer. Local NASA HQ is maybe 5 minutes away. One thing which surprised me was they were all wearing visors, which showed them the view from the cockpit, as it were. This was apparently a planned event, one of the guys set up arches for them to navigate through, complete with cloth NASCAR-like checkered flag patterns. The copters are tiny, but loud and fast. The visors are only to see what the on-board camera is showing, they also had big radio control units with a couple of joysticks to control the craft. These guys were good. One fellow showed up later who was not part of the gang, but they welcomed him, shared the suggested frequencies, and he went off to the side and walked his copter around. He said he was doing "LOS" which to me meant "Loss of Signal", but I later discovered it meant "Line of Sight". The two can be related.

I'm only marginally tempted to buy a rig. Only marginally because I've never been good with those controllers, and the visor would be disorienting for me and probably give me vertigo. But the non-visor LOS thing might be attractive. I'd want a bigger craft, though.

Left at about 3, went home and installed the toilet seat. Took me a while to figure out that the only thing to do with the old one was put it in the trash.

Next, I bar code scanned the stale Lindt dark chocolate bunny I have been holding on to since last year, and found it is available at my local Target. But I didn't want it  melting in the trunk, so first I took the RMA to UPS, dropped it off (those of us who know just put the package on the counter, no need to wait in line if it's all labeled). Then to The French Store.

At the head of every cash register line was a display of Lindt gold chocolate bunnies. Hundreds of them. All milk chocolate. Way at the back corner of the store was the Easter Stash, three aisles of mostly candy, plus some assorted signage. Thousands of Lindt gold chocolate bunnies, all milk chocolate. Until the end of the last aisle, where there were two flats of 48 bunnies. One whole flat and 1/4 of the second was dark chocolate. The other 3/4 was white chocolate. Gag me. I bought 6 of the dark. Don't ask me why.

Also stocked up on Swiffer juice & Rot Guard.

Home, unloaded all the things. The bunnies will stay on the kitchen island until two of them will be sacrificed Sunday in the traditional "both ears and the tail" ceremony, extrapolated from a Tom Leherer routine (skip to 2:25, or maybe 2:10)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vyhYHcy85E

Online, email from the fellow who presented the career course, with lots of attachments showing he does not know how to just attach the doc files from a web presentation. And then a message which should have had attachments, but didn't. And finally a message with those attachments and more blank HTML pages, and a correction to the email address of one of the biologists which we already have from the sign-in sheet presenter gave us copies of.

Received in the mail: Yet another notice to sign up for COBRA, now completely moot. Put that in the paper recycle bin. A letter from EDD telling me I must appear in person April 6 at an office in Menlo Park to show that I am employable. Fair enough, I claim I have a disability on all my job apps and related forms. Due to the privacy laws, they are not allowed to ask what disability I have, the list being everything from medically-induced coma to peanut allergy. I only joke somewhat. In my case, diabetes qualifies me as disabled, but in my usual line of work the only accommodation which needs to be made is to let me eat on my own schedule (often at my desk), and in the event of an insulin reaction, allow me to take a break and self-medicate. Oh, and also have a place to shoot up in private if needed. I've found it best to let my cow-erkers know I shoot up, and they can watch if they want. ( TMI )

 Also in the mail was the little Android MP3 player. It took the 32GB SD chip, no problem. I've loaded some music, will test it in the car tomorrow.

And in the park message slot was the rent statement. Big increase in electricity usage. No doubt due to the car charging. Yesterday I filled the tank, it was still 1.4 full, took 10 gallons. The odometer said 1158 miles. $32 more on the electric bill from last month. I suppose if I tried hard enough I could figure out the difference between what 1158 miles of gas would have cost and the $29 I paid for that 10 gallons.

Let's see. Assume 43 mpg, which is what I was getting on an un-charged trip. And to be fair, of those 1158 miles, 10 gallons was used, so 430 miles, which leaves 728 miles on $32 on A/C. 728 miles at 43 mpg = 17 gallons @ $3/gal = $51. So I saved my wallet $19 and the planet 17 gallons of gas. Sounds too little, someone check my math, please.

My brain hurts. Or Hertz.

Just tested the new toilet. Spook helped by bringing her Kylo Ren stuffed mouse into the bathroom, for me to throw into the bath tub. She can clear the tub wall in a single bound, and after batting the mouse around a bit, grabs the tail in her teeth and bounds out again. It's quite a sight. The toilet, eventually, passed the test. I has a happy.

Have been bothered lately by a nervous tic in my left eyelid. My dad's mom had a severe tic which never went away, and I suspect that's something I inherited from her. It shows up sometimes for no apparent reason, but lately there has been a lot of frustration, impatience and stoopid going on in my life, and on top of that my dry eye syndrome.

One of the stoopids is the career presenter, as an afterthought, suggested we all keep a journal. He suggested keeping it in the form of a spreadsheet.

Ha!

Plans for tomorrow:
Nothing on my calendar. Maybe I'll look into buying a copter. But not a homebrew quad. Something easier to handle, more stable, like an octo.
Or maybe I'll put my bike on the rack and tootle around the park trails.