Lots Done, feeling accomplished

Spook was on the bed some of the night and was in the bathroom when I got up. As soon as I flush, she bolts and hides just past the door, poised to attack. It was a good night - only woke up once.

Took a little extra time before leaving because I knew traffic would be light.

I had somehow locked myself out of my work account last night, and was all prepared to do a password reset (company policy is if you use your corpnet password anywhere else, they lock you out. I thought I might have done that by mistake). But was puzzled when the help web site wouldn't let me do that, instead it hinted a few things, and one of them is the 2-step ID doesn't work if your browser blocks cookies. I had blocked them to prevent an obnoxious pop-up from Tom's site (well known geek place). My laptop was also locked out because google accounts sync, and what I do on one machine's Chrome browser gets synced to the other.

So, cookies enabled and both machines were back in business.

Email from a vendor arrived, and among other things it claimed that a bug I'd reported was not a bug at all. But it is, they had obviously misunderstood the specs for a feature. But it's an optional feature, and Boss said they are free to implement it any way they want. It's this OCD tester's nightmare situation, but one of the things they pay me for, I am beginning to understand, is to not sweat the little things, as long as I report them.

One of Boss' team, who is allowed to book my time, booked me to start a project on the 28th. I asked the three people in my pod, and they all said yes, the 28th is a work day for them. They only get off 23-26 and 30-1/3. But they are one a different team. I asked Boss and she confirmed that today was the last work day till next year for us.

Hunted down the e-car charger info on corpnet, and yes indeed, there was a way to authorize my chargepoint card to use at work. It took about 3 hours after I entered the secret code, so at about 3 I went downstairs, moved my car to a kiosk and plugged it in. So I had enough charge after work to go to Best Buy.

Bought the HDTV antenna I had looked up, and was out of there by 6. Not a lot of customers, plenty of parking.

Home, no calendars yet. So I assembled the antenna and hooked it up. It is just enough of an improvement to make it worth the expense. AFter that I mailmerged address labels from an Excel spreadsheet, and amazing but true they printer right the first time.

Heard a knock on the door, hard to tell which door. Opened the front door, nada. Opened the carport door, and there was the (very heavy) box of calendars.

But first, dinner. Marie C chicken teriyaki. So-so. not going to buy it again. Better than the slab of unidentified chicken-like substance in their Honey Roasted Chicken Dinner, which I keep buying by mistake when what I want is the Herb Roasted Chicken Dinner.  The latter is actual identifiable chicken parts. Similarly, in a case of "there's no accounting for taste", I don't like Boston Market's chicken Parmesan dinner, which lemmozine suggested, despite the delicious spaghetti. I don't like chicken breast. I'm not a breast man. I'm more of an ass man, so I go for thighs and legs.

Next order of business was the 1-man assembly line. First, each calendar got a gold foil label on the back with my name, email and flickr address. Next, the envelopes were given return address labels, address labels and in the case of overseas mail, FIRST CLASS labels. Then out came the stamps. The mailmerge already sorted them by country. Europe, Japan and the Middle East got $7, Canada $3.33 and USA $2. Except for Canada, those are rounded up a penny or three. BFD. Some that I'll hand deliver did not get stamped.

Next step, stuff a calendar in each one, and drop in my "vanity" photographer biz card, Peel and seal the envelope and set it aside. This was a 3-tray operation because I was too lazy to clean off my office table or haul the folding table out of the shed.

All done, the stamped ones are in a shopping bag headed for the PO tomorrow morning. They can be fed into the big items bin. One reason I stopped using Costco is they only do spiral bound, which makes the envelope "irregular" and needs to be handed to a clerk, and the overseas ones needed customs forms. But with the saddle stitched ones they lie flat, and qualify as personal first class mail.

I'm still waiting for two former co-workers to give me their snailmail addresses. And there is one which I will probably have to bring to basfa next Monday for maurinestarkey. I used to auction one off, but they never fetched what they were worth. I think one year the bid was $3. Big whoop. Maurine (aka Mo) is a Hugo-winning artist who has been kind enough to invite me to display my work at several art shows over the years which she managed. I've only been to one meeting since they moved it to the other side of the Bay. It's a pretty treacherous drive on a Monday night during rush hour. But the club had been meeting for years on my side of the pond, and many members were making the (reverse commute) drive from the other side, so I'm only mildly miffed. Location aside, it's a near perfect venue.

Watched the news on KTVU, the new antenna brings it in at about 90%, annoying but good enough for free TV. Fired up the Nvidia and watched another episode of MacGuyver.

Meanwhile, the Google Home is smart enough to play Hungarian rhapsodies when I ask. And Mozart. When I asked for classical it gave me some Bach, but something heavier than I needed.

Plans for tomorrow:
Post Office
Hang out at home, out of the rain.

Late to bed and late to rise

Was up way too late journaling. LJ was being attacked, it looked like. Classic case of a flooded gateway, so what I wrote last night was not posted till this morning, backdated to about 11 pm in case you missed it.

---

PO, slid all the calendars into the bulk mail chute, about 4-5 at a time.

Then on to MV and Kohl's, and after figuring out where they hid the men's department and finding the big & tall nook, they had Levi's in my size. Or close enough. Inseam is really about 27, for my waist size most online and steel & concrete stores only have 30 at best, more often 32. To make my cuffs not touch the ground I would have to wear the pants up around my neck. Kohl's had 29's in several shades and styles. I got three - two of the same style but different "washes", and one of a different style & wash.

Backstory - ( Read more... )

From the parking lot I phoned Ford, told them the modem they installed is not working, and made an appointment for Wednesday. Later I poked around and saw that in the settings, where there should have been the serial number of the modem, it was blank. Highly likely it simply got disconnected.

It was raining pretty hard, so when I got home I decided to stay there.

To-do list item got to-done: Took down all the window curtains, threw them in the washing machine with a white bath towel and a kitchen towel. The curtains are small cotton panels, a couple of them got muddied from getting dipped into the water catchers under my window sill plants.  And the rest have been absorbing Sunnyvale's world famous all-penetrating dust for 3 years. They look a lot better now.

The new antenna, as I should have figured out, isn't as good in a rain storm as it is in clear weather. And then some radio ads told me that all the college bowl games and most of the NFL games are only on ESPN. Can't get ESPN on the CBS channels I subscribed to, since they affiliated with ABC. The ESPN app requires a TV provider subscription, such at AT&T U-verse or Xfinity. Bummer. But a little research and for $20/month SlingTV will run on my Nvidia, and along with all the ESPN channels it also gives me TBS and about 15 other stations, maybe half of which I want to watch regularly. Another $5/month and I can add some more, like Fox Sports, and another $5 each can add other bundles, but I'm good for now.

ESPN was showing the unlikely-sponsored Dollar General Bowl, Ohio vs Troy. Gotta say the video quality is superb - very close to 4k.

On TBS I caught the latest episode of People of Earth. It continues to be both interesting and stupid. And technically very well done.

Somewhere in there I had Safeway's clam chowder in a plastic container for lunch, and Falafel poppers in pita halves for dinner. Note to self: Pita pockets do not freeze well. Had to pry them open with a knife.

Delivered was 2 pair of reading glasses. Nice ones with hinged gold frames for about $3  each. The way they were wrapped tells me this particular Amazon shop is a single woman who is not doing this as a mass business.

And also somewhere in there, I figured it would be a good idea to buy my tomorrow's movie ticket for Rogue One online. And boy was I right, the morning showings are already 2/3 sold. This cinema has recliner seating, all seats are reserved. Which means you can show up 15 minutes after the posted time, skip the ads and previews and still get a good seat.

Filled two empty hummingbird feeders. Used the food coloring sparingly, and achieved the same purple as the salvia plants they love to nibble on in the carport garden.

It's early, but as soon as I finish this I'll take my meds and go to bed.

Plans for tomorrow:
Rogue One at 10:45
Starbucks across the street, wait for Janice to show up at 3:30. Maybe stop by the CHM first.
Watch some TV.
Water some indoor plants