Too Glad It's Friday

Slept well. One pit stop at 4:30 am then woke at 7. But dawdled in bed with the tablet, ended up getting to work at 9:30. So I stayed till 6.

The Canadian box worked really well, so the testing went quickly, I was done by 4:30, which gave me time to double-check one anomaly which caused me to reboot the machine once. Not repeatable. Sometimes these STBs get into a strange state because they don't have much memory.

Breakfast was crowded again, Lunch too. Some bozo manager forgot to reserve a conference room and had his team, laptops and all, taking up the entire row of tables I usually sit at. And he was talking so they could all hear, which is not cool for a break room.

Sweet & sour chicken bowl, and most of a fruit bowl.

During the screen saver tests, I looked online for places to print the photos I want to exhibit. They need to be mounted on board so I can just stick a press-on hook on the back and hang them. Not messing with frames. Unfortunately, the folks who print my calendar don't print on board, and their poster sizes are too large for an art show display, and too expensive. VistaPrint also offers only large sizes, and they don't do photos, just text designs (marketing/presentation posters). Walmart and Walgreens both come close, but they want $15 a picture. Looks like I will be renewing my Costco membership, they do a good job, and even with the membership fee 20 poster board prints is less than the other guys. And faster. I am uploading my calendar candidates in the background.

BTW, the Netflix show I mentioned yesterday is called Skins. It's from the UK.

The pictures will be displayed at two science and science-fiction oriented shows, so probably not the same ones as the calendar. The egret in flight is definitely in, and the Monarch butterfly. I have plenty of time to decide.

From work I took the most direct non-expressway route to Great Clips and got my hair cut, and then next door for more fruit cups, a bag of Halos, two wedges of my favorite French goat cheese (surprised to see them at Safeway) and my hunt for won tons was rewarded - they had a whole freezer end case filled with Asian stuff, including three kinds of won tons, way too many kinds of snotlickers, egg rolls and such.

Home, tonight's dinner project was chicken broth with duck pieces and a handful of pork&shrimp won tons.

Watched PTI and an episode of Shark Tank.

Tried to swap cats, but Zoe is having none of it, and Spook is so used to being chased away by me that she won't go into the guest room by herself. I may try again later.

My auto insurance bill arrived, but it is not letting me pay online.

Plans for tomorrow:
Ping Janice. She ought to be back from PV
Print a rent check and maybe deliver it
Try to pay the insurance - call them
Lowe's - weed killer. Apply to weeds
Fill hummingbird feeders
Order poster prints

Pothead

Last night I ate a couple of 1:1 THC/CBD infused cookies. Little vanilla sugar cookies, smelled strongly of marijuana, which I suspect is an add-on. Once again I dosed myself way too late -11:30 pm. But that's part of the experiment, to see how long to takes to kick in, and how long it lasts.

I started feeling the effects in about 90 minutes. There were two big side effects and a small one. The small one is the dry throat which I've had before. The big ones are when I got up to pee at 4:30 am, it was a challenge to walk a straight line, and I felt woozy. The other big one is I slept till 10 am after a short wake-up at 7:30. Sadly, when I woke up at 7:30, it was partly due to sciatica pain, which means the pot doesn't solve the problem I got it for, except it helps me sleep through the pain.

Reminds me of something Mom said when she was prescribed Prozac for a migraine: "I still get the migraines, but I don't care anymore".

Did my morning stuff, made a lox and Swiss omelet for brunch.

First errand, Lowe's, bought some Bayer herbicide which has a battery powered hand-held sprayer built in. Got the last one (the rest had pumps). Also on the list was Swiffer liquid, and sharpies. Probably should also have gotten windshield wiper fluid, but wasn't sure if I had a gallon in the shed. Will look tomorrow.

Home, logged into the Costco photo site, uploaded a lot of my 2018 calendar candidates, also added one from the nuke site tour, and a couple which I'd exhibited before at Contact-con. Pared it down to 2 dozen. For poster board, Costco makes you order and approve each one individually, so it took a while. For paper prints of any size, you can order the whole album in one fell swoop.

Fast turn-around, they said the prints would be ready to pick up tonight at 5:30.

But first, sprayed the weeds. The design of the battery powered pump was great, but the connection to the siphon inside was not airtight, so I needed to press down on it all the time to get any chemical out. Finally gave up, took the cap off and attacked the major weeds along the back retaining wall by pouring.

Printed the rent check.

Watched two Shark Tank episodes, none of the products were anything I would use, and most of the "contestants" were unprepared. Also watched an episode of the new Match Game, which bills itself as star match game,  but this time none of the stars were big names. I think all of them were on shows on the same network as MG.

---

Made some progress with TurboTax, because in the mail were my Social Security 1099, plus the one from California, and I found in my 2017 folder the statement from my mortgage company. TurboTax seems to think the 1099-R from Mass Mutual is not taxable, apparently it is a legacy from my 2016 IRA rollover. I'll call Mass Mutual Monday to check. Still have to wait for my brokerage statement, mid-Feb. So far I am owing a LOT to Uncle Sam, but look to get a small refund from the Governor.

Tried again on the MetLife site, and this time it let me pay my auto insurance.

---

5:30, drove to Costco, which turned out to be a total FAIL. No parking, and the lot was crammed with vultures blocking traffic waiting for people to leave who were walking to their cars. I turned around and went home, with a stop at World Oil for 5 gallons of regular.

---

Home, delivered was the 3 6-packs of socks. Earlier in the day I tossed all my stray dress socks, keeping all the ones which were balled up in pairs, balling up a few which were obviously the same design. Very loud colors, these new socks, but comfortable material. Similar to ones I bought at Macy's for the Helsinki Worldcon.

Dinner while watching the news. Beef merlot steamer with frozen cantaloupes & honeydew balls for dessert. Home made lime soda.

I let Spook out of the guest room, and with a little guidance from me she has been leaving Zoe alone. Meanwhile, though, Zoe is being a scaredy cat, hiding on the laundry room window sill, behind the curtain. She makes rude noises when I pick her up. But I think we may have enough detent for a working 2-cat home.

Plans for tomorrow:
11 am winter rose care workshop at Yamagami's
Costco - pick up prints and maybe do some shopping.
5 pm Janice in MV Starbucks
Pro Bowl on Tivo