howeird | Entries tagged with cats

The bird feeder I put up on the front porch was completely ignored until it rained. And then in three days it was completely emptied. Re-filled it when I got home tonight. Meanwhile the hummingbird feeder has hardly been touched. They seem to prefer the flowering bushes across the street.

Work was a cavalcade of data entry and reading specs and boss sent us our assignments for the upcoming product, through November at least.

Did some more research on the Nissan LEAF, which showed that the tax rebate might make it affordable, also saw some debates about its range. Some claimed 100 miles EPA says 75, or 85 for 2014 model. Punched Sunnyvale Nissan into the GPS, and was getting close when the Target sign drew me in (I was down to my last Breath-Right strip and had the discount coupon in my wallet). Bought a bunch of stuff on my "back of my mind" list and cogitated about the LEAF. Bottom line is even 100 miles is craptastic - can't get to Yosemite or Moro Bay on a single charge, and even Capitola becomes iffy. I don't drive those distances a lot, but it would suck to not be able to. The problem is more how long it takes to charge.

So I nixed the visit, and decided "wake me when you can do 200 miles or recharge in an hour"

Home, the right Little Shop CD was in the mailbox. I'm playing it now. I have no idea how I am going to nail down Mushnik's songs. Oh well, live theater is always a challenge.

Vacuumed up the cat barf. I knew I shouldn't have given Domino all the American Singles cheese she wanted. :-(

Finally was able to upload my POIs to the in-dash unit - it wanted them on a USB drive, not an SD card. Now I need to figure out how to build another POI list from Google Maps or Earth. Used to be easy to get the GPS coordinates, but they messed up the UI big-time.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
1-on-1 if it isn't postponed/canceled
Much more data entry & spec reading for the additional features on my list. Yesterday there was only one.

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Furball Hall
Current Music: Suddenly Seymour

Worked from home this morning, was able to finish two online classes before it was time to pack up Kaan and bring him to the Humane Society. The call it "surrender" but I prefer "recycle".

I will miss him. He is by far the most affectionate cat I have ever owned. Also the fastest, strongest, best jumper (had to shoo him off the top of the piano last night) and the only one who ever played fetch.

But balancing that out, Domino hated him at first sight. In his efforts to befriend Domino, he ended up bullying and terrorizing her. Lately his way of trying to get her to play with him was to take a running start from a room away, and leapfrog her. When she went into her hidy hole, he would park himself in front of it. He would also block the bedroom door, keeping her out.

I had to keep the bedroom door closed at night because he would wake me at 6 am to play fetch. Or when I was asleep he would curl up against my back so I couldn't roll over. But I will miss him curling up by my head, or in the crook of my arm when I was in the recliner watching TV. And I will miss his head butts.

I'm sure he will be adopted quickly. When I brought him to the Humane Society HQ, they said the Sunnyvale branch where I had adopted him had requested he be sent to them again. They missed him.

I was hungry and hypo so I stopped off at IHOP for lunch. They have lost their touch making the multigrain & nut pancakes. They don't hold together. Used to.

At work I fired up the webcam app and saw that Domino had reclaimed the recliner.

And when I got home, she pwned me

She was on my lap or the arm of the recliner most of the time I was sitting there. As usual she sat in front of my while I ate dinner, staring at me. :-(

Her evening dose of kitty crack went mostly uneaten, probably because there was no Kaan to keep it away from.

Stopped off at Lowe's on the way home, spent about $400, mostly on three electronic keypad deadbolt door locks. One of them will be returned if the re-keying kit they gave me works with the one keypad lock already in the new house.

Bought some Goof-off for helping remove the Jesus sticker (I don't think anyone in CA sells lighter fluid anymore,

lemmozine), and some plastic wood in case I need to drill new holes for the out-of-alignment strike plate. And a combination lock for the missing one on the small shed. I need to look into having those sheds removed and a new one installed. Major $$, though.

I am so sad for one of my team mates. He is a new dad, and lived in a motel for a couple of months while his wife was with her family having the baby, while he scouted out a new apartment. His biggest complaint about the old one was the noise (it overlooked the expressway & freeway). He says the new apartment is worse. :-(

Plans for tomorrow:
New house:
Drop off the rent check
Take "before" photos
Remove the Jesus sticker
Paint over the Jesus calligraphy
Install two of the keypad door locks, and their accompanying dummy door knobs
Try to re-key the third door. Replace the keypad if that doesn't work
Check to see if the satellite dish has been removed
Put a lock on the small shed
Take "after" photos
Back to the apartment, bake a pair of turkey legs, make dressing. Maybe buy an onion somewhere for that.
Watch some football

Current Mood: overwhelmed
Current Location: Old Apartment

the most exciting thing I have done all day is take out the garbage.

Last night to fix the problem of being kept awake by the hurting elbow, I took two night time Ibuprofen. That fixed those two problems but since I rarely take any sleep aids or booze, it takes a few hours after I am awake before i'm awake. If you know what I mean.

It was fun watching Arizona beat the crap out of Oregon and Stanford do in Cal in the first half, but I don't have a dog in those hunts, so there was a patina of boredom for me. Kaan was making a nuisance of himself jumping up on the bar stools next to the kitchen counter and trying to park himself on the open case of Fancy Feast cans, which almost spilled them and did spill him. I took the stools and put them in front of the sofa, which I should have done a year ago, I guess.

When I sat on the sofa, Domino used my lap to step up to a bar stool (they are padded) and parked herself there until I got up

Rotating socks, so there were about 2 dozen to throw out, as well as bathroom and kitchen garbage. Hauled those big bags out the the dumpster which was full, but I threw them on top anyway to mess with the dumpster diver who should know better than to ply his trade during peak donation time.

Loaded up the car with some miscellaneous stuff for Goodwill. Watched more football, got more bored, looked in the office closet for potential donations and found 6 back packs, ranging from a kiddies's Mickey Mouse to a heavy wheeled one with about 47 pockets. The two packs I use at cons are already boxed to move, and I left two more, one is my favorite World Traveler suitcase pack which has just the right pockets for diabetes stuff, electronics accessories and clothes for a 2-week trip.It's a good size for carry-on.

So, first stop Goodwill with a bunch of oddball but useful things, then Target to exchange my empty SodaStream cartridge for a new one. The CS desk people knew exactly how to do that, it only took a minute, and the discount was worth it. On to Lucky's and poured 678 pennies into the coin machine and had it deposited in my Paypal account for a hefty 9.6% fee. There are free options, but I wanted to test this out

And now am in the former Batcave Starbucks, which has a steady stream of to-go customers, and all but one table is taken. People have not been staying for long.

All the packing I listed in plans for today has shifted to Thanksgiving Friday. I am a week ahead of myself.

Last night I sent a nastygram to the mfg rep & asst, in the form of an update, but including all the mistakes they had made. Today rep emailed that she was sorry it was a bumpy ride, but she will call Monday to let me know when/where to pick up the keys. I'll see it when I believe it.

First order of business will be to change the locks.

Did not see a movie. Don't plan on fighting Sat nite crowds/prices.

I think tonight dinner will be steamed pork buns with a side of eggs. UW plays at Beaver State at 7:30, it won't be pretty.

Last night I started a Novastor backup of my RAID to my 3TB NAS drive. This morning's check showed it expected to be done by 9 tonight. Incremental backups scheduled every Sunday starting a week from tomorrow.

Plans for tomorrow
Sleep in
Football
TACO 2-5
Janice coffee 5:30
Maybe a theater friend's birthday party after that.

Current Mood: nonplussed
Current Location: Starbucks Mathilda
Current Music: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall - Mills Brothers

Last night my elbow hurt like mad, up at 4 am took Ibuprofen, watched TV - there was a huge wind storm up in Oakland, and unrelated to that BART's computers were on the fritz leaving about 1k people stuck on board, and the system shut down just in time for the morning commute. This the day after the BART board approved a contract after removing a family leave perk. Somehow I don't think those are unrelated. Iburofen worked after an hour. Kaan spent most of the night curled up by my head. Dominowas under her favorite rack, growling at him a lot. Annoying.

First thing this morning was waiting for the apartment office to be open. I knew what time, I just had to wait. Walked over there and ripped them a new one. Two, actually. One for missing two appointments and entering without permission, one for the inspector adding a painting fee to the move-out paperwork. My lease is clear that there is no fee if I am there <2 years.

Somehow that did not make me feel better. Adding to the list of reasons I am moving is after the apartment was sold to another megacomplex they replaced the entire very competent and friendly staff with phonies.

Work, did some research, found a tool on Microsoft Tech Net which I swear was created by the Clue Fairy, which showed me which program was blocking the one I was trying to use. That let me run a test to see if a notification was sent when a TV program sends a signal that it's time to insert a commercial. I didn't see one, but next week I need to talk to the advertising feature expert to make sure I am using the right video feed. Many of them have a placeholder for that signal, but never actually send data.

Lunch was an unplanned experiment. I was planning on going to a Thai place I haven't been to for a while, but I parked in the wrong lot and on my way there I was lured into a place I had never been before which used to be a French bakery/cafe, but is now a Korean cafe. The food was fast & good. But not good enough to go back on purpose. On my way there I stopped of at the CU to drop off a big bag of canned veggies for the 2nd Harvest barrel.

For the first time in weeks my weekly report didn't take a lot of time to write. I had spent 90% of my time on 2 line items.

Kaiser answered my question about who to call to see about returning my CPAP. But I never got around to calling because I was keeping the line open for Escrow to call, which they didn't. Boo, hiss. Oh yeah, I also need to send mfg rep an update, mostly to tell her what she got wrong.

When I was almost done with my report, the phone rang, it was a long-time family friend in Seattle who had lived in Israel some of the time my big sister had been there, and she's a nurse so she knows all about sudden death cancer. I had left a message on her machine yesterday. She knows a lot of Ben's friends in Seattle, so word will get around. It was good to hear her voice, and to hear her condolences.

Home, just gave myself time to degauss, then to Uke class. Today was chords. Today sucked. The nails on my left hand are too long, and because of the manicure they would need to be trimmed by a professional with a Dremel-like rotary tool. Using a nail clipper will shatter the acrylic. And my fingers are too wide. And not limber enough. C is easy, so is A-minor. G might work after I trim my nails. Those are the chords for Edelweiss which was the first thing I learned on guitar. And the last. Unfortunately the alleged beginner's book wants D, G7 and E which are not in the cards for me any time soon.

Domino just clawed her way onto my lap. Ow!

Stopped by the library and returned the three audio books I'd borrowed, and ripped to my iPod. Am enjoying The Scarlet Letter for three reasons. First of all, Hawthorne's writing is much more modern and articulate than my high school teachers led us to believe (which is why I never read it), secondly there is a lot of highly insulting to the bureaucracy anecdotage in the preface, and thirdly I had been under the impression that the story ended with Hester being awarded her "A", but that's actually where it starts. The rest is almost Dostoevskian in it's psychoanalysis and similar in style to Turn of the Screw.

Home, TV dinner, another piece of Black Forest cake (2 more slices left). Domino barfed up her entire portion of Fancy Feast, but as soon as I was done cleaning that up she was scarfing up what was left in Kaan's bowl. Idiot cat.

Something I left out of yesterday's doings is I dumped my three drawers of belts and suspenders out onto the bed, threw away the ones which were mangled, and after measuring each belt, took each one which is too small for me, rolled it up and rubber banded it, and tossed it in a bag for Goodwill. I also added a VCR to that pile, it was sitting in the corner of the office, I thought it had defective heads and had bought a replacement, but the replacement showed the same symptoms. A bit of troubleshooting showed it was my connection to the PC which was bad, I solved that with a USB video adapter.

Plans for tomorrow:
Goodwill
Pack up the office closet
Pack the breakable dishes (I only use the soup bowls and have paper ones for the interim).
Do a load of dishes
Maybe launder a load of shirts
Maybe see a movie. Ender's Game. There doesn't appear to be a 3D version.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

After signing/initialing each page in a 2"-high stack of papers for the escrow people, some of them saying what stuff I am not responsible for and others saying what dire consequences may befall, out came the loan papers.

The loan offer I had accepted was for a 5-year loan at 5.x percent interest. I had declined, I thought, an offer from the same lender for 15 years at 8.x percent.

Turns out the offer was actually for 20 years: the first 5 years at 5.x and the next 15 years at 8.x.

So two shocks:

1. I will not be done paying after 5 years

2. The monthly payment after 5 years increases by $100 or so.

I almost canceled.

But even with the increase, I'm still looking at close to $1k a month less rent+mortgage than my current rent. And there is already 30% equity in the place, maybe a reverse mortgage can be had before the price goes up. There is no penalty for paying it off early, but the whole point of this exercise was to pay less rent.

So I signed. And more rudeness ensued. My rep was supposed to tell me to bring "my checkbook" which I don't have one of, but I could have brought three checks. I had printed three this morning, but only brought one, just in case the asst mfg rep was right and there was another wire fee to pay.

She was wrong, but they needed one check for the direct debit, one for the $5 fee to join the CU which is issuing the loan, and one for the $5 fee for the required 1-year membership in a mobile home owner's association, the one they chose was FOBA in San Antonio. Some shady deal here, because as far as I can tell from their web site and their newsletter, they are useless.

So I had to drive all the way home from San Jose, print two checks, and drive all the way back. As if that wasn't enough, escrow lady said I needed to call the CU tomorrow for an interview/confirmation of the things I had just signed. Crap. Today was supposed to be closure, dammit.

One good thing is the office building has a 2nd Harvest donation barrel in the lobby, so I was able to bring some items for that. (We don't have one at work this year)

And then back to work.

There wasn't much time left to do any actual work, and I was pretty depressed.

The lab babe had set up a new system which is supposed to replace the high-speed cable from the lab to each desk which we use for playing/testing HD video without having to sit in the hot/noisy/overcrowded lab. Instead of a cable to each desk, there is now a cable to a device mounted on the ceiling, which shoots data on a laser beam to a receiver on top of each cubicle wall, and a cable from there to the desk computer.

When I left to sign the papers, we had done a torture test, and it failed. My connection kept crapping out. Lab babe said she would also be back around 3, and would check in again. But she didn't. And I had no connection at all.

I shouldn't call her Lab babe. It's just that she is shaped like Barbie and dresses to make sure there is no doubt about that, has a bright, cheerful smile, and had her job description changed from being one of the engineers who troubleshot customer-reported issues which tech support escalated, to doing legacy testing and helping with special projects in the lab. During my first stint at Moto, she was a team-mate, loaned to us from Moto's St. Petersburg Russia video test lab. At the time I thought she was really sent to us as the final exam for the sexual harassment education class. She was laid off a little before I was, and we had both interviewed for our old jobs back at the same time, but while I got my old job back, she didn't, but was later hired by the lab manager. I think we were both up for both jobs, actually.

But I digress.

I forgot to mention yesterday a miracle happened, and as I was watching football, both cats were on my lap. Domino parked herself on my left thigh, and after she had been there a while Kaan jumped up and I steered him to the right side where he curled up. Domino growled at him a little, but petting her and pointing his head the other way allowed them to coexist for about half an hour.

I was expecting to hear from the Humane Society by now about bringing him back, but so far no. My drop dead date is 12/2.

In other escrow news, I had been planing on sending flowers to the mfg rep when the sale was final, but she got so many things wrong, especially the loan information, that this is no longer a plan. According to the paperwork, she makes $1800 on this deal.

Been listening to The Scarlet Letter in the car on the iPod. I love Hawthorne's style, I would have enjoyed reading it in school. It is read by a woman, which seems wrong as it is obviously being told by a man. She mispronounces words from time to time. How can you get "clandestine" wrong? Could be the British pronunciation, she has a British accent, which is also wrong, the story being written well into the Tyler presidency.

It looks like I will be hauling out my trumpet Sunday for an afternoon with TACO, the Terrible Adult Chamber Orchestra. It's as much a knitting circle as a musical organization. Like Ye Olde Town Band, it's Los Altos based. One of our tuba players may join me.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Call the CU
1-on-1

Current Mood: discontent
Current Location: Home of the Lost
Current Music: Prelude and Fugue in D minor

Yesterday's library trip netted three audio books, which I ripped last night to the iPod. Listening first to The Scarlet Letter. It was required reading in school but I never read it, I can't remember why. There are two possibilities - one is that I was expert at listening to the class discussions and gleaning enough from what the teacher and students said to participate and pass the tests. The other is that it was required before 9th grade in Seattle but after 9th grade in suburban NY (I moved west in mid-9th grade). I doubt that, though, because in every subject I took, except Washington State History, I had already learned everything they taught us in 9th grade in Seattle. And some bits of 10th, 11th and 12th.

Also on the list but not read, I picked up Pride and Prejudice. The third book is a posthumously published Michael Crichton work called Pirate Latitudes.

The plan was to see the 11 am showing of Thor in 3D, as I was en route my youngest sister called, we had a very short chat since it is not far to the cinema from my place. Long enough to catch up a little bit at least.

Turns out Flixter was wrong, the showing was 11:10, which meant I could have chatted a lot longer.

I also saw Ender's Game playing in 2D at 11, but I want to see that in 3D. I suppose I should look online to find out if there is a 3D version, not IMAX.

Thor II, actually. I liked the premise, that the 9 worlds are entering convergence and barriers between them are becoming fuzzy, but the special effects did a miserable job of showing this. There is some fine acting from Anthony Hopkins as Odin, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki. In a league of his own is the actor playing Bad Guy™ Malekith. Telling you who would be a spoiler. Jaimie Alexander's warrior princess is far more attractive to me than Natalie Portman's completely unconvincing astrophysics PhD. Tadanobu Asano is completely wasted in a barely larger than cameo role, while Idris Elba does a fine job in what should have been a tiny role (Heimdall) but the writers have made him a pivotal player, bringing diversity which was not in the original Asgard.

There are some attempts at comic relief, which fell flat for me, there is not a lot of humor or clever repartee in the script. The score is excellent. Audio mixing is so good I didn't even notice it. 3D was used to give depth to the movie, not to throw things at the audience or make us dizzy. Some of the makeup and costume special effects were very well done, some may have been CGI. Hard to tell anymore. But it all boiled down to effective design.

The Loi Krathong scene was very touching.

Way too much gratuitous violence and destruction.

Worth senior matinée price.

A quick trip home turned into a bit of football watching, the Raiders got off to an excellent start. Not so the 49ers.

Was meeting Janice for coffee in MV at 5:30, I usually get there an hour early to play on the laptop and secure a good seat. Loaded up a shoebox full of chef's knives and other extra kitchen implements I never use, and another small box of coffee cups and small glasses and soup bowls which are breakable and I have too many of, and a mattress cover and took them to Goodwill. GPS said there was a drop-off in MV either by Target or across the street by DQ, but I didn't see one so went to the one in Palo Alto. Despite the detour, I was at Starbucks at 4:00. Almost ran out of things to do online.

Had a good chat. Janice is to blame for giving me the idea of buying a mobile home so I told her all the crapola it put me through. She missed out on the FB stories because she was off for the last 3 weeks touring India, which she said was a daily revelation. Mumbai was a lot cleaner and more modern than she expected. The Ganges funeral pyre industry is a nonstop fire factory. And so on. I'm looking forward to photos. India is not on my list of places to visit.

Home, made the second container of Costco split pea soup for dinner. Yum! And a piece of Black Forest cake for dessert.

Earlier in the day as I was on the computer, Domino tried to jump up onto my lap, I gave him a boost and she stayed parked on my right thigh for about half an hour. And she sat on my thigh while I was watching football. She knows something is up. Not too surprising, since (a) I keep the bedroom door shut and (b) all the shelves are empty and there are lots of boxes stacked up. Kaan also has done his share of jumping on my lap, and I had to chase him off the top of the piano twice.

I was going to bring the CPAP to Goodwill, but decided to try to find the paperwork and return it to the place that sent it to me, but it looks like I threw that out. Maybe Kaiser knows.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
BASFA

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

And there was hardly any timing today.

Worked from home till 2, because we'd gotten a note tacked to our doors two evenings ago saying they would be coming in for safety inspections between 10 and 2. I wanted to take advantage of free birthday goodies at a couple of places at lunchtime, but ended up having lunch at home. Nobody showed up to inspect. Assholes. Ha Gow for lunch.

At about 1 the asst mfg rep called, she wante to set up an escrow signing for me Tuesday, a week earlier than expected. Which meant I needed to sign the lease at the mobile home park prior to that. Mfg rep had said I needed a cashier's check for 1st and last month's rent when I went. I called the park, they said don't bring a check, the money will be taken from escrow. Made an appointment for 10 am tomorrow. Bring a picture of Domino, she said. So I cropped one and printed it out.

I also needed to bring to escrow my last pay statement which was today, so put that off till after work.

As I walked in at work a little after 2, boss said I was invited to a meeting at 1:30. The room it was supposed to be in was empty, so I tried our usual meeting room, and though I was late it wasn't too late to be useful. Interesting meeting, looked to me like a boondoggle, though. A small company which wants to make a custom analyzer for our custom product. Maybe not. We'll see.

What time was left was mostly spent chatting with a team member about what a feature is supposed to do, and writing my weekly report. I actually had done a lot of work this week, on paper.

Home, watched some of Batkid's antics. It's a dilemma. On the one hand it exceeded this kid's wildest dreams and made a boy who has been sick for a very long time feel like a hero. On the other hand it pretty much shut down San Francisco for a day. And he's really not old enough to appreciate what a huge thing this was. His wish was for a batman costume. I think they got carried away.
At least they didn't try to tie it in with Christmas.

Mfg rep sent me a form to sign which we missed a month ago, so I printed it out, signed it and faxed it back.

Got to the rec center at 7:10 for the 7:30 uke class. Wrong building. The front desk guy was closing up, so he took me to the right building, which was locked. But he knew the keypad code. Guitar class was still wrapping up, so I waited out in the lobby, and opened the door for 2 classmates. 4th one arrived at 7:30, we all okayed starting at 7 for the duration.

Teacher had forgotten his uke. I loaned him mine for the show and tell about body parts. He gave a lesson on how to read music which I had in grade school, but apparently two of the others had not. And he showed us tablature, but by then I was already learning it just by looking at the book.

We played easy exercises from the book, I was able to do some of them without looking at my fingers after a while, but the uke's tuning is non-intuitive and so were some of the lessons. Why is the lowest string as high as the 3rd fret on the 2nd highest string? Class was only 45 minutes (supposed to be at least an hour) so we didn't get to chords. Or strumming. Next time.

The youngest class member was trying to play Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes. I didn't know they had tunes.

Home, put away the uke, had some nibbles, played on the computer. Sent a copy of my pay statement to the asst. mfg rep

Killed time till 10:15, drove to Jake's in Saratoga, and joined actor/director/composer Ted for his every other Friday night after-theater chat. Eventually we were joined by one of my theater heart throbs, recently divorced; Tevye from West Valley's production and Ande, who usually plays reeds or conducts but is in the ensemble for Fiddler. Tevye is one of three well-known Dougs in local theater. I can't remember if we have been onstage together but I know he has seen me perform at least twice.

Home at 12:45, realized I forgot to shoot up before heading for Jake's. Rectified that.

Plans for tomorrow:

10 am Mobile Home park
Library to retyrn two awful DVDs and a misrepresented audio book
Find a place to have a nice birthday dinner, preferably with lobster. Maybe also with steak.
And find some black forest cake.

Current Mood: disconnected
Current Location: Home of the Lost

I guess this means I won't be retiring to Thailand after all.

Productive morning. Took some stuff to Goodwill, hit OSH for new burner shields to replace the front two burners on the stove, which were more carbon than aluminum, and also got some small sponges to replace the ones whose original color is no longer identifiable. OSH didn't have rubber bands, so Office Despot for those and I needed to go there anyway to buy an envelope large enough to mail "The Toast" picture to my middle sister. It's from my Bar Mitzvah album:
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Home, watched the Raiders game as it was recording on Tivo, that way I could skip the commercials and halftime crapola. And the lowest FF speed is slow enough to see the action and it mutes the annoying announcers, who seem to get more inane every year. Every game.

A little before 2 pm I poured Kaan into the carrier and took him to Petco for two shots which the vet had not reminded me about. One is optional for indoor cats but since he'll be going back to the shelter where he'll be with unknown cats, I figured it was worth it. The onlookers, who mostly had dogs smaller than Kaan, were amazed when he came out (or actually was pulled out - it looked like childbirth) at his size. And how he jumped back into the carrier as soon as they were done with him. On my way there I had a mini-attack of anxiety as the whole surrendering the cat made a memory chain to buying the house and the concept of putting down 3 years' rent so that in 5 years I'll own something on someone else's land which I may not be able to afford when I'm on Social Security.

Home again, watched the 49ers have an off day. Carolina was also having an off day, so SF only lost by a little bit. Somewhere in there I also saw the end and OT of the Ravens game, which they would have won in regulation if one of their members had not decided to do the tip drill to a Carolina player in the end zone. They still won, but by 3.

4 pm, and all the football was dine till the night game. Time for more packing. The first thing on my list was to take the box of my letters from Thailand (the folks had saved them all) and a theater poster and put them in the tubs in the storage room in which they belonged. That involved pulling out the smaller cat carrier, both baritones and one storage tub. And then putting them back, chasing both cats out of the room.

Real packing continued with boxing the computer CD albums, post cards & birthday cards, Peace Corps era Thailand maps and a couple of things which should have gone into the storage tub but wouldn't fit.

Watched some of the NOLA/Dallas game, but took time out to fill two medium-sized boxes with linens and my space-themed comforter. Those were on a rack consisting of a series of detachable units, which are now stacked with the two boxes on top of them. T-shirts will be some other day.

I had planned to go to the movers' this morning to get some supplies, but on their web site the prices are outrageous. And they don't have most of the kitchen packing things I need. So I'll hit up U-haul during the day some time this week.

Somewhere in there I made dinner, the rest of the Costco brisket, a cup of corn and some egg noodles. While slicing limes for my drink, I sliced a bit of the tip of my left ring finger. Very deep cut, lots of blood wanted to come out but I was near ice and tissues and managed to get to the bathroom where the band aids and medical tape are. The bleeding is stopped, but I know it will start up again if I take off the bandage too soon, so I think it will stay on another day.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
BASFA maybe. Football maybe but frankly I'm kind of footballed out after this weekend.
eBay sale should finish, may have to get the item ready to ship.

Current Mood: complacent
Current Location: Home of the Weird

Spoonerizing, I am.

Just a quick summary of today so far before I catch the rest of the UW-CO game.

Another early morning low blood sugar episode, 67. This time I had Klondike bars in stock, which makes recovery easy. A note to those who don't know this, I wear dentures, I take them out at night, so my cure needs to be something which can be eaten toothless. Ice cream which doesn't have solid bits in it, liquids, but not the glucose tablets I use for daytime - they need to be chewed. Orange juice (for those who are Steel Magnolias alumni) is a horrible fix - way too acid, not hardly enough fructose, and it takes too long to drink. Bad for the stomach and kidneys, too.

But I got to sleep in, so I was okay when I was ready to hit the road. Drove to MV and found the movers' office, and am a little nervous because the place has no signage, its windows are blocked by mirrored tinting film, and at 11 am it was locked.

Went to UPS, picked up a package - a gig bag for my uke. On the way, the Humane Society called (not all of it, just one person) and she said they have put Kaan on the surrender list, and be sure he has all his shots. Which means, she said, the FVRCP. Kaan had his rabies shot last month.

Starbucks to kill time, much scenery to look at and admire.

Library, donated a shopping bag's worth of books, and checked in the Neil Gaiman audio book. It's on my iPod anyway. Heard a talk by a master gardener about low-water-use plants which UC Davis has identified as good choices for California's climate. Davis is a lot more extreme than Sunnyvale, though. The presenter was easily side-tracked by questions, and there was very little specific information in the talk. She mentioned some local demonstration gardens which I already have been to, and have not been particularly impressed by because they are not gardens as much as randomly thrown together plants.

But there is a booklet of the 100 most recommended and the UCD web site has a lot of good stuff, she said.

Home, packed up one book case minus a handful of glassed framed items which need packing material I had been hoping to get this morning.

Called the mover, and it's a 1-person operation, he said he will be there tomorrow, but call ahead. I'll see if I can order materials online from him.

Had an early dinner/late lunch, sausages, string beans, corn, pickles while I watched Utah not quite beat AZ.

I should be able to finish packing the second book case tonight, which will only leave the 2-drawer chest of CD/DVD blanks, the albums of computer CDs/DVDs and the things which are still needed until just before the move.

Plans for tomorrow:
MV in the morning, movers
Kaan to Petco @ 2 pm for his Feline-more-initials shot
Pack up most of my T-shirts. They make good padding, so I'll leave a stack for that and another stack for wearing. I generally wear T-shirts on weekends and real shirts weekdays.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Location: Home

Up at 7, out of bed in a few minutes, played on the computer a little and did my usual ad hoc filling of the lunch box. Was at work at about 9, I think.

There was a lot of work to do, this project I'm on. My weekly report took an hour to write.

Lunchtime the plan was to go to Starbucks and install the VPN software. There was no parking at the first one, but plenty of parking and seating at the big one a couple of miles down El Camino.

Tried the orange-mango smoothie. Not bad, but not good enough to try again.

The VPN software did not work on my laptop. I was on wi-fi, it was expecting me to be hard-wired. And when I rebooted, just in case that was the issue, it showed me two login icons, identical. That ate up half an hour as I tried everything reasonable to get it working. I may call support on Monday for ideas. Most of us have laptops as our company PCs, it has to be something they have seen before.

Safeway after work, because they have better produce than Lucky's. And better Klondike bar flavors.

picked up lactose-free chocolate milk, which will make making egg creams real simple. And some regular lactose-free milk. And half a gallon of egg nog. Wanted a pumpkin pie, but the ones they were selling were way too big.

Home, installed Quicken 2014, but it didn't work with my check printer program and Quicken *still* hasn't come up with a check printing widget which lets you build your own background design. So I uninstalled it and re-installed 2013. Check Designer will eventually update their program, maybe in 3-4 months.

Plans for tomorrow:

Morning - visit the movers' and maybe pick up some picture boxes and something for the glass tumblers and coffee cups. And maybe a roll of packing paper. Maybe.
1 pm Sunnyvale Library is holding a class on low-water-usage plants which grow well in this climate, taught by master gardeners. I'll also return the Fragile Things CD set and donate a bunch of books to the friends of the library drop-off.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Location: Home of the Lost

Still.

I should be packing, but the urgency is just not there. Maybe I'll do a box or two after I write this.

Woke up to the smell of cat shit. Kaan had pooped next to the bed, on the side I don't get up from. Maybe I will surrender him, after all. Good thing I have a carpet steamer. Actually, I think I need to have it repaired, one of the brushes broke off. Anyhow, I changed both the litterboxes before going to work.

Lots of work done at work. Lunch was at Jake's across from Fremont HS in Sunnyvale. Awful location at the wrong end of a strip mall between a dance/music school and a martial arts school. Philly cheese steak was excellent. Good fries, too. Went there because it is at the other end of the mall from the nails place. I had not made an appointment because the last three times I did Michelle did not show up in time and someone less talented did my nails. I figured if I showed up later, I'd get her again. Nope, she took the day off. Oh well. No manicure.

The escrow broker called, turns out Allstate quoted me too low a rate, they left out flood insurance. But it is still less than the escrow company rate, so I don't know why they were asking me which one I wanted.

Someone had hacked my Barnes&Noble account and tried to buy a $300 gift card, and when that bounced they tried for a $150 card. That bounced too because the credit cards I had on file had been closed a long time ago. I emailed them telling them to delete my account, they emailed back and said to call their customer support number. After 5 minutes on hold and three transfers, nobody knew how to do that. I'd already removed the cards, changed my password and changed my address to something bogus in Thailand, but I don't want my name in their files. This afternoon I got canned email saying they had been hacked. :-(

My last project at work required me to watch ESPN, and I was very surprised they were at Stanford. So I turned that on when I got home. I watched the game until Oregon scored a touchdown, which was way late, after halftime. I don't know who was in those yellow helmets, but is wasn't the team which ran up 40+ points a game for 8 games. Or was it 7? Whatever. Stanford did not play that much better.

Did some laundry, was getting low on shirts.

Dinner was chow mien and orange chicken left over from yesterday's lunch. dessert a sliced banana with chocolate sauce.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
Packing

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Home

Short team meeting at work this morning, even with 15 minutes talking about one of the team's return from laser eye surgery. Boss had that done not too long ago, but it was a different procedure. Makes me happy I don't need glasses, probably never will. Cataracts will probably get me first. One of the few traits from Dad, who never needed glasses.

Got off track trying to set up a test case so I could write the step-by-step part for Automation to use. One setup works for two cases. I frankly don't think these two can be automated, but now they both have the setup requirements and about 20 steps, plus expected results. Kinda fun tests to run manually, I don't think they should be automated. The test verified that when the incoming TV program loses part of the signal (video, primary audio, secondary audio) what you see on your TV is what the cable company wants you to see. They have a choice of showing a backup program or a "slate" - that's color bars, or maybe a sign which says "technical difficulties, please don't throw your shoe at the cable box". If they lose video but not audio, it can put up a slate while still playing the audio.

An then Automation Guy asked me to see if I could reproduce something which he saw in his testing on the older machine, and I did. And when we asked Boss, he said he forgot to send The Memo. It's a new feature. Poorly implemented because it breaks a very popular procedure.

A few weeks ago I threw a USB bluetooth adapter on the floor thinking the cats would maybe bat it around a little. Kaan is on the floor next to me, having way too much fun with it. It;s the size and shape of a cheap thumb drive, but he can pick it up in his teeth and fling it across the room. He is currently staring at the stack of packing boxes which it is buried in between somewhere, planning his attack.

Late late lunch because of the "new feature". Went to a Korean buffet named China China. They have sushi. Just the basic ones, and they fall apart in your chopsticks, but the fish part is tasty. I don't need the rice, anyway. Lunch is only about $10, so I am fine with just having egg drop soup, one plate of buffet items and a bowl of chocolate soft serve. The calamari rings were especially good today, the spare ribs were especially hard and dry. As usual there was no eye candy at all.

Home, it was already dark by 5:30. Boo, hiss. Watched MNF until 7, a good game for a change, The Bears vs Green Bay. Halftime arrived a couple of minutes after 7, so I headed for Kaiser (the commuter lanes on the expressway open to everyone at 7) to pick up my 3 month's supply of high octane insulin, and a bottle of baby enteric aspirin. Lots of traffic on the roads, and a long slow line at the pharmacy. As I was leaving, I remembered I also wanted some alcohol swabs, but decided the line was too long and I'm not very close to running out of them, and I can probably get them as cheaply online.

Back home, watched the rest of the game with half an eye as I tackled one of the more difficult packing tasks. But first, there was this distinctive box, water-damaged white with silver diagonal bands, falling apart and bearing my Dad's familiar trademark of tons of clear tape, now yellowed with age but still sticking. This used to be the box in which my Bar Mitzvah photo album was stored, but I could see some 4x5s sticking out through the cracks, so I put the box on a tray and exhumed the contents. And broke down the box.

The 4x5s were about 200 sample B&W photos - all the shots the photographer had taken - which my folks used to choose which pictures to have in the album. The album is in pristine condition, though the majority of the people in it no longer are. Myself included. There also was a set of matted photos of each table, and the invitation list divided by table assignment, hand written by Mom, I think, with penciled in (by Dad, I think) notes when people bailed and assignments changed.

There are two photos in larger mattes which I think I asked my folks to have made in color. One is me in full gear in front of the altar, and the other is me & middle sister toasting each other with what look like full wine goblets. There were a lot of shtick photos like that in the 4x5 set.

I rubber banded the table pix and the 4x5s, and set everything back on the shelf minus the box, after seeing that they would easily fit into the medium sized boxes. What went into those instead was from the same shelf, all the vinyl 45s in one box, protected by a pair of pillows, and all the oversized LP and 78 albums, padded with bath towels and cutoffs. I'll put the standard sized 78s albums into a small (book sized) box.

So the big black rack in the livingroom is almost completely packed. There are still some loose, small framed photos and Dad's 8mm Bell & Howell camera. And I'll need something like a mirror pack sized box for the Thai temple rubbings, they are too tall for the medium sized boxes.

Maybe tomorrow I'll visit the movers and see what they have for sale. I apparently get a discount.

Speaking of movers, the one I tried to contact a week ago Saturday tried calling me at the office this morning. I may email him tomorrow evening, which would be a month before the move.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???
Mover's?
*$s?

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

After the horrible mess Sunnyvale Players made of Zombie Prom Friday night, needed the antidote. Luckily today was the last of 3 performances in Mountain View (there's another one in Walnut Creek next Saturday) of Free Range Opera's production of the 1919 hit musical Irene. It was delightful.

And this is interesting because it was done on a bare stage with a few chairs, no props, minimal costuming (all the men wore tux, the women evening gowns) in a 150-seat 3/4 round little theater. The musical accompaniment was a single baby grand. I have been on stage with 5 of the cast and the accompanist, plus the producers.

It was easy to see how this now-forgotten gem ran for almost 2 years on Broadway. It's also easy to see why it has been forgotten. There are some tuneful songs, but they lean towards ragtime style. The plot is outdated, but it's not too different from My Fair Lady's plot. And the woman playing the title role needs to have an astonishing memory, she has lines which must traverse two or three pages at a time.

There was such a crush of people after the show that I only got a chance to say hello to one of my friends. I feel a bit guilty about that, but it has not been a good week for that.

Standard Time has me doing everything an hour earlier than usual, including this entry. I did manage to turn back the clocks which needed it. I used some of that time to do more packing, but not the packing I had in mind yesterday. Instead of the office book shelves, I cleared out the three drawers of a plastic dresser in the living room, which was stuffed with my parents' drug store-developed photos. That's what I remembered being in there, but when I dove into it there were stacks of souvenir postcards, a lot of loose older photos of the family, cassette tapes of my Israeli nieces and nephews singing tunes they composed, and an 8mm spool which I don't have the equipment to look at. It's a single roll of film's worth. It all filled one small book box.

Lunch was a pair of corn dogs.

After the show I watched football, dinner was beef brisket in Jack Daniels sauce and baked beans mixed with sliced green beans. No unidentifiable body parts in those so far.

And I packed up most of the shelf in the livingroom of the parents & grandparents old photos. Most of them are framed or matted, and there were also some other gems like mom's & dad's high school diplomas. And a school pennant or two.

No more ice cream, so I had pistachios for dessert. Maybe I'll make an egg cream later. I am really enjoying the Sodastream unit. Much less hassle than siphons. But still some hassle because you have to use their bottles to charge a liter at a time of water.

Kaan did something while I was watching the ball game which amazed me. Hanging from the bottom of the top shelf of the tall cat tree is a pair of soft fuzzy balls on an elastic string. He has been batting them around for weeks. Today he wrapped his mouth around one, jumped down one level, then to the top of my tall speaker and then to the floor, which snapped the elastic and left him playing with one fuzzy ball. When he got tired of playing I tied it back onto its loop, and tied the other one on as well. He is too clever by half.

In other cat news, this morning the Humane Society called, they won't take Domino. They will take Kaan, but I'm not really interested in that. Good to know it is an option if the park manager insists on the 1-cat rule.

While I was at the show, the guy from the first choice moving company left voicemail saying they could do the move, $145/hr. Minus a 5% return customer discount applied at the end of the move. It took him more than a week to get back to me, and the mover I scheduled is charging $119/hr. Maybe in a week I'll let him know he was too late. He did this the last time too, but it was more like 3 days.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Kaiser pharmacy, insulin & enteric baby aspirin. If I take enough, will I have an enteric baby?
MNF and more packing. What I pack depends on whether the parental collection of 78's & LPs will fit into the boxes I already have.

Current Mood: cured
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

that I would get some sleep tonight, because I'll be going to a show tomorrow night and really don't want to doze off in the theater and possibly be eaten by zombies.

Last night's library event threw off my schedule, I didn't get to sleep until after 1 am, and the alarm goes off at 7.

Somehow I managed to spend the whole day at work researching stuff, but not accomplishing anything which could be measured. I forgot that I had promised one of the automation people to write several step-by-steps for test cases which are missing them. Tomorrow, I promise.

I did get some personal stuff done. Went online and re-worked my list of movers. The one which moved me last time hasn't responded to Saturday's voicemail or Tuesday's email, I suspect they are out of business. They are definitely out of mine. #2 choice's web site was clearly primarily a commercial mover, specializing in whole office building moves. So #3 it is, a company called The One Move. Weird name, but their web site is excellent, I filled out the form asking for an estimate and Josh called me within 2 hours, asked all the right questions, and gave me a verbal estimate followed by a written one. We are booked for the morning of December 5.

Lunchtime I went to the Sunnyvale Petco and talked with the Humane Society person there. She said that for Sunnyvale residents they definitely do accept surrendered cats, regardless of what the web site says, and she gave me a number to call and some clue on how to find the application form in the web site. It's a 4-page for which needs to be printed and filled out by hand, which I did at work. It's a pretty reasonable barrage of questions, written to not impose feelings of massive guilt.

I've been listening to Gaiman's Fragile Things in the car, most of the first disk is snippets describing, 1 by 1, in detail, how he came to write the short stories on the remaining 8 discs. I skipped those, and am in about the third chapter of the first story, which is a Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulu number. For reasons unknown, he is careful to avoid calling Holmes or Watson by name. And he pronounces Lestrade with a long "a". I've always said it with a short "a". "ah".

Got the scheduled call from the diabetes doctor about 2 hours late, we decided I need to swap veggies to replace pasta.

Home by way of Lucky's, for veggies and TV dinners. And it dawned on me that canned veggies were a wiser choice with an impending move than frozen. So I did a price comparison, and the canned ones were on average 20% less expensive, ounce for ounce. So I came home with very heavy shopping bags. Also got bananas and apples and limes.

That's the plaza with the batcave Starbucks, which is no longer cave-like, the facade has finally been completed, it is very pretty, and while there is still a fenced pathway it is only there while they complete the patio in front. I give it a week. Now they are tearing into the KFC and donut shop on the other side of the parking lot.

Juggled watching football (a dead boring game got very interesting at the end, went into overtime and was decided by a safety) with writing a cover letter and faxing the forms to the Humane Society, FB, LJ and Quicken. My paycheck was deposited a day early, and my mutual fund sale made it onto the broker's feed a day late. I won't need that cash until about the 21st. And December 1. And January 1. The movers will take Discover Card, which means almost a month of free money plus a whopping cash back.

And now my conscience tells me I need to pack one more box of CDs.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Zombie Prom at Sunnyvale

Current Mood: relieved
Current Location: Home

Despite the new BP meds, my readings are still way too high. I blame this house buying thing. Was just forced to sell another large chunk of mutual funds to pay for first & last at the mobile home park, and two years' up front taxes and insurance. Grrrr. That's on top of December and January rent on the apartment lease. Well, the part when I'm not living in the apartment from the second week of December till Jan 24. And unknown closing costs.

The good news is I get to hang onto the downpayment and closing costs until just before escrow closes, so another ~ 5 weeks.

Lots of work at work today. More tomorrow. Mostly "push 'go' and wait" tests. The waits are between 5 and 500 minutes. Automation guy figured out a way to do tests from my desk which normally would have to be done in our noisy, hot, under-construction lab.

Lunch was at the Round Table pizza buffet. 12:30 and the place was almost empty. Strange, they have an extensive salad bar and a good selection of pizza, including a lovely apple cobbler desert pizza.

Automation guy asked me about Obamacare for his mother, who has zero income for the last 7 years. I went to the CA web site, and it looks like even with no income she would be charged $8/month for minimal coverage.

No return call from the movers. I'll try again tomorrow. I still have the guy's email address. Hmmm.

Another BP raiser was in the mail, an envelope from the lender, which makes me nervous because the loan is still not finalized. Turns out it was just a form for me to sign to get a copy of the appraisal, an appraisal which I had paid $350 for. Of course I want a copy, idiots. You shouldn't even have asked, just send it. Probably required for them to do so by CA law.

Tivoed the Seahawks game, was so disgusted with how poorly they played that I shut it off halfway through the 3rd quarter. I see from the final score that they didn't make any points after that, and only won because the Rams were even more inept on offense. 14-9 in what should have been a total rout. Route? Look it up, howeird. Rout.

Caught the 9th inning of the World Series**. There is nothing in sports more boring to me than a pitcher's duel. I was glad to see Boston win, after they were robbed in that previous game. That guy coming into home was out. He never touched the bag. If there's a rule which says he was safe, that rule is asinine, wrong, bogus & un-American. I has spoken.

** okay, the 45th inning if you want to be technical. The 9th of tonight's game.

Saw a Best Buy Christmas commercial on the tube. Guess where I'm not buying anything until late January?

Oh wait. It's not a tube anymore. It's an LED panel. Or maybe an LCD panel. One or the other, I can't afford plasma.

Thinking seriously of giving Domino up for adoption. She still fights with Kaan, and she has never been affectionate toward me for more than 3 minutes at a time. But she likes other people, and is well behaved. She would make an excellent senior's companion. I think I'll talk to the humane society folks. The park lease is specific about only one cat per household.

Took a look around the kitchen counters with an eye to throwing things away. Three soda siphons which leak. A small stack of black plastic thin microwave containers from Costco refrigerated food packs. The electric fondue pot stays.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Start packing.
Check the dumpster - if it's empty make a donation or three.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Well, box acquisition day, actually.

But first, watched the 49ers playing at Wembley, which sounds like something a time lord would say. Timey-Wembley. They whupped a truly awful team. Lots of 49ers jerseys in the stands, but also lots from all the NFL teams. At least one cheesehead. While the game was on I opened the patio door for the cats. Domino went out there and curled up on her chair, Kaan played gatekeeper and parked himself just inside the opening, looking out. Domino had some trouble getting up onto the chair, so I moved some stuff back a ways on the shorter table between the chairs. She figured that out quickly.

Changed both of the litterboxes, put those on the dolly, added the stack of flattened cardboard boxes accumulated for a month, and added the kitchen garbage bag. Wheeled all that out to the dumpster and was greeted with a challenge - apparently half the tenants moved yesterday, because it was filled to about 2 feet above the top, mostly with things which were supposed to go to the dump. Lots of furniture. A set of child-size table & chairs - well used. I managed to get my stuff on the pile but it was a lot of exercise. Back inside it took about 10 minutes to recover.

Watched the first two scores of the Raiders game, and hit "record". Kicked Domino off the patio, closed the door, drove to U-haul and bought a bundle of small (books, cds, etc) boxes and a bundle of medium (LPs, 78s, old family matted and framed photos).

Home, watched the Tivo of the Raider's game. They tried real hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but were saved by the opposite team's kicker having a bad day.

The plan was to do some packing tonight, but I forgot about Sunday Night Football. And the load of laundry I did this morning which was in the dryer. And then there was this piece of logic:

I could watch the game while packing up the family photos and records which are on the rack of shelves near the recliner, but those are the bottom two shelves, and simple pre-rocket scientist physics says if I unloaded those first, the stuff on the top shelves would tip the rack over. The stuff on the top shelves is mostly not going to move with me - except for a set of framed Thai temple rubbings - it is all poster size photos which had been hung at various con art shows, but are now destined for the dumpster, as soon as the bin has room for them. Meanwhile there is no place to park them. So I am at a standstill until the garbage truck makes its rounds.

The small boxes are here in the computer room with me, and I can start boxing up my CD/DVD collection. Logistics for that are easy, since they are in alphabetical order top to bottom, and as each of the three racks is emptied, it can be turned 90° and the boxes can stack in their place. Pretty much the same story with the book cases, except I think a few of the items are oversized and need a medium or large box.

Left to do today is enter my insulin log into the PC, after adjusting it to the reality that my blood sugar reading is before dinner but my shooting up is after.

I have new upstairs neighbors, apparently. They play their music and video games loud enough for me to hear. And they run up and down the stairs very aggressively. Not bad enough to complain to them, just enough to know they are not the same old neighbors.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Email the mfg rep - is there a floor plan available for the new place?
Monday Night Football

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Home

Tried to sleep in but remembered I needed to do my insulin thing before 10. Left at 11:15 for the mfg rep appointment, didn't realize it was so close to home, got there at 11:18. Drove around the neighborhood some, parked around the corner and 2 blocks down, listening to Sarah Chang violin concertos.

Today was signing off on the disclosure paperwork. What was disclosed was mostly good:

- The house, its plumbing and electric and appliances are sound.
- It is not on a fault line but the ground will liquify somewhat during a major quake.
- It is in a 100-year flood zone, but chances of an actual flood are zero.
- There is minor termite and fungus damage which the current owner will pay to repair.
- One of the toilets needs to be re-seated with a new seal. I get to pay for that. I did that once, but I'd rather have a plumber do it.
- Escrow will close 11/21

There was a bill for the building inspection, $100 less than the estimated cost
There was a receipt for my payment of the termite inspection

Now that I know the close date, I called the moving company and left voicemail asking for a December 5 move. That's a week from Thanksgiving. It's also the King of Thailand's birthday. He will be 86. The last time I moved, we played voicemail tag a little, and the move went well, so I am not concerned.

Walked over to the apartment office with a pair of forms filled out, one was an application to terminate the lease early, the other was a standard intent to vacate. Unfortunately, the management is sticking to the terms of the lease, which means they won't accept a payoff to end the lease early. Most places I have lived will take either an extra month's rent or the difference between the lease rent amount and the month-to-month rent amount ($425 a month). But with the termination application comes the deal that if they rent out the place before Jan 24, I'll get a pro-rated refund. I had to wait about 10 minutes to talk to the manager, there was a lot of traffic - people signing leases. I suspect the apartment won't stay empty long. I set the vacate date for 12/8.

Time to buy some boxes. Books, CDs, DVDs, old family photos can be packed away right now, I can bear to not have them handy for a few weeks.

In tech news, Internet Explorer is my new default browser. Firefox has done something to font settings which make the characters break up and become unreadable. Same font settings in IE look fine. Chrome is also a little weak. And somehow it lost the add-on to warn me if I close more than one tab at a time.

Should have done something outdoors today, but didn't. Went out onto the patio to read, started nodding off so I took a nap. Had a low blood sugar reading at about 3 pm, made a couple of roti (I still had curry left over from last night). Watched some of the Stanford game, and switched to UW when it came on. Stanford had a tough time against the Beavers, Washington trounced Cal after a slow start. Also saw AZ knock off CO. Makes me miss the Pac-8, when all the teams were an easy drive from the ocean. Except Wazoo, that is. But at least the state has ocean front property.

Kaan was on the top tier of the tall cat tree, trying to fight with a nail hole in the wall which looks from a distance like a little black bug. So I grabbed the laser pointer, hoping to give him a better target, but as soon as he heard me lift it (there's a key chain) he zoomed down from the tree and stood right in front of me, waiting for the red dot. He chased it all over the place, but he knows what it is. I'm guessing his previous owners played red dot with him a lot. Domino just stayed in her spot on the carpet under the TV table rack and stared.

pof.org "plenty of fish" is a free, amateurishly built dating web site. Janice recommended it. Filled out the profile 3 days ago, uploaded photos, and this morning got email from them suggesting I fill in my profile and upload some pictures. It also made the ludicrous suggestion that I should respond to profiles which do not have photos, because those women are apt to reply more than those who do have photos posted. Nope. If a woman does not have a photo up she is either technically inept, thinks she is ugly, or she is trying to cheat on someone.

I spent 20 minutes re-doing the profile because half the drop-downs did not have choices which applied to me, and they don't allow leaving those blank. Hair color did not include white. Religion did not include atheist or "none". There was no choice for dating women whose children do not live with them. They lumped BBW with "a few extra pounds" for women I would date. Hugely fat women are not attractive to me, but I'm okay with a few extra pounds. Very few.

When I clicked "save" it didn't. I did it over, this time saving every two or three lines.

Plans for tomorrow:
Minor chores. Take out the garbage, which includes, this time, the flattened boxes which are bungeed in the livingroom.
If it's a nice day, go to a park or something. If not, the Tech Museum.
U-haul for boxes

Current Mood: anticip
Current Location: Home

In the continuing saga of the buying of the abode, the appraisal came in at almost exactly what the sales price is. Can I get an Amen? No don't, I'm an atheist.

But what this means is two things: the seller won't ask for more $$, and the lender won't ask for more $$.

And I don't feel cheated.

Morning blood sugar was way too high.

Stripped the bed, put the stuff in the wash, made the bed with bright orange cotton sheets, Kaan helped by playing submarine attack.
Went online and then put the wash in the dryer before heading for work.

Got to work a little early, had a lot of planning and thinking to do about the project I am on. Spent all day cranking out test cases for the new java app. Found a couple of minor bugs. Was unpleasantly surprised when the fellow who created the tool told me he cut and pasted everything from a previous version, and didn't really know what it did. Ouch. Because he included the active ingredients of the code in his documentation, and it was mostly simple stuff which non-programmer me understood.

Anyhow that took all day except for the half hour it took to write my weekly report.

Lunch was at Starbucks. The economy is getting better because there were parking spaces for the car and for my butt. I had a free drink on the app, but they have discontinued the cookie crumble frappe till next summer, so I settled for mocha frappe.

Much eye candy, but mostly to go orders. I didn't stay long. Finished half my drink at my desk.

Phone showed voicemail at about 3 pm, but the phone had not rung and there was no call on my phone log. It was the mfg rep with the news about the appraisal. Made an appointment for tomorrow morning to sign some more papers. Disclosures. Forgot that I wanted to go to NASA for the model rocket launch, probably the last one of the year. But my arm isn't up to holding the Nikon yet, so no harm done.

Home by way of the French Store, where I bought a new tennis elbow strap, the original one is losing its cushioning. Also got another birthday card for my sister. I'm almost covered till June, her actual birth month. It's a lovely store, but their checkout maze is insane.

Watched some TV, bull riding and fantasy football suggestions. With the helmets and padding the bull riders wear these days, they could combine the two.

Dinner took some time to cook. Roti with Penang curry dip. And some thawed ham slices.

Got the comforter out of the dryer and finished making the bed.

Plans for tomorrow:
Morning. Maybe watch some college football.
Mfg rep appointment
?? See a movie. No, everything I wanted to see is no longer playing. It's all drek this week
Call the moving company for the current prices.

Current Mood: rushed
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

So the latest news is I have been approved for mobile home park residency. And it seems I misunderstood, it was the owner who wanted to close escrow before Thanksgiving, so I said okay. I don't think I will actually move until December. Need to find movers. I frankly can't remember how the ones who moved me here were. The ones two moves ago broke stuff, left stuff behind and stole some DVDs.

And I sent the fax to have the downpayment funds wired from my broker to my CU. That will be combined with some funds in my CU savings and wired to the escrow people or whomever, when they ask for it. I am very nervous about spending half my non-taxable retirement assets.

Last night Kaan spent all but the last hour curled up next to my head. Domino spent some time parked by my feet, but not much. I had a low blood sugar episode at about 3 am, which totally blew my away because my pre-insulin reading was off the charts high and I had only upped my nighttime dosage by 4 units. And done without dessert. That would be 20 units of regular, not all that much for me. A Klondike bar got me normalized.

Today I got some work to do which will take a week. I hate it. I had hoped Sales Engineering had learned their lesson, but they have not, and I am stuck with testing something we shouldn't be sending to customers. Argh. On the bright side, I finally got my main machine back. Yay!

Which reminds me:
Yay rhymes with stay and is an indication of joy "Yippee!"
Yeah rhymes with pear and asserts agreement. "Yes!"

Just in case you may have been using "yeah" when you really meant "yay". The confusion: both can be used to cheer a happy occurance.

Lunchtime I picked up two packages at UPS. More of the Jockey shorts I had ordered a 3-pack of last week. Enough for 2 weeks. And the Original Broadway Cast of the musical Matilda because the girl who played Dorothy to my Cowardly Lion in Fremont, CA in 1986 is one of the leading players, Mrs. Wormwood. The two parts could not possibly be more different. The show starts with the doctor telling Mrs. Wormwood that she cannot possibly get on a plane this afternoon to compete in a ballroom dance competition, because she is in labor. She had no idea. Didn't know she was pregnant.

I have the original London cast recording, and was not impressed. This one is much better engineered, and from an audio standpoint is a joy to listen to. But the composer thinks he's Sondheim, and the only musicals music I like less than Sondheim is wanna-be Sondheim. So far I haven't found a tune, just a lot of clever patter. And a lot of time signature orgies. Like Carmina Burana, which seems to change time signatures every 5 bars. Only not as gracefully done.

The good news is Amazon refunded $8, which is the difference between the pre-order price and the release price.

On the way back to work is a Denny's. I tried to have lunch there but it was a bad decision. Awful waiter. What I ordered did not come with a salad, but he thought it did so he asked me what kind of dressing I wanted, and I told him. They have discontinued my favorite sides, so I got mac and cheese, and sweet corn.

It did not take overly long to get the food, but he slammed it down on the table, all at once, this huge salad in its own meal-sized bowl, the main course and corm and mac on a small plate, and a side plate with garlic bread which doesn't come with it and I didn't order. The corn was cold and not sweet. The mac was mac and Alfredo sauce. The main dish was fine. He didn't charge for the salad so he got a tip, but it was a close call.

Back at work, 1-on-1 with the boss, not much to talk about.

Home, caught up a bit on Tivo, two episodes of Elementary. The writing is getting better. So is the acting, all around. I can now tolerate the leading man. I will always have a problem with the WTF character names.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Thursday night football
Maybe Starbucks

Current Mood: positive
Current Location: Home

..and there were not many plans.

Shot up at 9, decided to make a real breakfast: French toast with Orowheat Health Nut bread, eggbeaters, lactose-free 2%, cinnamon, powdered sugar with a little margarine in the pan to make it crisp. Not as attractive as white bread, but much yummier.

Got the car washed, it is so nice to have the windows clean inside and out. I don't care if the car is shiny, as long as I can see out.

Broke down all the empty boxes from online purchases, and bungeed them. Not enough to haul to the dumpster, I tell myself. I lie, but why make the trip?

Watched some football. Jets vs. Patriots. Tom Terrific Brady sucked. Geno was adequate. Jets played like an NFL team for a change, Pats didn't.

Kaan had been voluntarily parking inside the cat carrier for the last 3 days, but when it came time to put him in there for the ride to Petco, he fought like mad. I had to upend the box and drop him in. Got there 15 minutes early, the guys at the front table gave me a "Group 1" tag, and said the line would form halfway to the back of the store, but I could see there already were 4 people ahead of me. Then they moved the tables and had us line up closer to the front of the store. At a little before 2, they handed each of is a clipboard with a form to fill out. Right at 2, another table was set up way at the back of the store, and we were told to wait till we were called. But we lined up back there anyway. All four pets ahead of me were dogs. All four weighed less than Kaan. It was pretty quick, since the dogs were all in shopping carts and just needed to be lifted out, held in place, and shot. The one in front of me also got some oral meds.

Kaan fought with all his might to stay in the crate, but these guys knew what they were doing and hauled him out, got him in position and gave him the shot in about 20 seconds. He ran back into the carrier when they were done.

Next stop, the first table, where they took my money ($22), gave me the rabies shot medallion, and a copy of the form with generic "things to look for after a vaccination" sheet.

Back home, just long enough to let Kaan out of the carrier and see that he wasn't mad at me. Watched a wee bit of the 49ers game, made sure it was recording on Tivo and headed for Starbucks to chat with Janice. This time it was mostly me talking, but next time she will be back from India, and will have lots to tell me.

Home, launched the recording of the game, 2xFFed past all the commercials, and as usual kept it in single FF so it was slow enough to see everything but the annoying announcers' voices are muted. 3xFFed past halftime BS. The game started slowly, eventually the 9ers came up to speed and owned the game, but they cruised through the 4th quarter, just not enough to lose.

Watched an episode of Restaurant Stakeout. I keep thinking it's time to stop recording this, because it has become formula, the restaurant always turns itself around. I want to see a failure now and then because you know there have to be some.

Wore the new shoes all day, I am liking how they feel with the new socks. But next time I think I'll order the crew length sox instead of the calf length. Speaking of sox, the team color for both the teams in the World Series is red. How will we tell the fans apart?

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
MNF or BASFA. If BASFA, I will bring some empty moon cake tins to auction.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

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howard stateman

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