(Old) Laundry Day in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
141

Home. Car is at the shop and got Uber’ed home (of all the apps on my phone, that is the best one for me). Driver was from Afghanistan originally and wanted to talk about Islam, not the best conversation for 8am in the morning but considering he probably had a limited number of riders in Ali-bama who would discuss (or at least not argue with him), I did my best and got got ‘brother’ for it. Now sitting at home until the call comes in from the car place.

Cookie, glad you’re on the mend.

Probably was, but it was 1977 and a private Catholic School, so…

142

Maybe you need a dog? :stuck_out_tongue:

That sounds like one heck of an electrical (my educated WAG) issue with your truck sari. I hope that they get it figured out soon.

We had duck and cover my first couple of years (late sixties Catholic school) of school. We prayed the rosary too.

It was spitting rain shortly after we got to the dog park this morning, so we came back home. Given that rain is predicted for later in the day, no wind therapy for me. :frowning: However, reading and art therapy will fill in nicely.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

143

To be fair, I’m a bit spoiled, in that my cat normally responds so consistently, that the fact that I’m even able to get irritated at all when he doesn’t says a lot about what a Reasonably Good Boy he really is.

144

Mornin’, everyone.

It’s 64F and cloudy outside. The expected high will be around 75F, and we’ll have partly cloudy skies by the afternoon.

sari, I hope the fix isn’t too expensive.

I went to school on a military installation for kindergarten, first and second grades (kindergarten was in Germany). We definitely had duck and cover drills during the first and second grades. I started first grade in 1970 to give you some context.

While in third grade, we moved off the installation, and we had regular fire drills and earthquake drills, which were much like duck and cover in that we all had to crawl under our desks.

Yesterday, I told my husband I’d like to check out Deception Pass and the surrounding area, but I don’t think we’ll make it. It’s over two hours from here, and I’d like to be leisurely about it. He’s still in bed because He can’t sleep at night, and his restlessness doesn’t help my sleep issues. We’ll see, but I doubt it will happen, which is disappointing.

I’ve decided that I’m just going to head up to Mount Rainier first thing tomorrow morning (before the sun rises) and explore. I’ll hit Sunrise, and after some exploration there, I’ll check out some lesser-traveled trails on that side of the park. I had originally planned to travel the North Cascades Highway as a two or three-day trip so we could explore other areas too, but there’s a big fire up there that closed part of the highway, and my son has been slammed with a big honkin’ deal for work, so I was hesitant to have him come here to dogsit Polar. He could have easily worked from here, but sometimes you do your best work where you are most comfortable.

Well, I should finish my coffee, shower, and do some tidying around the house. Be safe, everyone.

145

Today I meet with the PA (Yep, same one who screwed up so arrogantly before.) for yet another set of pre-op instructions. Any serious/complex questions will wait until I see the surgeon right before surgery. Last night was not a good night. I was tempted to create a Home Knee Replacement Kit-- mainly aluminum foil and superglue–and get it over with.

One of the nuns told my class Chicago was a prime target so we should pray the bomb got dropped at night while we were sleeping. We did not get under our desks. We marched into the corridor, faced the wall, and assumed the position. I guess your nuns thought a rosary was more important than saving your necks. Sounds very nunnish. I once asked why we clasped our hands over our necks, and the answer was to protect them when the ceiling fell in. I thought the backs of our heads were important, too, and tried to cover both neck and head with my little hands. The Bomb put the BOOM in Baby Boomers. Shoulda called us Generation Twitch.

When we covered the Cold War, I’d pick a tall student and ask him to get under his desk. Of course, he wouldn’t fit, so I’d let him choose which parts to save. This was right after watching The Atomic Cafe, so it was tongue-in-cheek. I also made them learn the “Burt the Turtle” song.

Whoa. Was it grandfathered in or something? Our Lady of the Angels was exempt from the sprinkler requirements, one of many reasons for the tragedy.

Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t very clear. It’s really no big deal–could be from autoimmune or from contact lens wear. Upping my prednisone drops should fix it.

Cookie, glad you’re doing better. How’s the flexibility in the joint?

ETA: Just got a notice my appointment with the PA has been canceled. I wonder why.

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Storm is moving through. Spot is in the kitchen playing with Mr. Feets.

Duck and Cover!

147

we did not do duck and cover drills, just fire drills. i guess they figured phila was a secondary target and there would be no reason for the drill, because we would not survive a hit. perhaps the kids in the suburbs did the drills.

i also thought the hospital would be a likely source for a mrsa infection.

148

I’m guessing basic math and algebra - they have a calc teacher. So he’ll probably mostly have the middle-schoolers.

I took the kidlets for a McLunch just because. Now we’re home with 2 hours to kill before they go back to their mom. Wonder if the boy will nap? Yeah, right…

149

Abbey got scolded. I posted in The Kitty Report.

150

I’ve all of a sudden taken a large leap forward on that. Funny enough, I first noticed it when sitting on the toilet. For quite awhile I had to sit with my left leg extended because of poor flexibility. All of a sudden I noticed that both legs were at a 90. I can also lift my left foot almost as high as the right, which means I can more easily get dressed and can finally put on my own pesky left sock. I’m sure the exercises are really helping with this.

151

My alarm was set for 7:30am but I woke up at 6:44am (to pee…*sigh*), and figured I may as well just stay up. I wound up logging into work only 30-40 minutes earlier than “normal,” but it was enough to make the morning feel weirdly long! Plus one of my employees called out sick, leaving me as the only one to handle staffing stuff, and those requests/tasks were fairly steady through lunch (on top of my other work). Now it’s nearly 2:00pm and there seems to be a lull, plus I’m groggy from having too many carbs at lunch (I had a banana, a Naanwich, and some sugar-free lemon wafers). Where else would I turn but the MMP? :smiley:

I have just two more hours of work to go – one benefit of starting earlier! – and in less than three hours I’ll head to the gym. I’ll kind of miss my current trainer, but I’m ready for today’s hand-off and for my sessions to start an hour later (as of next week).

If this lull continues for long enough, I’ll post my treadmill for sale on FB this afternoon. I’ve been waffling about whether I really should/want to sell it, even while taking photos and researching specs, but this morning I realized that yeah I really should/do. I sure hope someone out there wants it and is willing to come get it. :crossed_fingers:

Cool!

Wait, wait, I know this one…he should get his license!!

( :wink: )

But seriously: sorry about the car drama! :frowning:

Oh, yay! :slight_smile:

Seems like a lot of things in life are like that: progress isn’t steady/predictable, it happens in fits and spurts.

152

Stressful couple of days. I’ve scanned the MMP but didn’t retain much. Hugs where needed. Attaboy, attagirl, hang in there and what not.

We went to the pool Monday afternoon and my phone got wet. Not in the pool, but in a tote bag with a leaky water bottle. It didn’t seem all that drowned, but it started acting haywire almost immediately. It spent most of Tuesday in a bag of rice (really weird being without a phone all day), and yesterday morning it powered up just fine, and I was able to download the latest iOS update and perform a backup, so I thought it was going to be OK. But then the screen went black and I got a flashing apple for a while. I was able to get it started again but the touchscreen was non-responsive.

So off the the AT&T store I go. Well, we go. Mrs W was all “If you’re getting a new phone, I’m getting one too!” We were overdue anyway (had our previous phones for about six years), so I get it. But then she started stressing out about the transfer because she needs her phone for work, and what if it goes wrong, I’ll be screwed, etc., etc. Plus, the timing would be very bad to not have a working phone since we are traveling to North Carolina tonight.

So I suggested I go by myself, and then we could get her a new one after we get back, on a Saturday or something so it would be less urgent. But she’s not having it. I’m not getting a new phone without her. So off we go.

AT&T is offering a deal on the latest iPhone, and the guy there, who was super nice, by the way, was able to re-jigger our plan so that even with monthly payments on the new phones, we’ll be paying less than we were before. So that was good - the best thing that happened all day, in fact.

So it came time to activate the new phones and… it did not go smoothly. Because of some weirdness with the cloud or something, we were getting each other’s stuff on the two phones, and texts to Mrs W were appearing on my phone. After a while they managed to wrangle all those problems, and ultimately - since her old phone was in good working order, they managed to replicate everything onto her new phone via Bluetooth, and she was good to go. Thankfully, because I never would have heard the end of it otherwise.

Since my old phone was fried, though, it wasn’t so easy. After a long start-up process, they couldn’t pull any data from the cloud. We were there for nearly two hours altogether, and Mrs W was getting all grumbly about how much work she had to do and how far behind she was. I bit my tongue and didn’t remind her that she didn’t need to have come in the first place.

I did leave with a working phone, but with none of my previous apps or settings. The prospect of starting from scratch did not make me happy, so I decided to try getting an appointment at the nearest Apple Store (which is 40 minutes away) for this morning to see if they can straighten things out. But getting an appointment proved to be quite impossible. Nobody ever answered the phone, and the link for appointments in the website just looped upon itself endlessly. You’d think a giant tech company would have a better online presence.

Anyway, my choices were to drive the 40 minutes and show up without an appointment, not knowing if they’d even be able to see me, or try to take matters into my own hands. I chose the latter, and hit the internet for advice.

Restoring a phone from the cloud is kind of a leap of faith, because you have to wipe the whole thing clean before you can even start. But I didn’t have much to wipe anyway, so I went for it. That’s when I figured out the answer. Remember that iOS update I mentioned earlier? The new phone didn’t have that update, and therefore the backup from my old phone was incompatible. I downloaded said update onto my new phone, went and grabbed yesterday morning’s backup from the cloud, and voilà! I got my phone back!

Whew. Quite the ordeal, but it feels good to dump all that here, whether any of you unsuspecting Mumpers actually read it or not.

And the good news is we have a fun long weekend with family ahead of us. My nieces are throwing a surprise 40th anniversary party for my brother and SIL, who have no idea we’re coming, along with our other brother and a bunch of their out-of-town friends. We’re catching the red-eye tonight; wheels up at 11:13 pm. Can’t wait!

153

Wow. {{Sari}}!! And what a PITA Wheelz. But the family event sounds great.

As Doggio said, we two had a microDopefest in Raleigh on Wed. Despite Fate’s best efforts to foil us. Good convo, good eats, good beers, and a good bartenderette. A fine time was had by both. Had to quit a bit earlier than we might so I could go to hotel & go to bed. Oh well.

Now on Thu after a stupid early get-up, I’ve made it down to Quito a bit after local lunchtime. The weather today was glossy perfect clear and the scenery was simply amazing. All too often here we know there’s amazing stuff around, but it’s covered in cloud or smoky haze. Not today!

It’s sunny, 8000 foot elevation, and now in the mid-afternoon 79F/26C. So the sun is hot, the air is dry, and the breeze is cool-feeling. The smells of nearby agriculture are pleasantly bucolic, not like a giant agribusiness stockyard.

For teh last 15 minutes I’ve had that awkward feeling you have waiting for sneeze to mature. But in this case it’s a nap maturing, not a sneeze. So that may interrupt my Doping here soon.

Planning early dinner here and back to bed for stoopit early start tomorrow again. At least I’m heading heading home then. Perchance to stay there for a day or 3.

154

Howdy Y’all! Stuff got done and we were bears who brunch. Then it was back to da cave for some quality cee-mint pond time that got disrupted by rain and thunder rumblin’s. Oh well. It didn’t last long, but we had already showered, so there was nuttin’ to do but accomplish nappage. Then we accomplished day drinkin’. Rain/tstorms/apocalypse are predicted for tomorrow. We shall see. Won’t bother us cause there will be nowhere we want or need to go.

We did duck and cover drills in elementary school. We went into the hallway for those. Fun times. The Prelinger Archives has a lot of those old weird skool films should anyone decide the need for goin’ down a rabbit hole.

155

I am certain that I have. We have discussed the duck and cover drills here before.

My other cold war response is that I used to have a tee shirt with a mushroom cloud and the caption

“Welcome to Bellevue Nebraska. Ground Zero USA”

156

Well, that was a fun afternoon… I took the kids to their mom, then helped FCD re-route an ethernet cable that was all twisted up and about a foot too short until we moved it. So the mess deck now has a working hot spot. We still have to re-route or replace another cable, but that’s a chore for tomorrow.

Plus he’s got some teacher training at 8:30, so while he’s doing that, I’ll be testing the hotspots in the classrooms. I’ll have to turn them all off, then turn them on one at a time to be sure they’re working and I’m not getting signal from a neighboring classroom. Then, I don’t know - we’ve still got stuff to do.

The promised rain today barely happened. Last night’s channel 7 meteorologist said Leonardtown could expect over 1" of rain. I think there was a shower that lasted maybe 5 minutes? So gross overestimation there. Tho technically the day isn’t over…

No supper to speak of tonight - we’ll forage. I just had a peach yogurt. Now I’m ready to assume the recliner position. At least I’m showered - rerouting the cable was a grubby chore.

157

Get the hell rid of it - you’re paying for access to far better equipment, plus you’ll get space back in your home.

Just … don’t be surprised if you hafta give it away, in return for someone coming to get it. IME these things turn into clothes hangers for most folks.

Oh, goody, I wasn’t the only one thinking the exact same thought.

I used to work corporate pseudo-I.T. (I managed documents and transferred websites.) Consider who has the “pain point” and then who has the incentive to fix said pain point vs. who actually can fix it.

Could they fix it? Sure. Do they care? Nah, why should they?
They’re not the ones being inconvenienced.

Pics or it didn’t happen.

158

The truly wonderful scenery is during the descent where we start seeing a snow-capped volcano, then eventually craggy mountains, then verdant valleys full for cities, towns and farms, then slowly descend into one valley aiming at another volcano, eventually make a 180 at a big fork in a river and head back up the adjacent valley towards the airport. But we’re a bit busy to be taking pictures.

Once parked, the scenery looking up at the ridgelines from the valley floor is less exciting. But here are a couple I did take after we parked. The hotel is in that awkward place where there are no good vistas except from the inaccessible roof.

159

I feel your pain with the phone woes wheelie. I was there a few weeks ago with my old one functional…except the touchscreen. I could use it in the car, where I just used the car’s visuals, but nowhere else. Unfortunately, my phone was locked, so I couldn’t just bluetooth pics and data from it, but on the other hand, it was synced to my tablet, so I just synced the new phone back.

I did manage to get out on the bike for an all too brief ride today (took my rain suit but didn’t have to use it, as I pulled into where I store it about the time that the clouds burst), managed to buy groceries and do the cutting and inking on a few Christmas cards (pics to come). I’ll assemble the cards this evening now that the fussy part is over. It’s been a good mental health day. :slight_smile:

160

Evening all. Napped some and then got the call from the car repair shop. They mentioned the two words I dreaded…‘cylinder head’ and I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to have it replaced for many thousands of dollars. Am thinking about renting a car and leaving this one parked, but that will add a grand to the cost…but like the guy at the place said, it’s repairable now, don’t drive it too hard so that it becomes non-repairable. Will think about it. Soccer cancelled again (we’re 4 for 4 on cancellations) so went to the gym for some calorie burning and then put them back on with a cheeburger and a banana. Have to go check the mail here in a minute then spend the needed time to get sleeply again after said afternoon nappage.

Taters, enjoy the mountains.

nellie, best wishes on the knee.

Cookie, keep on progressing with that leg.

Wheelie, sorry about the phone woes, my phone which seemed to die after passing security in Atlanta a couple weeks ago is still going strong, so I need to go back to the Verizon store and get the sim card transferred back to it and turn in the new phone (30 days return).

Pilot, once spent an extra night in Quito because of fog at the airport and the pilots timed out (at least that was what I think I remember), so they put us on buses, took us back into town (45 minutes at least) and we got about 5 hours sleep before getting back on the buses and going back to the airport for our flight (Not your airline). Still, it’s a pretty city and I enjoyed my time there… The photos are great.

OK, need to check the mail. Have a good evening all.