Afternoon, mumpers! It is turning out to be the week from hell over here as we’re back into exams processing for our continuing students (and the final year students who had extensions/resubmissions to graduate). I’ve just sat through a 2hr scrutiny meeting with our assorted exams officers who seem not to have a clue between them and expect me to have all the answers for them. Good thing I do…
Now got informal notes to write up and send around so people remember what they’re meant to do before the exam boards meet on Friday. Oh joy. That’s three separate meetings, almost back-to-back through the day. Can’t wait.
hugs all round, because I need them, even if you lot don’t!
Morning all. Up around 0650 so I may have some early nappage, as I have soccer practice with the girls from 5-7pm. Have bagged the Purple Heart donation, need to make myself presentable and place outside by 9am (0715 here now). Also need to go through soccer paperirk and get it organized.
boo fae, be proud you can answer all the questions the ‘chiefs’ come up with; sounds like the organization couldn’t get along without you and that is a good thing come evaluations and discussions about raises…
Dot, for one who disparages her brain in her notes here, you write with a great deal of style and good grammer and show a marvelous grasp of the english language…much better than a certain politician that will remain nameless… Have some good visits today and cheering for your on the Driver’s exam.
Thel, you are a saint, you know that, don’t you?
nellie, susan, take care and hope the smoke goes away soon.
{{{Boo}}}; as much as we drive in our lives, often at 60MPH or higher, we forget how very, very fast everything can go sideways, even if we do everything right. Take care.
Alright, this is one of the blank mornings regarding sustenance so I need to do some foraging. All y’all take care.
Another beautiful day. I remembered to grab a hoodie in the way out the door.
No fights today, and my friend who fell was finally able to come back. She has a brace on her leg and walks with a cane, but it was good to see her, and her dog, back.
Today is the first Pooch Plunge. I’m looking forward to it. I want my son to go with me as I think Echo is going to be hard to handle. She is incredibly strong and I know she is going to be excited.
I forgot to get money on the way home,. I wonder it they’ll take a check.
The fence guy is a few doors up mowing a neighbor’s yard. Then he’ll be down to finish my fence. Echo saw him as we drove past and went crazy on me.
I don’t think Daughter and SIL cleaned their room at all in the 2+ years they were living here. I had to empty the vacuum canister SIX times!!! I need to remove one more nail and take off the switch and outlet plates, then it will be ready for paintage. Once that’s done, I’ll run the carpet cleaner and hang freshly laundered drapes (they’ll be laundered tomorrow.)
Then I need to attack Roxy’s room - all except for the switch plates - they stay on until painting day. I’ll get on it after her nap… which should come soon, since she was rousted from bed early this morning.
I expect a purple hip by the end of the day. When I was removing on of the blinds, I forgot the step stool had 3 steps, so the last step was a doozy, and I came down. Fortunately, neither Higgs nor Roxy were in the room, so I just hit the floor. I like to think it was a dramatic and graceful fall, but I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing no one had a video camera pointed at me.
Tuna steak for supper. Not sure what I’ll have for lunch, but Roxy is getting leftover mac-n-cheese. She’s eating like a teenage boy on a growth spurt! How does someone so small ingest so much???
Holy Moses, it’s after 10 am! I guess I needed some extra rest. It’s still raining, so it’s dim enough light that I thought it must be closer to dawn.
Sweet!
Today’s agenda includes laundry, and apparently, hauling the wet clean stuff to The House O’Suds for their dryers. Cuz it’s not going outside to dry!
Other than that, I dunno. Fry up another tomato or two, while they’re still nice & green.
Monkey has cabin fever + the zoomies, and is currently running around at top speed in my tiny hobbit hole of a home, using all surfaces (including me!) for parkour training. Nikki is growling at him, of course, and at ME for bringing this hobgoblin into her life.
Reading y’all’s morning (and ScareyFaerie across the pond, good afternoon) reports. I so enjoy this, it’s like coffee with a whole bunch of friends at the village diner, where every body knows your name:musical_note:. Lived two blocks from the real “Cheers!” in Boston. It really was like that, except a greater proportion of grumpy characters in the real one. That’s ok since I was often one of the curmudgeons.
Going for a nap attempt now. My brain was not impressed by Mel last night. Hope forecast of heavy rain and thunder happens, I sleep better with nature’s background noise.
I took the day off today, originally because I had my annual neurology appointment and it takes forever to drive downtown, park, go into the office and wait for my seven-minute appointment, so I figured instead of a half day, I might as well make a day of it and get some quiet. As luck would have it, the appointment was automatically converted to virtual since as seizure patients go I’m pretty low maintenance. So far anyway. I really liked the virtual appointment - did most of the exam online pretty easily. Hopefully getting my meds is as easy. If so, I might ask to do the same thing virtually next year.
That was probably the most excitement I’ll have all day. I’m dropping the car off for service today, going to Costco with my mom, taking the kids to a tennis lesson and hopefully getting a nap in at some point. I was up until 1 a.m. chatting with my husband and I’m beat. In fact, I might lay down now while no one is asking for lunch.
They are saying the El Dorado fire is 16% contained, but today had red-flag warnings out (high winds) and it may well break containment. At the very least we are going to have to be on the alert for hot spots from flying embers. I’m outside the Mandatory Evacuation Area, but down wind. Smells like the inside of a chimney outside. No sun to speak of. The kitties are bummed.
Hope everybody has a good Tuesday. They’ve canceled school because of the evacuations, so maybe I’ll get some work done from home instead.
It’s 10:00 and it’s been a rough one so far. My annunciator panel lit up in Everett. Check Engine light, VCS light, low tire pressure light, and a Big Red [!] Triangle. I dropped the car off at Toyota of Seattle. They don’t have a shuttle service due to the coronavirus, so I started out on the 3.2 mile walk to the orifice. I called our receptionist to let her know I’d be late. She offered to come pick me up, and I accepted. The problem with the car is a failing inverter coolant pump (the pump for the cooling system for the hybrid battery). They said it would be done by 14:00, and the receptionist leaves at 14:15 or so. So I’ll hitch a ride with her and leave for home early.
On a brighter note, I just got an email from our Tampa affiliate telling me I’m getting a $100 Amazon gift card as a reward for signing up new data contributors.
Also, a cow-orker brought in his weird little dog that likes to walk on her hind legs, and sit like a rabbit.
Afternoon all. More hugs here if required- {{ insert name here }}
I feel ya Boofae, I’m only at FE level, but we have absolute madness, with the added cherry on top that we already have students present in person. After getting a surprise class added to my schedule, I had another two classes added while I was irking- I mean like someone literally come up to me and said ‘Can you take the — group? When? Right now!’ Twice. In one day. And I’m not even officially a member of the teaching staff. I’m a lab tech.
I haven’t tried hiding under the desk so they can’t find me yet, but give me until the end of the week. Tomorrow is off though- I have no scheduled classes, I’m not there, I’m taking the car to the car doctor for a checkup, so I can’t drive in regardless, and they can’t make me.
To be fair, the students are all pretty nice though, so there’s that. Just… Aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
Good morning, campers! (Sorry, listened to Tommy too often as a kid.) I’m waiting for maintenance guy to come–probably Fred. I have my mask at the ready. He’s supposed to be here between 10 and 10:30. I’m guessing he’ll be late.
The smoke cleared up some. The nearest fire is 100 miles away, so I’m in zero danger. Silenus (Sorry, can’t remember your nickname? Is it Shhh? Just guessing.) and susan are in much more danger. Fingers crossed you don’t have to evacuate. If you do, let us know afterwards (when you can, of course).
flyboy, sorry about the car trouble. What a pain. Yippee on the gift card. Do you have much smoke up your way? And did you get your power back?
Thel, I have a theory that we can prepay for sins. All the bad crud you went through in your life? Prepayment. Besides, it’s who you are now that matters. I agree you’re a saint–though feel free to do a little sinnin’ now and then.
Honey, he has to get up to go sleep with people on the other side of the world. Mel really gets around.
{{{boo fae}}}
It’s now 10:35, and I am still unmaintained. Hmph.
Huh. And apparently almost 6,000 people are without power here. Apparently a “small animal” got into the switch at a substation. The animal’s name has not been released pending notification of his family.
Lemme check th’ wind-der… It looks a little hazy out. I heard on the radio there was a poor air quality warning until 11:00 today. That’s 20 minutes away, so maybe it will magically disappear at that time. I did smell smoke this morning, but not up north.
The power came back on yesterday, and I shut off the generator, rebooted the cable/TV, and reset the clocks. Then the power went out again and I had to plug in the generator again. The power eventually did come back.
Irked.
Fence guy is gone, almost done.
I took a shower and got dressed. I’m waiting for the neighbor to text that the drug store texted that his script is ready. I’ll take him to the store and stop at the bank for cash on the way back. I also have to get directions to the pool. And fill out the waver, that my picture can be used and that I understand that dogs may have eliminated in the pool. I’m not planning to go in any deeper than my thighs, so no danger of swallowing anything icky.
If I see anything float by, I for sure won’t be testing it to see if it is a Butterfinger. I’m allergic to peanuts.
I cancelled my doctor appointment for tomorrow. Now I have to find a new doctor. Maybe the current one can find somebody who likes to go to the doctor. I know several people like that, too bad they don’t live near here. I could hook them up with each other.
So yesterday, as I said, I drove the MG down to the new brew pub. As I drove down the beach, some dude on the other side of the street yelled, 'Hey, boss! How ‘bout a ride?’ OK… ‘Boss’ is something I associate with prison lingo. I’m sure I’m not the only one. It’s probably best not to use it to hail someone. And… He was walking up the beach and I was driving down it. What, he wanted me to turn around and drive him somewhere? I got to the brewery to find it uncrowded.
Unfortunately, I did not have the most necessary part of the tool kit whilst driving a classic British sportscar – my mobile phone. I couldn’t call Mrs. L.A. to see if she wanted to have a short drive and a beer, so I headed home to ask her. On the drive up the beach I see ‘Hey, Boss Guy’ again, holding his thumb out as he walks. He sees me coming and makes that ‘Aw, come on!’ gesture with his arms.’ Sorry dude.
As I said before, Mrs. L.A. decided not to have a beer. On the drive down and back, I didn’t see the hitchhiker again.
Daughter is on her way to claim her child. FCD had to go on base to check out an airplane - glad they finally permitted it. Once the kid is gone, I can get a little more packing/cleaning done.
Yesterday, FCD asked me to look at the design he was working on. They asked him to redesign some parts that someone else created, but based on the aircraft model that was provided to him, there was literally no way to do what they wanted. Plus one part of the design that was done by another contractor was absolutely horrible! It was a framework that a radome would be installed on under the belly of the C-27. The frame was billet machined from a huge hunk of aluminum - and it would weigh 65#!!! All to support a fiberglass dome that probably weighs around 20#. An amazingly stupid design, in the opinion of someone whose job for 6 years was aircraft modifications. I don’t pretend to be the greatest aero engineer, but what they came up with is idiotic!
And we won’t go into the stupid lug design for mounting the radar itself. Seriously, it’s been over 20 years since I worked in P-3 Modifications, and even now, I know I could do better than the horrific design they’ve presented. I know that there are usually multiple valid design options for any given engineering project, but this is most definitely not one of them. I hate to think what the gummint paid for this travesty.
Anyway, this little 3-week project may just start growing. At his hourly rate, that’ll be a good chunk of change for us.
A story: (Not a funny one, unfortunately.)
When I worked in Portland, some years ago, I would drive up Hwy99W in the mornings. 99 is a state highway, so speed limit was 55mph. (In those days. It’s built up a lot since.) I, and most everyone else, would cruise along at about 65mph. Most mornings I would be passed by a little red car zooming along at 80+. The driver was a young woman who would usually be putting on her makeup with the aid of her rear-view mirror.
Well, one night we were watching the news on TV and there was a story, with video, of a major wreck on 99W that day, with fire trucks and ambulance.
It was that little red car.
I don’t know the final outcome, but I never saw that young woman again.
Big wind storm in the Portland area last night. We got some of it here. Gonna watch the noon news in a few minutes and see what KGW news says about it. We can get them on the internet. Can’t get the other local channels though. Annoying.
Well, the news was mostly about the wild fires. But Daughter unit went over to our house and says that the top of the neighbor’s tree came down and took out our power lines. Who knows when PGE and Ziply Fiber will get around to us. They have plenty on their plates already.
If it isn’t one thing, it’s two.
I heard on KNKX this morning that the winds pushed a fire that basically burned down a small town in southern Washington. We had winds up in almost-Canada, but they just got things messy. (And may or may not have contributed to the power outages.)
where every body knows your name:musical_note: