Cop Car's Beat

Week in review

The photo, below, hit my funny bone.

I know how Carlos feels. I vividly recall in the mid-1980s being plugged into a short-term (six week) assignment by my bosses at The Little Engineering Company for lack of availability of other, more qualified, people who had been identified in the proposal for doing the work. The first time this happened, I filled in for a PhD materials expert whose Special Access Clearance (SAC) was too slow in coming. As I already had two or three such clearances, my additional SAC was granted within hours of submitting my request. To this day, I don't know how badly I screwed up "my part" of the project or whether that project ever saw the light of day.

Another time I was a "plug-in", the guy who had been identified in the proposal just flat did not wish to spend a few weeks in Seattle. (We were never notified when proposal writers identified us as principal staff in a proposal and we were required to keep detailed resumѐs on file for their use. My own resumѐ ran eight or nine pages in those archives.)

This project was a somewhat better fit; but, the timeline for accomplishment was far short of allowing adequate time for developing a good product. In order to fulfil the job, I loaned my SOCAL apartment to a coworker, and lived in a motel in Seattle for six weeks. I chose to ride the bus while in Seattle rather than using a company or rental car. It was during that stint that I was notified of a pickup truck's having rammed into my house in Albuquerque. Ah...good old days! [BTW: The above photo was stolen from Oddball Observations where it had been posted in 2013 with the comment, "Don't blame me.  This is a food truck in Houston.  The picture was sent to me by a (to be kept anonymous) friend.  Thanks, Frank."]

Hunky Husband took his car into Wichita for its annual servicing. Why is this big news? Because I did not go with him to navigate. Fortunately, there are only three changes of street in the 15-mile drive from our house to Lexus of Wichita, and HH was confident that he could get there and back. (He did!) We celebrate small victories. 😊 It helps that the car dealership is a straight shot north from one of the local golf courses, Hidden Lakes, at which HH used to play.

Early in the week I worked up the green tomatoes that I had picked before our first hard freeze. Green tomato relish is a good substitute for sweet pickle relish when one wishes a piquant touch on hot dogs or Tex-Mex chili. As one can see in the above photo, some of the tomatoes had started to turn color (and I added a bit of orange bell pepper). In all, I worked up about two gallons, only jarring four half pints and one quart. Without lid flats, their still being unavailable in our area, I decided to freeze the relish. Our downstairs freezer is pretty well stuffed with normal frozen foods and the Tex-Mex chili and baked beans that are awaiting pickup by Elder Brother. Refrigeration would be sufficient, with the sugar and vinegar included in the relish; but, the downstairs refrigerator is still packed with ripe tomatoes and sweet banana peppers that I put up in 2020 - at which time we were already lacking lid flats.

As one might guess, much of my time has been spent in keeping the new grass hydrated. The front lawn doesn't take much work. Three or four placements of the sprinkler suffices. In back, it takes more effort. At any rate, today will find me watering all the little trees in the back and between our driveway and Fred's fence. I've been negligent and we have several projected nights in the 20s (Fahrenheit) coming up.

Tree Work by JoJac's

Three trees (two ash, one cottonwood) the day before work started:

First to be felled were the two ash trees. The following photo shows Louis (cutting up the trees for chipping) and Cornelio (getting the grinder into position for grinding out the stumps - when the stumps are cut off).

The two ash trees having been felled, the following photos show Cornelio (Cornello?), Corbin, & Louis (Lewis?) bringing down the cottonwood tree. This time, it was Cornelio who did the up-in-the-tree work although the guys assured me that they all did that sort of thing. Previous to this venture, it had always been Benny up there. He trained, at least, Cornelio and then moved to a different department of JoJac's to do landscaping. The strain on one's body of doing the up-in-the-tree work gets to one after a while. Besides, putting things in is not nearly as dangerous as taking them out - even if that didn't figure into Benny's decision.

Below, that's Corbin pulling the branch away from Fred's fence. Even though some of the branches grew out past that line of our property, AFAIK not a leaf touched Fred's property.

Cornelio "caught" me taking photos and "posed" for me (photo, below). I did not wish the guys to notice me and my activities while engaged in their dangerous assignment. Distraction can be deadly! Until the tree trunk was on the ground, I stayed in the house, on the back porch, in the garage, or on the driveway - well away from the danger zone so as not to distract the workers. 

When the main trunk of the tree comes down, they want the mass and strength of two guys on the guide line. That would be Corbin and Louis. Unfortunately, one of Adam's relatives (Adam lives next door to us on the other side of our yard) came over to talk to the guys about doing some work on Adam's trees, at this point - ignoring the distraction he might be causing. He could have waited for the guys to have been on break for the disruption.

Hunky Husband came out of his bedroom from his nap, having been wakened by the "thud" of the trunk's hitting the ground.

At this point, all three guys hustle getting the limbs and trunk cut into "manageable" chunks. Many of the chunks required two men to roll them onto a dolly for transport to the storage area near Fred's fence. The next day would find the guys back with a flat trailer to haul off the wood that was too large to put through the chipper (the yellow contraption toward the right edge of the photo, below). They made several trips with that trailer to get all of the wood hauled off.

Cornelio, Corbin, and Louis had put in a full day. They must eat 5,000-10,000 Kilocalories each day to maintain their body weights with the exertion their jobs require.

The diameter of the trunk at a few inches above the ground was about three feet. I don't have the skill to read the tree rings or I might have been able to guestimate the age of the cottonwood tree.

 

BTW: The JoJac's guys still had other work to do the second day - cleaning out a couple of brush piles that I had made from smaller trees and brush that I had moved since their last foray into our woods, and trimming the front lawn's gingko tree back from overhanging the eaves of the house. The first photo, below, shows the guys getting ready to chip materials from the brush piles while the second shows the gingko tree following trimming.

After the crew left on the 2nd day:

Yard work is never done

We had our first hard freeze, last night. When I arose at 3am, the outside temperature was 27° Fahrenheit - and it stayed there until about 7:30am when it crept up to 28° F. By 8:30am it was 33°. The hard freeze triggered the shedding of leaves by our goodly-sized gingko tree in the front yard. As usual, I failed to get a "before" photo. I would like to have shown the carpet of leaves that lay about the tree, this morning. As it is, I can show you the carpet of leaves that is still in the foundation planting bed. The two pipes provide access to our main sewer line that joins the city sanitary sewer line under our street.

We also have two small gingko trees in the far back yard - both of which had shed their leaves within the past three or four days. I love gingkoes. They are immune to nearly everything. Bugs don't really bother them, heat doesn't bother them, cold doesn't bother them, nor does drought or an abundance of water. Another great thing about them is their habit of shedding the vast majority of their leaves, overnight, in the fall. I can get out and rake once or twice and be done with them. Something else about their shedding habits is that, as you can probably discern in the above photo, the leaves are still hydrated when they fall. Good: they don't blow as much as would dry leaves. Bad: they are darned bulky and heavy to handle when one rakes. Below is a photo of the tree as it stood when I finished raking.

Next is how the yard looked after raking. The demarcation between the raking I did before lunch (nearer the camera) and that which was done in mid-afternoon (farther from the camera) is evident. I only did the amount of raking that I thought my back could get away with. I'll do more tomorrow, perhaps.

Below are photos of the two bins and the garden cart of leaves that I raked up. (I take the small green bin out into the yard with me and dump the leaves from it into the blue bin - the blue bin holding twice as much as does the green.) Note that the bins were full, but have settled due to the weight of the leaves, and that the leaves in the garden cart are somewhat swaddled in plastic. I had tried to empty the little green bin of leaves into a huge plastic bag, only to discover the bag's state of deterioration. The least stress caused it to shred and crumble; thus, I rolled the whole mess into the garden cart. There for a moment it had seemed that I was going to end up with a large pile of leaves inside the garage. Whew!

It may seem that the only thing I do is yard work. It seems that way to me, too.  🥴 While we're on the subject: The first photo, below, shows how nicely the new grass had filled in in the back lawn, from its planting on 10/9/2021 until a week ago, with the largest previously-bare spot indicated by the red oval. The second photo shows the crusty frost that was still on the grass at 8:30am, today.

Jo-Jac's tree crew should be here, Monday, so there will be at least one more posting about yard work yet this fall.

My fun for the morning

Above is a photo of our two 2-gallon gasoline containers in which we obtain and keep gasoline for our lawn mower - as they appeared after I bought gasoline this morning. Notice the difference? I have zero idea where the yellow cap for the spout of the container on the right might be. It disappeared while I was inside pre-paying for the gasoline. I have a remembrance of the cap's being on the spout when I placed it on the concrete preparing to buy the gasoline; which, of course, does not mean that it was actually there. After preparing the containers for filling, however, the credit card reader on the pump had been cranky necessitating my going inside to pre-pay. When I came back to the pump, lo and behold, no cap. I checked the trunk of my car, under my car, all around on the concrete - no cap. I drove, carefully, the mile home. I checked around the garage floor and in the little red wagon (Bogie's) in which we keep the gasoline containers. Nothing.

Off to the local Ace Hardware I went...bought another 2-gallon gasoline container...got it home. As purchased, the spout was inverted into the container. 

 

The photo below shows the new can after I had struggled with it.

Notice the white lettering on a black background at the bottom of the label in the above photo. It says, "Peel Back Label For Instructions". It was a struggle peeling back that label as there was no divisible edge cut at that corner - the layer with the instructions was completely encapsulated by the label. I finally ripped the label from the can to work on it. Surely enough, eventually I was able to separate the two layers.

OMG: They've made the container so safe that it's a life's work to use it! After a lot of dark thoughts I was able to fill the container from the capless one and get the spout on, set for storage. One problem. The instructions (Step A) has one remove the dust cap for storage. Note that the arrow (Illustration B) points to nothing resembling a "dust cap". After coming inside, I emptied my pockets. Aha! The little disk that had been between the inverted spout and the black screw cap. In the photo of the new container, the dust cap can be seen as the little red disk at the discharge end of the spout.

And did I tell you? The locking tab on the black screw cap is STIFF. I nearly despaired of being able to deform/depress it enough to clear the locking stop. In my days as an aircraft mechanic in the US Navy Reserves, I thought that we had a gorilla around tightening things. Someone thinks we lawn owners are gorillas.

Never fear, something went right. As I approached the Ace Hardware counter to pay for the new container, I espied jars of Beer Nuts - among Hunky Husband's favorite snacks - since forever. He got addicted to them while working part-time at a bar while we were in school.

I used the Beer Nuts (Wikipedia) to bribe HH into saying, "There, there" and soothing me as I was telling him my sad tale of woe. He had been occupied doing the laundry during my trials.

The week in review

Wind - This has been a week of rain & blow - not to the extent that others have had, but enough for us. We received nearly three inches of rain driven by winds from 10-60+ miles/hour. The only damage done was that trash from our across-the-street neighbor's overturned trash bin blew all over our yard, some of it ending up against the house (by the back porch), some up against the dense parts of our woods, and some that I caught early enough to stop it in our front yard; sticks & limbs were taken off of our tree and strewn about the back yard and the edge of our woods, and the aforementioned neighbor's trees (along with those of other neighbors across the street from us) were forced to give up their leaves to the wind, being deposited in our front yard and curb guttering.

The photo, below shows the leaves in the front yard. There aren't as many leaves as we've had deposited most years; but I really can't rake them for fear of uprooting the newly sprouted grass. Note the blue bin at the top, center of the photo. It is the trash bin that had previously been deprived of its trash. Today was recycle & trash pickup day for our street.

The bin is frequently overturned by wind; but, the neighbor rarely catches it since he cannot see it from inside his house. I gathered up the trash (mostly, large plastic bags from lawn dirt, but also some trimmings from his shrubbery), placed it into the bin (leaving the bin parallel to the ground), closed the bin, turned the bin around 180 degrees about the vertical , and placed it snuggly up against the side of the garage to keep the wind from causing more mischief.

Garage Door - Early in the week, as the wind and rain were just getting started, Jeff came by to install our new overhead garage door for Hunky Husband's car's bay. I don't recall whether I had mentioned HH's misfortune of opening the wrong door, one day, then backing into his bay's door. Only his lightning-fast reaction and fine coordination allowed him to stop his car before it became a full-blown "thing".

I seem to have failed to take a photo of the damaged door; but, the casual observer might not even have noticed the slight widening of the space between sections, center span of the door. Even so, the door was damaged beyond repair (doesn't take that much damage). The door allowed normal operation; so, we didn't even need to make a temporary repair. 

The new door is, supposedly, a slightly different design from our old door(s); but, tell me if you can see much difference between the new door (on the right) and my car bay's old door (in the center), by looking at the photo below. A coat of paint and it should fit in nicely. (We had told the sales person who came by on 9/2/2021 that we would live with the new door for a while before deciding if we needed to replace the remaining two doors to match it. I'm thinking "no".)

HH's Ears - Today, HH had his every-three-months checkup with the audiologist. All that was required was for her to clean impacted wax from his "better" ear and turn the gain down on both hearing aids. I would have guessed that the gain would need to be turned down by about 10 dB, which I did not share with Dr Combs; but, she turned them down only 2 dB. He can try them for three months to see if they need turning down more. 

New Grass - I took some photos to show the green fuzz that we now have in most of the previously bare spots. They may be compared to photos in The seeds are sown, that were taken just before and just after planting.

There are still a couple of noticeably bare spots that are next to the fence beyond the little tree. It shows that we're not getting full coverage with our sprinkler heads. That's not surprising since the sprinkler head is a few feet from the fence (there was a planting bed full of trees and shrubs between it and the fence when the sprinkler head was installed) and is adjusted to clear the fence. The photo, below, of the largest bare spot that we had after the invasion of the Army Worms also shows a bare strip toward the camera from the bluebird house. Again, water wasn't getting there. Again, not surprising since all of that patch is beyond the real lawn and in the drainage easement.

Irrigation System - We had some ill luck and then a stroke of good luck. I had asked the lawn service people to service our irrigation system for the winter, this week - pushed forward from our original schedule (of having it done last week) by the pushing forward also of the planting date. (It rained on the originally scheduled date, which I had considered late; but, what can one do when they are hurting for employees?) When I hadn't heard from the lawn service by Wednesday, I called them. Oops! That change in their schedule had not been accomplished. They couldn't get us this week - perhaps next week, they hoped.

This is where the good luck came in. Yesterday, as I was striking out on my morning walk, I noticed that a neighbor who lives a couple of blocks from us was having his irrigation system winterized. I waited for the lawn service guys (not the same company as our lawn service) and the home owner to return from the back yard and asked if they would have time to do our system. (I did ask a "by your leave" of my neighbor, of course.) Fortunately, the answer was "Yes".

I turned around, came home, and unpacked the backflow prevention valve assembly. They arrived as  promised and perhaps 20 minutes later had our system ready for the 24-26 degree (F) weather that we are expecting early next week. Below are photos of the unpacked valve assembly of the eight bags of mulch that I had packed around it. (No photo of the sheets of heavy plastic, old bed sheet, old drapery, and wastepaper basket that had been in the mix of insulation.)

Odds & Ends - September 2021

Bag of Skin

T. Dawn Schrandt, PA-C (Physician Assistant - Certified)

On the 20th, Dawn did her annual visual scan of my bag of skin. This has been our ritual since 2004 when, on my first visit to her (sent by my primary care physician), she excised and cauterized a pencil-eraser-sized chunk from my upper lip. The biopsy showed it to contain a basil cell carcinoma. Each year, Dawn has taken it upon herself to reduce my mass by excising or freezing off chunks of skin. This time, she froze off several chunks of skin from quarter-sized down to pea-sized on face, hand, armpit, and torso, none of which warranted biopsy. Mostly, they itched or hurt on occasion - enough for me to want to be rid of them. Next exam will be on 9/26/2022. 

Exhuming an unused laptop computer

It proved difficult; but, of course, not impossible to revive Hunky Husband's laptop - unused since June 2018. Well...to be precise, he had picked up his emails on it once or twice in early 2019. What started me out on the quest was the desire to, as mentioned in Big accomplishments this week, to add his laptop to my Norton subscription. The exhumation proved to be a time-sponge. First, I had to wait for it to quit automatically downloading updates to Windows, which the computer started within microseconds of sensing that it had a connection to the internet.

It took about 30 minutes to get Norton re-installed, linked to my subscription, and working properly. All is good.

Finally, the real time-suck was getting the Windows 10 Version 20H2 to download and install properly. I recalled that it had taken me a few months to figure out how to get a successful install on this desktop computer; but, for the life of me, I couldn't recall how I had finally succeeded. I looked online for guidance. Found nothing useful. Before going to bed, last night, I scratched my head until I recalled that the problem solution for this machine involved my deleting some files. Which ones? Well...it had something to do with the automatic update trying to download files, but finding that some of those files were already downloaded.

Aha! I searched HH's laptop's hard drive, finally finding where downloaded files were stored. It took about an hour, but I deleted all of the files that had been downloaded on 9/26/2021. (No, I wasn't sitting contemplating my naval. The laptop is several years old, and slow...and there were bunches of files that required administrative OK to delete.) I then restarted the download and install process. All through the night, whenever I awoke, I visited HH's den to see how his laptop was doing. Each time it seemed to be chuckling right along. From the time I re-started the download and install of Windows 10 Version 20H2 sequence, it took another 12 hours to complete the installation. But it is done! It worked! I am happy!

COVID-19 Booster

Being of advanced years, HH and I now qualify for receiving booster COVID-19 shots. A few minutes ago, I checked (again!) our county's website to see if they were allowing appointments to be made. Yes, indeed. I made appointments for HH and me to get those shots on the morning of the 30th. The 29th had plenty of openings, but I decided to give them a day to work out the kinks in the system that is being restarted. For the past couple of months or so, all COVID-19 shots have been walk-in, rather than by appointment.

ADDITION OF 9/28/2021 - Machine Requirements

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

If you are about to install Windows 10 on your PC, you might want to know if your device is capable of running the latest operating system from Redmond. Windows 10 version 20H2, which is released today, has the same requirements as its predecessor, version 2004.

 

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

More Windows 10 version 20H2 resources:

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

Windows 10 version 2004 will require a PC which fits the following specifications:

• • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
  • Hard disk space: 32 GB for both 64-bit and 32-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600, a minimum diagonal display size for the primary display of 7-inches or larger.

Notice the storage size requirement. For Windows 10 version 1809 and prior, it was 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS. For Windows 10 version 1903, 1909 and 2004 the value is at least 32GB. This is related to the reserved storage feature.

Also, storage controllers used in devices that run Windows 10 for desktop editions must meet the following requirements:

• • Storage controllers must support booting using the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and implement device paths as defined in EDD-3.
  • Storage host controllers and adapters must meet the requirements for the device protocol used and any requirements related to the device storage bus type.
  • Bus-attached controllers must implement the correct class/subclass code as specified in the PCI Codes and Assignments v1.6 specification.

The processor should meet the following requirements:

• • Compatible with the x86 or x64 instruction set.
  • Supports PAE, NX and SSE2.
  • Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW for 64-bit OS installation

Tip: Consider getting an SSD/NVMe drive instead of a hard drive if you use Windows 10 daily. It will greatly improve your user experience. Also, check out the post The REAL System Requirements for Windows 10.

If one follows that last link, above, one learns the optimal system requirements:

...the optimal hardware configuration for Windows 10 looks at least as follows:

• • Processor: Intel 8th generation processors (Intel i3/i5/i7/i9-7x), Core M3-7xxx , Xeon E3-xxxx, and Xeon E5-xxxx processors, AMD 8th generation processors (A Series Ax-9xxx, E-Series Ex-9xxx, FX-9xxx) or ARM64 processors (Snapdragon SDM850 or later)
  • RAM: 4 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 16 GB for 64-bit
  • SSD/NVMe: at least 128 GB for both 64-bit and 32-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600, a minimum diagonal display size for the primary display of 7-inches or larger.

I don't know about you, but that last bit is a waste for me - mostly beyond my ken. Obviously, HH's laptop is old enough that it does not fulfill the requirements stated as optimal.

Big accomplishments this week

Well...not big; but, it beat not getting anything done!

Hunky Husband, it turns out, has been looking for a chronometer to replace his favorite (photo, below). I offered to do the research for him, which offer he gladly accepted. Not by skill, but by luck, I found an online video that told how to solve the problem he was having with his current piece, followed the simple directions, and restored his piece to full function. Note in the photo how the long, red hand (the timing, second hand) is pointing between 1 and 2. The reset indexed that hand back to the 12 position. That was all that HH needed - saving him $600.

About a month ago, the army worms hit our town - hard! Nearly everyone's lawns were hit. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to photographing the damage until this morning. In the photo (below), one can see that the army worms missed eating some of the roots of our fescue grass, and they have sprouted up. The part of our back yard that gets shaded by the cottonwood tree, was spared - something about trees seems to repel the army worms. Tendercare is to come slit seed the barren spots in back, and all of the front lawn, on October 11.

While the army worms readily devoured the fescue grass, they eschewed the native Bermuda that has, over the years, invaded the sunny area of the back yard. While Bermuda grass is much more suited to our current climatic conditions on the sunny side of the back yard, I won't have it, having fought it my whole life (starting at age 4 or 5 when Mom had Elder Brother and me pull the native Bermuda grass out of her rose beds). While the fescue grass is sparse is the ideal time to pull the Bermuda grass - which task I've been attempting since the mornings have cooled down during the past several days. Most days, I've been able to put in 30-60 minutes of work on that tasking, limited by when the sun starts hitting that area and/or my weariness.

In the photo, below, the yellow oval shows some of the Bermuda that has yet to be attacked while the yellow diamond encloses the visible part of the area on which I spent 55 minutes this morning. (The orange tubing running across the upper, right corner of the photo is part of the watering hose that I had out to water the newish trees in back.)

I had but one instance of performing IT services, this past week. It turns out that HH has been carrying a separate subscription to a Norton (Symantic) anti-virus suite that is installed on his laptop. I'm not sure that HH even knows his login for his laptop, these days, but I can state with confidence that the anti-virus suite on his laptop is not worth the $89.99 that he is paying each year - especially considering that he can have the coverage, free, from the up-to-5-machine subscription that I have from Norton, for which I pay $97.19 per year.

Currently, since removing Norton from the laptop that I've prepared to give to Elder Brother (Norton is a space hog and EB only accesses one website - to update his data on the stock market), there are only two machines using my subscription, HH's and my desktop machines. As I recall, at the time HH bought his laptop several years ago, my subscription was fully used on five machines; thus, HH had purchased a separate subscription.

Tools

The video, above, was stolen from Bluebird of Bitterness (BoB) while she wasn't looking. I could make a cheeky comment, "What else could they do with toolboxes that are empty?" and comment that their wrenches are nice and shiny and unnicked - as if no one had used them - at least not as I would have as prybars or hammers. Those guys've got rhythm! Thanks BoB.

Speaking of tools, our little town, once again, has an Ace Hardware (photo, below). The current heat wave has me so distracted that, although Hunky Husband kept asking me, "How many days?" leading up to its opening last Friday, I missed the actual opening - and haven't, yet, made my way up there. When HH first realized what was moving into the space that is only 1/2 mile from us, he started teasing me that he would henceforth always know where I was were I to disappear. A bit later in the year, when it cools down and the sun comes up a bit later, I shall be able to hit the hardware store during my morning walks! (Not shown in the photo, but off to the left, is their outdoor supplies department - mulch, etc.)

Truth to tell, the real reason I was so distracted that I missed the hardware store opening, was that I pretty much destroyed our zero-turn-radius mower. I don't recall why it was, but I had decided not to raise the deck of the mower while mowing "the deep back" next to our woods, a week ago. (I seem to recall thinking that HH had told me that he never did - in fact that he always mowed "the deep back" with the deck lower than for "the good grass" - AND - several of the swaths that I was mowing extended from "the good grass" into "the deep back".)

At any rate, at one point, forgetting that the deck was lower than normal, I got into mowing in the roughest part of the yard - the area on a rather steep slope that used to host our compost pile and a bunch of trees (photo, below). Carefully guiding the mower astraddle one of the short stumps left from trees removed in that area, I was jarred by the thunk when the blade bit into the stump. OMG. By hook and by crook, I was able to nurse the poor machine up into our driveway where I shut down the smoking engine to let it cool down in a non-flammable area.

After HH and I got through laughing about my idiocy, he agreed with me that the simplest thing to do (since I still had some of "the good grass" to mow) was for me to call up Jim's Tire and Auto. [I ask you: How could I not love a guy who can laugh over such things with me?!] I asked Jim's to send me out a new machine (same model as the old, which I had given HH just 18 months ago) and pick up the poor broken, old thing. Jess delivered the new machine Friday morning and I finished mowing "the good grass" which is why I wasn't thinking about the hardware store opening.

HH received a phone call from Jim's, yesterday - they are holding a check for me at the office. That's all HH could tell me about the call; so, I don't know whether the check is for the previous (old old) mower that they had picked up when they delivered the then-new old mower 18 months ago or for the one they picked up Friday. (Each was to have been fixed up and sold, on consignment.) When Jess had been here, Friday, I had casually mentioned to him that we had never heard anything about the old old mower once they had it. I believe the check may be for that mower. It's a bit soon for them to have been able to replace the deck and blades and, maybe, the spindle on the new old mower and get it sold, already.

BTW: Hunky Husband has, a couple of times, told me that he "...would be proud to escort...." me to the hardware store when I am ready to inspect it. I'm hoping that the new store will have good employees. I've frequented Hupp Hardware, up in Wichita, for many years because they have great stock and great people; but, being able to have equivalent service so near our home would be so much more convenient in my declining years. Slowly, I've been changing over my medical and merchant services to Derby, as such services have become available over the past several years. For instance: Within the past two weeks, a Schlotzsky's has opened up just two miles north of us.

ADDITION of 3 hours later: I am now $819 richer. The people at Jim's said that they had to cut a new check when Jess asked about our old old mower. The expiration date on the original check had passed. Neither HH nor I knew that it was waiting there for us until the call yesterday.

Since all of my errands had gone so well this morning, I did (no surprise to HH) stop by the new hardware store. Neither was it a surprise to him when, my having handed him a bag with candy in it - for him, I answered his, "Is that all you got?!" with, "The rest is in my car trunk." I told the cashier that I would have my monthly Social Security check sent to the hardware store so that I could just drop in to play. My big purchase was a Craftsman battery-powered leaf blower to replace the corded leaf blower that is about 25 years old. I'm tired of dragging around and untangling 100 feet of heavy electrical cord.

_______________

NOTE: Except for whatever business I, personally, throw their way, none of the commercial businesses linked in this posting knows that I exist nor do they pay me or endorse me. OTOH, excepting the new hardware store that I've yet to check out, each of the businesses linked is worthy of recommendation by me.

Summary of the week - 7/10/2021

Monday, July 5, 2021

Today would be a quiet day at home for us were it not for our having several neighbors who didn't satisfy their tastes for noise and explosions in the past few days. Today is the last day to, legally, set off fireworks. It's too bad that most of our neighbors don't seem to realize that setting off fireworks in the street is not legal. (The retired USAF colonel up the street grumbles about this.) Most of the neighbors are pretty good about cleaning up the next day; but, they aren't really meticulous. Starting Thursday (to give time for all embers to die out), my walks will include picking up much trash from expended fireworks.

BTW: Hunky Husband says that the "retired USAF colonel", Mike, hasn't really retired, at all - that he is still looking after "his troops". Mike stops in every couple of weeks, if he and I haven't recently seen one another while out walking, to make sure that we are doing all right. Mike is a bundle of energy, taking on jobs that might come around. He was scheduled to go work in Texas for a few months, a year ago, when COVID-19 put the Kibosh on it.

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Hunky Husband had another session with his audiologist today. IMHO, it is unfortunate that he let Dr Combs talk him into going back to manual control of his hearing aids; but, perhaps he will do better this time. (Dr C didn't recall that HH had had manual control for his first week with the hearing aids and that he didn't do well with it.)

This being grocery shopping day, we stopped to buy groceries on our way home from Wichita. Of course, I had decided against taking my want list with us, thinking that HH wouldn't feel like making the stop. He fooled me! We purchased about half of the items on my list, the only important omission's being block chili. I bought three pounds of ground beef at our local meat market the other day, planning to make chili for freezing to send home with Elder Brother the next time he visits us. He brought me the empty jars, last trip.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

I had my annual eye exam. Everything is looking good, according to Dr Agpoon.

HH mowed the front and back lawns. It has been a challenge for him to get the mowing done during the past few weeks - working around the bouts of rain. In the month of June, we surpassed the "normal" rainfall total by a bit over 0.50". As frequently as it seemed to rain, I was surprised that the excess wasn't greater. Of course, they had just updated "normal" to include statistics from 1990-2020 this past month. Previous "normal" had been based on 1980-2010.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Walked for 45 minutes, this morning, and gathered half of a grocery bag full of leavings from fireworks. The rest of the bag was filled, mostly, by bits and pieces of marker flags that had been installed along the semi-major artery up the street from us when optical cable was being installed (again?!) and shredded by the mowers of the lawn service that cares for our Home Owner Association's common areas. I did not pull up any of the flags that had not been shredded - just picked up the pieces. Surprisingly (to me) was that the actual markers on the route of the optical cable were paper rather than the plastic used by other utilities along that route. Well done!

Washed all of the dishes from one-third of our china cabinet (above). This is an annual event that I hate, but which must be done. I haven't yet worked up the energy to replace items into the top two (cleaned) shelves, having used too much energy pulling weeds and mowing the "deep back" part of our back yard. (It got done, eventually.)

Every once-in-a-while I am surprised by something that HH does remember or that he does not remember. Today, it was not. He told me that he was taking one of his clean hand towels to the basement with him - that he intended to treat his scalp with his special shampoo. I let him know that there was already a towel for him to use, on the towel bar at the sink next to the clothes washing machine. Regardless, he took the clean hand towel downstairs with him. A minute later, he returned with the towel, exclaiming "I just found a towel bar I didn't know it was there!" Never mind that he has routinely used a black hand towel (photo, below - not HH's shampoo shown) that always hangs on that bar - whenever he washes his hands while doing laundry, or after he works out in his weights room.

HH had surprised me the other day by, without a word, replenishing the supply of paper napkins that we keep in a holder (that Bogie made in a high school course) on the breakfast table. Prior to that day, for several months, I had had to ask that he perform the tasking - and tell him where we keep the supply of paper napkins. That was a does surprise.

Summary of the week

Hunky Husband's busy calendar - 6/21/2021

It is well that HH is as organized as he is. It really helps him. Today he has a social engagement (to see old friends from 50 years ago, one of whom has come to town) and an appointment with his audiologist. That being the case, HH brought his penciled schedule for the day to me last evening to see if he had missed anything. He had noted the time at which he was to leave the house to meet his old friends at McDonald's, the time he was to leave McDonald's for home, etc. Right on! Unless HH starts getting more anxious about the whole thing, I plan to go to the gym this morning. I should return home before HH needs to leave, but I don't plan to go with him. McDonald's is less than one mile from our home.

How can we be so wasteful? - 6/22/2021

The item, below, is from News for Nerds.

Amazon Labels Millions of Unsold Products For Destruction, New Investigation Finds (theverge.com)73

Posted by msmash on Monday June 21, 2021 @01:39PM from the closer-look dept.

Amazon marks millions of unsold products for destruction each year in the UK, according to a new investigation by British television program ITV News. From a report: ITV found stacks of boxes marked "destroy" that were filled with electronics, jewelry, books, and other new or gently used items in one warehouse's "destruction zone." The news outlet caught the practice on camera while going undercover at the Dunfermline fulfillment center in Scotland. It says it tracked some of the goods to recycling centers and a landfill. About 124,000 items at Dunfermline were labeled "destroy" during a single week in April, according to an internal document obtained by ITV News. Just 28,000 items were set aside for donations during the same period. About half of all the stuff that's trashed are things that people returned, a former Amazon employee told ITV. While the other half are "unopened and still in their shrink wrap," the ex-employee said.

 

Sidenote to Bogie: I recall your telling me about wastefulness when you worked at Brookstone. I think it pales into insignificance when compared with the magnitude of Amazon's wastefulness.

 

Hunky Husband's busy calendar - 6/23/2021

 

 

For the first time since February, 2020, I got to see my friend who lives in a retirement village in northwestern Wichita. Hunky Husband took Elegant Friend and me to lunch at the Bricktown Brewery, a restaurant just a few blocks from EF's apartment. EF and I failed to recall how large portions of food are at that restaurant and each of the three of us took as much food home with us as we ate.

 

We lost our ISP (Cox) - 6/26/2021

 

 

As I was trying to solve a "no audio" problem with my computer software, this morning, I lost Internet connection - at about 7am. Since Cox has been laying some sort of cable in up along the main street that is about 1/3-mile to the west of us, I checked that our Wi-Fi was working and chose not to panic; but, I did check up on it every once-in-a-while. Hunky Husband and I just returned from the public library where, for the first time in 1.5 years I checked out a couple of books (both fiction, this time). In logging the books into my Excel spreadsheet, I note that I now have Internet connection - at about 2:45pm. Yay! HH is going down to his computer to check on his incoming emails.

 

I still have no audio. (Yes, the speakers are plugged in, powered up, and producing sounds.) The Troubleshooter software checked out my system and found nothing that it could fix - even after it reinstalled the audio drivers. I updated the System BIOS which, likewise, produced nothing. I don't much use the audio; but, it would be nice to have it back. 

 

Unlike previous times, HH has been choosing to go with me for most of the errands that I run - whether he drives or whether I drive. This is new behavior.

 

P.S. Weather - 6/26/2021

 

We received 1.6" of rain overnight. That cooled us down a bit, even if it raised the humidity. It was rather nice doing yardwork this morning - pulling millions of weeds and gathering branches downed by the wind.