3287 Heating up

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

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I have been lax about updating here, not because I'm busy, or because nothing's happening, but because my internet connection goes down about every half hour, which makes it awfully hard to get anything at all done, let alone the lower priority stuff.

This morning I got a popup when I tried to connect saying that Novell wanted to do a "firmware update" to my modem --- with a stern warning that any interruption of the update could severely damage the modem. Uh, ok. That explains why it's been so unreliable lately. It needs an update to be compatible with the other end? So I clicked "Ok". The connection hadn't actually been made, but I figured the updater ought to be able to figure that out and make the connection, right?

Yeah, sure. It got halfway through the update and couldn't connect. No kidding. That's what has been the problem the past few days. Can't connect or won't stay connected. Duh. Catch 22.

So it failed.

Scared me half to death.

But then after I restarted the system, I was able to connect. Modem not dead. Halleluiah.

I got the "update now" message again this evening, after about the fifth bounce, and this time it actually worked.

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Daughter, Nugget, and I walked into ... gee, I don't know what to call things around here. Out there in the country you've got actual villages and towns. Around here it all runs together, there's residential neighborhoods, businesses along the highways, and, uh, clumps of "main street shops" kind of things, sort of like once upon a time when this was countryside, it used to be a village and that was the "downtown". Well, we walked into the downtown. There was a Thai restaurant she wanted to have lunch at, and a new salon that might do a better job on my hair.

We walked. I had the best Pad Thai ever. I got about an inch cut off my hair, and I'm really happy with it now. The back is finally exactly the way I want it. Then we walked back. I checked it on the map, and it was 1.9 miles out and 1.9 miles back, so after avoiding walking as much as possible for the past month, my first excursion was four miles in rubber flip-flops, and I had no problem at all then or today.

I need to get up to the old house. Maybe tomorrow.

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Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of this blog, if you count the original on the now-defunct AOL Journals. I go back and read the old stuff occasionally, and I no longer recognize that person. She seemed smarter and more passionate then.
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3238 Sunday Thoughts

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"Male circumcision has long been an operation in search of a disease," wrote members of the group Doctors Opposing Circumcision in the May 12th edition of The Lancet.

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New Jersey is famous for potholes. The Man has replaced a few tires and rims wrecked in potholes, and Hercules actually totaled a car, breaking an axle.

When I started doing a lot of local driving here, I didn't see that many, but as the winter progresses, they're starting to scare me. Some of them are HUGE and DEEP! I don't want to think about how much rims for Hal cost. Lately I'm driving slow enough and with enough space between me and the car ahead so that I can see them in enough time to veer around them.

I also noticed something else - they plow right down to the blacktop here. The plows are set low. After a snowplow goes by, the road looks like it's been swept. And I think that's what's causing the potholes!

If there's the slightest uneven spot in the road, like a seam (most of the potholes are on seams) or a pothole patch, the edge of the low-set plow blade catches it and rips it. Once started, subsequent plowings, traffic, and freezing and thawing enlarges it.

I wonder how soon into the winter more accidents are caused by perpetual potholes than by occasional snow on the road.

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Out of nowhere - I absolutely hated the way "Carrie Bradshaw" (Sex and the City) dressed. Her clothes were stupid, and I despised the way she ignored her bra - like the back of the bra showing across the back of a backless dress.

Which reminds me of Princess Diana's bridal gown, which of course is all over the place again with the wedding fever in England, and the fact that Diana's wardrobe is currently touring the US. I have never understood all the people who swooned over how beautiful it was.

Huh? With the dense fabric, ruffled neckline, poofy sleeves ending in ruffles, and poor fit, it looked like something Queen Victoria would have worn to bed. A Victorian nightgown. I mean, go to the link above and look at it. Tell me I'm wrong. Snort.

I suspect the stuffiness of it was on purpose, to draw a parallel to queens past and present. But that didn't make it "beautiful", folks. Note that even the swooners didn't copy it.

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Eh. Maybe I just have rotten taste. I didn't like Jackie Kennedy's dress, either. I thought it looked like it was made from a colonial bedspread.

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I made an effort to get out and meet some people today.

A Meetup group was "mall walking" at Bridgewater Commons Mall this afternoon. The mall was described as a "large upscale shopping Mecca". It was ok, but having been used to the malls in the Albany area, I was underwhelmed. One difference I did notice - most of the stores, even the big name stores (except for the three anchors) were tiny shops. I don't think I've ever seen such a small Victoria's Secret. That tells me the rents must be much higher than anywhere else.

Another odd thing was that the movie theater advertised "dining in". You get a menu with your movie ticket. I'd love to know how that works.

The group was supposed to meet by 2:30, at the back of the food court, near the restrooms. I found the restrooms at 2:20. Never found the group. Apparently there were two sets of restrooms by the food court, although the mall map showed only one. So I ended up wandering the mall alone.

Yeah. "Upscale." Not necessarily in the quality of goods offered, but definitely in the price tags.

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I'm still amazed at the variety of stores to be found here, after 25+ years in the Mid-Hudson Valley. (I remember the excitement when the first Pizza Hut arrived in the Valley, and then the hysteria surrounding the arrival of Barnes & Noble and Starbucks.) I couldn't help but think of the people (well, actually one particular guy in Mensa) who puts on an air of sophistication by name-dropping. Not famous people, though. Stores. He's always talking about the wonders to be found in stores not available in the Valley, like Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods, for example. Places he, of course, shops all the time. Snork.

You'd think with so much competition, the prices around here would be lower. They're not.
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3235 New Desk

Thursday, January 20, 2011

A bore is someone who keeps talking when I have something to say.

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I figured out what I'd been doing the past few days.

My daughter gets depressed and sometimes downright mean when she's not getting enough exercise. So when she calls and says "Let's go for a walk", I say yes. It makes life a lot easier.

Also, my new desk arrived Tuesday.

The main desk at the old house is a manager's desk bought at an employee surplus sale many years ago. It's nice, but it was built for show - huge footprint, very little storage. So I decided to get something more suitable for here and I'll sell or donate the old one rather than attempt to move it.

On Tuesday we'd had snow overnight, followed by freezing rain, with plain rain predicted, so the driveway was covered with slush.

I'd learned long ago that if I think, "I ought to...", then I'd better do it, no matter what my second thoughts are, because if I don't the consequences can be severe. So when I looked out the door and saw the slush, I thought, "I probably should shovel that". It was raining, and the neighbors said it would all melt by afternoon, but the driveway has about a 15 degree slope, and I was afraid the men would refuse to bring the desk in if the drive was covered in slush.

The truck arrived within a half hour of our clearing the driveway, so I was right to clear it. Daughter had come over to help me shovel (muttering that it was pointless) and had stayed for tea.

Shipping from California was free on the desk, so I was surprised to find it was "Platinum White Glove Service", which means they not only brought it in, they unpacked it, set it up in place, and took the packing materials away with them.

When the guys set the desk up, they plugged a fat cord into the wall. I didn't know what it went with. At the top of one of the drawers was some kind of black panel with buttons. It took Daughter a minute to figure out that it's a power bar. You feed cords from printer, scanner, whatever is on the desk through some holes, and plug them into the back of the black thing, and then you turn stuff on and off using the buttons on the front. Swoopy!

In the past three months I'd built up quite a bit of paper to be filed (a lot of end-of-year and tax stuff, besides regular bills for two houses), so I went to the store and got hanging folders, and yesterday and part of today I sorted and filed all that.

I also shopped and found some acceptable lacy curtains for the living room, installed rods, and hung them.

Desk, oak, matches kitchen cabinets and a trio of bookcases I'll be bringing from the old house:
No, that's not a photograph between the laptop and printer. It's a TV/CD/DVD player. The black box on top is an antenna for the TV - gets me 40-some channels.

Here the drawer is open so you can see the power bar:
That's Clyde, the Pleo (robot baby dinosaur), on top.

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Later: I didn't realize until I was looking at the above photos, but this is very reminiscent of my first desk/sewing table - a hollow door on top of two file cabinets, with wall-mounted shelves above. I loved that arrangement!
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#457 Losing Weight, but Not Changing Shape!

Walked today for the first time in a week. I stopped in at Piper's office and asked him if he'd like to walk with me (he keeps saying when I walk in town I should stop and invite him) but he couldn't leave the office right then. So I talked with him for a half hour or so, which cut the walking time down.

I've noticed that if I don't walk, the weight doesn't move, but when I do walk, the drop is noticeable and immediate - like, the next day. And it holds. Strange. What I eat or don't eat doesn't seem to matter as much as whether I walk or not. And I don't necessarily have to walk that far. Even just 1.5 miles will do it.

Sheesh. Winter coming. Cold. I guess I'd better unclutter the treadmill.

Another odd thing - as I'm losing weight, the shape is staying exactly the same, just getting smaller. So even 20 pounds down, the belly is still yucky sticky-outy compared to the base. No, it's not a muscle thing - it's a soft pad on top of muscle. Under all that famine-relief pack is a six-pack. Hard. Flat. Isometrics. Isotonic. Good stuff.

I know fasting is wrong, but I eat something other than 6 to 12 ounces of yogurt only about every other day, and when I do eat, I get way fewer than 1000 calories a day, usually closer to 600. Mostly I'm just not hungry these days. And yet I'm not lacking in energy.

Sigh. I don't understand.

~~Silk