what did you do today? (2008-2015) (closed)

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Assembled my SAD light and used it last night and today for 30 minutes each at 20 inches away. It is way too bright to use after darkness falls. It was fine during natural daylight hours with an overcast sky.
I was aware of it but not feeling blinded :blink: by it. I am very careful not to look directly at it.

I did some dance-ercise in the living room with 1 lb barbells in my hands. I got through 4 songs (1 slow song for warmup, 2.5 for fast aerobic moves, 0.5 for cool down) without feeling tired or getting a damn hot flash. :mad:

Now I'm just watching the Weather Channel. Freezing drizzle then light snow is predicted so no going up to the VFW today. Oh well, Saturday will be clear to drive north.

I ate all my homegrown lettuce, so it's time to plant another indoor Earthbox with a mild mesclun seed mix. The diluted fish emulsion I use as fertilizer when the lettuce is tiny really makes the plants rock. :dance:
 
Cracked a wisdom tooth the other day and had it pulled this morning. Just soft food, Percocet and an ice bag for the rest of the day.


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Just soft food, Percocet and an ice bag for the rest of the day.

I strongly recommend that you stay away from tool catalogs and your visa card when on Percocet.

Don't ask how I know this. Suffice it to say the UPS truck was coming to my house every day for a week.:LOL:
 
Planted some tulip and iris bulbs this afternoon. Tonight is the annual holiday dinner with close friends. Can't wait!
 
Played tech support.

DW said she only updated Java. 2 hrs and over 5000 pieces of crap cleanup and several seriously malicius software removal later, I declared her laptop good to use.

And yeah removed and disabled anything to do with Java.
 
I strongly recommend that you stay away from tool catalogs and your visa card when on Percocet.

Don't ask how I know this. Suffice it to say the UPS truck was coming to my house every day for a week.:LOL:


Yes, thanks for the warning!


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...typing with left hand...

A friend of mine has Dragon Naturally Speaking software on her computer. I have been experimenting with it and am quite impressed by its accuracy and functionality.
 
Took the grandchildren to see "The Nutcracker" yesterday.
 
It has been an interesting week for us. On Monday we attended the home inspection for a condo DD is buying about an hour away. When we went to return home, DD's Saab would not start so we called AAA and they were able to get it started, so I drove it to a Saab shop about half way between where we were and home. Snow removal etc on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday morning to no internet. Internet came back online abut 11 am on Wednesday and we left soon thereafter to pick up DD's repaired car. On the way home I was looking forward to getting back online and get some things done that I needed to do only to get home and discover the power was out.

We were only without power for 25 hours. We are lucky in that many people have been without power for days. We can get along with the woodstove, manually lighting our gas stove, drawing water from the lake to flush toilets a couple times a day, candles and LED lights, a 9v radio for news and entertainment, etc. but it is stressful not knowing whether it will be 24, 48, 72 hours or more.

Went car shopping with DD for a small SUV yesterday and went for 4 test drives. It was interesting in that two candidates that were not even on the list, the Volkswagen Touraeg and Nissan Rogue, are now leading contenders.

Hopefully I can catch up on things that didn't get done last week today and still sit down and enjoy the football game.
 
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It has been an interesting week for us. On Monday we attended the home inspection for a condo DD is buying about an hour away. When we went to return home, DD's Saab would not start so we called AAA and they were able to get it started, so I drove it to a Saab shop about half way between where we were and home. Snow removal etc on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday morning to no internet. Internet came back online abut 11 am on Wednesday and we left soon thereafter to pick up DD's repaired car. On the way home I was looking forward to getting back online and get some things done that I needed to do only to get home and discover the power was out.

We were only without power for 25 hours. We are lucky in that many people have been without power for days. We can get along with the woodstove, manually lighting our gas stove, drawing water from the lake to flush toilets a couple times a day, candles and LED lights, a 9v radio for news and entertainment, etc. but it is stressful not knowing whether it will be 24, 48, 72 hours or more.

Went car shopping with DD for a small SUV yesterday and went for 4 test drives. It was interesting in that two candidates that were not even on the list, the Volkswagen Touraeg and Nissan Rogue, are now leading contenders.

Hopefully I can catch up on things that didn't get done last week today and still sit down and enjoy the football game.

Toureg is not a "small" SUV from what I can tell, but a nice vehicle, overall (I am a VW nut). Maybe she is looking at the Tiguan?

On the loss of power, we have a 5500 W portable generator here in south Texas. When we had no power for 2 weeks, it was a blessing to have. I've lived in New England and know the weather. Maybe you should look into a small generator?
 
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Drove home very early this morning from the Casinos in Bossier City. Should have drove home earlier.:facepalm:
 
Drove home very early this morning from the Casinos in Bossier City. Should have drove home earlier.:facepalm:

Thanks for leaving some extra Texan dollars here in Louisiana! Our economy can always use a boost. :D


(Just teasing, sorry if you lost!) ;)
 
Toureg is not a "small" SUV from what I can tell, but a nice vehicle, overall (I am a VW nut). Maybe she is looking at the Tiguan?

On the loss of power, we have a 5500 W portable generator here in south Texas. When we had no power for 2 weeks, it was a blessing to have. I've lived in New England and know the weather. Maybe you should look into a small generator?

You are right, it is the Tiguan, not the Touraeg that DD is looking at. I constantly get them confused. My best friend has a Touraeg... very nice vehicle but by no means small.

We have considered a generator, but over 4 years living here we have only had 4 significant outages. Two were about 24 hours and the other two were abut 8 hours.

We have 4 principal alternatives, from highest cost to lowest cost. 1) Some of our neighbors have permanent generators that are plumbed into their LP tanks and start automatically when the power goes out and also run for a bit each week for exercise, but they are expensive (about $5k complete I suspect). 2) Have our wiring set up for a generator and then plug a portable generator into the house when needed (about $2k I think). 3) Use a portable generator and run extension cords to critical appliances (refrigerators, hot water heater (which also provides our heat), well pump for water, etc. 4) Do nothing and improvise as necessary to deal with any outages.

However, the frequency and severity of outages makes me wonder if doing anything is worth the cost.
 
Got my Christmas choral singing out of the way all in one swell foop today:
- two lessons and carols services at our church - this is the 15th year we've done it; we have nearly 100 singers and a (paid) 30-piece orchestra and the 2nd service was nearly SRO (about 650 folks there)
- Christmas concert as part of a community "adjunct" choir for a small local college - we sang John Rutter's "Gloria" which is one of my all-time favorites, along with several other Christmas pieces. Here's one by Rachmaninoff that I'd never heard before and really enjoyed singing (even though I don't know Russian)

Now I'm having a glass of wine and catching up online. Fortunately I had the good sense to put a big crockpot of beef vegetable soup on this morning, so dinner is simply ladling it into bowls. With another glass of wine.
 
However, the frequency and severity of outages makes me wonder if doing anything is worth the cost.

We have a built in generator at our big house on the Eastern Shore (MD). In the 7 years since we built it, we've had a few multi-day outages and it's been quite nice. It doesn't run the whole house, but between having heat/AC (depending on time of year of the outage) and being able to flush our toilets (on a well), it's been well worth the cost. Also, since we snow-bird now, we can leave food in the fridge and freezer without worrying about it spoiling. And we don't have to worry about frozen pipes, even though we turn the heat down to 45 degrees.

It's one of the few extras we've splurged on over the years that have been well worth it, both for comfort and for peace of mind. We use propane for the stove, the gennie, and a gas fireplace. I only have to fill the tank once/year.

It's only been a problem once. I have a reminder on my phone to remind me to "check if gennie is exercising". Once DW picked up my phone and said "Who is Gennie?" I think she believed me.
 
Weird incident today.

DW has an elderly friend who is widowed and lives alone and is very private and independent. We occasionally do tasks for her so she can remain in her house.

Today we were to wash her kitchen floor and look at her dishwasher, but she didn't answer the door. No answer on her land line or cell phone. Banged on all the doors and windows - nothing. Garage has no windows, so we couldn't see if her car was gone, window blinds were all drawn - what to do? :confused:

We talked to a neighbor who was nice, but knows basically nothing about her. We finally decided to call the police, who with the fire department, lifted a sliding patio door and entered to find her in bed, alive but confused. She wears an alert button around her neck, but never used it.

They took her to ER to be checked out and, oddly, she called DW an hour later, totally lucid. I'm curious as to what the docs say happened to her.

I'm glad we persisted - it is hard to make the call the have someone's home broken into.
 
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They took her to ER to be checked out and, oddly, she called DW an hour later, totally lucid. I'm curious as to what the docs say happened to her.

I'm glad we persisted - it is hard to make the call the have someone's home broken into.

Bless you and your DW for helping her friend out and for following through when she really needed you.
 
Weird incident today.

DW has an elderly friend who is widowed and lives alone and is very private and independent. We occasionally do tasks for her so she can remain in her house.

Today we were to wash her kitchen floor and look at her dishwasher, but she didn't answer the door. No answer on her land line or cell phone. Banged on all the doors and windows - nothing. Garage has no windows, so we couldn't see if her car was gone, window blinds were all drawn - what to do? :confused:

We talked to a neighbor who was nice, but knows basically nothing about her. We finally decided to call the police, who with the fire department, lifted a sliding patio door and entered to find her in bed, alive but confused. She wears an alert button around her neck, but never used it.

They took her to ER to be checked out and, oddly, she called DW an hour later, totally lucid. I'm curious as to what the docs say happened to her.

I'm glad we persisted - it is hard to make the call the have someone's home broken into.

Happy that the incident turned out well for the elderly friend. Perhaps she will consider giving a house key to your DW just in case another problem crops up.
 
Happy that the incident turned out well for the elderly friend. Perhaps she will consider giving a house key to your DW just in case another problem crops up.


+1 good idea!


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Happy that the incident turned out well for the elderly friend. Perhaps she will consider giving a house key to your DW just in case another problem crops up.
I wish. Did I mention that she is stubborn? :(
 
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