What did you do today? - 2020 version

[Nemo2]

A little background: For a couple years, on our rear deck rail, we had planter boxes, and hosted nesting Mourning Doves. Then, either last year or the year before, two show up - we presumed it was one of the previous chicks showing his mate potential sites, but she apparently wasn't totally convinced and they took off.

Looked out the window this a.m., (the planters have been removed for the winter and there's still some snow), and there's a bemused Dove pacing the rail, (and this may well just be anthropomorphism ), with an air of "WT? I'm sure I used to live here!" about him.

Maybe this Spring we'll try again.

[doneat54]

Replaced a noisy blower/fan in our Harman pellet stove, made breakfast for lunch, did a 2 mile hike with the pups at one of the conservation land parcels, enjoying a warm New England March day and noting that most of the ice and snow is gone now (hope it stays that way!). Ran errands to the Post Office, a tombstone/monument place that I buy blasting media at and to the eye doc to pick up some drops. Of to do some drywall work on the bathroom reno now.

[Gumby]

We went out to lunch in Guilford, at a nice place on the harbor there. Then we strolled around an antique mall place (didn't find any treasures we couldn't live without), went to the grocery and came home. I has been a warm, sunny day, and quite enjoyable.

[Walt34]

Went to the barbershop to get a haircut but he'd called in sick. It's a one-man shop attached to a beauty salon. Oh well, I'll try again in a few days.

Then went to Home Depot to return a set of deep 1/2" drive impact sockets that I'd ordered online. Five of the sockets were missing from the box, and half of the remaining sockets were only half finished. It looked like someone had grabbed a couple handfuls of "seconds", threw them in the box and called it a day. Kind of surprised me - HD doesn't normally do stuff like that or I wouldn't buy things there. No hassle on the return though.

Played in the back yard flying the UMX Turbo Timber airplane until it got too windy. I'm thinking of buying another one to keep a set of floats on. Then the next time the creek down the road floods I can do some float flying there. With full flaps on this airplane slows to a walk which makes it easy to land in tight spots.

[Hermit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by doneat54 Replaced a noisy blower/fan in our Harman pellet stove, made breakfast for lunch, did a 2 mile hike with the pups at one of the conservation land parcels, enjoying a warm New England March day and noting that most of the ice and snow is gone now (hope it stays that way!). Ran errands to the Post Office, a tombstone/monument place that I buy blasting media at and to the eye doc to pick up some drops. Of to do some drywall work on the bathroom reno now.

An interesting approach to bathroom renovation!

[Walt34]

Made a grocery store run with DW and just did our regular shopping, nothing extra. That included TP (plenty in stock) and a case of bottled water. That I picked up off the floor because the shelves were too full to hold any more. There was no sign of anything being other than completely normal. Not a bare shelf in sight.

Came home, made big salad, took a nap, and woke up in time for the mailman to deliver the Amazon order that included a couple more toys for the grandnephew's birthday party this weekend.

[MBAustin]

Went to a taping of Overheard with Evan Smith which originates at AustinPBS. Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post were the guests and it was a fascinating hour (the show itself is 30 minutes then they do 30 minutes of unfilmed audience Q&A afterwards). Evan is a fabulous interviewer and has very interesting guests - I highly recommend checking the show out on your local PBS station. Upcoming guests include Jim Belushi and Noam Chomsky just to give you an idea.

[braumeister]

And it's nice to see that not everything is gloom and doom these days.

The price of gas went down below $2/gallon here today for the first time in years.

And tangentially related, I saw this remarkable report of a dramatic decrease in air pollution in the coronavirus-affected areas. Satellite sensors picked up an unprecedented drop in nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere due to drastically reduced vehicle emissions and factory output.

You can see in the top row from last year how the NO2 levels around Wuhan went down during the Chinese New Year period and then bounced back afterward.
In the lower row it was already very low from the lockdown and went even lower and stayed there.

pollution.png

[Gumby]

Went to an organ concert at noon. Then picked up my cat from the vet. She had surgery yesterday for Hodgkins lyphoma.

[Venturer]

Tried to move our Verizon phone service over to Visible. After nearly 3 hrs. I gave up. They have an awesome sounding plan but if you have any problem they have no phones for help. You can only chat and the period between question and answer is slooow. I then called Verizon and after telling the rep about my problems she pulled up my files and noticed how long I've been a customer and thanked me. She then proceeded to look for every discount she could and ended up getting me 2 new phones with a 1 yr. contract for only 35.oo more a month, That was only 10. more than Visible would have been. Sometimes it is just the luck of a caring CSR to make a differance.

[Moemg]

Today I weighed myself and I have gained three pounds . I lost over 20 pounds with a bacterial pneumonia so gaining three pounds is a good thing . I now realize that it is as hard to gain weight as it is to lose it .My goal is to get back fifteen of the lost pounds .Most of my life was spent maintaining or losing weight so this is a new thing .

[Ronstar]

Deep cleaned my truck. Did some woodworking. Took a walk in the 60 degree + afternoon.

[Walt34]

Went with DW to a combined birthday party for two grandnephews, one turns 6 and the other 4 this month. Hey, anything for a family party!

Gave some thought to draining the fuel and prepping the snow blower for storage because of the warm weather and lack of snow this entire winter. It didn't quite hit 60° today, but close. Decided that would be foolish and all but guarantee a record March blizzard and I'd better wait as I usually do until mid April.

[NW-Bound]

Have a lamb shank cooking in the Instant Pot now. My wife does not like lamb, so this is for me only.

Life is so doggone good, even if my stocks are going to crash tomorrow when the market opens. It could be worse, like getting caught in a quarantine or something.

After dinner, I am going to pour myself a big shot of XO Cognac, while surfin' the Web some more for news on the virus.


PS. The weather is getting mild, and there's no need to run the mini-slit for heating. So, I have solar power to spare, the battery gets full, and the solar charge controllers go to sleep a bit past noon. Even the water heater turns itself off. So much solar power wasted.

I rewired the panel to route the solar power to the outlets that power some lighting and electronics such as router, ADSL modem, WiFi, Ooma, NAS, etc... Altogether, the electronics draw 80W as the baseload. It's a lot higher than I thought.

[Souschef]

Called thr trip insurance co. early this AM. Found out i can transfer the insurance to our new cruise next year. We were scheduled to sail to Hawaii next Friday. We were concerned about the virus, but the tipping point was when the Royal Princess coming from Hawaii was not allowed to dock in San Francisco.
Fortunately Princess allowed us to cancel and rebook the same cruise next year, and threw in some more perks.

[GalaxyBoy]

Brewed an IPA today. Spent the evening in front of the boob tube. It's been three years and I'm still not over the feeling on Sunday evening that "Gee, I don't have to go to work tomorrow!" And six other evenings during the week as well.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Souschef Called thr trip insurance co. early this AM. Found out i can transfer the insurance to our new cruise next year. We were scheduled to sail to Hawaii next Friday. We were concerned about the virus, but the tipping point was when the Royal Princess coming from Hawaii was not allowed to dock in San Francisco. Fortunately Princess allowed us to cancel and rebook the same cruise next year, and threw in some more perks.

So glad that you cancelled, and that you got such good perks from Princess! I was concerned about your situation, but it looks like everything worked out for you and your wife.

[Freedom56]

I went to our local Guitar Center today to buy a pair of studio monitor speakers to replace ones that are damaged in my home recording studio. The place was desolate (okay it is Sunday) but worst is that they don't keep too much in inventory and the salesman said he can order the one's I wanted and have it here by the 17th of March. I decided to order it online myself. So much for the convenience of brick and mortar retail.

[Hermit]

After church, I headed down to the next city to see my friend at the alzheimer's unit. He recognizes me, wants to get stuff done and get out of there. Unfortunately, he has no clue either what to do or where to go. This is my first visit since we put him in there a couple of weeks ago. It is not a pleasant experience, but a trip I will be making every week or two for the foreseeable future. I talked to his wife about trips to the park as the weather warms up. She agreed that would be good.


On the way back I stopped at Home Depot, Costco and the grocery store. My freezer is now full and I have more than enough to do so I may not go back into town for a while. I am not really trying to isolate, just no real reason to go be around lots of people.

[MBAustin]

Today started off with a smile - a woman who was part of the last team I managed at w*rk (about 10 years ago) mentioned me on LinkedIn as a manager who had encouraged and challenged her in her career. I had the privilege of mentoring many talented men and women along the way, but she wasn't one I particularly remembered, which made this even more unexpected and special.

Today is replanning day. My trip to the Holy Land has been cancelled (actually delayed for a year) so I have things to cancel, things to schedule, and decisions to make about what DH and I might do now that we have the time open. We're considering getting out in our RV for a few days. Although next week is spring break and most places are booked far in advance, I suspect some of those will also cancel. Personally, I think being out in an RV is just about the safest place to be since we won't be closer than 6 feet to any other people once we check into a park! So I'll probably pick it up from the storage lot and de-winterize/deep clean it tomorrow and we'll see what's next.