Dwarf Planet in Purple

I can't think of any other year when *everyone* wanted to say "good riddance" to the outgoing year. In the past, maybe somebody who lost a job or a marriage or a family member would say "this year sucks," and their friends would nod sympathetically while secretly giving thanks for their promotions and pay raises and kids' college scholarships. But THIS year? When you see chalkboard messages saying "Let us never speak of 2020 again" embedded in the middle of IKEA displays, for crying out loud....

Anyhow, the boy toy and I had a nice Christmas, even though it was just the two of us (and the holiday roast beef came out a little dry, compared with the last time he cooked such a meal -- maybe Easter?). We each got ourselves a new Kindle Fire tablet. The Fire is a little more "locked down" than standard Android tablets, in that you can acquire only the apps that are in Amazon's own app store. However, it's still very easy to use, and I don't care about the app issue so much now that I have a smartphone (though that device is already more than two years old, I think). I was happy with my other presents, including a framed set of retro-style solar-system "tourism" posters and a Hamilton tote bag. On Christmas Eve I phoned my cousins in Massachusetts and then had a much longer phone chat with R.

Till next time....

The past couple of days have seen me take steps toward greater productivity.

I have been wondering whether a second computer monitor would help me when I'm doing a Zoom interview or simply writing up my articles. I wanted to get one secondhand, but the cheapest place I know to get one, the Terrapin Trader surplus-goods shop at the University of Maryland, has been closed since the start of the pandemic. And I didn't want to buy a brand-new one in case I ended up not using it as much as I think I will. (I've never worked on a dual-screen computer before.)

Now, Lady Grazia, one of the many SCAdians on my list of Facebook friends, has been posting lists of stuff she's giving away all week long. I think she and her husband are on a decluttering streak. Most of the things she's posted about I have no use for, such as a Japanese calligraphy set -- nice, but since I have had trouble getting going with European calligraphy, I don't think I need any more equipment in that department.

But then she posted that she had five computer monitors sitting around, ready for new homes. So I jumped right on it in a private message, and yesterday afternoon I was heading out to Wheaton to pick up my prize. Grazia offered me a huge two-monitor stand for clamping onto a table, but I knew that such a gadget would never work with my current desk, so I asked for a monitor that already had its own base. The one she and her husband gave me is a somewhat older-model flat-screen, with less of a wide-screen aspect ratio than my laptop monitor, but I'm not fussy.

I needed a DVI-to-HDMI cable, but the boy toy ordered one off of Amazon when I got home, and it arrived today. That was only about $6. Most of my work today involved excavating my desk and the scanner table next to it -- SO MUCH excess paper -- so that I could make space for the new monitor and the boy toy could get under the desk and figure out how to plug all the electrical cords in.

So, now I'm all set up!



Once again I realize that I know some amazing people, and I am awed by the power of the universe to provide in the most unexpected ways.

Over and out.

Very busy. I finished the feature article in the wee hours between Monday and Tuesday, then went to sleep until noon or something. I did nothing productive except go to Teleri's monthly gathering and play around with air-dry (non-food-safe) clay.

This week I had to do two other short pieces of writing and fact-checking work. Got them done.

On Wednesday night I went to Toastmasters -- first time since early February, due to (a) the threat of icy roads and (b) the evening my car had issues. Someone brought cookies because it was contest night. I chomped down on a shortbread biscuit and one of my molar crowns popped off. Fortunately, I was able to drop it into a paper cup and take it home. I have made a dental appointment for Monday morning (ugh). If the crown can't be reattached ... I don't know what to do. Care Credit is probably NOT an option for me because I'm sure my credit score is in the toilet.

Last night the boy toy and I went to the Baltimore Lithuanian Hall for the first time in ages. (Hey, it's not easy to get there when you don't have a car.) It was egg-decorating night -- a fun activity! -- and we got to try some of the food from the new chef in the kitchen. Mmm, cepelinai! Not until later did I learn the news that the Mueller report was finished.

Today has been another quiet day -- mostly tinkering with computer stuff, like the boy toy's audio problems with Skype and my efforts to log into the Atlantian Order of Precedence site (which I still can't get into). Tomorrow is another day....

Incidentally, I'm using the boy toy's old (Windows 7) computer for now. A few weeks ago the fan on my 4-year-old laptop started getting unusually loud. It gradually subsided to normal volume, but by Monday of this week the fan started cycling fast and slow, like a car's engine going vroom-vroom-vroom when somebody keeps tapping on the accelerator. So it's in the shop, getting its fan replaced. Not that I need the extra expense, but it's still cheaper than buying a new laptop.

I can't believe how *warm* the weather has been! But Friday morning we're "supposed" to have "snow." Yeah, well, a few flakes will fall and then melt immediately. For cryin' out loud, some suburban cherry trees are already blooming.

Today was this year's Ash Wednesday. UUs don't do ashes, but one woman at my Toastmasters meeting had them on her forehead, as did one reporter on the 11 p.m. news. I actually had a meatless day today -- boy toy made some very tasty Cajun-flavored fried catfish.

Wow, barely one post here per week? C'mon, Patty, you CAN do better than that.

Facebook is such a time suck, especially since I want to Read All The Things. Especially the political things. Helps me articulate how much I hate the flaming sack of shit that is the Republican presidential nominee.

I see how some people have figured out how to crosspost from Tumblr to the LJ/DW platform, but I have no plans to do so. These days I look at Tumblr even less often than LJ/DW. Mainly I have a Tumblr account so that I can <3 and repost other people's things that I find interesting.

My Android tablet has been stuck in an "infinite boot loop" for some months now. One of the guys in the Lithuanian dance group saw my mention of the issue on Facebook and pointed me to a website that has some software that can supposedly solve the issue. Technically the software is for the Google Nexus, but my tablet is an Asus-branded clone of a Nexus, so maybe it will work. We shall see.

Forty-seven years ago tonight I was watching the Apollo 11 moonwalk. Well, OK, I dozed off around this time. I was young and wasn't used to staying up so late....

Still trying to keep my Facebook page Trump-free. REALLY tempted to brush up on histories of demagogues and dictators and how they came to power.

Today's major accomplishment was switching out the Verizon FiOS Internet router to a newer model. The previous one would occasionally drop the wireless signal -- sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes not at all during the day. Here's hoping that the new one lasts for another couple of years.

While searching iTunes for steampunk-related podcasts, the boy toy found a podcast called Brass Needles that is about the combination of SF, knitting, and steampunk. He pointed it out to me and I subscribed in my iTunes account. I don't think I'm going to download all past 185 episodes, but I'll check out a couple of the recent ones.

That reminds me ... I need to get another fiber project going in my life. :-)

Gee, why did all that unsalted butter disappear from my fridge? And why is my kitchen full of freshly baked cookies? I think the boy toy had something to do with it.... :-)

I am continuing to play with my tablet. I posted a "test post" to DW with the ElJay app, but it didn't get cross-posted to LJ. I shall have to practice cross-posting before next week. And if I can't cross-post, well, I'll try to make everything public and folks from one journal might temporarily have to check the other journal. I'm not going to make huge LJ/DW posts from the tablet, either. Just saying.

Today I actually went digital with a small "d" (as opposed to the former Digital Equipment Corp., which seemed to be oh-so-important when I was growing up in Massachusetts during the 1970s). Today was FiOS installation day.

The technician was a personable young man with an unusual first name (Dontois, I think). The boy toy offered him a tall glass of ice water. When clearing out the top shelf of the closet near the front door so that the tech could run the new cable through the exterior wall, the boy toy found a box of his belongings that he forgot he'd stored years ago. He bestowed upon me a copy of a reference book on medieval folklore that includes Baltic and Slavic lore as well as the usual European stuff. Joy!

The Internet and TV stuff started right up when the switch was flipped on. The technician had to fuss around a bit to get a dial tone on the phone, but that seemed to be an issue with this model of cordless phone. (Around dinnertime R. called and talked to me for almost three-quarters of an hour, so, yeah, I have phone service.)

Before the technician showed up, I watched a short YouTube video about Richard Feynman. After the first few seconds, the video paused for buffering, buffering, buffering (as usual with DSL). I watched the same video after the fiber installation and, yay, no buffering! I watched a couple of other favorite music videos, and the same thing!

So ... new toys to play with (i.e., the new remote controls), new channel numbers to learn. At least when I download iTunes onto my new external hard drive, it won't take forever to do so.

In other news ... I've really got to kick butt and get going on this freelance article (for money) that's due at the end of the month. And I got a smile out of another freelance project, which involves converting a software manual from one kind of structured document format to another. The unlicensed version of the converter software randomly inserts words from a classic poem into the text that is being converted -- obviously, the goal is to get users to pony up the cash for the licensed version. That classic poem happens to be "Jabberwocky." So, the small bit of document conversion I've done so far has generated such highly technical phrases as these:

When in doubt, the jaws refer to the online document.

This is a his vorpal sword agreement between you, the end user, and [name of company].

...and the recipient agrees to the terms of this Uffish thought.

The software is fully functional for 45 slithy toves, after which it will be code limited for an unlimited did gyre.

Good thing the customers are fannish friends of mine!

My computer's external hard drive, which I have had for years and years (well, at least five), started running more slowly recently. Late last week, the computer stopped recognizing it. Since the self-employed fix-it guy who brought my previous PC back from the brink is now dead, and since none of the freeware utilities I downloaded from the Web did anything for a drive that couldn't be recognized. Hence, Plan B. I stopped by a place on Route 1 in College Park -- a little independent shop -- and the guy there said he could probably fix it for $100.

However, this makes me think that I really ought to subscribe to Carbonite or some other sort of offsite backup utility. Suggestions welcome. I have both Microsoft Sky Drive and Google Drive, but my Google Drive is not big enough to back up everything that's on the external hard drive (I think I have 4 GB on Google Drive and roughly 100 GB of stuff on the hard drive). I have only a few things on Sky Drive because I'm not sure what I'm doing with it. I hate the Windows 8 interface. I usually work in "Desktop" mode, which acts like Windows 7.

Another reason why I downloaded so many freeware utilities last week was that the SD card in the boy toy's camera got corrupted. He said he was having trouble getting his photos off the card, so I put it in my computer's micro-card drive, and the computer asked me something like, "It looks as if there is a problem with this card. Would you like the problem fixed?" and I clicked on "Yes." What happened next was that the computer replaced some of the corrupted images with non-corrupted images ... so that I had the same number of files, but "IMG_0849," "IMG_0850," and "IMG_0851" (to make up some filenames here) are all the same picture instead of three different pictures. Weird. So we ended up with a few photos of our day in Boston, but nowhere near as many as we actually took. Blergh.

(Speaking of photos AND backup, yes, I do know that Flickr now gives each user 1 TB of space and no longer restricts uploads to 50 MB per month. I really ought to get around to uploading all my photos to Flickr, whether they're recent or not.)

And speaking of uploading, next week it will go a lot faster, because over the weekend I decided to upgrade everything to FiOS. Verizon installed the basic optical cables in my condo complex a couple of years ago, and now they're making a huge push to get people signed up for it. I have been loyal to my copper-line POTS because of all the power outages, but since Pepco (the electric utility) has gone on a reliability-upgrade rampage, maybe the battery-backup thing isn't so much of an issue anymore. Getting the dreaded "bundle" of cable TV, Internet and phone will save me almost $60 a month for the next two years (over what I'm paying separately now), and given my uncertain economic future, I like paying less (and getting a possibly faster Internet surfing connection too).

Yes, I know some people hate Verizon and some people hate Comcast (which I now have for cable). To me, it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Two big-ass corporations that are the alternatives in this county. (I don't want to get one of the satellite-dish companies because of all the hassles involved with the condo association in setting up a dish. And even today's smaller dishes look tacky, IMHO. The way my condo is built, I would have to set the dish up right in front of my living room, where the landscapers would be constantly bumping into it.)

Finally, so I can wrap this up before dinnertime: I joined Tumblr at last. I am http://lusciouspurple.tumblr.com over there. I'm not sure what I am going to use that site for, but at least I can nose around a bit over there.

On the National Geographic channel, I'm watching some guy (from Medford, MA) who makes his own robots. One of them is designed to fetch a can of beer out of the fridge and another goes around and puts out small fires. Gee, don't invite the latter one to Pennsic! I'm imaging the thing rolling down Cariadoc's Way and extinguishing fire bowls and tiki torches left and right.

In the last few days, I've gotten word that the Denny's in my town and the California Tortilla in College Park have both closed permanently. I'm sure that a few people have lost their jobs, and I'll have to drive farther if I want to eat at other Denny's or Cal Tort franchises. Dang. The Denny's was particularly convenient when our neighborhood had a power outage but that shopping center was brightly lit.

Dunno what to say about the Penn State situation that hasn't already been said. Just ... eeewww.