Last night I small tree frog appeared by the front door as I put out the trash. I had watered the lawn before the smoke became dangerous and must have attracted the little frog. The rain came last night with the frog. I did wash my car yesterday.
About 3ish, there was a massive crash, and I called out and grabbed Susie. I thought she had fallen and smashed through the window or brought down some furniture as she fell. It was a flash of point-blank lightning and thunder. It was terrifying. The noise was never that loud again, but I listen to the storm until 4 something. The rain poured, and it stormed all day.
The air went to normal today.
I started work groggy at 7ish and had my first Zoom meeting at 8AM. This is an international meeting of many companies that run the same industry solution to run the back-office processes (and sometimes the front-office) called SAP HANA. My colleague presented. It is always fun to see all the folks from other major brands that run the same software.
I slipped in a bagel and coffee.
After that, I took care of status meetings, updated timesheets, and talked to some developers and architects about aligning on some error recovery processes. Stuff that would put you, my readers, asleep, but it is the boring stuff that can kill’ya in computers if they are not correctly defined and handled.
Aside: My boss, Warren back in Maryland in the 1990s, told me once after a very poor day that “it is OK to screw-up, and it is OK to break production and crash everything, just fix it and go on. It is NOT OK to create a legend and a story of a terrible computer mistake that took days or weeks to recover from.”
I had to meet with a few folks about design.
With the rain coming, it was time to replace the air filter in the furnace/AC–I want clean, nice air again. I was out of filters at the house. I saw that I could buy one for $35 online or buy one for half that at my local hardware. So in my mask, I went to True Value and picked up two filters. I then installed it and was shocked by what the two months of bad air had done to my filter. It was warped and almost black. The filters are usually gray when it is time to replace them.
(the new one next to the dirty one)
I made two hot dogs with buns for lunch. I had forgotten how much I loved a pair of hot dogs with mustard. I had this with the last can of pears.
The smell of smoke disappeared. The rain and the new filter worked.
The afternoon was more informational meetings, one a Zoom conference at 4PM on a Friday (ugh!). I started doing some documentation of processes. I had to remember how to use the editor, which took most of my time between meetings in the afternoon.
Susie got going late, and the thunderstorms continued. The rain was heavy at times. I made Susie a brunch of scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and ham with toast sliding that in between meetings.
Work finally ended about 5ish; I then fried a hamburger and heated up chili from a can. I put the burger on a bun I toasted and then covered it in chili with some cheese and some onion–a chili burger. It was good.
I started building my 3D printer tonight: Folger 2020 i3. I discovered as I began to look at putting it together that everything is metric and Torx style screws. I have not done that much work with either. I have printed the assembly instructions, and I have my digital caliper to help me measure the parts to know which part is which. I spent some time confused until, embarrassed to admit it, I pressed the button to show metric on the caliper. After that, everything began to work. I also found I have Torx included in my special Craftsman set of different screw driving heads. So I was able to get going. I got out my small measure tapes. I have special ones for wargaming that is in inches and metric. Inches for small ship models and metric for some 28mm figure (Dungeon and Dragons scale) games. I need to measure some parts. I just have a few steps done tonight.
The groceries came about the same time I made Susie a grilled ham and swiss sandwich. I had them delivered tonight as I had missed the times for morning and afternoon delivery. The little frog hopped out when I went left the house. The frog is likely following the bugs that are attracted to the porch light.
I was happy to see the rain and the frog, and the smell of smoke is gone.
The market was down in the US. I was reading online that some claim it is now the last stand of the US central bank, The Fed. The goal for The Fed is to get through without creating a no-growth economy, much like what Japan has been facing for years. The Fed cannot lower interest rates much more. Many are concerned that the only growth now in the USA economy is actually the stimulus money; there is no real growth. Again, some say that is what happened to Japan. I will keep watching.
More than nine-hundred fifty people in the USA died from Corvid-19, according to the Internet reports.
The Notorious RBG was welcomed to her next court by her friend Scalia today. I will miss her and her writing for the court. I have the cookbook published by the Supreme Court Historical Society to celebrate her husband’s, Martin Ginsberg, excellent cooking for the court and the families of the court. He passed away some years ago, and a book was created to celebrate his life. I flipped through it again to remember her and her husband, who both were so loved by both liberal and conservative members of the court.
I will have to make something from the Chef Supreme.
A quote:
My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.
Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 