Story 23Dec2022: Friday

Where to begin? It was a crazy day, good crazy. The snow and freezing rain mainly came as Oregon mist, and despite cold temperatures (22F -5.6C), I did not let that slow me down. The other drivers on the road were confident. Apparently, for the better, one of the social changes from the pandemic is that folks do not travel with risk–they get the day off or work from home. So nobody was out that I saw that was scared or with bad tires, and everyone drove well. I did run one red-hot yellow when I could not stop, but nobody was in the way, so that was OK, and that one did not have cameras.

Pastor Wayne is in the hospital (I will not share the details here), and I spoke to his wife, Rev. Anne, and Wayne was doing well. We wish Wayne and Anne a Happy Christmas while they spend much of it a St. V Hospital!

Dondrea’s voice has become a whisper. We wish her a speedy recovery. I also heard that Harold, our Music Director at First United Methodist, fell on his way to choir practice, and we also wish him a speedy recovery.

I spent the early afternoon with Susie at the hummingbird house, and Jennifer was on for Friday–she is the live-in nursing aide. Susie seemed a bit confused, and Jennifer was worried as Susie could not feed herself and suddenly seemed to need more care than before. I have noticed a decline, and I will seek more tests in the new year after talking it over with Jennifer.

Susie did improve later, so it might be the confusion that is the Holidays.

Susie and I watched the musical Chicago, the movie version. Susie stayed awake for all of it and sang along to a few songs. We had to watch it on my laptop as I forgot the USB C converter to DVI cables. I picked Chicago because it is colorful and clear, so the laptop’s 13″ screen size was not an issue.

We watched it in the social room with Susie in a recliner and me sitting in the rocking chair. We called Leta, Susie’s mother, after the first songs in the film. Leta and Susie, using FaceTime, talked about Leta’s Christmas plans and the snow.

Susie was uncomfortable at the movie’s end and moved back to her recliner in the shared living room. I, not wanting to discover the Oregon Mist becomes ice (it did not happen), departed at 3ish with a kiss. I arrived at the Volvo Cave with the paint unchanged on Air Volvo–no unexpected stops.

I put the potatoes in the oven and found an old movie for the holidays, Now You See Me. This is a modern fantasy of magicians robbing banks and generally doing the impossible by doing nearly impossible tricks (some are clearly fantasy). It is fun and makes me want to practice again. I have some good stuff, but it fades without practice. I do mostly card tricks, as I never practiced enough to do the slight-of-hand stuff. However, I can do the magician’s patter (lying) and handle cards well.

After the potatoes, I put the sweet potatoes from a can in a glass cooking dish and added them to the 350F (177C) convection oven. Then, I watched more of the movie. After heating the glaze mix and brushing it on the ham, I put the spiral-cut ham in the oven for another 45 minutes. I also stuck the cloves in the already-cut layers and put some pineapple rings on the ham.

Lastly, I microwaved some frozen green beans and left them plain. I could have made other sides, but I wanted to keep the starches down to two. My plate of ham, potato with sour cream, green beans, and simple yam was perfect. Happy early Christmas! I would not have time until Monday to cook, so it was a treat to make dinner.

The movie was fun, but the ending is, I think, a letdown. I purchased it from Amazon’s service at $4.99. I will likely buy the just as magical sequel.

I then wrapped the presents for Christmas, just a few items and many from Barb, Susie’s sister. I also wrapped gifts for my Dungeons and Dragons group. I will drop them off over the next few days.

Next, I went back, later than I had planned, and started working on my radio project. I spliced the wires (not the main brace) and got everything working. I added code to handle changing stations, display the station, and generally do the minimum to be a radio. I got it all working, powered with a 5V 10A power supply (transformer from the wall).

I had the strangest problem when I stood up in the Ikea chair; the microprocessor crashed dead. Even leaning forward caused this. How the f**k does that work. I tried control drop (nice words for bang on it), pulled on all the wires, and nothing. But, if I slowly rose from my chair with no contact with the work table, poof. I was laughing as I tried to sneak out. No good. I rolled the chair and then stood, poof. A compression cylinder in the chair controls the wheels, and somehow it produces a signal. How bizarre. I moved the ground on the Mini Pro 328 Arduino, which did not change this.

I made a mistake; I switched the power, thinking that 9V would be OK. It was not. The blue smoke left the amp. Oops, that is no more than 5.5V for the former amp. The microprocessor worked fine, and the weird crashing stopped. Not the fix I was going for.

I log on to Sparkfun’s website (my spare amp has already pined for testing, and I would rather leave it that way than unsolder all of that), and why yes, I would like that new (slightly cheaper) better amp. Yes, I will get the USB C-to-serial connectors. Those new microprocessors for $35 with built-in LEDs and recharge and LiPo battery handling would be great. Soon, I qualified for free shipping.

The radio will need some work next year.

I put away the ham. I finally unpacked the rest of the glassware from Glenda and Gene and hand-washed some of it. I put most of the ham and other goodies in the new containers. Just some ham on the ham bone was left. I loaded it all into the frig.

I did the dishes (i.e., rinsed and put them in the dishwasher). I cleaned up, had a snack, and took my meds. I head to bed; it is already past midnight and Christmas Eve.

Happy Advent day 23rd! Here is O Little Town of Bethlehem for our next “door” to open.

Shabbat music I found on the Internet, not knowing that much about this area, is here.