With Air Volvo with a check engine light, I decided to keep my local travels short, and I felt I was pushing it a bit more than I should. Thursday became a go-slow day, and while I feel like I am wasting my life by not doing two impossible things by noon every day, it felt good to just veg out.
I rose stupidly early, writing the blog and having liberal coffee before 7AM. Again, I hate to sleep in, as I feel like the day just disappears, and I want all the days I can get. I am greedy for living. Dad told me, a few years before he got ill, that he rises early every day to see the sunrise: “There are so many left for me, and I want to see them all.”
I got the last hard-boiled egg and a cup of canned peaches to go with the liberal coffee and later added some toast with jam. I carefully consumed this bounty of leftovers, not wanting to surface the choking issue from the Bell’s palsy, while writing and listening to music, my collection of often-forgotten great tunes. Here is Pink (who I met at a Nike event), and this music will get you moving: Get This Party Started! I tried not to rush and to use the forbidden words of Mr. Dryer: very, rather, really, quite, in fact, just, so, pretty, of course, and never use “actually” again.
And if you find that Pink was not enough to kick you into weekend mode (this was written on Friday), there was this dancing piece: Neutron Dance.
I drove Air Volvo with the check engine light to TV Highway Automotive, and they ran a diagnosis for me. The fuel mixture is too light. I hope for the cheapest fix: I think the fuel filter is the issue. The Volvo dealership can’t help until September. TV Highway Automotive will get me in on Monday morning. They also said it is safe to use Air Volvo.
Thanks, everyone, for offering to help.
With the blog done, I put on my hat, remembered everything, and headed to Reedville Creek Park. I managed to walk four loops, but it was harder than the day before. The weather was excellent, with a light breeze and a sun that did not strike. I watched a volleyball team assemble after the mower aligned the grass to the same height. When I walked my fourth loop, the net and lines were placed, and they were playing. It was a comfortable day for volleyball. With 4,000 steps, I headed back to the Volvo Cave with Air Volvo showing its check engine light.
For lunch, I got out the cold steak and made a steak salad. The steak was good the second time, and I was attentive to my eating; I did not choke. Somewhere in the morning, I cleaned up and dressed. I also did the dishes.
Corwin arrived and assembled the spare bedroom for me. Since I could not lift heavy items, he dragged/carried the mattress back to the room from the garage. With the exception of his motorcycle, the garage is now my stuff. The bedroom appears to be mostly my stuff now. Dusting, vacuuming, and other usual items are now on my list. Excellent!
I rested some and returned to some SciFi as I was not ready to return to serious things like Homer, Dryer’s writing suggestions/demands, and things that require attention. I nodded off but soon rose again. I will not have the day disappear!
I returned to my miniature Arduino project: an aquarium-sized diving bell and submarine. The XIAO is ESP-based hardware ported to Arduino, and a new update to Servo software for Arduino caused the compiles to fail. This hardware is not supported and is now flagged as excluded. I found a replacement library for ESP in my selection of libraries. While not a base library, it looked well-supported, and I loaded it and its examples.
The example used pin 17, but my pins were D and A numbers. I was confused. The examples were for other Sparkfun ESP devices and not Seen-produced miniature stuff. Puke! I attached the servo, having soldered pins on it yesterday to use it with a breadboard, and nothing worked. I went back to reading and resting.
I rose again and went back to Seeed’s website on XIAO ESP32S3 Sense boards. The code I found for servos used numbered pins (again, these pins are D or A pins on XIAO). I checked the code I am copying for controlling a Hot Wheel car and found that, too, it was using numbers. Nothing on the website matched this. I was missing something.
The pin-out diagram did not have numbers on it. I have a printed color copy for reference. The XIAO board does not have the pins’ names on the top. The bottom has the names but is currently facing the breadboard; it’s not helpful. I saw a mystery Excel file in the download list next to the schematics and Eagle files (to make a PC board). This is a list of pins using numbers in English and Chinese. It maps everything to the physical pins and D and A numbered connections. Hmmm.
My reaction was I had enough for today. I saw a post on Facebook referring to the 2025 transition plan that Trump and his allies (The Heritage Foundation) cooked up. I read and scanned the section on the Veterans Administration and agreed that the plan included cutting benefits as stated in the post. I like to verify claims, and I downloaded a free copy of the Heritage Foundation 2025 plan when it became available. The document, with its determination to remove civil service protections and many services (including abortion) from all government agencies and change the government to answer to only one man, is quite scary; it reads like something from the 1930s.
With the darkness from the 2025 plan, I decided to make a simple dinner. I got out a frozen Steak and Stout Pie from Trader Joe’s. I baked it for just over an hour. It is a high-quality beer-based pot pie. I enjoyed the flaky crust, and the contents were very flavorful, with carrots, potatoes, and bits of beef. It is recommended if baked.
At 7, Theology Pub was still on Zoom. As the number of COVID-19 infections is increasing, we have never stopped using Zoom. One person was still in isolation after being tested and discovered that the annoying summer cold was COVID-19. On Zoom, we discussed the choice of posting the Ten Commandments instead of the Sermon on the Mount in public classrooms in some states. Why would Christian leaders pick this to represent their values? Further, the law in Louisiana required a specific wording, which was only found on a stone carving that the Supreme Court agreed to allow in a courtroom. It matches no published translation.
Some of us thought the Louisiana law, while bizarre, was not worth worrying about. Others were concerned that the government was mandating religious symbols in classrooms. Many could not understand the selection of this Ten Commandments wording, an informal, at best, translation of the Hebrew. We all agreed that if you want to teach children, it is easy to get them to recite or know ten things, but the cultural and social message of The Sermon on the Mount was a far better and certainly Christian message, Jesus Christ’s own words as recorded in the Gospel. We thought that saying that the meek and poor in spirit are blessed is a good place to start.
After that, I read some more and went to bed early. I kept it a quiet day. Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 