Tuesday Quiet Day

Tuesday was bright with California bleaching sunlight, and the temperatures would rise one last time (we think) to over 90F (32C). The heat was on in the house. Thus, no AC would keep the Volvo Cave cool today, but for one hot day, the Volvo Cave did not heat up and reached only 74F (23C) today.

There was no reoccurrence of overwhelming grief today.

I rose after 7, and the house was not warm but not cold. It will take a while for the cold night to affect the house. The orchids do not like warm nights and look a bit unhappy. I mist them often.

This morning, I had liberal coffee, a banana, and yogurt for breakfast while I wrote the blog. It was a quiet Monday, meaning my writing was done by 11. I had cooked bacon for a BLT yesterday and left a kit of bacon, lettuce, and sliced tomato (thanks, Dondrea) for lunch today. I cleaned up (I took a shower today) and was soon shaved and dressed. I continued yesterday’s laundry and completed the shirts and pants load. I stopped The Machine and started it on thirty minutes of drying, which worked better. It was hot and dry now, including some towels, and it was soon all in piles and hanging. The laundry would be put away another day.

I had no plans today but soon was headed out in Air Volvo. I loaded the cargo hold with another bag of Susie’s clothing (I am not sure the bag count for her, but Susie had a lot of clothing), which I found in some drawers. I also put the automated musical Peanut character Christmas set in the car and a phoenix bamboo and painted silk kite in the hold. I added a scarf that I found to the collection.

I crossed Beaverton on a familiar route to hummingbird house without witnessing any extra-legal drive or being invited to help fund the City of Beaverton by Beaverton’s Finest. While there is no auto-driving feature on Air Volvo, the path is so well known that it seemed like I was auto-driving. I followed the various and nearly unpredictable speed changes, including school zones. I soon enjoyed Hall Bouvard’s construction as Beaverton continued to reconstruct the 217 overpasses, but it was not too bad, and soon I arrived at the hummingbird house.

Jennifer and Louis are happy to see me. It has been a few months since the last time I visited. I brought the Christmas Peanut collection and gave it to them. We all enjoyed it a few Christmases ago. I also gave them the kite they had not seen before, which hung in our bedroom for Susie to look at on those tough mornings when it was so hard for her. It is her symbol. Jennifer loved the colorful scarf and was not surprised I was still finding clothing for Susie.

We talked about my travels and a few fun stories about Susie. I retold the story of Susie in Amsterdam and surprised the hash smokers by coming into the bar with a walker, climbing on a stool, and smoking more than anyone else. Susie then, no surprise, found the Bull Dog (the name of the bar) merchandise story and got shirts and coats. They loved the story, and we talked about my trip to Chicago and my upcoming return trip to New Orleans (NOLA).

I promised to stop by after NOLA and share more stories of my trips and Susie. Next, I’m recrossing Beaverton, paying close attention to the speed changes, which can drop as low as twenty in Old Town. I picked up my grey suit from the cleaners and is now ready for NOLA. Next, I cross Aloha to the unincorporated Reedville to reach GoodWill to supply more clothing to their programs.

Most of Susie’s clothing went to Beaverton Closet to help young people. A younger gal helped sort at the church, and those thought wearable by younger gals were sent to the closet. A few months later, I saw Susie’s favorite sweater on a gal. Excellent. The rest of the clothing went to various non-profits or was recycled.

I arrived next at the local Big River Coffee and grabbed a table and an Americano with a shot of caramel for a few bucks. With my laptop, I then returned to Kaggle and my coding for a coding contest. Someone had a book with my usual first code, creating a random but correctly formed entry that properly scored in the negatives. Random should fail to place. I learned that thousands of files, like the ICE challenge, must be processed to have a better answer. From what I saw of the examples, these files are not used by the basic examples. Hmmm. According to some articles, this extra information is time series, incomplete, and contains erroneous data. Hmmm.

I was at a loss for how to proceed and had not done time series-based processing. I also feel that my Pandas skills are weak, as I look at the many examples and can barely understand them. There is a lot of learning to be done. I quit about 4:45.

Feeling a bit defeated, I make dinner. I was considering food to go or sitting down at a restaurant. I am retired and need to economize if I will travel so much and reject these thoughts. I find a can of crushed tomatoes, paste, pasta, and frozen ground beef excellent, and I make a massive pot of scratch-made sauce. It is a bit bright, but it works. I fry ground beef in a pan and add it in. The beef overtakes the sauce, and the pasta sticks even in the sauce. I still have too much.

I enjoyed Murders Only in the Building’s latest episode (it drops on Tuesday) and repeated last week’s Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power episode. Both are excellent, but the LOTR episode was better the second time. I should have put the food away after two bowls…

A nap was needed. I read Louise Penny’s book 11 of her French Canada murder stories, which was the next book, and hopefully not sad. I rose, did the dishes, and looked more at Kaggle, but I still had no go-forward plan. I might reproduce the random or a bare random forest of trees solution by totaling the time series data into a simple model.

I put away the pasta and head to bed. It is warm in the house, 74F (23C), so I take a shower and read. Then my right foot goes into cramps. Ugh! I squeeze and massage the foot, and the problem stops. Hmmm. It takes a while for me to sleep with my head filled with AI thoughts, Canadian crime, and too much pasta. I wake to prove hydration at 3AM.

Thanks for reading.