Thursday Also Quiet

Thursday started with me rolling over and rising after 7:30, and I thought it would be great to stay in bed. Indeed, it felt very comfortable. But I wanted to discover what today offered, meaning I rose to see it.

Thursday began with me sitting in my family room at my table, writing the previous day’s blog. I spent the morning remembering the essential parts I meant to share. I try to tell a story but leave out personal relationships and other people’s stories; I will not tell another person’s story.

The day was grey, but the sun appeared later, and there was no rain or even Oregon Mist. The sun was hot, and the skies were dark blue with clouds here and there. There was no smoke, and we saw no California bleaching sun. It was an excellent Oregon September day.

Breakfast includes a croissant with my usual liberal coffee from my French press, plus a banana (my potassium was low in my last test).

I wrote the story and forgot to tell the tale of rising late and surprising a three-inch (including the legs) spider in the kitchen. It was one of our local three-inch (including the legs) spiders. I got out a broom and dropped it on it. It was too large to capture and too scary to let live in the house with me. They show up in the fall, and I usually kill three.

My lunch with Scott was canceled; he had home issues that prevented him from joining me. I made a pizza from Trader Joe’s by baking it for a few minutes in the oven. It was not as good as the one I recently had in Chicago, but not bad for a frozen pizza.

I ordered a set of tiny jams because I wanted toast again and was tired of one jam that seemed endless. I wanted different flavors but did not want large jars or bottles that eventually get tossed. These were delivered today from Amazon, but my shelf-stable milk and a small case of baked beans that were supposed to be delivered together were lost in UPS’s maze of processes. Next time, I will find them in the grocery store. This is an experiment (I added the case of beans as they were cheap, and I like them).

I took a long walk and managed 4,600+ steps for the day, returning to exercising. The back pain only slightly returned, and I carried an umbrella as you cannot trust that it will not pour on you when walking in Oregon’s fall.

I rested and read for a while, reading more Candain murder mysteries, and then rose and started back on Kaggle to write more AI Python code. I coded the regular expression to extract the ID number from the directory name and read the files into a Pandas data frame. My existing notebook can transverse the data. Some of the time series data contain more than half a million rows; I am unsure what to do with this data. I found most of the code for the regular expression on Stack Overflow and remade it to meet my needs. I just copied and revised the transversing code I wrote a few years ago for the ICE competition to fit this occasion. The data is arranged in two sets, information about the kid and usually a large drop of instrument data for the kid (some are missing). You have to combine the data, align it to a model, and then train an AI based on the model to produce the child’s risk profile for Internet use. Once you have your AI ready to use, you run the test data through it and submit your results. Your accuracy determines your score.

I received a statement from life insurance for Susie. We discovered that there are two life insurance policies, and the agents for the 1964 policy are sending me the paperwork to make a claim. This one is split between Leta and Barb (Susie’s mother and sister). I remember vaguely of another insurance that Susie bought when she was a dietician, knowing there would be likely few chances for insurance as a cancer survivor. This one paid out, but I convoluted these for years as the same one. More paperwork.

I made a salad for lunch with new croutons and blue cheese bits from more recent Trader Joe’s purchases. I chopped a carrot and a celery stick to add crunch to the salad. I also cut up some of the chicken leftovers and added them to the salad. It was not a bad dinner. I had a croissant with it.

I watched the eighth episode of Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power, and was impressed by how the writers and actors make this rather non-conical story work. The changes explain how Sauron could have convinced the elves to make the rings, especially the nine for “mortal men,” that create the Ring Wraiths. I am enjoying the presentation and always like anything LOTR. The last episode is next week, and season 3 is already promised.

I headed to Salt and Straw in Beaverton for ice cream. There was a line at 9, so I was not the only person for late-night ice cream on a Thursday night. It looked like many dates and date nights decided on ice cream. I tried Essence of Ghost and had that in a cone. I am unsure if I should eat or bathe in it as I ate my cone. It was a strange flavor but something new. Next time, I will stick to regular flavors!

Home, I soon showered and was reading. I was sleepy and soon slept through the night with an alarm early to write the blog before my 9:20 doc appointment.

Thanks for reading.