Sunday was dominated by the loss of my Apple Laptop and thereby a change in plans. I could not use Quicken to start on my taxes as that is based on my laptop’s local version. But iCloud enabled me to use my email and to provide a camera and screen for any online meetings. I am making it work. The keyboard for the Raspberry Pi 5 I am using is taking some getting used to. Having a mouse back is interesting after years of using a trackpad. I do like having a mouse again, and it is a USB-A mouse made for a Raspberry Pi. I have better screens, but again, this one is designed for this machine and works.
The $130 machine is built into a keyboard and boots from an SD card running Debian Linux on a Raspberry Pi. The 8G Memory, four-core ARM processor, built-in separate processor for network and WiFi connections, and a decent, no-frills HDMI screen. I have noticed the screen refresh can be slow, and clicks can take a moment. And somehow the screen text is smaller than my laptop, so I have to keep my glasses (new to me) in the right place to avoid blurry text.
While writing this, I wanted to check an address, but my copy of my Apple files is in Apple’s file system format, which is unsupported by Linux when encrypted. Ugh! I did not think about it at the time I formatted the drive. Hmmm.
Sunday started with me having coffee waiting for me, liberal coffee (fair trade), and I then used my laptop to write all morning. I did my usual things, including downloading Quicken transactions, reading my email (mostly deleting), and viewing the news, but avoiding any details, as it hurts too much. The screen on the laptop was fine. I would carry it with me and not see the break until later. I have no idea why it took a day to be pronounced.
I wrote for most of the morning. I got about 3/4 done before I hit the time box for church. I showered and all of that. Skin rash is slowly improving. I need to re-up the prescription, but the dermatologist had multiple refills. My other long-term prescriptions were handled by UHC and now need to be filled locally, and that is requiring intervention by the doc. Someday, the paperwork will slow. I sent the doc a message to get the first one refilled nearby.
The church is bustling, and I arrive 15 minutes before the start. The tables are set up, and any invasion is handled (though we did see one scout who did not return with new directions to the donut holes). I ushered and listened as Michael R gave the sermon, drawing on Joseph’s being sold to Egypt and his later acceptance of his brothers as an example for us to follow. He covers the terrible American use of convicts for labor, a still legal form of slavery in the US (now banned in Oregon and other states, but not all). Michael R shared that this is a billion-dollar industry and leaks into the American supply chain in agricultural products. US slave-labor products are difficult to identify, and the process is opaque.
Pastor Ken expanded on this, noting the people we met on the southern trip who had been exonerated after more than a decade in prison. He then called me up, and I described, witnessed, to use Methodist words, my experience in a jury in Oregon that convicted 10-2. This is a Ku Klux Klan law that was overturned by the Supreme Court later, which allowed for 10-2 convictions, and I, at the time, did not know we were using that. I would never have been party to this had I known. I apologized for unwittingly using a Klan law to convict someone (the guy was a bad dude, and he went away on other charges). Here is the video of the service with me about 43 minutes in.
We sang songs I knew, and the choir did some Bach. A nice service.
I was out at 1, talking to Deborah while driving, and soon home, where I discovered, as I covered yesterday, that my laptop was dying. I made a quick salad for lunch. Backed up my laptop by hand. Corwin found the leftovers (he stopped by). I got it to Best Buy, then off to Apple service ($99 fee for breaking a laptop while under warranty; the $700 repair is covered by AppleCare). I returned home and finished the blog on my Raspberry Pi 500 setup.
I watched another geology lecture on YouTube by Nick Zenter. Deborah has rebooked her trip to 16Feb. I am so looking forward to having her here.
I made dinner/lunch with a New York strip that I had drying and salted in the frig over a day. I roasted it in a cool oven (200°F), and when it reached 120°F internally, I finished it in a smoking-hot cast-iron pan. I made polenta with some cheese and steamed carrot slices for sides. It was excellent. I remembered to cook 1/2 of the recipe for polenta. It was still a lot.
Deborah was in bed early as she has an early morning on Monday. Corwin stopped by, raided my leftovers, and brought the new dog, who seemed to like to hide out under my legs and chair. The pug-like stray was still scared and jumpy, but it seemed to enjoy the house and my company. We watched the next episode of The Agency (the second time for me), and I was picking up things I missed the first time. I saw the first three episodes on a plane and then watched the rest later. I was a bit confused a few times, but now I am getting it. It is a dark (really dark, a few times) and slow-moving spy story. Recommended if you liked George Smiley stories (this is not that and set in the current world).
I did the dishes, ignored the laundry folding, watched more geology (started to nod off), and got into my PJs and read. Using my reader and turned to Hail Mary as the movie is coming out soon, and Deborah loved it. She thought it was better than Martian. I manage to read for a while, but soon sleep takes over.
I remember no dreams, but I did prove hydration twice.
Thanks for reading!
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 