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The day started with me sleeping a bit over into 7ish. I managed to get ready in time for the first meeting at 8AM. The meetings started and ran most of the morning. I did manage to get free at 11ish to do a bit of clean-up work in the house. I then went for lunch-breakfast at the Reedville Cafe. Again, trying to be brave and have lunch out and get used to the world without lockdown.

Breakfast was good for lunch, and I felt safe the whole time there. The customers and the staff are all being safe. It is interesting to see many folks coming to lunch, mostly older folks, all masked up and happy.

Meetings started up again after lunch. I brought Susie French Toast special (with bacon) for her lunch-breakfast.

I had a few crises of the moment and one that is still running. The upgrade fell over a few times, and BASIS and I found a way forward for the breaks. I will continue to work on this upgrade this week.

More meetings and more crises of the moment. I was done about 5ish today.

Tonight I was in a church Zoom meeting on how to create a good video presentation of the worship experience and to stream the live service. We will continue to talk and try some ideas.

It is hard to bring our church back to live worship and also to keep the video. We need some mix of streaming and produced video. The sound quality seems a nearly intractable issue.

I finished Everyone in Their Place: The Summer of Commissario Ricciardi (The Commissario Ricciardi Mysteries Book 3). I strongly recommend the books in this series. This is my second time reading them, and they are still great. The setting is 1931 Fascist Italy in Naples. The Commissario sees dead people, their ghost at the moment of death with their last statement. He is driven to solve the murder as he can experience the murder. It is a wonderful mix of cops, ghosts, 1931 intrigue, and interesting characters. Again, I recommend them. 

As I wanted a break from murders, I restarted reading the wonderful book on math: e: The Story of a Number. This book walks has been a journey of remembering my math from college–it has been a long time. It covers how infinity was the key that unlocks the revolution of math we call Calculus. The story starts with the Greeks who rejected infinity as impossible to understand while inventing geometry. The story goes on as the concept of instant and tiny and tinier gives way to new thinking. I am about 2/3 through, and we are now into Calculus, and I am happy to report I have managed to remember much of this. The presentation is fun and brings together how things work and why they were discovered, and I am learning and enjoying. I likely read this or was lectured in class on all of this; Eli Maor’s book is really working for me. Need an easy and friendly math refresher on Calculus, try this.

I have been thinking about my desire to teach Calculus (or refresh it) for a small group. I am feeling a bit more confident now. We will see.

I received two copies of the reworking of their board game Midway just released. The game is from Avalanche Press and covers WW2 mid-Pacific battles for the first years of the USA and Imperial Japan. It is a naval-focused game and includes the battle for Wake Island, Pearl Habor Attack (with variants), Midway (with variants), and some battleship alternatives. I bought it (I somehow ordered two copies) as I studied this battle and its predecessor, the Battle of Coral Sea, and I was interested in seeing how this version would play.

I think it has been an interesting day, and again it feels a bit lighter as the pandemic seems less of a threat here. I pray for the rest of the world.

401 people died today in the USA from the virus.

I picked the Navy Hymn for today.

I hate it when I overcook the pork chops. The chops were dried out in the oven again. I can never get this right. I made steamed coins of carrots and rice pilaf from a box—the garlic and herbs version, terrible. So dinner was a near loss. Carrots are all that was good.

I started this failure about 5ish after the last meeting I was attending was done. I spent the afternoon on some status meetings and dealing with one crisis of the moment. I skipped the project meeting today–I learned tonight by email that the main project I work on lost another VP. I think he is number three.

Before this, I had lunch at Burger King drive-thru and ate my whopper with cheese while listening to the radio and reading on my kindle more of Everyone in Their Place: The Summer of Commissario Ricciardi (The Commissario Ricciardi Mysteries Book 3). I really enjoy these books and recommend them.

I was multi-tasking all morning. The practice upgrade had reached SPDD (for those who speak SAP and BASIS), and I had many manual fixes to apply and agree to some automated fixes. It is a critical path task for an upgrade as nothing can go forward until I work out all the fixes. I record all of this in spreadsheets so we can have learnings.

So I was trying to follow along on all the status meetings while making very delicate updates. My attention to the status reporting may have suffered, but nobody asked me a question. I spent the morning fixing items.

I started at 6ish this morning and got Susie off to Zeriada’s at 9ish. Today is Susie’s weekly spa day. She had her fav, but the apples were not there when she opened her Happy Meal.

It was a hard start for me as my sleep was disturbed. I did slip in a 45 min nap this afternoon. I nodded off in my book. I still recommend it!

I managed to get a photo of the tea rose bush flowering before it was dark. This is a bush that is likely 50+ years old. The story is that the previous owner moved it from her mother’s house.

Again, I am pleased that we had a normal boring day: no smoke, murder hornets, and virus threats today.

312 people lost their lives to the virus today in the USA.

I like the Doctor Who version, but I think this will be better today: The Old Rugged Cross.

Today is one of the most boring updates, and maybe in a pandemic, that is the best kind.

Today I put away the huge pile of laundry, clean, that was just thrown on the floor. It is all put away and any rewashing done. This took forever, but it is now done. I did four loads, and I will start another soon. This is for the laundry generated over the weekend.

I also did all the dishes and made myself breakfast of poached eggs on toast. I poach the eggs with just a bit of vinegar and salt in the water. I then put them on plain toast with some nice local salt, Jacobsen Salt Company, and a few drops of Tabasco. Perfect!

I then did all those dishes.

Susie was up, and I made her breakfast-lunch of yogurt and cereal, her goto. I drove in the cold, barely above 68F today, grayish day to the hobby shop and got some more flat Mr. Clean clear spray, some more expensive but-it-always-works Tamiya masking tape, 18mm. Plus, the model-making magazine that I dream over, Fine Scale Modeler.

It is not quite model porn, but the second page is a two-page advertisement of a five-foot sized model of the Bismark with lightning, power, and guns electronically controlled. Ready for remote control. Hmmm. The painting instructions and build overviews are what gets most of my attention, no, really.

Escaping the hobby shop for under fifty bucks, I got home and started on dinner. I made Tagine-styled chicken with preserved lemons and olives. I chop up a few onions, peel carrots, cut the carrots in chunks, chop celery, and add garlic and ginger cooked in hot butter with the onions in my dutch oven. Throw it all in with the slightly cooked onions, garlic, lemons cut up, and ginger with Tagine spices from Zamouri and chicken thighs, boneless and no skin, and stir a bit. I then put it all in for an hour, stirring at 40 mins, in the oven at 350F.

I made couscous to go under the Tagine stew.

I served that up.

I did all the dishes and washed all the pans.

My new oilcloth came today. I cleared off my work table, not that easy, and replaced the torn and worn-out vinyl cover I have had since the pandemic started. I bought a replacement to celebrate the unlocking, and the old one was worn out. It feels nice to no longer have my arms over worn-out bits. Just another task checked off my list.

As this is the weekend, I will end there.

This morning the Alexa lost its mind and played weird static and rock at 5AM. I stopped it and then slept into 9ish.

I went slow as I had nothing on today. I got back to painting and almost finishing the last of Richard’s Anachrony (just the final protective coat is remaining for Sunday). Thirty-six figures all three-four inches mechs. I am thrilled to finish and also to have this off-my-plate.

Before all of this, I had my hair cut. As I was headed out, I saw the old turtle was back and digging a nest in my lawn by the cement. We see locals out in the lawns digging and hiding nests. I left her to her work. She is, unfortunately, an invasive non-native species of turtle and likely came from a pet store years ago. But she is still welcome to my lawn.

The red stripe you can almost make out in the photo is the giveaway that she is not a native turtle.

I had some caregiving and surprise laundry this morning. It is all taken care of.

After my haircut, I returned, and the turtle was just finishing up. The hole all filled in. The girls across the street had never seen a turtle nesting. They escorted the turtle back to the waters nearby. I asked them to be careful and see that it did not get hit by a car.

I took Susie to BJs, where she had a 1/2 rack of ribs and me a noodle item.

I then took a food and beer-enabled nap.

As I said, I finished up Richard’s figures.

I missed the online concert for the Portland Youth concert. I spaced it. I bought tickets to support them. I just so busy painting I forgot the 7AM online stream. Next time!

I picked up Mariah at PDX. She is back from Hawaii. We stopped by The Rock Woodfire Pizza–she needed food.

That is about it. This is my first weekend blog post. I think I will stop here.

Tonight I made breakfast for dinner. I had some maple walnut pancake mix from The Vermont County Store catalog that I was thinking about using for a while. We had some frozen uncooked bacon. I ran that under running water until it was usable.

I cooked the bacon and made the pancakes. The first two were not good. I got my juju for making pancakes back on the rest. I also found the good whisk, and that helped as I got the lumps out of the mix. Fresh coffee finished the meal. Susie and Corwin thought it good.

I also painted some more of Richard’s figures for Anachrony. I am about 1/3 through the basic painting now. I will likely get further tonight and start the finishing work on Saturday.

Before this, I took Susie to the movies. The movie theaters are running again. The rules are complex, and a mask is required. Also, only one seat in the handicap row will work. They gave me a different seat, and I just sat next to Susie. It was their suggestion.

The folks at the Regal’s Theater were friendly and even opened a door for me when I pushed Susie into the theater sitting on her walker. Everyone was safe and happy to have us back. It felt very safe to me. But, I am not sure if I was not fully vaccinated how safe I would feel.

We enjoyed popcorn and a diet soda, shared, and a private screening. Nobody else came for the 1:05 show of Cruella. This is a Disney movie and a telling of the origins of Cruella DeVille. Emma Stone makes it fun, and her Cruella is “born crazy and slightly mad” but a sympathetic character. The start and middle of the movie are the best. The ending is too predictable and a bit happy for me, but Disney only makes a kid-friendly movie. Susie loved all the old rock music in the background and the 60s imagery. For example, Ziggie Stardust is recreated as a dressmaker and 2nd hand clothing store owner. I was laughing through the jokes and the over-the-top antics. I would recommend Cruella and will likely see it again.

We stopped by taco bell and had some plain tacos as we rushed to the movies. I had some last-minute items at Nike at noon, making us late. We ate the tacos in the car with some small diet drinks. The drinks were nearly more expensive than the tacos!

Nike has summer hours and closes at noon on Fridays now. Today I started at 7ish as I slept in a bit. The day had just a few meetings. I spent much of the morning trying to fix the outstanding issues for a practice upgrade.

In a Zoom meeting, we did go over the schedule coming up, and besides the upgrade practice, we have three weeks of 7-24 coverage (with weekends) starting on two Mondays from now as part of our project at the shoe company. There is a break for the Juneteenth holiday, but July 4 weekend, as usual for me at Nike, will likely be a working weekend. Oddly, I often work this holiday as it is mid-summer and only an American holiday. I am trying to put a brave face on the endless hours coming up.

520 people are reported dead from the virus today in the USA.

I found one I do not think I have done before, Breathe on Me, Breath of God.