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I got started at 6:30, even with my alarm going off at 6. I just rolled over for a bit. Trying to get through the time change. My first Zoom meeting was an alignment meet between a software vendor and Nike and is India and Beaverton based people. This followed with hours and hours of more Zoom meetings. I was triple-booked a couple of times, and meetings appeared dynamically too. So a crazy meeting-filled morning.

Susie was up at 7:30 for her 9ish appointment with Zerida for hair, nails, etc. We moved this to Tuesday. Susie’s driver was on time.

I ordered lunch from Ma-Now Thai, Massaman Cury–my usual. Susie brought back a Chicken McNugget Happy meal, her fav with apples.

I was doing e-paperwork and Zoom meetings all afternoon with a couple 30 minutes breaks. I had a few architectural meetings as we are now getting down to deadlines, and items must be decided. I was done about 5ish. I did slip out to get my prescriptions; more from yesterday.

We also slipped in a walk for Susie between meetings down our street. It was a sunny cold day. By late afternoon it was warmer. Susie walked about 1/3, and then I pushed her back on her walker–it has a seat and wheels.

I made Schwann’s baked potato skins with cheese and bacon for Susie, and I had a salad and sneaked maybe two potato skins. Corwin ordered Mexican and had it delivered.

I did some work on my Raspberry Pi 400. I wanted to write a program to get the CPU temperature in Python. I found an example that did not work in Python3, but I worked out the issue and can finish it tomorrow. I plan to get my “space lobster” robot control program working soon on the 400. I will then take the code and install it on another Raspberry Pi built into a boat. More on that later.

AdaFruit package arrived today. I have all the parts to build an inductively charged item embedded in resin—so more crafty work to come.

I am back online at 9 with India morning (now an hour earlier for India–9:30AM instead of a more pleasant 10:30AM). We are having a working session on a very detailed conversion process.

A very long day!

13,529 people were vaccinated in Oregon yesterday. This number will likely increase as it takes 72 hours for the counts to be all collected.

1,248 people in the USA died today from the infection.

I found this hymn for the late 1800s that is pleasant, My Faith Looks Up to Thee–Methodist Hymnal 452. I think I have sung it before, but I do not remember it well, just the “Savior divine!” phrase.

Today I took the day off. I was up about 7ish and put in my out-of-office on and finished the end-of-week e-paperwork. I did the dishes and made a light breakfast for me and coffee. I have my first doctor check-up since the Convid-19 emergency. I did a blood draw and other labs on Friday and read the results online. I had a mental list of items to bring to the doctor. I drove over to the local office.

I was a bit early, so I spent a few minutes in the car reading the news.

After the normal process of finding some paper to sign, even after I did all the online forms and even scanned and uploaded my insurance card, I started my appointment. The doc had an EKG done, and we changed most of my medications and found some more—the usual for a 55+ guy in a high-stress job. My EKG was fine. It was a long appointment, as I expected. I have follow-ups in a month.

I picked up a fish sandwich for myself and Susie’s fav of McDonald’s Happy Meal with six-piece Chicken McNuggets with apples. My flounder sandwich was from Popeye’s and spicy.

Once home, I went back to the Raspberry Pi (RP) I set up this morning. An RP is a single-board Linux computer that is inexpensive and mostly open source and open hardware. I found this newer version fast enough for the work I have in mind. I have a 400, a Pi built into a keyboard, and wanted to start some project to control some motors. I managed to get it running attached to my nice 15″ screen that runs on USB-C and then powered the Raspberry Pi from the screen.

I discovered that I needed to install the full package as the RP 400 was only a base install. I loaded the rest of the normal install for RP and now used Visual Studio for Python coding. I copied a small program I have out in public (GitHub Repo alohawild/python_class) for using a Monty Carlo to calculate the value of pi. Kind of cute to do on an RP. I managed to get it to run and prove that I had set-up Python development. I will try to find some more time to do more work in Python soon.

Susie had a dentist appointment today also. I got her there and then managed to get most of my prescriptions while waiting for her. A few had to wait a day for RiteAid to have the drug. I should have my new blood pressure and cholesterol control prescription by noon on Tuesday. As my doctor and I both agree, 2021 is not the year to ignore medical recommendations!

Susie finished her cleaning at the dentist without any events.

We had a strange power surge and outage. There was a large bang too outside. It seems yet-another-transformer exploded. Our endless rain shortens the life expectancy of various electrical equipment. My charger for my laptop seems to be running strangely now–it might have been zapped. I will keep an eye on it.

I got pizza and salad for dinner at Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza. You get an uncooked pizza and take it home to bake. I also got the Chopped Chicken Ceasar Salad; it is the Ides of March, after all.

Tonight we played Roll20 online Dungeons and Dragons 5E. We continued on with the adventuring in the Mad Mage’s Dungeon. The players decided, now 13th level, to turn over the defeated lich’s phylactery to the water genie, gaining the treasure as a reward. Next, they plan to fight the other genie and take its treasure. This plan worked, and the other genie surrendered after it was badly injured.

The adventurers then headed down into the creepy and spooky next level. They are in a dark dwarf worked-out mine where the walls are bleeding, and the air has a breeze that smells of roses and brimstone. Ominous.

15,529 people were vaccinated in Oregon yesterday.

785 people in the USA died from Corvid-19 today. The numbers appear to show a reduction.

I picked Morning Has Broken for today.

It is rainy gray here, and the rain is sideways. It can hit you in the face. It is also the first day of time-change, Spring Forward; we are all suffering from the day passing by faster than expected. I talked to a friend, and she is having trouble getting motivated; it is a good day for a book and a warm cup of tea, and a blanket.

Time change day just sucks.

I reset all the locks before going to bed and woke at 6ish this morning. I closed my eyes for what I know was only seconds, and it was 9:50ish! I got up before I blinked, and it was Monday! I have too much to do, and life is just too short to sleep the day away.

I did the dishes. They were piled high. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes. I thus unloaded it and then reloaded it. How so few can produce so many dirty dishes so fast is a mystery I have found no explanation.

I then put away all the terrain and figures for Frostgrave. The newest items, 3D printed items from 3DEgos in California, need to be primed and painted gray. I am out of gray primer spray paint.

So off shopping. Stopped by Rainy Day Games, the local gaming store a few miles away, and they have no gray primer.

I go grocery shopping. I pick up all I believe we need, including paper products and even wipes are back in stock! I filled my cart. I then had to wait as Safeway does not want you to use humans to check you out. Previously, I spent 45 minutes learning how to be a checker at the manual check stand. I had to get help multiple times as items need various codes to be purchased or set them down wrong. I was not going to enjoy this for a full load. I tweeted a complaint, and Safeway finally opened another lane; I doubt my tweet helped. I did get a reply to my tweet about 30 minutes later asking what store I was at, obviously a robot, and I replied that the information was in the tweet (I had used the location pin on the tweet).

My last place was Lowell’s, as I needed a new air filter for the furnace. I replace them often. This time I spent big money and bought a $30+ filter that is 4 inches thick. I have used only one-inch standard filters so far. This huge thing was going to upgrade our air quality. I got the smaller ones if I needed to replace the huge one suddenly, two-pack for under twenty bucks.

I drove home, and we installed all the goodies. The new filter went in with difficulty. I think I will remove it in pieces in a few months, but we have super filtering for now.

Corwin ordered Mexican from a local place, and we ate that while watching the old SciFi Stargate movie. I forgot how good the movie was. It is also full of cigarette smoking–I had not noticed before.

I had to go back to work at 9ish as we are still running conversions. I also applied a vendor patch, an OSS note for those who know SAP, and it hit a previous upgrade patch, a TCI for those who know SAP, and I am not sure what to do. I sent an email for folks to look to SAP for help.

I also went online to the Army Painter website and ordered my gray primer paint. It is free shipping from them; Amazon sells the same paint for 2x cost.

So I am writing this while I am logged into work and have to stop and listen and talk.

15,530 people, including Susie, received that vaccine for Covid-19 yesterday. Just under 5,400, Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine was given on this day. Oregon is now ramping up this vaccine.

Deaths in the USA today was only 629. Let us hope this is real and not caused by reporting timing, and we will see a high number tomorrow.

I think I know this hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee–Methodist Hymnal #452. Each line ends with a conclusion phrase that I kind of like.

We started this morning with me waiting for Susie to get ready. We managed to leave about 9ish for the 9:24AM appointment for a Corvid-19 shot for Susie. This was a repeat of yesterday where I got my shot at Nike WHQ. I was ready with everything that needed to be done as I had done it the day before.

Susie got her shot, and she was just tired and rested for a bit, possibly from just getting going early, and Susie has had no paint or other side-effects.

I have had body aches, pain in my arm, and feeling run-down all day. I am taking some Tylenol to keep the side-effects under control.

I made mac and cheese for lunch. I also had some kielbasa that I cut thing and fried in a pan to brown it a bit and bring out more flavor. Susie had some lunch later after her nap.

Evan came over, and we played a few games of Vindication. I was stupidly lucky in the first game and won easily. The second game had Evan pull ahead, and the End Conditions Card, which we forgot to deal out, ended the game when we finally remembered them. One of the issues in the original version I played before the game was finished was that the game had no end. Apparently, the variable End Condition card was the answer. Thusly, today our games ended early. Evan beat me in the second game.

We then tried our hands at Frostgrave. I got out the terrain for 29mm figures, a newly acquired winter ruins mat from Italy, and my figures I assembled and painted for Frostgrave. We then had to create a war party for each of us. This took about an hour. We then had to set-up the table and learn the game. Frostgrave game rules are easy to follow, and it fun to have a wizard and apprentice shoot off spells. And to have some tough guys like thugs or, in Evan’s case, a man of arms to provide more direct action on the enemy. We played a treasure hunt basic game. We put five treasures on the map, and the team that recovered the most wins. We had a big fight over the central treasure, and my thugs, cheap help, and my crossbowman fell to the Grenade spell cast by Evan’s apprentice. My wizard and apprentice did manage to get two treasures off the map. The central treasure was grabbed by Evan’s warband giving him the victory of one more treasure.

I have to re-read the rules a bit as we were unsure of a few items. It was still fun to get out the tape measures and all the cool figures and play a fantasy raid on the lost city of Frostgrave to recover treasure–the base scenario. We will play again; now that we have warbands done, it will be more play and less paperwork. I have more interesting scenarios besides just raiding and fighting over the treasure.

We ordered pick-up at Nonna Emilia Ristorante Italiano. We had soup, garlic bread, and pasta dishes. They forgot the salad. I called them, and they sounded upset I would bother them. I had them give me credit for my next meal for the price of the salad. I was not that happy with Nonna Emilia tonight. I did like my meal, as did Evan and Susie. We will try them again and see if their service is better.

We watched the movie The Prestige on prime while we ate. A dark fairy tale also parts horror story about magicians in the late 1880s. I liked it when it came out years ago. It was fun to see David Bowie as Tesla. I cannot recommend the movie, but I do like it. I like The Illusionist better. I am also loved Now You See Me two movies.

Evan headed home. I went and set the clocks ahead. Welcome to Daylight Savings Time 2021!

18,556 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. These numbers may increase as it takes a while to get all the counts in.

1,037 people died in the USA today from the infection.

I have to go with the Battle Hymn of the Republic with all the people helping us today. It made you proud and happy.

It is funny to be at almost a year of blogging, and I am now further in on lockdown as I worked from home last year because of allergies. The sneezing was scaring people, so I started working remotely, as we called it before. Now we just call it working.

The morning was full of chaos as many important processes were not working for data movements. The status reports caused more meetings and more rushing. It was a busy morning.

I had to skip-out of the rest of the day as I had a Covid-19 vaccination appointment at noon. Nike WHQ was hosting the Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue vaccination clinic for Washington county for two days. I had managed to get an appointment today and one for Susie on Saturday. I wanted to do one by myself; thus, I would be able to help Susie on Saturday as I would have already experienced the process.

I was there twenty minutes early, and they have me through security and told me being early was fine. I joined a Q of cars. We answered questions along the way and showed ID, and filled out paperwork. It was simple, and nobody was in a great hurry. Everyone wanted to get through the process.

It seemed like a car wash for a bit. When I finally got to the injection part, I started to get nervous. Not about the shot, but how I could not believe that I finally had a chance to get the shot after all this time. It did not hurt, and then I drove through the rest of the process and got my next appointment and my vaccine card.

I picked up lunch at Burger King and started to feel a bit tired–I brought Susie back a Whopper Jr with just cheese and fried cheese sticks instead of their terrible fried. I took 500 mg Tylenol and read and rested. I felt a bit off and tired. I could not be sure if it was the relief, the vaccine, or all the hours of this week working Beaverton and India time. I am feeling fatigued writing this now.

I received my missing mat from Italy today for Frostgrave. As it takes little effort, I decided to build the medieval tower and ruins I also received from the gaming company PWorks in Italy. It takes little effort to assemble it, and it was something to do.  So I built it and put the initial paint on it.

Corwin needed a lift, so I drove him across Beaverton, and we got lunch at Carl’s Jr. I had a Western Burger. I drove home getting more tired, and made Susie a grilled cheese for dinner. I think her sandwich was better than my burger.

Susie’s shot is 9:20ish at Nike WHQ on Saturday.

23,075 people were vaccinated yesterday in Oregon. These numbers will likely increase as it takes 72 hours to get all the counts entered.

1,505 people are reported to have died from Covid-19 in the USA today.

I found this, and I liked it: United Nations Hymn.