Door decor and a whole lot more

 

What an interesting day. I was relatively pleased with my progress this morning getting dressed for breakfast. It still was somewhat slow going for a while but I was able to get everything on and fastened by the time I need to leave for the restaurant which was just a little bit before 8:00 a.m.. my legs are giving me more and more issues as far as Crossing them so I can get my shorts on over my feet and my shoes on my feet secured and somewhat presentable. The breakfast was usual just mark Anthony and Jasmine the boyfriend was home with the dog doing dog sitting. As usual we broke up around 10:00 or a little before Mark had to go and work on his sound stuff and Jasmine was meeting me at the apartment so she could carry through with her promise to decorate my door the annual Christmas door decoration. I wasn't sure what to expect but was pleased to have the company. I was even more pleased when she jumped in and started cleaning the apartment and putting things away so she could have room to work on the door decorations as well as fetching down the Christmas tree- - fake but beautiful - - and setting things up. Seems like it took quite a while to decorate the tree she really wouldn't to town on putting the bulbs on the tree and finding a suitable place to place the tree. We also did the front door oh I just supervised Jasmine did all the work. We did the front door front and back wreaths on both side quite a bit of fun actually. It was great having this time to visit with the granddaughter. She has a lot going on in their life as I guess kids do everywhere she seems to juggle it pretty well. She's got the end of the semester exams coming up and she should finish this semester with her associate's degree. I know it's cliche especially for a grandparent to say but I'm proud of her and her focus and her work to get this basic degree. I just hope I can encourage her to continue her academic pursuit of the other degrees she would like to have to do what she wants to do.

As I wander into the second week of December I realize that I have a meeting on Wednesday. It's a quarterly meeting so it's not like I was shocked or anything, better yet it's also going to be zoomed so I won't have to be heading out somewhere for an in-person meeting. This Wednesday meeting should take most of the afternoon starting at 1:00 and ending about 3:30. I have other meetings I think towards the middle of the month but even and in retirement things slow down at Christmas almost to a standstill. Usually I don't I don't mind particularly if it's bad weather but what I'm seeing right now is that global warming continues to show its warm face. Temperatures are above normal as is the moisture, very little snow or rain has blessed us this season yet. Like I said this works for me but it's not for everybody else. I'm contemplating now that we'll probably get very little moisture the rest of this month in particularly nothing in the valley over Christmas but that's not a shocker. My door is done and my apartment decorated for the holiday I'm pretty excited and I even getting into a little bit of the Christmas spirit whether it lasts or not that is the question..

Of meat sticks and Marvel

I  bundle up and cross the street to the market today. It's been quite a while since I've actually gone out to purchased foodstuffs. I'm finding I'm relying more and more on internet purchases just so I don't have to go out. That's okay to a point but for things like I really want to be sure it's my decision like purchasing grapes, apples, oranges any kind of produce that I just feel screamish about having some other person pick that stuff out for me. Things like canned goods or bottled Goods like my V8 juice or jalapeno peppers in a can like that I don't mind the shopping drones picking those up either but things that are real that's probably a derivative comment but I wasn't not meant to be but things that we're living very shortly before they are harvested for the market that I want to pick myself and that's what I did today apples and oranges and of course the ever-present bananas. But bananas are a challenge for me because if you buy too many they're going to go dark on you and basically spoiled or act like they are. Those that are somewhat gifted and focused can you use the Aged bananas to make banana bread which is always a great thing to make. I got four oranges I got four apples I don't know why I chose that number except that it seems that if I get larger amounts I usually end up not eating them and they go to waste but four I think I can do well with. My body seems to know when I stopped eating fresh fruit it doesn't like it. So I'm looking forward to ingesting some great pieces of fruit that was purchased at the market today. I also picked up a very small summer sausage which is like $8! That's all I'm going to say and not get into that old guy habit of complaining about items like that. But I'd like to have pieces of meat around that I can slice then and put on things like crackers or chop up to add the eggs and such. I would have really liked it got the wrong summer sausage but I just can't justify 14 bucks for a meat stick or maybe I should but again I don't want to buy something that I get tired of and leave it in the refrigerator till it dies. Sitting there mocking me daring me to eat it and at some point I know I just will not any longer until it gets to the point that is corrupt and needs to be thrown out and that's such a shame so I get the little guys always leaves you wanting more.

Once again I spent way too much time watching the flat screen. I guess I could kind of justify by saying I'm not really watching I'm just listening to the dialogue and letting the dialogue be background noise for when I'm doing other things around the apartment. But I did go out the coffee this morning so that was something I can say that I did not related to the apartment. Shows 2.2 miles on my odometer so I've been out doing things but it's been cold and that's really holding me back. If I really don't need something now I don't get it all right order it in and just enjoy the apartment in my electronics

 

Amazon delivers

Amazon continues to amaze me. For the past couple of months I've been struggling with this charging cord that fits into my Samsung tablet which I use everyday to write on my blog and whatever writing else that I do particularly through things like the kids letters that are right every month. The connector that pushes into the tablet which charges the tablet has been getting more and more frail and you have to push it in a certain way and hold it there for a few seconds and then be sure that I have the machine set it in the cupboard or it's a little bookcase so it'll continue to charge then it even then it may or may not charge. The charging mechanism tends to fall out from time to time sometimes very mysteriously. In my true fashion I dropped my charger sometime yesterday and it looked right on that charging plug while it was plugged into the tablet and kind of snapped it Off it was hanging by just a thread when I pulled it out and looked at it it fell apart completely meaning that if I didn't find some other option I wouldn't be able to use this tablet like I love to do. I thought about bundling up and then taking off to either the market up the street or going all the way into the 21st South Market that sells all kinds of office stuff as well as a pretty good selection of technical stuff computer tech stuff. I didn't want to however go out in the cold I'm getting to be quite a sissy. But I wondered what if I could order this in from the internet. Even if I couldn't use this tablet until it the order came in it would still be coming. I could use my cell phone if I really really needed to dictate somewhere else besides this tablet. I had just enough power in my tablet yesterday to work out my posting that I did yesterday so this morning soon after waking I pulled out my cell phone and check out a couple options as far as charging cables for tablet Samsung tablets. Sure enough there were all kinds of options I actually pull the trigger and ordered a couple of charging cables that should fit into my tablet and there is even indicated that if I ordered by a certain time they would get here today and sure enough this afternoon or early evening I noticed something blocking the light from underneath my door and sure enough my order has been delivered! I couldn't believe it. I was surprised to find out that I got three cables fairly long cables I only needed one so I have two backups I feel rich. I was a little concerned at first because the piece had a hard time fitting into the tablet but I work a little around and soon I got the sound that it was charging and I let the tablet charge all afternoon and just checked on it a few minutes ago and sure enough it was 100% charged I'm so excited not to worry about not having enough power to do my blog daily. As an aside I also ordered 40 count box of Layes potato  chips . I'm so excited. They're the small chips that you usually get in vending machines which is cool with me. I think the 40 count box will allow me to do some control of how many chips I eat at once. Portion control that's what I'm looking for and I think this will do it it will give me a variety of chips. I think one package is enough to have with a sandwich which is just right for me. I opened up one package of green onion chips or a regular chip with green onion specks in it and wolfed it down they were just fine!

You just never know

 Am I just paranoid? I'm getting spooked by all these weird little image projections on my tablet and handheld device. Like how it pulls out a date and shows pictures from that date images from that date. Doesn't come right out and say it but I know it's IA working. It's trying to second-guess me by trying to butter up my vanity by showing images of me or what it thinks that I would like. I don't like it not one bit I don't like it we're making around my image files and my other files and then throwing them out on display anytime that it wants to. I would hope that there is some way I could go in change it so it doesn't do that but that's just more time that it I just don't want to spend it in pandering to the AI s whims. I wonder how long it's going to take the whole AI thing to become sentient? To begin to get spooky as AI turns fiction into reality. Like I said I think I might be a little over dramatic but it's true and what really kind of weirds me out is how many people think this is a great thing. There's even some I think different entities trying to sell the concept that's a good thing and will help us out in the long run I don't believe that will happen. I think AI is going to start messing up maybe not because it wants to but just because there's too many things to think about that it thinks about way faster than we do. And if we don't have it programmed or whatever to not be dominant intelligence destructive wait baby in major doo doo. I can't believe I wrote that. As it is now I pretty much just go day by day and hope to get through it. I don't go out of my way to antagonize the various AIS that are running around out there yet at the same time I don't I don't try to cower around them either.

My main writing devices the tablet but your readers know that and of course the tablet runs on electricity and of course you got to have a charging mechanism to plug it into nightly at least that's what I do. Well I dropped my tablet today and of course it lit on the charger or charging mechanism that was still plugged in to the tablet and broke. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to extricate the end of the piece of the charger from the tablet but I was but I have one old charger that I've had kicking around for some time and the mechanism more or less fits into the tablet not very well or seems to take forever to charge the device if at all. I plugged it in this morning before I left for my lunch with a colleague and let it charge all afternoon and I don't know if it charged or not it didn't look like it cuz it's still in the 40s I just hope I have enough juice to finish this postings. It's supposed to snow tomorrow I don't know if I have the wearthal or they get up and go to go over to the 21st South store and buy another charger. I might go over to the dollar store which is right across the street and see if they have one that might fit you never know

Wednesday's words

 I think I've mentioned this before but I usually do any of my blog updates with a tablet which allows me to verbalize or dictate the information that I write when I blog. That of course means I have to have the blog in hand and when I sit back and try to get comfortable I automatically search for the software I use but to do so I cross or I pass the icon to the search engines as well as Instagram and other applications that are designed to hold your interest even for a short while as they go through there whatever they are. Sadly, I'm a weak soul, I find myself cooking on one of these applications and soon I'm down the rabbit hole of videos, short videos and losing precious time to do anything else. I'm rather proud of myself tonight I only lost 20 minutes on the dreaded videos. Granted, I'm not in bed yet the lights off and my head on the pillow ready to sleep but just getting out of the application and in this case on to the blog is Major motion forward. In the 20 minutes I was exposed to I don't know how many cash videos which I think are kind of strange and in the same token I'm totally amazed at how many clean up your yard videos seem to be out there. You know the kind where some goody two shoes goes out and cleans up somebody's front yard our whole house for that matter it's almost like certain videos begin to Trend and so all of them are like that it's weird. I cruise past a couple videos that were fairly interesting you know the kind where they put these beautiful pieces of meat or they cut them up or just show them off. Same with those Money videos which now I pass up cuz I know it's got to be fake. I think I can really get into the Seinfeld videos if I let myself and they had linked to enough of them that I could actually watch Major portions of the video. I'm strong that way being able to pass them up but still it would be fun to wander through some of them like maybe on a snow day when I really have nothing else to do. But once I start that I get bored relatively quickly and that's a good sign for me I believe. I can turn myself off and stop searching for the golden video whatever that might be. I am totally surprised at how young or new these videos are. Some I've been able to tell or made just two weeks ago as we neared the end of November. Fortunately on most days I don't have enough time to sit down and scroll and scroll. I like to think I have more important things to do. Today of course it was finishing the wash that my caregiver starts when she arrives on Wednesday mornings and throws the wet clothes into a dryer as she leaves. Today. Today I changed the clothes out on my second time down to see if the first cycle is finished. A few of them in the basket and pushed everything back to the apartment later on I did the folding and then I hung what was left up in my closet. I listen to NPR as I fold clothes today was Marketplace and whatever half an hour show is on afterwards.

I felt it was a productive day all things considered. I still need to move the folded shorts off my bed onto the desk where I keep them and then I'll start the bedding process. And totally blown away that tomorrow is Thursday coffee social in the morning and then lunch with a friend and once again it's almost the weekend if possible snow

Tuesday's challenge

 I won't lie it was cold today. It wasn't drop dead cold but it was chilly no question about it for a day riding the bus in and out of my meetings in Salt Lake. Actually it was just one meeting and I didn't have to wait too awfully long in fact I had to backtrack once I was at the bus stop had forgotten my hook so I had to go all the way back to the apartment complex and grab my hook and even then I got back in time to catch the bus into the city hang out the library check out the new books and eventually head back across the street to my assist meeting. There was a bunch of documents that needed to be signed this week it was just me and Robin who showed up to volunteer this day and it pretty much took the whole hour to get through the names that we had to approve. Following the meeting I was ready to head back home as quickly as I could. I did want to stop off at the bank get some change but that didn't happen the lines looked way too long I don't know what was going on in that level. Then I stopped at this weird little hamburger joint actually with a pizza shop as well as hamburger joint. I've known about this place for years always seemed a little bit weird and I don't think I had ever really gone on there. They're right across the street from the Taco Time that I usually stop if I'm going to have a lunch before I go home from the meeting. Today I checked this place out order the hamburger it was just two men working there barely English speaking and I think they were Eastern somehow. Took him forever to make my hamburger which actually would have been really good had they had any condiments. No ketchup no mustard they told me in broken English. Luckily the burger was good enough I got by without. The order came with french fries and one of those ripped up Utah sauces the pink stuff which I think is just ketchup and mayo but it was good enough for dipping a few french fries and then trying to drizzle over my burger. It was okay lunch but it wasn't worth $14 what was the learning curve I doubt if I'll ever go there again unless I buy a pizza. That looked fairly decent that way it might be a gold mine for pizzas but I don't have a way to carry him I'd have to eat it all there I initially went in there to buy just one piece of a pizza but they don't sell them that way I'd have to buy the whole pie which just don't worry I can do that and ride the bus or train. It seemed I was there forever eating my burger and watching these two guys talk on their cell phones going in and out of there kitchen. As near as I could tell one of the folks was a landlord I think it was in the process of evicting somebody. Like I said it was a totally interesting experience.

Accused across a couple streets and finally got to the train station and didn't have to wait too long before a train showed up. I was glad to get into the warm car for the semi-long trip out to Murray Central where I pick up the bus to go home. I enjoyed sitting in the bus once I got off the train. The driver had the bus warmed up big time and I just nodded off to sleep waiting for the bus to fill to take the trip West to Taylorsville. I jumped another bus as soon as I got to Taylorsville which dropped me off at the apartments I totally enjoyed the heat of the building once I got back. I sat in front of the heater the rest of the day just enjoying the Heat

Remotely challenged

 I know I've talked about not having my hands a million times and how much easier it would be if I just had access to total control of my hands but that's just not a reality. Nothing brings this to my mind more than being caught in a situation that I definitely need fine motor or at least finer motor control that I have. The case in point tonight I was watching one of the Marvel movies actually killing time until the Jazz game started. I'm of course sitting in my chair and I have the remote balanced on my leg as I usually do I did something though and felt the remote slide off my leg and I heard a crash, a small crash, of the remote bursting apart. Mind you this remote is what controls the three channels I use the most Disney plus, Amazon Prime, and another I can't remember right off but they're all movie channels and I had a movie channel on and I realized that I didn't have a way to switch around channels anymore. I have another remote that I have that is more heavy duty and allows me to just do the basics as far as operating with the cable channels but it doesn't allow me these other specialty streaming type channels kind of freaked me out. So the only recourse try to put the remote back together again. I first had to gather all the Parts together which I was able to do then with the help of my dustpan I was able to push them all together onto the dustpan and on to the bed that I used as my construction point there must have been like six pieces three more itself burst apart top and bottom two batteries escaped plus the rubber touch pads that goes in the holes of the top of the device and all the other parts that seem to go along with it it took me a lot longer than I anticipated but eventually was able to put the piece all the things together again put him inside the respective halves and then even put the batteries in once I got them in the container then to my disbelief I was able to snap the whole thing back together again press the top to the bottom and the plastic container clicked and it was whole again and even better the device actually worked. It actually fixed something myself which I hardly ever am able to do.

 I still have to now a figure out where I can get a replacement remote if and when I dropped the remote again and not be able to pass it back together. I'm sure it'll take some calling around and maybe even going to a few places where they sell remotes taking my remote with me to get as a replacement. For the time being however I'm going to take the hell out of the remote and hopefully I can keep the tape off of the buttons that I need to drive it with