| |
|
WEEK 35 2019
Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week
| Oxnard
Weather
Underground |
Lancaster
Weather
Underground |
Martinez
WeatherUnderground |
Saturday - Hot.
On a lark I used FreeCad and Libre Office as a front end to calculating the gravity field around irregular objects. It only took a couple of hours to come up with something, but I'll have to write macro's and stuff to get the gravity calculations done, and that's no fun, so I haven't done it. Oddly Calc still doesn't have a surface/temp plot option.
The "monsoon" season has arrived: weeks of high temperatures and high enough humidity that the swamp cooler is ineffective. I am strongly tempted to buy a good, quiet, mechanical unit. LG makes a "dual inverter" series that is both efficient and quiet.
Friday - Hot.
I went for another walk in the morning, the same distance as the last three days, 2.7 miles. I have the urge to walk further, but am suppressing it, my hip aches at the end of the walks as it is. It's also warm enough that I've started wearing my fanny pack that carries a full liter of water.
I've started re-watching the Expanse series on Amazon Prime. The special effects are so good that it's difficult to even notice them sometimes. They still have issues with zero gee visualizaitons with the actors present, of course. It's been so long since I read the books that I've forgotten a lot of the plot of the early stuff.
Thursday -Hot, low 100's in the valley.
I took the Ram out for a break-in drive, up the back way to Tehachapi via 90th street. It had plenty of power on the hills, but there were so many semi's and work trucks that I was lucky to hit 55mph, so not a real test.
It was 90F at the glider port up there, I was hoping for a cool temp in the 70's.
Fooling around in the west valley at various slow speeds for the break-in stuff, it looks like I can get nearly 40mpg at about 40mph. Which would mean 1000 miles of range on the 26 gallon tank, assuming no one shoots me for driving that slow on a public road. Still, come the Zombie Apocalypse this might be good to know.
Apple Car Play works, I was able to bring up Google Maps for example. I hadn't realized that there wasn't a NAV function on this particular vehicle's uConnect display, seems kind of cheap on the part of RAM, but it doesn't really matter I guess.
When I got back there was an email from the company that I'd paid to send me the lien release yesterday, they couldn't do it for some reason and were refunding my money. Sigh. I think I can just file an affidavit with the DMV in place of that.
Dealing with the state and banks is dealing with mildly incompetent bureaucracies with employees that just don't care. There's not much you can do except keep trying until, almost by accident, things get done.
S says that the State of California is currently threatening to assess us huge interest penalties on our outstanding balance of $0.00 from 2015, for example. Last year they wanted a form filled out that had been retired in 2013...
Wednesday - Hot. Basically the a/c runs on low all the time, and on high in the late afternoon and early evening.
After a bit of searching and calling I found a link to have the credit union that bought my old credit union send me a lien release, or as they called it, a letter of satisfaction. But the CU had outsourced this process to a third party that charged a $23 fee. Outrageous.
While I was at it I also did the re-registration for the Explorer, and my drivers license registration. Altogether it was a $200 day, just to keep running in place.
Nothing from the FCA finance people. I talked to the dealer and they said that FCA is slow, I probably won't have a payment until October.
Book #32 was Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse #8) , by James S.A. Corey. A fun entry into the long series. I actually haven't read Book #7. I'm not sure how many there will be: the original characters are starting to get old. I think the second season is now available on Amazon Prime, maybe I'll watch the first again, and then that.
Tuesday - Hot.
I did get a bill from the water company: they claimed that there was no check in the envelope with the invoice that I gave them. I was all set to be indignant and angry, then I looked at my checkbook, oops. I drove it over to them and apologized.
Monday -Hot again. And still pretty tired.
I did get the RV shed cleaned up the the point where I can fit the Ram in there. It's protected from the sun and blowing sand. I do need to get a dash mat, and a sun screen.
I did drive it around, just for a bit, for the fun of it.
I was a bit surprised to see that the Explorer still has the old credit
union as a lien holder on it. I thought I'd actually changed that
years ago. I knew I had an issue with the Probe, but hadn't looked
at the Explorer title. I'll have to fix that before I can get rid of it.
Sunday - Hot. In the low 100's.
I didn't do much, too tired. I did start cleaning out the RV shed so that I can get the Ram in there, eventually. A lot of stuff. The garage is too full to put anything in right now, and I'm not sure the Ram would fit in there anyway, it's a couple feet longer than the old Explorer.
Book #31 was Alliance Rising, by C. J. Cherryh and J.S. Fancher. Cherryh's a good writer, and has been working on the future history for decades. It's a distinctive way of writing, first person for the most part, and you have to get the sense of what's going on from the character's point of view, and it's often confusing, much like being an a real war or uprising would be.
