| |
|
WEEK 39 2020
Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week
Saturday - Hot.
Since I'm working on the south side of the garage, laying out a walkway so that I can in turn place the fence gateposts, I went by Lowe's and picked up some pavers, and a concrete bit and some concrete anchors. Generally I just hammer in some forming stakes to hold the PT edges, but the house power comes in somewhere around there...I'm going to play it safe and anchor things to the house instead!
I need a hammer drill, but I'll pick that up at Harbor Freight tomorrow, I'm not paying $100+ for something I use once every two or three years...
Unloaded the truck, then called it a day.
Feels like it's been a long week.
Friday - Hot.
I set up the old LG TV, and it seems to work fine. I'd forgotten how incredibly heavy is was, about 50lbs, and it has some iron hardware on the back for mounting making it even heavier. Without a stand I just leaned it against a couch, with enough clearance on the bottom so that the ventilation slots on the bottom were clear, and plugged it in.
The WiFi dongle didn't work, and neither did a direct Ethernet connection. But HDMI out of my ROKU worked just fine.
The control panel is horrible - anytime you are presented with a choice or try to select something from a menu you have a grand total of exactly 2 seconds to make a choice, then it sends you all the way back to the main menu, and you have to start again.
But then S doesn't want her mother messing with settings, so that actually works to everyone's advantage.
After I'd done all the set-up I found the remote in a box in the closet. It works, though there are WAY TOO MANY BUTTONS for a woman in her 80's.
Still has the original LG batteries in it, and they still work fine,
after 9 years. I want some of those batteries, even my Duracell's
don't last that long.
When I went out in early evening to get the mail there was a big box marked Celestron on the porch by the door. My birthday present to myself came a day early.
Thursday - Hot and very windy, again.
I went out in the am hours, about 2am actually, and did some observing. The smoke and haze was horrible, Polaris just visible, which gives the seeing a rating of about 2...
Nonetheless, I tried using the barlow to observe Jupiter and Mars with the C8 and 70eq. At 180x they seemed OK, but Mars at 400x with the C8 was just a large but featureless blob. Which is what you'd expect in seeing conditions of 2, still I wish things were better, so that I can determine how the scope is working.
Wednesday - Hot and windy.
In the morning I re-leveled the last section of wall. It was over 1" out. For the life of me I don't know why, I did it the way I usually do it. Anyway, took hours, much longer than I expected, but it looks better.
Went back into town for the dental cleaning. That went well and quickly. The gum issues haven't gotten any worse, so that's good.
While surfing the web I found a link to Glen-L. They have plans for some very 1970-ish truck campers!
Tuesday - It's the Fall Equinox.
I went out and took a cell phone picture of the sun rising. Because of the hills to the west I didn't bother with the sunset, it will be early and not quite right. I think.
Back to the dentist, to have the crown installed. That went pretty well. They kept asking me "How does it feel? Is the fit right?" and I kept replying that I had no idea, because I hadn't had a usable tooth back there in years...
Anyway, I go back tomorrow for a cleaning, then I'm done for the year.
Monday - Hot.
I went out and measured the old corral area next to the Connex Box. It's 12' x 20', with 8' covered by the lean-to. The Connex Box is about 8' tall, and the other wall about 7'.
Even in 10-15mph winds, and with two sides missing, there was almost no wind.
Just adding one wall would make it almost windless, for our typical WSW winds, tho 2 would be better. I'd need to level the dirt floor, and put down weed block and gravel. And prime and paint the insides. Ideally it would be black, but reading up on it people says it's too dark, you trip and drop things, so a lighter color is better, and something light colored on the ground for sure.
Sunday - Hot.
Did some shopping with S at WinCo and the 99 cent store.
She suggested that I wash the shopping bags, and my mask. I guess it has been a few months... And yes, you can bring your own bags again. But the checkers won't touch them.
S wants to set up her mother with a wireless internet connection, so she can stream Neftlix and stuff. I sent her a few links. I guess the rest home is recommending Cox for some reason, not sure why. I used to have a Verizon wireless modem, packed it away when I got 20Mbs cable to the house in town, years ago.
There is an old 47" LG in the closet that I haven't used in years, I offered that. It doesn't have a stand, so she'd have to buy one, or wall mount it.
