Sick Yesterday

     Maybe it was dipping a toe into contemporary politics that made my head spin.  Sinus/migraine headache so bad I was having trouble getting through doorways.  Driving would have been impossible. 

     Better today, so it's off I go.

Strange Times

     You know something's askew when Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the very soul of her party's caution and restraint.  In the wake of yesterday's news, there's a great hue and cry and waving of pitchforks on the Democrat side, led by their howling pack of Presidential aspirants; but Ms. Pelosi emulates Ernest Lawrence Thayer's hero:

     "With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
       He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on...."

      CNN suggest careful political calculation on her part -- an impeachment battle is a publicity machine, one even more polarizing than everything that has preceded it, and if the House votes to impeach once that has run its course, the Republican-controlled Senate will conduct the trial.

     If that comes up dry, as there is plenty of reason to believe it will, the Republicans could find themselves ascendant while their opponents look like vindictive bullies.  Should things fall the other way, Speaker Pelosi's party will have formally unseated a President for the first time in U. S. history and handed the White House to Vice-President Pence, who they have no reason to love. 

     As a libertarian and LP voter, I guess I'm supposed to be above this partisan fray, but it is such a sad mess that I can't quite ignore it.

     Two pitches left and, I think, no joy in Mudville ether way. 

Whew!

     Spent my birthday evening mowing the lawn and running the dishwasher, and had good all-beef hot dogs for dinner.

     Every single one of them made easier by electricity.  The quiet little lawnmower runs batteries and is so quiet that it's not unneighborly to run right through 'til you run out of twilight.  Having grown up doing the dishes with my siblings most night, a modern dishwasher remains one of the great wonders of the kitchen to me.  And the hot dogs....

     There's a little toaster-like gadget that holds two frankfurters and two buns.  Drop 'em in, push the lever and in a few minutes, there's dinner!  In practice, you're better off setting it so the dogs can run about half as long as needed,  and then add the buns at the halfway point, but even at that, it's quite the countertop marvel.  I had my dogs with horseradish, ketchup, a little pickled ginger and long, skinny, medium-heat Spanish pickled peppers, a combination that's not for everyone but it was better than you might think.

     Oh, these modern wonders!  I think we take them too much for granted.

Windows 10, Sullen Teenager, Same, Same

     It doesn't want to be seen with me.  My desktop PC is sulking, uninterested in running much in the way of software.  There was another Windows Update yesterday, either that or the thing's been subtly, deeply compromised.

     So, while I run various nostrums and magic spells, er, that is, diagnostics and malware-hunters, I'm back on the Raspberry Pi.  I could have fished out the Acer laptop, but the Pi's already set up and all I have to do is plug it in, so why not?

     Tellya what, I'm just about ready to use this little machine as my primary for blogging and web-browsing.  Within its limits, it's as good as the big machine and considerably less fussy.

Roberta's Birthday (Observed)?

     My Dad was born on Christmas Day.  25 December, only a few years before the Crash of '29, and wasn't that a lousy thing for a kid, to grow up during the Great Depression with the two major gift-receiving childhood holidays falling on the very same day?*

     Me, I didn't have that but for my birthday, there was a big auto race, followed by a day off school for solemn remembrance of Americans who died in our country's military service.  Makes a child feel a bit like a Roman General receiving a triumph, all that wonderfulness and bright gifts...while a slave stands beside them, whispering that all glory is transient and peace is only won by blood and toil.

     Today is Memorial Day.  Take some time to remember those who stood, and fell, the ones who struggled and bled so the likes of us can goof off and grill steaks.

     My actual birthday is tomorrow and I'm reminded that my Mom was a grandmother by the time she was my age.  Me, I've only been a "grandmother" to cats.
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* By the time I was noticing the world around me, we would have Christmas presents and breakfast in the morning, and a big Christmas dinner about mid-afternoon, with Dad's birthday presents and cake for dessert.  It seems odd to me not to.

An Acer Mystery

     Yesterday, I got out my backup laptop, an old Acer running, for reasons not entirely clear to me, Windows 8.

     The hard drive, an 18 GB SSD, is nearly full.  I cannot figure why; the directories don't show anything bloating it up, and yet -- there's less than 2 Gig left.

     Not sure why.  It may be something very ugly, or just a mess left by CCleaner several years ago; it went through a brief spate of hauling along some ugly malware before re-emerging under new ownership as a slightly less effective (and a lot less well-behaved) tool than it had been.

    So I'm looking at other ways of seeing what's happening -- downloading and installing WinDirStat as I write this -- and we'll see what it's got to say.

    In the meantime, my sinuses are so messed up that I've lost vertical!  Either that, or this entire room is about 30 degree off level, which seems unlikely; also, you'd think that would show up in slant of coffee in my cup.

     Edited To Add: Well, that didn't help.  And why do I have a 10 GB recovery partition?

     Further Edited: Freed up three and a half Gig.  Stopping there.  The new power supply for my Surface showed up a couple of hours ago!

Powerless Surfectant

     I was flying a desk at work -- the kind of desk with controls and computers on it, a thing that needs a couple of minutes of full attention out of every fifteen -- and had my Surface parked off to one side, charging, with a story I'm working on up in the text editor.  If I had time to type a line or two, great, and if I didn't, it would be charged up later.

     Turned to it, rested my hands on the keyboard, the phone rang and I pushed the little computer to one side.  Picked up the phone and did the work-type work, thinking, Gee, the side of the Surface felt warm.  Hot, even.

     Finished with the task and reached over to the Surface.  The power connection, an oddball little magnetic thing that's been as trouble-free as anyone could ask, was quite warm.  And the tiny white LED in the end of it was flickering.

     Pulled it free and the face of the connector was loose.  It wasn't holding the little spring-loaded connector pins in contact with their opposite numbers on the side of the Surface.  So it was making poor contact and heating up while trying to charge the computer's battery.

     Microsoft didn't have any Surface Pro-no-number chargers on their site; as far as they're concerned, hardware that old needs to sit quietly in back, an unwanted realtive, as welcome as a week-old bowl of congealed oatmeal.  But aftermarket suppliers still offer them.  Prices were such that I bought a couple different ones, and I'll see which I prefer when they arrive in the next couple of days.

     Meanwhile, I'll transition to a backup, probably the inexpensive little Acer I named "Skinny Brainbox."*    It's on its second battery and I just had it out to update Windows and the web browser.  Fortuitous, hey?
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* It's traditional.  In homage to a particularly disturbing H. P. Lovecraft story, my desktops have been named "Brainbox n" for years; the Surface Pro is "Brainbox Junior," the Surface RT is "Baby Brainbox," and so on

Well, That Was An Interesting Mystery...

     Migraines have been stalking my days, hitting hard in the afternoons, leaving me in pain and badly out of it but usually tapering off in time to drive home.  I've been trying to set aside simpler tasks for that part of the day.

     Yesterday's barely abated and was lingering around well into the evening.

     Walked into the kitchen last night, about 45 minutes 'til bedtime, and there was a quick white flash.  The curtains were open, the kitchen lights were off and outside it was just at that point of twilight where you can't tell if you're holding up a black thread or a white one.

     I blinked, and the streetlight in the alley was on.  I wasn't sure if lighting over the horizon had lit up the overcast, my migraine had decided on a truly impressive visual presentation or the streetlight had just undergone a particularly hard start.  It could even have been a transformer blowing up a couple of streets over, though those are usually more blue and there's a "hummmm-BANG!" leading up to them.

     A quick check of the weather didn't show any storms nearby, though that's not a hundred percent -- sometimes a cloud just gets ticked off and has to let fly.

     At least it's not boring!

Three Nation Fried Rice

     This stuff might be even more international than that; you decide.  Yum, tasty globalism!

     Tam ordered Indian food last night, which meant there'd be a take-out box of nice basmati rice, gently seasoned with a little of this and that, waiting for me in the fridge.

     I had a bag of American frozen vegetables, the good old corn, peas and carrots stuff, and I microwaved about half of it with dried onion and chives while frying a few slices of lightly-peppered, applewood-smoked bacon and then gently browned a couple of slices of sopressata.  Set all that on a plate with paper toweling under it to dry.

     Poured off about three-quarters of the fat, added the rice and once it had warmed, gave it a good sprinkle of shoyu, Japanese soy sauce, and got it nice and toasty.  Added the cooked vegetables and got a lot of moisture off them before pushing it all to the sides and scrambling a couple of eggs over high heat (keep that spatula or chopstick moving!).

     Eggs cooked, I turned the heat way down and snipped the meat into little bits while adding it.  I gave it a good stir, and there you go.  I added cilantro to this batch before plating, but only do that if you're sure you like the stuff!*

     A darned good breakfast.  I'm thinking about taking the leftovers to work for lunch.
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* Liking or not liking cilantro isn't a learned taste like olives.  It's genetic; either it tastes strongly soapy to you or pleasantly herbal.  So this isn't a "try it, you might like it," but more of a "find out by taking a small taste of the plain herb before proceeding."

Allergy Sneezin'

     And worse than the sneezes that sneak up and attack like alarming snipers, are the headaches. I go to sleep with a headache most nights, having just taken a pill; I wake up with a headache and eat a bit of breakfast so I can take more pills.

     The headaches cause dizziness, which doesn't always fade with the pain.  Dizzy, I'm reluctant to move, spend the day working at my desk or a workbench, and then wonder why my knees and feet ache when I do have to get up and move around.

     Solving this should be easy: move around more.  Do more.  Go to bed dog-tired and wake up refreshed.  But it's not easy and two days of chilly rain haven't helped.

Writing Hardware: Filling Pens, Configuring iPads

     Refilling my daily-carry fountain opens this morning.  I carry three, which is self-indulgent but gives me a seriously permanent black for writing checks, a dark brown for documents that need to be obviously signed and not photocopied with a signature and a bold pen for headings and anything that needs to be readable from a distance.  It's a comforting ritual and not without a little risk.

*  *  *

     Last night, I finally learned how to turn off "smart quotes" and other auto-corrected mother-henning on the iPad!  In hindsight, it should have been obvious.  Apple prides themselves on providing a seamless, well-integrated user experience.  Apps have only the bare minimum of settings internal to themselves -- because most of the settings are global, or at least accessed through the "Settings" menu.

     In this case, Settings > General > Keyboard > "Smart Punctuation" OFF.  Done!

     There are a lot of other elbow-jogglings that can be toggled on that menu as well.  This change makes the iPads a lot more useful to me, since I greatly prefer Standard Manuscript Format and it calls for straight quotes.

Writer's Nope

     No writer's group yesterday.  Did all my homework, combed my hair and put on lipstick an' all that, drove over to the venue and....

     Big old "Nope."  Host wasn't even apologetic about it; they had a Game of Thrones event and no event rooms were available.

     I pointed out the room had been reserved in advance.

     He asked who we'd made the reservation with, and I told him.

     "Oh, you people?*  Some woman called and said it was cancelled.  I can maybe seat you over in the bar area."

     Where loud-ish music plays, right.  I said I'd see if anyone else showed up, took a seat in the waiting area and checked e-mail on my phone.  A flurry of last-minute individual cancellations -- two dropped out with various  non-trivial issues and it snowballed.  Okay, life happens.

     I went home and e-mailed the reservations people.  There's a bit of a flutter about it in my in-box this morning but it seems there's a disconnect between Corporate and the particular venue, and the venue people had grabbed all the rooms for the GoT thing without checking; so we'd been cancelled before we cancelled, if that makes sense.

     Looks like we're going to reschedule the writer's group -- elsewhere.
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* Sheesh, I hate being a "You people."  I thought we'd tipped better than that last time.