Teleidoscope

Sat, Feb 28, 2009

Ambivalent

Posted at 10:41 am MST to Weather

It's warm here in Mobile, but today it is cloudy and very humid. They are warning about possible severe weather this weekend.When combined with this crud I've got, it makes breathing annoying.

I don't want to make the apartment too cool, but I have turned on the air conditioning in the hope that it might take at least a little of the moisture out of the air I am trying to breathe. 75 degrees didn't really feel bad (though 75 at 10 AM suggests things would be a lot warmer later in the day.) 72 with the noise and the draft from the AC is kind of annoying, but the dryer air and the movement from the fans does seem to be more breathable than static humidity.

No fever (I had a little bit of one Tuesday). No sinus problems or sneezing that seems to be associated with the crud as opposed to pollen allergies. My symptoms are coughing, sore throat, lack of voice and a slight headache. No symptoms that seem to be asthmatic (I've been good about avoiding foods I'm allergic to) or pneumonic.

But I hate being sick away from home.

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Fri, Feb 27, 2009

Hotdogs

Posted at 6:30 pm MST to Technology

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I had actual hotdogs on buns with mustard and relish. It made a nice change from treating hotdogs as just another kind of sausage meat.

I stopped at SuperTarget after work and they had a brand of 100% Whole wheat hotdog buns that didn't contain anything I'm allergic to. The brand is Cobblestone Mill -- I hope it's a national brand that I'll be able to find at the SuperTarget near home.

This is going to be a quiet weekend: I've been sick all week with some kind of laryngitis/bronchitis bug that left me with no energy. I'm finally getting better, but I don't want to push things too hard and give myself a relapse.

There are radio reports of a whooping cough outbreak in the area, too. I'm glad I got that DTP booster last summer.

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Possums

Posted at 6:29 pm MST to Miscellaneous

This may be migration season for the locl opossums. Driving to work I saw two dead animals at the side of the road that looked like they might be small opossums.

More evidence I'm in a different ecosystem than I'm used to, though there were wild 'possums moving north into Connecticut when I was growing up. One very snowy winter a hungry opossum with frostbitten ears came very close to the back door of our house. We felt sorry for it and didn't know what opossums might like to eat so we tossed it several different things. I think there was some bread, and fruit: slightly overripe bananas.

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Thu, Feb 19, 2009

Busy week

Posted at 6:33 pm MST to Technology

I think I've been jinxed this week: the TV cable stopped working on Monday, broadband hadn't worked since I got into this apartment (I've been using a cell modem), and the GPS stopped working Tuesday.

Yesterday evening was spent dealing with Comcast to get the cable and broadband working -- lots of waiting around -- and then trying to get the GPS working again.

I got the GPS working, too, but I'm not sure how. The TomTom uses Linux internally but their support software only works on Windows and Macs, and my XP image couldn't hold a USB connection long enough to see the GPS. Very annoying: since their internal software is Linux-based they obviously ave people on staff who know Linux.

This has been a busy week:

Monday I went out and bought two new eyeglasses (readers and bifocals). It turned out there was a health food store and a PetsMart across the street from the Lenscrafters, so while I waited for them to manufacture my new glasses I got some other errands taken care of.

Tuesday I went to the Mardi Gras parade.

Wednesday I dealt with the cable guy... over the phone, but I was still stuck waiting for him when he didn't call when he said he would.

Today I went grocery shopping. I now have a Winn Dixie customer card to add to my growing collection of supermarket cards from different parts of the country.

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Tue, Feb 17, 2009

Mardi Gras

Posted at 8:36 pm MST to Travel

I can now say that I have been to a Mardi Gras parade. Mobile Mardi Gras is an older tradition than New Orleans (the first New Orleans krewe was formed early in the 19th century by people who had m oved there from Mobile) mellower, and aimed at families and local people not drunk tourists.

The parade I attended tonight was put on by a women's crew, with floats on a Las Vegas theme.. The weather was nice (61 F at 6:30pm) but they ran into some problms. There was a long gap i the parade ( the rumor was that a float had blown a tire) so we left a bit early: the people who very kindly took me to the parade with them had small children whose bedtime had been reached.

Next Tuesday, which is MardiGras itself there will be parades all day, put on by the 6 oldest Mobile krewes. That sounds a bit much to me. This little taste while a lot of fun, was plenty for me, though I am assured that you haven't really experienced Mardi Gras unless you have also atteneded one of the balls.

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Sat, Feb 14, 2009

Rainy Alabama Saturday

Posted at 10:44 am MST to Weather

Man. When it rains here, it RAINS. For the past few days we have had occasional downpours when it rains cats, dogs and hamsters interspersed with long stretches of steady rain. I feel sorry for the people who are scheduled to be in Mardi Gra parades. I have the heat turned up higher than I ever do in Colorado: this thick, damp seacoast air really sucks the heat out of you.

I need to start carrying my folding Italian umbrella, which may have been manufactured in China or someplace, but was purchased in Italy when I was there on a cruise a few years ago. It happens to be in the truck.

I think one of my other umbrellas may be buried behind a truck seat, too. I'll have to look for it. Maybe tomorrow when the rain is supposed to stop, or at least be more intermittent.

I'm planning to attend at least one Mardi Gra parade: it would seem silly to be on the Gulf Coast in Mardi Gra season and not attend any parades. I already have some Mardi Gra beads and stuff: my supervisor at work went to one of the Thursday evening parades, before the rains started and brought me some beads and cups (also Moonpies, but I can't eat those so she gave them to somone else). She has promised to show me a good place for parade watching on Monday.

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Sun, Feb 08, 2009

Mobile

Posted at 8:47 pm MST to Travel

I left home yesterday morning just before 8am and arrived at the housing office in Mobile just before noon Colorado time, 1 pm local time. This was just about perfect timing: the office hours are 1 to 5 on Sunday.

Twenty four hours after I left home, I was having breakfast in a cajun restaurant in Lagayette, Louisiana. I just had ham and eggs (and a few token bites of grits), but there were three Cajun good ol' boys (I wonder how you say "good ol' boys" in Cajun French) doing a sound check. Fiddle, squeezebox, and electric bass.

Notes from the trip:

I think Dinah prefers the CD player to the radio for some reason. She was much less restless than usual on these long trips. She spent most of the afternoon hiding under the bed in the new apartment, but seems to be coming out now.

The GPS worked well.

There were no usable rest areas between Dallas, Texas and well into Lousiana. I ended up napping in the parking lot of a truckstop. Louisiana truck stops seem to almost all have casinos.

The causeway across the Atchafalaya Basin is impressive. Wonder if some of it is WPA work from the 20th Century Depression.

For some reason I never think of the bayous and swamps being all grey and leafless and dormant, but they mostly were grey today. There were signs that spring is nearly here: many of the trees had the misty reddish lookthat means they are biddung out, and a few even had the misty greenish look of very new leaves.

Travelling across western Kansas on I70 makes travelling across Nebraska on I80 look positively cluttered. You know its a bad sign when there's a big billboard for a Nebraska tourist destination on a Kansas highway ("take the next exit and drive north 67 miles") and most of the billboards that weren't for truck stops were for craft and yarn and quilting supply stores. And politician birthplaces. And job websites for people looking for work.

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Thu, Feb 05, 2009

Cartoys

Posted at 7:53 pm MST to Travel

I will be heading out Saturday morning for the drive to Mobile for a 3 month consulting gig.

Our company has some GPS units on order, but they won't bein until next week, so I stopped at CarToys, which was in the way home from my optometrist appointment. They have been advertising a sale all week on the radio.

I now have a GPS for the truck: a TomTom One 130.

I also have a new radio with a built-in CD player and an aux jack. The factory radio just had a tape player (which tends to eat tapes) -- the truck is a 2000 model and car stereos with CDs were expensive in those days.

The new stereo is not a luxury. According to Rand-McNally this trip is going to take 23+ hours of actual driving time. Now I can be sure I will have something to listen to other than country-western music and Christian stations when I am driving across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas this weekend.

The new radio doesn't include a clock (or maybe it is hidden: I need to check the manual) but that is a small price to pay for staying sane across Texas...

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Supreme Court

Posted at 1:02 pm MST to Current Events

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been hospitalized with one of the deadlier forms of cancer (pancreatic).

I am sooo glad her replacement, if one is needed, will not be nominated by a Republican. The thought of having a supreme court justice selected by the same process that came up with Sarah Palin as vice presidential candidate is scary.

Mind you, it would be nice to have a Chief Justice capable of performing a public ceremony without flubbing it, but I'll settle for the likelihood that any Justices appointed in the next few years will be moderate to liberal and acquainted with the Constitution..

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Vet Visit 2009

Posted at 9:04 am MST to Miscellaneous

Dinah Kitty had her checkup and rabies shot today. She's in very good shape for a 13 year old cat. Unlike me, she doesn't need dental cleanings.

She's even lost a little of the extra weight she had been carrying: losing more than a pound out of 15+ is like a human losing 10 pounds. She could probably stand to lose another pound.

The Allpets clinic has a special deal to test her blood for 30 different things. I last had the tests done in 2006 so I had them do them again this time, just in case the weight loss is not a good sign.

Dinah was not happy to be at the vet's, of course. She complained all the way there in the car and did NOT want to come out of the 'sherpa' carrier I use for taking her to the vet. (I use a larger hardbody crate, meant for medium-sized dogs, for the long trips so she has room to move around and stretch out.)

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Wed, Feb 04, 2009

Dental Tech

Posted at 7:41 pm MST to Technology

My Mom worked as a dentist's recepctionist before she was married and we always went to Doctor Kasler for dental apointments, even when we had moved across the state (Connecticut is a small state). If you get rid of the actual torture instruments, the dentist's office in "Little Shop of Horrors" looks really familiar. Doctor Kasler was very nice.

What I remember most about him was his glasses: he had extra pairs of glasses that swung down in front of his regular glasses for close work.

I needed a lot of dental appointments: due to genetics, possibly combined with the local water, the biting surfaces of my molars were all very weak. I remember being told that Mom and I had extras branches of the valleys on the tops of our molars, but there is no way to check that now: I have 7 gold molar onlays and one porcelain one that are all sculptured. They replaced a lot of little separate amalgam fillings on the tops of those teeth and gave me solid biting surfaces.

The porcelain molar onlay needs to be replaced in the not too distant future. All the gold ones are in good shape, and my gums and teeth roots are good, though. I think that procelain one was an early version of the new technology where they create the onlay while you wait instead of making a mold and making a temporary piece that gets replaced after a week, and it may not have 'taken' properly in the first place.

Today I got another procelain onlay, on a tooth that was a bicuspid before one cusp was replaced by a lower piece of amalgam. Both the amalgam and the tooth were cracking, so something drastic needed to be done. Now it is a bicuspid again. after forty years or more, which feels kind of strange. I watched the technician 'sculpt' the onlay on his computer screen before they fabricated it. Fascinating.

I think I'm about out of amalgam fillings now.

I thought rubber dams were a wonderful innovation when they were added to the dental experience. I gag easily, and probably swallowed more little bits of amalgam when I was young than I really should have. Now rubber dams are being replaced by fancier technology: a double layer barrier for the back of the mouth with suction down the middle and a thick block to bite on on the opposite side from the teeth that are being worked on. It took a little getting used to, but the brace is nice: my jaw always used to get wobbly during a long procedure. And it stays out of the dentist's way more than the rubber dam did. I do wonder how well it will work for that back molar that needs its onlay replaced.

Dental technology has definitely progressed. I kind of miss the spit bowls, though. Somehow the modern use of suction gadgets doesn't feel as thorough as the old style swish and spit.

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Tue, Feb 03, 2009

Tax Refund 2009

Posted at 9:41 am MST to Miscellaneous

I have received my federal tax refund, which was a bit of a surprise since I had been told to expect it after Feb 6. I guess by filing last Sunday I made it into Friday's disbursement group. They probably aren't very busy sending out refunds yet.

The State refund may take longer to arrive.

Once tomorrow's pay gets deposited I'm going to move some money including the Fed refund into a CD -- current savings and checking interest rates are pretty much non-existent. I already moved some money at the other credit union into a CD this past weekend. I'm going to try to save up to put another $5000 into a CD in April, when there are 3 paydays in the month, while still pulling down my credit and mortgage balances.

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Sun, Feb 01, 2009

Seed Porn

Posted at 8:06 pm MST to Miscellaneous

I spent the afternoon over at Nanette's farm. She's going away on vacation for a week next Sunday and I may be gone to Mobile before she gets back.

I brought the rosemary plant that I bought at Christmas -- she and Rowan will transplant it into the greenhouse where it will have space and sun and water. It would not be likely to survive if I tried to haul it to Mobile and back.

We spent part of the afternoon going through seed catalogs looking at beautiful pictures of vegetables and herbs. Corn and cucumbers and eggplant and chard and bulb fennel. New varieties and species to try -- Rowan wants to try some new fruit varieties, too, things that aren't usually grown in Colorado.

They've been working on cleaning up the greenhouse and getting it ready for the season and it looks beautiful. And it's really strange to see nasturtiums in February here.

The Territorial Seed catalog has plastic corner pieces for making raised beds. They hold two rows of 2x6 planks to make a 12 inch deep bed, and they are quite reasonably priced. If I weren't going to be out of state for the next 3 or 4 months, I would order some. As it is, I will factor them into the plans I am making for fixing the retaining walls a:round my basement stairs and the other areas that were dug up during the electrical work last year.

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