life in the old lane

Well, I am packed. Waaaay too much stuff. I even decided to toss a dead tree origami book and some folding paper into the bag. And six granola bars.

I think/hope this means I don’t have to be in quarantine in Hawai’i. Stay tuned.

Carlton kept envelopes of cash in his desk. No one touched his desk on pain of death. I called his desk The Ark of the Covenant. I knew that he kept letters from old girlfriends in the bottom left-hand drawer. The night he died, I looked in that drawer and found only a letter from his Father. In the bottom right-hand drawer, he kept envelopes of money.  The cash all neatly faced and rubber-banded together. I looked in that drawer too. And there was a good amount of cash. So, I moved the cash to my desk drawer. 

It has been hard to spend that money. I spent a lot of it in Alaska this summer. And I took 5’s out this morning to use as tip money on this trip, Money and sobriety were how Carlton kept score. Sobriety was a good thing. Money not so much. 

BTW: He advised me to die with 25 cents to my name.&nbsp

Going to dinner with some of my friends then they will deposit me at the hotel. Early tomorrow morning I’ll make my way to the airport. DCA-DFW-KOA. And, if everything works out fine – next post from Kona.

ps. Just weighed my stuff. 30 pounds. That’s embarrassing. 10 pounds in the backpack and 20 in the rollaboard. But that includes my winter jacket. Still embarrassing. 

I have way too much crap on tap to take to Kona. Tomorrow – serious cutback. After that, it is too late.

Very little work today.

I rendered a couple of one-hour videos today. It didn’t take too long and the computer didn’t overheat.  I used Handbrake to tweak the output – that did cause the fan to come on. So, that is why I didn’t get the MacBook Air. 

Handbrake and Onyx – two little Mac programs that I have counted on for a decade or more. Still free. Developed by French programmers. Thank you! 

Dinner tonight Whiskey Sours and Mac&Cheese.  It’s damn weird being old.

Just busy busy busy today. But:

The money I put on my new bus pass, showed up. So, I can ride again. Notice that card lasts until 2035. I doubt very seriously that I will last until 2035 and if I do, I am pretty sure I will not be up to riding the bus. 

Tomorrow, I am going to get serious about getting ready to go to Hawai’i. After lunch. Don’t want to rush these things.

Totally lovely fall day today. I was busy working but escaped for a nice mid-day walkabout. 

Talked with the guy I am renting lodgings from. It is on the ground floor. Overlooking the parking lot. That is what I suspected from looking at the pictures. But, it will be fine. I will take earplugs for sleeping. And, the ocean is just across the street. Besides that, he said there would be coffee. I will take granola bars. It will be all good, I am sure. 

Funny thing. The world always seems better after a good night’s sleep. A good night’s sleep didn’t matter earlier. I begrudged the time that I “wasted” sleeping. That was youngtime. This is oldtime. 

I got Google Pay sorted and took it for a test run. The bus pass remains problematic. It isn’t picking up the $14 that was left on the old card. I put some new money on it today and if that registers, then at least I will have a working bus card again. $14 is not worth getting my panties in a twist over.

That would be last night’s entree. Liver, with collard greens. But, we had cupcakes and ice cream for the climax of the 2-day birthday party. They also had desiccated chicken and I lucked into a nice bit of salmon. 

Winter is arriving today. The wind is howling around. Blowing all of the birds smaller than buzzards off course. Of course, it is 69°. And only going down to 49. But, it looks like winter. And sounds like winter.

I installed Monterey on the new MacBook yesterday evening. Normally I wouldn’t dive in on Day One. But, at this instant, I have plenty of redundancy for mission-critical activities. So, it didn’t seem like much of a risk. And, for now, Monterey really is sort of a yawn. Some interesting features in the pipeline. But now, all you will notice is new opening screen colors. 

We had a GREAT time. And we will have another GREAT time this evening when we do it here at The Asylum. 

It was so so good to have real food. Tonight we will be having school cafeteria food. I think liver and collards is it tonight. But, good cupcakes have been procured from outside.

We went to Ruth’s Chris where they seriously enforce a “business casual” dress code. Well, since WFH business casual has been jammies or yoga pants in my world.

Going out tonight to an 80th birthday celebration. I am so not going to miss the school lunch line tonight. 

You know, parents rent limos so their teens can safely get to and from the prom. Well, our birthday girl’s children are having us old women picked up and returned. The tables do turn. 

Getting old sucks. It doesn’t always beat the alternative. I can almost accept my physical decline. But, damn, I hate the mental decline. It gets harder and harder to get the neurons all firing in sync. You can watch it happen to yourself.  Cogito, ergo sum. 

Last year I got moon shots in November too. I will give up moon shots for Kona. I am feeling bored, tired, old, and fat. Also grumpy. Need to take a geographic cure. 

Been trying to get a new bus card since early October. I have had my bus pass since I turned 65. I had another one before then. But my bus pass has to be replaced for some reason or the other. It shouldn’t be hard to get a new bus pass. But it is.

Been trying to get Google Pay set up on my phone. Not having a lot of success with that either. Yet. Then I have to figure out how to use it. I am also feeling very out of it techno-wise.

And what about FileVault? I tried it years ago and it degraded system performance so much that I dropped it. But I am thinking it might be a good plan to deploy it. (No, I don’t use Mac’s Firewall. But, I do use a VPN)

The lineup for cafeteria service might detract from the festive atmosphere. 

PS – no buyer’s remorse about the 13 inch MacBook Pro. It’s all the computer I need. 

At about 3 this afternoon management discovered that covid had sneaked into the Dining Services staff. So, there isn’t enough staff to serve/prepare the food. Back to Lunch Lady Foodservice. For the next 10 days or so. Wonder if I can move up my departure date? Seriously. I don’t do cafeteria. 

Mostly tweaked my new computer today. Lightroom has a couple of strange issues. The thing that isn’t iTunes but accesses all the old iTunes stuff doesn’t work. I am just keeping a little list of these issues and little by little I will get them sorted out. Nothing worth losing sleep over. 

Tonight’s moon just made it out of the clouds. Last night was the best moon night.

In years past I have been able to slide my screen over and get a clean shot. But, after the screen was replaced (it was attacked by crows) I haven’t been able to open it. Next time they wash the windows the screen will get jammed opened and maybe I’ll be able to pry it open again. I have also considered slicing a small hole in the screen. 

Haven’t gotten Lightroom all sorted out just yet. Got my elderly printer and my even older Fujitsu scanner working. Fortunately, they both still had workable drivers to download. Of course, we shall see what happens next week with Monterey. I know a sensible person would have waited until next week to start this process. 

My friend’s computer, not so much luck. She got a MacBook Air. The newest print driver is ca 2014 and I couldn’t make her printer print. 

It was another glorious fall day. Seems a little silly to be leaving when everything is so fine weatherwise. But that could change in a wink.

Oh, yesterday, I really wasn’t out to buy a computer, that just happened. I was really out to go check out Mr. C’s tennis courts and the North Jackson Street Halloween displays. 

The sign that Carlton’s tennis opponent that faithful day in 2014 is still there. But, in honor of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Mr. C. I should return with a can of Brasso. I always expect the sign to be gone and am always happy to see that it is still there.

Back to setting up my computer. Think it will be about done if I can get the plugins and my setting back in Lightroom. So, I think that is what I will do until dinnertime.

Yes, I went a picked up a new MacBook today. Not the new 14 inches one with the new improved silicon that I had been waiting on. But last year’s model. With the old M1 silicon. Why? Because I wanted to. But, I also decided that I didn’t need the power of the new one. And, I sure didn’t need the extra weight. I did dearly want the MagSafe. And, I will miss having the new ports.  But, all that new goodness comes at a price of an extra ½ pound and considerable $$$. 

It doesn’t do much yet. I decided to do a clean install. Maybe next computer I will be too old to sort out everything and I will just clone the old machine. But, I am sure the new computer will be happier without 5 years of computer detritus. 

So, if this new computer is physically identical to the old one (except for the SSD which is 1TB vice 512GB), why the new one? 

• • The battery is shot.
  • The USB3 and thunderbolt connections have gotten loose and cables fall out.
  • It gets really hot.

I really didn’t intend to buy I computer today. I had decided that I would be happy with a 13 inch MacBook Pro, however.  I was also considering the MacBook Air. Tricked out with more memory and storage. But, it doesn’t have a fan. And to me that isn’t cool.

When I came back from dinner just now, I was greeted by a fine moon looking in my window. Maybe the highlight of the day.

Spent most of the day wrangling data. Why do civilians think that if data are in System A that the data can just be “downloaded” and then “uploaded” to System B. The corollary to that is “well, I have the data in a spreadsheet.” Oh well, this is why I make the big bucks.

Dinner tonight. Hamburger. Free Wine. Pickle. Coffee. Conversation. Hamburger rare. Wine drinkable. Pickle limp. Coffee hot. Conversation good. An OK congregate living dinner. Nobody complained about spreadsheets. Or data. 

And today’s painful but “adult” decision is to let the Pixel 6Pro wait until I get back from Kona. This one wasn’t so hard since projected delivery dates are into January already. May the Goddess protect Shamu the Phone until then.