life in the old lane

Did things a little differently today. And why?

These are the exciting activities at The Asylum today.

And this is the weather. SO, why wouldn’t I go off to a nice air-conditioned office with interesting people and sticky problems to solve?

So what was different? I didn’t go in at O-Dark Hundred hours. In by 10 and out by 3. That was what I did.

But, it is time to get serious about getting a ticket to Kona. Halloween. Or sooner. I hope I can do the minimalist gig for 4 months. I usually end up replicating the Old Bat Cave in Kona.

Had pork bánh mì sandwich with Laotian beer for dinner. On the 90+ degree patio to enhance the southeast Asian ambiance.

It is sort of starting to feel like any other day in early September.  It shouldn’t. But, then I guess that December 7 seems like any other day between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But I still remember. Many of us in this area knew someone who died that day. My strongest connect is with David Charlebois who was the Co-Pilot on AA77 that was crashed into the Pentagon. I knew his father from working at the hospital and long long ago from working with DOD. David’s funeral was picketed by Westboro Baptist Church and that was when Arlington County residents started showing up to disrupt those creatures and their distinctly un-church-like activities.

Busy today. Spent the morning getting my apartment ready for “open house”. Then I spent the afternoon smiling and welcoming people to the Old Bat Cave. (I didn’t call it that.)

Being nice all afternoon was very stressful. Fortunately, the Asylum Sisters had a nice relaxing and slightly snarky dinner in “The Formal Dining Room”.

Back to work tomorrow. Where I will not try to update the production database on the fly.

For now, I think I will kick back and enjoy my nice clean neat tidy little apartment.

(Found a current picture of Chuck and his wife online.

He looks damn happy and I that makes me really happy. She is about 15 years younger than Chuck, which is a good thing since his Dad lived well into his 90s.)

It concerns me that The Orange Lord fired John Bolton – who I always considered to be evil incarnate. Whatever is next?

The Old Bat Cave is on the open house tour tomorrow afternoon. It was looking a little subpar this afternoon. Newspapers, origami, notes on pieces of scrap paper, mismatched earrings covered every surface.

Well, I am taking tomorrow off so, fluffing will be tomorrow morning’s project.

This is what The Old Bat Cave looked like Sept 14, 2015 – a couple of weeks before I moved in.

You can still see where the wall was. So happy that I have one room.

Anyhow today was not my best ever day at work. I messed up a table in the production database. Of course, I maintain that the system messed up the table. But, what exactly was I thinking when I tried to modify the table on the fly anyhow? Took me 4 hours to get it back to “OK”. At least I hope it is “OK”.

I was hoping they would fire me. No such luck. I did hear that our system will be supported for a couple more years – but then we have to move to the “new improved” system. I am now officially closer to 80 than 70. I am so not going to migrate another system.

Male carpenter bees have what look like yellow buck teeth. Females have completely black faces.

(Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II Lens on the OMD EM1 body.)

Spent some of the day working on my project for the Asylum’s Employee Gift Fund. This has to be finished before I leave for Hawai’i. And I spent some time clearing stuff off Forbin (my MacBook Pro). None of my friends seem to be troubled with gigabytes and gigabytes of crap on their computers. They don’t give their computers names either.

Gotta spritz up The Old Bat Cave tomorrow afternoon. I am on the “open house” tour Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes I get very grumpy with this joint. But, I am really glad that I got the move to my “forever home” done when I did. Where would I be without The Asylum? Well, back in Virginia Square. Eating alone. Paying big rental bucks. And wondering what is going to happen IF/WHEN… I still wonder what is going to happen if/when. But it is if/when not IF/WHEN.

To distract us old folks from the bedbugs and other issues… Management had a portable petting zoo come visit this evening. The Goddess must have approved, because the weather was splendid.

I rather liked the pig, but the Dude What’s In Charge said it reminded him of breakfast!

All things considered, it seems to have been a success. Sort of a Bread and Circus or rather Beer and Zoo approach. But, whatever works.

 

The Pen F is still on the fritz. I removed the battery. In a couple of days it will sort of die and when I put the battery back in it will come back to life. If that doesn’t fix the EVF – then off it goes. (This photo is with the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II Lens on the OMD EM1 body.)

So why am I bitchy and what’s new about that:

1. 1. 1. There still seems to be bedbugs afoot.
      2. I am bored to death of the Asylum food.
      3. The “nicest” in terms of ambiance dining venue is closing due to lack of staffing. I am sure it will reopen.
      4. They raised the rent $120/month. Maybe it should be more so they can afford waitstaff and exterminators!
      5. They are removing a bunch of trees from the property. I am sure this is a good thing. But I like trees.
      6. The Orange Lord still lives inhabits 1600 Penn. Ave.

So Carlton would ask: OK, what are you going to do? Answer: Finish up my projects and leave. But first I’ll  have a beer or two.

On the plus side: Give Opera a try. I am liking it.

 

On the downside – my Pen-F’s EVF seems to have died. Since yesterday. Must have had a very hard night. I’ll just ship it off to the Olde Oly Repair Shoppe in NJ.

On the upside – my evil twin at work gave me the greatest coffee mug ever.

Love it Peggy!

It was extremely breezy today. Not fit for photographers or hungry butterflies. But, this was just a lucky shot. It was my first shot and the only one that I didn’t delete immediately upon loading into Lightroom.

Nice day in the Old Bat Cave. Heck, a crow came to visit. It was too breezy for him/her.

Big event of the day was hearing that the “rent” on the old bat’s cave goes up by about $120 per month next year. Not a problem for me. But, some of the folks with smaller incomes and larger apartments might feel pinched. Supposedly most of the increase will go to pay increases for the lowest-paid staffers. Which is good.

When your phone is a Pixel and your provider is Google, you get upgraded to Android 10 (Just 10-not a dessert) on day 1. Not sure it was a good move. But, everything still seems to work. Haven’t discovered any wonderful new features yet.

I am in my autumn geek mode. Playing with Opera as my browser again. Chrome has been my browser of choice for years. Time for a little something different.

Even sort of missing the old Linux days.

Happy 100th Cecil!

Easing back into real life after 9 days of lazing around. Think to start planning my exit to Kona end of next month. I so don’t like staying put. Jackrabbits in my boots for sure.

Big event for me today: I chased a bus and caught it. Two blocks. I was hauling my elderly ass. Lucky I didn’t break something or go into cardiac arrest.

I am rather pleased with my garden boxes. The formal boxes got more sun than I thought they would. I can have more choices next summer. Wish my sweet potato plants had bloomed.

And the Wild Child box is just that wild.

Didn’t do much today. Had to rest up from my 9 days of lolling around. I did “declutter” my so-called pantry. And, I did some work in my bathroom. Have to strike while I am still on my UltraLight Travel high.

I was a card-carrying member of the Longshoremen’s Union in the late 1960s and early 70s. ILWU Local 142. Back in the day I didn’t cross picket lines. I “Looked for the Union Label”. And I never ate California table grapes. Wine grapes were OK. But, I mostly drank really crappy local beer, Primo, or much better imported San Miguel not wine.

The kupuna did the heavy lifting – the 177-day strike etc. Mahalo Brothers and Sisters. “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

Packing didn’t take long. Everything fit into the tiny backpack.

The only things that I took and didn’t use were:  a couple of bandaids, 6 feet of nylon twine, and that cane sticking out of the pack.

While waiting for the plane, I did this little post action report for myself.

Traveling ultra light.  I liked it. I didn’t miss anything. At least not enough to have lugged it around on two cabs, two metros, two buses, two planes. And kept track of for 9 days.

Two skirts and two shirts were all I needed. I don’t think that any one noticed that I always wore the same thing a lot

One pair of shoes was fine. One swimsuit was sufficient. 

I really didn’t need three sets of undies. But, hey, they’re small. 

Got along fine with just the phone and the Kindle. And the power bank.

I would have used my camera if I had it. But, my experience was in no way compromised by not having 3 pounds of camera gear. 

The folding water bottle is awesome.

The phone does everything the iPad does. Just smaller. 

Traveling ultra light is very liberating. I will do it again. And I might just declutter the Old Bat Cave a little. Less is best. 

And one last advantage: 20 minutes after I walked in the door the coffee was made and the unpacking was done