General BS

Last Wednesday after taking SWMBO out for breakfast, we stopped by the Chef’s Store and bought 2 10-lb chubs of 80% burger. $66 +/-. Thursday I cooked up 10 lbs and started it in the freeze dryer. Today I did the same to the 2nd chub but saved enough out to make some kick-ass chili. And it was. The beans, mushrooms, and corn came out of our pantry (well, technically the can of Mexican Style tomato’s did too) since we NEED to start really using the freeze dried stuff. But, man, that chili was good. And, yes, I’m freeze drying the left-overs.

While all that was going on I re-initialized our modem to factory specs to see if that would help our Internet connectivity. Nope. Not really. But I do have way fewer “things” attached to the modem now. And re-installed only a few of the WI-fi electronics. (Our phones. My tablets.) Had to set up new ip addresses for all the devices and make everything connect to each other. Kinda fun but kinda a pain in the ass. But SWMBO has the NAS for her music and shows so she’s not complaining to me about not being able to do anything. That’s a plus.

So now we wait for the Century Link Tech to get here sometime Monday. I figure our drop-outs and really (really!) slow speeds are either the modem is just too old or there’s some type of of actual damage to our lines. Which was caused by our neighbors digging them up the last time we had these kinds of problems. (But, of course they called the “call before you dig” folks and THEY said it was okay to dig there …NOT!) Personally, I’m kind of hoping they’ve done it again and the Century Link folks turn them in or whatever they can do.

Absolutely not a lot of anything else going on. Still cold and wet out and has even snowed a few times this week. Did get out and start up my tractor and run it up and down the driveway a few times to be sure it (and I) still worked.

Coffee last Thursday with some of the NMARES members at the QFC. Didn’t order a $6 coffee this time. Had a $3 gator aid type drink instead. Holy Shit things are spendy in the QFC these days!

Bought another pump for the hydroponics experiment. Didn’t work much better than the last pump I bought. Looking at the chart on the side of the box I need the largest pump they make (195 gpm or something like that) to get my plants watered automatically. Next payday probably. Bought a new lamp that puts out different colored lights for what stage the seedlings are in. I don’t quite understand that part; yet. I will though.

The DSL and Internet lights on the modem are dark. Reboot.

So, let’s see if this will post.

Which pretty much defines Western WaRshington in March every year.

Otherwise, SSDD.

Saw my Doc yesterday. He’s referring me to a knee surgeon and an audiologist. (I’m thinking I need to keep my knee out of my ear or something…). And, since my Blood Pressure was 190/95 in his office he upped all my BP meds. Personally, I think I was kind of upset that they still require everyone to wear masks even though they’ve been proven to be ineffective in so many studies. But, be that as it may … Got my meds filled at the local instead of the Naval Hospital and it came to $53 out of pocket. Probably saved at least that much in gas and waiting (masked) at the Navy Pharmacy for a couple of hours (minimum). Still, 90 days of meds so I’m not really feeling the pain.

Speaking of feeling the pain: that TerraMaster NAS I bought finally started really not working like I believe it’s supposed to work. Half the time I can’t even access it without rebooting. A semi-angry e-mail to TerraMaster tech’s got the reply of: The file system is probably corrupted. Do these 45 steps (which I attempted) and that’ll fix it. Nope. Not happening. Long about step 13 the NAS kept responding in a way contrary to what I was being told to expect. So I just started the “wipe everything and start over” process. If this takes as long as the “add a new drive” process took then it’ll still be doing this Monday evening. But the little box said not to close or navigate from this page OR ELSE! We’ll see.

Met some of the guy from my Ham Radio club at the QFC in town last Thursday and I lost my Starbuck’s Virginity. One of they guys bought us all a coffee but we had to order what we wanted ourselves. So I did. First time. Made it 70 years before taking the fall though. Felt awful spending $6 bucks of his money for a coffee though.

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