I can move my body without too much pain today!

That’s a very good thing, because when I hauled my carcass out of bed yesterday morning I was sure that I’d broken every major muscle and joint in my body.

It makes sense. I’d spent 3 years metaphorically chained to a 3×3 area in front of a desk in a cubicle, not doing a whole lot of physical activity. Then all at once, I was demanding a ton of physical activity of my joints & muscles, my body had every right to be seriously pissed off. Guess what? It was!

This morning there are only minor kinks. My hands are working properly again so working on my computer is a lot easier. So it looks like my body and I will not be divorced anytime soon, I was pretty sure that I’d be served with divorce papers from God yesterday morning. This was especially true when I started carrying things up into the house from the car.

So it’s on to the next things… Unpacking and integrating things from the apartment back into the house. Oh Joy! Followed immediately thereafter by moving the automatic bill pay items from the Credit union in San Diego to the Credit union up here. While that is a pain in the ass, it will ultimately be for the better because of the address snafu that is jamming me up with the Credit Union in San Diego. I’ll be closing the San Diego account as soon as all the finances are settled.

Leaving CaliforniaI did play “Rearview Town” from Jason Aldean as I left San Diego. The other thing that was funny was how many U-Hauls were heading up the I-15 on Monday. I thought I was part of a mass migration. I’d been noticing a lot of folks in U-Hauls over the past few months but had chalked that up to me being more aware since I was moving too.

I’m wondering if there was more to it, since I had trouble locating a one-way truck for my move.

I’ve often wondered if California has “Moving Cams” at the state line. Cameras like that could count the number of moving trucks headed into and out of the state. I wonder if it would be about equal or if there are more folks moving out than coming in.

Anatomy male muscular system rigged 02I am going to arrange to get a massage. As I was thinking about that, I remembered my massage therapist has a chart of the muscular system on the wall and sometimes he’ll say point to where it hurts. He knows me, so mostly it’s a joke between us. But this next time I see him I think I’ll be able to point generally in the direction of the wall and truthfully say, “There, pick anywhere at random”.

I’m sure we’ll laugh and then I’ll be screaming like a little girl at a horror movie.

But today is better than yesterday and that’s all I can ask for.

The new machine is up

Macbookpro2019It took a while, but the techno-demons have been cast out of the new machine.

Setting up a new computer is always a pain in the ass. In this case it turns out that the old machine had gotten a bit senile in it’s last days and corrupted the backup I have at the apartment.

So when I restored the backup(s) to the new machine, I also restored the corrupted files. OOOOPPPS!

Neither I, or the old workhorse realized there was a problem, so there was no way to anticipate the issue and since the old machine wasn’t working there was no way to check before I brought the new machine online.

Under normal circumstances, if I’d just been doing a normal computer replacement I’d have checked the backup before restoring to the new machine which would have avoided the problem.

It’s 4 AM

I woke up thinking I was late to work. I’m going to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. I guess it’s going to take me some time to get over the odd schedule I’ve been living on for the past 3 years.

Since I was awake I figured I’d check on the computer. It looks like everything has been sorted at the apartment hooray!

Now I have to clean up the backup on the mountain to complete the setup and fully retire the old machine. Just a couple more details to finish & files to load, and those can be done mostly automatically. I’m still in San Diego and will head up to the mountain later today.

It’s nice to not be worried about timing or rushing to get somewhere.  I can take my time without worry over losing my job. That’s already happened!

This new keyboard feels strange. I do like the touch-bar but it’s going to take some getting used to.

I’ll probably come back to San Diego on Tuesday. I’ll take the opportunity provided by being on the mountain during the week to make arrangements with a storage facility nearer the house to store the larger items from the apartment.

The plan is to take the smaller items up and reintegrate them into the house storing only those things I don’t need in the storage facility.

Depending on the job situation I’ll move stuff from there if I need to.

The Job market is very weird right now and I don’t know how long a period of unemployment I’m looking at. Who does? It’s a lot harder to land a job than it used to be.

In the mean time I’ve got a couple of books to write and perhaps that will help with the income side of things. After all those stories have been fermenting in my head for a few years they should be about ready to pour onto the page.

It’s 4:30, I’m going back to sleep.

Have a great Sunday

Rain… Yea, I don’t have to wash my car

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Aside from the freeways being a mess, the rain is good and we need it.

I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof and thought, “Nice!” 

It’s been coming in waves which is a good thing up on the mountain. The pauses give the water time to soak in.

Later in the day there’s supposed to be snow, but I’ll be slugging my way toward San Diego when that starts.

The rain will clean the dust out of the air and off the leaves. It will also strip the last of the Autumn color from the forest leaving only the green of the pine trees.

So while many people say they hate the rain I’m one of those that likes it and appreciates the break from, “It’s 78 degrees and sunny,” weather forecasts day in and day out.

I’m also amused by the traffic and weather people gushing about water accumulating on the street, oh my goodness! Whatever will we do? To hear the local newspeople, it seems like everyone should be building an Ark.

Enjoy your day, the free carwash, and drive carefully. No, I don’t mean 20mph on the freeway in the fast lane. Just move at some speed less than 90mph and for god’s sake stay off each others bumpers. Allow a little space, try a little courtesy and everyone will get where they need to be safe and sound

Ahh, accomplished goals… some unintentional.

Sleeping late

Slept a little late this morning.  That was nice and needed!

Got up, had coffee, read a little, then started cleaning the apartment. I’d worked my way to the bathroom, where in preparation for my shower I stripped then decided that I’d clean the bathroom before I showered. While I was busy scrubbing the toilet, sink and tub, maintenance apparently knocked.

Nude Yoga For Men On the Rise 733x440I didn’t hear them, so thinking I was still alone I walk out of the bathroom into the shocked and clearly embarrassed maintenance guys. Both young, the taller one stammered and turned beet red. The shorter one looked away, obviously very uncomfortable. My hands were full of cleaning supplies and a wet sponge.

Prld xlgThe taller one was looking at me trying very hard to figure out what to do

I remembered something I’d read once “What has been seen can’t be unseen.” After a brief pause, I just kept walking toward the kitchen to put the supplies away. I rinsed my hands then walked back to the bedroom and pulled a pair of sweats on.

Both the of the guys relaxed visibly and I smiled, “How can I help you?

Um, we just needed some building samples, there’s going to be some renovations and we needed to get materials so we can match the original construction.”

Cleaning apartmentThe tall one was shuffling uncomfortably.

I was thinking, “These poor men, never had to change clothes with other boys or men in school.”

Oh well don’t let me hold you up, I’m going to finish wiping down the bright work. Let me know when you’re done.

I went back to the bathroom after grabbing a microfiber cloth from the linen closet and polished the faucets. After a few minutes, I head them saying goodby and locking the door behind them.

Then I took a shower

Laundry

Apartment cleaned, dirty clothes in the bag, and down the stair to load up the car. Then I get the 3 hour drive to the mountains. Ugh, what a cluster f*&K the drive has become. The I-15 is a wide ribbon of concrete that is always bumper to bumper, with traffic that doesn’t have any reason to be bumper to bumper. People just refuse to drive according the rules. You know, little things like signaling, slower traffic to the right… The rules that are supposed to make the freeways MOVE freely, which is why they’re called FREEWAYS.

Anyway, made it to the mountain.

Solar lightingFixed the solar lights that had been damaged by the weather and the other half driving over them. Down to the last of those units, which means it’s time to lay in another supply.  While I was at it, I did some of the yard work, mostly pruning and cleaning up the perennial beds. There’s a lot of work that I’ll need to do, but it doesn’t all have to be done in the next 24 hours.

Took the dog for a walk and now he’s happily sleeping on his cushion.

Probably Unwise…

Apple was running a Black Friday sale.

On the plus side of the page, my Christmas shopping is done. On the negative side of the page my Christmas shopping is done.

My iPad and the other half’s iPad were both getting long in the tooth. For example some of the applications that I use on my iPad were no longer updatable.

The other half was in even worse shape. That iPad wasn’t holding it’s charge very well and was prone to arbitrary resets and hangs.

Enter Apple’s Black Friday… $100 gift cards with the purchase of new iPads. Uh Oh.

Well the $100 does offset the cost of Applecare.

The short story is that there are now two new iPad Pros in the household. The other half’s is the 12.9” unit and mine is the 9.7” The other half is already using the thing as a Gig book and to some extent a replacement for the Macbook Pro.

Both have keyboards, pencils, max memory, and cellular connections.

Sigh… Now the trick is to pay them off.

I must say that these machines are pretty amazing. I could easily see having only the iPad if all you needed to do was web surfing, email, and a bit of writing. Office 365 runs very well on them and that gives you direct access to documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

The latest versions of applications let you access the cloud storage of your choice, (icloud, onedrive, dropbox, and I think even google docs) so you could do most if not all the routine business tasks with just the iPad.

I think I’ll stick to developing using my Macbook Air.

Why you might ask didn’t I just update to the latest and greatest Macbook Pro? Well, the cost vs the power differential just didn’t add up. My Macbook Air is still fast and efficient. When you’re talking GHz processing speeds .5 GHz isn’t really all that significant unless you’re talking about audio / video processing. The new touch bar would be nice but having it or not isn’t a deal breaker for me.

So, rather than updating my Air, I chose to update my 4 year old ipad.

Perhaps, you can even expect to see more blog posts, since having an iPad out at work isn’t nearly as “Odd” as having my personal computer running on my desk.

The first thing I used my new iPad for was polishing my resume a bit. Yes, I’m looking for a new job and I’m hoping to find something in the next couple of months.

If all goes well, I may actually be able to return to my field and the pay that comes with it.

In any case, I hope that you’re enjoying the holiday season and avoiding the stress that so often comes with shopping. I’m looking forward to the annual shopping trip with a friend even If I don’t buy anything.