Entries tagged with remote

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 1 p. 560

203.7 miles

c-c-cold!

373 recordings of 35 types, 7 old SVU, 36 CPD, 23% clear.

Wednesday (the 29th of November) I woke about 2:30 with a strange smell in the house. I knew I had smelled it before but I couldn't place it. None of the smoke alarms was going. I wandered through the house sniffing and checking that everything that was supposed to be off was off, and everything that was supposed to be on was on. I couldn't determine where the smell was coming from and didn't remember what it was, and eventually I went back to bed.

When I got up, the smell was still there. I finally, about mid-morning, placed it as burning leaves. Outside, no smell, just in the house. I guess a leaf somehow got into the HVAC and was ignited... I checked the roof carefully, nothing, and by the end of the day the smell had dissipated.

I got in the car to pick Padreic up for Wee Wednesday, but realized at the end of the street that the fog was just too thick. I could possibly drive down to Elk Grove but didn't want to take the little boy on the freeway in it. So I called Bernadette to cancel... and 15 minutes later or so the fog lifted. I went to EG at my normal time and picked up the kids, and started reading "Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill" to them. I no longer have them sitting next to me, because while Joanna just reads along, Gareth gets ahead, and it's unnerving. So they now sit in front of me.

I went through the TV recordings to say to keep the ones from September. (Because the machine erases 3 month old ones). This was a pain with the remote acting up. I couldn't see anything on the TV (except for DVDs), so livestreamed Fox News on the computer.

I fell asleep in the chair and then when I went to bed, I couldn't find my glasses. (Thursday morning I finally located them in the dinosaur blanket I had used in the chair.)

Thursday I took a box of religious books to the Retreat House. After Mass they had a lot of great food and I just had to have one of the breakfast burritos. It was delicious. Fortunately, they were all gone when I got back.

Fishdom had a game I would play because I had enough diamonds. (In the 4 days I ended up in first place in the gold league and got lots of goodies. This promotes me, again, to the emerald guild, but I won't play unless it's going to actually get me something.)

Burning leaf smell reminded me that the gardeners keep blowing leaves into the alcove where the water heater is, so I raked them out. I noted a slight opening at the bottom of the water heater door, and put bricks there to discourage rodents. Enough already! I pulled the rest of the garden plants out and started digging at the left bed to get rid of weeds before I cover it with leaves.

So, the final total of the garden, counting the three tiny peppers and two miniscule eggplants of today:

1.5 ears of corn, 41 carrots, 12 peppers, 68 beans, 10 squash, 2 pumpkins (one a decent 8#), and 12 eggplants. Hardly worth the effort. The artichoke is still growing. I may actually try pumpkins on the rest of that bed next year.

About day 23 of working on the Rosetta Stone puzzle. I got maybe 6 pieces in. You would think it would get easier as it goes along.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 1 p. 560

202.9 miles

c-c-cold, windy!

373 recordings of 33 types, 8 old SVU, 36 CPD, 23% clear.

Monday I called the law firm to be sure where next week's mock trial would be, and I turned off the answering machine. Naturally, that was when the telemarketers got through. Also, my laptop is beginning to act up a bit. Sigh. And my TV remote was really acting up, even when I changed the batteries.

I had quite a time with games. I lost about 300,000 coins in Pharaoh's game, and finally won a few things in Fishdom. I'm not paying full price for diamonds in the latter, so I won't play the games that don't give me goodies. And I managed all of 5 pieces in the Rosetta Stone jigsaw puzzle. It's frustrating, but I don't want to quit on it.

The gardener across the street had filled their bins and I offered what was left of mine. (My leaves go into the leaf bin in back, if I haven't gotten them over a garden bed.)

But the best thing about Monday is driving at night, 17 miles through Foothill Farms, Carmichael, Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks, Orangevale and Folsom, to see Mannheim Steamroller. Lucky I'd actually driven this way in the daytime, because for some reason I forgot that the route had changed (when they built a high school, about 25 or 30 years ago!) so I wound up going around a different way, but didn't get lost. They were fantastic. Bernadette and I mostly watched the harpsichordist and the drummer. Amazing. She stuck around to meet the band, but I decided to go home.

Tuesday I went to breakfast with the ladies, then took my recycling in. As usual, I had to have them remind me how to do it. I got $10.83. Then I took the two remaining propane tanks in. Not only did I get jokes about my name on the license plate, but I also got meth lab jokes! I'm glad I'm done with the propane tanks!

At home I called the hauler, and he came over at dusk to look at what I wanted taken. $140 he's charging, which is less than I'd anticipated.

I got into chat with Phillippe at ATT and talked about the remote. Because it was at least 10 years old, I figured what I needed was a new one, but I let P. come to that conclusion himself. It was obvious English was not his first language, but he was able to communicate well. (I was glad I wasn't dealing with an accent as well as his different way of putting words together.) Eventually he decided they'd send a new one. Yay!

The TV went black so I gave up entirely on the remote, though I sorted through old SVUs, because they keep wanting to record ones I said I didn't want to record. I watched DVDs instead.

What's That Smell?

Remotely Troubled, and Mannheim Steamroller