TGIF Day!

Well, Friday has arrived, and started off with a visit to my physician.  He's a good guy, and we have known him for probably 30 years or so.  His MA took my blood  pressure and found it elevated.  He took it and found it low (for me) - so we both reassured the MA that she's still got 'it.'  I hope he doesn't have to explain it later today - she's a newbie and might not know about old standing jokes.  She managed to give me a B12 shot without giving me any pain, and we set up an appointment to come back in 6 weeks. He also reminded me that I need to get an upper endoscopy to see if I still have ulcers or something.  You all have to know how much I look forward to endoscopies.....

So I was a little late.  Rain was all over today, and we have a couple of small lakes in the back yard.  The motorcycles got wet (only a little) and getting the newspaper this morning was an adventure, running (actually walking slowly) between raindrops was the order of the day.  I got a little wet, but dried off before leaving to go to the doctor, where I got wet, and dried off before getting to work. I parked inside today, so I didn't get wet any more.  Fridays around here are pretty quiet, particularly before a 3-day weekend.

I finished up (again) the project for that outside consultant, logging on late last night to ship him the latest data - all 1.02 gigabytes of it (actually compressed down to 113,996 kb using WinRAR, a really useful tool) via my Google drive - which reminds me I need to clean that one up!

Something messed with my Chrome apps - I need to rebuild that.  Happily I remember what I use, mostly.  I have been amazed at how useful a lot of the apps and extensions for Google's Chrome have become - there are some I have come to depend on, and I hadn't given much credence to Google's approach.  Looks to me as if they got a lot right!

I fear there won't be much done today that is mission-oriented - too many other things that can be cleaned up.  Next week I have to start cleaning up to Clarion apps that I still have active, killing off the ones that aren't used, and upgrading at least to Version 8 anything that isn't already there.  I have Version 9 installed, but haven't had a chance to mess with it much. I also need to purge off a bunch of unused .bat files, SQL scripts and FTP scripts - there is so much that was put out there and has fallen into disuse that if I don't do this soon I'll be breaking more stuff than I fix....  I need to get all this stuff into a book somehow, and some of it needs major cleanup and simplification.  Always time to screw with it, never time to get it right - story of my life....

On another topic, has anyone that reads this ever heard of Heather Rigdon?  I ask because some nice person at the office gave me some of her MP3s and I am enjoying them a whole lot. I also discovered that the Beth Nielsen Chapman collection I thought I had lost just got hidden on a damaged drive on the big server, and I was able to recover all of it, which made me pretty happy. Now I have to transfer some of it over here, for use on the days I can make noise and not get bitched at by folks with tin ears.

In going through some old jump drives I have found some music that I had thought was lost - including a bit by Steve Miller at the end of a live concert that merged All Blues with  C. C. Rider   and some original lyrics to create a long track that was really great, very jazzy and funny, too. If anyone wants anything that I might have, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do for you.

Having discovered that by BluRay player is internet-smart, and that there are all kinds of movies available, I am thinking of killing off most of my movie collections and reclaiming some server space so maybe I won't have to buy drives so damned often to keep everything happy. I am continually amazed at what can be found on YouTube as well as some of the other services just kicking the BuRay box around a bit.  I had built a whole media player desktop, and find I don't use it at all - I can do everything media-wise I ever want to do just using the BluRay player. Now I have to get it away from where it is  and take it somewhere where it will be useful - like  down into the family room, maybe....

My watch must be busted - it sure is taking a long time to get this day over.  I'll be in Sunday and Monday (both scheduled days off) to cover a 3-11 shift that would otherwise be uncovered, because I am such a Nice Person - and because it will supply the comp time I need to take that weekend in Las Vegas in a week or two and not use any precious annual leave.

I'm trying hard to stay away from politics because some of what is going on makes me angry (and profane) and I don't want any nastiness to leak into this - so I'll save it for a time I want to show just how damn nasty I am capable of being when profoundly irritated.   But not today - I don't have the energy.

What I really need is a day that is about 32 hours long - then I could get lots done and still sleep for 9 or so hours.  As it is, I get to bed usually between 1 and 2 (my physician says older adults need bedtimes, too - but nobody can stay up around our house long enough to see that I observe any established bedtime.) and wake up at 7:45 when my phone says it is time to get up, make coffee, and do Other Things to get ready for the day.  What I should do is get up an hour earlier and walk around the block a time or two. No point taking any bets on when this will start, as I don't think it will any time soon.

I really hate this time of year, when I come home in the darn - it removes from me any desire to do anything after I eat something - anything, that is, besides park my arse in the chair read and/or watch the TeeVee.  I don't lose a whole lot of weight that way....

While I was off doing some real work a moment ago, my mind wandered into the place where the various ladies I have known over the last 70+ years have been stored, and I remembered a funny thing or two about a couple of them.  Then I seemed to wake up and realized where I was - and decided it wasn't time to visit those spaces.  Usually I visit them late at night when nobody is around to watch my face.  Maybe one day I'll talk about them, too. But not today.

I've been reading Augusten Burroughs, a brother to John Elder Robison, whose stuff I have also been reading.  Robison has Aspergers (which has, if I recall aright, been rendered no-longer-a word by the folks who decide such things) and is a most interesting person to read and to hear.  I'm not going to say more - if you are curious, read something from either or both - if you are Kindle-smart I might even loan you some of mine if there is a legal way to do that (and I think that there is.)

Any more, I do a log of my reading with my tablet using a Kindle app, or on one of my Windows machines using a Kindle app for Chrome, the browser.  Kindle is set up such that it remembers where you are when you bot a 'book' down.  Turn off the computer you were using, go home (or elsewhere) and get out your laptop (or tablet or Android phone) and fire up the Kindle app, and when it opens,m there is the page you were reading when you put it down.  Most thoughtful - and you can carry a hell of a big library with you, since e-books don't take up much room, and the Chrome app does everything from the Cloud (whateverthehell that means...)  If you hadn't noticed, I'm much impressed by Kindle - particularly by the fact that you don't have to buy one - anything you own can be a Kindle if you need it to be.

I think I've had enough fun, so I'm going to close up shop and go home and see where my lovely wife wants to go for dinner this evening.  Be well, y'all.