Monday, June 02, 2014

getting stuff done

12 in one class, 11 in the other. Small is good, makes grading easier. Also less chance of a couple people with MAJOR LIFE PROBLEMS I have to help fix/deal with.

I went out and picked up my mail today. And then went and got the new set-top box. It looks pretty straightforward to set up but I am side-eyeing a bit the thing that you have to call in and wait for them to 'activate' it after you set it up, and that you have to wait 20 minutes before you call.

I hope they don't go home early today; I was planning on trying to set it up tonight.

I also got the letter in the mail from the screening test every woman over 40 is supposed to have. "Results not worrisome for cancer at this time," which is about as positive good-news reporting as they allow themselves to be. (I'm sure it's partly a CYA thing.) Not that I was expecting it to be bad news but you never know. (Actually, as medical stuff goes? The mammo is one of the less-intrusive medical things to me - I'd even rather do that than go to the dentist). It's just kind of odd and awkward and funny ("Here," the tech says, "let me move that a little so the image will be better" as she shifts your breast on the plexiglass panel). I've never found it painful (I guess some women do). I might be more uncomfortable about it if I had had a time or two of not getting the all-clear after the first screening, I don't know.

Nothing else major in the mail - a few bills (and I managed to pay my cable one while getting the box, so I did two things with one trip) and a boatload of magazines and catalogs.

I'm tired and not entirely rah-rah for lab today. First off, at about 10:30 last night, just as I was getting to sleep, I heard "Chirp.......................chirp." Yeah, one of the detectors had its batteries fail. It took a bit to figure out which one. (It was the backup battery in the CO detector).

I know the new "thing" is to push people to have smoke detectors in every room of the house. I will never do that. I live in a small house. I have one detector in the main hallway, which is centrally located and is 20 feet or less from every other room in the house. And I have one (which I really should replace, it's more than 10 years old) in my bedroom. But it seems foolish to me to have one in the bathroom, which is three steps away from the main detector, and my experience with a smoke detector in the kitchen means you get a ton of "false positives" when you grill anything or broil anything. (If my house was more than one story, I'd have at least one on each story, but it isn't.)

Then, at about 2:30 AM, I woke up with awful cramps in my back. I don't know if it was overdoing it mowing the lawn (I had to go over the front yard twice and the back yard 3 times to get it to a tolerable state), or if it was that I worked out in the heat for too long, or I didn't drink enough water when I came in, or what. But it was pretty miserable for a while, and I feel like I didn't sleep much last night.  Ibuprofen got me through morning lectures but I don't like to take too much of it; I'm going to try to tough out this afternoon.

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