Monday, July 13, 2020

Back to normalish

Got up at the early hour I need to do if I am going to work out. Decided to do the dvd workout for a change.

But: nope! The dvd player decided to die! It keeps cycling between the "dvd loading" and the "pictures" menu. Unplugging it and letting it sit didn't fix it. Taking the batteries out of the remote didn't fix it.

I don't know what else to do.

I did a ski-exerciser workout today instead and did manage to get 45 minutes in; I want to try to creep this up in hopes of maybe driving the diastolic pressure down (though I also "proned" myself to sleep last night, in case I AM snoring and that's messing with my blood pressure)

(Though it could also be that I've been less careful about salt of late)

I figured: well, I don't want to go into a big box store right now, so I'll go to the little local appliance store that also boasts of having home theater. So I did as soon as they opened. Masked up, walked in. Neither of the dudes behind the counter were masked but whatever. I asked about dvd players.

"Oh, no, we don't have any in stock. Have you tried Wal-mart?"

My dude, if I wanted to try Wal-mart, I'd have gone there first. I don't want a dvd player from Wal-mart.

But of course, I didn't have a choice - they are the only indie electronics place in town, and they and Wal-mart are pretty much it. (We don't have a Best Buy or a Fry's or a whatever).

Also, I found I had forgot to pay my MCI bill - I am getting brain drop-outs badly, forgetting things, losing things, being clumsy, and it worries me - so I had to do it online for a higher fee. (I should just auto pay some of these things, but then I would have to keep track of that in my checkbook)

So: three bad things before 10 am.

(Ultimately - I ordered one to pick up from Target and this afternoon I should be able to go and get it. I am hoping the Kroger will be non-busy after I do that so I can quick run in there and hopefully get more Golden Syrup and Ghirardelli dark-cacao chips, and a few other items I cannot get from Pruett's or Green Spray, and save myself the mess of a wal-mart order)

All that said: I spent the morning over at my building. I saw the custodian (all masked up), the secretary (unmasked until she saw me coming) and the MD/Ph.D. colleague (did not mask but stayed 8' from me, so okay I guess? He did say that once classes started he was going to do what I have been referring to as "double bagging" - use a cloth mask with one of the paper "surgical" ones (or an N95) underneath it (or over it, the case of a paper one).

And I worked in my lab. Broke down the soil extractions and did the more-detailed extraction on the first two samples. Did all of this masked of course.

The thing is, though, that's normal for soil labwork for me - I keep a bunch of these "sorta like N95" masks on hand (this is one from my tool drawer, I had them for yardwork) to keep from setting my allergies off from working on the soil. So that seemed normal-ish. (In normal times, I'd remove the mask when I went down the hall to the loo, or back into my office for a break. I just left it on today).

I also got the internet access to my office fixed - called Academic Computing and they sent someone out, apparently something needed to be reconfigured.

So anyway. I got something done today. I don't know whether to try to read for a bit while waiting to hear from Target that my order is ready (it's a half-hour away, so I will have to leave as soon as I'm sure they have it ready) or to just relax.

Tomorrow morning I might try mowing the lawn. It needs it, but the heat and humidity has been daunting. I suppose I could do part of it first thing in the morning and if I run out of steam, do the rest in the evening. Or maybe do a bit when I get back THIS evening....


Added, 8:40 pm:

It works! Surprisingly easy to set up, fortunately I remembered my WiFi password, so now I can probably watch Amazon Prime on there. And listen to Pandora. And if I wanted to shell out for another subscription, the Berlin Philharmonic does a "virtual concert hall"



I just grabbed the top dvd on the stack (Ponyo) to test it out. At first it didn't want to go back to "regular" tv (cable) but after unplugging and replugging both HDMI cables, that fixed the input problem.

So if I want to, tomorrow, I can do the workout dvd. (Though I might mow the lawn first thing in the morning instead)

2 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

MASK! YES!

E.Jensen said...

I think I own that same (or very similar) dvd player!