2020-12-18

I celebrated last night. Why? Why not?
I celebrated my knee feeling a little better, hopefully it will become 100% pain free again soon.
I celebrated my Apple package arriving.
I celebrated being finished with my antibiotics.
I celebrated by making a holiday mashup dinner of leftover “Thanksgiving Casserole” and a very large glass of Glühwein, a traditional warmed mulled wine consumed in Germany during Christmas time.

It was good, and there was some rejoicing.

I watched the last two episodes of “The Queen’s Gambit” last night. I’m not sure they stuck the ending, but enjoyed it overall. I find it interesting that the lead actress has wide-set eyes (as do I), a feature not generally considered to be desirable.

Last night I also watched a YouTube video where the woman made Dan Dan Noodles, using chicken since she is Indian and doesn’t eat beef. Oh how I miss being able to meet anything under the sun.

Finally I set up my new HomePod Minis as a stereo pair. As has been the case for awhile, Apple’s setup process was nothing less than miraculous. Within ten minutes both speakers were plugged in (not an elegant solution), configured, and playing music. My amazement took a hit attempting to play music, the use case for which I purchased these. I asked Siri to play the Holiday playlist in my Apple Music (née iTunes) library, she couldn’t; fail. I asked Siri to play the Charlie Brown Christmas album by Vince Guaraldi Trio, she could; success. The music sounded good enough for me; success. After the album completed I asked Siri to play classical Christmas music, one speaker switched music but the other continued playing Vince Guaraldi; fail. I asked Siri to stop, only one speaker obeyed; fail. I tried overriding the music by directly streaming from my iPhone, it couldn’t connect to,the speakers; fail. At that point I realized that there was a software update available for the HomePods so I updated them. By the time the update completed I was ready for bed so I made no further tests. Needless to say, Apple still has work to do.

Today is my last work day of 2020.
I’ll celebrate that tonight.

Stay warm, stay healthy, be happy. Remember, Santa comes next week.

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15 Responses to 2020-12-18

  1. Bonnie says:

    I finished “The Queen’s Gambit” last night as well. I agree with you about the ending. The husband left for work this morning and my first day of freedom will entail a solo attempt to catch not one but two cats and insert them into their respective carriers to drop off at the vet. I’m not worried about the first cat, but the second one will catch on pretty quick and likely hide somewhere that I can’t reach him/her. Nothing serious, but they both have a concern that should be checked out and perhaps better-than-OTC medication prescribed.

  2. Steve says:

    It was somewhat of a good day yesterday. Accomplished a few things around the office, controlled what I could and delegated what I couldn’t!!

    Came home bearing truck stop Mexican (that’s how we refer to it, don’t laugh, it’s good) and thought I’d ride before eating. I fought the F’king software for 45 minutes- first download an update, then load the update.. finally get everything connected and start riding. A 30 minute ride with some nice power work. 15 minutes in, I lose connectivity again. WTF, O? I think my phone- the go between from the PC to the trainer- shuts off wireless at 20% battery remaining. No point in continuing, as there isn’t any resistance… there may have been some bad words spoken. At high volume.

    Looking forward to getting my broken spoke repaired and a chain replaced by the second best mechanic in the Grove family! As well as some Tasty China for dinner!!
    Long overdue.

    -FP

    • Bonnie says:

      I also need to make a run up there someday for Allan to finish up with my hub that he started at “Fall Tune Up”. And also eat TC of course!

    • The Deck Mahal is large enough for social distancing, right? 😁 I need to get a proper chainring bolt for my mountain bike as the set I bought is the wrong size for my bike. And I want Tasty China too goddammit!

      • barb says:

        Y’all came come up to the cold north, but we only have 2 heaters, be prepared with a warm jacket. The Spicy Chinese food will help keep us warm. Allan is working at Atl Cycling until 5:30 or so, building bikes – so anytime after 6pm.

  3. barb says:

    it has finally slowed down enough at work I don’t keep like my hair is on fire all day.

    We finished up Queen’s Gambit a few days ago – Allan read the book, said the show did a great job with it – maybe because they had 7 hours to tell the story. I kept saying, this would be better if it was a true story. I never really enjoyed chess myself, but it was a good story.

    I decided to my next (solo, when Allan is at work) Netflix series is Jane the Virgin. Very silly show, but I like it so far. its going to take me months to get thru it -but that’s ok.

    • ITP Lurker says:

      Unfortunately it couldn’t be a true story because women weren’t allowed in chess tournaments until the 1980’s. Unbelievable. I liked the series though. We’re amidst The Undoing on HBO.

  4. barb says:

    and – we are considering doing the Atlanta hash on Saturday- could be a fun Christmas gathering.

  5. Still have some nagging pain in my left knee, which concerns me. I was hoping by this time all shooting pain would be gone and all that was left would be working the muscles to rebuild strength.

  6. ITP Lurker says:

    I had a high touch experience from Apple yesterday. I arranged for my purchase to be delivered by courier. A little while into the delivery window I received an email with a tracking link that updated the expected delivery ETA in real time. A young woman pulled up in her car, pulled two fancy shopping bags out of her trunk, and handed me the new gear. It helped allay the angst over the money I spent on the purchases. That’s the way to do last minute Christmas shopping.

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