nosrednayduj

We hope it's fixed, anyway. We called them about the overtemp alarm and they could take it yesterday, and they were able to fix it by today! So, I went and got it. Unfortunately while they were hooking it up to the van, apparently the mechanism didn't catch around the hitch ball, and so when I drove out of the driveway and there was a little bump entering the road, it DETACHED from the van! There was some yanking and noise and I could see it skewing around wildly behind the van. I pulled over immediately and went out to investigate and sure enough, no longer attached. First time those safety chains have been invoked!

I ran back to get someone to help, because although probably I could have lifted the trailer while I was running on adrenaline, I didn't want to do it alone in case I slipped or something. I also kind of wanted to show them their screwup... Three guys came over to help and they quadruple checked that it was connected before I went on my way.

No damage to boat or trailer, minor damage to the bumper of the van -- which I'd slammed into with the Leaf two years prior so it's not like it was any great loss. I decided not to make a claim against their insurance -- it was their fault, because they are the ones who actually did the hookup. Maybe it was also my fault for not checking that it was hooked, but I figured they do this every day. I've had the mechanism not catch before, and I could always tell it wasn't working so I would try to re-seat it until it was solid. But, like, the van's 11 years old and I don't care what it looks like. Cosmetic damage is great: it keeps thieves away.

It's still in the driveway because we're being cheap and waiting til the boat ramp police go home at 7 so we can launch for free.

There was a rally about climate change in Providence today, outside the convention center, where there was a Governor's meeting going on. It was small, only about 150-200 by my quick estimate. There were some speakers, and some chanting ("No more pipelines! No more fracking! Send the oil barons packing!"); the whole thing lasted about an hour.

Valerie and I went down on the train (seems wrong to drive to a rally about climate change...), and I brought my bicycle! I had printed a set of maps and directions, plus I had my phone. It was hard to get settled onto the route, though, the roads never seem to match the map and directions. So there was a lot of stopping and pushing the "find me" button on the phone. Plus a stop at dunkin' donuts for lunch. All in all it took about 3 hours elapsed (I didn't look exactly when I left the rally). I picked up some speed at the end, when I'd gotten back into familiar territory and there wasn't so much stopping.

26.45 in 2:23 for an average of 11.0, which isn't too bad. Not much in the way of hills except at the very beginning, and even those were mild. And don't forget the 2.2 mile jaunt to the train station at the start!

Nothing was on the calendar for today! So, Ken and I went bicycling. We went up Blue Hill. 10 miles to get there, one mile straight up, one mile back down, 10 miles back home. Before the ascent my average was 12.6. After it was 10.5. Strangely, it was 10.6 when I returned home. I thought the base of the hill was the same elevation as home, so my average should have improved a little, I'd think. But, the down is not really very fast because it is littered with potholes, parents, kids, dogs, horses, horse poop, other bicycles... And there was some dorking around because we stopped at the hardware store on the way home and the parking lot is large and slow. So, that's my excuse.

Turns out we actually had plans, because some of our many guests from last weekend are stopping back here after a camping expedition and before their airplane tomorrow, so we need to feed them. So I made vast food for dinner (which now just needs to bake for an hour), and also plan to make vast food for dessert because tomorrow there's a square dance and I want to bring some snacks. So I need to have decoy snacks by making a double batch or there won't be any for tomorrow.

Food and bicycling, my default hobbies :-)

Sunday: 9.2
Monday: 25.73
Tuesday: 25.66
Wednesday: 9.4
Thursday: 6.8
Friday: 6.8
Saturday: 15.97

Total: 99.5

People more anal than I would have ridden down the street for 1/4 mile and back...

We have a pleco in our aquarium to keep the algae at bay. This is the most amazingly healthy fish ever. He's just growing and growing! For a long time he was very shy, hiding behind the decor, but now that he's like 10 times bigger than anything else, he's willing to show himself frequently. Partly, he doesn't FIT behind anything anymore!



The stripes are an artifact of having taken the picture just after feeding -- they are the food pellets dropping through the water during the exposure.

Actually it didn't rain very much, just a little splatter. Monday I drove to work and abandoned my car, Tuesday I rode back in. I had thought that there wouldn't be any specific reason for me to be at work Tuesday morning, but then there was a problem at work overnight and so I wanted to get there before noon, and, having a morning phone meeting, didn't get to leave at the crack of dawn. So, I had incentive to move. Apparently incentive works:

Monday: 25.73 in 2:31 for a lame average of 10.1. Maybe a little headwind.
Tuesday: 25.66 in 2:14 for an AWESOME average of 11.4

I got the pix from the Fort Wayne Botanical Conservatory. Photo credit for the one of me to David Resnick, who also has a better camera than my phone.

A good person would know the names and origins of the butterflies pictured. It was totally fun, despite the tshirt.

I was asked to RSVP via meetup to Matt Stone's upcoming party next weekend. When I went there, it popped up a message saying their T&C had changed. Since when LJ did that I didn't read them, I thought maybe I'd read Meetup's. Under "Information we collect" I find this lovely bit:

With your permission, we may collect other information from your device, such as photos from your camera roll, contacts of individuals you wish to find or connect with, or calendar information you want to manage via the Platform.

Photos??? Seriously? They're going to spy on my phone's camera? Well, I better not ever use meetup from my phone then! Probably it's OK from my laptop, there I have a random folder under c:\yduj and it's unlikely they'll find any there.

Valerie and Jocelyn went to Pride, but Ken and I stayed home. (Perry stayed home too, but he never does anything interesting. We did play a game this evening, which he won, and this morning he and I worked together to fix a couple of bugs on LambdaMOO, so it wasn't all solo computer play for him today.)

While home, though, we did useful things: Launched the sailboat! Had some trouble with the mast, had to raise and lower it a couple of times, but eventually got it in working order. The mooring had been dragged a little ways by the ice this winter, even though there wasn't much, so I put on my wetsuit and moved it back where it belongs. Then, since I was wearing the wetsuit and hadn't had any exercise besides raising the mast twice and running back and forth from the car to the trailer, I went for a short swim. Counts double, though, because doing anything in a wetsuit is tiring. Kind of fun to be that buoyant. Then I replaced the center seat in the canoe, which had collapsed, and we'd ordered a new one, but not got 'round to installing. So, vast lakeness! Yay.

Tomorrow Jocelyn has an end-of-year swim party to attend, 50 miles away, and I'm taking her. So there will be more water play. I hope I get to swim, not sure what's actually happening at the party. The hosting parent is a nervous ninny and keeps sending emails thanking me for chaperoning. I don't really intend to "chaperone", it was simply the easiest course of action because Jocelyn has something to do both before and after and will arrive late and leave early so carpooling can't work out.

I'm sure I've mentioned my love for capitalism in the past. It's come to bite me again.

I want to see Wonder Woman.

I can't figure out how to buy tickets for a showing TOMORROW on movietickets.com! They utterly changed their interface and I don't see "change date" anymore. WTF? I guess they really don't want anyone to plan ahead. I was whining a few weeks ago that I wanted to find out whether a movie would be in theaters in a couple of weeks and wasn't able to tell. But now not even for tomorrow? I guess I'll have to get up 15 minutes earlier in order to buy tickets. If it's like last time, I have to do the purchase in two steps so I can take one ticket myself and give the others to Valerie and Jocelyn to meet me at the theater. Last time it just gave me one piece of paper and they had to hang out waiting for me instead of comfortably going in and buying popcorn.

Maybe I should go to even fewer movies in the future, because it's so hard to buy tickets. What stupidity. How do regular people get anything done with these insanely flashy web sites where it's so hard to find the button to buy things?