mdlbear | Done last week (20170723Su

It's been a busy week, with a lot of ups and downs. Question first:

Question: Does anyone in Oregon have the space to put up two or three travelers the night of August 20th, in or near the path of the solar eclipse? (If it's three the third would be Colleen, who needs access via ramp or at most three steps.) Thanks in advance.

Good stuff: We (me, Naomi, and Colleen) went to the Whidbey Island Fair last Sunday - lots of fun. We learned how to identify poison hemlock - see bad stuff below -- and made a couple of useful contacts. The second (of three) pod arrived and was unloaded.

We got kittens! More specifically, Naomi got kittens -- the kids and I were just along for the ride, since the point of the exercise was to get kittens that would be hers. We went to NOAH, in Stanwood, and found two adorable little boys: Bronx, and Happy, who was immediately renamed Brooklyn. The first kitten you adopt from NOAH costs $125; the second is $75. They really want your kittens to have company. Now begins the (hopefully not too lengthy) process of introducing them to the other cats in the household. Followed to re-introducing the two household cats to one another. That will be harder.

We have new floors! Instead of the icky brown carpet, we have nice wood-grained laminate similar if not identical to what we had in the apartment. Good lookingm easy to roll or slide things on, and best of all easy to clean.

I have our laser printer on the network -- it has to be hard-wired, but fortunately it turned out to be easy to set up the Client Bridged configuration of DD-WRT.

The repeal of Obamacare was narrowly averted, so that's good.

Bad stuff: The flip side of Obamacare is that I don't get it anymore -- I have Medicare. I got a call from our mail-order pharmacy, informing me that Colleen's Humira now has a co-pay of over $1000. It was $5 last month, but the free "copay assistance" card isn't available to people with Medicare. Welcome to the American health doesn't care system. There's a "patient assistance foundation", but we're unlikely to qualify now, based on our income.

Also, as mentioned above, we have poison hemlock on the property. Lovely plant, originally imported (by idiots) as an ornamental. Now a Class A (shoot on sight) noxious weed. Whee! There is also something that looks suspiciously like giant hogweed, which is also on the list, but which may not be considering the size and color of the stems. I'm going to have to learn some botany.

... and of course I got distracted making dinner, and never got back and posted this. So it's Monday morning already. :P

Notes & links:

0723Su Fair
* up 6ish; W=200.8;
* 15min: unpacking in kitchen. Some boxes were never relabeled, so they don't contain
kitchen stuff at all. There are two boxes of spices from the island, but haven't
found the island yet. Hopefully in the last pod.
! severe distress Despair? Mostly
"Oh, my God, what have I done?" on unpacking the Peter Rabbit plate. Perhaps I should
have moved heaven and earth to stay in Rainbow's End? I'm hating myself now.
! feeling broken. Very worried about money and our lack of equity, but N points out
that we will in fact have some.
@ Repeater Bridge - DD-WRT Wiki
* move C's scooter back into Molly from Rosie.
@ noon Whidbey Island Area Fair
Fun! Colleen was reluctant at first, but we all had a good time and made some good
contacts. -> got back 3:30ish
: Apparently the tall plants that look like Queen Anne's Lace are actually poison
hemlock. One can tell by purple spots on the stems.
% 4:30 sleepy.
: vaguely remembering that the drill and charger may have been out on the garage
workbench; that would put them in this pod or the last, possibly in one of the wooden
boxes.
@ water_hemlock_article_for_oregon_beef_producer.pdf
@ Plants Poisonous to Livestock - Cornell University Department of Animal Science
@ Poison-hemlock - King County
- Wikipedia
@ Water hemlock (Cicuta douglasii) : USDA ARS
Wikipedia
@ Giant Hogweed - Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board
Giant hogweed - King County
* 15min: sorting and triage. Ongoing.

0724Mo
* up 7ish; W=202.2;
* get small stuff off floors in prep for new flooring. Gina did most of that; much of
it ended up in the master bath.
* To NOAH to look at kittens.
-> Bronx and Happy (promptly renamed Brooklyn). Bronx is black, Brooklyn black+white
* Dinner: stir-fried beef and green beans (with mushrooms). G" did the prep.
C and G" made blueberry cobbler for dessert - we ate that first shortly after getting
home from our cat-hunt.
* Call from Mom. She had called yesterday; don't remember just what I was doing then.
: 8ish doe and faun out my window.
* 15min: clearing stuff off the carpets
% 9:45 sleepy

0725Tu
* Up 6:50; W=200.2;
* put Ticia in master bathroom. Easy, since she followed me in.
* try again with J's references
-> left messages again. Left message with J. Exhausting.
* move stuff around to ensure that furniture has a place.
* floors - arrived around 11
Ironically, the tile-like vinyl was under all of the carpet. We could have simply
ripped it up and been perfectly ok.
They're making a lot of noise. Opened door to do some sanding and cutting; Ticia
nowhere in evidence. Poor thing must be terrified.
& measuring deck and garage with N.
@ Seiken Densetsu 3 Bardstale | Zwillingssterns Weltenwald | 1w6 Song typeset with
Flktran! (not up on the site yet, though) Cool to see it used.
: can get lp on the network using a spare access point in Client Bridged mode
* non-clumping cat litter, non-seafood cat food
: The floor installers finally finished around 7
-> The floors are beautiful. They're laminate, so one should avoid sliding furniture
that doesn't have felt pads or casters. The sofabed will cause some damage where
the legs sit, so that's a problem.
: Ticia had found a lovely comfortable place to nest in a corner of the towel alcove,
lying on a set of soft sheets. I'd been quite worried about her while the installers
were here, but she seemed perfectly ok.
* take out garbage
% 10ish - sleepy

0726We
* up 7; W=200.8;
@ SHERPA/RoMEO - Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving (siderea)
* return phone: UPS Drop Box Peoples Bank, 5589 Harbor Ave, Freeland, WA, 98249
-> too small - stopped in Mukilteo next to the QFC
* QFC: Kroeger oyster crackers (blue box). They also have Kettle unsalted chips (none
of the salt, all of the fat). So does the Goose; they must be catching on.
~ bed - take up with N.
-> brought the spring/frames up. As it turns out, the mattresses are in the remaining
pod! Things were, apparently, rather confused at the point where cargo was being
shifted between the first and second pods. Blast.
* 2pm dentist
* return keys. Get cookies - did that last
~ J texted to say that she already found another gig. Damn. Blew it completely.
@ Trump's Transgender Ban Is The Act Of A Third World Despot And Total Nonsense
: MyChevrolet app inaccurate efficiency. Says 1.44 mi/KWh; 79.3/23.7=3.35
* down 11:30ish

0727Th
* up 6:30; ;
* 8:30 propane safety check appointment ("block test") Our only gas appliances are the
stove and the fireplace; heater and hot water are electric :P
. work on shelving
-> 3 80" hanger strips; two don't quite fit across bedroom. One 40", oldstyle.
1 32", which is a perfect fit for the short wall in the hall where I had the wood
stacking shelves.
~ ink for Brother: LC203{BK,Y,C,M} Sound Business Center 18205 WA-525 #3, Freeland
-> don't have it -- order online.
: Humira -> received call from Express Scripts - copay is something over $1K/month.
Quantity Per unit Price
2 $2,322.32 $4,644.65
Called Abbvie - apparently the copay assistance card doesn't work for Medicare. Right
800-222-6885 Abbvie Patient Assistance Foundation www.abbviepaf.org
assistance has to be renewed yearly. Income limit $65K for two; it's over 100K for 5,
if I can count N and the kids as household members and N isn't making too much.
-> frightened/furious
@ Female senators are increasingly on receiving end of insults from male officials -
The Washington Post
" QOTD: I keep intending to watch Game of Thrones some day, but I'm beginning to think
that with this White House GoT is redundant. " (dreamshark)
@ 'Painful to watch': WW I soldier sculpted from Passchendaele mud slowly dissolves in
London - Home | As It Happens | CBC Radio (amaebi)
@ A Open Letter to All My Bullshit Relatives Cheering on My Impending Death - Kameron
Hurley (filkerdave)
% lower back twinges. Clearly, I have been bending over way too much. Even if I'm not
doing it to lift something, I shouldn't be doing it at all.
% 9ish sleepy
@ lp via Client Bridged - DD-WRT Wiki What the wiki doesn't mention is that if your
router has two WiFi interfaces, bridging only uses one of them.
* Humira
% shaking. anxiety attack.
* down 11:30ish

0728Fr
* up 5:50; W=199.6;
@ In shocker, Senate Republicans fail to strip health care from millions in dead of
night In other news, McCain evolves into a vertebrate.
& called OnStar tech support. Case# 76087856. Two issues: spurious text about
charging interruption, and the totally wrong mileage reported by the app. I remain
completely unimpressed by OnStar.
* Blueberry pancakes. (plain for Colleen)
% accomplished - this was something Dad used to do on Sundays (along with muffins and
matzoh brie)
* shopping list for Colleen: 24 eggs, 2 lactaid milk, 2% milk, nitrile gloves,
chicken, beef, veggies, bread, mushrooms, juice (cran-ras, apple)
-> I like being able to send the list to Colleen's phone via Signal. Wish I could
send regular texts that way to people who don't have the app.@ When Your Tech Debt Comes Due | Kevin Scott | Pulse | LinkedIn
@ The Everett Clinic | We're Here For Your Health
@ Primary Care Freeland WhidbeyHealth
~ afternoon Fort Casey with Emmy -> she'll meet us here ~2:30
-> just hung out at home.
-> helped with bringing up the rest of the bed head/foot boards, and taking N's Thai
mat back down to the garage. Got out the extra garbage can.
* called Island Disposal to increase our service to 3 cans/week
* 5pm kids left, with a large box of stuff, including the kitchenaid mixer and the
blender. Gave them the extra set of 2 ceramic knives as well. Emmy was thrilled.
: Ticia has been in our room most of the day while Cricket gets acquainted with the
kittens. T has been acting very timid lately. Possibly involved with having strange
cats in the house, though I think it may have started before that.
* Chicken Stroganoff for dinner.

0722Sa
* Up 7:05; W=200.6;
@ Projects - Protocol Labs
IPFS is the Distributed Web
IPLD - The data model of the content-addressable web
Filecoin
Multiformats
@ Poison Hemlock - Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board
Poison Hemlock Management Guidelines--UC IPM
Poison Hemlock Control – Poison Parsley Information And Management
: G visiting for the day.
* Dinner out with Colleen: Freeland Cafe. Mussels, clams, and Caesar salad. Drive
afterward - out E. Harbor, Saratoga to Langley; back via Saratoga, E. Harbor,
Lone Lake (which I had noticed on the way out). The drive back had sun problems.
@ thnidu | It wasn't just McCain detailed analysis from several sources
* Mounted bathroom cabinet, attached doors. The holes I'd drilled were too far apart --
probably mistook something for one of the marks. Attached to the hole with the wall
anchor, leveled it, drilled the other hole. :P If I'd attached the doors before
mounting it would have been a two person job and possibly a disaster.
* down 11:30ish