Done Since 2021-10-31

[mdlbear]

Where did the week go? How am I supposed to figure out what kind of week it was if I wasn't there?

Part of the reason I wasn't there was getting my Moderna booster shot Wednesday afternoon. On N's recommendation I went to Pharmaca after discovering that Walgreen's didn't have a record of my appointment; presumably that was because I neglected to click a "confirm" button at the end. All's well that ends better, however, and unlike Walgreens, Pharmaca takes walk-ins. On the gripping hand, I was pretty much out of it until Friday moring.

I'm in pretty decent physical shape at the moment modulo a knife-wound in my finger acquired while cutting a lemon. The hummus, served with fresh pita made by c, was worth it. Mentally, ... Does "doing as well as can be expected" work?

Notes & links:
1031Su Halloween  * litter boxen
  * Up 7:42; S=8:21;
    % left foot feels like I  bruised it stepping on something; don't remember doing that
    : septic system still alarming, so skip shower this morning.  May need pumped
    % right TMJ isn't hurting as much, more like 2 or so.  So there's that.
  @ Philosophy of grief: Three approaches from three philosophers - Big Think (ysabetwordsmith)
  @ Stages Of Grief | We Can Die Better the chaotic image. attributed to Yvonne Heath
  " Dune is now streaming on HBO Max™ (only on the Ad-Free plan) " (from a google ad)
  @ Passport wait times are getting shorter (though not as much as you'd think,
    because they stopped counting time in the mail, which has gotten longer)
    " The State Department said Friday that routine processing of a passport application
      is now taking eight to 11 weeks. Expedited processing, which costs an extra $60,
      takes five to seven weeks.
      That is a drop from earlier this month, when the department said routine service
      could take up to 14 weeks from the time of submission to the day a new passport was
      received. For expedited passports, the wait was up to 10 weeks. In July, the wait
      time was estimated at 12 to 18 weeks because of a giant backlog. "
  * make a payment or do other paperwork -> sign trust paperwork
    -> query email sent off about making adjustments
  * vote.  See Marianne's Politiblog
  @ Amtrak May Be Reviving the Tradition of Train Dining Cars  - Eater
  ~ put scooter in Molly for possible photo shoots this week
    -> batteries on both scooters appear to be flat. Check again tomorrow
    -> 7:30 the old scooter at least lights up, but still not charged. growf.
  % having a lot of trouble staying focused.

1101Mo Día de Muertos
  & awake 3:55; S=4:45; back down 4ish but don't think I slept at all after that.
    % spent much of the time after that curled up in a ball and quivering.  A couple of
      times I wanted to cry, but couldn't.  Some Supreme Court worries, some bad memories.
      Don't know what the rest of it was.
    % On the plus side, Ticia stayed with me all night, cuddled next to my head, purring
  * up 6:30; W=200.4, S=6:30;
  @ Day of the Dead
  * before leaving RE collect:  night guard, drugs, CPAP (leave humidifier tub), ballot
  * check scooter batteries  -> both are completely dead.  No change from yesterday.  damn
  * call Freeshipping 1-800-869-5597 and cancel Colleen's account
    -> they'll also refund back to July 12.  Watch for refund in 3-5 business days
  : realized that the place to order more death certificates is the county.
  * cancel whatever Colleen was subscribed to at $A -> prime.  Will refund
  * Bagels: 4 salt, 2 everything, 1 cinnamon raisin. 6 plain 2 tubs plain cream cheese
  * deposit ballots in drop box
  * mail (actually, UPS express) signed trust paperwork
  % 3:30ish very tense/anxious/something around dealing with a combination of email and
    text.  stuff got missed.  I got... overloaded? freaked? both? something else?
    unclear.  quite possibly triggered my "middle-man bear" PTSD I blame myself for
    communication screwups even when they're not my fault.
  % earworm:  fragments of "Let the Birds Fly"
  % 5:30ish somewhat out of it.  Sleep?
  % feeling cold ever since I got here.  6:30 put on purple jacket, started heating pad
    (of course, drinking iced water isn't helping, but I seem to need that too.)
  % 7:30ish falling asleep  Too early for bed.
  * upgrade phone to Android 12.  Now widgets have rounded corners.  Whee.
    -> Now the Apollo isn't connecting; was going to upgrade it m's isn't working either,
       since last week -- apparently it's a bug.  It was supposed to have been fixed in a
       couple of days. This does not inspire confidence.
    -> However it appears to be stuck on "sleep", so I can keep restarting it in that mode
  @ Trojan Source Attacks
    Bidi overrides in comments.  Resource paper here [PDF] Yipe!!
    ‘Trojan Source’ Bug Threatens the Security of All Code – Krebs on Security
    nickboucher/trojan-source: Trojan Source: Invisible Vulnerabilities
    Warning about bidirectional Unicode text | GitHub Changelog
    but... research!rsc: On “Trojan Source” Attacks
  * ~on arrival~, put cat bags in suitcase
  % meloxicam with pm drugs 10:15ish

1102Tu Día de Muertos
  * up 7:45 (alarm); S=7:38, BP=118/78, P=60;
    & reset alarm to 7:30
  @ Google's 'Be Evil' business transformation is complete • The Register
    Unredacted court filing [pdf]
    fasterthanlime on Twitter: "Ok so, I just read through all 173 pages of the
    unredacted Google antitrust filing and I have to say that either Google is screwed or
    society is screwed, we'll find out which."
  @ stefanie on
    Twitter: "I thought my first flight with @Delta was dehumanizing. This flight was
    somehow worse. Delta “lost my wheelchair” & I was the last one on the plane for
    40+ minutes, unable to go pee without my partner— who had to run around tracking down
    my chair. https://t.co/GkTdKznXnR" / Twitter (via @rowanf)
  % 11:35 and back pain ~4.5.  grumph
  : Android 12 dark theme is great except the phone log is unusable
  % skip meloxicam - NSAIDs are not advised prior to COVID-19 vax (though I only
    remembered that a few seconds _after_ I'd decided not to take it.)

1103We
  * up 5:45; S=6:42;
  @ Site Verification Services – WordPress.com Support how-to for several services
  ~  12:15 pm COVID-19 Moderna booster  Walgreens Store # 3788  14510 AURORA AVE N
     -> didn't have a record of my appointment.  Did I not confirm something?
     -> tried to make another appointment, but the website hangs on the last step.
        Probably cookies, but foobar anyway.
     -> Pharmaca, on 45th St., takes walk-ins but don't do shots between 12 and 2.
        so I'm sitting here in their parking lot.
     % very stressed out.  Driving was anxiety-provoking; wimped out of several left turns
  % feeling cold most of the afternoon.  Because I was drinking ice water?  Or vax?
  & did cat boxes - N was in rather bad shape and the vaccine side-effects haven't hit yet
    % a little hard on my back though -> heat
  & N suggested that I take a water bottle out to the lair with me, in case.

1104Th
  & awake 4:25; S=5:59; headache, some uscle aches -> heat
    % got up to pee; sore but not unsteady
  * up 7:30ish; S=8:24; 
    % muscle aches, lower back pain, headache -> heat
    % unable to get comfortable; need coffee and calories
  % 9ish achy; naproxen
  : N brought out some grits and ice water around 10am; feeling much better
  : came out to the house a little after noon.  used my folding cane, which has been
    hanging out behind the passenger's seat in Molly.  (I'd been using Colleen's folding
    cane, which is prettier, but I gave it to N a few weeks ago when she needed it.)
  * ginger/honey tea in the afternoon.  Helps with the shivering if not nothing else
  * Apollo _finally_ fixed the connection issue in their app; after several misses, N came
    out and walked me through the process which I'd _thought_ I'd followed, but I must
    have gotten something out of sequence.  Anyway, it appears to work now.
  : dinner - Indian.  Chicken Biryani, garlic naan, gulab jamun.  % shivering is worse
  % a rather miserable night.  Woke up at least twice, and the blanket kept slipping off
    -> cue "When You're Lying Awake With a Dismal Headache..."

1105Fr
  * up 8ish; S=7:00;
    % back pain. -> naproxen
  @ UTR #36: Unicode Security Considerations
  % naproxen 10:30ish with pm drugs
  * getting Honu on Panther updated required some work to recover xmonad config after
    having made changes that conflicted with upstream's better ones

1106Sa
  * up 7:15; S=7:51;
  * make sure that cat bags are in the suitcase
  * before leaving RS collect:  night guard, drugs, CPAP (leave humidifier tub)
  * Molly's owner website is moving:  go to chevrolet.com and select My Account
    -> site mentions "energy features, such as EV route planning" under "family sharing".
       Chat with agent to find out about this feature, since there's no info on the site.
    -> only available for 2022 MY or later.  Foo.
  @ ABetterRoutePlanner.com
    A Better Route Planner
  @ PlugShare EV Trip Planner accessible through hamburger menu, upper left corner
  @ Electrify America: U.S. EV public charging network | Electrify America
  * on the way up, check S's mailbox.  -Going up with N-
  * mail for c in backpack
  $ $50 to ACLU via AX (phone solicitation)
  * after arrival: * water orchids  * sort mail
  % naproxen 11:30

Comments

[librarygeek]

I haven't gotten a booster yet, but I crossed several county lines for the first vaccination and am really uneasy about how to get a booster and not go through all that again. 💉🤷‍♀️

I will get one, congenital heart disease means I know to get any vaccine offered.

[mdlbear]

At this point they should be available at most pharmacies. Pretty much anyplace you can get a flu shot. You don't have to prove you need it; just check any of the appropriate boxes.

[librarygeek]

Thanks for the reassurance. I'll figure out which place has the least number of maskless people tomorrow to wait within HVAC systems.

[freyjaw]

Here in SW Riverside County, drugstores with vaccines are all over, despite being a red county. We need more shots in arms.

[andyheninger]

Ha, Walgreens. I got my booster there (Pfizer), and found them to be amazingly disorganized. They were having a hell of a time getting anything entered into their computer system. Vaccine check-in and prescription pickups were going through the same lines, and prescription insurance handling seemed to be having all kinds of problems too.

The shot itself gave me no side effects, other than some minor soreness in my arm. But Pfizer uses a much lower dose than Moderna.

On a completely unrelated note, I stumbled across a series of blog posts on restoring an old Xerox Alto, and thought of you. http://www.righto.com/2016/06/y-combinators-xerox-alto-restoring.html
(There are ten additional postings, scattered over several months)

It's fascinating stuff, especially the way the multi-tasking microcode works. Or, in this case, didn't, which presented a good hardware debugging problem.

Alan Kay shows up in the comments, also interesting to read.

[mdlbear]

Yeah -- Alto was cool. The multitasking microcode was especially cool. The lowest-priority task emulated the instruction set of a Data General Nova.

I'd used Smalltalk, and used OO techniques (in 6800 assembler) in the text editor I wrote at AMI. I implemented bitblt in Z80 assembly language at Zilog but didn't do anything interested with it.