Hey There!
It's 7:55 AM EDT, 69°F, Humidity 94%, Wind 3 mph NE, overcast
Yesterday was an up-and-down day, with a bit of drama mixed with the mundane routines of living. The dreary days are approaching.
After my morning routine I set off for a long-awaited appointment with an orthopedist. Once he walked into the room, I knew who he was. He was working in the practice of an older ortho who, in 2018, did nothing to relieve my knee pain at the time and simply recommended cortisone shots. I let him inspect my foot, and he moved it around some. The X-rays didn't show anything unusual other than some expected arthritis. By the end of the examination, he declared nothing was structurally wrong, but if I was feeling pain, he had a shot or two ready to give me. I declined, and went on my way. I'm going to have to look for another orthopedist if I want to investigate further, because I simply don't trust these shot-givers. I think it's really a case of creeping arthritis, and nothing to be done about that. It's an irritant, but nothing I can't live with. Most of the time I don't even feel anything. No need for shots.
Arriving back home, I got a phone call from an old colleague. We chat once in a while. He's 82 now, and he was on the hiring committee that gave me my first job out of graduate school. He voted no on hiring me, the only one on the committee to do so. He didn't like my suit. We've since gone on to collaborate on producing his plays and have continued to stay in touch. He likes to ramble, so we chat about his kids (not mine) and he talks about getting one last book of poems out. I was on with him for about 45 minutes.
In the meantime, Son2 is running into the usual "surprises" when you buy a house. Everyone told him the appraiser's report would come back at least at the price he won the bid for, but it didn't. It came back about $20K lower, and that pushed over a lot of dominoes. I won't bore you with all the details, but it's screwed up his arrangement with his lender, and it may cost him an extra $20K in cash to make up the difference between the appraiser's report and his bid. Both DW and I spent some time listening to his problem, but other than possibly throwing money at the matter, we can't be of much help. The real estate landscape is way beyond our knowledge and experience, as we bought our house in 1988, and things have most definitely changed. I do not envy anyone who is trying to navigate through the immense pile of BS that is the housing market.
In the between time, I began to do final work on my computers to make sure they are all ready to go to Goodwill. I took out the RAM and SSD from the computer that was glitchy. I put the SSD into an enclosure, and essentially have a 500GB external drive that can boot a computer. I updated Son2's Windoze miniPC to get it ready to bring to him tomorrow in exchange for his MacBook M1. It's too bad the Toshiba can't take the RAM and the HP14 Stream can't take the SSD. I have everything else I need, so I think I am set.
DW made these beef tenderloins (I think that's the common term for filet mignon) in a balsamic vinegar marinade, and they were spectacular. She paired them with rice pilaf and a side salad. Excellent meal!
The evening was spent first watching the condensed ballgame that took place in the afternoon. It was a 13-inning loss, with some spectacular ways to lose by both teams going on. I also watched the weekly SIdetrack Adventure before joining DW for the first game of the Women's Professional Baseball League (WPBL) Championship. The LA Queens took Game 1 from the SF Firebells by a score of 7-6. Again, it's going to be a series of who makes the least mistakes, and how the pitching plays out.
After the game was over, I did a little bit of mindless web surfing. I landed a little bit on the topic of e-bikes. I own one, but I seldom ride it. I bought it in 2017, and it was the top of the line back then. What these things can do now is incredible, and every day I see a large number of them cruising past my house. It's slowly dawning on me that two-wheeled transportation may be in my past, I love driving my Leaf around for errands, and it's an all-weather EV, so the bike seems to have lost its major purpose. Maybe it's time to sell it. There's a lot of re-adjusting I have to do within the next year. Bedtime was 11:25 PM.
Notable deaths: Peter Max, Op-Art Day-Glo artist of the 60s, 88. Annie Dillard, meditative author sometimes called the female Thoreau, 81.
That's all for now. 'Til We Meet Again!