Aww, sorry to hear about your uncle, Decrepit. Condolences to you and your brother. Hope you two are able to make the trip okay.

Thanks. More is now known. As of now I'll tag along with my bro and attend Saturday asternoon Burial Service, but not visitation. (My bro has to work a bit Sat morning.)

Ya boy's presentation went very well. I had actually done one a couple months ago as well. Still a bit rusty and I stuttered a few times, but apart from that it was successful and enjoyed by all who were there.

I practiced it the other night and felt I rambled on too much, so I condensed it a bit lol. I will get it up here as soon as I can, for anyone who wants to see the final thing.

As threatened, I finished my lawn mow last night. So little was left to mow that I was done in well under five minutes...discounting the fellow who flagged me down just after I'd fired up the mower to ask if I had any useless junk lying around he could haul off. (Go figure.)

I must report that, as expected, the recently purchased mattress topper didn't pan out. At first I thought it might. For several days (nights) my neck did hurt less while lying on my back. But at the same time my shoulder blades gradually started hurting more and more. After the second day my lower back started hurting. Eventually neck pain too began worsening again.

For now I've given up on the bed entirely and am sleeping on my side in my 30+ year old ultra cheap second-hand mushy living room sofa. Awkward as all get out, and not very comfortable, but for whatever reason it causes less shoulder pain and slightly less neck pain when side-sleeping than the bed does. (Less pain lying on my back too, but not quite enough so to make it a viable option. Besides, the sofa is too narrow for back sleeping.)

Thickness is 2" though it is patterned so that the "grooves" are less than that. It's also rather soft, or so it seems to me. I suspect my pain issues come from it eventually bottoming out so that I am once again resting more or less directly atop my very firm mattress. As to other dimensions, it is a "Queen Size" topper.

The 3" "soft" version of this topper intrigues me. Lots of good reviews, and doesn't seem to bottom out. But at $299 it's a great financial risk. That's a heck of lot to spend on something that might prove no more beneficial than previous toppers and other pain relief bedding gizmos.

A non exercise-walk day for me, my first in quite some time, thanks to rain and winds from Harvey. We're not expected to get more than 3-5" ran total, spread throughout the day. I'm not worried about potential flooding, though we are under a flash flood watch until some time tomorrow.

No projects planned for the day, except maybe putz around a bit on my Experimental Oblivion Build. Still have a number of unacceptably sub par visuals, especially outdoors in sunny broad daylight, the very conditions where vanilla Oblivion does its best. No idea what I might be doing wrong. If and when I ever unearth the cause, it'll prolly be something simple and obvious.

Slept until 0534 this morning, unheard of for me, thanks to having taken a sleeping pill just prior to bedtime last night. I prolly would not have slept so long had I been on my bed. The sofa is just enough more comfortable (which isn't saying much) to let me sleep a bit longer than usual.

Has an unexpected add-on to yesterday's exercise-walk. During my first trip down our street I noticed a car parked on the road in front of one house with its driver's side front door wide open. Paperwork and envelops were scattered nearby. No one was in sight. My original thought was that the owner must have recently rushed into the house for whatever reason. But during my second and final walk down the street, some twenty-plus minutes later, nothing had changed. More, I noticed yet more paperwork scattered a good two or three houses further down the road. Coward that I am, I almost ignored it. In the end I drummed up enough courage to knock on the door when the car was parked. No one responded for quite some time, though I heard kids inside. I was almost to the point of alerting the police...just in case...when a fellow opened the door. It was indeed his car. He was unaware, so he said, of the situation. He didn't seem all that interested in it either, which seemed odd to me. I sort of goaded him into at least retrieving the spilled paperwork, which looked to be medical and/or insurance billings. I let things go at that and finished the walk.

My project yesterday evening and this morning was to replace a super blurry shrub texture discovered while my OCOv2 avatar explored Ancient Yews forest. Took forever to figure out exactly which texture belonged to that particular shrub, as RefScope ignores shrubs, free-standing grasses, and the like. That done, I needed to find a suitable replacement that both looked good and blended with existing shrubs. This proved quite a chore. None of the several downloadable replacements I unearthed fit the bill. I resorted to renaming shrub leaf textures, with no better results. In the end I used a tree leave texture, heavily doctored in Paint.NET. This is the result The replacement being seen at near left and also to its right across the trail. It needs further work but gets the job done...for now.

As for the rest of the day, I'll likely mow after supper.

Other than my weekly grocery run and an exercise-walk the only project tackled was to redo the shrubms14boxwoodleaves01 texture mentioned yesterday in better quality, and created a JapaneseRedMaple alternative. I prefer the green version, but the Maple adds a bit of pizzazz.

Ha! I knew it! The Propranolol order got messed up. The Neurologist office mistakenly (?) sent it to my local Walmart rather than Express Scripts. It costs me an addition $120 a year or more buying it locally. Gonna have to contact my Neurologist again and let them know how to correct the situation. I could attempt to transfer the prescription online myself, but Express Scripts needs to verify the transfer with my Neurologist, and I don't trust them to get it right without me first explaining exactly what's going on. (I keep Walmart as a secondary pharmacy for those times I need "emergency" one-off medicines that can't wait on mail-order delivery. Otherwise it's Express Scripts all the way. The savings is normally substantial, though our ever munificent Congress is working to make it less so for us military retirees.)

I've not yet walked today. It's too bloody cold! In the fifties! You younger and/or more robust folk are probably comfortable with those temperatures. Me, I start shivering once the thermostat reaches about seventy. Rest assured I'll walk once it warms a bit...unless I forgot. That's always a possibility the longer I hold off.

As this week's grocery list was rather minuscule I had ample funds to dine out during my errand run. My plan was to eat lunch at our one All-You-can-Eat American style buffet restaurant. Only, I need to drive by my favorite Chinese Buffet to get there. It was too much to resist. Almost without meaning to I found myself in the Chinese joint. It proved a big mistake. I piled my place high with goodies as always, set down and began to chow down. Maybe five bites later I realized I was not in a mood for Oriental food. Not in the slightest. Everything tasted repugnant, more so as I continued on. Before the half-way point I was struggling to force myself to eat. Me being me I made it to the bitter end. About the only enjoyment I derived from the experience was getting to use chopsticks, which as stated previously I far prefer for Oriental Cuisine.

My grocery run was a letdown in that Walmart was out of of Sugar Free Strawberry Preserves, the only sugar free variety I enjoy with any regularity. I settled for SF Grape Jelly (or is it Jam?), but yesterday's breakfast proved that to be a mistake. Very little flavor, and what little flavor it has isn't very appealing.

Walmart was also out of lettuce. I might have enough left of my current head to last the week if I ration myself. And if the lettuce doesn't go bad first, as can happen. I don't mind brown lettuce up to a point, but draw the line when it gets mushy and slimy.

Early Afternoon ADDENDUM:
1) Got in touch with my Neurologist office this morning. They promised to switch the Propranolol prescription to Express Scripts for me. Lo and behold, they did! Express Scripts shows it now being processed. I suppose I shouldn't pat myself on the back until the med is in the mail. But as of now all appears well. <crosses fingers>

2) When I check outside soon after posting here this morning I was surprised that it felt warmer than my online weather channel of choice said it was. Warm enough to walk. In fact I ended up removing my sweatshirt after a few minutes on the road.

Just finished a 1000-piece puzzle. And that's coming from a guy who isn't into doing puzzles, so I feel fairly proud of finishing this one. But it was one on U.S. presidents, so that's what got me to do it.

My first real assignment for grad school is due on Wednesday, although it will possibly get pushed back because of Hurricane Irma. But I am hoping to knock it out today and tomorrow so I don't have to worry about it.

I only made a modicum of progress this week on my preliminary blog posts before I actually launch one, but I hope to do some more on them this week.

Oh, I know you were. Sorry, I should've made that clear.

As aforementioned, it was of the U.S. Presidents. Well, it isn't completely up to date, since Donald Trump is not on it (I suppose not being up to date was why it was on clearance ). I think it's a pretty cool thing to have and do though, regardless of what I think of any of them.

I'll try to snap a picture of it when I get the chance, if you want to see.

Behold my masterpiece!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3mo7sc636gm6wnf/P...Puzzle.jpg?dl=0

Nice puzzle. Back in my pre-PC days I enjoyed assembling jigsaw puzzles every now and again. Still have eighteen of them on a shelf. The largest, at 4000 pieces, is a humorous take on the Battle of Trafalgar by Ryba, seen here advertised in a reduced 2000 piece edition. My oldest are three (US) Civil War Centennial puzzles, battle scenes taken from that era's romanticized lithographs. Other than the Centennial puzzles (600+ pieces) and Trafalgar, most of my span the 1500-2000 piece range. I don't believe I've touched one in decades.

Well, I'm hosed. AT&T performed the switch from DSL to U-Verse this morning. Once everything was in place I went online to test my new "improved" speed. Download speed, which normally hovered around 315kbs with DSL is now just over 200kbs. Some upgrade. According to the rep I just spoke with, only the slowest speed U-verse is available in my area. What the...? What happened to the 3x speed I was originally promised? They're are sending out a tech Monday to see routing me differently can open up faster speeds, but make no promises. I'm not holding my breath. (The tech who made the switch today said I had a solid 18mb connection, if memory serves. But what does he know?) My only saving grace is that, based on one brief visit, I can still view YouTube videos at 480p.

Projects today and yesterday:

Yesterday:
Scheduled and attended a medical appointment with my Primary Care Physician. For around two months now I've suffered pain at my right elbow to one side of my "funny bone." It varies from barely noticeable to intense, and can be inconsistently triggered or worsened by a variety of movements with that arm/wrist. It never totally vanishes. For a stretch of several days it sometimes diminishes to the point I think it's about to fade to nothing, only to resurface full force.

The long and short of it is that, assuming the doctoring is correct, I have "tennis elbow". The good news is that, according to him, it should eventually go away without need of any sort of fancy procedure. For now I need to wear a "splint" just below my elbow joint that supposedly keeps me from aggravating the area quite so much. It's nothing elaborate, more or less a pressure band. It makes certain forearm movements difficult, so that it's now a major pain to do such things as brush my teeth, pull on/off T-shirts or sweatshirts, even put food/drink in my mouth. I was told to take Extra Strength Tylenol, but not why. Thankfully, computer usage doesn't trigger pain and is not much bothered by "splint."

Stopped by Walmart to pick up the afore mentioned Tylenol. Also bought one of sammiches kept near their deli counter, which I had for supper. Not bad at all.

Found a YouTube video, based on Bevilex Modlist, that offers 1440p resolution. It ran flawlessly for about seven minutes, then began to repeated freeze. I finally gave up the attempt and dropped to 1080p, which worked like a charm (as I knew it would). 1440p not being dependable doesn't bother me. I suspected that would be the case going in. Besides, too much viewing at that resolution might prove catastrophic for my monthly data cap.

Today:
Not yet much to report. Got in my exercise-walk circa 0700. First time since early spring I wore full sweats and toboggan outside. Also carried an umbrella, which wasn't needed. Forgot to take a heart reading afterwards.

Cavator project:

*Washing
*Lubing
*Fueling

Before that some more rock removal. FINALLY those specific ones are gone!

*snip*
(Maybe my decrepit avatar has rubbed off on me. An old watched up never-was, at a time of life when I expecting to vegetate my days away in senile contentment, suddenly finding myself in some small measure attempting to thwart those I see as perils of the realm. Any true comparison between the two of us is ludicrous, but still...)

Made some more progress on preliminary posts for that blog I want to launch. I want to make sure I have a full plan in place before I flip the switch, but I have a working title for it. When I completely finish a post, I may even give a sneak peak here if anybody wants to see it.

I've got 2 posts pertaining to political science that need final edits. I currently have 4 video game posts in the works, with one needing final edits. I'll say now that I plan on doing a full retrospective on the Elder Scrolls games I've beaten/completed a significant portion of. These are all the TES games except for Battlespire (only have 1 hour in that), Legends, and the mobile games (pretty sure I'll never get to play those). I really want to get Arena, Daggerfall, and Redguard done, since I think Morrowind onward will need to be longer. They aren't meant to be all-encompassing reviews, but I would like to go over as much of them as is reasonable.

The categories that I am planning on launching with are political science, history, video games, sports, and astronomy. I have a lot more ideas for the first three right now, but I do want to try to spread it out somewhat evenly.

Hopefully a good amount of people will actually like reading my blathering about stuff.

Not much to report here. Getting in an exercise-walk each morning has been the highlight (the only light most days, truth to tell) of my days. This morning was a bit different. Just a few minutes ago I called the DC Offices of my two Senators to urge them to vote against the renomination of FCC Chairman Pai and to oppose any and all attempt to weaker or abolish Net Neutrality as it currently exists. As with all my calls, these will likely fall on deaf ears, but I gotta try.)

As I entered the house following my exercise-walk, the phone was in the process of recording an incoming message. I was too late to pick up and talk with the caller. Before I could play back the message the phone rang again. It was my cousin, the son of my sole surviving aunt and uncle, the uncle being my dad's younger brother. Alas, my uncle passed away peacefully in his sleep at home circa 0430 this morning. Details are not yet finalized, but the Burial is tentatively set for this coming Saturday. I will attend if at all possible. I hope my brother is available to drive us, as neither my car nor myself is in peak condition for so long a trip. That said, if Bro can't make it, this is one event I might at least consider risking on my own....maybe.

As I entered the house following my exercise-walk, the phone was in the process of recording an incoming message. I was too late to pick up and talk with the caller. Before I could play back the message the phone rang again. It was my cousin, the son of my sole surviving aunt and uncle, the uncle being my dad's younger brother. Alas, my uncle passed away peacefully in his sleep at home circa 0430 this morning. Details are not yet finalized, but the Burial is tentatively set for this coming Saturday. I will attend if at all possible. I hope my brother is available to drive us, as neither my car nor myself is in peak condition for so long a trip. That said, if Bro can't make it, this is one event I might at least consider risking on my own....maybe.

Oh, this is amazing! I thought it would be rectangular with their torsos included for some reason! This must have been really challenging!

Thanks. It was a little difficult since I don't do puzzles, but not too much. It took a while, but since it was of something interesting to me the time didn't bother me really.

It was actually easier to start from the inside rather than the outside. Since the outside pieces all looked similar it was a bit tedious to connect them, while for the actual presidential portraits it was (mostly) easier to find pieces that went together.

Project Erect Old Garage Walls Taken From Elsewhere*

Calling in the big guns
Walls secured

Easy-peasy with the help from our friend. We can now get on with getting the roof on which we will build with parts from another teared-down building.

* working title

Holy Cow, Mirocu! Are you expanding the one shed or will this just sit next to it? This is amazing, I am always stunned by how much you have accomplished around these properties!

It looked to Khajiit like it was sitting next to the existing shed, rather than an expansion of the old shed.

Oh, I wouldn't have thought of that, but I'll bet the faces did make it easier to do the inside first! How rarely that happens! Is it really big?

Project Erect Old Garage Walls Taken From Elsewhere*

Calling in the big guns
Walls secured

Easy-peasy with the help from our friend. We can now get on with getting the roof on which we will build with parts from another teared-down building.




* working title

Wow, mirocu. You sure believe in big projects! A whole garage! I'm sure it will come out wonderfully.

Holy Cow, Mirocu! Are you expanding the one shed or will this just sit next to it? This is amazing, I am always stunned by how much you have accomplished around these properties!

Hey 'rocu, y'all don't have snakes to surprise you in your work shed, hunh?

Noice.

Only one kind that is poisonous, and I reckon it's getting too cold for them to be very active now..

1000 pieces, 27" x 20", so it is fairly big.

UPDATE: We have now secured the walls properly to each other so all those temporary support beams are now gone. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera today so no pixies. I can prolly post them on Wednesday.

*mALX taps foot, looks at watch and then glances at calendar...*

Squirrels and gentlemembers, you can stop your fot-tapping now


This is as far as we got this weekend. Come next weekend, plus the following three days I take off for hunting, I reckon we will have roof on!

I know it looks a bit shabby but it will do its job nicely

Mirocu, nice progress and glad you're not rushing it. Thanks for the pic. Looks like its going to be a useful, sturdy garage!

Oh, that wood is in amazing shape! There is a LOT of wood salvaging done in my area; they have barns that are over a hundred years old that people salvage the wood from and make wood flooring with that is spectacular! Tell Father Mirocu that I said "Good find on that wood for his shed!"

Hopefully, anyway


Yeah, it's good he wanted to salvage it. It's the second garage for him actually

I think it is amazing how you and your Dad have revamped these properties!! I will never forget the image of that first driveway, that was Awesome with the red color! (before crushing, lol).

Thoust meaneth this?

Starting a new LP series. I'm playing the PC port of Ys Seven.

Wish I could follow it in the mornings like I did with the RE LP. We'll see what happens from my end.

Roof finished.


We even filled in old holes, again; just before it started to rain. Now we can focus on boarding it up. I don't think we have enough material ourselves for that but we can take some from my dad's cousin. Especially if we don't say anything

Roof finished.


We even filled in old holes, again; just before it started to rain. Now we can focus on boarding it up. I don't think we have enough material ourselves for that but we can take some from my dad's cousin. Especially if we don't say anything

Roof finished.

We even filled in old holes, again; just before it started to rain. Now we can focus on boarding it up. I don't think we have enough material ourselves for that but we can take some from my dad's cousin. Especially if we don't say anything

Hit a bit of a snag today when boarding up the back of the garage.

The sides are not perfectly straight which we did not think about when we started boarding up. Had to remove everything, put two extra pieces at the bottom and one in the middle (to make the wall vertical and not leaning inwards) and then put the boards back up. When we do the long side we'll have to tinker some more but I think we can make it look good in the end. At least I know what to do.

Sigh.

Removed outer front end today in order to chainsaw the long bottom piece a bit. Right front end leaned outwards quite a bit so adjustment was necessary. It actually is perfectly straight now as we checked with a level. Not too shabby considering I used a friggin chainsaw and didn't measure anything

Glad it is fixed, don't want it falling in on you and the dear little yellow 'Cavator!

Not the same garage, my furry friend

Update pic

Squirrel!!! .

New Ys Seven video.
Part 3 .

This game does look fun!

Welp, Khajiit's hard apple cider has sat in secondary fermentation for long enough. Tonight it's getting bottled if it turned out ok.

This one can't remember; Khajiit has own apple trees?