Phew, the association flower beds are done! Today was a lot easier than yesterday. No broken sprinkler systems to repair. And they are all in very shady areas so it was a very pleasant 68 degrees, and just the slightest breeze. I had to load a lot of the soil, and mulch and shovels and so on into the El Camino and drive through the neighborhood to the other gardens. Lots easier than toting in in a wheelbarrow.

One other couple in the neighborhood helped us. The husband had open heart surgery a few weeks ago and is under doctors orders to not lift anything over 40 pounds so he was no help on the heavy stuff. His wife is a a lot stronger than my wife, so she and I did the heavy lifting. My wife ran the show and did the actual stick the plant in the hols we dug, and spread the top soil and mulch.

The good news is it is done. We had a few of the residents stop and chat as they were off on a walk. I told them we had extra shovels but they were all on a schedule it seems. ;)

This morning at 9:00 AM when we were digging in the flowerbeds, a contractor crew was there looking for an issue. The neighborhood association has an electric meter that runs the sprinkler system. That is all it does, and the bill is always the minimum charge for delivery. The meter is typical 240 meter with two 120 volt legs. One leg went bad, but the sprinkler worked fine so we don't care. The problem is if the smart meter does not see both legs as active, it phones home and a trouble ticket is issued. They can't find the bad spot. So the first two guys were sitting there waiting on a real power company employee to show up and authorize a next step. His solution was to just change it to a 120 volt meter, and be done. But yet another guy had to show up to make the final determination. So I had three orange trucks in front of my house (no big deal) and 4 people on the payroll for the power company to make the decision and get it fixed up.

The association treasurer was there, and he is retired from the same company, so I figured they needed more supervision and joined in the group. I asked if I needed a shovel to lean on and they said it was unnecessary. ;)

They think the issue is likely under part of my back yard, but no reason to mess with it. Of course I have my sprinkler system with pipes, french drains and 220 volts running to the water well. It looks like no digging will be needed. :D

If you had to dig, they could call out okdig and mark everything underground they needed to hit and mess up.

We were planting stuff in a flower bed. Just a foot deep in a flower bed. We did not call Okie. For my back yard, they would have a big mess. I have a head every 12 feet in a grid. Pipes everywhere, a french drain, and the main trench has the 220 line in it for the water well. The Cable TV is in a conduit and it is just under the grass. The natural gas line comes in as well, and the sewer line is way deep, but it is back there. The AT&T phone line is next to the pond, but we don't use it.

And of course the water well itself, but that is a big straight pipe going straight down for 220 feet.

My problem has been they always want to run new stuff where the other stuff already is.

After two days of digging in the associations flowerbeds we are done. But my outdoor chores are only starting. Our back porch looks like a garden center with plants everywhere in need of planting. To top off yesterday the new pond pump came in, so that was changed out. In the past the pump just locked up and stopped. This one had some sort of short internally. It would cycle on and off. The ground fault circuit did not pop, but the pump would run for two minutes, then stop for 5. I figured rather than risk shocking the fish, I would just unplug it. The new one is in place. All back to normal.

Good morning all.

So how is the IT department? Are you working from home still?

Nope. I was only working from home a couple days when I had a cold. We are still good and no cases have shown up at the facility. We all wear a surgical mask and face shield when not in our offices to make sure we don't make anyone sick or get sick from anyone else. We do have a wing set aside for isolation as well and anyone new has to be in that wing for 14+ days. Our CEO gets to be on TV for an interview today.

I finally broke down and got some more work done on the Cobra. The main wire from the battery to the starter used to go through the cockpit and I pulled that all back and it runs tucked up under the body now. It is about 2 feet too long now. Doing the same with the wire loom that goes through. It will clean up the already tight cockpit and allow for a little more room for the seat to slide back. Then the seats go in and it is ready to drive again.

We had lots of thunderstorms come through Oklahoma last night. The bad hail was all south of us fortunately. Golf ball and baseball sized hail is bad pookie. It can kill horses or cattle, and will total out a car in short order. We got .01 inches of rain out of it.

More storms today. So far just rain. I don't mind rain the just washes down the drain. That lumpy - chunky rain is something I prefer to avoid.

They say to keep a chunk of hail the size of a baseball suspended in the air takes 300 MPH updrafts. Then they fall at 90 MPH and can you image getting hit with a baseball thrown at 90 MPH. Similar force to a 22 long rifle on impact, only spread out over the larger area.

We are supposed to have scattered thunderstorms today. Chunky rain is always bad.

We got up at 6:30 and made the early run to Sam's for the geezer hours. They sanitize the place, after restocking it, and then open the doors at 7:00 AM. It was semi-busy. Mrs Carrera decided we should get more TP and they had hundreds of the 45 double roll packages. We were down to 40 rolls in stock so we are loaded up now. I think it was a bit early to stock up, but happy wife = happy life and it sure was not worth an argument.

We also scored some disinfectant wipes. The main goal of course was the fruit run. That was a total success. The app made it easy to not interact with anyone.

Woke up at 4am and this thread fell to 2nd page. Noooooooo...

After having watched Star Trek Discovery and figuring out it was after Enterprise and before Capt. Kirk Star Trek I have been re-watching the Enterprise episodes. It is interesting in that it is before the Federation, just Star Fleet alone. The Vulcans are snooty and look at us as kids with a new gun as a toy and dangerous. The Enterprise is not even a NCC registration just NC-01 and it is the first starship and they are the first humans to explore outside of the solar system. And Warp 4.5 is their normal top speed. They don't trust the transporter for humans to transport around unless it is a big emergency. No Photon torpedoes, and phasers are really weak.

The Science officer is a Vulcan woman, and for some reason wears very tight form fitting uniform. Played by Jolene Blalock and nice eye candy. Like 7 of 9, nice figure but that is a different series.

How do the doors open only when you want to enter a room and not while you are just walking down the hallway and pass them? Maybe they were like the syrus cybernetics elevators in Hitchhikers guide that had just enough precognition to arrive at a floor when someone needed an elevator.

Remember when that dinosaurs show had a civil war between the dinosaurs that walked on two legs versus four over whether pistachios were a snaking nut. It was hilarious. At one point they elevated the fighting to throwing sticks and stones. ...Not the Momma.

On Enterprise sometimes they poke a button to get the door to open. They don't have the communicator badges and have to press a button on the wall to talk on board. They do have the communicator that flips open when they leave the ship. I guess in the later versions of the series the computer is using facial recognition and motion sensing to see just way way you are walking to know if you want to go through a door. There are some funny outtakes on of the original series when the human that actually operated the door missed the cue, and the crew would walk into the door.

The Enterprise series was filmed in the early 2000s so computer graphics are possible. There was no CG in the original series. The planets that they visited were the truly great graphic of the show. The weapons and tools were silly bad in the 1960 designed for low def, blurry TV of the era. The remastered HD version shows how bad the props really were.

Everyone knows the answer to life the universe and everyting is 42. But do you know the question earth was built to determine was known by Marvin the depressed robot with a brain the size of a planet. Just nobody asked him.

Morning all. Been a busy few days. Seems someone forgot a pipe line so iso's needed to be made, corrected and plotted asap.

TGIF!!!!! Or is it really?

My sister in law just retired a few weeks ago. My brother retired a few years back.

He went through the house and stopped all the clocks, and put the calendar in a drawer. A few days ago his wife was all mad because the missed the trash day and he told her honey, it is Wednesday, not Friday. When she asks what day it is he always replies Saturday to day and Saturday tomorrow. Of course she is used to having appointments to get her hair cut, and nails done or meetings with clubs. All those are closed so she is lost.

I told him he needs to find a hobby for her ASAP or she will go nuts.

Know it is Thursday because I can hear the lawn crew doing the neighborhood on the other side of my back fence. Don't hear trash collection on Tuesdays until it's too late. Set an alarm on my phone for trash days. Well actually, goes off the day before since our bins are supposed to be crub side by 6:30am.

Oh yeah, most Saturdays I hear the test Air Raid/Tornado Sirens go off at Noon. That would be the perfect time to bomb the place.

Brother does all his meetings with zoom now.