As I first sat down to write this, I didn't feel I continued the rapid achievements of August and September in October. But some things did get done as well as good times being had. After thinking about it, maybe a lot did get done after all.
Queen's Bathroom
Biggest change to the appearance and functionality of the bathroom in many years was a small and inexpensive upgrade:
Finally, after 23 years, I replaced the old dingy shower curtain with a new one which is very pretty. I also repositioned the shower curtain rod, moving it just above the inside of the tub. Previously it had been 5 inches further out. This small change means that now no water leaks out onto the bathroom floor. No water even leaks behind the shower guard now. I did not imagine it becoming this good from a couple of simple changes.
For years I had struggled with water leakage. About 3 years ago a virtual pool of water formed outside the bathtub after each shower. I then bought a shower curtain corner shield at Lowes, but it only lessened the leakage slightly. It has always been problematical because the corner between bathtub and shower isn't perfectly square (btw: it never is, and the better shower guards you can get online have adjustable angle to fit). If you press the shower guard against the wall, it pulls up from the bathtub, and vice versa. I had always figured those inevitable gaps to be the source of the water leakage…but they weren't. In fact, done rightly as it is now, the shield isn't needed at all. But when I replaced the shower curtain this month, I kept the shield up and actually secured it to the wall and the tub now using a tiny piece of blue tac adhesive you hardly notice. Eventually when I'm sure it isn't needed anymore, I'll just remove the thing.
As I had figured earlier this year from the successful new curved rod in the King's bath, the leakage problem arises when the shower curtain is too far out from the bathtub in the corners. Just get that part right, and you don't need to do anything else: no clips, guards, or other doodads are really needed.
It was also exacerbated in the Queen's bath because the old pink shower curtain had shrunk over the years. The shrinkage was such that you couldn't pull it fully to both walls at the same time. Even pulled not quite all the way back, there was some gap in the front. And even if the front shower curtain hook was secured on the lip of the rod at the front wall, the bottom of the curtain pulled away from the wall by several inches when I brought the back of the curtain toward the back wall. Sometime earlier this year I clipped the shower curtain to the shower guard. That kept the shower curtain from pulling away as much from the front of the shower. But it had the undesired effect of loosening the shower guard itself, leaving it hanging slightly to the side. So it's hard to explain how weird this all looked. Dingy shower curtain not fully reaching the front, pulling the shower guard off to one side, the whole thing unstable and wobbling constantly. My friend called it "ghetto" earlier this month and that was correct and it got me motivated, finally, to fix it right.
For many years I just couldn't get around to replacing the pink curtain because I was so disappointed that you can't find any plain pink shower curtains anymore, and I liked that plain pink color. It gave the "pinkness" to the room which was otherwise mostly white. Every time I looked for a new curtain, I didn't find what I wanted and just gave up.
Many years ago I decided to do certain things differently than most people. About 23 years ago I bought shower curtain advertised as not needing "liners". These were made of heavy organic cotton. I hate plastic liners because they look ugly themselves, are impossible to clean, and complicate the shower curtain system.
Sometime years later I replaced the shower curtain in the King's bath, but in the Queen's bath I'm not sure I ever did. It was the original Organic cotton curtain in pink. (Or perhaps it was a replacement I got in 2007, I'm not really sure anymore.)
So I never replaced the curtain for two reasons: 1) because I couldn't find a plain pink curtain anymore, and 2) because I figured you needed some special kind of curtain not to need to use a plastic liner.
Well the experience in the King's bath proved that the curtain doesn't need to be super special anyway. The linerless curtain there was a relatively light and almost transparent curtain now. Yet it perfectly traps the water. (Oh, yes, when going without a liner you put the curtain inside the tub. If you wash the curtain every so often you won't have any trouble with mildew. I've had very few problems with spotting over the years, and I'd usually go years (!) between washing the shower curtain. Recently I hadn't been washing the shower curtain at all because I didn't want to put the damn thing in my washing machine, even with the Sanitize cycle, it was so awful.
When looking for shower curtains this month at Bed Bath & Beyond I noticed that only the very heaviest (and most expensive) ones say specifically they can be used without liner. Most say that a liner is "recommended." (When something is "recommended" that actually means you can probably get along without it.) Then the very lightest curtains say that a liner "is required." I bought a medium weight curtain on sale for which a liner was only "recommended."
Yard
Mowing front and back was done in first two weeks.
Edging front was done (somewhat more completely than in September, but hardly perfect)
The NW Viburnum has been showing fungal disease since July. Finally a friend trimmed rotting branches and we carefully cleaned up dead leaves. She also added new pre-fertilized soil around the base, which I moved and aerated slightly.
The tree in SW corner was growing out into Lyndhurst. We cut it back considerably allowing sufficient room to walk around the corner of the building (but not much more now).
My friend and I picked out flowers for the flower boxes on Oakhurst at a nursery and she planted them. She waters them mostly, or lets the rain do it, but she called and asked me to water it twice, so far, this month.
King's Bathtub
After a fabulous birthday date with friend (Nursury, Dinner, Swan Lake Ballet, Presents) and on a Sunday night no less, I started cutting with the Exacto knife and removed almost all of the grout/caulk (at least half caulk it seems now) around the tub and in the corners. I removed about 5 times more stuff than the tile contractor (who barely scratched the surface--though he make have taken out the harder initial grout layer). Some parts are now picture perfect and ready for caulking, and the progress is hard to believe, but there are still some small hard bits of grout and some trimming around the floor needed which will take another day of work.
Mosquitos
I've been battling mosquitos inside the house. At first I figured they were coming in because I was leaving the back and/or front doors open too long while letting augie in or out (he sometimes takes almost forever to go through the doorway). I brought the blue light Mosquito Trap out of storage and set it up in the Gym, which is at the beginning of the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. When that wasn't dealing with the situation in the King's bathroom well enough, I moved it into the King's bath itself. Then finally one day the King's bath itself seemed loaded with mosquitos and I figured the trap was attracting them and I moved it back to the Gym (converted part of Garage).
It was about that time I realized they must be coming in through the gaps around the bathtub created by removing all the old grout and caulk. If they can get inside the wall through gaps outside, they can then escape from the inner wall to the room through gaps around the bathtub. So one night I used painter's 2 week tape to tape all around the tub where grout is removed. That seemed to help but not immediately eliminate the mosquitos.
I've been getting better at using my insect paddle. It fries insects that fly through it. Last night (Oct 29 am) I killed 4 mosquitos, which is pretty good. Many nights I've swung and swung and caught nothing. It often seems that once I bring out the paddle, they hide. Anyway it has become a very useful tool in eliminating mosquitos. I'm unsure my Dynatrap does much at all except attract mosquitos.
I've also been running the King's bedroom fan in reverse, blowing air from the bed to the ceiling. This seems to repel mosquitos. Running the fan the normal way, blowing air down onto the bed when I am laying on it, seems to immediately attract mosquitos. I've been keeping the fan running 24 hours now because it seems (very limited data) actually to eliminate mosquitos. It may be stressing or dehydrating them. This may be more hope than results, but you get to a point where you want to try everything that might work. Except I don't want to smear DEET on before going to bed.
New Smartphone and Smartphone service
Somehow I got obsessed this month with updating my 2013 Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. After talking to people and visiting Apple store where I had originally intended to buy iPhone 5S, I decided to buy iPhone 6S Plus. It seemed to solve the issue of accidentally pressing the side off button because that button is just slightly out of my reach when I grasp the phone from my pocket. Plus being great in other ways, and I strongly appreciate the better software ergonomics of iPhone. I ended up buying this from Sprint just-in-time to get the now expired $60 unlimited rate (which was good because I gave up my grandfathered $30 unlimited data plan from AT&T in the process) which rose to $70 on October 16. The Sprint store couldn't sell me one on time because they didn't have any in stock, and they couldn't order any either. So I ended up ordering over the phone from Sprint just hours before the cutoff. This was one long and difficult phone call, not helped by the 10 minute delay getting emails at work in the late afternoon when they start doing backups. But in the end it worked out! I received the phone the next Tuesday while I was still sick at home. I had it programmed to my phone number at the Sprint store the following Monday. So far, I love it. I am actually renting the phone through iPhone Forever which allows me to upgrade as new phones come out at no charge. The key problem with my earlier iPhone 3G was that I didn't upgrade until 2013 and by that time it hadn't kept up with changes like the new maps applications. Though it's not clear if regular upgrades are going to be as important in the future as they were in the past. Before and after I did much online reading ("research") about phones and especially iPhone. I now think I had been inspired to buy a phone because of all the iPhone buzz coming out with the introduction of the 6S and 6S Plus in September. Rarely am I so up with things, but now I'm once again (as when I bought my Prius) up with the stars and the gods, it's October and I have the latest iPhone.
Car Service
I did the 140,000 mile service.
Car Repair
A week after 140,000 mile service, warning lights were flashing, and I took my car to the dealer for repair that evening. They did it while I ate at a nearby mall (and loved the Strawberries Romanov at La Madeleine). $500 for new inverter water pump. This, at 140,000 miles, is the first mechanical repair I have had to pay for on my 9 year old Prius.
Sick
I caught cold on Friday, the day after ordering the iPhone, and a couple days after repairing the car. I was out sick through the following Thurday and still have some slight chest congestion. I slept and rested well during the peak days I was taking off work, and it has probably been the mildest cold ever, though the runny nose for 3 days was very annoying. I chose to not take any antihistamines or decongestants, which was easier because I was staying home and mostly resting.
Cat
Continued bonding, we feel safe around each other mostly now, I can pick him up without feral cat gloves, and I now usually feel safe going around the house in my underwear, though cat has tapped me with claws (not hard and no mark was left) once this month, and tapped me with paw several times. I like it when he rubs and just leans on me. He also likes to lick me a little, I have mostly pulled back fearing it would lead to a bite (it once did a few months ago), but in last few days have even let him lick (my foot or leg) for more than a couple seconds. I'm feeding him a bit of canned food 4x daily and my friend also does 1x, and we refill his crunchies 3 times daily. He never bothers me after bedtime until I'm just getting up (he wants that first spoon of canned food). He never bothers my friend and me when we are together, though he has a special play relationship with my friend ("his mother"). He often sleeps on couch during the day. His clawing has always been limited to things of lesser importance and toys, which he now spends most clawing time with. He came out all by himself near the end of the monthly party. He can still can be threatening several times daily, and occasionally wails inside. As I am writing this, he had insisted on going outside after dinner, and was outside, but I just opened the back door and he ran back in. He's incredibly good in many ways, but still bad sometimes in a few.
Testing, Returning, and Replacing the refurbished Keithley Distortion Analyzer
My refurbished Keithley meter from Parts Connexion in Canada arrived in late September just before a party and I quickly tested the AC and DC voltage parts, but didn't get around to testing the distortion analyzer until the XCSSA meeting for October. I made measuring distortion my XCSSA presentation for the month. It only interested a couple of people, and them not much. Anyway it did force me to print out the relevant part of the manual and actually figure out how to use the distortion analyzer. And I found that the generator part of the meter was not entirely working correctly. I emailed Parts Connection and within two days they had sent a replacement meter. I picked up the new meter then re-used the same box and padding to send the bad meter back. I tested the new meter and, as they had said, it was working correctly. I rarely do things like this so efficiently. Often I end up stuck with broken stuff, like the Technics SL-1000 I bought last year.
KPAC Recordings
I've made several now, and finished a very complex editing job on the broadcast of the Rodrigo concerto. It's now on my server.
Priscilla Recordings
I finally did critical comparison of the Zoom recordings and the monaural R0DE/Masterlink recordings. IMO the Masterlink recordings have much more dynamics and passion. So I decided to go ahead with the editing job I had already done, though I did edit out one track from the Zoom recordings to do the test (and had initially been planning to use that, as it had the unclipped first take). I made two "master" CD's of the edited Masterlink version on my Mac/Plextor, and diff'd them on my SmartNFriendly duplicator where I will burn all the customer copies. I needed to get the duplicator connected to the living room conditioned power (it hadn't been used in years). I was all set to start burning copies for interested people, and then I decided I was coming down with cold and didn't want to get my germs on them. I had planned to go to the audio society meeting to give them out, but skipped the meeting also because of illness.
Work ($)
Passed annual review. It's been an interesting and/but very good month and things are looking good. Learned about matrix multiplication optimization.
Bills
Paid Home Insurance (getting really high, but I'm glad I can still buy it) and County Tax. Didn't bother to wait till January to pay tax, or installments, just sent a check for the whole thing so as not to forget, etc. But that was half of what the insurance cost. Funny I also got an insurance rebate check of $250, which was about how much higher my insurance was this year. School tax hasn't arrived yet.
The Party
Four Guests, including my friend. My friend made baked chicken, which was well received, along with some other contributions. The topic was good and generated good discussion, though curiously the friend I expected to be the most argumentative was pretty much in agreement with me now. The movie was very well received and perhaps one of the best I've ever shown, dealing with a chapter of history few people learned much about. Because of the chicken dinner, instead of me having to make sandwiches for 30 min, the majority of the party was over early which was nice given the early darkness. Very successful!
Credit Union and Work Timecard
In both cases I found my self locked out. I went to the credit union and they reset something and I could log in again.* It wasn't just me not remembering my "first employer", their software was screwing up in multiple ways, I'd follow all the steps correctly and then just find myself locked out again and again.) In both cases I have the passwords written down now, and I hope they've taken "First Employer" off the list. The "email temporary password" feature doesn't seem to work at all on any Mac I've tried.
WRT timecard database at work, it wasn't sending the password reset emails either, so I could just never reset my password. Every time you go through this, it won't let you select the same password, or even one with more than a few matching letters. This makes it extremely difficult to both formulate a new password and remember it, which you inevitably find yourself doing in extreme haste to be sure you get your timecard in on time or check that your bank balance is high enough.
Breakdowns
The car was flashing warning lights, including the "Red Triangle of Death", but seemed to run normally. Turns out the Yellow triangle may be worse, but the combination of red and yellow triangles would mean to have the car towed, or anything related to brakes (fortunately not). I brought it to the dealer that same day and got it fixed for $500.
The Classe CP-35 preamp in my Turntable and Tape pod is not showing any LED's. It does not have an on/off switch anywhere that I can see. It was running normally the week before. This looks like power supply failure, though it could just be a blown internal fuse. I think there was a storm during the interim but I have (1) Whole House Surge Protector and (2) all bedroom audio is plugged into a Monster Power 2000. Actually the Monster has been clearly defective (flashing lights) for several years now, I'd just been assuming the surge still had something left, but maybe not. The Classe is a key part of my household system. I have replacement preamps, but nothing with super-accurate balance and digital volume. I'll need to see if I can fix it, or get replacement (another Classe, Levinson 380, or Emotiva XSP would do). This is at least the second audio breakdown this year, the first was the DEQ in the bedroom, which had my long-evolved bass correction. I've only done a quick correction in the DCX to replace the now-missing DEQ, but it's nothing like the same. Actually my latest plan was to have two DEQ's in the bedroom because they have digital output. I have one spare now but I need to get a bunch. And/or I also need to re-do the bass correction now on the DCX using REW, which I haven't used since the living room audio system tuning in January, which itself was fairly quick and rough. When you have a system with as many aged and often preowned components as I do, quasi annual breakdowns may be inevitable. In the pat 10 years, EQ's have failed twice, the Sony PSX-800 has failed once (twice since purchased), the Linn Sondek has failed once (twice since purchased), the Krell FPB 300 failed once, got repaired, and a year later I took it out of service for 3 years thinking it had failed again (but it just normally thermal cycles wildly). Some things have just had certain functions fail: the Tact RCS 2.0 has a failed optical input.
Lectures
2 lectures this month! The first was David Eagleman giving a preview of his new PBS series on the Brain. My friend joined me to see this (she hasn't gotten out to Trinity lectures as much as I have). The second was about global warming denialism, and I sat next to two friends.
Social Activities Summarized
Eagleman lecture. XCSSA meeting. Birthday date with friend. Swan Lake Ballet. Missed audio society due to illness. Second lecture. Monthly Party. Halloween at Home (I had just cleaned up front and put out lighted fake pumpkin when the rain started, and it rained heavily 7-9, so I was all ready but no kids showed up).
Services
I subscribed to Tidal uncompressed internet radio, and upgraded my Pandora subscription to paid. As I am writing this, I am listening to Rhapsody, which has very nice artist Channels and might be worth keeping just for that.
Minor Repairs
First tightened (that worked) then replaced Halogen in front fixture. I was hoping 150W LED's would come out, as that might be the ideal bulb. But this is my second cheap Halogen bulb. The first lasted just over two months. The "0.9Y" specification on the box is for 3 hours per day. Well if it's 12 hours per day, that's just over two months. But the real cost is electricity not bulbs, even with Halogen's slightly increased efficiency. LED would be ideal, but the largest commonly available are 100W equivalent, which is what I have now, true, but I want more (though it's seeming most recently the front light is sufficient, though barely).
Patched, then put screen door back on track. This probably needs replacement.
Removed and took cover off Classe CP-35. It has blown fuse, everything else inside looks OK (though that can be misleading). I ordered new fuse online. I'm already thinking that an Emotive XSP might be better anyway, if the CP-35 can't be easily fixed.
Put battery in RF meter so I could do some tests.
Fixed wifi on Halloween night after storms preceding days. This required not only shutting down Linksys wrt54g router (tried that, didn't work) it required also disconnecting ethernet cable from big Dlink switch while power cycling Linksys. (I hated the idea of powering down switch, so I tried just disconnecting it and that worked mostly...). I also had to reboot two Sonos nodes which got confused apparently. No doubt about it, the Linksys should be on a big UPS. I have such a thing in Lyndhurst but it may need new batteries.
Adjusted bedroom stereo bass
After adding audio spectrum analyzer to new iPhone, I used it to do some minor fine tuning of bedroom system. Previously there had only been a 2dB boost at 111Hz. Now it has 3 PEQ's, a 3dB Q=1.4 boost at 25 Hz, (Siri told me the Q for a one octave filter, which was apparently what this needed), a 6dB Q=3.5 cut at 50 Hz, and a 3dB Q=3 boost at 111 Hz. I also made both high and low pass LR48. The PEQ's are all done on the stereo input channels, so they apply both to subs and to mains. I listened to Spanish Harlem and some bass enthusiast tracks to ensure it was good, and it is much better (especially without that 45-50 Hz boom).
New Apps for iPhone
I installed Web Albums so I can send photos to Picasa for use in Blogger.
Audio Spectrum Analyzer
NET toolbox, SpeedTest, and Wifi Finder...but none of these do what Wifi Analyzer on Android does (and it was Wifi Analyzer that helped me fix wifi by showing conclusively that it was down, and it's also cool for measuring wifi RF levels).
Of course, Weather Underground, Sonos, and Pandora.
El Capitan
I upgraded kitchen Mac to El Capitan. Seems fine except I don't like the missing bookmark bar in Safari. I see I can access my files on the laptop now--which I'm not sure I was able to do before because Laptop has 10.6, and IIRC that didn't like to talk to 10.7-10.9 (or maybe I was confusing when kitchen Mac only ran 10.3, anyway I forgot about being able to do this now). I tried copying a huge folder from laptop to kitchen mac via wifi. But I didn't like the idea of 18 hours of high throughput wifi from the laptop right next to where I sleep. I could in fact measure the RF coming from the laptop during transfer, and see it become unmeasurable when I shut down wifi. The laptop seem to emit more than other devices, though I didn't test phone on cellular (which I understand emits hugely more RF than wifi).
Next Month:
1) Finish removing caulk and grout around tub.
2) Do caulking around tub.
3) Fix or replace Classe CP-35
4) Edge and mow again.
5) Finish off-loading videos from Sony DVR so as to be replaced with Panasonic.
6) Repair patio door screen (much clawing, even ajar this afternoon).
7) Be sure to get Priscilla CD to friend of Priscilla's father.
8) See about replacing screen door
Queen's Bathroom
Biggest change to the appearance and functionality of the bathroom in many years was a small and inexpensive upgrade:
Finally, after 23 years, I replaced the old dingy shower curtain with a new one which is very pretty. I also repositioned the shower curtain rod, moving it just above the inside of the tub. Previously it had been 5 inches further out. This small change means that now no water leaks out onto the bathroom floor. No water even leaks behind the shower guard now. I did not imagine it becoming this good from a couple of simple changes.
For years I had struggled with water leakage. About 3 years ago a virtual pool of water formed outside the bathtub after each shower. I then bought a shower curtain corner shield at Lowes, but it only lessened the leakage slightly. It has always been problematical because the corner between bathtub and shower isn't perfectly square (btw: it never is, and the better shower guards you can get online have adjustable angle to fit). If you press the shower guard against the wall, it pulls up from the bathtub, and vice versa. I had always figured those inevitable gaps to be the source of the water leakage…but they weren't. In fact, done rightly as it is now, the shield isn't needed at all. But when I replaced the shower curtain this month, I kept the shield up and actually secured it to the wall and the tub now using a tiny piece of blue tac adhesive you hardly notice. Eventually when I'm sure it isn't needed anymore, I'll just remove the thing.
As I had figured earlier this year from the successful new curved rod in the King's bath, the leakage problem arises when the shower curtain is too far out from the bathtub in the corners. Just get that part right, and you don't need to do anything else: no clips, guards, or other doodads are really needed.
It was also exacerbated in the Queen's bath because the old pink shower curtain had shrunk over the years. The shrinkage was such that you couldn't pull it fully to both walls at the same time. Even pulled not quite all the way back, there was some gap in the front. And even if the front shower curtain hook was secured on the lip of the rod at the front wall, the bottom of the curtain pulled away from the wall by several inches when I brought the back of the curtain toward the back wall. Sometime earlier this year I clipped the shower curtain to the shower guard. That kept the shower curtain from pulling away as much from the front of the shower. But it had the undesired effect of loosening the shower guard itself, leaving it hanging slightly to the side. So it's hard to explain how weird this all looked. Dingy shower curtain not fully reaching the front, pulling the shower guard off to one side, the whole thing unstable and wobbling constantly. My friend called it "ghetto" earlier this month and that was correct and it got me motivated, finally, to fix it right.
For many years I just couldn't get around to replacing the pink curtain because I was so disappointed that you can't find any plain pink shower curtains anymore, and I liked that plain pink color. It gave the "pinkness" to the room which was otherwise mostly white. Every time I looked for a new curtain, I didn't find what I wanted and just gave up.
Many years ago I decided to do certain things differently than most people. About 23 years ago I bought shower curtain advertised as not needing "liners". These were made of heavy organic cotton. I hate plastic liners because they look ugly themselves, are impossible to clean, and complicate the shower curtain system.
Sometime years later I replaced the shower curtain in the King's bath, but in the Queen's bath I'm not sure I ever did. It was the original Organic cotton curtain in pink. (Or perhaps it was a replacement I got in 2007, I'm not really sure anymore.)
So I never replaced the curtain for two reasons: 1) because I couldn't find a plain pink curtain anymore, and 2) because I figured you needed some special kind of curtain not to need to use a plastic liner.
Well the experience in the King's bath proved that the curtain doesn't need to be super special anyway. The linerless curtain there was a relatively light and almost transparent curtain now. Yet it perfectly traps the water. (Oh, yes, when going without a liner you put the curtain inside the tub. If you wash the curtain every so often you won't have any trouble with mildew. I've had very few problems with spotting over the years, and I'd usually go years (!) between washing the shower curtain. Recently I hadn't been washing the shower curtain at all because I didn't want to put the damn thing in my washing machine, even with the Sanitize cycle, it was so awful.
When looking for shower curtains this month at Bed Bath & Beyond I noticed that only the very heaviest (and most expensive) ones say specifically they can be used without liner. Most say that a liner is "recommended." (When something is "recommended" that actually means you can probably get along without it.) Then the very lightest curtains say that a liner "is required." I bought a medium weight curtain on sale for which a liner was only "recommended."
Yard
Mowing front and back was done in first two weeks.
Edging front was done (somewhat more completely than in September, but hardly perfect)
The NW Viburnum has been showing fungal disease since July. Finally a friend trimmed rotting branches and we carefully cleaned up dead leaves. She also added new pre-fertilized soil around the base, which I moved and aerated slightly.
The tree in SW corner was growing out into Lyndhurst. We cut it back considerably allowing sufficient room to walk around the corner of the building (but not much more now).
My friend and I picked out flowers for the flower boxes on Oakhurst at a nursery and she planted them. She waters them mostly, or lets the rain do it, but she called and asked me to water it twice, so far, this month.
King's Bathtub
After a fabulous birthday date with friend (Nursury, Dinner, Swan Lake Ballet, Presents) and on a Sunday night no less, I started cutting with the Exacto knife and removed almost all of the grout/caulk (at least half caulk it seems now) around the tub and in the corners. I removed about 5 times more stuff than the tile contractor (who barely scratched the surface--though he make have taken out the harder initial grout layer). Some parts are now picture perfect and ready for caulking, and the progress is hard to believe, but there are still some small hard bits of grout and some trimming around the floor needed which will take another day of work.
Mosquitos
I've been battling mosquitos inside the house. At first I figured they were coming in because I was leaving the back and/or front doors open too long while letting augie in or out (he sometimes takes almost forever to go through the doorway). I brought the blue light Mosquito Trap out of storage and set it up in the Gym, which is at the beginning of the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. When that wasn't dealing with the situation in the King's bathroom well enough, I moved it into the King's bath itself. Then finally one day the King's bath itself seemed loaded with mosquitos and I figured the trap was attracting them and I moved it back to the Gym (converted part of Garage).
It was about that time I realized they must be coming in through the gaps around the bathtub created by removing all the old grout and caulk. If they can get inside the wall through gaps outside, they can then escape from the inner wall to the room through gaps around the bathtub. So one night I used painter's 2 week tape to tape all around the tub where grout is removed. That seemed to help but not immediately eliminate the mosquitos.
I've been getting better at using my insect paddle. It fries insects that fly through it. Last night (Oct 29 am) I killed 4 mosquitos, which is pretty good. Many nights I've swung and swung and caught nothing. It often seems that once I bring out the paddle, they hide. Anyway it has become a very useful tool in eliminating mosquitos. I'm unsure my Dynatrap does much at all except attract mosquitos.
I've also been running the King's bedroom fan in reverse, blowing air from the bed to the ceiling. This seems to repel mosquitos. Running the fan the normal way, blowing air down onto the bed when I am laying on it, seems to immediately attract mosquitos. I've been keeping the fan running 24 hours now because it seems (very limited data) actually to eliminate mosquitos. It may be stressing or dehydrating them. This may be more hope than results, but you get to a point where you want to try everything that might work. Except I don't want to smear DEET on before going to bed.
New Smartphone and Smartphone service
Somehow I got obsessed this month with updating my 2013 Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. After talking to people and visiting Apple store where I had originally intended to buy iPhone 5S, I decided to buy iPhone 6S Plus. It seemed to solve the issue of accidentally pressing the side off button because that button is just slightly out of my reach when I grasp the phone from my pocket. Plus being great in other ways, and I strongly appreciate the better software ergonomics of iPhone. I ended up buying this from Sprint just-in-time to get the now expired $60 unlimited rate (which was good because I gave up my grandfathered $30 unlimited data plan from AT&T in the process) which rose to $70 on October 16. The Sprint store couldn't sell me one on time because they didn't have any in stock, and they couldn't order any either. So I ended up ordering over the phone from Sprint just hours before the cutoff. This was one long and difficult phone call, not helped by the 10 minute delay getting emails at work in the late afternoon when they start doing backups. But in the end it worked out! I received the phone the next Tuesday while I was still sick at home. I had it programmed to my phone number at the Sprint store the following Monday. So far, I love it. I am actually renting the phone through iPhone Forever which allows me to upgrade as new phones come out at no charge. The key problem with my earlier iPhone 3G was that I didn't upgrade until 2013 and by that time it hadn't kept up with changes like the new maps applications. Though it's not clear if regular upgrades are going to be as important in the future as they were in the past. Before and after I did much online reading ("research") about phones and especially iPhone. I now think I had been inspired to buy a phone because of all the iPhone buzz coming out with the introduction of the 6S and 6S Plus in September. Rarely am I so up with things, but now I'm once again (as when I bought my Prius) up with the stars and the gods, it's October and I have the latest iPhone.
Car Service
I did the 140,000 mile service.
Car Repair
A week after 140,000 mile service, warning lights were flashing, and I took my car to the dealer for repair that evening. They did it while I ate at a nearby mall (and loved the Strawberries Romanov at La Madeleine). $500 for new inverter water pump. This, at 140,000 miles, is the first mechanical repair I have had to pay for on my 9 year old Prius.
Sick
I caught cold on Friday, the day after ordering the iPhone, and a couple days after repairing the car. I was out sick through the following Thurday and still have some slight chest congestion. I slept and rested well during the peak days I was taking off work, and it has probably been the mildest cold ever, though the runny nose for 3 days was very annoying. I chose to not take any antihistamines or decongestants, which was easier because I was staying home and mostly resting.
Cat
Continued bonding, we feel safe around each other mostly now, I can pick him up without feral cat gloves, and I now usually feel safe going around the house in my underwear, though cat has tapped me with claws (not hard and no mark was left) once this month, and tapped me with paw several times. I like it when he rubs and just leans on me. He also likes to lick me a little, I have mostly pulled back fearing it would lead to a bite (it once did a few months ago), but in last few days have even let him lick (my foot or leg) for more than a couple seconds. I'm feeding him a bit of canned food 4x daily and my friend also does 1x, and we refill his crunchies 3 times daily. He never bothers me after bedtime until I'm just getting up (he wants that first spoon of canned food). He never bothers my friend and me when we are together, though he has a special play relationship with my friend ("his mother"). He often sleeps on couch during the day. His clawing has always been limited to things of lesser importance and toys, which he now spends most clawing time with. He came out all by himself near the end of the monthly party. He can still can be threatening several times daily, and occasionally wails inside. As I am writing this, he had insisted on going outside after dinner, and was outside, but I just opened the back door and he ran back in. He's incredibly good in many ways, but still bad sometimes in a few.
Testing, Returning, and Replacing the refurbished Keithley Distortion Analyzer
My refurbished Keithley meter from Parts Connexion in Canada arrived in late September just before a party and I quickly tested the AC and DC voltage parts, but didn't get around to testing the distortion analyzer until the XCSSA meeting for October. I made measuring distortion my XCSSA presentation for the month. It only interested a couple of people, and them not much. Anyway it did force me to print out the relevant part of the manual and actually figure out how to use the distortion analyzer. And I found that the generator part of the meter was not entirely working correctly. I emailed Parts Connection and within two days they had sent a replacement meter. I picked up the new meter then re-used the same box and padding to send the bad meter back. I tested the new meter and, as they had said, it was working correctly. I rarely do things like this so efficiently. Often I end up stuck with broken stuff, like the Technics SL-1000 I bought last year.
KPAC Recordings
I've made several now, and finished a very complex editing job on the broadcast of the Rodrigo concerto. It's now on my server.
Priscilla Recordings
I finally did critical comparison of the Zoom recordings and the monaural R0DE/Masterlink recordings. IMO the Masterlink recordings have much more dynamics and passion. So I decided to go ahead with the editing job I had already done, though I did edit out one track from the Zoom recordings to do the test (and had initially been planning to use that, as it had the unclipped first take). I made two "master" CD's of the edited Masterlink version on my Mac/Plextor, and diff'd them on my SmartNFriendly duplicator where I will burn all the customer copies. I needed to get the duplicator connected to the living room conditioned power (it hadn't been used in years). I was all set to start burning copies for interested people, and then I decided I was coming down with cold and didn't want to get my germs on them. I had planned to go to the audio society meeting to give them out, but skipped the meeting also because of illness.
Work ($)
Passed annual review. It's been an interesting and/but very good month and things are looking good. Learned about matrix multiplication optimization.
Bills
Paid Home Insurance (getting really high, but I'm glad I can still buy it) and County Tax. Didn't bother to wait till January to pay tax, or installments, just sent a check for the whole thing so as not to forget, etc. But that was half of what the insurance cost. Funny I also got an insurance rebate check of $250, which was about how much higher my insurance was this year. School tax hasn't arrived yet.
The Party
Four Guests, including my friend. My friend made baked chicken, which was well received, along with some other contributions. The topic was good and generated good discussion, though curiously the friend I expected to be the most argumentative was pretty much in agreement with me now. The movie was very well received and perhaps one of the best I've ever shown, dealing with a chapter of history few people learned much about. Because of the chicken dinner, instead of me having to make sandwiches for 30 min, the majority of the party was over early which was nice given the early darkness. Very successful!
Credit Union and Work Timecard
In both cases I found my self locked out. I went to the credit union and they reset something and I could log in again.* It wasn't just me not remembering my "first employer", their software was screwing up in multiple ways, I'd follow all the steps correctly and then just find myself locked out again and again.) In both cases I have the passwords written down now, and I hope they've taken "First Employer" off the list. The "email temporary password" feature doesn't seem to work at all on any Mac I've tried.
WRT timecard database at work, it wasn't sending the password reset emails either, so I could just never reset my password. Every time you go through this, it won't let you select the same password, or even one with more than a few matching letters. This makes it extremely difficult to both formulate a new password and remember it, which you inevitably find yourself doing in extreme haste to be sure you get your timecard in on time or check that your bank balance is high enough.
Breakdowns
The car was flashing warning lights, including the "Red Triangle of Death", but seemed to run normally. Turns out the Yellow triangle may be worse, but the combination of red and yellow triangles would mean to have the car towed, or anything related to brakes (fortunately not). I brought it to the dealer that same day and got it fixed for $500.
The Classe CP-35 preamp in my Turntable and Tape pod is not showing any LED's. It does not have an on/off switch anywhere that I can see. It was running normally the week before. This looks like power supply failure, though it could just be a blown internal fuse. I think there was a storm during the interim but I have (1) Whole House Surge Protector and (2) all bedroom audio is plugged into a Monster Power 2000. Actually the Monster has been clearly defective (flashing lights) for several years now, I'd just been assuming the surge still had something left, but maybe not. The Classe is a key part of my household system. I have replacement preamps, but nothing with super-accurate balance and digital volume. I'll need to see if I can fix it, or get replacement (another Classe, Levinson 380, or Emotiva XSP would do). This is at least the second audio breakdown this year, the first was the DEQ in the bedroom, which had my long-evolved bass correction. I've only done a quick correction in the DCX to replace the now-missing DEQ, but it's nothing like the same. Actually my latest plan was to have two DEQ's in the bedroom because they have digital output. I have one spare now but I need to get a bunch. And/or I also need to re-do the bass correction now on the DCX using REW, which I haven't used since the living room audio system tuning in January, which itself was fairly quick and rough. When you have a system with as many aged and often preowned components as I do, quasi annual breakdowns may be inevitable. In the pat 10 years, EQ's have failed twice, the Sony PSX-800 has failed once (twice since purchased), the Linn Sondek has failed once (twice since purchased), the Krell FPB 300 failed once, got repaired, and a year later I took it out of service for 3 years thinking it had failed again (but it just normally thermal cycles wildly). Some things have just had certain functions fail: the Tact RCS 2.0 has a failed optical input.
Lectures
2 lectures this month! The first was David Eagleman giving a preview of his new PBS series on the Brain. My friend joined me to see this (she hasn't gotten out to Trinity lectures as much as I have). The second was about global warming denialism, and I sat next to two friends.
Social Activities Summarized
Eagleman lecture. XCSSA meeting. Birthday date with friend. Swan Lake Ballet. Missed audio society due to illness. Second lecture. Monthly Party. Halloween at Home (I had just cleaned up front and put out lighted fake pumpkin when the rain started, and it rained heavily 7-9, so I was all ready but no kids showed up).
Services
I subscribed to Tidal uncompressed internet radio, and upgraded my Pandora subscription to paid. As I am writing this, I am listening to Rhapsody, which has very nice artist Channels and might be worth keeping just for that.
Minor Repairs
First tightened (that worked) then replaced Halogen in front fixture. I was hoping 150W LED's would come out, as that might be the ideal bulb. But this is my second cheap Halogen bulb. The first lasted just over two months. The "0.9Y" specification on the box is for 3 hours per day. Well if it's 12 hours per day, that's just over two months. But the real cost is electricity not bulbs, even with Halogen's slightly increased efficiency. LED would be ideal, but the largest commonly available are 100W equivalent, which is what I have now, true, but I want more (though it's seeming most recently the front light is sufficient, though barely).
Patched, then put screen door back on track. This probably needs replacement.
Removed and took cover off Classe CP-35. It has blown fuse, everything else inside looks OK (though that can be misleading). I ordered new fuse online. I'm already thinking that an Emotive XSP might be better anyway, if the CP-35 can't be easily fixed.
Put battery in RF meter so I could do some tests.
Fixed wifi on Halloween night after storms preceding days. This required not only shutting down Linksys wrt54g router (tried that, didn't work) it required also disconnecting ethernet cable from big Dlink switch while power cycling Linksys. (I hated the idea of powering down switch, so I tried just disconnecting it and that worked mostly...). I also had to reboot two Sonos nodes which got confused apparently. No doubt about it, the Linksys should be on a big UPS. I have such a thing in Lyndhurst but it may need new batteries.
Adjusted bedroom stereo bass
After adding audio spectrum analyzer to new iPhone, I used it to do some minor fine tuning of bedroom system. Previously there had only been a 2dB boost at 111Hz. Now it has 3 PEQ's, a 3dB Q=1.4 boost at 25 Hz, (Siri told me the Q for a one octave filter, which was apparently what this needed), a 6dB Q=3.5 cut at 50 Hz, and a 3dB Q=3 boost at 111 Hz. I also made both high and low pass LR48. The PEQ's are all done on the stereo input channels, so they apply both to subs and to mains. I listened to Spanish Harlem and some bass enthusiast tracks to ensure it was good, and it is much better (especially without that 45-50 Hz boom).
New Apps for iPhone
I installed Web Albums so I can send photos to Picasa for use in Blogger.
Audio Spectrum Analyzer
NET toolbox, SpeedTest, and Wifi Finder...but none of these do what Wifi Analyzer on Android does (and it was Wifi Analyzer that helped me fix wifi by showing conclusively that it was down, and it's also cool for measuring wifi RF levels).
Of course, Weather Underground, Sonos, and Pandora.
El Capitan
I upgraded kitchen Mac to El Capitan. Seems fine except I don't like the missing bookmark bar in Safari. I see I can access my files on the laptop now--which I'm not sure I was able to do before because Laptop has 10.6, and IIRC that didn't like to talk to 10.7-10.9 (or maybe I was confusing when kitchen Mac only ran 10.3, anyway I forgot about being able to do this now). I tried copying a huge folder from laptop to kitchen mac via wifi. But I didn't like the idea of 18 hours of high throughput wifi from the laptop right next to where I sleep. I could in fact measure the RF coming from the laptop during transfer, and see it become unmeasurable when I shut down wifi. The laptop seem to emit more than other devices, though I didn't test phone on cellular (which I understand emits hugely more RF than wifi).
Next Month:
1) Finish removing caulk and grout around tub.
2) Do caulking around tub.
3) Fix or replace Classe CP-35
4) Edge and mow again.
5) Finish off-loading videos from Sony DVR so as to be replaced with Panasonic.
6) Repair patio door screen (much clawing, even ajar this afternoon).
7) Be sure to get Priscilla CD to friend of Priscilla's father.
8) See about replacing screen door
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