While it was a bit chilly today, I got a bunch done. I had a meeting at work and they said to go ahead and build what we’ll call a ‘note extract’. So this doesn’t just mean standard stuff, this is development. So I needed to do something about working on the laptop they sent which seems to be sized for a kindergartner. Headed to Walmart for a couple of Digital Port cables to fit into the port replicator they sent. I can now hook up my lower 2 HP monitors to the laptop and move the blue tooth adapter. So now I just plug in the work laptop and switch the monitor inputs and use my keyboard and mouse and three monitors (including the laptop screen). While it’s not the best it’s a couple 100% better than it was so I can actually develop. Still need to find out where to put the other work laptop but we’ll figure that out sooner or later. I also have to pull the old server and home the new server into the UPS and all that.

Tomorrow is busy. I can go to men’s breakfast at church, then we have to go to Claudia’s memorial, and after that I should go pay my respect to Toes as he celebrates his 80th birthday. And it’s supposed to be raining and cold all day. That’s good for a funeral. I also have to finish putting the back room together, I want to get that done this weekend so we can start demo on the master bath.

I had to renew my passport and now they let you take your own picture. While this seems like a good thing, it’s a little harder than it sounds. You can’t just take a selfie and be done with it. The background has to be of a certain off-white hue, you can’t be smiling (or frowning) and it should be a quality shot of yourself.

So I found an empty wall and fortunately had a roll of white vapor barrier that I hung behind me, had to bring in the ladder to attached the lights to so I had proper lighting and pulled out the tripod to hold the camera, lined it all up with my watch remote and took pictures. The results horrified me. I mean I look at myself in the mirror everyday but what I was getting in the pictures was a much harsher reality than I was ready for. I had a turkey neck, was pale and looked more like a proof of death picture than anything else. Hell my drivers license was much more flattering if that says anything.

So where I’m going with this is I charged my wife with setting me up with something to keep my skin from looking like leather. The results were an in shower face cleanser and an after shower skin moisturizer and another for the face and neck. While I cannot stop the effects of aging, I can help soften them. This is why the ladies look nice well into their later years while the fellows look like leather neck.

I guess it happened during covid that anything that was open 24 hours wasn’t open 24 hours and hours were scaled back since then. I ran into the issue maybe last year, I had to get some band aids or something at 3am and that was never a problem as there was a Walgreens and CVS diagonal from each other just down the road. Nope, both closed. The 24 hour Walmart super center is no longer 24 hours. And evidently the home improvement stores aren’t open until 8am on a Sunday. Jackasses used to have a Home Depot that was open 24 hours and now they can’t even open until 8am. What is the point of living in a city of 8 million people if you can’t even find a hardware store open at 7am on a Sunday? I’d be really bent out of shape except there was no traffic on the roads, probably because there’s nothing open to go to…

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Started cooking the ribs today at 11:15am and took them off at 5:15pm, they were seriously good eats. We did the 4 racks, ate half for dinner, will take a rack and a half over to dinner tomorrow night and 2 racks have been vacuum sealed and frozen.

I’ve also decided that we’re going to try smoking turkey breasts. To this point I’ve only ever done beef and pork, time to do some bird. I really like the idea of getting a 2 pound breast and smoking it and slicing it really thin for low processed lunch meat.

It was a beautiful day to do the smoking. This will be the last day for a while but it is like late fall meaning it’ll be nice and chilly tomorrow for the Thanksgiving holiday which is the way it should be in my humble but honest opinion.

Since I’m doing the ribs tomorrow, I had to get them rubbed. So 4 racks of ribs are sitting in the fridge all rubbed up and we’re out of kosher salt. I’m excite about the plan to smoke up all the ribs and then taking half racks and vacuum sealing and freezing them. I figure we’re eating half a rack tomorrow, one rack to sisters meaning 5 half racks for the freezer. We’ll see how it goes but Billy Martin said it should be fine.

Also made some Ghee today, I only got half a jar from a pound of butter, I thought it was more and I thought that it was easier to strain the product with coffee filters, but its still good. With the advent of the cast iron usage the ghee is pretty important as it’s the best possible oil for that.

Made it to the gym and took the truck, I need new batteries for it. It lasts longer between maintenance but maintenance is more expensive.

I like Monday’s that don’t feel like Monday’s. This is one of those. I had no work to do, well nothing that really needed to get done which let me do some of the other things that I needed to get done. But there’s an issue, I just don’t know where to start. One of the things I really need is a sharable task list. I’ve been looking for one and there’s tons of open source ones and I have a new server but I don’t even know where to begin there. I need to figure out how to be more… I don’t even know what to call it. I’m directionally challenged, not for directions but what to do. I’m at a place where I need someone to follow or at least point me in the right direction.

So oddly enough, the Cowboy’s beat the Washington Redskins Commanders in a shootout to the last minute. It was exciting to watch a game that they hadn’t already lost in the first quarter and even more amazing that they won. We got to see the 49ers get spanked by the Packers in the second game so it was a win win.

Got the sheets changed, and generally ready for the upcoming week even though it really doesn’t feel like there’s anything going on. I’m almost at a holding point so not a whole bunch for me to do.

I finished pinning the molding down today so it’s complete. I have to caulk and do some clean up but for all intents and purposes it’s complete. There are a couple of spots I’m not very happy with. I mean I’d be pissed if a contractor left it that way but I’m not a contractor and this is the first one that I’ve done so I’ll give myself a little leeway but I’m going to have to go back and fix it. It’ll be nice just to get the stuff put back in there. It was a storage room.

Johnny and Katie came over today and brought the InstaPot that Keli & David set aside for us from Claudia’s things. It’s newer than the one that we’ve got so it may be a replacement or good for the RV.

We also made a trip to the mall today, it was packed. I was actually surprised how packed it was. Of course I can’t remember the last time I was there on the weekend as I’m usually there during the day during the middle of the week. We had lunch at the food court and then headed back to the house. All told I was up around 9k steps and that’s what I’m looking to get back to.

I wrapped up work in short order and it’s Friday! Beautiful day out. I pulled out the smoker. We picked up 4 racks of ribs yesterday at Sam’s club. There are 4 racks so 1 rack per rack and rotate as needed. The premise is that we’re going to try freezing the finished ribs. I was told by Billy that it’s completely doable so we’re going to cook and cool them and then vacuum seal them. We’ll do them next Wednesday so we don’t have to do anything for Thanksgiving except show up.