Sandy’s back from training and I decided on Thursday that we were going to take a bike ride. I found an athletic complex in Irving that turns out to have been a place where I had played softball years ago when I was with PDS. My memory of the place was mosquitos to be honest. But we were just there to hit the trails. But, Google took us to a road that just didn’t exist, fenced off and unused for years. Got back to where I remember play softball and it was locked up. We managed to find a place down the street that got us to where we needed to be.

It was a nice ride but we got seriously burnt. Both the wind and the sun type burns. I also hit 1500 miles on the journey. It was exactly what I’d been looking for, miles and miles of paved trail with the only caveat being that it’s in the flood plain so there were parts we had to traverse water, well we rode right through it.

We finished the day trip off with a late lunch at the Aspen Creek Grill in Irving. Not the easiest place to get to but it was nice. I had the chicken fried steak and Sandy had a salad. She started getting cold in the restaurant so we didn’t doddle but the temperature seriously dropped. It was 86 or so at 1pm and now at 6pm it’s dropped to 58 and will plummet when the sun goes down. The high tomorrow is 47 so 40 degrees colder. That’s why we biked today and will mall walk tomorrow.

This one also took me by surprise. Nichole Anderson died yesterday. Passed away in her sleep. Not a bad way to go. Her daughter is a very talented singer. Not that I’ve heard her but you could tell the way Nichole posted about her how proud she was of her daughter. I had always hoped to hear her sing. Although that still may happen.

In any case god speed Nichole, and deepest condolences to those you left behind.

I remember when I got the old monitors in an attempt to make my Linux box real. I found the HP monitors on Amazon for cheap but they would only sell 2, so I got my sister to get two also. Bastards were just trying to get rid of shoddy stock.

Those were 24 inch and the new ones are 27 inch and they don’t ghost, great picture, plays videos just fine. This is how it was supposed to be. Never buying a HP monitor again. And lastly, I did try to buy the monitors from Best Buy because I do like supporting brick and mortar stores but they will only let you buy 3 monitors at a time without creating a business account. Bite me Best Buy!!!

So I realized today that no one that doesn’t know my site can get to this blog. I kind of like that. But it defeats the purpose. So I will get around to fixing it but in a related note, I’ve installed MariaDB 11.4 on the server. This is a radical upgrade from what we had which I think was version 8??? Has some issues initially but its friggin SELinux causing the problems. I’m all about being security conscious but SE takes it to the level that the system is useless because of it’s security. Thereby making you want to just turn it off and that’s a problem.

Other than that, I’ve got new monitors on the way for the Linux Mint box. The 24 inch HP’s I had have an issue with ghosting. Fuckers. The new ones are 27 inch Amazon basic monitors that ran @ $99 apiece. I don’t game so I just need a display. We’ll see how that works out. Trying to get my stuff that will be subject to tariffs bought before DD fucks something else up.

I think I said something the other day about ordering a new chair but I didn’t quite realize that could be a transitive experience. Truth be told, I bought my old office chair in 2014??? Or there abouts and it served me well. Hell it looked brand new but, if you tried to recline, it squeaked. I sprayed it with enough WD-40 to float a battleship to no avail. Maybe not that much but you get the picture. The casters had no more action in them. Again, sprayed but they were just scratching up the floor anytime I moved. And, lastly, the piston that keeps you at a certain level is gone, whatever you set it to, sinks to the lowest.

The new one glides silently across the floor, allows excellent reclining and stays at the set height. Love it.

The weather turned nasty today. I say nasty but it was February weather. Yesterday was just so nice anything else would suffer by comparison. I’m alright with that.

So I hate to say it but I think that my ramps have been stolen. I can’t locate them and they’re kind of hard to hide. The only thing I can think of is that I set them up on the side of the house, someone saw them and helped themselves. I have a camera right on it but I looked the two weeks back and they’re not in scene. I knew that I should secure everything behind the fence but damn… The car break-ins on 12-13 and now this.

It’s alright. I need to keep a tighter ship. Keep your shit secured. As the world gets a little colder day by day, you have to keep that in mind.

Sandy took off today for training in Austin so I’m on my own. I remember the good old days when I’d be down to getting in some trouble. Now? I cleaned the office and bedroom and put together my new office chair and took out garbage and recycling. It makes me happy and content to have a clean house. And I’m loving my new office chair.

I got a bike ride in today, it was so beautiful. It was like 80 degrees and just perfect. Unfortunately I had to go biking after work and that coincides with afternoon rush hour and the way the sun sets at that time of day during this time of year makes for hazardous travel. Cross at lights and keep your head on a swivel.

I’m even forgetting to eat again. I guess I get fed because Sandy needs fed. This actually works out fairly well in that I need to loose weight.

Happy that Monday is in the rear view and making good progress for the rest of the week.

Started out the day with men’s breakfast at church. My eyes were bigger than my stomach but I made a big dent in the plate prior to ceasing fire.

Also made it over to the folks place today. We’ve got some stuff to do that should get us ready for the first acquisition of property for Sarondy.

Then ended the day with Adrian’s birthday at his place. There were a bunch of people there and it was great to see everyone.

As stated, it was a long week and I’m glad it’s over. I blew out as soon as my time was up. It’ll be nice to stay away from the computer for a couple of days.

Busy weekend coming up, men’s breakfast tomorrow morning at the church, Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, and then Adrian’s party. And I need to swing by the folks place sometime tomorrow also.

We took a nice 2 mile walk today for lunch. It was a little cold but nice once we got moving.

I’m not sure why it feels like it’s been a long week but it feels like it’s been a long week. Today was alright, I made some great progress and then find out that the custom steps are not available. This means I can’t do what they are asking me to do and I’ve said we could do. Sigh, well there’s nothing I can do but explain what’s going on and send them to Oracle who will say it’s no longer offered if they don’t just disavow any knowledge of it. Friggin Oracle, there’s a reason I consider them evil.

Tomorrow we have the electrician coming over. We’re trying to get the house updated and one of the first things that we need to do is get the electricity upgraded. This is beyond what I can do myself but it’ll hopefully be the last upgrade we do with it. We need to get it up to code if we want to consider making it into a rental at some point. Then we have to do something about the insulation because another summer of $500 electric bills is no bueno…

I got out for a walk today, got a mile and three tenths or so. I went to Taco Bell and had a cheesy double beef burrito off of the value menu. I was impressed for a $3.01 snack. If you could sub out beans for the rice it comes with it would be almost perfect. It comes with ‘fiesta strips’ and I’m not sure what they bring to the party but they’re not bad. Washed it down with a real sugar Pepsi and I’ll call that a good lunch.

It rained today, it was nice, I went outside and tried to be in the moment by listening to the rain. I love the smell after a rain, it smells fresh. I still don’t understand why I live in a place that gets next to no rain. That won’t be for too much longer hopefully.

I went to the gym today, got half an hour in and did some jogging too. A nice cool down walk down by the Hurst river. It was nice and cool with a little drizzle. I then took myself out to dinner at Arby’s. I get the hankering for a roast beef sandwich every now and again. I also had a coupon for a $7.49 beef and cheddar meal. I was a bit taken aback by the prices. I thought that the coupon was like 50 cents off the regular price. But it was actually three bucks meaning the normal price for a BnC meal is $10.49, the double was like $13 or something. Craziness.

There were a total of three people dinning in, that included me. It was nice, I drank thirstily at my Hi-C fruit punch while I waited for my food and then sat watching the rain and the traffic on 26. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Got home and used the YouTube Roku app to look into a Django tutorial, and I’m happy to say that’s not the way I’m going to track with this website. I do need to redo it but it will probably stay WordPress.