ahmik | Reading

We went to the San Jose main library (also the library for San Jose State U.). The elevators were out, but there was no sign. So after the crowd swelled to a dozen, I started up the stairs. Six floors, the first double-height. I wish I could say it didn't knacker me. But I managed it, and when I hit the button for a down elevator, up ones started arriving and disgorging crowds of people, then a down one came. So at least I didn't have to take the stairs down.

The first two upper floors (the public library part) are also fed by an escalator. That was where the housemate was headed before the same floor as me, but she said the second escalator was also out, so she did the same upstairs hike.

mdehners

So, I'm sitting listening to Creepypasta when I see movement out of the corner of my eye(great Cardio BTW;>). The weather has been great and I've been leaving windows and even the door cracked to catch the Autumn breezes. I don't have a screen door and before I'd never allowed the latter but now?
I see Lilbit(the female of the Mouseketeers) walk carefully into the Sunroom and check it out...then walk back out. Looks like I may have a future "Not My Cat" in the making;>
FridhR,
Pat

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: Lenoir City(Nevermore;>!)
Current Music: Weird Al Radio

weofodthignen

A cyclist was waiting at a red light. An older man with weatherbeaten skin and a bald head. He had an old-style bike basket full of soft cloth, and on top of the padding was a small brown dog. I wished them both a good morning.

weofodthignen

Apparently it did rain a lot: one and a half inches recorded in San Jose, almost a record for October. (On the other hand it was recorded by the National Weather Service, so the numbers may not be unassailable.)

The day dawned clear and chilly here, and it was beautiful until evening, when the clouds got very threatening. We shopped. And turned on the heating. The next-door neighbour fired up his power trimmer and decapitated his little ornamental trees again.

weofodthignen

The rain held off long enough that I was able to do a quick and dirty de-leafing in front. Increasingly heavy showers, then it settled in to rain seriously. The dog was not impressed with the puddles in the driveway and tried to come back in via the front porch, but I didn't have my key. Monty and Prudence had both come by at breakfast time; I trust they are dry and warm somewhere.

weofodthignen

The Chronicle weather guy is trying to foment panic about tomorrow's weather. Major storm! An inch of rain in San Jose! Thunder and lightning! Deep snow in the Sierra! etc. etc. Hopefully it will water my plants. I swept the driveway; I should have run a rake over the front grass, but didn't get to it.

weofodthignen

And so today, Walgreen's for the prescription refills. While they wrestled with a balky computer so the housemate could get a shot, we made the acquaintance of 2 other women also waiting for the chance to get a shot, one of whom was toting what looked like a Pekinese mix. The dog was well behaved, only occasionally making small noises at the pharmacist. I suppose if you are going to carry a dog around a store, a dog that was bred to be carried around is a wise choice.

weofodthignen

We made a trip to Costco. The housemate's phone led us through miles of Mountain View apartment complexes, then suddenly there was the highway exit we usually take to get there.

I bought a new package of socks for winter. The housemate bought vast quantities of frozen food.

mdehners

About a month and a half ago I took over feeding 3 neighborhood cats that my brother had been. He figured, since I'm not allowed any more pets(he and his wife don't want to get stuck with them when I die or go into a home) that it might make me feel less lonely.
It's taken about all that time to slowly move their bowls from in front of their garage, down the hill, across the back of the house, up the ramp and now level with my porch. Tomorrow, I'll put their bowls out on my porch so the food won't be getting wet during rain.
The 1st one I actually met a couple weeks before, about a week after Rocky Passed. I saw a cat with a mangled tail drinking out of one of the container trays and the next day placed a bowl of clean water and some of Rocky's leftover kibble next to. When I mentioned this at family lunch my brother mentioned his feeding him(creatively named "Stubby") and the other 2(Lillebit and Fluffy) and suggested the present arrangement.
Lil and Fluf will let me pet them while feeding. Stubbs will sit about 10 feet away and make a sound which translates as "Skram! I want breakfast!";>.
I think Stubbs is the only Feral. With his skittishness and mutilated tail I'm pretty sure he's been abused. I always add a couple treats in his bowl. He eats a little separate from the other 2. The others I'm sure are indoor/outdoor cats who've figured out a couple of softies;>....
Today I put one of Rocky's short cat trees that has a little "cave" out on the porch since Winter is Coming;>. It's pretty small but my brother's been talking about building a shelter to put on my porch for the Winter so there'll be room for everyone.
Now, if I can just keep the Possums and Skunks from using it;>!
FridhR,
Pat

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Lenoir City(Nevermore;>!)
Current Music: Harp Radio

weofodthignen

Picked up my desktop conker for this year today. On the pavement/sidewalk under somebody's red chestnut tree.

It was cool enough to walk the dog at 3:30, and she led me to the park again.

weofodthignen

And down went the temp again. No rain though.

The first trees are starting to catch on. And there's already a good crop of ghoulish lawn displays, more than I remember from last year. I suspect it's because so many tech employers are requiring people to return to the office; I think some of these houses were rented out the past couple of years, or have been quietly sold.

arlie

I switched my cell phone to AT&T wireless, though with some misgivings. So far, there have been no serious glitches, 2 or 3 nits, and one minor UI change.

In the glitch department:
- Switching sims caused the phone to stop defaulting to wireless when at home. I wondered why I was using so much (free, unlimited) data, but didn't catch this change until I attempted to use a peer-to-peer app that relied on being on the same subnet as its peer - one of my desktops.

In the nit department
- AT&T wireless sent me a lot of emails in the first 36 hours, some useful, some redundant. One of them projected my future monthly bill to the tune of $20 in taxes and fees. A later one gave a projection more like what I had already been paying. Fortunately I'd been warned to expect an inflated estimate.
- AT&T defaulted me into some but not all of its advertising spam options. I turned them all off.
- Both AT&T and T-mobile flag some callers as likely spam/likely scam, but their phrasing is different.

In the "huh" department:
- various text messages that look like their title/content in preview is "Picture." All came from people in my contacts DB, who haven't sent much or anything in years or months. That makes me think of potential security exploits, perhaps a new automated scam, so I read them on a linux system, using google's web interface. They were innocuous. The timing suggests images sent by SMS didn't behave this way on T-mobile.

On the good side, they have a configureable "warn me if my projected bill exceeds $xxx". I set it to just past the bill I expect next month with the activation fee included, and will lower it later.

Annoyingly, they won't email me my bill, just notification that I have one. So I won't have even a soft copy unless I save it myself, and it's likely easiest to simply print it from the browser.

weofodthignen

Since the weather has turned cooler, I'm now walking the dog before dinner, so we don't run into the increasingly early dusk. Today she unexpectedly led me on a real walk, to the park and through a bit of it. We were slow, but nobody ran us over on a crossing or knocked us down with a bike. The dog is now plotzed in the hallway, but that's normal.

weofodthignen

The temp bounced up by early afternoon to hay-drying weather, so I mowed the back meadow. I'd searched for the dog's latest offering but failed to find one; my heel found it, I'm still not sure where. So at least it's now disposed of.

I then watered, and Monty appeared in the back porch room and stared me down, so I fed him.

arlie

On 9/29/25 I called my cellular provider (T-Mobile), and after spending half an hour on hold, I asked about charges for calls from my home in the US to Canada. A person who called herself Aniya informed me that my plan (which I've had for 11 years) now gives me unlimited free calling to Canada (+ Mexico). I recalled it not having that feature, when I first set up the plan, which is why I made a point of asking. (I'd expected I might have to change plans.)

8 hours ago I made a long call to Canada, using the cell phone rather than the land line. About half an hour after the call ended, T-Mobile sent me a text: "As of 10/04/2025, your account reflects $135 in international calls, and/or call to premium-rated numbers in this cycle." That is a lot more than what I would have been charged for making the same call from the land line.

While I was on hold with T-mobile on Monday, I had an online chat with Verizon's customer service. They told me that their Unlimited Welcome plan would give me free calls to Canada - for essentially the same price T-Mobile is charging me. And if I were to authorize a switch then and there, they'd waive the $40 activation fee. Moreover, they'd give me a $5 monthly discount for 3 years if I brought my own phone.

I'll be contacting T-mobile next Monday to complain, and maybe convincing them to reverse the $135 charge. (I wonder how a claim against them in Small Claims Court would play out in practice...) I won't consider staying with them unless they both provide free calls to Canada *and* reverse this surprise charge.

I moved to T-mobile 11 years ago because at that time they were the company that wouldn't charge me an increased monthly free to cover price-reduced phone upgrades, since I wasn't going to buy a phone from a telco in any case. (Phones bought from a carrier generally arrive locked to that carrier, which isn't a feature I want.)

All this because ATT is killing POTS, so I'm inclined to get rid of my landline entirely. I valued the ability to use my phone in a power outage, but non-POTS landlines don't offer that feature, short of more complexity and expense than I want to deal with - whereas a cell phone *might* work, if its battery has charge and the cellular towers have backup power, or are outside my outage area.

At least T-mobile warned me, rather than leaving me to find out when my next bill arrived, after many many more expensive calls.

weofodthignen

Definitely fall temps and a fall sky. But I looked around and while a few of the maples along the rail line have gone orange, the only sweetgum tree I saw that's started changing colour has a maybe 18" patch of maroon near its top, otherwise it's fully green. The weather is ahead of the vegetation this year.

Saw Monty and Prudence separately again today; she was sitting prettily in the driveway so I gave her some food, while he was snoozing on a neighbour's roof in late afternoon. Tabby's back; saw him or her last night.

weofodthignen

It was actually chilly in the morning, and didn't get very warm in the afternoon. On my walk, I still saw a lot of people in shorts, but some of the twenty-somethings playing volleyball in the park were in long sleeves.

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ahmik

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Skapi's Porch

Tinkering and Pottering since 1956

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Visitor;>!

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The 3 Mousekateers;>!

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T-mobile Redux

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Fuck T-Mobile

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