It is time. My two 3+ year old 100AH AGM house batteries are toast (I found a date on the sides after I pulled them out). Using the shore power and the converter/charger, they haven't got up above 11.1 volts. On the off chance that there is something wrong with the charger, I attached a regular charger and got same thing. They won't charge so they are dead. Time to replace them. This may well be the cause of my refrigerator failure last summer (It wasn't). I can't test that out until I replace them.
February 10, 2014
LTE Runaway
Last month, I got an AT&T hotspot and was quite happy with it. I have the 5GB/$50/month thing. My house is among the many places where there is very limited Internet options. The AT&T signal is good there and most of them time I get good speed with it. In all of January, I used about 2.5GB of data. Quite good since it even included streaming a single TV program.
A few days ago, I suddenly started getting emails from AT&T that I had used 3.5GB, shortly after that, 5GB and they added a gig for +$10. I shut off my hotspot (airplane mode) at the 5.99GB mark. I had a few web pages open but no streaming and I have ad blockers to cut that kind of data usage. My firewalls and virus scanners were up and I ran them afterwards to check my system and it was clean. It had run thru 5.5GB of data inside of 2 hours and I was not doing anything that should have eaten that kind of data. Yikes!
I called AT&T Tech support and all I got was that they registered a sudden increase in data download and too bad for me. They insisted it could not be their meters going haywire (I believe Technomadia had an episode of this with their Millicom hotspot). The only suggestion is that I turn the hotspot off when I'm not using data - something I already do. It is clear that AT&T will do nothing about it in true Telco fashion - their motto is it is always the consumer's fault. And they really don't care. They have zero incentive to fix such problems. To them, they just charged me an extra $10 and didn't have to provide anything for it.
What I suspect happened is that the big ice storm did something to their network and in the repairs, someone did something that triggered a false data download and I am screwed. There is just no way I could have legitimately downloaded 5.5GB of data inside of 2 hours. Even streaming wouldn't chew up that much data so fast and I don't stream.
I worked for years in computer systems and I know how easy it is to make an error and screw up networks. Especially when the shit is hitting the fan and you are scrambling to get things working again - exactly the situation after the ice storm. Most of the weekend was dropped down to the HSPA+ network on my phone so it is clear they were having problems.
So the bottom line is, LTE is great but watch out. Caveat emptor, indeed.
A few days ago, I suddenly started getting emails from AT&T that I had used 3.5GB, shortly after that, 5GB and they added a gig for +$10. I shut off my hotspot (airplane mode) at the 5.99GB mark. I had a few web pages open but no streaming and I have ad blockers to cut that kind of data usage. My firewalls and virus scanners were up and I ran them afterwards to check my system and it was clean. It had run thru 5.5GB of data inside of 2 hours and I was not doing anything that should have eaten that kind of data. Yikes!
I called AT&T Tech support and all I got was that they registered a sudden increase in data download and too bad for me. They insisted it could not be their meters going haywire (I believe Technomadia had an episode of this with their Millicom hotspot). The only suggestion is that I turn the hotspot off when I'm not using data - something I already do. It is clear that AT&T will do nothing about it in true Telco fashion - their motto is it is always the consumer's fault. And they really don't care. They have zero incentive to fix such problems. To them, they just charged me an extra $10 and didn't have to provide anything for it.
What I suspect happened is that the big ice storm did something to their network and in the repairs, someone did something that triggered a false data download and I am screwed. There is just no way I could have legitimately downloaded 5.5GB of data inside of 2 hours. Even streaming wouldn't chew up that much data so fast and I don't stream.
I worked for years in computer systems and I know how easy it is to make an error and screw up networks. Especially when the shit is hitting the fan and you are scrambling to get things working again - exactly the situation after the ice storm. Most of the weekend was dropped down to the HSPA+ network on my phone so it is clear they were having problems.
So the bottom line is, LTE is great but watch out. Caveat emptor, indeed.
January 14, 2014
Purging on
My dump run was 660 pounds of old door and trim, the vinyl and underlayment pieces for my hall and powder room and a lot of accumulated household trash. Nice to have it gone but there's a lot more.
I've been in this house for 20 years. 20 years of accumulated stuff. We really do expand our stuff to the space we have. And then some. I've been clearing out the family room, my main room that I've lived in for all that time. I cleared out the bookcase, cleaned it and moved it to a corner of the new living room. I put back about half the books but they probably should be gotten rid of. I have a lot of gardening, field guides, and construction books but nowadays, when I want to find out about something, I google it. I learned a ton from those books. How we have changed how our minds learn. It used to be that one had to have a library or go to a library to learn about something. Not anymore. It is mostly all on the web or can be gotten in a digital format that weighs little and takes little space.
I decided that my old stereo should go. I had a nice pair of speakers, a receiver, tape, and gasp, LP player because I still have a library of old vinyl LPs. I found the manuals for them too along with the manuals of several old and long discarded pieces. This stuff is over 20 years old! The tape player hasn't worked right in years so it can go to the recycling center - more loading up the van. The speakers are big and the receiver still works so they went to Goodwill. I haven't used the stereo in years because I now use a smaller much more modern unit.
I still have a VCR and old CRT TV. I thought I had a few Jane Austen shows on VHS tapes that I would like to copy to DVD but in the purge, I found that I had already bought them on DVD so those went to my neighbor who wanted them. In my cabinet, I had a ton of old movies that I had taped off analog TV. I have not had the VCR running in years and years now, so they all can be dumped. The picture quality won't be worth trying to copy them. I couldn't get the VCR to show on the TV anyway so they both went to the van to be taken to the recycling center.
That leaves some old cassette tapes and the LPs. Before I retired, I bought one of those all in one LP, tape record to CD machines that also has a radio in it meaning to digitize the old media to CDs. I hadn't ever started that project. But now, I will. I moved that unit into the new living room along with the cabinet and started it. It works pretty well altho using a program like Audacity to clean up the recording and convert it to MP3s is time-consuming. I got a pack of CD labels and used the on-line Avery program to make some labels for the CDs. That works well but I do have to pay attention to which tracks actually recorded on the CD. Sometimes, the machine adds extra tracks with nothing but static.
Pulling out the furniture that had been there for so many years is rather disgusting. The Asian brown marmolated stink bug invasion that started a few years ago left quite a collection of their carcases under it. I have a big computer Armour that has quite an accumulation of computer stuff. Most of that will be trashed because it is old now. I even found floppy disks and zip disks. I don't think I have anything that can read the old floppies anymore. I found a zip drive so I will have to see if there is anything on those disks that I've been wondering where they got to. If my Win 7 computer can run that thing. Funny how we went to technology after technology trying to squeeze more and more data onto portable media. Now even CDs are old school and terabytes of data storage are cheap to get.
I have had a big old computer armour that I no longer want or use. After I cleared it out, my neighbor said she wanted it so she sent her son and husband to haul it out. Yay!! In my mind, having someone take it out was worth giving it away, even if I could have gotten a few dollars for it.
When I stripped the ugly wallpaper, I got a surprise that almost all of it came off easily. All the wall paper in the rest of house is like it was put on with super glue and is a horrible job. I stripped the trim, and scrubbed the walls about 5 times to get the old paste off. The old carpet is pulled and the van is loaded up again for the dump. Then it is patching it all and then painting. It is amazing how much bigger a room looks with white walls and no ugly wall paper. Then it is onto the kitchen rehab before I lay the flooring in the back part of the house.
I kept getting stink bugs coming out of the mantel as I was stripping it. These are the invasion of the Asian ones that hit the east coat. I finally pried it off the wall and found hundreds of them behind the mantel! Yuck. When I put the mantel back on, it is going to get plenty of caulk to keep that from happening again!
Purging is an exercise in self control. As I go thru this stuff accumulated thru my life, I have to resist the urge to keep it because once I wanted it and used it. I keep reminding myself how long it has been sitting around unused. It is time to clean it out and pass it onto someone who will use it or just trash it.
Got a beautiful full double rainbow - horizon to horizon today! Couldn't get the whole thing in one pic. The sky was a perfect prism.
I've been in this house for 20 years. 20 years of accumulated stuff. We really do expand our stuff to the space we have. And then some. I've been clearing out the family room, my main room that I've lived in for all that time. I cleared out the bookcase, cleaned it and moved it to a corner of the new living room. I put back about half the books but they probably should be gotten rid of. I have a lot of gardening, field guides, and construction books but nowadays, when I want to find out about something, I google it. I learned a ton from those books. How we have changed how our minds learn. It used to be that one had to have a library or go to a library to learn about something. Not anymore. It is mostly all on the web or can be gotten in a digital format that weighs little and takes little space.
I decided that my old stereo should go. I had a nice pair of speakers, a receiver, tape, and gasp, LP player because I still have a library of old vinyl LPs. I found the manuals for them too along with the manuals of several old and long discarded pieces. This stuff is over 20 years old! The tape player hasn't worked right in years so it can go to the recycling center - more loading up the van. The speakers are big and the receiver still works so they went to Goodwill. I haven't used the stereo in years because I now use a smaller much more modern unit.
I still have a VCR and old CRT TV. I thought I had a few Jane Austen shows on VHS tapes that I would like to copy to DVD but in the purge, I found that I had already bought them on DVD so those went to my neighbor who wanted them. In my cabinet, I had a ton of old movies that I had taped off analog TV. I have not had the VCR running in years and years now, so they all can be dumped. The picture quality won't be worth trying to copy them. I couldn't get the VCR to show on the TV anyway so they both went to the van to be taken to the recycling center.
That leaves some old cassette tapes and the LPs. Before I retired, I bought one of those all in one LP, tape record to CD machines that also has a radio in it meaning to digitize the old media to CDs. I hadn't ever started that project. But now, I will. I moved that unit into the new living room along with the cabinet and started it. It works pretty well altho using a program like Audacity to clean up the recording and convert it to MP3s is time-consuming. I got a pack of CD labels and used the on-line Avery program to make some labels for the CDs. That works well but I do have to pay attention to which tracks actually recorded on the CD. Sometimes, the machine adds extra tracks with nothing but static.
Pulling out the furniture that had been there for so many years is rather disgusting. The Asian brown marmolated stink bug invasion that started a few years ago left quite a collection of their carcases under it. I have a big computer Armour that has quite an accumulation of computer stuff. Most of that will be trashed because it is old now. I even found floppy disks and zip disks. I don't think I have anything that can read the old floppies anymore. I found a zip drive so I will have to see if there is anything on those disks that I've been wondering where they got to. If my Win 7 computer can run that thing. Funny how we went to technology after technology trying to squeeze more and more data onto portable media. Now even CDs are old school and terabytes of data storage are cheap to get.
I have had a big old computer armour that I no longer want or use. After I cleared it out, my neighbor said she wanted it so she sent her son and husband to haul it out. Yay!! In my mind, having someone take it out was worth giving it away, even if I could have gotten a few dollars for it.
When I stripped the ugly wallpaper, I got a surprise that almost all of it came off easily. All the wall paper in the rest of house is like it was put on with super glue and is a horrible job. I stripped the trim, and scrubbed the walls about 5 times to get the old paste off. The old carpet is pulled and the van is loaded up again for the dump. Then it is patching it all and then painting. It is amazing how much bigger a room looks with white walls and no ugly wall paper. Then it is onto the kitchen rehab before I lay the flooring in the back part of the house.
I kept getting stink bugs coming out of the mantel as I was stripping it. These are the invasion of the Asian ones that hit the east coat. I finally pried it off the wall and found hundreds of them behind the mantel! Yuck. When I put the mantel back on, it is going to get plenty of caulk to keep that from happening again!
Purging is an exercise in self control. As I go thru this stuff accumulated thru my life, I have to resist the urge to keep it because once I wanted it and used it. I keep reminding myself how long it has been sitting around unused. It is time to clean it out and pass it onto someone who will use it or just trash it.
Got a beautiful full double rainbow - horizon to horizon today! Couldn't get the whole thing in one pic. The sky was a perfect prism.
December 26, 2013
Whoa!!
This month, I got a new cell phone: the new Nexus 5 unlocked, and tried out StraightTalk $45 for a month of unlimited talk, text, data. It is on the AT&T network and can do the LTE data speeds. The down side is that once you use up 2.5GB of data, they throttle you to 2g speeds and you can't tether the phone or roam. But I can get 5-6mbs upload and 2-3 mps download speeds on it at home on the HSPA network and 8-12+ when it gets the LTE signal. Compared to the 1.3 mbs at best I could get on the Sprint network and it looks pretty good. The talk and text works just fine too and it is a lot less expensive. I also got a Google Voice number that I connected to my land line and the new cell phone. That way, I can change out plans and numbers and people can call the Google number and still get me.
My first cell phone was an AT&T but a few years ago, I could no longer get a signal from them at my home so I switched to Sprint. Sprint was fine for a while but with the advent of LTE networks, they have really fallen far behind. Add to that the missing coverage on my trips and it is goodbye to Sprint. In the meantime, AT&T has expanded and sped up their network pretty well. Verizon wasn't a real option because I get poor coverage at my house from them.
I've had at home a wireless network that bounces the signal from spot to spot for rural places that I've been paying $55/month for 1mbs up and .5 down. It was a more reliable signal than tethering my old Sprint phone and better than dial up. I just discovered that they have been offering 2mbs up 1 mbs down for the last year for the same price and never let me know. So I asked and they want $189 for new equipment to up the speed. I know that the equipment I have can do 12mbs unthrottled and it is a very easy software setting to change the speed as that is what it did before the installer throttled it. Doesn't seem like a very good deal to me. A cable modem is not an option so I'm limited for internet even at home.
Today, I got the AT&T Unite Pro hotspot with the $50/5GB/month plan and yes, I went ahead and got the contract because I am going to keep it for that long anyway so I might as well save the $150 extra to buy it off contract. It isn't like they discount the monthly fee off contract. It gets the LTE signal really well in my house and look at the speed! 18+ mbs! Plus it is fully mobile. All I will have to do in the van is just put it in there and we are good to go. The hotspot has plugs for an antenna as well so that is an option.
I think 5 gigs of data will be fine for me as I don't do gaming or stream a whole lot of stuff. If I go over the 5 gigs, they will add a gig and charge me an extra $10. I can go to using 7-8 gigs in a month and match what I had been paying for the phone and internet so I think this is a better deal by far. Now to cancel the old stuff.
On other computer stuff since I'm on the topic. Last year, I bought an Android tablet but it was a failure after just a few months. It started rapidly flashing apps on and off and nothing I could find would fix it. It had a short warranty so I was stuck. I decided that I really prefer a laptop and got a Sony ultralight last summer. I still like it really well and it still works. Windows 8 takes some getting used to but it runs real programs like the Libre Office suite as well as a bunch of apps programs. It is incredibly light and fast with a touch screen. The Android wannabes on the tablet just didn't cut it for real work.
November 29, 2013
Musing on Thanksgiving as a Single Retiree
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, this time with the stores deciding their employees had so little pull that they could force them to have no holiday and come to work for the mad acquisition fanatics to indulge their whims on a national holiday. I'm one who gets irritated at the onslaught of the Christmas buying spree starting before Halloween. I like the Fall. The right wing likes to claim there's some sort of war on Christmas because many people like to be pleasantly inclusive to others who happen to not be Christian (it's why we say happy holidays - so everyone will be included in a banal but friendly greeting.) But there is zero evidence that Christmas in is any sort of decline. Just look around you. You can't escape it. It is yet another aggressive attempt to force a particular segment of Christianity onto people who don't care for it while sending the clear message that we don't want your kind around here if you don't subscribe to it. We used to say that kind of meanness was unchristian, but now it defines christian. But then that was when being christian was also defined as kind and charitable.
Funny thing is that the heavy Christmas traditions only date back to the 19th century when newspapers could shape a particularly monetary feeling about the holiday and set up a mythology that never existed before. The whole holiday was originated as a reworking of ancient pagan winter solstice celebrations to relieve the tedium of long, cold winter nights and the beginning of longer days again. Because of the lag of solar heating of the earth, the hardest winter is ahead but the sun gradually lasts longer and longer. The Roman Saturnalia and other pagan celebrations were impossible to squash so the early Catholic church got the brilliant idea to take it over and layer the celebrations with the Christian myths.
Enough griping about the coming holiday. Being a happily single middle aged woman puts me in a little quandary about holidays. People often think I'm lonely and in need of being taken care of at these times. So frequently, being a fairly pleasant person despite being a strong introvert, I am often asked to join a friend's family. Don't get me wrong, they mean to be really nice to me and that is their only motivation, so I do appreciate the sentiment.
But when you spend a distinctly family oriented holiday at someone else's family, no matter how nice and welcoming they are, I am a third wheel and don't really belong. I have always enjoyed the holiday dinners with my own family which is quite extensive but who all live far far away, but I am and always have been a part of it. I belong and always will whether I like it or not. Fortunately, I mostly like it. But I really hate traveling during the holidays. Especially by air. The unpleasant air travel is made much worse by the huge crowds so I try to avoid it.
In addition, during my work life, the demands of the job mostly made it impossible to go to a relative's house for holidays. I got used to not celebrating when in my early career I had to work 24/7/365 shifts. I would volunteer to work the holidays (more pay!) so that the people with families could have them with their families. At first, being at work helped distract from the all alone feeling but then it just didn't really matter any more the older I got. I find that the holiday traditions really matter a lot more when you have children. My dogs and cats just don't care. And I haven't really felt lonely since I got rid of my sociopath ex-husband years ago.
This year, my neighbor, who I see frequently (our dogs are best buds and she has chickens!), invited me to Thanksgiving dinner with her husband's family about 2 hours driving time away. I find it difficult to refuse such invitations because it is meant to be so nice. Then she started warning me about his various brothers and their less than ok behavior. I was raised with the "be pleasant and civil and no politics or religion topics at dinner" etiquette rules. So I started to have some trepidation about the event - with no possible escape hatch. I would be on their time table because of the distance.
The day came and went. They were very nice to me and mostly pleasant enough. I just said nothing about the politics discussion. It is not the time to try to counter the Fox "news" people with actual facts (studies keep showing that those who watch Fox are less informed of reality than those who get no news at all). But, really, it was a long day that got pretty boring when the inevitable football on TV started (which I find deadly dull - same thing over and over. Essentially playing dog-pile interspersed with endless committee meetings). They were very nice to me and very welcoming but they are not very educated so I really didn't have much in common with anyone (since I am and always have been an intellectual). I get along with my neighbor and enjoy her company despite the lack of comparable education because she is practical smart, logical, and thinks for herself, plus we have some common interests. I have always found hours and hours of banal small talk with (even nice) strangers exhausting.
In reality, I would have had a better day with no feast and by myself with my pets. I guess because I'm not a needy social person and really like my own company. It is amazing how few people can comprehend a single middle aged woman who is happy with her own life under her own control and needs no taking under a wing. That is when I feel like I have to start making up prior engagements because I really don't want to be taken under someone's wing and incorporated into their family. I like to choose individual people for friends and company who I like for themselves without being incorporated into their whole lives. But I am really loathe to hurt their feelings with outright rejection of what is intended to be very, very nice to me.
It is a quandary.
Funny thing is that the heavy Christmas traditions only date back to the 19th century when newspapers could shape a particularly monetary feeling about the holiday and set up a mythology that never existed before. The whole holiday was originated as a reworking of ancient pagan winter solstice celebrations to relieve the tedium of long, cold winter nights and the beginning of longer days again. Because of the lag of solar heating of the earth, the hardest winter is ahead but the sun gradually lasts longer and longer. The Roman Saturnalia and other pagan celebrations were impossible to squash so the early Catholic church got the brilliant idea to take it over and layer the celebrations with the Christian myths.
Enough griping about the coming holiday. Being a happily single middle aged woman puts me in a little quandary about holidays. People often think I'm lonely and in need of being taken care of at these times. So frequently, being a fairly pleasant person despite being a strong introvert, I am often asked to join a friend's family. Don't get me wrong, they mean to be really nice to me and that is their only motivation, so I do appreciate the sentiment.
But when you spend a distinctly family oriented holiday at someone else's family, no matter how nice and welcoming they are, I am a third wheel and don't really belong. I have always enjoyed the holiday dinners with my own family which is quite extensive but who all live far far away, but I am and always have been a part of it. I belong and always will whether I like it or not. Fortunately, I mostly like it. But I really hate traveling during the holidays. Especially by air. The unpleasant air travel is made much worse by the huge crowds so I try to avoid it.
In addition, during my work life, the demands of the job mostly made it impossible to go to a relative's house for holidays. I got used to not celebrating when in my early career I had to work 24/7/365 shifts. I would volunteer to work the holidays (more pay!) so that the people with families could have them with their families. At first, being at work helped distract from the all alone feeling but then it just didn't really matter any more the older I got. I find that the holiday traditions really matter a lot more when you have children. My dogs and cats just don't care. And I haven't really felt lonely since I got rid of my sociopath ex-husband years ago.
This year, my neighbor, who I see frequently (our dogs are best buds and she has chickens!), invited me to Thanksgiving dinner with her husband's family about 2 hours driving time away. I find it difficult to refuse such invitations because it is meant to be so nice. Then she started warning me about his various brothers and their less than ok behavior. I was raised with the "be pleasant and civil and no politics or religion topics at dinner" etiquette rules. So I started to have some trepidation about the event - with no possible escape hatch. I would be on their time table because of the distance.
The day came and went. They were very nice to me and mostly pleasant enough. I just said nothing about the politics discussion. It is not the time to try to counter the Fox "news" people with actual facts (studies keep showing that those who watch Fox are less informed of reality than those who get no news at all). But, really, it was a long day that got pretty boring when the inevitable football on TV started (which I find deadly dull - same thing over and over. Essentially playing dog-pile interspersed with endless committee meetings). They were very nice to me and very welcoming but they are not very educated so I really didn't have much in common with anyone (since I am and always have been an intellectual). I get along with my neighbor and enjoy her company despite the lack of comparable education because she is practical smart, logical, and thinks for herself, plus we have some common interests. I have always found hours and hours of banal small talk with (even nice) strangers exhausting.
In reality, I would have had a better day with no feast and by myself with my pets. I guess because I'm not a needy social person and really like my own company. It is amazing how few people can comprehend a single middle aged woman who is happy with her own life under her own control and needs no taking under a wing. That is when I feel like I have to start making up prior engagements because I really don't want to be taken under someone's wing and incorporated into their family. I like to choose individual people for friends and company who I like for themselves without being incorporated into their whole lives. But I am really loathe to hurt their feelings with outright rejection of what is intended to be very, very nice to me.
It is a quandary.
November 10, 2013
To the Dump, To the Dump, Dump, Dump
The van is such a versatile vehicle. I also used my compressor to blow all the water out of the van to have it ready for winter.
Last week, I completed the front rooms in my house with the stairs and railing, including all the trim and touch up. It feels really good to have it all done and looking like I had always imagined it could. Next up is a big purge. I'm starting to pack up some pictures and pots that I want to keep to get the family room cleared out so I can strip the ugly wallpaper and scrape the paint on the trim. After that, I'll go thru my stuff and give away a bunch of stuff I really don't need to have. It is a big job doing that but I will feel lighter when it is gone. And need room to work on the room. My rule is if I don't really love it or don't use it all the time, it goes.
October 31, 2013
Happy All Hallow's Een
I don't believe in anything supernatural so I have no fear of it but I do like to mark the marching of time thru the seasons. My silver maple tree suddenly turned a spectacular shade of orange/red today. It practically glows even in a thick cloud cover. We finally had a couple of killing frosts late last week so it has put on it's gaudy colors. It has been years since I've seen it put on such a show. Must be the extra wet summer we had. Tonight will bring a storm with high winds so I expect most of the leaves will be gone by tomorrow. A fleeting beauty.
I've been working hard putting down the flooring in my hall/living room/powder room/closet and it is complete! I moved my desk and some furniture into it so I can tackle the back rooms. I am in the midst of putting the flooring on the stairs and will set the newel post/railing as I do that, then the whole front part of the house downstairs will be completely done! Feels good but sheesh, it is only 1/8 of the whole job. I do believe I met my goal of making it look like a lovely cottage.
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