WTF

Really?

Made a run to Goodwill today to donate a few things that have been stacked on the futon for a couple months. There were a couple pair of half worn down sneakers, a pair of old towels, two bathmats and several other random things.

When I tried to put the gray cloth bathmat in the women’s bin she shook her head no, so I tossed it back in the car. The very next item I tried to put in the bin was the other bathmat. I figured I get waved off again because this one was a dingy looking rubber one that goes in the tub. But, nope, she let me donate it.

I thought for sure the fabric, because it could be thrown in a washing machine, would have been okay and rubber with suction cups on the bottom would have been rejected.

Subaru vs. Volvo

Both Subaru and Volvo tout the safety features of their vehicles. Lots of folks have purchased something from these two manufacturers because of their claims.

My first-hand experiences with drivers of the two makes in traffic is that they believe the safety claims in two totally differently lights. The Subaru drivers drive more cautiously as if they are not sure the safety features will work, while the Volvo drivers drive in manner that they believe they are safe no matter how bone-headed they drive.

Boom!

We were sitting in the dining room working on a jigsaw puzzle yesterday morning when we heard a boom so loud that we felt it. Our lights faded and then blinked off and then back on. It sounded close. Our first thought was that a car hit a power pole or something. I walked out onto the front porch and looked around but couldn’t see anything so we went back to the puzzle.

About 5 minutes later we heard sirens. Lots of them, one after another. And they kept on coming… Donna said, “Text Kathy (our across the street neighbor who seems to know everything that is happening) and ask what’s going on. I did and a couple minutes later she called and said her reply was too big for a text.

A small plane crashed into some homes in a subdivision just a quarter mile further down Sandy Blvd from us. She was with some folks and one climbed on his roof and could see a big column of smoke that way. It was a twin-engine private plane attempting to land at the Troutdale Airport a couple miles further east of us.

Yikes!

Pot Calling The Kettle Black

Way back in the early aught’s when Donna’s mom was living with us,both Donna and I were still working so she was our chief cook and bottle washer. If Donna had a hankering for a certain dish and the ingredients weren’t in the house Mom would head over during the day to the grocery store to pick up what was needed. Or if Mom saw something in a magazine or on TV that she thought sounded good for dinner, it would be off to Kroger for whatever was needed.

Back then as a courtesy (and to ease Donna’s mind), I would balance Mom’s checkbook every month. Invariably there were quite a few checks to Kroger each month. Sometimes it was 4 or 5 times a week and I would kid Mom about the frequency of Kroger trips. Well right now the shoe is on the other foot.

We have been living in Fairview for a month now and there is a Fred Meyer (a Kroger company) just under 2 miles from home. In these past 31 days we have shopped there 20 of them. There were actually 25 visits all told. One was just for gas and one was a pharmacy pickup trip.

Some of the first few were basically house setup, like groceries that we couldn’t pack in the move and stuff that was nearly used up so intentionally left behind. And I will have to admit that a quite few of the trips were to buy organizing supplies and home decor that might have been better bought elsewhere, but hey fuel points are a strong draw.

For reference, last year during the same time frame (10/10 to 11/9) we visited the Fred Meyer in Klamath Falls, a trip of just over 2 miles, just 10 times. I’m sure that pretty soon we will have settled down into that smaller visit rate.

Tay-Tray

Not only is the NFL cashing in on the most talked about famous people romance since Ben-ifer (Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez.) Amazon Prime Video is trying to capitalize…

Here is a screen grab I snagged while looking for something to watch yesterday:

Fatal Descaling

We had a fairly new Keurig K-Supreme coffee maker.

The first time the descale light illuminated I tried using white vinegar to do the job. It must have done some good, but it didn’t last as long as expected. So this time when the light came on I ordered the 3-Month Maintenance Kit from Amazon. Yesterday I did the descaling.

(Side note, the directions listed on the box on how to do this say to follow the instructions on the bottle, but there are no instructions on the bottle.)

After following the instructions I found on keurig.com I successfully ran the descaling procedure. Only trouble was that the brewer failed to restart afterwards. A search online said that I might have over heated the thermostat and I should wait a couple of hours and try again. After 3 hours the brewer would still not turn.

I then found a YouTube video on how reset it. After spending twenty minutes opening up my relatively new brewer I found the thermostat and no amount poking with a bent paperclip would reset it. I ohmed it out and it read as infinite, so I had no choice but to go out and spend $150 on a newer brewer.

Rest assured that next time the Descale light illuminates I going back to white vinegar. It may not last as long, but at least it won’t fry the thermostat.

I hope…

Watching Family Trees Grow

Donna and I have been a big fan of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s show on PBS called Finding Your Roots for quite a while. While it is fun to dig into the family trees of actors, musicians and other famous people, it always come with an interesting history lesson that a member of their family was directly involved in.

Because we have a subscription to Peacock so we can watch bicycle racing we were pleasantly surprised to stumble on a show on it called Who Do You Think You Are?. It is pretty much the same thing as Finding Your Roots except is from NBC and sponsored by Ancestry.com.

The PBS version is a nicer shop to watch because there are no interruptions for commercials and it will usually follow both sides of the person’s lineage back. The NBC version usually just picks one branch to chase back and while we don’t get commercials (we subscribe to the add-free level), we still get the 4 or 5 interruptions, with the title cards where commercials were, along with some sort of “cliff hanger” before and the repeat of when we get back.

After watching the 6 episodes of Season 1 of the show on Peacock and because the copyright date at the end of the last show was MMXX (aka: 2020), Donna asked, “I wonder if they are going to make more?” So I headed off to IMDB to see if there were any more. Turns out there are 85 total episodes over 12 seasons of the show. Not only that, but the “season 1” we watched on Peacock was actually season 12, the last one listed on IMDB.

A bit of poking around led to the discovery (pun intended) that the show aired for several years on TLC. Wait a minute, I’ve seen TLC listed on the Discovery+ streaming service we also subscribe to. Sure enough, we could watch more of the show, Discovery+ had seasons 4 thru 10. We had already seen 12 on Peacock, so where were seasons 1,2,3 and 11?

Adding up the total episodes from each season listed on Discovery+ for seasons 4 thru 10 comes up at 49. I then counted the episodes on IMDB for seasons 4 thru 11 and the total episodes was 49 again. The seasons on IMDB and Discovery+ didn’t line up, the quantity of episodes per each season were different and some shows were listed in different seasons.

So I tried a third source, Wikipedia. I counted episodes from season 4 to 10, because this source called season 11 what IMDB called 12 and Peacock called season 1, confused, me too. Anyway Wikipedia’s total was 52! I went through the list and found the 3 missing episodes, J.K. Rowling, Minnie Driver and Jim Parsons.

Also on Wikipedia I learned that seasons 1, 2 & 3 of the show were originally broadcast on NBC. Hello? Peacock is the streaming arm of NBC, why aren’t they available there?

Times Miata Driven since 10/28/22: 10