I'm still dreaming; this is bad

    So I dreamed that the brother whom I never see anymore and I were living in some odd group home/ dormitory setting where we didn't know anyone. I noticed that all my personal property except for my keys were missing. I was trying to look for them but I hit a button and suddenly we were in a kind of video game and we teleported somehow into a car, driving. We went by my parents' house. They were both still alive and in command of their faculties. They too were living with a lot of people whom I at least didn't know. My parents and the other residents were all gathered around the front door, looking out at the street while the second floor of their house was burning. My brother and I had to go to work. I said, "Wait, our parents are dead, I must still be dreaming; this isn't going to be good." But we went off to work. I don't remember details, but it wasn't good. And THAT'S why you don't read William Gibson before going to bed!

Dreams nice and frustrating, respectively

    The nice one was very nice. To start with, Dad and Margaret were fully healthy. They were not living in a nursing home, but were instead helping out there, volunteering to assist the residents. But the nicer part, perhaps, was that I kept almost calling Margaret "mom," as in "Dad and Mom" instead of "Dad and Margaret." So I finally just told her that sooner or later I would accidentally call her that, so she might as well be ready. I think she was pleased.
    The frustrating dream was kind of amusing, though. Paul and I were walking about the countryside and there were fences everywhere. We were talking about the apocalypse, hoping that before humans exited we would tear down all these darn fences so that the animals could get around OK. Then we went to a pizza place. There the barrier theme continued (as well as the apocalyptic one, depending how you feel about pizza). There were glass partitions that you couldn't get past to get to where you order. Paul climbed over. I managed to find a spot where I could squeeze between. The space was maybe an inch wide. In real life, I'm at least probably at least six inches thick, but hey, it's a dream. Maybe I disarticulated. Never did get any darn pizza.

The high lords of timing

    Paul and I had another wonderful visit to Bull's Island in Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. (I think that's right; you could look it up.) Or rather we had two visits, as he primarily swam and sat and watched the ocean and I primarily walked and took pictures of dead trees at renowned Boneyard Beach. On the way back, I was just overwhelmed with complete sand dollars, finding vastly more than I could actually carry back. I put them in various compartments of my pack and brought home nearly two dozen, almost all complete. Which is just flat ridiculous. Another half dozen or more crumbled by the wayside, sadly, but c'est la guerre.
    What impressed us though was that the weather looked threatening the whole way down, rain clouds seemed to be heading our way throughout the visit, but we had beautiful weather all the way. We actually packed up the ferry and returned early, by which time the ugly weather was much, much closer. We got back just ahead of us and the rain started literally before we were a mile up the road. We are the timing gods! Or rather the crew from Coastal Expeditions are. Kudos!
    We also dug great tacos at Taco Spot in West Ashley for dunch. (Linner? Lupper? Sunch?) And great music to go with it. And they took their gluten-free dairy-free very seriously, for which I was very grateful. And we left roses at my mom's grave. Twelve years in only a few days. Sigh.

But I can't remember them!

    I'm having extra weird dreams lately, but they flee by morning. I have the impression of the usual stuff: my dad's house, only gigantic and full of cool rooms and cool furniture and, I think, a train station. (There's ALWAYS a train station.) There was also an episode last night where I was driving somebody down a sidewalk in something that was sort of a bicycle and sort of a jeep. I was very annoyed by all the dips for non-existent driveways. Seemed to be the usual thing of my brain annoying me to let me know I needed to get up and go to the bathroom. I still don't see why my subconscious can't just announce it.
    The most amusing dream lately had me about to be sent onstage to dance as a woman in a gogo joint. I was still trying to figure out how this was going to work, and looking around for a heavy duty electric razor when somebody handed me something that was supposed to be a camera. I was now supposed to spy on one of the customers. This probably had something to do with the radio show playing at the time, which was about a mobster spying on a hardware store owner because the former was about to be charged in an open and shut murder case and the latter looked exactly like him. The mobster trained himself in all of the hardware store guy's mannerisms, took him for a ride, took his place, and of course was immediately arrested because the guy whose place he had taken had just killed his wife. Best twist ending ever, and it saved me from a life as a gogo dancer.

Still they lead me back

    Paul McCartney came to town last night. Macca puts on quite a show, quite a show. He gave us 3 hours, or pretty nearly, which considering his age is dang astonishing. He also dedicated "The Long and Winding Road" to the people killed in Charleston last week, which struck me as brave, considering that it isn't entirely an optimistic song. Or maybe it seemed not to be way back when because it was the last Beatles single.
    He also performed "Blackbird" solo, saying that he had written in hopes of giving black people in the States in the '60s hope, which I had never heard and would have never guessed. I guess I wasn't of an age for penetrating metaphor yet. He played it beautifully on a forward stage that I don't think they used otherwise. (Claire, who was nice enough to give me the ticket, said that they did two or three songs up there, so I'll go ahead and believe her.)
    There were a lot of gaps, good and bad, in the playlist. I was surprised that he didn't play Get Back, Junior's Farm or any of the really awful stuff from the '70s. Considering where we are, a nice Hold My Hand/I Want To Hold Your Hand medley would have been in order, but no! As an exercise, you might want to make a Paul McCartney playlist. Great googly moogly he has a lot of songs! He missed many of my favorites, but I didn't feel in any way cheated.
    Otherwise, I just couldn't hold out on a bathroom break when Back in the USSR rolled around, so made my run. Since I was seated apart from the other three in the party and since it was very late and surely, I thought, he wouldn't be playing much longer, I decided to stand for the rest of the show. Trying to get back to our section, I went down rather than up. In the expensive seats, boy, they're quick to clear you off the stair areas. Up in the cheap seats, nobody ever bothered us, and people were on the stairs for the remainder of the show. I was really grateful to be there when Live And Let Die turned into a pyrotechnic spectacular. I held on to that railing hard!
    The other slightly weird thing was that there was free wi-fi that worked on the concourse but not in the seats. However, it did work right up to the steps and even a few feet into the arena. I don't know what that means. Since my phone worked fine, as far as I can tell, it isn't a Faraday cage. Go figure. I'll just plan not to download anything major at my next basketball game.

On the bright side, I can't crash it

    My friend Bruce came around with a soldering iron and changed out all four motors on the old original drone. I also changed out the propellers. It goes like crazy now, except for up. I also noticed that the remote was behaving strangely. Since I have two now, I got an extra set of batteries (for no sane reason except that the battery life indicator on the first one might have been wrong) and tried it out, and the controls worked (or failed to work) exactly the same way. I can only assume that one of the crashes led to something burning out on the motherboard. I'm probably just crazy enough to buy a third bottom of the line drone. Maybe I'll hang something heavy on it so it can't fly away this time. Or station people with the second and third remotes some distance away in case it flies out of my range. The possibilities!

Come and get me, coppuhs!

    The IRS sent my late dad his tax refund check yesterday. The envelope has a checkbox: "If recipient deceased, check here and drop in mailbox. Forgery of endorsements on Treasury checks is a Federal crime. Maximum penalty is a $10,000 fine and ten years imprisonment." Now I filed Dad's taxes informing them that he was deceased, the check was made out to dad's name, deceased, followed by my name, personal representative, all correct. I know they didn't mean me. But it still was a little alarming. Oh well; what's ten years?

I shot an arrow

    My wonderful sister sent along a replacement drone. This one was a crazy flyer. (Note past tense.) First flight it went beyond the controller's range and vanished. Eventually, I found it crashed on the shoulder of the road. Some pieces had fallen off which needed to be screwed back on, so I had to take it home. (The people at Pacific Park were very helpful and supportive, although in the end I found it myself.)
    The second flight didn't go that well. It again flew beyond range and crashed on the giant warehouse across the street. Well, strictly speaking, the second flight went all right; it was the third one that was the problem. I was able to get it to take off from the roof, but it flew directly into a tree, still above the warehouse, some 50-60 feet off the ground. There's an address for the warehouse, but no company name or mailbox or contact information. There's a car parked there, but no indication how long it's been there. There's a gate at streetside with a heavy padlock on it. Only good signs are that the car and padlock are relatively new. My conclusion, though, is that it's goodbye quad copter.

Old year resolution

    Or new fiscal year resolution. I have a strange tendency to window shop, or rather browse, at thrift stores. I spend a lot more time there than I spend money. Every now and then I find something neat, but not quite neat enough to buy right this moment. Today, I paid (or failed to pay) the price. Two items that I was sure were so crappy that nobody would buy them were both gone.
    One was cool in theory. It was a padded rocking chair. Googling indicated that originally it cost $400. What it was was a metal frame with a (padding filled) cloth cover. Googling also suggested that replacing the cover would be $330. Goodwill wanted $7. It was very badly stained and significantly frayed. I've got a picture, but neither the staining nor the fraying show particularly. If you're curious, search the PuffChair rocker from Chicago Textile Company. I figured nobody would want a beat up, if once valuable, rocker, especially in one day. I figured wrong.
    The other was cool in practice. I didn't decide not to buy it; I just forgot. It was a pair of glasses exactly like mine but smaller and tortoiseshell-free. Only $3. Some damned hipster must have beat me to them. At the rate I'm making my way over to the opthalmologist to get a new prescription, it's hardly a tragedy, but they were very cool, darn it.
    So the new resolution is a simple one. I don't go back. I mean, if I'm in the neighborhood of a Goodwill where I saw something cool before, I'll certainly look in, but I can't make special trips back to check on items that I've already passed up once. My fellow shoppers are just too smart. Today's item I passed up: the book "The Princess Bride." I hear it might be a kissing book.

Rally

    The bring down the (Confederate) flag rally yesterday was quite wonderful. I am assured by people who understand the ins and outs of the General Assembly that actually getting it down will be nearly impossible, but lots of nearly impossible stuff happens every day. Less than 10 years ago, we would have said that about same-sex marriage. The rally was a great feel-good moment, a time to heal and a good start. Hopefully, the next one, July 4th, will be even bigger and will bring results. Considering the weather though and limited publicity, turnout this time was great.
    Sorry if this is extra brain dead; I think the heat is finally catching up to me. I just flat fainted listening to baseball, got up, changed channels to another baseball team (accidentally at that) and fainted again. Granted baseball is soporific, but this is pretty unusual even for me.
    Sadly, the drone only had one more day's flying in it. My rescue trick, for no apparent reason, quit working. Now it skitters along the ground instead of flying. Kind of cute, really, but not too fun. Not to brag about what a doof I am, but I tried to take it apart just to see if there was anything I could clean out that would help. The first 13 screws came out no problem, but #14 didn't want to go. So before we even get to issues with a possible soldering iron, I have issues with a Phillips head screwdriver. (That's 14 out of 26 screws, by the way. Tiny, tiny, tiny screws.) On the other hand, the price is going down; I can always just get another one!

Not quite dead!

    The drone returned from the dead through an embarrassingly simple trick. When I first put the battery in, I'm supposed to sync the remote with the drone by putting both control levers in the bottom right position for a few seconds. When it was a little baby drone, doing this once was adequate. However, after assorted crashes, bumps and bruises, once is not enough. As it turns out, syncing (a very improbable word) it after every flight miraculously brings it very close to normal. Shoot heck darn, not THAT close to normal. It doesn't control as well as before, nor fly as high. It still needs the replacement motors to be soldered in. But it's way more fun than it was yesterday.
    There's a rally today to try once again to get the Army of Northern Virginia flag (usually called the Confederate battle flag) off the State House grounds. It's at 6, by which time it will either be 100 degrees or pouring. Hopefully there will be a good turnout. I can guarantee that one person will be there at least.

I think the tree wants it more than I do

    The auto glass outfit I visited yesterday had a terrific panoramic picture of the Columbia skyline (such as it is). I could never quite decide if it was a photo or a painting. Regardless, a person with common sense would have just taken a picture of it and had done, but dammit, I have a drone! So I went to Canalside, where I should have been able to get the same picture or nearly. (Theirs was taken from roughly the Comfort Suites. Although I enjoy picturing the conversation ("Can I go up on your roof with my drone to take some pictures?") I'm thinking, on the whole, not likely.)
    The drone was flying OK but not great. I tried to get some pictures which was a bad idea because I waited too late to kill the power and flew it right into a tree. Trying to fly it out again made some noise, but did nothing useful. I went home for my fence pole and a folding chair. Hey, it worked once!
    I was pleased that I could reach the drone with the pole once I stood on the chair, but it was a darned leafy tree and didn't want to let go. A fellow was walking by and I said what's in the subject line, explaining that my drone was stuck. He sympathized and steadied the chair for me and when I wasn't making any progress, took over, as he was taller and stronger. And he got it down. I was really grateful and still am. It was great that a perfect stranger helped out with no thought of benefit to himself.
    The bad news is that Drony Maroney won't really fly anymore. When it came down, one motor wouldn't turn at all, but it came back after a while. After that, it would move, but not really get off the ground. This morning was the same. The manual said that you can throw it in the air and start the motors and fly it like that. This does in fact work, but it's just a short wait until the next crash. My wonderful sister yesterday sent a full set of replacement parts, so if I can find somebody with soldering equipment and skills, Drony can be reborn. That's what I call timing!

TMI: glass edition

    One of the things that one hates about living in this place during this era is that the mass shootings just run together. So if I say at this point that I'd like to extend my sympathies to the families of the victims of the mass shooting last night, somebody looking at this a week or a month from now (including me) will just say, "Wait, which one was that?" This was the one where a racist moron with a gun decided to kill nine people at a church bible study in Charleston including a state senator because of the color of their skin. I'm a nobody and few read my blog, but I certainly extend those sympathies nevertheless.
    As to the topic at hand, I had a crack in my windshield. It was on the passenger side, so I thought about letting it slide, but the crack hurt my eyes a good bit when the sun hit it, so I figured I would err on the safer side. When I reported the crack to USAA, I inadvertently lied, saying it was longer than my arm when it was really only a little bigger than my hand. The mind's eyes plays tricks on you, or anyway on me.
    My appointment was at 10 this morning; I arrived early. The technician told me I was looking at a 2 1/2 to 3 hour wait. This was brilliant psychology, because then I was REALLY impressed when I had my car back after an hour. And now I have a really really REALLY clean windshield. This is the TMI part. (You have been warned.) I sing along with the radio or tapes or CDs a LOT. And really loud. Nobody has developed a spit shield for this to the best of my knowledge. So the question is, can I put a lid on it? Can I finally learn how to wipe down the windshield? (Really I've tried, but somehow it never seems to work.) Regardless, it's very clean now; suddenly I don't feel nearly so much like I need new glasses.
    Drone life continues a little sad. Maybe it's the heat, but the toy flies great for maybe five minutes of its battery time, then spends the other few minutes hovering near the ground. Since I have a backup battery, this gives me a total of 10 minutes of good flying and 10 of sad. I'll try again in the morning and see if it helps when it isn't 100 degrees outside. I hope that's it.

Silly silly

    I dreamed the other night I was in some kind of combination of a gym and a locker room. Or to be more precise, it was ostensibly a gym except everyone was sitting on backless benches like a locker room. Everyone was dressed and nobody was doing any exercising to speak of. But somebody needed to be where I was and magically I was suddenly in a parking lot in a small red Toyota which could turn all four wheels sideways and did so to get out of the person's way. And of course now I want a real-life Toyota that can turn all four wheels. Drone related? Could be.
    Meanwhile in real life, on the third straight 100 degree day, Harry the cat continues to stay outside except for meals. I continue to worry about him. I hope he'll be OK. I put water out for him, even putting ice in it, although he was highly bewildered by the latter. I check on him frequently. Fortunately, I have a very shady yard and porch. He mainly just naps and naps but looks fine when he wakes up.
    In drone world, things are less well. Yesterday morning, the drone flew fine. Yesterday evening, for no apparent reason, it flew much less well. I can't figure it. Then again, the replacement cost is $50 or $60 so maybe I need not figure it.

That darn century mark

    The heat wave barely affects me except insofar as it's a good idea to get my daily walk in a lot earlier or, ya know, never, but I do worry about Harry the outside kitty. Fortunately I have a very very shady yard anyway. That may be why he turned up in the first place. Not just that it's shady but tougher on predators from the sky. Harry would rather be out than in regardless of temperature assuming it isn't raining or snowing. I left him a bowl of water and check on him often, but generally I can't cajole him or even carry him in. Well, we both evolved in Africa; I'm hoping that if he thinks he can handle it, he's right.
    All I've got is a steady headache that feels like sinus trouble. Compared to people with troubles, it isn't one but I'd still be delighted to give it up. Delighted I am though that the drone still flies in spite of its wonky rotor. I wish anybody wanted to come out and play with it with me but given the weather, I can see their point of view. I am happy to say though that once the sun sinks behind the trees, it isn't really all that hot. Or maybe I've been hanging with Harry the cat too long.

Too dang hot to blog

    Not really, but it really is too dang hot. Headed for 102 or so they say. As with wintertime, there's a fair degree of solidarity with the rest of the country. Apparently we aren't the only area that's really really hot. What I wasn't used to was 90 degrees by 10 am. Heck, this isn't Phoenix!
    I'm all sad because the drone isn't working as well. One rotor or propeller doesn't turn as well as previously. I'm told that a hair or a blade of grass is wound around the motor but I can see in and can't see anything like that. I can take the whole thing apart easily; what I'm not sure about is whether I can put it back together again. It'll still fly as it is; just not as well. Decisions, decisions.

Two good things

    Thing one is that I cheered the heck up spectacularly yesterday. At first, I was thinking it was the best day of the year, but then I reconsidered and decided that it was a fairly normal day. The thing is, at 3 or so I decided to try again to make chocolate pancakes. This time I put in almost as much cocoa as flour. THAT did the trick. It also finally got enough caffeine in my system to get my thyroid working again. OHHHHHHH! So we may finally have a solution to the chronic depression problem. That was easy! I just got to get in my caffeine before 4; that way I cheer up and also can still sleep. So simple.
    Thing two is that the IRS wants to give back 40% of the money I paid them on Dad's behalf in April. At first I was fairly annoyed because as nice as the refund is, there were also small but not tiny fines for paying his estimated taxes late. This is fairly crazy because he had no way of knowing when he worked out his estimated taxes that his income would be half again what it had been in earlier years. Finally, though, I figured out that they had worked out how to do the taxes to my greatest benefit, which was to work out what those estimated taxes would have been, reduce my overall burden and fine me for small amounts for the late estimated taxes. This may just be me being pollyannaish, but it works for me. Or maybe it's just the caffeine talking.

Impressing the small fry

    Yestereve it was hot and everything, but I had a lot of battery on the drone and I had somehow persuaded Harry to come in the house so I figured I would go down to the vacant lot at the end of Ohio Street and try to improve my mastery of the flight controls again for a little while. Before I quite got there, a guy living across the street from the lot asked, "Hey! Is that a drone?" I said yes and I would show him and he brought out his little girls. I think he was drastically more interested than they were, but they liked it, too.
    He turns out to be an enthusiast about R/C helicopter flying, so he's a natural to join the drone people. He also reminded me that there's a baseball field at Pacific Park across Whaley Street, or less than a mile from here. I went this morning and it was a blast, except to some degree literally. That is to say that it's windy. New horizons in complaining about weather: I never noticed it was windy in Columbia until I started droning. Also the camera didn't take any pictures even though I thought I had shot more than a dozen. I tested the camera when I got home and it works. Gotta hit the button harder I guess.

Genius!

    I love it when I do something brilliant by accident. I particularly love it when I'm trying to do something else brilliant which fails abysmally but then turns out to have been accidentally brilliant in retrospect. I made my chicken pasta e fagioli (which is a lot easier to spell if you just call it pasta fazoo). Not brilliant yet, but rising to the level of nearly normal: in a revolutionary move, I actually cooked the chicken first. What'll he think of next?! You don't want to know what I did before. (Seriously, I cooked the chicken first before, too; just not all that well.)
    It turned out great, but I forgot to put in the mushrooms. So I thought, no problem, I'll just put olive oil in my saucepan/ heat stuff up pan and thaw and sautee some frozen mushrooms, then throw in the dinner portion and heat that up, too. This should have been a brilliant idea, but I guess I needed more olive oil. I wound up with a lot of material, including much of the mushrooms, stuck down to the supposedly non-stick pan. Nobody died and the pasta was still tasty. I unstuck as much as possible of the burnt down stuff as possible and that was the brilliant part. I loved it!
    So! All I need to do is figure out how to dry up mushroom/tomato paste/ brown rice quinoa pasta/ olive oil and assorted vegetable juices. It'll be easy! Ironically, I have some quinoa chips from Aldi at the moment that I'm not too thrilled with. All they need is tomato paste, mushrooms and olive oil, apparently.

A (very) little perspective

    I found another good place for droning, defined as any large field without joggers on it. This is another baseball field. Ever since I started this thing, I snap pictures with the drone any time it gets particularly high assuming it isn't about to fly into a tree or something. This policy resulted in some neat skyline pictures early on but lately mainly a lot of shots of trees, more trees and grass. Today, though, the tree shots were strangely close up. I'm very careful, since I have practically no tree climbing ability, to avoid getting anywhere close to trees at all, so I have no idea how this happened. Later pictures revealed another ball field just the other side of the adjacent parking lot. This I have much trouble believing in; how could I have not seen another baseball field a couple hundred feet away? Really, I'm going to have to go and check.
    None of this is exciting, I realize. Nor are they brilliant pictures or I would post them. (Not worth 1,000 words, I guess.) I am going nuts somewhat with regard to the drone and photography because all the places I would like to shoot, mainly near the river, are just impossible until I have absolute mastery of the controls, which is kind of hard to attain at 10 or 20 minutes a day flying time max. Otherwise, it lands in the river and I'm out one quad copter. There's a beach drop at Bull's Island Sunday. That's to say that the ferry boat lands you on the beach instead of at the regular landing an hour's walk from the beach. I'm thinking of going and I'm thinking of bringing the drone. But if the powers that be tell me not to fly it, I'll be easy to persuade. It's windy down there and the Atlantic is pretty big. I can always hold it up and take pictures that way!

Two wrong orders don't make a right order

    I've been having Drinking Liberally at a pizza joint (really, that's in the name) called Uncle Maddio's for the past several weeks (not counting my birthday, where I went Thai) on the grounds that they do gluten- and dairy-free well, I like it, and because this is the time when one can get parking there. They're right next to the university, so normally parking is impossible.
    It's been a pretty successful move in the sense that people sometimes come and seem to enjoy it. Last night was slightly less successful. Paul and I were the first to arrive and we ordered together, and maybe we just threw too much stuff at them. Paul ordered corn as one of his toppings; when his pizza came out, there was no corn. When mine came out, there was the corn.
    We weren't upset or up-in-arms or huffy or anything, but gmo corn is another thing that I don't much eat, so I asked for another pizza. Before that came, they brought the first one back in a box for no charge, since otherwise they would throw it out. Paul ate several slices, so he got his corn after all. It was an admirable solution and I like them even more for it. I also dug the heck out of my pizza when it finally arrived. Paul had picked the garlic and olive oil sauce so I shamelessly ripped him off. It was really good. He went with sun-dried tomatoes and I went with Roma; mine were chopped so tiny it was hard to say what kind they were, but they were good. Yay Maddio's!

We're in the money!

    I was really stumped for a topic today. Granted, I finally found a good place to fly (Southeast Park, has a large field nobody seems to use). Of course I went there this morning and they were mowing it. But mowing, like all things, passes, so I got to have fun anyway. And the MP3 CDs seem to be working better, so it's possible that the lens cleaner actually helped. But neither of these topics, however delightful to me personally, have a lot in the way of legs.
    Well this doesn't either. For months, maybe years, we've been getting bills from Dad's USAA credit card saying that he has a $3 balance. When he died, I told them and they canceled the card-- and kept sending the credit balance bills, including one about a week ago. Today, the big humongous $2.94 check finally came in the mail. No it's not of any importance whatever. Still I'm relieved to have one less pain in the butt phone call I need to make, especially about three friggin' dollars. I will try not to spend it all in one place.

Oops.

    So the toy, while a wonderful thing, is not really working out. Maybe if I moved to a Great Plains state, or even a Pretty Good Plains state, I would be in clover (which may or may not be a pun), but where I live there just aren't any wide open spaces. This isn't to claim that this is anything like Manhattan; the furthest thing. We're just lousy with trees is all.
    My old middle school would be the best place to play, as half of its lot is an open field the size of a city block. Unfortunately, it is very popular with joggers. This wouldn't be a problem if drones were easy to control. However, this one at least is not, particularly. Sooner or later, I'm going to bring it down too fast and too inattentively and clock somebody on the head.
    That isn't what happened yesterday, but it was worrying enough. Drone got away from me and was headed for the school so I cut power and it landed atop a metal covering for a walkway from the school to the parking lot. I bounced it off but then crashed it behind a fence. By sheer miracle it landed rotors up so I was able to fly it out. Otherwise, I would have been climbing a fence, never a good idea in front of witnesses and never a good idea in hiking boots.
    So I call that a lucky escape. The problem is that you can only get fun interesting pictures if you go really high. The ancillary problem is that the range of the controller is only 90 meters so when you go high is also when you no longer have control. Also the wind up there is often a lot stronger than the wind where you're standing. Result: I need a really really big field with nobody else around, or anyway nobody else around who is likely to sue me.
    I'm stumped. This morning, in a continuing effort to put off real life to the maximum extent possible, I went to Camden to Goodale State Park on the grounds that they used to have an unpopular 9-hole golf course and that should have been a great place to drone. Alas, I hadn't been keeping up. They seem to have closed the course many years ago. The area around the park's mill pond would be great for somebody with skills, but that is not yet me. I will definitely go back should I ever develop any.

So-lution?

    As time goes on, my CDs featuring oodle after oodle of old-time radio shows, some with 55 hours or more of programming per CD, have been performing worse and worse. You get ten minutes into a thirty-minute show and it just ends and the player skips to the next show. Often the same thing happens to the next program as well. So for ages I've been trying to find a CD player lens cleaner. But the days of CDs are pretty well past. Every store has a slot where cleaners should be sold, but they're always sold out.
    Today at Target, I found one. So far, the results aren't overly good. It appears that the files have gotten corrupted over the years. In fact, I kind of buried the lead. I checked one of the CDs on my laptop and specifically one of the files that had ended early. Windows media player showed it as being 19 minutes long instead of 30. So most likely no CD lens cleaner is going to help.
    I ripped some of my favorite shows and put them on my iPod Nano. The files went on my old laptop and filled it up to the point that it wouldn't/won't boot up anymore. I am assured that this is easy to fix and I can get those files, at least, back. Short of buying them all again, this is probably the best solution. I also still have the iPod Nano, which is how I mostly listen to the shows now. Apparently iPods are more reliable than CDs.

Go to the room where the needles are

    For some reason I was in New York state. Or somewhere up the eastern seaboard. And for some reason I was in a large, large group undergoing evaluations. Don't know what it was all about or even supposed to be about. Maybe the death panels finally started up.
    Everybody was very pleasant and the first stage was straightforward, or straightforward enough that I don't remember it. Anyway, none of my fellow evaluatees were upset. Then the official person told us that we needed to go next to the room where all the needles are. She was still pleasant, though, so I asked if she could maybe provide more detailed directions since none of us knew where that was. She laughed and led us there, still pleasantly.
    I woke before anybody could do anything with any needles and admit that by nightmare standards it isn't much, but I sure as hell couldn't get back to sleep. I did dig that I could hear the old-time radio playing in the waking world during the dream and everybody liked Kay Kyser there. Still, a return to nightmareland, however mild, tends to support my idea that GNC kelp is really a nice little dose of caffeine. But hell, I'll say it again: if it works, it works. It's certainly a nightmare that I can live with. Unless they get me with one of those needles.

Well I tell you what

    Switching back to my (probably non-kelp) kelp pills from GNC has not resulted in any notable upsurge in productivity, but I am more cheerful and now have a measurable heartbeat, both good things. It occurs to me that what's in the pills most likely is not green powder from leaves from house plants plus iodine from the drugstore down the block like I had been thinking, but more likely green powder from leaves from house plants plus caffeine. Still, if it works, it works, and so long as I can sleep at night I'll probably stick with these. Especially if an upsurge in productivity happens.
    As to the other kelp, Nature's Way capsules, I don't know anything about that company's reliability or trustworthiness. Assuming that they're trustworthy because the people I bought them from are is a little tricky since GNC, which I've already said I don't trust a lot, sells this brand, too. But for argument's sake, say that the capsules contain kelp equivalent to 2 1/2 times the daily requirement for iodine. It occurs to me that it might not be in a form (iodide, I think it is) that the body can use. Anyway, my body didn't seem to be using it for a darn. Maybe I'll just throw the whole idea over and join the rest of the world in drinking coffee with breakfast. Only two problems with that: 1) I don't like coffee; and 2) it gives me cramps. Oh well, GNC for me!

It's just possible that I made a mistake

    That's never happened before, right? Well, this is me, so not a mistake exactly. I was exactly right except of course for the whole being completely wrong thing.
    I mentioned some months ago that I was quitting GNC's kelp tablets on the grounds that recent studies indicated that their products were fake, that they didn't contain the ingredients purported to be inside. I think I mentioned then that even though I doubted if it was really kelp, it certainly was really iodine since it kept my thyroid up. Well, the better more reliable seller's kelp I bought instead is probably really kelp, but whether there's any iodine in there is another question. I've been depressed for months but there's no reason. It's not like lingering mourning; it's like I was when my thyroid wasn't working. Thus, when I finish dinner, I'm heading over to GNC to get me more fake kelp. Hey, what works works!
    National Weather Service says we're getting really astonishing quantities of rain but, knock on wood, so far we're doing fine with it. We were somewhat in a drought which helps, but then so was Texas. So hopefully, things slack off or at least continue to run off. Last night's rains were so ridiculous that I just gave up on sleeping for an hour there and sat in the comfy chair. And that was before the thunder started! Later, there were two big pops like transformers blowing but I never lost power. I never did find out what that was about.

Topic topic topic

    Yesterday's topic that I forgot was easy to remember once I drove past the same place. I've already made it a Facebook status update, but you know I can blither further on it.
    There's a marquee at a business on Huger Street (if you don't live in Columbia, just don't ask; I'll answer in a minute anyway) that reads "Train station trainers needed." As with all great mysteries, once I figured it out (will probably take you under a second), it was no longer as funny, but for a day there I was delightfully puzzled. My first instinct was to call or drop by and ask what it meant. My second was that it was so delightful as a perplexity that I never wanted to know what it meant. My third was to call and ask if they offer training.
    Of course the explanation almost has to be that there's a gym opening called Train Station and they need trainers. But darn it, I liked it so much better being puzzled! As to Huger, it is a Huguenot name. Many French Huguenots (protestants, if you're not keeping up) settled in Charleston, and we've been mispronouncing their names for centuries now. Apparently, Huger St. in Columbia was pronounced like "more huge" until late in the 20th century. By the time I came around, there was a movement to pronounce it like U.G. My suggestion that the street signs be taken down and replaced by a single really really huge G has not thus far been taken seriously, nor has my idea that they change the name to The Street That Is More Huge. I guess they would have to widen it first.

Topic topic

    I had a great topic a minute ago but completely blanked on it. You would have loved it, too, it was that great. Oh well. On the other hand, if I'd tried to record it in some way while driving (where I was when I thought of it), I would probably be a statistic, so you can take some solace (hopefully) in that. I'll probably think of it again the next time I'm driving.
    One topic I used before was silly car names with Limited or Special added to them, but I took a different slant. Now I'm noticing how many have Limited in the name but really shouldn't given the main model name. Ford as I mentioned last time specializes in this. Escape Limited, Expedition Limited, etc. Do these guys never ask anybody if this is a good idea? (Another driving inspired idea, of course.)
    The week here is supposed to be dominated by rain, so flying opportunities may be, well, limited. This morning I had two instances where I told the drone to shut down and it wouldn't. (In other words, I pushed the throttle control all the way to off but could still hear the motor whine.) Terrible twos, I suppose. It did shut down eventually, but I'm now expectiong to have it fly away forever rather than fly into a tree forever as the end experience. I just hope that everybody who wants to see it or play with it gets a chance to first.

Blue jay way

    This was supposed to be yesterday's entry, but I blanked out totally. Day before yesterday, I wanted to go down the street to the empty lot and try to get sunset pictures. Harry had just been outside, but I had let him out. When I started down the street, he sat peaceably in the yard for a moment, but when I got half a block away he of course had to follow. It is not news that you can't tell a cat to do anything, but I at least tried though to no avail.
    On the next block, he started being dive-bombed by a blue jay. At first it was a little funny since neither combatant seemed wounded in any way, but the blue jay wouldn't quit. Harry was making these pitiful little mews, but he wouldn't quit either. He kept following on, making sadder and sadder sounds even after the jay was left behind. So I played with my toy a bit and shot some pictures, but made it short. I led Harry back through Blue Jay Way again. I came about an inch from threatening the jay with the drone (for all the good that would have done), but got Harry home safely. Then I got an acceptable shot of my own street from on high (the only decent shot all day) before ceding the night to the blue jays.
    Thing about this toy is that the camera is slung underneath and pointed down. This means that you have to get really high before you can get any good pictures. (Not a Grateful Dead song.) The problems with that are wind and trees. I found out yesterday after posting that my old middle school is actually ideal for this since the school yard is just a yard, no equipment or trees of any kind. This morning I even got some decent skyline shots from there. Now that I know which way uptown/downtown is, I might do better! Still, I couldn't fly far since the school is surrounded by immense trees.
    I do want to give a shout out to the dogs of Shandon neighborhood playing at Hand Middle School. None tried to play fetch with my drone nor messed with me in any way. One owner said, "Not a dog toy" to one, but the dog was showing no sign of interest. Good dogs!