Good Morning! 57F @ 6:00AM. Windy with thundershowers this afternoon following a period of morning rain. High 53F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 2 to 3 inches of rain expected. Localized flooding is possible.
Picked up another inch of rain yesterday, just a long, steady drizzle all day with only gentle breezes. New storm rolled in early this morning with lots of wind, enough to throw more than half an inch up against the bedroom slider, making quite a racket for an old sleeper like me.
Snow is pretty, and it does muffle the sounds, but I think both man and beast work harder when it comes down. Had quite a bit of ice the last two winters I spent back east, dropping trees onto power lines and turning the roads into skating rinks. Don't miss that, at all. Nor the back breaking work with snow shovels; it was rare to even see a snow blower in my youth, let alone a tractor with a blade.
I ended up with an app called OpenSignal, which comes with good reviews but with which I'm not real happy. It doesn't report a numeric value for signal strength, instead showing the usual five bars, but it does have a map that supposedly shows the cell towers, and a little pointer that indicates in which direction they lie. I can get signal strength numbers on the iPhone by
punching in *3001#12345#* and hitting the “Call” button, but I'm holding out for something a little more user friendly so I'll keep looking. I did find an industrial quality hotspot, designed to run 24x7 which the hotspots sold by the major phone carriers are not. But without a decent cell signal to work with, even the best hotspot is useless. Numbers inside the house run in the low -90s now, with no sign of either 3G or 4G. Sigh.
A little more housekeeping on the agenda for today, and perhaps install a couple more smart light switches for the last pair of outdoor lamps. Also need to rig up some sort of shade under the credenza, as the strip lights shine in my eyes when I slouch a bit. Or maybe just raise the desk chair?
Which reminds me to shop for a new desk chair, one with rollers that don't leave black marks on the laminate flooring. But how do you tell before you buy?
Made a simple stew day before yesterday in the Instant Pot, just cubed and browned a top round roast, sauteed some onions, added some thyme, salt, a few cloves of garlic, and a big can of Guinness Stout. Let that slow cook overnight, kept it warm on the counter all day, then bumped up the temperature to cook half a dozen small potatoes I'd cubed up. Nice bowl of that and a big dinner salad and I was in gastronomic heaven.:cloud9: Leftovers go into the freezer this morning, right along side the bags of chili and spaghetti already there. If the rain lets up toward dinner time I'll defrost a Costco NY strip and throw it on the BBQ. They're big enough I cut them in half before freezing, and a package of four lasts a long time.
