It's A Sad Sad Day When You;re Pretty Sure You Don't Have Anything Being Delivered By Amazon.

Which I'm not sure is a comment on our Society or my life. Y'all choose.

Well, I spent the last month slowly going into the most depressive episode I've had a LONG time and I don't know why. Why I started it in the first place, that is. Damned Depression will sneak up on your ass, even while you're looking, and just bitch slap you to the stone age if possible.

SWMBO made an off-hand remark about something going on between us that, once the Depression took hold, had me delusional to the point of getting ready to move out. Ran the gambit of just being pissed/depressed to being pissed/depressed enough to leave. Not sleeping. Eating too much junk food. Just hating my life.

Self talk just wasn't working. Pretty much nothing was working.

But, finally, last night (on date day of all things) I finally realized that I wasn't being rational. Not a bit. Some of the things I was thinking just couldn't be.

So I told SWMBO what was going on with me. She took it well. Said she'd noticed that I was being weird.

And we worked it out. I feel pretty good today; but I got over 2 hours in a row sleep and fell asleep wrapped in her arms.

Very little is better than that to/for me.

But I am upset that all the 'tools' I've learned to use for my Depression didn't really work and it took me so long to recognize what was happening. It really came on slow this time. I recognize the instant mood changes but not this.

I feel sorry for SWMBO. We're at 38 years in 6 days with who knows how many more staring her in the face. Poor girl.

Anywho: Been simmering a pot of chili for 3 days now. It tastes great! Will make some cornbread and we'll be having the chili with it for dinner.

Trying some new bean recipes prepping them for freeze drying. Want to have "instant' beans in the pantry/food storage. So I'm soaking pinto, lima, navy, and small red beans (in separate jars) and will pressure pot them tomorrow and give them a try. And the winner is:

Rain & Wind today. Rained so hard my security cam picked it up. Dog still wants to go for a walk. Bye, Dog.

Anyway, just checking in. It's winter time (part of the problem) so just not much going on.

Just Found ... Getting Cold Around Here!

Pretty sure it's a joke? Maybe? <BG>

And, yep, getting cold so me and the Dog are staying in more.

My friend in Pennsylvania (thank you, spell check) and I "met" in the WWI battleplane thingie on the quest 3 and set up a "death something" room where everyone kills everyone else (different WWI fighters). We were there to learn and a (person} that called 'himself' Socom joined us and KICKED OUR ASSES! I don't know what he was flying (a tri-wing) but he was FAST. Killed me way more times than I managed to kill him.

It was cool!

We'll be going back. After a bit more practice.

Another Week Gone By In Which Nothing Of Significance Occurred... Thank Goodness!

I've had exciting. Exciting ain't all it's cracked up to be. Grew up in "The Valley" you know. Actively engaged in a War, you know. Mom was a barmaid at a Trucker Bar in South El Monte, you know. You know?

So, I've had exciting. BUT, this past week couldn't have been more boring if you'd thrown a Star Trek DS9 Marathon on the heap. Rain. More Rain. So dark I've had to attach a charger to my solar batteries. The 3 solar panels just aren't keeping up.

Speaking of which: decided to build/assemble a 24 volt system to see if I can get it a bit more efficient. Yea, I know; a 48 volt system would be the best, but I really can't afford to do that right now. Maybe next summer. Oh, I have the panels; but I need batteries. Batteries are spendy. Way spendy. And I need at least 8 of them. (15 would be optimal.) And when you're talking LifePo4 batteries you want to buy as many of one manufactured date as possible for electrical consistency. (Did that make sense?)

We'll see. Should be fun just as long as I watch what I'm doing. Higher voltage means a greater chance of getting electrofried if I decide to be stupid. Plus converting DC to AC for transmission then back to DC for storage, well, I need to watch my P's & Q's.

RV sprung a leak sometime during our last trip. Found a large pool of water on the counter top during my last check. Spent $54 on a 20x25' tarp and about an hour getting it over the RV. Surprising what one can do with a 20x25' tarp, two 8' wooden poles, and duct tape. When the Wx clears up (along about next May) I'll have to take it in for repair. That'll be expensive.

Gathering things for Thanksgiving. SWMBO's son is still mad at, and not talking to, me, so, he won't be coming over this year. His loss. SWMBO invited one of her future cat lady friends over and we've offered to feed the Missionaries if they don't get an invite somewhere else. I'm making my instant pot turkey again. (Hey, it's good and it works!) So, depending on who shows up, I could have a week of cold turkey & mayo sandwiches in my future. Yummy!

Anywho, y'all have a great Thanksgiving. Be safe in your travels.

Men Live To 77. Women Live to 83. So, If I Start Transitioning At 76 ...

Well, it's a plan. Not a good plan; but a plan never the less.

Sorry, just not a lot going on around here. Unless you count the rain. Been raining (mostly) all week. It is WET outside! Even the Dog has decided that he's only going outside when his bladder is causing physical discomfort. Or he thinks he'll make it wetter inside than out. I don't know. He's a Dog and you never really know what a Dog is thinking until it doesn't bite you. Don't get me started.

Been pulling together all the Game/Program Demo disks my father-in-law gave me trip before last, giving them a try, and if they've been interesting enough, I make a .iso file out of it and throw out the actual disc. I mean, these games/programs are from the 90's from, like, Computer Magazine and such. Remember when they sent out those demo discs? Yeah, he kept every one for the past 35 years.

And, I gotta admit, some of those old games brought back memories of how it was WAY BACK WHEN home computing first started. Remember having a 50 lb monitor that showed a whole 4 colors whether you used them or not? Remember going from CGA to EGA to SVGA but you had to take out a loan against your kids college funds. (If you had a college fund for your kids. Or even had kids.)

Twin floppy systems were cool because you had TWIN floppies for gosh' sake. I was proud of my  twin floppies. I invited friends over to see my twin floppies. I don't know how the Police got involved ..

Er ...

Posted some videos on my Youtube that I captured playing on the Quest 3. (Can't believe I have 145 videos and 36 subscribers. 36!) I am enjoying the HELL out of that Quest 3!

Eco-worthy had their ECO-WORTHY 400W Solar Panels 4pcs 100 Watt 12 Volt Monocrystalline Solar Panel Module on sale for less than $200 so I bought one. (4? Well, one order of 4 panels.) Then bought a MPPT controller for them. I just couldn't pass up that deal even if they are the old Monocrystalline and not the new poly-stuff. They'll probably outlive me. So now I'll have 7 new(er) 100 watt panels and 4 (way) older 100 watt panels to play with. Next I'll save up for one of them sun-tracker things to mount them on. Need some micro inverters too. Hmmm...

Last Date Day SWMBO was going to take me to Sheri's in Silverdale but when we got there it was closed. Permanently. Damn! The one in East Bremerton was closed a long time ago. We stopped by the IHop just down the road from Sheri's but wasn't impressed when we walked in and left. Then she (SWMBO) told me she really wasn't hungry anyway so we made a quick stop at Burger King (cause *I* needed something to eat!) and made our usual stop at WinCo before heading home. Tucked her into our bed and even wrapped her in a heating blanket. So, success! Got my girl into bed at the end of the date.

I'm so lucky!

In 40 Years Of "Playing" With Computers, This Is The First Time I've "Bricked" One.

And it was a sight to behold! I'm checking it out but have absolutely NO idea what the hell I did.

Put my datadrive and another drive in. Booted up just fine. Everything was where it was supposed to be. Every program I ran worked. Added the DataDrive & Workdrive directories to the /media directory; then edited the fstab and put in the UUID, etc. Triple checked the info. Time to reboot. (Get used to seeing that word.)

Only "problem" was my old monitor (VGA) wasn't being seen (or working) so I decided to go into the CMOS setup during the reboot. Done it a million times. Found the setting I was looking for and clicked on the box to activate the onboard video.

I think that was my mistake. Even though my present (old) computer has that setting just so.

Saved the changes and let it reboot.

THIS COMPUTER IS PROTECTED BY HP SECURE BOOT

And ...

Sat there for 10 minutes. Nothing changed until I pressed the esc key then got into cmos again.

What the hell?

Rebooted into cmos. Turned off Secure Boot. TMP and anything else I thought might be the problem. That didn't even stop the THIS COMPUTER IS PROTECTED BY HP SECURE BOOT.

So, rebooted. Changes. Rebooted. Changes. Rebooted. Changed everything back to 'normal' and rebooted again.

Hmmm... Shit STILL ain't happening like it's supposed to happen.

Rebooted. Esc into cmos. Reset to factory defaults. Rebooted.

Watched the computer eat itself.

It now seems to be trying to boot. Runs for 3 seconds then shuts down. Never gets to POST. Repeatedly. No human input.

Did that for 20 minutes (which is really pushing my patience!).

Unplugged it. Plugged it back in. Same-O Same-O.

Held down little cmos reset switch while plugging it back in. Nada.

Took EVERYTHING out that I'd added. Rebooted. Didn't work. Still doing the reboot thing.

Fuck It! Reassembled my 'old' computer and set the 'new' one aside until I don't feel like using it for target practice.

So, I'm back for awhile. The Joy.