madgravity | July 01-06 2012

Welcome to the Month of July- highs to 101, and lows down to 70 degrees.
I did my stretches.
I took a broom and then mopped all the floors in my little home with Pine-Sol.
I checked and filled my batteries that run all the electric in the house.
My friend Kula called asking for help with her laptop that’s been acting up. We tried the easy stuff first: checked for lent in fan, reseating the RAM, clean disk, disk defrag, and lastly a check disk which ran for hours. I told her to let it run and call me in the morning if the laptop still wasn’t working properly. It sounds to me like either- corrupt files on the disk- a failing hard drive- or a bad power supply. Hopefully it runs okay tomorrow; if not I’ll walk her through a fresh install to see if it’s just corrupt files, or the hard drive.

July 02- highs around 100, with lows down to 72 degrees.
I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, rode my bike, core trainer, yoga, lifted weights, punched the heavy bag, and ran up the hill and back carrying 5lbs in each hand.
What we tried yesterday to fix Kula’s laptop didn’t work, so I spent over an hour on the phone walking Kula through the steps to restore her laptop back to factory settings.
I did a lesson in Beginning Latin book and another in “1100 words you need to know workbook”, and I drew something: a mountain with a waterfall.
I went to the post office in Twentynine Palms to pick up two packages.
I went for my evening walk with two bricks in my backpack.
I watched lecture 34 on the Berkeley biology course about: Integration: Sex and reproduction.
I did my stretches and went for a night run.
I began reading chapter 4 of “The Universe in a Nutshell” by Stephen Hawking.
I read a section on in “The Practical Entomologist” About: Grasshoppers, Katydids and Crickets- Order of Orthoptera. You can time the chirping of crickets to get the temperature by counting the number of chirps in 14seconds and add 40 to count.
I read a chapter of Edgar Rice Burroughs “The Gods of Mars”.

July 03- temps into the 90s.
I did my stretches- my hip is hurting again and will lay off riding the bike up the hill because I believe that is what’s weakening the muscle there. I seem to have no problem running and walking, but I’ll lay off those too for a spell, too.
I took Kelly to post office to get her packages, Rite Aid to get prescriptions filled, and then to Staters Bros shopping for our 4th of July barbecue. We had dinner at Burger King,
I watched a movie on Netflix called “K-19: The Widowmaker” (2002). About the Soviet Union’s first nuclear sub launched in 1961and all the trouble it got into with bad construction, a rush to get it into action off the coast of the USA, the mentality of the political officers and bureaucracy of the times.
I stayed up late (until 3:30AM) to watch announcements from Cern about the finding of the Higgs Boson.
It started raining around 2AM. I could smell the creosote bushes; they have such a wonderful fragrance when they get wet. It did cross my mind that it might rain earlier in the day: the front door was hard to open and shut, there was a haze in the western sky all day, but I paid it little thought.

Independents Day! - it was overcast and breezy most of the day with temps never reaching 90 degrees.
I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, core trainer, lifted weights, punched the heavy bag. I’m still staying off my legs as much as I can.
I did a lesson in Beginning Latin book and another in “1100 words you need to know workbook”, and I drew something: Palm trees.
At around 5PM I dropped by Stoney’s to visit with his Daughter Judy and her daughter Jody, but they were not there. So I went on over to my friend Kelly’s to have a barbecue with her. I played around with getting my old barbecue going, which hasn’t been used since 98, while Kelly cooked up the corn and potatoes and anything else we needed for our meal. I put the two ribeye steaks on and the wonderful smell of them sizzling on the charcoal grill filled the air. Kelly brought out the plates along with chives and sour cream for the potatoes. I fished the steaks out from the grill and we proceeded to scarf away at the fest in front of us. The steaks were a little bit overdone, but seeing it was ribeye and tender and I haven’t barbecued in boocoo years, Kelly gracefully let it slide. After dinner we took two of her dogs, Stitch and Lilly, for a walk.
Last year we were told by the local radio station Z1077 there wouldn’t be any fireworks at the base, but Kelly could see them from her front yard and called me but it was too late to go. I don’t listen to Z1077 anymore; they spoiled my 4th last year and play weird songs anyways.
This year we just drove down to the Marine base to watch the fireworks. We passed folks along the way who had already had their cars parked off to the side of the road at the end of Pole Line in front of the parade grounds at the base where they been firing them off for years. We found a nice spot down a side road where Stoney and I used to watch them- little did Kelly and I know that they had moved the fireworks a few miles away from where it was originally at the parade ground. We could still see them from where we setup camp and just turned our chairs around to watch. It wasn’t as spectacular, but we saw them. After sitting and relaxing for a long spell, we drove back to Kelly’s where we sat out front and had pineapple upside down cake and tea. She was looking at the bugs on her wall that were attracted by the outside light and said she found a Dragonfly. I looked at it and its wings were held against its body and told her it was a Damselfly, as Dragonflies rest with their wings spread to their sides. So I guess reading that Entomologist book is paying off. What a wonderful evening!

July 05- clouds here and there but mostly sunny with temps in the mid 90s and tonight around 72 degrees.
I stayed up last night until almost 4AM, and slept in until 12:20PM.
I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, and went for a short walk.
I just kinda kicked back today surfing the web.
I watched “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (2011) So much action you can’t get bored.

July 06- temps got into the low 100s with 72 degrees tonight.
I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, core trainer, lifted weights, punched the heavy bag, and went for a short walk.
I did a lesson in Beginning Latin book and another in “1100 words you need to know workbook”, and I drew something: A house and a face.
I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter.
I watched lecture 35 on the Berkeley biology course about: Integration: Nerve cells and excitability.
I got a call from Stoney’s daughter Judy to come over to help them setup the digital converter for the TV. I guess our area is finally changing over to all digital this week and getting rid of UHF. I got it all set up for them and stayed for a spell and jawed about old times and watched some show called “Undercover Boss” where the CEO of a company secretly becomes a worker. It was actually pretty good.
I’m still reading chapter 4 of “The Universe in a Nutshell” by Stephen Hawking. It’s mostly about black holes and the curvature of spacetime.
I read a section on in “The Practical Entomologist” about: The true bugs order Hemiptera.
I read two chapters of Edgar Rice Burroughs “The Gods of Mars”.
I finished chapter 1 of “Molecular & Cell Biology for Dummies” about: Exploring the world of the cell, very basic to me now :)