Jun 1 - more rain

Sandy said that it wasn't supposed to rain until sometime in the afternoon, but long before that we had a steady misty drizzle, the kind that doesn't even show up on the Doppler.

I puttered around, took an afternoon nap, looked at the wiring tools a few times and then finally decided to start.  I went to the kitchen, discovered that I'd already wired that Cat5 receptacle by the table and proceeded to check it out.  No luck.  The tester was reading that the fourth pair wasn't good.  Over and over again I worked at this stupid thing, rewiring the connectors, changing one connector and still no.  At one point I did get the green light, mounted it in the box cover and then it went out again.  What ?

Back and forth I was walking between the kitchen and den, back and forth.  Finally I simply strung some a long patch cord, convinced that the connection at the patch panel was ok but perhaps there was a break in the wire at the receptacle ?  I tested the tester too, on random patch cords and it read ok.  I changed the patch cords at both ends, still no.  ???

Finally I tried the laptop.  It worked. What ?  Why ?  I gave up.  If the laptop connects through the wire but the tester isn't reading it properly, who cares.

I went over to Jason's, bringing back his dump key.  I took my Blackberry, intending to check out his internet connection since it was now connecting through the patch panel ... but I didn't know the password for his wireless connection.  Rats.  I came back home and brought the laptop over with a patch cord and connected directly; all's ok.

By this time the sun was out.  Unfortunately "this time" was about 4pm, much, much too late to go biking.  I'm worried that I'll be well rested for the Shenandoah, too well rested, i.e. not ready.

The sky is light already.  After this many years you'd think that I'd be used to the sky being light at 5am and well after 9pm.  It's only the beginning of June !

I spent a couple of hours in the a.m. double checking all the internet orders for jerseys, t-shirts, caps and bags and sent those totals off to Andrea.  She will be placing the orders shortly.

I also spent a couple of hours, on and off, packing my cycling stuff.  I sorted through and made decisions, in aggregate, on what I'll be taking with me.  I'll be re-doing some of that the night before, making final decisions on what will be in the two drop bags.  I see one bag at nights one and three, the other at night two.  That dictates how many pairs of shorts etc. I put in each bag but the key decisions are around other items like leg warmers, jackets etc.

Based on the weather forecast, I could get hit with thunderstorms every day.  "Scattered", "Isolated", only time will tell as to what I end up with.  As long as there are no tornadoes ...

Today ... Mass in Britt at 10:30 and final packing.  I need to get to the dump too with household garbage.  I've also got a pile of dry garbage but that's not important.

We had pork loin for dinner along with rice on the grill.  The night before I had a mixture of quinoa, texmati rice and black rice.  The black rice takes 30 minutes to cook, so I used the appropriate amount of water for it and simmered for 15 minutes, then added more water and the other two for 15 more minutes.  That worked out.  Last night, I added some leftover white rice to that mixture, chopped up an orange pepper, a couple of mushrooms and some chives, added some pats of butter and soya sauce and wrapped the mixture up in aluminum foil and put it on the grill.  It was good.  Sandy did some broccoli.  She nukes that and then it's sauteed.  That's always good.

The hummingbirds have been going crazy here.  They are already buzzing around, even at first light -- breakfast ?  At any given point in time there are 6+ birds at the feeder by the water.  There are only four feeding stations, which are all occupied while others buzz in and out, harassing those already at the feeder.  They are basically emptying the feeder each day.  What will they do when we leave ?

Onward ...