3 Tires Down, 1 Left

Tuesday was a Huge Do Day. Zippity Do Dah Day. I couldn't have done it without Andy Myers' help!!

I'm glad this flat tire problem was resolved in a week. I've been known to let problems persist but somehow not this time. I'm surprised the elements needed came together so quickly.

As some know, I had my right front tire go flat while driving back to Alliance on the 3rd. Just as I got back into Alliance. I pulled over as soon as I could in a parking lot where Arby's used to be. Tried pumping up the tire with my battery backed pump which was not super effective. Had the good fortune of someone from the hospital security people ask if I needed help & told them if they have a pressure tank... Upon which things worked out & I got back.

Over the weekend I got a Wal-Mart order delivered & got Fix a Flat. Having so much physical stress from the 3rd, I was in no shape to do anything, so it sat. On Monday, Mr. Myers calls me up & basically this tire situation needed to be resolved on Tuesday, period. I surprisingly got an appointment at Mr. Tire for 3 p.m. & had a vague plan as to how we're getting there. Only Fix a Flat had its own plans & so did the tire & they didn't match up.

So Fix a Flat got administered. Moved the tire around & Myers can see the leak because FaF flowed out through it. Sidewall leak, dry rot. Hoh boy. Pressure was attempted - at least it's not 0 & we try getting out of the parking lot. I probably get 1/3rd of the way & tire is flat & I pull off the road at some place.

And oh yeah - Myers was able to get my darn hood open!!!! I tried that months ago last time I tried in February which is why I bought the power bank pump.

Anywho, get some pressure in that, get down the road, make the turn, & have to pull off again. Used the other pump (which Myers says started smoking last time when he shut it off!), & dial says ~20 psi... Time to go for it! And it almost makes it... Had to wait for the last turn & just made it to Mr. Tire!!

Got the tire done & oil change & check up (it was about time anyway). I was worried when one of the mechanics brought in an older guy - that means it got serious - but that wasn't for me.

Just before 3 p.m. I see my vehicle brought out & guy says mine's done. No problems with the rim, no damage or cracks... (Remember, this is the tire last time I was there kept going flat & they said was OK but when I got some Tire Slime in it the leaking stopped!).

Practically $300 poorer... & 1 more "originally purchased" tire left. I might get it done in August before it actually goes bad. I hope.

Was thinking of going to Gamestop but my physical battery was spent. My body was buzzing later in my room with pain relief having been taken which reminded me of Monday at WDW when I felt that after Sunday at Epcot.

Now I need some sort of spray adhesive for the headliner & crumbling padding vacuumed out...

Yup, Chorizo

Made another pot of the Lentils & Brown Rice soup last night but finally I made it with Chorizo!!!

I did not know Chorizo came uncooked or unsmoked. I had basically ground meat in tubular wrapping & that's how it cooked up. I had Chorizo from Aldi before & that was cooked. The other part was this was from Wal-Mart & I chose the cheaper higher sodium brand without realizing I did.

I had a green pepper about to spoil & rescued an onion with mold on the outer skin so this had to happen tonight. I have 1/2 cup of dried lentils left now so unsure what to do with them.

Put a couple tablespoons of canola oil on the bottom, browned the diced garlic in it, & then chorizo on that & let it cook. Just as it starts to brown & stick, bouillon goes in & I used Beef Bouillon because I can't find the chicken cubes. Called for 1/3 teaspoons of a couple spices but I used 1/2 anyway. And while the recipe said simmer for 45-55 minutes, it seemed like it needed under 40. But I let it sit on the burner for 15 minutes after shutting it off.

I had a hint of the flavor last night & I was looking forward to this morning's cold congealed result & yeah... It's sooo good!!

A Poem about Cats I liked

Catalogue

Cats sleep fat and walk thin.
Cats, when they sleep, slump;
When they wake, pull in -
And where the plump's been
There's skin.
Cats walk thin.

Cats wait in a lump,
Jump in a streak.
Cats, when they jump, are sleek
As a grape slipping its skin-
They have technique.
Oh, cats don't creak.
They sneak.

Cats sleep fat.
They spread comfort beneath them
Like a good mat,
As if they picked the place
And then sat.
You walk around one
As if he were City Hall
After that.

If male,
A cat is apt to sing upon a major scale:
This concert is for everybody, this
Is wholesale.
For a baton, he wields a tail.

(He is also found,
When happy, to resound
With an enclosed and private sound.)

A cat condenses.
He pulls in his tail to go under bridges,
And himself to go under fences.
Cats fit
In any size box or kit;
And if a large pumpkin grew under one,
He could arch over it.

When everyone else is just ready to go out,
The cat is just ready to come in,
He's not where he's been.
Cats sleep fat and walk thin.
~ Rosalie Moore ~

Let GeoSpy AI locate those old family photos!

A lot of you might have heard bad things about AI uses but one I've found useful is GeoSpy AI. It attempts to locate where a photo has been taken & it has been rather useful & correct most of the time. My experiences:

A photo of my Aunt Vinette from the 1970s I had thought was taken out front of her San Francisco apartment building where she lived but GeoSpy says it was taken on a sidewalk in front of an art museum in San Diego.

A slide scan of a battleship my grandparents had visited GeoSpy told me to "find a more interesting picture" but in the meantime said from 3 sources among the ones it had it could be the USS Alabama.

A grist mill slide scan is from Pennsylvania. The McConnells Mill / Ohiopyle State Park in fact. Slippery Rock Creek Gorge. An accompanying photo of a 1970s model car & creek it claimed was in North Carolina but I doubt that since it was with the grist mill photos.

An aerial view in Pennsylvania taken by my dad with my mom's 35mm camera from up on a radio station tower GeoSpy says overlooks Allentown, PA & surmised the coordinates of the "hill" it thinks the photo was from.

And last for now a mystery rock formation my grandparents photographed is from the Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah.

I plan to hunt up more mystery slide scans & have GeoSpy AI figure out where they were / are.

Crockpot Lasagna is sooo good.

Supper on Sunday was another round of Crockpot Lasagna after having found the simple recipe I had stashed away. And then finding I still had the No Pre-cooking Required Barilla lasagna I bought so long ago...

I used a frozen 1 pound roll of Ground Turkey. I made sure to season it while browning it & made sure to break it up. Seasonings included basil, oregano, thyme, maybe a little cumin, & a heaping teaspoon of diced garlic. I didn't measure the rest but got a nice dusting over the whole skillet.

The lasagna noodles were as I said... but what I didn't mention is they were at least 15 years old according to the date on the box. I think there was 3 packages obtained for a recipe Mom had in mind & I didn't know what it would use up. Probably bought at Marc's. I inherited 2 boxes which now finally got used up.

Next time I make this, I'm going to put the Ricotta in a storage bag & cut a corner off so I can pipe out a consistent cover over the meat mixture. Dropping spoonfuls just doesn't work with me.

For shredded cheese, I had Jalapeño & Habanero Monterey Jack because Walmart was out of Pepperjack. Maybe I'll use this & hot Italian Sausage next time for heat.

The Tomato Sauce worked like this: 8 ounce no salt can used in the bottom of the crock per recipe directions as the 1 cup sauce in the bottom. The 15 ounce can before adding to the browned ground turkey was taste tested & had a little sugar added to offset the sourness. If it was too sweet, I'd have added vinegar. I prefer a neutral tomato taste.

4 hours on low & it was done. Tastes better cold.

Spanish Rice finally done right

Made Spanish Rice.

It exploded.

2 CUPS RICE, 4 CUPS WATER...

I usually don't like Spanish Rice because it tastes funny. But I tried a recipe I found & this may be The One.

It calls for Coriander / Cilantro. I used a dash of Curry Powder instead. I sauteed minced garlic in oil before adding the rice to brown. I used a cube for Beef Bouillon instead of Chicken or no salt added chicken broth. And instead of Garlic Pepper I used Black Pepper since garlic was already in there. The 8 ounces no salt tomato sauce was from Amazon.

Initial taste tests indicate a decent flavor & no sourness. Let's try again after cooling in the fridge

I'm doing it today because it won't get done if I don't...

Yesterday was 1 Huge Do. I got out relatively early to get my monies & then over to Didney Drug Mart for payments & pills. Finally secured a 9 volt battery for my voltmeter. I had cleaned it out months ago after discovering the decimal point wasn't showing up & opening it up showed an impossible bug invasion of you know what. Thankfully a thorough cleaning was possible but that decimal point was stubborn. It was only last week I found the battery had exhausted itself. I don't recall ever changing it! A new alkaline battery has the display working crisp & decimal point as well. I had DDM points to get it for free. Free milk will have to wait.

Grabbed some clearance Valentine's candy at 75 cents each. Small little 3 piece chocolates. It's worth the price of admission. And they still had Voortman's Egg Nog Wafers??

My past entries at this time of year mention the return of those cheap freezer pops but I didn't see any. They're usually on the end display.

My other Huge Do was seeing Dr. Snuffleupagus. I fail to see the point of a guy who talks to me for maybe 10 minutes & lets me go. Maybe my ability to appear tells him plenty?? I do it for the refills. I need to call Dr. Joni for Xarelto though...

I paid dearly for my transgressions as my right leg has sore joints & today is Recovery Mode... & tomorrow...

But hey at least I didn't get the runs from my picked-over slightly moldy thick crusted bread loaves! I bought 2 on Wednesday & mostly forgot about them until Monday. Craving peekza, I picked off the moldy spots, microwaved for 90 seconds, topped them with sauce & Queso, then baked at 350° F for 15 minutes. Came out cripsy & yum! Had some for breakfast. So there's that.

A.I. Generated Art is Not Theft

 Twittiots have been spouting off on the issue of A.I. generated art complaining that it's theft of art because of the way it's trained.

This is NOTHING NEW. It's the computer equivalent of Tracing or Lightbox Abuse. Human Artists have been copying each other for decades. Masamune Shirow is the most often art-thefted artist. His stuff has been "stolen" more than any other.

A.I. generated art is DERIVATIVE. There is No Way to figure out whose styles are in the images it produces. I challenge anyone spouting negatively about A.I. art to find a specific style being used from a specific artist. And then I'll respond with "Are you sure you're not simply seeing something there just because you Want to see it?"

Another way they claim it's theft is from Loss of Income. Your Paid Artists worry about losing income because nobody wants to pay for fan art of their favorite anime characters doing things the official stuff never had them do. LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING - these A.I. art generators are good but there's still some concepts they still don't get. Sure you can make them churn out 100 images of pretty blonde girls but forget about specific cultural items from some place in the Asian Sub Continent. You want a depiction of a magic illusion trick on stage nobody has seen before and only you know what it is? A.I. can't do it. But beautiful white China style wedding dress with a cleavage window? It can suggest designs for hours. And each one is pretty good even if sometimes unfeasable.

And sometimes you get missing body parts, extra body parts, distorted perspective lines, messed up hands... It still makes mistakes. However, describe a scene well enough in generic terms it should understand, and maybe just maybe you'll get a good starting point of concept art. Still derivative from its massive data set which it draws from BUT DOES NOT DIRECTLY COPY. Get over it & find a thing you artists can make money at which A.I. can't do. You're supposed to be creative - so create already!

My Fungus is My Enemy

Around this time of year with increased heat & humidity I am beset with a nasty case of what I call Body Fungus. My experience in the hospital 5 years ago taught me that odd red rash I would get at times was caused by a fungus. I don't know the genus but I do know my past attempts at ridding myself of it with soap, water, and hefty burning splashes of isopropyl alcohol, while they worked, required more time. I realized it was a fungus only when I was given antifungal powder while at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest. I managed to connect the dots.

I have struggled to find that same Miconazole powder, but instead have to settle for Clotrimazole; it could be the same thing. I'm used to Disney Drug Mart's $1 per 1 ounce tube store brand and for the most part, it works. Mom would say any product with Lotrimin on the box regardless of intended marketed use would work on what Lotrimin does. So imagine me with the displeasure of not finding $1 tubes of anything from Wal-Mart and having to settle for a $4 half-ounce tube of Athletes' Foot Fungus cream instead of jock itch sprays which ran over that tube's cost. I was desperate and begged for relief.

4 days later with usages of that expensive product and it has nearly cleared up. Imagine me surprised. I have washed everything I need to stick in where it need stuck so no fungus gets a 2nd chance to do that again. I think old but apparently unlaundered and long unworn underwear harbored my enemy. That will get a dosage of bleach or at least Oxygen Cleaner in addition to detergent. My other hygiene habits couldn't stop this from happening either. Harumph!

One thing I don't understand

There are a few things I don't get. One of them is dancing. I know people do it and it involves music, but I don't understand how or why people choose the moves they do for bits of music in a composition. What causes them to move an arm or a leg in a certain way or rhythmically or repeatedly. Why that move at that moment?

I do understand there is something like interpretive dance but even then I don't get it. Ballet is interpretive a lot of the time. Then there's square dancing - not sure why the name but I think it involves groups of 4. Line dancing should be outlawed. Disco is actually interpreted jazz for all I know. There are names for stuff and procedures and all that but I still don't understand the Why.

I see videos on YouTube and oh nice there's dancing but I have no opinion on the moves. I get one on the dancer like "Ooh, she's pretty," and maybe one about her costume. But as for the moves... A form of exercise? Non repetitive aerobics for all I know. At least aerobics has a goal in mind.

I really hope nobody asks for my opinion on a dance routine. Some girl will go off and do it in front of me, and then ask me what I thought and I'll be horribly stumped.

I think dancing must be a very confusing and complicated form of marital courtship like birds do. Girls are better at dancing. Not being fat helps anyone wanting to dance. Good shoes apparently is a must. Don't ask me to do it because not much will happen.