Tuesday, March 31st 2020

Day Fifteen:

I got up at 6:30, made coffee—Peet’s, I made sure to pick it up yesterday, what a difference. I am a coffee snob, totally! I read the news gently—I don’t want to disturb it! Ha ha.

Erin and I went for our 3 mile walk. The city workers have been keeping the park groomed through the whole mess. I’m really glad they still have jobs, and the park and track look great!

I switched spots with Erin today. She is taking the downstairs and I am occupying one of the rooms upstairs at my desk. The only problem with this arrangement is that the internet sucks the big one up here. I believe when the internet wasn’t overloaded it didn’t make as much difference that the WiFi strength was low upstairs, although Erin did say that her Ipad hardly ever worded upstairs. I did some reading about it yesterday on my phone because it always works. They said that where your router is located is key, ours is in the lower section of our secretary desk downstairs. This means that it has hardwood sides all around it, and two layers above it, not to mention it’s where I hide all of the electronics for the wall mounted flat screen over the fireplace. INTERFERENCE! At least that’s what I’m figuring.I drilled a hole in the back of the lower part of the desk and fed the wires up to the top and put it out in the open, and it made all the difference in the world. Yes!

It only lasted for a while, now it’s dead again. Everything else works around the house, TVs streaming, phone internet, tablets, but not my Chromebook. I really think it is Google. I think by around midday their system overloads with: home schooling, streaming, people reading the news, signing up for unemployment, and online shopping. Chromebooks or Chrome OS machines are amazingly fast, and start-up very quickly, but they are totally dependent on Google. This means that if Google is slow, or down so is your laptop. I think the Chrome browsers on Android and IOS use less data than the Chrome OS. So for now, the early morning hours here in California are the best for using the laptop.

I’m sorry for rambling on about the technology, and my dead ends with trying to figure it out, but at the moment it means a lot to have a connection to the outside world. Maybe some of this will help others figure out their problems. So at least for a while I will concentrate more on other topics.

I emptied my last box from the closet downstairs and sorted it on the bed upstairs. There is really cool stuff in there, such as: a stack of letters tied together with twine from my Dad to his Parents when he was in Okinawa during WWII, letters to and from my Mother, memorial announcements, and my old leather hiking boots. Oh, one more item, a chunk of the Berlin Wall along with my Dad standing next to it. Very cool stuff!!

Erin knitted from the time we got back from our walk, until we went to bed. She is making her fourth sweater for our granddaughter, Aurelia.

At about nine-o’clock I was able to get on the site for Erin’s Cobra, and everything has been accepted and in place for her medical. Yeah!!

I read some C.J. Box and went to bed…