Friday 11/26/2021
Day after a holiday felt like a holiday. First activity was to try to watch SWBB from the Bahamas, playing South Florida. They started badly and were down 10 early. However the promised video stream from “flohoops” didn’t start on schedule so the only way to follow the game was the live stats page. So I gave up and went for a walk.
Jean had brought the old iPhone SE that had been Marian’s, and which I’d kept on the contract (since a two-number T-Mobile contract was almost the same price as a one-number one). But I kinda sorta want to change carriers, or do something about the poor reception in the building. So I had her bring it back to me so I could have it along when I went to, say, Verizon.
I carried both phones and walked up University to the T-Mobile store. They do offer an interior hot-spot (such as I had at 2340) but it turns out that it requires a wired (cat-5?) connection to “your modem”. My modem is embedded in some ceiling or other, there’s no wired connections here. The guy thought maybe if I called customer service they might have a “signal repeater” which sounds like it might help. So I didn’t walk back to the Verizon store and change carriers. This time. I felt very dithery about this.
I decided that I deserved “a cup and a cake” as they say in New Zealand. It was now about 11am. The line to order at Verve was 20 people long. I thought, OK, I’ll just go down a couple blocks to Starbucks. There I found (a) another dozen-person line waiting to order, but also (b) a dirty, dingy, ugly store, with trash and sticky stuff on the floor and sketchy people at the few tables. Never mind, two blocks more and there’s Blue Bottle coffee with a nice patio. And again, a line of 15 or so people waiting to order. Everybody in the world was out this holiday morning.
While waiting for my coffee to be made I checked back into the game and found Stanford had managed to get ahead by a couple of points, with a few minutes left in the game. For the fifth time in the last 10 games, going back to the end of last season, this game came down to Stanford with a 1- or 2-point lead, seconds on the clock, and the opposition in possession. Other times, the opposition hasn’t been able to score, which is how Stanford got to be national champs last spring. Today, the USF players were able to score, hitting a three with 2 seconds left, and Stanford lost by 1.
The rest of the day was very quiet, reading and futzing around with the computer. Oh, well, I got out another car kit and kind of looked at the parts.
Codgerville 