Camper, Interior Repairs Now . . .

Back on the camper tonight.

I ran a lot of water over the corner I fixed and it appears the leak has stopped. So on to the interior:

I still have more to do, but I kinda ran out of gas this afternoon. I have trimmed out most of the ceiling I'm replacing, so I'm hoping I can sneak out tomorrow or after work Monday to get some more up there.

I'm just glad the leak has stopped. Fingers crossed.

Suspect AI Gibberish

Meta's AI, which I guess they're calling Llama4, had some interesting things to tell me -- unsolicited, mind you -- about Phil Hartman. After reading what it had to say about his work on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, its batting average was zero, so it tosses the first bits of information it offered about Hartman into the Bin of Suspect AI Gibberish.

More Breaker Box Routlette

I would like to go back in time and ask the people who wired my house a few questions:

1. Why do I have two double gang switch boxes that are each fed by two different breakers?

2. Why does one circuit feed two outlets in the living room and the GFCI for the microwave in the kitchen, yet another circuit feeds two more outlets in the living room?

3. Why is the panel labeling complete gibberish?

I spent much more time today than I should have replacing four outlets in the living room because I couldn't find the breakers that fed them. I have one more outlet to replace out there, and yet again I'll have to play breaker roulette to get it shut off.

I do better with pictures. Here's what I'm dealing with.

We have this gun-shaped room. (We live in Idaho; every house has a gun-shaped room.) Red shows outlets on one circuit, green another, and yellow yet another. The purple represents two outlets for which I have yet to identify a breaker and an overhead light, also whose breaker is unidentified at the moment. I have to find the purple circuit so I can replace one of the outlets, which is so old and worn out it won't hold a plug anymore.

Problem is the other purple outlet I replaced previously, but I didn't mark down which breaker it was. I'm now making a complex diagram, of which this picture will be a part.

Perfect is the Enemy of Good Enough. And of Farah Slacks.

I'm a laid back kind of guy. And am destined to work with some really tightly-wound people.

And that's generally ok. As a laid back guy, I've long learned to bend with the wind.

But sometimes it's like an introvert dealing with an extrovert: the introvert is always asked to get out of their comfort zone and confirm with what the extrovert once. But no body thinks to ask the extrovert to leave their comfort zone and dial things back a bit.

Sometimes the tightly wound would do well to bend with the wind.

See, we did things a certain way for more than a successful decade. Things weren't perfect, but they were good enough. They got the job done.

Now things have to be perfect. And perfect is a good goal. But sometimes good enough is, you know, good enough.

Sometimes angels wear Farah slacks.

Craters of the Moon 2025

Liam had been itching pretty much all morning Monday to get out of the house and go to Craters of the Moon. But Michelle and I had things to do -- until we didn't.

We left the lawns unmowed and went.

I'll admit I wasn't too keen at first. I strained something in my right hip over the weekend (spent a *lot* of time on a ladder working on the camper roof) and didn't feel much like walking. But I was able to do a little, hoping that would stretch things out and make it better. It didn't, but it was still a fun outing.

Moronie Deported to Sweden, Says He's Not From There

News item: This is real.

I had no idea we were living in an Amy Heckerling movie.

The closing scene of the newspaper is the only joke here. We've seen presidents as of late not be so nice on immigrants, legal or not, and that kinda stinks.

I NEED MORE TAPE!

Day four on the camper roof. I'm really sick of being up there. But I did manage to scrape most of the rest of the failed sealant and other goo off the roof and replace it all with a few layers of sealant tape. I may get another roll and double things up, but we'll see.

I still have repairs to do up there. And the interior to clean up and fix. But I am taking the rest of my Memorial Day weekend off. To mow lawns.

Another roll of that tape is gonna cost me another $36, but if it works, it's worth the money.

In Case You Need A Reminder: The Product is You

This is how much Facebook cares about stopping scammers on their platform:

I've since deleted the many comments this scammer left on a post of mine, but the gist was he didn't want jokesters contacting him but if we sent him a direct message some very exciting things, possibly involving a Tesla though it wasn't clear, would happen.

Of course, the only thing that would happen would be phising or a pig butchering scam.

But apparently the comment itself didn't violate anything, so be it.

I searched for the offending profile on Facebook. Many like it, but none the same. I wals also unable to highlight either the name or the profile pic to go to their page to report them.

So not only does Facebook not care that these scammers are on their platform, they're aiding and abetting, likely for a fee.

As always, if the service is free (as it is on Facebook because who'd pay for this) the product is you.

On another Facebook note: I've reported here before that someone used my work email account to set up a fake profile of me on Facebook. I kept getting notifications at my work email about friends I should be contacting. I reported the initial contat to our IT department, but the messages kept coming.

Last week, they stopped. So either the account is dead or the messages are going to spam or the IT department was finally successful. I should check to see if I can link my work email to my personal account now. Though that might make IT seek to get me shut down after a year. . . 

UPDATE: They're still trying.

My friend did mention the word "prize" in a response, so that one's on him.

Way too Late at the Movies: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I waned to see this movie when it came out. But life happened, and I never went to the theaters to see it.

I was familiar with the Esquire article it's based on, and read it several times for fun, and also in association with an English class I was teaching at the time.

But when I got to watch the film this weekend, it went in a different direction than I was expecting -- and that was a glorious thing.

We often find we need an outside force to help us sort through our own feelings. We live in a world that, especially for males, encourages us to suppress those feelings. But we can see evidenced in the news with alarming effect what happens when people suppress feelings for too long. Feelings need to be felt; the older I get, the more I feel. The more I understand why Dad would sit with Mom on the porch on a quiet Sunday evening, enjoying the breeze and the company but sighing at the thought of going back to work in the morning.

Mr. Rogers reminded us to express those feelings, find positive ways to put them out. To talk about them, to hold them, to share them, to express them in a way that helped us but that did not harm others. That's what this movie is all about.

And serious kudos to Chris Cooper -- I have yet to see him in a move I didn't enjoy him in. He's probably the most charming "bad guy" out there, and embues his characters with a glorious humanity beneath the crust. I loved him in October Sky, and he brings that kind of tender roughness to this film.

Well worth watching.

EGGS!

We indeed have eggs -- or at least the robins nesting in one of our hanging flower baskets do.

And, surprisingly, we've established a bit of detente with the birds. They watch us pretty closely when we're out on the porch doing things, including watering the flowers. We don't water their particular basket unless they're temporarily gone. So far, they haven't been too stressed with us there, and we've kept our distance. That may change when the eggs hatch, so we'll have to see. Hopefully by that time the freezing snaps will be done and I can get the sprinkler system started. That will make watering easier, and they might even enjoy the little in-house shower.