Category Archives: Internet-LAN

20240717-18_Construction_&_Deconstruction

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NOTE:  This longer post does not have any photos.

 

WEDNESDAY 17 and THURSDAY 18 July 2024 — Dental, walking, mowing, and a global IT outage

 

Wednesday 17 … Highway construction, a motorcade, and dental deconstruction

I had an appointment late morning with our dentist to deal with the right rear-most, lower tooth that had lost its partial crown about two (2) weeks ago.  In all the time we have lived in Michigan (since 1976) I have never seen so much road construction as we have at the moment, so I left early to make sure I wasn’t late.  Major highways are being widened all over SE lower Michigan, and flex-lanes are being added or extended on the highways to run through our local community area.  The amount of equipment I passed today on I-96 was epic.  At one point there were 12 gravel haulers lined up nose-to-tail waiting their turn to dump their loads.  There were two concrete forming machines in operation, several very large cranes, and all sorts of excavators, cutters, rollers, concrete mixers.  My best guess was at least 50 pieces of heavy equipment, much of it specialized to road construction.  It was fascinating to see and, fortunately, there were no major traffic backups.

Close to the clinic, I headed west on Michigan Avenue to make the U-turn (Michigan left) back to the clinic.  I noticed a LOT of flashing emergency lights, and not long after pulling into the U-turn, a motorcade went by (westbound) probably headed to the Detroit (Wayne County) Metropolitan Airport.  I later learned that the motorcade was transporting Vice-President Kamal Harris following a speaking engagement in Detroit.

At the clinic, the dentist made an adjustment to one of my night-time bight guards and then got to work on my tooth.  He decided to remove some of the existing tooth to allow the new crown to be thicker on top (that’s were the old one failed) and to come down around the tooth closer to the gum line for a more secure fitment.  With the tooth prepared, he used the photo/laser scanning system to “map” the inside of my mouth on my right side.  The scans included the upper and lower teeth (mouth open) and the outside of the teeth in the closed position.  The new crown will be ceramic (Zirconia) and should be ready in about two weeks.

The dental assistant fitted a temporary crown, which was quite a procedure in its own right.  It will protect the tooth until I get the permanent crown, but I was advised to still chew on the left side and avoid hard, crunchy, and gooey/sticky foods.  Before leaving the clinic, I made an appointment for August 8th to have the new crown fitted.  The tooth is still “sensitive” when touched in certain ways, so I suspect the temporary crown does not completely protect the lower back side.

 

Thursday 18 … Walking, mowing, and seeing what’s behind you; and a major computer outage!

Linda met up with our daughter around 9:30 AM to walk a portion or the Mike Levine Lakelands Trail.  From the Michigan History Center (Michigan.gov):  “The Trail runs 33 miles between Hamburg Township in Livingston County (US-23 and M-36) and Blackman Township in Jackson County (near Stockbridge). Opened to the public in 1994 as the Lakelands Trail State Park, it is a popular destination for people looking to enjoy the outdoors. The trail is also a component of the Great Lake to Lakes Trails Route #1, which extends 275 miles from South Haven (Lake Michigan) to Port Huron (Lake Huron). Local philanthropist, Mike Levine, contributed extensive resources to transform the corridor into an improved trail. In 2018, the DNR changed the trail’s name to the Mike Levine Lakelands Trail State Park in recognition of Mike’s efforts.”

Our property was not completely dry after the rains last night, but I wanted to get the grass cut sooner rather than later so it had time to grow before next Tuesday when Keith would once again be here.  I had the lawn tractor out of the shed and ready to go by 10 PM.  I decided to set the mowing deck at its highest setting, so the grass would be long enough by next Tuesday to make it worth having Keith show up.  I decided to cut the grass on the west half of the property on a SE-NW diagonal and the grass on the east half of the property on a SW-NE diagonal.  On the west side, that meant I was cutting across the old furrows left over from when this property was part of farm (many, many years ago).  The lawn tractor does not have a suspension, so I got beat up today.  Keith usually mows on an E-W orientation, which makes for a smoother experience.  Both he and I have to deviate from that, of course, to go around trees, stumps, buildings, the firepit, and along the edges of driveway as well as stands of trees and bushes.  But that was the general idea for today.  I worked until 1600, with a 30-minute break for lunch around 12:30.  I was tired, but it felt good to have this done.

Linda got home around 1300 and had a bite of lunch.  She took her car to Serra Honda for a 14:30 appointment to have the glass portion of the driver-side rearview mirror replaced.  The labor was more than the part, but it required some special tools and knowledge to remove the old one without breaking plastic retaining tangs or the housing.  Besides, if the technician dropped the new mirror, it would be at the dealer’s expense, not ours.

Sometime during the day, or perhaps it was overnight last night, an update of the CrowdStrike security software was pushed to their clients with a bug in it that caused a world-wide outage of computers running the Windows operating system, including Windows Server and Windows Enterprise.  The event was well-covered in the media, so I don’t need to repeat it here.  We were not doing anything at the time that might have been impacted, so for us it was just an interesting and curious news story.  But for many people, especially those traveling, and for many (most?) of the really big corporations around the world, and even governments, it was a major disruptive event.

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20240708-12_illness-dental-optical-Xfin

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NOTE:  This is a moderately lengthy post that contains one (1) photo with caption, taken by Linda with a Google Pixel 6.

 

MONDAY 08 thru FRIDAY 12 July 2024 — A busy week in the context of illness; dental and optical visits, and a rare broadband outage

 

Monday 08 … More yard work, new glasses, and illness

I got up today not feeling 100%.  I actually started coming down with something yesterday, including a mild sore throat (never a good thing) but shrugged it off to just being tired.  Linda and I had both been working hard on the property (weeds and trees); we were both tired and needed a rest.  Linda was also just getting over what she thought was a bad cold.

Our BdW guests (Mark & Kathy) left around mid-morning for their next destination at Burt Lake.  Mark had spent time there at an earlier point in his life and was looking forward to revisiting the area.  They said they enjoyed their brief stay and had a very quiet night.

I received a text message around 10:30 (AM) letting me know my new glasses were ready.  I decided to pick them up before getting to work on the yard.  This was a pair of tri-focals that I intended to use for driving, but the distance (upper) portion of the prescription made my distance vision much worse than my un-aided eyes.  Hummm.  The reading portion was the same as my reading glasses, and the intermediate portion (intended for the dashboard) seemed to be OK.  The optician said they would remake the lenses if needed (within 45 days) for no charge, but they would need a new/different prescription which I would have to obtain from my optometrist.  Ugh.  That meant trying to get an appointment with our OD at the UofMH KEC at the BCSC within the next 40 days.  Double ugh.

Back home, we got to work in the yard, making a pile of dead tree branches in our firepit and lighting it on fire.  I continued to prune dead limbs and branches from pine, fir, and spruce trees and Linda helped cut them up into sizes that fit our burn pit.

 

Tuesday 09 … a “crowning” achievement

When I got up this morning it was obvious that I was really sick.  My sore throat had worsened, and I was coughing up quite a bit of phlegm.  When this happens, the problem for me is that I cannot tell if the phlegm is the result of nasal drainage or is being produced in my lungs.  I wasn’t having any breathing difficulties or pain, other than the coughing itself, but the origin was still undetermined.  A trip to the clinic was probably in order, but I did not go, in part because I had a dental appointment this afternoon.  I called to let the clinic know I was symptomatic.  They said to come in anyway.

Because of the myriad road construction projects in our area, I left about 90 minutes ahead of my 2 PM dental appointment.  I arrived early, but not stressed.  Dr. G confirmed that a partial crown (or cap) had failed on my right lower rear molar.  The hole in the cap, however, was not the result of it having been drilled out in order to do a root canal procedure on that tooth.  Indeed, that tooth still had an intact root.  I was surprised to hear that, as I have not had any discomfort following the loss of the cap.  I will need a new crown, and the appointment to prepare the tooth will take 90 minutes, which their schedule did not allow for today.  I made an appointment to return on the 17th in the late morning and will have another appointment approximately three (3) weeks after that to get the crown installed.  So, all told, it will be approximately five (5) weeks from when the crown came off until the new one goes on.  I know these things take what they take, but that felt like a really long time.  No doubt the 1-week delay waiting for today’s appointment added to my sense of extended time.

There was a major Security and Bug-Fixing Update from Microsoft today, so we made sure our computers were up-to-date.  Over 140 security flaws across all MS products were patched and some other “bugs” squashed.

The weather had turned very warm by now, and with my continuing illness I was not up to working in the yard.  I used various OTC products to try and ease my “suffering,” including Acetaminophen, DayQuil, NyQuil, MucinexDM (for expectorant), and Unisom (to sleep).  Not all at the same time, of course.  MucinexDM and Unisom were my main “go-to” products.  It was probably around this time that we discussed what to have for dinner, and I suggested that soup would be an excellent choice for the next few days.  Linda was willing and able to accommodate that suggestion.

 

Wednesday 10 … Starve a fever, feed a cold

The day did NOT dawn bright.  Rain and wind started overnight and continued through the day, very heavy at times, as the remnants of Hurricane Beryl swept up from Texas and into the Great Lakes region.  (We later learned that we got about 3” of rain in 36 hours, but some areas around us got over 6” of the liquid sunshine.)

I called the UofMH KEC at their BCSC and was able to get an appointment with our optometrist (Dr. T) on Monday the 15th at 4 PM.  It was a relief to be able to get an appointment that soon.

The base for the Vitamix small capacity blending container.  The Vitamix imprint and part number are on the blade pointing to the right.  We had to fiddle with the lighting, and do some post-processing, to get the information to be legible in the photo.

I helped Linda get a photo of the base of the small vessel for her Vitamix.  Vitamix recalled this part, but needed a photo as proof that we actually had one.  They rejected the first photo she sent has it did not have the company logo and product number clearly visible, and the file was larger than 3 Mb.  Both pieces of information were on one of the cutting/chopping blades, and I had to orient the unit very carefully relative the very bright LED lamp on Linda’s desk in order to get the inscribed information to standout from the rest of the blade.  (The blades on metal, and highly reflective.)  The new photo was also less than 3 Mb so she submitted it.  She got a fairly quick reply that they new photo was acceptable!  Good job team!

Other that that, I rested most of the day, even to the point of taking at least one nap, which is unusual for me.

 

Thursday 11 … Picking up sticks

On lawn care guy (Keith) texted me around 8 AM to let me know he would be mowing today, and ask if I wanted him to do our property.  In spite of the large amount of recent rain, I said “yes,” but as late in the day as possible.  Linda met Diane at KMP at 9:30 AM for their weekly walk.  In spite of still not feeling well, I got dressed and picked up all (most) of the tree limbs and branches that had come down in the last 36 hours.  As long as I was up and out, and put out corn and refilled the bird feeders.

ABIR, Linda worked at her desk a bit.  If she’s not doing accounting work for the bakery, or tax returns for family and friends (late winter and early spring), she is doing routine accounting and finance tasks for us.

At some point during the day, we got another Boondockers Welcome stay request, this one for very late July into early August, which I approved.

 

Friday 12 … A rare loss of service

I was still feeling poorly today, albeit a bit better, but it was still basically a “do nothing” day for me.  ABIR, Linda took it fairly easy too.

Apparently, we lost our Xfinity/Comcast broadband service sometime around 5:30 PM.  Linda and I were not aware of this at the time as we were both doing things on our iPads that did not require us to be online.  I got a call form our neighbor (Mike G.) around 17:45 checking on whether we had our Internet connection.  I checked, and we did not.  I called him back to let him know.  While chatting, I mentioned that we had both been sick, and described my symptoms.  He suggested that we test for COVID-19.  Apparently a new strain with milder symptoms like mine has been circulating.  We both tested and both results were negative, but it was good to know for sure.

Mike checked to see when service might be restored.  He got 10:30 PM SUNDAY NIGHT as an answer and shared that information with us.  What?!!!  Linda checked, and got 10:30 PM tomorrow (Saturday) as an estimate; better, but still a long way’s off.  I eventually got a text message from Xfinity about the outage and signed up for updates.  Not long after, I got an update indicating that service should be restored by 10:40 PM THIS EVENING.  Well, that’s more like it.  Our service was actually restored sometime prior to that.  No indication of what had happened, there rarely if ever is, but it was good to have the service back.  While it was out we watched OTA TV programs on CBS.  These are shows that we used to watch every week but haven’t in quite a while.  We don’t miss them.

 

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