Tuesday, January 19, 2016

A Weekend from Hell and the Monday that Saved It

This past weekend was a three day weekend. I had all sorts of things planned and the extra day meant I had a chance to get them done. Things didn’t work out exactly as planned.

As I said I had all sorts of plans of things to do. Starting by leaving work a little early on Friday to drop something off at a bank that they needed by the end of that day. This was the start of my weekend from hell.

I left work about half an hour early. The bank closed at 5 so I thought leave at 3:30 plenty of time to get there by 5. The branch I was going to was in DuPont Circle no problem, right. I left on time got to the Metro and then the fun began.

The train held at the Bethesda stop for 90 seconds for a schedule adjustment. Finally we head off but are held at the next station for a couple of minutes. A problem train somewhere I wasn’t exactly sure because I couldn’t hear what the guy said. Then we’re off again. But not for long more delays and holds and waitings. It wasn’t a long time at anyone stop but it slowly added up. In all it added a good 20 minutes to the trip to DuPont. It’s hard to tell, if I’d left at my normal time, if I would have encountered the same problems. But I’m certainly glad I left early. Not a major problem but an annoyance nonetheless.

Got home at a reasonable time. Decided I would go out to dinner. It started to rain just as I was heading out the door. Not hard but enough that an umbrella would be a good idea to have. Only problem was I couldn’t find mine. I looked in the place it was supposed to be and of course it was not there. I tried to remember when I’d last used it and where I might have put it. I knew for sure I would not have taken it upstairs but thought what the hell and looked there anyway. Didn’t find it. In fact it ended up I couldn’t find it anywhere.

With a sigh I headed out. The restaurant I was heading to wasn’t that far away. It wasn’t raining all that hard so I didn’t get too wet. Of course by the time I got to the place and got seated it had stopped raining. It then started back up just in time for me to head home.

Got home and tried to do a few things around the house which were accomplished but took extra steps to do. Tried to do something on my computer but kept getting what I call the beach ball of death where the computer just sits there and does nothing.

The plan was to go out but the extra time it took to accomplish these task put me in a really bad mood. So I decided it skip it. I went off to bed hoping for a better tomorrow.

That didn’t exactly happen. I did get to the gym in the morning. The first time I’d been there in months. I had a pretty good work out. I didn’t want to push things since it had been so long since I’d been there. Finished pretty proud of myself. Tried to open my combination lock and no such luck. Spent almost ten minutes trying to get the damn thing opened. I have no idea what the problem was but finally it opened. After I got it opened I locked it and opened it several times. Of course no problem with that.

I decided I was going to walk from the gym to Union Station. I wanted to get back into exercising. It had clouded up while I was at the gym. While not exactly cold without the sun the jacket I had on was not really adequate for the temperature. But I decided to carry on anyway.

As I was walking I noticed that my throat felt a little sore.  It got worse over the course of the weekend. It seems I caught another cold. Ugh! It doesn’t really surprise me all that much since just about everyone at work has one. So it seems I caught another one. Like I said ugh!

Other fun things on Saturday were problems with the washer and the dryer. Not sure what all that was about. Also ironing shirts.

The computer once again had the slows. Again I’m not sure for what reason. I was going to do a post but well just got to frustrated with it. I figured out later that it was something going on with the Blogger site itself. That made me feel a little better.

I did take a nice long nap Saturday afternoon. Watched the Patriots win. I have to say I was mystified by the Chief’s lack of clock management. Also watched some of the second game too.

I had soup for dinner. For some reason it sat in my stomach like a stone. Had some less than fun stomach pain and several long trips to the bath room. I didn’t have the runs but had to stay put. So I missed the end of the Packers game.

Ended up staying up too late.

A long came Sunday. Went to the gym dropped my gloves. Took me a while to figure out where I’d dropped them but eventually did recover them. Once again a series on minor annoying mishaps and things that took extra steps to conclude.

Watched a little football but have to say really didn’t care one way or another about the two games. Also by Sunday afternoon I’d about had enough of the figurative pounding of my head against the wall. Took a deep sigh and decided to not try anything else.

Then along came Monday and things changed.

My goal for a long time is to get a TV for my bedroom. I wanted to be able to sit in bed and watch something. It would be a movie or something from Netflix. I’d been thinking about this for a couple of years. I thought I’d buy a new TV for the living room and bring the one downstairs up into my room. The one in the living room is 37 inches but it’s not a smart TV. If I wanted to hook up to Netflix, I’d have to get something to connect to my wireless network.

I pondered the correct size. The thing is that 37 inch TVs aren’t available any more. It’s 32 inches or you jump up to 40. More pondering on my part.

Finally on Monday I rearranged my bedroom so there would actually be a space to watch the TV. I got the bed to just fit in the space I wanted to put it. I then measured how wide my dresser was (that’s where the TV would go). I had 32 inches of space to work with.

The 32 inch TV was around 28 inches. The 40 inch TV took up 36 inches. The model I was looking didn’t have a traditional stand but two feet that were towards the end of the TV. I wasn’t sure if the 40 inch would fit on the dresser.

I went off to Best Buy to look at the TVs. I was going to buy a Vizio. I got to the store and measured the 40 inch TV. I thought the legs would fit on the top of the dresser. But it would just fit. I was concerned, if I bumped it or the cats bumped it, it could fall off the dresser. (The 40 inch was also $100 more.) Not a good idea. So I went with the 32 inch. I also got an HDMI cable and a BluRay player. It cost right around $330 for everything.

I took it home and set it up. I should add I changed my Netflix account to digital. Before I set off to get the TV, I tried to set Netflix up on my Wii fit. I had to enter new WiFi because I got a new modem. That took a little doing. Also once I did that it was testing the internet connection. It seemed to take along time to do so I headed out to Best Buy. The test was still going on when I got back from the store. I turned the Wii off and restarted. I held my breath but everything connected correctly.

I then went upstairs to set up the TV. It was very easy to do. Next came the BluRay. Again simple. It has WiFi capability too but I didn’t set that completely up since the TV had it.

I popped in a movie and watched for a little while. It looked great.

I decided I was on a roll. I set out for Home Depot to buy a couple of ceiling fans. I’ve been talking about getting ceiling fans longer than I have about getting a TV. I’d looked at them before and decided on the style that I wanted. Now I had to figure out color. There was one in white and one in brushed brash where the blades were a wood color. I went with that one.

To celebrate this turn around in the weekend, I ordered pizza from Armands. So the extra day Monday saved what would have been a terrible weekend.

There are a few more catch up posts to do but I’m binge watching Daredevil so it will have to wait at least another day.
 
A quick P.S. on this. I guess I spoke a little too soon. I watched some more Daredevil episodes on my TV in the living room. I did a few things around the house. Went upstairs to watch another episode and all of sudden Netflix won't work up there. 

Oh well.

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