Why Does Not Answer How

Ubuntu has three "Power Modes."

Performance, Balanced and Power Saver.

Performance notes, "High performance and power usage."

Balanced notes, "Standard performance and power usage."

Power Saver notes, "Reduced performance and power usage."

I have Balanced selected; or so I thought.

Derpyputer was not performing up to spec and it was right after a restart for an update, a browser update and installing a different music player.

Uh oh.  Which of those things broke the computer?

I just endured the slower performance while I waited for my brain to hit a space where I could endure looking for the answer.

Somewhere in here, while tabulating the stats for the Type 64 rifle, I noticed the built in screen would dim much sooner than expected.

So I went into the settings to change the time setting for that.

Turns out there's no discrete setting for that, but this is where I see that "Power Saver" has been selected.

I changed it back to "Balanced" and all is better! 

I have no idea how this setting got changed!  There's supposedly no keyboard shortcut for it, but I suspect feline involvement. 

Spider Cat

Mist has decided that our spider plant is a bed.

She grabs the edge of the pot from her blanket on the shelf in the lower left of the frame and does a chin-up to get inside.

 

Then she looks at us like, "What!  Didn't you put it here for me?"

Furry Alarm Clock

Construction across the street began at 0700.

I could sleep through it if, someone, had not decided that she needed to meow in my ear right after the construction noise began.

Shadow, in case you did not know, does not have a snooze button. 

Détente

I keep Shadow and Beeper separated because Beeper is VERY aggressive towards Shadow and Shadow is very meek.

Today they showed no signs of wanting to swap out of the bedroom, but Beeper had zonked out in a sunbeam on the back porch.

So I, gently, grabbed Shadow and took her back there.

She was tense when she spotted Beeper, but stayed in my lap for a while, slowly relaxing.

Then she hopped down and did her normal rounds of exploring the porch while Beeper continued to sleep.

Eventually, though, Beeper became aware of Shadow and she started to try to start something, which I prevented by blocking her.

Shadow walked back into the house instead of slinking and Beeper did a fairly prompt, "out of sight, out of mind," bit and went back to her sunbeam.

It's progress.

In the past once Shadow had become aware that Beeper had spotted her would have been hours under the bed in the bedroom.

Today she was in the bedroom window watching the birds.

That's progress too!

Measure Twice Cut Thrice

I have baby gates across the bedroom door to keep Shadow separated from Beeper.

The bottom two gates are swing-out style and have two lugs on the door-frame that accept pins on the door.

The top gate has always been difficult to get closed, but the bottom one has always been fine.

I used the provided template to place the lugs, so I assumed it was some kind of tolerance stack-up problem with the gates themselves.

Swapping them top to bottom helped a lot.  The bottom one was noticeably tighter, but still worked correctly.  The top one got looser, but still bound up on the top lug.

So I measured the fit between the lugs and pins on the bottom gate and replicated that on the top.

It amounted to lowering the top lug about 1/8".

Then I measured between the lugs and they now match!

Somehow I got the top lug 1/8" too high when I mounted them initially.

Worse, I replicated this mistake when I lowered the top gate to narrow the gap to allow it to become the middle gate.

Is The Dog OK?

In several videos of the Renee Good shooting you can see a dog sticking its head out the window of the Pilot.

Is the dog OK?

It was in the back seat, possibly in the path of any rounds that missed Ms Good.

Assuming it was missed by the gunfire, the next thing that happened was the unpiloted Pilot slamming into a parked car.

IS THE DOG OK?  

Happy Birthday

 Mist The FEMA Kitty is (near as we can know) one year old today!

Pretty darn good for a kitten we brought in thinking she was getting Last Rites and spending her last minutes experiencing love and affection.

We are thrilled at how she rallied and thrived with us!

She's come a long ways!

Baby Gate Update

Stuffing a pillow in the gap between the gates prevents Beeper from using it as an entry.

The gap, with the pillow removed, lets Harvey pretend I'm a prisoner and pass food through the slot.  We're easily amused. 

The gates with a small fan running in the peak of the afternoon does let the bedroom match the rest of the house temperature.

I'm still peeved at the AC company and have no forgiveness in my heart.

Especially after the finance company called asking about the scathing review we left for Graham Heating and Cooling.  Apparently Graham tried to dissemble to the finance company and that they did everything they were contracted to do...

Fine, I will accept that you did everything in the contract.  We fucked up by signing it when you appeared to be verbally confirming you understood what we wanted done.

The first clue we should have gotten that we weren't speaking the same language with this company should have been the job going from $1,000 total to $1,000 per register.

We talked to them about that estimate three times and never once got the impression that it was going to be per vent in the ceiling.

Now we know better.

I know I am sick of them saying we need to add yet another thing to the system every time they come out to do the annual maintenance that came with installation of the air handler and compressor.

Isn't it odd that we need a UV light in the air handler now that the duct work is done?

We've compared notes with friends and they're getting the same lines from their companies too.  Need new ducts, need a UV light, etc...

I need to add that Graham Heating and Cooling isn't actually the company that installed the air handler and compressor.  That was Crystal HVAC.  Crystal went under and Graham inherited their customers when they bought them out.

When we got the new system I asked the Crystal installers about the provisions for the UV lamp in the manual he'd left laying around for me to thumb through.  I was told, then, that if I just used the expensive air filters, I shouldn't need a UV light.

The OEM light assembly is just $200 from Amazon and looks like it will take all of half an hour to install.  A far cry from the $1,000 for the part and $1,200 for installation Graham offered me.  Though the tech did mention that there's $50 lights that work just as good, they just burn out more often than the OEM. 

PS: I notice that HVAC is ANOTHER barrier to entry license required career here in Florida.  Hmmmmmmmm. 

Beeper Smrt

Beeper has figured out the gap between the two baby gates.

That did not take long.

The good news is Shadow watched her jump through the gap and just stayed where she was sitting.

That's an amazing amount of progress for our kitten who's afraid of her own shadow!

I've placed a pillow to block the gap to see if that deters or inspires Beeper to go over the top.

Tubby Kitties

In preparation for flea treatment, we weighed the kittens.

Bear: 14.0 lb.

Beeper: 9.2 lb.

Mist: 7.0 lb.

Shadow: 9.2 lb.

It should be noted that Bear is not fat, he is just a BIG cat.

Double Improvement

While I maintain that the AC people fucked us with our new, up to code, ducts and the lack of air flow into the master bedroom:

Some things they said to alleviate the the problem have helped.

First re-aiming the little blades on the vents so they blow out into the room more along the ceiling than wide open and dumping straight down.

Second was giving more space around the uptake and filter.

Both have improved the overall cooling, but from about 1830 to about an hour after sunset I CANNOT have the door to the bedroom closed.  Which is awkward because I have to keep Beeper and Shadow separated.  We'd actually be OK if we could leave all the doors open.

A bonus feature of rearranging around the uptake has been Bear returning to being a bed-cat for Harvey and her being able to sleep better.

But I am >< this far from getting a window unit for the bedroom. 

Thanks Kitties

One of the felines, probably Shadow, moved the home-defense carbine in it's ready rack and managed to turn on the light sometime today.

Thankfully I check it very frequently.

New batts installed and all is well. 

AUGH!

 A while ago, Shadow was kind enough to knock my Lego Atredes Ornithopter off the dresser.

Like all such events, it broke apart into its component parts spectacularly.

Because the wings have a folding and flapping mechanism, it was not a simple matter of just putting it back together because the linkages were now loose and misaligned.

I'd have to take it even more apart to start back to reassembly.

So I put it off for months.

Tonight I decided to, finally, put it back together.

I got it all the way to mounting the wings when I noticed I had parts left over.

Structural parts.

I needed to take it apart almost as far as when I started to get those pieces back in.

But it is back together and placed where the cats don't go.

HUZZAH!

 

Almost In The Cat Distribution System

 

Drunken Kitten

Shadow, it would seem, likes scotch.

I'd finished my drink and she dipped her paw into my glass and licked her paw clean.

Then she returned for three more dips.

The Balvenie Caribbean Cask is very tasty, so I cannot fault her.

I'm just surprised that she likes it! 

If You'd Explained It I Would Understand

The next problem of the day was finally getting the AC company out to hear the complaint I had on the very first day of our new ducts.

There is insufficient flow into the main bedroom.

It needs more flow than the rest of the house because it takes a direct hit from the sun from an hour past local noon to sunset.  The Eastern faces have trees so that side of the house doesn't need near so much flow.

They're taking the position that they explained to me things that they never mentioned.

Harvey was there too, and she corroborates my recollection.

On the plus side, they did give me a tip that we had the vents set all wrong.

I admit that it's better with the vents angled correctly.

The big problem, at least as far as the kittens are concerned, is the bedroom door MUST remain open during the day.

That means that Shadow and Beeper must finally settle their differences.

The door has been open since before noon and Beeper hasn't even stirred from under the bed and Shadow has wandered in a couple of times without a fight starting.

Fingers crossed! 

Breech Or Muzzle Loaded

Getting a cat into a carrier boils down to one of two conditions.

Is your cat muzzle loading or breech loading?

Will they go in butt first or head first?

And do you have to elevate the "muzzle" of the carrier to facilitate the loading.

Bear, Beeper and Shadow are breech loaded and go in head first without much struggle.

Mist is muzzle loaded and has to be lowered into the upright cage and rammed home down inside.

Mist is the only one not resigned once she's in.

Bear kinda likes the carrier and will sleep in there if you leave it out.

Conical Kitty

 Mist is back from the vet!

She's pooped, eaten and drank.  She's trying to groom, but is being impeded by the cone.

She's not letting the cone get in her way, but...

She hates the cone.  HATES.  THE.  CONE.

Bear and Shadow are giving her room, though Shadow seems confused that she won't play.

At The Vet

Mist is at the vet to be spayed.

She was less than thrilled by being put in the carrier.

The Sleep Of The Just

 

Mist and Shadow have scampered themselves to exhaustion.