An Unexpected Day Off

Unless you've been living under a rock today, you likely know that Microsoft went down today, causing all kinds of disruptions, including out at the plant.  We couldn't clock in.  We couldn't confirm our work.  We couldn't even pull up a print of our parts.

Still, they wouldn't let us go home.  We muddled on, doing the best we could, but basically flying blind -- so to speak.  I guess it was around 8:00 local time that all the computers came back up.  It was around 8:45 that they finally sent all of us home.  

Go figure. 

Only I didn't go home.  I went out to the lake and walked that Pokémon Go route, and got my first badge. My first route badge, I mean.  Then I went up to the Visitor's Center and took over the two gyms up there, leaving my own Pokémon to guard them.  I've discovered that you're supposed to want your Pokémon kicked out of the gym, because that's how you get coins in the game.  But you can only get 50 coins per day, so it doesn't do to put too many into gyms at the same time.   On the other hand, the longer a Pokémon is in a gym, the better items you get when you spin the gym photo disc, so it's an either/or situation.  

Even so, I got some exercise, which is always a good thing.  There are so many nice walking trails around here, out at the lake and at the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve, I really have no excuse not to get out and walk more.  Except that I'm tired and I'm hot when I get off work.    

Which segues nicely into my next topic,  I finally managed to get my fasting glucose back down below 100.  It had been high all last week, which I think was from eating bananas every day.  By the way, I had been looking all over town and even online for the calibration solution for my glucose meter, and I finally went to the ReliOn website to see if they had it.  Turns out, all you have to do is fill out a form and they'll send you some for free.  Pretty cool...

After taking my walk, I came home and put the lunch I had packed for work back into the refrigerator for tomorrow, then went to Walmart and got my shopping done.  I finally remembered to get extra Jalapeno peppers and the water bath canning pot thingy, and some extra jars.  I was going to get one of those jar lifters, but found a set with a jar lifter, a funnel, and a head space gauge for less than just the jar lifter itself, so that's what I got. 

I debated for a long time whether I needed to process the pickled peppers I'd put up a couple of weeks ago.  I mean, the recipe had said to let them sit for a couple of weeks so the flavors could develop, but it didn't specify whether to process them before or after that time.  I guess they assumed experienced canners would already know the answer to that.  I'm assuming they meant before, but it wouldn't have mattered at the time, as I didn't have a pot to process them in anyway.  Besides, I'd sterilized the jars in boiling water before I put the stuff into them, and boiled the vinegar solution as well, and the lids had already popped.  That's the way we used to do them back in the old school.  So, was it even necessary?  

In the end, I figured better safe than sorry, so I got them out and processed them anyway.  

 

They seemed to do OK, and all the lids have popped again, so I'm guessing they're now shelf stable for a while.  At least I hope they are.  I don't want to be poisoning my child and siblings for Christmas!

Now, I'm tuckered and I think I'll wait and do the jalapenos tomorrow.  I found a general pickled pepper recipe that they say you can use with any kind of peppers, so that's what I'm going to try.  I think it's a lot like other recipes, as in there is a lot of variation.  

While all that was going on, I picked the remaining seeds out of that sunflower I'd cut day before yesterday, the one the birds got to. 

I got a good many, but the birds got about 60% of them. Oh, well...the irony of that is, I was saving the other seeds I'd gotten from some of the other varieties to feed to them this winter.  If only they would have waited.

On the way home from Walmart, I took the long way around and drove through the town square to look at that building that blew down yesterday. They got most of the bricks cleaned up out of the streets, but the whole front of it is gone.  I didn't stop and take a picture, but I will another time.  Maybe next month when I have to go down that way anyway to pay a bill. 

All I can say is, it looks loke something you'd see in a war zone.  

Speaking of, I'm watching the new series on Discovery Channel called In The Eye Of The Storm, and the very first story is about the Rolling Fork tornado.   The second story is on the Little Rock tornado a week later...

It looks to be a pretty good series so far. 

Especially for a weather geek such as myself.