Presentable

Another beautiful sunny day today. The wind last Friday brought down quite a few branches, some of them of considerable size. There was no damage as a result and Attila used his chain saw to cut them to size, so that we burned them in the masonry heater for firewood last night. That worked out rather well.

On our journey to the little house last Saturday, I began to take pictures of the passing landscape from my seat in the car. The weather had already improved tremendously when I began to shoot the pictures. I aimed the camera out the side window, paying no attention to what I was capturing, or even if I was capturing any images.

Sun emerging from cloud. February 19, 2011
Sun emerging from cloud. February 19, 2011

While we were at the little house in the city we did a bit of window shopping. At least that is the way it started out. I don’t remember if I have mentioned in this journal that my winter coat is 17, almost 18 years old. I have worn this coat exclusively for the last 17 years, and still wear it with enthusiasm. However, it is a bit shabby, which isn’t a problem until I have a job interview and then it becomes a concern. The coat also gets dirty and cannot be washed through the winter months because I have nothing else to keep me warm while it takes a few days to dry. Shabby and dirty are a problem for job interviews. The upshot of all this is that while browsing through the mens department of a clothing store I found a lovely grey coat with fur trim on the hood, machine washable, warm and very presentable, at a greatly reduced price. It was marked down to $69 from $249. We decided that since I wear coats for close to 20 years, that this might be a very good investment. So, I have a new winter coat to wear to my interview this week.

Because I have a new winter coat in case I need to go outdoors, the old coat has gone into the washing machine and is now sparkling clean. It should be dry enough to wear again in a few days.

Today I am preparing for the interview on Thursday, then I’m going to forget all about it until I’m sitting in the office being interviewed. I like the interviews. It is the applications and preparations for interviews that I hate most about looking for work. I suppose this is an acquired dislike, due to the profound lack of success experienced thus far.

The printer is out of colour ink. I don’t need colour ink, so this wasn’t of much concern. However, the printer thought otherwise and refused to function at all without a new colour cartridge, which is $50 I’m not going to be spending; you see the dilemma here, $50 for an ink cartridge, $69 for a beautiful winter coat, choices, choices, made mine already. After searching the printer documentation for some time, no solution to the problem was found. A google search for a solution was very successful; the cure was to find the cartridge settings buried deep in layers of menus, change the settings to black only and then to hold down the reset button for five seconds. Worked a charm and the black and white documents I need for my interview are printed.

The Kobo continues to satisfy. I eventually heard from the company about the book that I bought online and could not access. They could not resolve the problem, to give me access to the book, so they refunded my credit card. Strange, that they couldn’t manage to make the book available for download, very strange. However, the issue is resolved and I am quite satisfied. The book in progress at the moment is Beauty by Sherri S. Tepper, which has been renewed and downloaded several times from the library. Having interesting reading material available all the time is wonderful!

Worldly Distractions

Weather

-19 °C
Condition: Clear
Pressure: 102.5 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: -19.0°C
Dewpoint: -22.6°C
Humidity: 74 %
Wind: NNW 5 km/h
Wind Chill: -23

Quote 

“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy