Tales From An Alternate Reality

I have a bunch of Facebook Marketplace postings, many of which are for Build-A-Bear clothes or accessories, since the kids outgrew all of that ages ago and have already indicated what they want to keep. I got a message today about one of them, from a woman wanting to know if my pristine Build-A-Bear dog bed (offered at $10) was for a large dog! Wow. \o?

I had a scare last week with my work and home computers. The home computer got stuck on "BitLocker key needed" after a bad Windows 11 update. Fortunately, I was able to get it out of that state. The work computer? Possibly due to the same update, it wigged out while I was downgrading my NoMachine app (which definitely had a bad update). My desktop icons entirely disappeared. :O I checked to make sure nothing was in the recycle bin, and waited awhile. But things didn't come back. I rebooted to see if that would fix it, but no. It was actually worse then, because my whole environment was gone. Thank goodness my OneDrive files and my personal docs and files were still there. Just not my apps. I tried IT Friday afternoon, and nobody called me back. Tried again on Saturday, and the person was much more helpful and able to understand the problem. Ultimately, she resolved the problem (mostly?) with a hard reset, which was kind of embarrassing. It's basically the "Have you tried turning it off and then on again?" solution, except with the added step of removing power.

So, things are back now? But I'm getting funky behavior when I try to use Word, like it wants me to create an account, and MS Teams also thinks I'm not fully logged in. Well, at least I don't have to drive all the way in to the office tomorrow.

I went outside for a bike ride today. Less sucky than Thursday's ride, which was awful. Not helped by ending it at 89F. I thought I was going out again Friday, but there was a stiff wind that made me out of breath almost immediately, so I went home and biked in the garage. It'll be cooler this coming week, but that will start off with being too windy tomorrow, and then possible rain Tuesday-Thursday. Who knows how often I'll get out?

Today's other accomplishment, though, was filling out my California ballot. About 50% as bad as the worst-ever one? 14 bonds/propositions to vote on, and no info in the state voter's guide about any of them. It looks as if the California Secretary of State's office was more concerned about people successfully submitting their ballots this year than anything, and in my area alone we've already had at least one person break into an official USPS mailbox to steal ballots, and another break into a USPS mail truck. God, but Trump and his cult are crooks. :(

I did not get around to doing Halloween decorations this weekend. Maybe next week? I also need to buy replacement plants for the ones that died during all of our sprinkler issues this summer. \o?