Saturday, January 6, 2024

Medium bowl of oatmeal with milk, flax meal, cacao nibs, toasted slivered almonds, toasted shaved coconut, blueberries, golden raisins; hot water. Spent several hours trying to buy a replacement bathroom sink aerator. The one I wanted (Delta RP330) no longer ships to California since a 2018 water conservation law took effect due to a longstanding drought that is now over. I avoided Danco aerators because of reviews saying they were too noisy. I avoided Niagara Conservation aerators because of reviews saying they were too noisy and they were poor quality. Home Depot had aerators I could use but they would not ship to California due to the law. I visited Cole Hardware recently, and they did not have what I needed. I recently tried visiting Progress Hardware and found they were permanently closed. So today I gave the one we had a thorough cleaning, added some seal tape (since I removed the corroded gasket), and it seems to be fine. I also did the same kind of cleaning for the spray attachment at the kitchen sink, and it works much better now. Lunch at home with Patrick: Patrick had leftover lentils and rice with a toasted everything bagel and butter, I had pasta with cheese sauce that Patrick had made earlier to which I added frozen mixed vegetables. Water to drink. Opened an old Apple Time Capsule (A1409) and removed the hard drive. I did not use a hair dryer to remove the rubber bottom. I started at a corner with a large flathead screwdriver and just pulled slowly and carefully. It was hard to find the right phillips screwdriver for the next step. Jewelry screwdrivers I owned were slightly too small. Other phillips screwdrivers I had were too large. Eventually I found one that worked. It is marked "Stanley 65-320 USA OPT." I removed 10 screws. I didn't know how to pull the bottom chassis off (after the rubber bottom is removed), and the instructions I found online did not say exactly how to do this. My solution: take a small, thin screwdriver (like the Stanley one mentioned), insert it into one of the holes on the side opposite the ethernet ports, then lift. Be careful to not use the screwdriver as a lever against the plastic case since that might damage the case. Just lift and jiggle the screwdriver straight up while keeping it horizontal. I had to do this in more than one hole before it shook loose. The jiggling helps free the part you're trying to remove. I removed the foam-covered tape covering the heat sensor, then I disconnected the heat sensor, then I removed the sensor attachment base and the foam-covered tape. I next lifted the hard drive a bit then removed the power and data connectors. I next removed the four screws attached to the hard drive. I collected the potentially reusable parts in a small ziploc bag, left it inside, and worked backwards to put it back together. All done. My recently repaired Volt Heat Lava Boot stopped working today. Upon inspection, now a different wire has broken than before. This time it's the black wire that was adjacent to the red wire that I had repaired. Same thing: it broke at the point where it connects to the switch. Had gotten a headache, reason unknown, so I took aceto and an afternoon nap. When I awoke, I was groggy, but the headache was gone. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick had pasta with cheese sauce that he had made earlier. He prepared for me a mini quesadilla with bbq sauce and leftover pulled pork. Water to drink. Patrick also had a glass of organic red wine. Nowadays he drinks only organic wines. Dessert: cherry-pistachio biscotti. Patrick washed some dishes. Afterwards we watched 49m:36s of Mike Birbiglia: Thank God For Jokes on Netflix. Patrick went to bed. I washed the remaining dishes. Responded to email delivery and DNS record troubleshooting (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) with my web hosting provider. Late snack: toasted everything bagel with peanut butter, water.