Today’s Business: 2010-03-09
Today’s Activities
- Shower. DONE.
- Cat duty. DONE.
- Pay all (8) pending bills. DONE.
- Balance all checking accounts. IN PROGRESS.
- Schedule appointment for Mom with the retina specialists in Johnstown for sometime in April, 2010.
Log
09:10 AM: I’m up. My weight is unchanged from yesterday. It’s still 177.0 Lbs.
09:50 AM: Resubmitted my application to gain access to the Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) web site. This is the third try. The other two times, done last week, they rejected because they said that the mailing address I provided does not match the one that the library in Pittsburgh has on file. I’ve been working with personnel at the Pittsburgh library for the blind to resolve. We think we have it now. We’ll see over the next day or two.
11:25 AM: Read chapter twelve of the Team of Rivals book.
12:30 PM: Mailed out all pending bills as of today.
01:00 PM: [Emmy] called to say that she finished off all the dark chocolate I left there from our early Easter celebration. 
01:50 PM: Filed roughly 20 pieces of received email from the last two weeks. I also applied all Internet shopping charges to my checking account.
02:00 PM: I’ve been approved to access the BARD web site and download talking books. Yes! I’ll check out the site later today.
03:00 PM: Watched today’s episode of The Young and the Restless on the DVR. Now, it’s nap time.
04:00 PM: I’m back up again.
05:00 PM: Balanced two of the three checking accounts that I manage. I’ll get to the most difficult of these (Mom’s) later. Hers is hard because she has many transactions to reconcile, and since I’m not the one who originally created each of these, I must investigate each a little to be sure it’s legitimate.
06:55 PM: Created audio journal episode AJE-2010-03-09-18-40, where I discuss why I read so many books that bore me. This current one, Team of Rivals, while I would not characterize as a boring book, I would say that much of the time spent reading it, I am in fact, bored. However, it’s nonetheless a spectacular work; it’s quite heavily larded with facts about Lincoln and the Civil War, and I find keeping it all straight and maintaining an accurate picture of how all the pieces fit together a bit challenging. But if the book is boring to me, this is not due to any lacking quality on the book’s part; it’s just me, not used to reading much of this sort of material.
08:45 PM: Successfully completed my debut log in to the BARD web site, and downloaded my first book: To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ll read that next.
10:10 PM: Talked with [Emmy]. Both of her hands were hurting this evening. Her carpul tunnel surgery back in 2007 on the right hand has provided only marginal improvement. She still suffers lots of pain; particularly when she uses her hand too much. She has an appointment scheduled for early April with the surgeon who treated her before. Hopefully, he’ll have some definite answers; he was a bit evasive and non committal when last I attended his office with [Emmy] for a checkup over a year ago. But I supposed this hardship is to be expected. Carpel tunnel surgery, as I’ve read on the Internet, has the highest rates of dissatisfaction of all surgeries. This surprised me because I know of many folks whose hands were restored to full and painless operation by this treatment. But there are many others for whom it does not work, and sadly, it appears that this time around, [Emmy] is in that latter group.
11:40 PM: Read chapters thirteen and fourteen of the Team of Rivals book.
11:45 PM: To bed with me now. Good night, and I’ll catch you here again in the morning. Take care.
Received Mail and Shipments
- Co payment bill for last set of diabetic test strips (ordered on 2010-01-21).
- Credit card privacy statement.
- Offer for insurance against in-home gas leaks; they repair any failed internal lines at no cost; except for the $2.50 per month premium. Hmmm. This might be a pretty good deal, although we’ve never had a gas leak. Even if we did, I could probably repair it myself. But still …