darkoshi

I still haven't decided what kind of water heater to get. At this rate I'm not sure I'll ever have enough time to make a decision. Of course I will, right? It's not that hard. I think the obvious decision is to replace it with the same kind as the old one. But I haven't completely convinced myself yet. I'm feeling inept, overburdened with things to do. I'm too slow to do them.

Wouldn't one of those electric plastic tanks be better? No anode rods to replace. I think I've decided against tankless. The heat pump ones are too tall I think, to fit in the current one's place. And complicated, prone to problems from what I read.

We had 2 very warm days. It's about to get colder again. But daffodils have bloomed, and the pink magnolia, and some trees with white blossoms.

I got the root canal on my tooth, and will get the temporary crown soon. The other tooth which had the root canal and crown done last year still feels a little weird sometimes.

I've accomplished things since the beginning of the year, but it is hard to remember what all. I made appointments; I went to the root canal consult. I got a dental cleaning; I got the root canal. I got the flu vaccine.

Grr. At the moment I wish I had a trustworthy local LLM to be able to give it my daily notes and have it summarize all my accomplishments for me.
After one MS Teams work meeting last week, the LLM's summary of the meeting was amazingly good. It helped me better understand what actually went on during the (confusing jumbled multi-hour) meeting.

I'm sure I must have gotten other things accomplished during the weekends. Well, there was the ice and the snow.

Biotin (AKA vitamin B7 and Vitamin H) is often included in supplements marketed for thinning hair and brittle nails. But it can interfere with various medical tests, causing inaccurate low, normal, or high results. It is recommended to stop taking the supplements 3 to 7 days before any such test.

Biotin (Wikipedia)

Biotin and the risk of false lab test results

Biotin: Interference with Laboratory Assays

Swallowing applesauce is sometimes like swallowing french fries that have gotten cold.
I wonder why.

We have snow.

I walked in the snow as it was falling yesterday. A flock of seagulls, I think, was up high, flying towards the northwest. Other birds flitted here and there, settled in a tree, flew up again and around.

I sledded down my short sloped driveway, using a piece of cardboard as the sled.

Now the sun is rising. The sky is clear and the land is bright.
There's an icicle on the street lamp.
I need to go to sleep.

My porch thermometer showed 22 degrees (F), 26 minutes after sunrise.

A small layer of ice accumulated last night, on plants, grass, fallen leaves, metal railings, rooftops, exposed cars, and trampolines. The walkways and roads near my house remained clear. The first time I went outside today, it even snowed, in the shape of tiny spikes. Later, I went for a walk. It was nice. Frosty, quiet; two dogs barked at me, one wearing a pretty green sweater.

On my way out, I saw 2 cars on a neighbor's driveway, one with its lights on, either just arrived or getting ready to leave. On the way back only one car was there, but its back windshield appeared to be broken, missing glass. That reminded me of the warnings I'd read yesterday against throwing hot water on your windshield to melt the ice.

Near my house, wind suddenly kicked up, ominous and exciting. It started raining, and I went inside.

It rained and/or sleeted a lot. But now it has stopped. The roads & walkways are still clear; the ice on other surfaces is melting. The temp is slightly above freezing and expected to remain above freezing until tomorrow night. So it will all melt.

I was about to go to a hardware store to buy a replacement 12" water heater connector. I'd opened the garage door, then thought to first check online what aisle the pipe connectors would be in.

Come to find out, neither Lowes nor Home Depot had a connector with the same specs (3/4" inlet and 7/8" outlet) as the one I wanted to replace! The closest I could find after a lot of searching was an 18" one which would have to be ordered. No point in going to the store.

So I pushed the button to close the garage door. It wouldn't close. It did the "move down a few inches, then back up, blinking the light several times" thing, which usually means something is blocking line of sight between the sensors at the bottom of the door.

I cleaned away some cobwebs; that didn't help. I noticed the sensor on the right side was a bit loose, so I tried angling it a few different ways. The door kept blinking when I tried to close it. I looked up how to align the sensors. Do I have a laser pointer? Hmm... Yes... I found it, but the batteries in it had gone bad and leaked, and it no longer worked. So I tied a line of string between the sensors to figure out how to point them. That didn't help.

I noticed the right sensor's green LED light was on, but the left one was off. The manual indicated the left one's LED should be green when it senses the signal sent from the right one. I wondered if the left one was even getting power. I chatted with Mistral; it indicated a TV remote control which emits infrared could work for testing the sensor; that it should make the LED flicker. It didn't flicker.

I finally was able to close the garage door, bypassing the sensors, by pressing and holding the button on the wall panel.

Maybe the sensor units are not working right due to the cold weather.

So now in addition to the problem with the water heater (and my tooth)(and the nation ffs), I have a problem with the garage door. But Lowes may have the connector I need after all. I think the old one was labeled with an outer diameter size instead of the inner diameter. Maybe tomorrow I can start all over again. I don't want to. Maybe I'll just press and hold the button from now on, if warmer temps don't fix it. Sigh.

..
Update, Jan 19:
Today in the daytime, the receiving sensor's LED was dim but visible. Using a TV remote to send infrared signals at it did make it flicker. Looking at the sending unit with my phone camera, I could see a purplish red spot, which seemed to confirm that its signal was working. The garage door opened okay from a normal button press.

I then cleaned/roughened up the ends of the wires from the sensors at the ceiling unit terminals in case they weren't making good contact during colder temps. It didn't make the receiver's LED any brighter. Actually, by the time I finished, it was getting cooler outside, and the LED was completely dark again. I don't see any issues with the wire which goes from the sensor to the ceiling unit, and it is not loose at the sensor end. Whatever the problem is, it does seem to be affected by the weather.

I keep waffling between ideas about what to do about my water heater. Maybe I just need to fix the connection at the top where it had the small leak. I could at least try; that's something I could do myself whether or not I succeed since the alternative involves a plumber anyway.

Maybe water just got in between the tank and outer shell, and dripped down the inside and that's why the bottom seemed all wet.

This stack exchange post is worded very amusingly:

How can we dry out a soaked water heater (and restore a novice plumber's dignity)?

I found out that in India, small water heaters are called "geysers".

I discovered there's another type of water heater. They are electric ones with a plastic tank (which has the benefit of not rusting or corroding, so they purportedly last a lot longer).

This video shows a cutaway view of a typical gas water heater that was at its end of life, rusted out:
How A Water Heater Works [Cutaway View]

Video title: Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota
Posted by: Office of the Governor of Minnesota
Date posted: Jan 14, 2026

3 little dandelions, braving January sunlight
as the temperature drops

Spin, spin, spin
says the garden wind spinner

Squeak, screech, squeeeeeaaaaaaaal
replies the neighbor's roof turbine

Random:

The purple talking llama in the ad distracted me so much that I closed the tab after it finished its bit, forgetting I hadn't yet watched the video I'd meant to watch.
.
Near sunset, airplane contrails glow orange in the sky.
.
Aluminum foil slightly crumpled and pulled out flat again is so pretty. A landscape of silver.

Video title: Yvet van der Tuin- Winter Is Coming (official music video)
Posted by: Yvet van der Tuin
Date posted: Jan. 7, 2021

I made a fire-roasted tomato stew for Christmas eve tomorrow. There will be vegan Spaetzle (German pasta) and a few other things to go with it.

I also made an upside-down pumpkin pie cake. When I pressed the oven's Start button to start the preheat cycle, the oven proclaimed Beep-beep-beep! It kept beep-beep-beeping rather than turning on, no matter what I tried. The oven can't be turned on except by that Start button.

Well, I could bake the cake at my mom's house tomorrow. But Mistral - Le Chat suggested unplugging the oven for 10 minutes. So I did that and for good (or bad) measure, blew some hot air at the control panel with a hair dryer, and pushed the buttons some more. After plugging it back in, the Start button worked right again. Yay. So cake got baked.

Walmart has an AI shopping assistant named Sparky. I know this not from interacting with it, but from seeing it on the Walmart page when placing an order recently. Its winking smiley-face icon seemed half-way creepy to me, like a retro 60's up-to-no-good cartoon character.
It looks like the assistant used to have a more plain smiley-face icon. I can see why they may have wanted to give it more pizzazz, but I'm not sure the newer one is an improvement.
It is... disconcerting.
I suppose it sort of fits its name, though.

I just remembered what a bag of Halloween candy obtained by trick-or-treating when I was a kid used to smell like. The candy I've given out as an adult doesn't have those scents. It was probably a combination of scents, but maybe mostly from one kind... chewy and shaped like tootsie rolls with twisted-end wrappers, with several flavors...

I found it, Brach's Royals. The wrappers have changed a lot over time, but this is how I remember them looking:
Brach’s – bulk candy salesman display – 1970’s
The Royals are in the upper left section of the tray, 2nd from the top.
Maybe I'm also thinking of the "Toffee" ones in the lower right, 3rd column from the right.

Ahh, nostalgia. I wouldn't eat those anymore as they are not vegan, and I don't like it anymore when candy sticks to my teeth. But remembering them is nice.

This reddit thread is interesting in regards to children nowadays prefering different candy (not the chocolate ones!) & treats compared to adults/parents:
Are kids these days getting much better Halloween candy than decades ago, or is it just me?

This is a test. Images that I post, including ones in my old posts, no longer display right on Dreamwidth...
JPG:

PNG:

I have submitted a support request.

I don't have any ATSC 3.0 television stations in my area and didn't realize it is already fairly widespread in the U.S. (map).

CNET: Free antenna TV is getting an upgrade and it might be in your town already Jan. 20, 2022
4K, HDR, 120Hz refresh rates and better indoor reception are coming to US airwaves for free thanks to ATSC 3.0, aka NextGen TV. ...

I Reviewed an ATSC 3.0 TV - Built-in DVR, More Channels, HDR10+ Video - YouTube video by Antenna Man, 2025/06/13.
Conclusion: Paying extra for ATSC 3.0 is probably not worth it. unless TV reception is bad in your area; the ATSC 3.0 channels may have better reception than the 1.0 channels.

The Downfall of ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV - What Went Wrong? - YouTube video by Antenna Man, 2025/10/24.

It took me all day to clean out one small box out of many that I have around the house. This one had a few items I brought back from Qiao's house after breaking up with him. Deciding what to do with each item. Where to put them, and which things not to keep. It takes me forever.

The dog tags were the hardest. I finally found a small cushioned box to keep them in.

The colorful shiny metallic foil chocolate wrappers compacted into various shapes, I put together with others, in a bigger box with clear lid.

..

I came across the receipt of a 14" flat CRT TV and a Memorex DVD player I bought from Sears in 2006. The TV cost $99. The DVD player cost only $34.99! Both prices were much less than I would have guessed. I still have the TV in a bedroom though I rarely use it. My mom has the DVD player; I have other DVD players now.

I also have a large CRT TV which used to be Qiao's; he didn't want it anymore. As well as an extra LED TV which I was going to replace the CRT with. But the CRT TV turns on instantly while the LED TV (a Toshiba FireTV - avoid them is my advice) sometimes takes several minutes. I suppose I will eventually get rid of the CRT. I don't know if I can find someone local who would want it, considering it still works. I might have to pay someone to take it to the dump. Or take it myself if it's not the horrible smelling landfill place that it would need to go to.

..

On the coffee table is a row of audio cassettes, on which I had copied music for Qiao back when he had a vehicle that played cassettes. I still have the original copies of the music; I don't need the cassettes. So I don't know what to do with them, and they sit there and sit there. I could erase them and take them to Goodwill, I guess? I have occasionally seen home-recorded tapes like that at Goodwill which weren't erased. But I don't think I'd do that.... Hmm, then again what could it hurt. They won't have my name. They won't follow me home to arrest me for having copied copyrighted music to audio cassettes, and then having given the cassettes away.

If someone wants the cassettes for recording their own music to, they can record over them. And if they get a kick out of listening to the music that's already on them, that's great too. But cassettes are old tech; few people would probably want them either way.

Well good, that's one decision made, and an easy solution. Give them to Goodwill in a box along with other stuff I've already put aside to take there.

Sexual Orientations & Genders Simplified

(from ChibiGreen)

The lyrics of this Mozart song surprised and amused me.

Bona nox

Watch on YouTube

Video title: Mozart - Bona nox
Posted by: margotlorena2
Date posted: Jun 2, 2012

I didn't realize right away, but the lyrics are "Good night" in 5 languages, with each following verse (even the "pfui! pfui!") a rhyme of the preceding Good Night phrase.

It's the time of the year and time of the day when sunlight hits the small mirror ball hanging by the window in one room. It throws glints of light across the walls and across me. I give the ball a slight twist, and the bits of light dance around the room. It is beautiful to watch.

I've previously taken videos, wanting to show how neat it looks. But I lack time to upload and post them; there are other things that need to be done.

...Ahh well. I decided to go ahead post one of those videos. I didn't think it would take 5.5 hours* to accomplish, but there you have it. That's why I rarely do.

Watch on YouTube

Video title: Sunshine & Mirrorball

*Sure, I also took a walk down memory lane, browsing through and renaming 150 photos and other videos. And I washed sheets and ate dinner and hung up on a phone call, and updated the video editor software.

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Darkoshi

Darkoshi's Enchantment

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bloomin jumble

Biotin supplements can cause false medical test results

some foods don't slide down well

snow snow snow

icefall, rain, melt

water pipe connectors; Garage Door safety sensors

water heater

Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota

before the chilly nightfall

Happy New Year

(song) Winter Is Coming

a cook a bake a beep

Sparky AI shopping assistant

scent memory, Halloween

testing DW image problem

over the air TV: ATSC 3.0 aka NextGen TV

cleaning up clutter

Munch the Frog explains

you're such an ox

mirror mirror on the ball