I went to sleep around 1AM, woke up around 9, but was actually able to sleep a bit more.
What got me out of bed was remembering that I'd thought of getting some kava from Whole Foods to help with the alcohol withdrawal situation. I could take a ton of it because the window for withdrawing from alcohol is only about 3 days.
In fact I drank enough less last night that I feel a lot less twitchy this morning. Kava would really help though and even at $30 for a little bottle I feel it's worth it.
I also need to get right on the project of getting a new laptop. Not only is this one starting to show it's age but Windows 10 won't be supported soon, the tariffs are going to drive the prices up, even for used laptops, and I started my day with Microsoft trying to hold this computer for ransom (I eventually did the 3-finger salute, signed out then back in, and it's OK for now).
I packed a couple small things, and took off around noon or 1, dropping off trash, the packages, etc., and got over to Whole Foods. They had kava capsules, a bottle of them costing a bit over $40. Worth it if they work. I took about 8 of them and then some water to swallow them with, then a yogurt to get them to go all the way down, then finally a little cheese stick to get them to really go down.
I said Hi to the two guys playing chess there, as they'd come up and been really friendly (I think one of them gave me a tattered $1) when I was playing trumpet.
Then I went to the Good Karma Bikes to see if they felt like giving me any stickers or patches, and they didn't have any. They have a lot of bikes! The tall guy who does repairs and I talked about the bike repairing business. I said that when I lost everything in the crash of 08, I wish I'd taken everything I could still, off of my credit cards and gone to Barnett Bicycle Institute up in Colorado Springs, and gotten training there.
He told me how he came out here from the Midwest in '81, because there was NO work where he was. Then later the state of California emptied his bank account for nonpayment of state taxes plus they wanted more. So he needed to work off-the-books, and for about 3 years he lived off of fixing up bikes and selling them. That's amazing.
Of course Good Karma is a great place to learn to work on bikes, and I tried to get in that if I lose my situation here, I'll have to find a place to live and then probably just live on Social Security and playing my trumpet, and since I can't play trumpet 8 hours a day I could volunteer there at Good Karma and take the Park Tools course and learn to be a bike mechanic. But I didn't get a chance because a guy came in about a road bike and I had to stop bending this guy's ear.
I rode over to Fix Laptop and they had one Dell Latitude, running Windows 11. It was a bit under $300, and I said "I'll be back" (haha) and went to the bank and took $300 out, and went over and bought it.
Now I wanted to head for home with my new computer, so I rode in that precise direction, stopping at Nijiya for a bento and some additional sashimi and some green tea. I had a nice talk with a couple of young guys hanging out in front who had really nice bikes with bags and stuff which led me to ask if they were on a cross-country tour. They weren't, just over from Santa Clara. It was a beautiful day for riding though, if a bit warm.
I got back here and packed a bunch of large things to go to FedEx. Then I went to CostCo and joined up. They were able to re-activate and update my old account and they took a new picture. Then I went wandering around in there. Long-ass lines at the hot dog counter, guess I'm not getting one. I found some rubbing alcohol but the clothing all seems to come in sizes Large and up.
In the end I got my hot dogs, and they were all right, they don't have sauerkraut any more though.
By now it was too late to do a study session at the Baguette, so I just collected some boxes and stuff on my way back and got back here, cleaned the place up, looked some more for a thing I can't find and told the buyer I can't find it but if there's anything else I have he's OK with getting to let me know, and he's fine with that, picked out another thing the same price.
I got the place all cleaned up and amazingly Ken showed up right on time. I got my pay check and we talked until a bit past midnight. After he was gone I got my new laptop out and found a Dell mouse for it, and have it charging. I was unsure if the screen was as big as this one, but it's actually a bit larger - same width but a little bit taller. It's a pretty nice looking laptop and only has to last me about 2 years.
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