Scattered Thoughts . . .

Due to the usual and frustratingly predictable winter overcast skies here in Waterbury, a community nestled in a valley between three ski resorts, yesterday was our only chance to capture a glimpse of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.  It was still three days before the actual conjunction (the point in time when the two planets appear the closest from Earth) but the weather forecast was indicating that Friday (yesterday) was our only option.  Contrary to what we've been seeing in the media and in news articles lately, this conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is not a terribly rare occurrence.  What makes this year's conjunction a little bit special is that the apparent gap between the planets in our sky will be smaller than usual at around 1/8 of a degree in our sky.  This conjunction actually occurs every 20 years but we usually see an apparent separation between the planets in our sky of around 1/2 a degree to 1 degree.  So, the two planets will appear closer together this

Last night was one of those nights when you simply cannot sleep and you end up getting up out of bed at 5:30am because you know sleeping is a lost cause.  This is exceptionally rare for me but it was my night last night. I was having a little bit of difficulty breathing last night after going to bed but I wouldn't call those breathing difficulties anything more than mild.  Needless to say, that was the start of my lack of sleeping.  I was lying there wondering, "Should I go get my inhaler and epinephrine?  Or, will this pass?"  The problem is that if I get up to retrieve my inhaler and epinephrine, that act alone will cause me to lose some sleep because I'll need to calm down again and slow my heartrate down again in order to have any chance of falling asleep.  If I need to take epinephrine, that will keep me up for a while too.  So, I laid there wondering what to do which is also a sign that my breathing difficulties were no worse than mild. Then, I couldn't get

First thing this morning, I noticed that the bathroom sink was not draining.  I don't mean it was slow or sluggish.  I mean it was not draining.   We had to run to the Post Office as early as possible this morning to ship a couple of packages but I knew I would now have a frustrating morning ahead of me once we arrived back home. I had a pretty good idea that the rather long drain pipe running to the side wall was probably clogged with hair, gunk, soap and I don't want to know what else.  This would mean that I would need to disassemble the drain.  I decided to just check the trap under the sink first though just in case this could be a relatively simple problem to resolve. I emptied out the long vanity cabinet and then went looking for a bucket.  I placed the bucket under the trap and disassembled the trap...  nasty, foul water spilled out...  but the trap didn't have as much gunk in it as I thought it would or should considering the sink wasn't draining at all.  "

Sometime during brunch yesterday, we realized we had no internet and, unfortunately, it was a Sunday.  It seems like things requiring a service technician always go down on a weekend.  I rebooted the modem about eight times...  the lights on the modem consistently stopped before the modem booted up...  sometimes none of the lights illuminated.  It was clear that this modem was toast. Sheila got online using her cellphone to request service from Comcast.  She was able to notate that our problem was with the modem.  Shockingly, they indicated that we would see a service technician by mid-afternoon.  That was welcomed news! The service technician arrived within a couple of hours.  It was an easy fix...  just swap out the old non-functional modem for a new one...  boot it up...  and done.  It couldn't have been an easier service call. Best yet, our internet speed is now faster than it has ever been.  Our internet speed is now triple the speed it was with the old modem!  That made the c