Slightly cooler this morning; current temp is 44F, with mostly cloudy skies. Some chance of showers today, but the weather dweebs are forecasting increasing sun over the next couple of days.

A trip to the local pharmacy for a prescription for Pam. Nice drive there; through the local forests with a view of Puget Sound through the trees. Noticed the tide was a bit higher than normal.

The usual planned for today. Some plugin programming perhaps. And wandering through the interwebs; there’s a lot of something about a new president being sworn in.

Today’s weather is brought to you by grey clouds, intermittent sprinkles, and temps around 50F, with some slight breezes.

Working on an update to one of my WordPress plugins. Just some tweaks to add some additional features.

The new Habit Burger is open in Silverdale (about 30 minutes away); we may try to visit there to get a free burger. They do a ‘soft opening’ where they give away meals to the first 200 people at various times over several days. Plus they donate all proceeds to local non-profits for a couple of days. Not a big fan of waiting in line, but a big fan of their food. Will be nice to have one nearby; we usually have to travel to CA or UT to get our “Habit Fix”.

Rainy today, but not cold, with temps about 50F. Nice to watch (and listen to) the rain outside the big windows in the living room, where I spend most of my day working on the computer and listening to Pandora music. The previous owner installed built-in speakers, with a nice stereo system. There’s four speakers in the living room, two in the master, and two in the upstairs bedroom (now Pam’s craft palace). A switch allows you to turn on only the speakers that are needed. And a nice remote control lets me control the volume.

I’ve got an old phone hooked up to the stereo system via the headphone jack. The phone has wireless, so that gives me the connection to Pandora. Nice little setup, although there is the headphone wire that needs to be routed through the wall to the stereo. Right now, the cable hangs over the shelf to the cabinet with doors on the lower part of the built-in bookcases. Slightly messy, since I have to leave the door open to let the remote work. Perhaps one of these days I will punch a small hole in the back of the bookcase to route the headphone wire from the shelf to the cabinet.

Sudden thought: since the phone is so small, I could just stuff the phone into the cabinet, so no wire routing is required. Of course, I have to leave the door open for the remote control. Maybe there is a remote receiver for the remote control. I must ask the amazons about that.

Today’s tasks are to work on the FB plugin, and do some minor maintenance on the various WordPress sites I run.

Weather is changing from cold to wet. Temps in the mid-50’s (instead of around 30F), cloudy skies, and rain all around us (with some quick rain bursts here). But mostly less rain here than Seattle, since we live in a ‘rain shadow’. Most of the wet storms around here come from the southwest, which causes them to hit the Olympic mountains. That causes the wet weather to split around them, sending most of the rain around us. Sometimes you can look at the weather radar, and see rain all around us, but we’re in a ‘hole’ – the rain shadow. So we get about half the yearly rain that Seattle does.

That’s not to say that we don’t get any rain – I think our average is about 20-25” per year. But much less than Seattle.

Today, it is windy (5-10mph, gusts to about 18mph), with light clouds. The clouds are racing along SW to NE; fun to watch from inside. Hoping that the winds don’t cause a tree to hit a power line, causing an outage. But we’ve got a generator, and all the phones and tablets are at a full charge.

Which reminds me of today’s tasks. A haircut, and a stop by a local electrician office to see the costs involved in adding a generator bypass switch to our electrical panel. That will make it much easier to switch a few house circuits to the generator during a power outage. We should be able to run the freezer, refrigerator, and the DirecTV/LCD TV during an outage.

And work on a new WordPress plugin, perhaps.

7:45pm

Here’s an example of the ‘rain shadow’ affect around here. My place is about where the mouse cursor is (near the center of the picture). Click the picture to embiggen.

Had to get up early, as usual for a Sunday. Cold last night; frost on the car. But sunny all day. Rain in the forecast for most of the week.

The usual Sunday meetings. Fixed the problem I had with processing donations last week. It was my fault. Interesting how problem can seem quite easy to fix when you know the cause. Or how less-than-knowledgeable you feel when you make a silly mistake. But no problem, all is well.

Quiet evening; should stay that way. Tomorrow’s task include making a new MissionaryLetters site for an old friend from Loomis.

As I write this, the temp outside has risen to a balmy 41F after an overnight low of 20F. Blue skies with just a hint of high and thin clouds and minimal wind. Should be a nice day.

Not much planned for today. Some preparatory work for tomorrow’s meetings (agendas and such). A couple of loads of laundry, and some minor cleaning.

I think that I figured out the plugin installation problem. Turned out to be my fault; I didn’t have the distribution files in the right spot in the WordPress plugin depository. I’m going to check that out with some final testing today.

And, decided to put a weather widget over there on the right. Just in case anyone wants to know what the weather is here.

After an overnight low of 20F, currently 37F, so most of the frost outside has gone away. High thin clouds, so some sunshine. Expected high is 37F.

Filled up the hummingbird feeder outside. It had frozen, so the refill made our two hummingbirds happy. One is more territorial than the other; the territorial one will chase away the other one if it catches it feeding. But both are using it; the other one sneaks back. The feeder is right outside the back windows, so can easily see them.

The view out the back windows allows me to see the local eagles, usually every day. And the cargo and other ships transiting the Puget Sound. I use the http://www.MarineTraffic.com site to see which ships are going by. Mostly cargo of various types, some US Coast Guard. And if I am paying attention, the occasional submarine transiting to/from Bremerton. Those are not shown on the web site map; they are hidden, because of terrorism, you know.

Today’s tasks are to continue working on those two WordPress plugin installation problems. And the garage door guy is coming this afternoon to replace the broken springs on the garage door.

And to watch out for any black cats and ladders.