Skies are fairly blue this morning though you can see the wildfire haze and where there wasn’t clouds last night there was a fair amount of color from the wildfire smoke. We’d probably get more of the pollution here but there is a low off the coast that is expected to bring rain by Thursday through Saturday. Mostly thunderstorms but Saturday once again will be wet.

I keep hearing sqweaks and creaks on bike, and it’s driving me nuts as I want to keep it good condition as long as possible, as it’s only two years old as of mid-July. Couldn’t find it but I did notice a  loose – turned out to be broken bolt on the panear rack where the box sits on my bike. Annoying, I ended up wiring that up with some wire I had and covering with electrical tape. Not sure what else I could do. I checked the chain, and it needs to be replaced again – just did that in early April – but I put so many miles on it. The rear tire is shot too. I swear all I do is put parts on that bike, but granted I go 30 miles a day lately, some of it on rather rough roads. I should just ignore the noises, some of it is probably the front wheel now needing replacement as those bearings are going too but no loose spokes as far as I can tell. Bah. Replace parts when necessary, if they’re not perfect, nothing is perfect in this world.

Riding in again today, going to wear shorts which always seems a bit strange and unprofessional but who cares it complies with the looser dress code of summer, especially when there is no session. While I don’t do a suit and tie for the most part nowadays, I do try to wear a dressy but reasonably casual Salvation Army shirt and jeans most session days. But in summer, t-shirt and jeans is fine. I am the Unit Director, so I can make such decisions, plus it’s compliant with the agency dress code memo, even if it does seem a bit casual.

Lately it seems like I’m drinking out the fire hose at work. Still fighting with that computer system that isn’t working and vendor that isn’t responding. It wasn’t the contract I chose or set up, it was done before I started as Director but I still get all the inquiries about why the system is down, even though I lack the technical ability to adjust the system and get it running again. I don’t even have an shell account on the computer, but if the programmers can’t fix I can’t either. I really get the debate about doing things in-house or with a custom interface that is contracted out – which is what we are doing but the contractor is MIA versus completely outsourcing a process. Annoying to no end.

Got reading the debate about new versus used cars.

Last night I got my retirement statement. 16 3/4 years in the system.

Went down to the Norman’s Kill Preserve and read some of the book I got out about rainwater harvesting.

It was a rush at the grocery store. Forgot to get milk and cider vinegar.