The Copyright

This morning is a little warmer than yesterday, with our temp sitting in the low 60s (F).  Our skies are very  overcast and there might be rain on the way.  This afternoon should be warm and sunny with our high in the low 80s (F).  This is nice weather.  I wouldn't mind if this lasted all summer.

And yesterday was... well, not quite what I had anticipated, which was finishing the copyright process and a ride in the afternoon, followed by a movie.  Only one of those things happened.

I've been through the copyright process many times, but changes have been initiated over the past year that, while creating better security, have complicated things.  There was no problem using either Chrome or Google in the past, now, as the website says, results may not be optimal.  That's an understatement.  Now they recommend that you use Mozilla.  So I downloaded Mozilla FireFox, it gives you a free VPN, so that can be seen as a plus.  Then there was an issue with my email address.  My last name is in my email address and that simply doesn't work.  This meant I needed to create a new Google account in order to get a new email address that will only be used for getting copyrights.  It also meant setting up a new account with the Bureau of Copyrights.  This learning experience took about 4 hours and did involve some aggravation, but in the end I was rewarded with this.

Anyway, after everything was finished, I didn't feel like a bike ride, or a movie, so I ended up staying home and playing a video game so I could kill things.

And, if you don't know by now, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is filled with algae because the bottom was painted blue.  It's green.  Yesterday, workers poured in hundreds of gallons of peroxide in an attempt to kill the algae, and it did... around the edges.  You see, the Reflecting Pool is not like some giant aquarium with a super, giant pump to circulate the water, so, all of that peroxide stayed around the edges.  Now we have a algae green Reflecting Pool with a blue boarder.

Dour Days

Well, today's going to be the last comfy day for a while with our high temp this afternoon climbing into the mid 70s (F).  When I climbed out of bed this afternoon, our outside temp was 54 (F).  This is what's called good sleeping weather.  It's also keeps the cooling bills... cool.  How nice it would be to not burn through my bank account in order to keep my house cool this summer.

Yesterday was good in the morning and then ho hum in the afternoon.  My workout went well.  But then I had to go to work.  And it was slow.  I have a commercial tile job in the works, and there's an issue.  The tile the customer chose has a PEI of 3 (PEI has to do with the durability of the tile).  PEI 3 tiles are good for households, kitchens, and light commercial use.  He wants the floor installed in a restaurant which is, if it's a popular restaurant, is considered heavy use, so he needs a tile that has a PEI of 4 or 5.  Those tiles are more expensive and he was looking to go cheap.  This means there's a good possibility he might simply buy the tile and then find a cheap, local contractor who will do the install.  The fact that in 2 or 3 years those tiles are going to start cracking and breaking is something he isn't going  to think about.

And I sold my other tile job.  It went well, except for one thing (key heavy dismay).  After working with this couple for over 2 years on various flooring projects in their house, it turned out that they signed up for their measure with another associate.  This means that even though they know my schedule, and came in to go over their quote and do the changes they wanted, the other associate is going to get the sale.  There was a time when that didn't happen.  Before we switched to the Order Up system, if you did changes for a quote you would get partial credit.  Now, those days are history.

According to an NBC poll, very few people are proud to be an American.  These are our Dour Days.

Only around 23% of the population are proud to be an American.  Everybody else is looking around thinking WTF.  After 9/11, pride in American soared, until we realized that George W. Bush was prime example of Republican idiocy, and then it crashed.  During the Obama administrations pride cruised along on an even plane until Fox News decided they would earn bigger bucks if they sided with the MAGA Cultists.  You'll notice the big crash in pride happened when the Orange Anus got his ass reelected in 2024 and since then pride has been basically in freefall.  Now, it's only  soulless conservatives and MAGA cultists who seem to have any pride in America.  This is probably because they get so much joy in ruining other people's lives.  They are an unforgiveable sour bunch who celebrate the destruction of compassion.  They are the  millstone around American's neck that can only be broken by their defeat and, in their ignorance, have no idea how fast their vanquishment approaches.  This will be a good thing, this end to the dour days.