Generator Part Two and Other Adventures, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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On our last Ten Things Post, we celebrated having the generator fixed last Friday and then came Saturday morning, 3:31am.

The lightening strike was so close to our house, the whole place shook, although we did not lose power.

The generator red light was on when we got up the next morning.  We had to get to NOLA so it would have to wait, and i called later in the morning.  The company which we use for service will come out for an emergency, but general generator technicians are not on duty on weekends.  They'd try to send someone Monday.

Meanwhile, we took care of the house for Grandma and Grandpa, and when we did get back home and it was still daylight, i went out to see if maybe i could at least read the computer and tell what was wrong.

The system was turned off and it was asking me to set the language.  What?  Hadn't the generator tech done this already?  After setting the language, it wanted date, time, etc., and i just went with it.  When i was done and the screen quit flashing questions at me, i pushed the green button and like magic, the generator reset and the green light was on, meaning it would run in an emergency.

Monday i was thankful the tech called me and we talked it over.  He agreed the lightening strike so close simply reset the computer but probably didn't do anything else.  To test the theory, we turned off the main breaker to the house, the generator sensed the outage, came up, everything else came up as well, and after a minute we turned the regular power back on and the generator shut off.

The generator and the whole house surge protector are both still fully green, we're thankful all is well in this regard.

Becca graduated from high school!  As with most such events, attendance was limited and i wasn't there, but her brother was.  I got a text late Saturday night saying she wanted to go to church with her brother.

I was thankful to be stood up by Becca in favor of her wonderful brother who loves her so much.

The only thing on my docket Tuesday was our appointment with the person who manages Sweetie's Individual Retirement Account.  When Ms. D called and asked for a ride to the doctor, after i heard the symptoms i was thankful for being able to go straight over and get her to the ER.

We're thankful she was better and home by end of day, and our financial guy says all is well at this time.

Ms. G had to let her Angel kitty go, and as sad as it was on Wednesday to scrub out her litter boxes and finish cleaning all the cat things, we're thankful she won't have any more trouble with her kidneys.

Ms. G and i also were thankful to get plenty of other work done.

When the week is busy and the sleep is short, sometimes a bit of the heart trouble flares up.  I'm thankful it didn't last long and i was still able to get the work done at Ms. V's house.  Also, i'm thankful Mr. L felt well enough to attend a luncheon with some former coworkers and he and Ms. V were both awake early enough for me to get a good start on the laundry.

Thursday also saw a text from Bigger Girl, which text string will probably appear on Tuesday as she's as funny as ever.  Meanwhile, i'm thankful to hear from her and thankful our bank caught a potential unauthorized charge before it could go through.

Both shifts at the cat shelter this week were fabulous.  Plenty of adopters are coming in, two kitties were picked up and taken to their new forever homes Friday evening, all of the other volunteers have been clued in to quit feeding Rugby kitten food even if she is in a cage, and a semi-feral clowder of 25 cats have been rescued from the nice lady who was feeding them but couldn't afford spay/neuter (she doesn't even have A/C in her home) and are adapting well to foster homes and the shelter, and it's starting to look like all the kittens picked up there are going to survive.  That's much to be thankful for all the way around.

Please write up your own list and link up to Ten Things of Thankful, where Dyanne and her co-hosts always have a warm welcome waiting.   

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Today is:

Africa Day / African Liberation Day  -- African Union; related observance

     Heroes' Day -- Lesotho

     President Yajya Jammeh's Birthday -- Gambia

ARMAD: Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day -- US ("Ham it up for the troops!" is the motto of amateur ham radio operators on the Saturday before Memorial Day)   armad.net

First Patriotic Government / National Day -- Argentina (Dia de la Revolucion de Mayo)

Flitting Day -- parts of England; Scotland (traditional day on which leases were up for the year and people moved)

Geek Pride Day / Nerd Pride Day -- celebrate the geek / nerd in you!  Geek culture is the obvious choice to laud when it's Glorious 25 May, Star Wars Day, and Towel Day at the same time; began in Spain as "Día del Orgullo Friki"

Glorious 25 May -- in Terry Pratchett's Discworld

Independence Day -- Jordan(1946)

International Blacksmith's Day   

International Jazz Day -- date as originally set by the New Jersey Jazz Society, on the Saturday before US Memorial Day

Julia Pierpont Day -- US (she came up with Decoration Day, the precursor to US Memorial Day; spend time today to prepare veterans' graves for Memorial Day)

Lag B'Omer -- Judaism (begins sunset today)

Liberation Day -- Lebanon

National Brown-Bag-It Day

National Missing Children's Day -- US (promoting awareness of the problem of missing children)    

National Tap Dance Day -- US, birth anniversary of Mr. Bojangles

National Wine Day

Offering to Demeter -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate)

Poetry Day -- Florida, US (since 1947, the state legislature declared this for all public schools in the state; if you don't live in Florida, enjoy a poem today, anyway)

Procession of the Statue of Artemis -- Ancient Greek and Roman Calendars, at Ephesus (date approximate, but always near the Thargelia)

Self-Reliance Day -- an internet originated holiday, based on the idea that we should all become more self reliant in this day when it is a dying art.

Skerpla Month begins -- Traditional Icelandic Calendar (Sharpness)

Star Wars Day -- Part IV, A New Hope was released this date in 1977

St. Bede the Venerable's Day (Patron of lectors; Father of English History)

St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi's Day (Patron of the ill; against illness and sexual temptation)

Towel Day -- Douglas Adams fans, unite!  Always know where your towel is.   

Week of Solidarity with the People Of Non-Self-Governing Territories begins -- United Nations

Anniversary Today:

Lord Guildford Dudley marries Lady Jane Grey, 1553

Birthdays Today:

Brian Urlacher, 1978

Ethan Suplee, 1976

Lauryn Hill, 1975

Justin Henry, 1971

Jamie Kennedy, 1970

Anne Heche, 1969

Stacy London, 1969

Mike Myers, 1963

Connie Sellecca, 1955

Jessi Colter, 1947

Karen Valentine, 1947

Frank Oz, 1944

Leslie Uggams, 1943

Ian McKellen, 1939

Raymond Carver, 1938

Tom T. Hall, 1936

K.C. Jones, 1932

Beverly Sills, 1929

Robert Ludlum, 1927

Miles Davis, 1926

Jeanne Crain, 1925

Claude Akins, 1918

James Joseph "Gene" Tunney, 1898

Igor Sikorsky, 1889

Philip Murray, 1886

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, 1878

John Alexander Dowie, 1847

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Wonder Woman(Film), 2017

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi(Film), 1983

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope(Film), 1977

"The Subject Was Roses"(Play), 1964

"H.M.S. Pinafore"(Comic Opera), 1878 

Today in History:

First recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, BC240

Alfonso VI of Castile  takes Toledo, Spain back from the Moors, 1085

Henry the Navigator is appointed governor of the Order of Christ, 1420

The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw, 1521

Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth of England, 1659

Jews are expelled from Warsaw by Marshall Mniszek, 1784

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the United States, 1787

In the May Revolution, citizens of Buenos Aires expel the Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros during the Semana de Mayo, 1810

The Patriots of Lower Canada (Quebec) rebel against the British for freedom, 1837

The first telegraphed news dispatch is published in Baltimore Patriot, 1844

Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London, 1878

The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Ching-sung as the president, 1895

John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee, 1925

Henry Ford stops production of the Model T to begin the Model A, 1927

Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks five world records and ties a sixth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field  Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1935

The first ascent of Kangchenjunga (8,586 m.), the third highest mountain in the world, by a British expedition, 1955

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organisation of African Unity is established, 1963

Star Wars (retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) is released in theaters, inspiring the Jediism religion and Geek Pride Day holiday, 1977

Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people, 1985

Israel withdraws its army from most of the Lebanese territory after 22 years of its first invasion, 2000

32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, 2001

Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, 2011

The first commercial spacecraft, SpaceX Dragon, docks with the International Space Station, completing the maneuver at 12:02pm EDT, 2012

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg receives an honorary degree from Harvard University, after dropping out in 2004, 2017 

Mia Mottley, of the Barbados Labour Party, becomes the first female Prime Minister of Barbados, 2018

China’s Wolong National Nature Reserve releases the first footage of an albino panda ever taken in the wild, 2019

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is re-elected Director-General of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, 2022