Lauren and I took off early this am so she could go attend to Abey and Lucy, and we stopped by Pano briefly. I used the opportunity to take a 2nd look at the microwave to sanity check loose-wiring issues. I found a clear and specific root-cause. One of the two thermal-connector fuses seems to have blown. I ordered a replacement. Meanwhile I think the fuses is likely ok it's just the connector that's bad, as it looks like it overloaded and got moderately 'fried'. Which, if that did happen, likely compromised the fuse intended to prevent that. So best to swap in a new fuse and reseat the wiring. At any rate, this all took no more than 5 minutes maximum but between discussion car maintenance intervals and dealership profit models, and sump pumps too… we took a bit longer than expected. Jen had left for her cousin's for the morning/afternoon and Tommy was off to ExtraHours. So we ended up getting her a Panera lunch, giving Scottie a bath then going to Montalvo to get into some redwoods. Man, did we ever. That place is beautiful and getting into the dense woods like that is humbling and invigorating. As is expecting my calves to agree to another sudden ascension without proper warm up. It was a slow start but things kicked in about 5-10 min in, maybe 15. There were others on the trails but not many. We spent about 1.25hrs going to the 'lookout' and back, and meandering off on a few other trails along the way. Stephanie called while we were there, asking if she could come borrow a mage-safe power cable for a MacBook Air and I said sure, but I'm not there, but ended up walking her through getting the box of adaptors from the garage. It felt good to have been able to help. She was worried that it was 'invasive" for her to go into the garage but I assured her it was not. As long as she did not look in the green box!! (There is no green box). By the time Lauren and I returned, Jen was back. We were wiped and I fell asleep in the corner of the couch while she fell asleep leaning onto and over Scottie, who was also asleep. It was a power nap. We played a couple of rounds of Farkle before I took her home and ended up walking the two dogs with her. I'm glad I did. Managing two dogs crapping on a sidewalk on both sides of you at the same time and being able to wrangle them while picking up shit… not an easy proposition. And it gave us more time together. I returned to go on yet-another-dog walk with Jen and we came back to Tommy being home. He showed me his latest work and man, he's really getting some great skills doing this stuff. He's putting in a great deal of time, but also getting a lot out of it, including inspiration, education, and recognition for his character and skills. I'm happy he's doing this. At 17 there's a lot worse ways to be spending your time. He's driven. It's impressive. I just feel compelled to keep reminding him of the baseline need to get passing grades and graduate with options and opportunities ahead. Watched "Real Time", Listened to a bit of a couple of books I'm considering as my next read, and oh, and today I learned that on average 1mm of a brake pad will be worn down over of 10k miles of driving. Fascinating.
