"I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact." - Elon Musk

Today is my niece-in-law's birthday. It's also the birthday of the Marquis de Sade. But there's no connection, I'm pretty sure. She teaches classes at the Y but mostly she's pretty nice.

We hit 102 today but it's going to cool down as the week progresses. There's a slight chance of rain Friday night and if we do get measurable precp it will be the first rain in June in 20 years.

We had visitors today. Jason wanted to see our mailbox and Emily just wanted to grin for the camera.

I am so tired of hearing about Bruce Jenner. Isn't his 15 minutes over by now?

The springs for the hood hinges are 2" in diameter and very stiff, and there's no way I was going to stretch them 3" to get them installed. I did a YouTube search and found a method that makes use of a floor jack to expand them enough to put a piece of metal through the center with a groove on each end that keeps it expanded while it's installed. So this morning I went to the metal shop and made two of those pieces - just the right length, just the right width, and with just the right notch. It took several attempts but I finally got the floor jack rigged up so that it all worked. The two hinge springs are attached, and as soon as the hood is bolted on and lowered a bit the springs will expand enough to remove that brace. It took longer than I expected - most of these tasks do - but it still felt like success.

I paid Gilbert and his two sons $100 to prune the 20'+ Palo Verde tree in the front yard and blow all the tiny yellow blossoms off the gravel. It took them a little over an hour in the mid-afternoon heat. The tree is cut way back just like I wanted, all the trimmings hauled off, and the gravel looking as clean as when I spread it two months ago. It needed to be done before we list the house in September and even a Palo Verde tree can't grow significantly before that. This was the best C-note I've spent in a very long time.

Tomorrow afternoon I have a follow-up appointment with the tech from St. Jude's, the manufacturer of my pacemaker. A month ago he reprogrammed the thing based on the readout he'd seen and he wants to check what's been happening.

He programmed it so that if my heart rate drops precipitously, which it seems to do from time to time, the pacemaker will kick it up to 100 bpm and hold it there for three minutes before dropping it back to it's normal 50 bpm. This fascinates me - that he can download and look at everything my heart has done since I was last there and program it to do whatever he deems necessary going forward. I'm still not used to having this thing just under my skin and don't like the way it feels from the outside, but the technology of what it can do on the inside is amazing, never mind potentially life saving.