3 January 2010 And a turkey behind an oak tree

At midnight last night/this morning, that point where days cease and begin, I noticed that the date displayed on my watch was wrong. Being obsessive – compulsive, such things gnaw at me until corrected. I dug the operator guide that describes my watch from the nightstand and proceeded to change the date. I followed all the proper procedures and the date returned to the incorrect setting. Wisdom prevailed and I laid the task aside for today.


After another attempt to reset the date failed I realized that I had inadvertently set the calendar and date incorrectly when I changed the watch from Daylight to Standard settings. In setting the local time after setting GMT I had moved the local setting past midnight to local time, in effect placing EST on the globe to the East of GMT by five hours. Of course, the time displayed was highly accurate if one ignored the date. Once the problem was identified, it took about an hour to repair the error. Each hand on the watch as well as the date wheel had to be calibrated to its “zero” position before any time could be set. Following that, I could set the date, GMT, and finally local time. I’ll never understand the concept of watches as jewelry. A gold watch would be wasted on me. Give me a chronograph with a date, make it highly water resistant, impact resistant, and make it from titanium and I’m happy.

Tomorrow, we call about replacing our badly aging heat pump and perhaps our water heater. Johnson City Power has a replacement program that may provide some financing for us, add the cost to our power bill. If the replacements work as advertised to reduce power consumption it will be a good thing.

We start classes a week from tomorrow. That will be interesting. I have absolutely no idea what is expected of me in auditing a class. It will be fun to find out. It will be quite interesting to see how classes are taught, how papers and projects are submitted, if I even have to submit anything.

The temperature has topped at ca 25°F and started back down. The low, so far, for the day was 11°F. Tonight’s low is expected to be about the same.

Today is bright, partly cloudy with little wind. The turkeys have been about all day. They migrate from the back yard up the valley into our wooded land and then back. They’re all puffed up against the cold, making them look even bigger than they are.