Here it is August 4th already, and the days are noticeably shorter and the nights longer. Longer nights haven’t yet confused the Little Black Dog (Ozzie) because he still  wakes me up promptly at 0500. He either has a terrific internal clock, or he can read Diane’s alarm clock.

Yesterday I spent a few hours with my dermatologist who concisely excised a 10x15mm piece of skin from the top of my right ear that was home for a herd of basal cell carcinoma things. It was done using Mhos Surgery. I believe I mentioned a couple of days ago that this was going to happen. I was prepared to spend the day because the process involves taking small bits of flesh, biopsying it, then taking more, if necessary. The biopsy part takes about an hour so requiring multiple scoops, as Diane calls them, could take a while. I was lucky as my doc got it all with one scoop and we were hope by 1030, not quite three hours from the 0745 check-in time. Now I an adorned with an impressive mass of what was called a “pressure” bandage but is, in fact, not putting much pressure on the wound. Diane had to augment the nurses efforts with the large piece of tape because it was almost flapping in the wind. This is the way I went to coffee this morning with my friends Larry and Larry.

After coffee I went to ACE for some things Diane put on a list for me then came home and fiddled with the DISH receiver in our trailer. Diane, Jennifer, Lydia, and Jewel shopping in Portland, leaving me unsupervised but with stern instructions that I was not allowed to do “anything” in the way of labor that involved exertion of any kind, doctors orders. Apparently there’s a mild possibility that one or more of the 12 stitches might give way allowing my ear to spurt blood all over the place. I don’t think that’s something the dogs would clean up for me and it would certainly create a bad situation for me once Diane got home. So, I remained in my Coffee Clothes, boots and all, and mosied back and forth to the trailer getting our DISH receiver set up as a DVR. All I had to do was add a hard drive to it and have the service activated. I called the first time and thought I’d made myself clear, but the service wasn’t activated. So, I used their handy CHAT feature and accomplished the task.

The external hard drive I used the one sitting behind my computer that used to be my back up drive. It was originally installed in an Apple Time Machine that had an electronical problem that occurred well after the warranty period. So, I ripped it apart and installed the hard drive in a case that I purchased somewhere and continued using it at my Time Machine drive. Worked great until I got a Western Digital 4TB MyCloud device. Then it just sat there. Ignored. Until today.

After getting the DVR service activated I plugged the drive into my 211z DISH receiver and it went to work formatting the drive for me. I’ll be curious to see how well it works. Seems to have adapted to its new job OK so far.

You needed to know all that.

Now I must stop and watch Olympic Soccer.

If I get in trouble, for any reason, once Diane returns, I’ll be back to share it with you all.

Later …

Diane and Jewel returned home safely with a really good sandwich for me from the Virgina Cafe. I’m afraid I gobbled. The I talked Diane into removing all that padding from my ear which I was quickly beginning to dislike immensely. It still hurts, but now I can get ice closer to the offending area. Relief is in sight. If necessary, I know where the rum is.