NOTE: This is a longer post with one (1) photo, with caption, taken by me using a Google Pixel 6 Pro.
TUESDAY 20 August 2024 — An audiology appointment (Bruce); An RV inspector; flooring, furniture & railing decisions; another UPS; garage doors; a ZOOM call; and the DNC on PBS
The RV inspector arrived before I left for my 10:30 AM audiology appointment at the UofM Health Brighton Center for Specialty Care. The audiologist (Sheri) was great, and it was a pleasant/interesting experience. I’ve had my hearing tested before, but it’s been quite a while, so I no longer recall when or where it was done, or what the results were. Today’s testing included examining the movement of both eardrums before testing my detection thresholds (faintest sound I could detect at various frequencies). It also included a test of bone conduction and my ability to correctly identify spoken words from a recorded male voice. The bone conduction test was interesting to me because Linda had a BAHA (bone anchored hearing apparatus) before she got her Cochlear implant, and I have recently seen ads on Youtube for headsets that rest on the bone in front of the ear rather than in the ear canal.
My hearing in both ears was in the “normal” range up to about 5 or 6 KHz (5,000 to 6,000 cycles per second), and about the same for each ear. I do not know, however, if “normal” was an age-adjusted metric. From 6 KHz – 8 KHz, my threshold increased in volume for both ears, with one of them slightly more affected than the other. A graph of the data was displayed on a monitor in the soundproof booth and Sheri explained what it meant. The upper end of the frequency scale was 12 KHz, but my hearing was only tested up to about 10 KHz. I am not a strong candidate for hearing aids (frequency selective amplification devices) at this point, but might benefit from them in certain circumstances, and might need them all the time in the future.
I was aware that “normal” age-related hearing loss affects the highest frequencies first, so the results were not surprising. When I was a teenager, and probably into my 20’s and 30’s, I was able to hear sounds as high as 20 KHz. This was important for the full enjoyment of music, which was the major focus of my life from ages 10 to 21. Music still sounds fine to me (which is not the case for Linda), but that is no longer a major concern. My hearing is still good in the frequency range for human speech, although the roll-off in higher frequencies would affect my ability to understand females more than males.
Sheri suggested I return in one year and have my hearing tested again. Not that she expects my hearing to change much in just one year (barring an accident or illness), but today’s measurements will only provide a baseline for future data. Two measurements will identify if my hearing is changing and. If so, by how much. When I was doing data analysis work as part of my last employment, conventional wisdom was that it takes a minimum of three data points to establish a trend, and more points are better, so I might go back again in two years, or perhaps skip a couple of years before testing again after next year. But that will also depend on what the audiologist recommends after each visit.
On the way home, it occurred to me that we might want to go ahead and donate our dining room table and (4) chairs, along with the buffet cabinet, to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore sooner rather than later. We have been discussing this for a while and had already started looking at possible replacement furniture, but the new insight was that donating it now would mean we did not have to find someplace in the house to store it while the oak floor was being refinished (in October). Linda was onboard with the idea, so I called the local HfH office when I got home and left a message. They called back and indicated they were approximately two weeks out for donation pickups, and that someone would call next week to set up a date. I was reminded that all items needed to be in the front of a garage or outside; their employees will not come in the house to collect items.
Keith arrived to mow the property while I was at my appointment. It was a nice day for mowing and, as usual, he did a great job.
Some wonderful fungi growing on the north side of the base of the large oak tree by our first driveway entrance. I’m not sure exactly what they are, so I do not know if they are technically mushrooms.
The new Tripp-lite UPS & surge protector arrived today, several days after Amazon originally said it would be delivered. To be fair, they provided updates on the delivery date. I unboxed it and plugged it in to let the battery fully charge. It is NOT a LFP unit, using an SLA (sealed lead-acid) battery instead. The instructions said it could be mounted vertically on a wall, however, which was our use case. The battery is easy to replace, and are available from EATON, which owns Tripp-lite.
This is a smaller, less powerful, unit than the big ones we have, but will be more than sufficient for running the small network switch that is mounted on the wall by Linda’s desk. That switch is currently powered by the large Tripp-lite UPS that also powers her laptop computer, calculator, and the small canon ink-jet printer that she keeps on her desk. The reason for the new UPS is that we are going to temporarily move her desk into our bedroom while the hardwood floor is being refinished, and the large UPS has to move with it. The small switch will remain by her normal desk location, and needs UPS protection to avoid network interruptions from a loss of utility power. Indeed, all network-related components in our house are plugged into UPS units, as are all computers, monitors, printers, the Synology NAS unit, and most of the media equipment. We also have a whole-house generator, but it takes a few seconds to start and come online once it detects a loss of utility power, so the UPS units fill the gap, and provide power for some amount of time in the event the generator fails to start.
I had the garage doors open for much of the day to air out the space and let it cool off. The high temperature today never reached 70 deg F, and we have a string of 3 to 4 nights coming up with lows in the 40’s. That’s early fall weather for our part of the country, but we’ll take it. We will be well up into the 80’s again by the weekend, so summer is not over yet.
When I closed the small garage door it stopped and went back up. I pushed the button again and it went almost all the way down and then came back up. I tried a 3rd time to close it and it went most of the way down, stopped, and jammed. Whaaat? I examined it and discovered that the vertical track on one side (opposite the motor operator side) had come loose from the wall and twisted. I also noticed that the lift cable on the end by the motor operator had come out of its pulley wheel and started to wrap around the spring shaft. Nothing for me to do at that point other than text Dan (Everlast Doors) and let him know. He texted me back quickly and said he could be here around 7:30 PM. While I thought it would wait until tomorrow, he was concerned that the garage was not secure as the bottom edge of the door was not touching the floor.
Linda set up a 5:30 PM ZOOM call with Paul & Nancy. We had a good chat, and it was fun, as usual. After dinner we watched the PBS coverage of the Democratic National Convention.
Dan showed up when he said he would. He disconnected the door from the motor operator (there’s a pull cord for this), got the door unjammed, got the lift cable back on its pulley wheel, and got the door all the way up. I then moved Linda’s car outside. He lowered the door onto the floor manually, I set the deadbolt latch manually, and the garage was secure for the night. He offered to return tomorrow to fix everything correctly, but Thursday was better for us, and turned out to be better for him as well. Until then, Linda’s car would live outside, which has for most of the time we’ve owned it.
…