I did something today that I haven’t done for nearly two weeks – I put on long pants instead of shorts. We had to get out for an early walk and it was still in the 60s when we left.

We had to leave early to be home in time for a virtual tour of Beit Hatfutsot that we’d won at Shir Hadash’s 40th anniversary virtual auction. We’d actually bid on a trip to see the Salvador Dali exhibit in Monterey, but….

The tour was interesting and fast-paced; we’d been to the museum during our 1999 trip to Israel, but things had changed in the intervening 21 years. The tour was centered on art and culture, and I really enjoyed it – I’d like to see some of the exhibits in person, but for now, I’ll have to settle for what’s on the museum’s web site.

Today’s mail included the Valpak envelope – I always open it and glance through it, and very occasionally find a coupon of interest. Today, though, I was greeted by something different when I opened the envelope:

It’s already been donated to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s fire relief fund.

We were supposed to work out with our trainer this morning, but the JCC texted us last night saying they’d be closed all day today because of the pollution from the fires, so that didn’t happen. It wasn’t completely horrible in the morning, so we did get a walk in, but there were fewer people outside than usual.

We were also supposed to be landing in Barcelona today, beginning our Iberian adventure. That didn’t happen either.

What did happen today was that I finally successfully wired up the AlarmDecoder and got it back on the air. I had more trouble putting four little 22 AWG wires into a screw terminal block than even a hardware-impaired person like me should have been able to have. I kept breaking the wires and having to re-strip them; unfortunately, 22 AWG is too small for my good wire stripper, so I had to do it by hand and…well, there’s a reason I have a good wire stripper. But after several attempts and hardly any swearing, I got everything connected and it worked!