According to Wikipedia, the average human gestation period is 270 days. It feels like today, day 270, was a day of deliverance – with the Supreme Court swatting aside the Texas suit and the FDA giving emergency approval to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It’s not delivery day yet on either front, but today was a huge step in the right direction.

Shabbat Shalom!

It was another big Toastmasters day – after my club’s meeting, I visited Toastrix (at Citrix) for the first time in a month or so. They seem to be doing well and are adding members, which is good. Their whole company switched from GoToMeeting to Microsoft Teams, so I also had my first experience with Teams; other than being unable to change backgrounds mid-meeting, it seemed very Zoom-like.

My Mac mini has shipped – so far, it’s travelled from Shenzen to Hong Kong. The estimated delivery is Wednesday, so I guess I should prepare backups and get ready for its arrival.

Happy Chanukah!

Another quiet day; I finally caught up on my blog reading from the past two weeks and beat my email inbox down to zero, at least briefly.

We voyaged to the wilds of San Mateo County this afternoon to pick up an order of spices from the Penzeys store in Menlo Park. It was odd seeing outdoor dining and beauty salons still open there – we did not indulge.

The real reason for the trip was to return a batch of books and a DVD to the Jewish Community Library at the JCC in Palo Alto – we handed them to the security guard at the entrance to the parking lot, and we trust they will eventually make their way to the Library itself.

Progress comes in small steps.

Today was a very quiet day; probably the most exciting thing I did was replace the light covers on our range hood (and, while I was at it, I put LED bulbs in to replace the incandescents without waiting for them to burn out; I think the old bulbs have been there for at least a decade, so I don’t feel too guilty about not getting every last second out of them).

And I wrote another product review – this time for the electric blanket we bought from Costco last month, which has unusual controls (they are only illuminated for a few seconds when you turn on or adjust the blanket – that’s a problem for some people, but doesn’t bother us).

Perhaps tomorrow will be more interesting.

I’m a member of Office Depot’s rewards program. I had a reward that was going to expire at the end of November, and didn’t really need any office supplies, but they had paper towels available, so I used my reward to buy a package.

Naturally, they wanted a review (and offered $2 in rewards for writing one), so I obliged:

They’re paper towels – and they were in stock!

What can you say about a package of paper towels? That they were the brand I prefer. And available. That they fit on my dispenser. And in my kitchen. And they’re mine.

(With apologies to Erich Segal)

I’m not sure that the review will be helpful for someone trying to decide between brands of paper towels, but that was not a requirement.