There was a beautiful crescent moon when I went out this morning, so I ran back in to grab my camera (I knew my phone wouldn’t do it justice). I hadn’t used the camera since we got back from Hawaii in early December, so I wasn’t surprised to find it had a dead battery.

I was surprised, though, that it took considerable effort to pry the battery out of the camera body; I popped in a new battery and went back outside before the sky got too light.

I came back in and put the dead battery into the charger; it seemed like a tighter fit than usual. Suddenly, a light dawned. I turned off the charger, pulled the battery out, and put it down on the table.

It should have lain flat on the table, but it wiggled from side to side. I looked more closely and saw that it was only contacting the table at the center of the battery, not the entire surface, as you’d expect.

I compared it to the other batteries I had, and it was clear that it had started to swell, so it’s a good thing I didn’t finish charging it.

Diane and I checked our other camera batteries; all of mine were OK, but she had one which didn’t quite lie flat (and which she said didn’t hold its charge well). We took the two bad batteries to the local Ace Hardware where they’ll dispose of them.

On a brighter note, the installer we picked signed the paperwork for the solar system; the next step is for them to come out and verify the condition of the roof and ensure that they can mount the panels in the right place. Oh, and I guess we’ll have to send them a deposit, too. :-)

Shabbat Shalom!

We had a hybrid Silver Tongued Cats meeting this morning; I’d volunteered to handle the tech issues, and I was confident I’d have no problems after watching how the Los Gatos Toastmasters ran a hybrid meeting in the same room.

I got there a little early and hooked up all the cables and turned everything on. System Settings on the Mac showed the TV was connected and recognized, but I couldn’t get anything to show up on the screen. The TV was working fine – as a TV, but when I selected the “PC” input, nothing happened.

I disconnected and reconnected. I turned the TV off and on. I turned mirroring off and on. Nothing helped. After what felt like ten minutes, I decided to tell the TV to try the input labeled “Cable Box” – and that worked.

The rest of the meeting ran smoothly. After the meeting, one of the other Toastmasters mentioned that he’d brought his new Volkswagen ID.4 to the meeting and offered to show it to me; he even let me drive it for a few miles. I didn’t like it quite as much as the Ioniq 5, but I plan to go to the VW dealer and see what Diane thinks of the car; it’s a good bit less expensive and might qualify for the Federal tax credit.

This afternoon, we were watching last night’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, when suddenly the TV started showing “Live Now from FOX”, even though the audio from Colbert was still playing through the A/V receiver. I was confused. Eventually, I realized that something must have pushed a button on the TV remote, moving it to a random channel on “Samsung TV Plus” but not affecting the A/V receiver.

It took a long time to find the TV remote; it had slipped off the arm of the couch, under the cushions, and into the tiny opening between the upholstery and the seat body, pushing the “Samsung TV Plus” button at some point on its journey.

I’ve ordered a case for the remote to make it bigger and less slippery. If it works as well as the one I got for the Apple TV remote, I’ll be happy – that remote hasn’t gone couch-diving since I put it into a similar case.

And really, how could it not work? Look at the description:

Personalized your samsung tv remote,color coded samsung remote protectors make you indentify the remote quickly when your remotes do not follow social distancing rule mixed together with other remotes.Glow in the dark after inject energy for a long time via table lamp,flashlight,flash of cell phone,you can locate it easily even though at night

Perfect, right?