I just got home from a 4-month trip and found a couple interesting things that relate either to homes or to computers
I left in February and was going to call someone to mow my lawn. I had a new rose bush that is very short (because I accidentally mowed over it) and it seemed even more likely that a new guy would mow over it again. So I put a red plastic grocery bag over it, and tied it with a long wire tie. When I got home some of the rose bush was over a foot tall with buds about to blossom, but the red bag was gone. Finally found it but it was scrunched around the bottom of the plant and it wasn't red anymore. It was transparent, with some red close to the ground, where it got little light**, I guess. The bush inside the bag had grown a little, but most of the bush had grown outside the bag, even though I think I went all the way to the ground and enveloped all of the existing bush last February.
**I used to leave my street map of NYC on the dashboard. After a year or two, the black streets and green streets and any other color were fine, but the red streets had totally disappeared. Even when I knew where they were supposed to be, I could see no trace of the red streets.
Four months is a long time. I had to think for 5 seconds to remember how to turn on the clock-radio.
It took me a day to figure out how to make sound come out of my home computer. It turned out I'd turned off the speakers and all I had to do was turn them back on.
I turned on the computer and when AVG eventually popped up, it said my last scan had been 25 days ago. Huh? I wasn'there then. I saw that on Friday or Saturday. Sunday when I went to the desk to listen to WAMU, The Big Broadcast (Old time radio, 7-11PM ET Sunday nights), the computer was already on and it was recording the show. Huh? Turns out, Radiomaximus did just what I wanted it to do but was never sure if it did it. With the right settings, even when the computer is off, the paid version (not expensive) will turn it on, record what it's set for, and I think turn off the computer (That's one of the settings, but I see that I didn't set it. I guess my pc was on for 4 months. Darn. I remember now: I have it set that way so that it won't turn off when I'm sitting here at 11PM on a Sunday. I should have changed it before I left.). I thought the computer was off when I got home, but maybe I assumed it was. I'll have to check that part again. But I was gone for
17 weeks and I have 17 4-hour recordings. It will take me a long time to play them all.
I see I also had the sound on for the Sunday night show. That's optional, but the people who just bought the townhouse next door may have heard it, as well as the radio I had on a daily timer.