Divisor Game

It is Thursday and the workweek is almost done. Continue to walk with my wife every morning unless it is raining. Today it was 75F and 75% relative humidity. The conditions were not the best, but we completed our walk. On my way back I watered the plants. It takes me less than 5 minutes.

The lawns in the neighborhood have patches of dried grass. Most lawns have sprinklers but between the heat and the lack of rain, I would venture to say that about 15% of the grass in most (never say all) laws is yellowish indicating it is very dry.

The saga with the presidential elections in Peru continues. Contrary to what the news from American sources (i.e., Reuters, The Guardian, and The New York Times) state, there has been massive fraud and it seems that the communist candidate will win using fraud. Have we seen this before? Continue reading “Divisor Game”

Count Construct – Tabulation

Earlier today I read an article commenting about how the high temperatures are rising all over the USA. In Arizona and Nevada the forecasted highs should be about 115F and 112F respectively. The average temperature for a human adult is around 98F. That is quite warm if you ask me.

Today in the suburb in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul where I reside, we woke up with 72F. At some point we might be getting some rain. The high is forecasted to be 91F and we are still in spring 2021.

My wife and I have breakfast and then head out for a walk. We like to get the workout in first thing in the morning. After returning home, I watered some plants that were replaced outside a week or so ago. I have been informed that I need to water them 3 to 4 days a week for a month or so until the plants adapt to their current location; so far, so good. We do need some rain. The lawns in our area are starting to show some brown spots. We can see and hear the sprinklers in the morning, but seems that laws need additional water. A few good down pours each month would take care of the brown spots. Based on NOAA’s forecast, it is going to be a dry and hot summer for most parts in the USA.

Yesterday I mentioned that I requested a callback from a Delta agent. Based on the information at hand, I was expecting the callback in about two hours. I did receive the call. At that time I had performed enough searches on the web that I had solved the issue before talking with the agent. All is well at this time. Continue reading “Count Construct – Tabulation”

Can Construct – Tabulation

Good day software engineers / developers. Hope your day has started on the right note. Today is Wednesday (hump day). Two more workdays and the weekend will be here.

I have read on different articles that airline traffic in the USA is back to pre COVID-19 pandemic levels. After reading the articles I felt good about the pandemic coming to an end and for the airlines and their employees. That said; I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. MSP is an international airport and a hub for several airlines (including Delta). The airport is located next to Bloomington, MN. I used to own a software development company which was based in Bloomington. Every day on my way back home, depending on the wind direction, I could see two lines of six or more airplanes on final to land at MSP. In addition, the city in which I live is very close to a pattern used by planes to land on a third runway at MSP. Depending on the time and wind patterns, we could see several dozen planes around lunch time.

Today you can see a few planes if you spend an hour watching for them to land or after takeoff. By no means, the amount of traffic is close to pre COVID-19 pandemic levels. Being generous I would say that the traffic at MSP is about 10% of what is used to be a couple years ago when the pandemic started. So why are we seeing FAKE NEWS? Is there a presidential election coming up that I have missed? Of course not! In my opinion airlines are so desperate in getting people to vacation this summer, that they might have recruited writers and reporters to spread the need to take a vacation in the USA or better yet in Europe.

For reasons I do not wish to get into at this time, my wife and I decided on a weeklong vacation OUS this summer. We have done this before for the birthday of a good friend. We booked our tickets and hotel via Delta. A week or so we added our two granddaughters that wanted to meet my friend and family and just wanted to relax for a few days.

In the recent weeks we decided that the flights are good, but want to make changes to the accommodations to a different resort. The resort we are currently booked on has a one day policy for cancelation. In other words, you can cancel without penalty if you do so one day before you are scheduled to arrive. Nice!

I have tried to cancel the resort component of our trip using the Delta website. I have tried calling Delta Vacations (800.800.1504) on multiple occasions. A recording states that there are busy. After indicating to do a search on-line, the call disconnects. You cannot wait for an attendant. VERY POOR SERVICE CHOICE DELTA!!!

I have also called General Sales & Services (800.323.2323) on multiple occasions. As I am typing this post, I am holding for about two hours waiting for a representative. After half hour on-hold I hang up.

While waiting I found a different number for International Sales & Service (800.241.241). I will also give it a try. In addition I found on the Delta app on my iPhone Silver Medallion Reservations (800.325.6330) so I called. There was a two-hour wait. I left my phone number. I should be receiving a call from Delta within a couple hours. I placed my call at 13:27 CDT. Will let you know my findings after lunch. It seems that a couple family members from my wife will be joining us today.

We are done with lunch. We usually have lunch around 12:30 CDT, but today it was a couple hours later.

I have not received the call from Delta yet. Believe or not, having to wait for hours allows customers to continue searching the web and finding answers to most of their problems. I found what I needed on-line. I was able to cancel the resort reservations. My wife and I will book on a different resort tomorrow morning. We have stayed at this other resort a few times. The grounds are quite larger and the facilities seem to be newer. Continue reading “Can Construct – Tabulation”

Best Sum Tabulation

It is a nice Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Today is the 15 day of June, 2021 and the temperature is forecasted to reach the low 80s.

My wife and I typically do not grill during the week due to the time it takes me to get the grill ready, cook the meat we are preparing, and then clean the unit. Our granddaughters stopped by to go shopping with my wife so my wife decided to grill some steaks. She did a nice tomato salad, some fries in the oven, and some rice in the stovetop. Overall lunch was quite tasty. I prefer grilling on weekends when I can have an adult beverage or two. Today we just had some Pellegrino water.

In Peru the government agency in charge of elections is still counting votes. It seems that the winner will be the communist candidate. Fearing for what seems to be inevitable, many people have left the country with bags of money to be deposited in foreign banks. Hopefully a miracle (I do not believe in them) may happen and the candidate representing democracy will be elected president. Continue reading “Best Sum Tabulation”

How Sum – Tabulation

Good day gals and guys. It is a nice Monday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Believe it or not but the high temperatures in the mid to upper 90s F that we have been getting for the past two weeks this Spring has changed in the forecast for the last 10 days of Spring 2021. The forecast call for highs in the upper 70’s to low 80’s F which represents on average a 20F degree reduction. One way or the other, unless it is raining, my wife and I are planning of getting up before 06:00 AM, having breakfast and then heading out for a daily walk. It seems that every day there are more people out and about early in order to avoid the heat in the afternoon.

Our weekend was uneventful. We walked, chatted with people, and prepared food in the grill. Yesterday we made fish and chips in the grill. We want to master the technique because frying potatoes and fish indoors unnecessarily heats the house and leaves food odors that tend to last for a couple hours after we are done consuming lunch. That said, at work and personal life, the only way to learn and become efficient with different tasks is to read, practice, get feedback, make modifications and repeat! In addition you must like what you do; otherwise it is very difficult to improve.

I continue to install applications on my new iPhone. Hopefully this week I will be done installing some Google apps and hopefully getting the data into the iPhone. Continue reading “How Sum – Tabulation”

Counting Bits

It is Friday and not a hot as it has been in the couple last weeks. The forecast calls for a high around 88F. We will see if the forecast matches the observed temperatures for the day.

The cleaning lady and crew are expected today. Apparently last week she had some issues which ended in a no show.

Due to the fact that I usually talk on Fridays at 07:00 AM with a friend that we met while attending elementary school, my wife and I decided to postpone our daily walk to around lunch. It turns out that my friend had to get up quite early today and travel for business for about two hours. We both are morning people but getting up around 03:00 AM to chat is not acceptable.

Since the cleaning crew will be leaving around lunch time, and my wife and I will go out for a walk, she will not have time to cook lunch which is our main meal of the day. On our way back I will pick up a bag of Asian food from Trader Joe’s which we keep in the outside fridge. Hopefully it will be Kung Pao Chicken. It is our favorite. That said; we typically alter the meal to our taste by adding different things (i.e., chicken broth, unsalted peanuts).

Yesterday I read a very interesting article on IEEE SPECTRUM titled How Software Is Eating the Car. The complexity of software and the amount of features depending on it is growing exponentially. I have had the opportunity to owning several German made cars and have experienced the increase of features and hardware referenced in the article.

Continue reading “Counting Bits”

Can Sum – Tabulation

Hope you are having a wonderful day! The temperature in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul continues to be way above normal. Today is going to be another spring day with temperatures in the upper 90Fs. My wife and I continue to walk after breakfast. The days are sunny so it is very nice to get our daily walk out of the way early.

Yesterday we had a short thunderstorm with heavy rain. The rain lasted about 30 minutes. It was good for the plants. Tomorrow we also expect some rain.

Something that we have noted in the past couple weeks is that there are more insects. We had to swat a couple flies and a couple bugs in our place. We can also see a few of mosquitoes and wasps. I guess that is to be expected when the weather gets warmer than average. Hope all is going well with farmers. Their crops feed livestock and us. This weekend my wife and I will go to a couple Farmers Markets. On Saturday we will stop by the one in Apple Valley and on Sunday the one in St. Paul. Will let you know our findings next week. Continue reading “Can Sum – Tabulation”

Grid Traveler – Tabulation

It is another nice and hot spring day in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Yesterday after work my wife and I headed to the bank. On our way back I noticed that the temperature had gone up to 99F.

Earlier today after breakfast my wife and I went out on our daily walk. There were more people than usual. We stopped to talk with a neighbor that was also out and about. She likes to walk at a good pace. She was covered in sweat.

The forecasted temperatures for the next couple weeks will are in the mid 80s to the mid 90s. During lunch time the temperature went up to 93F. In general the high temperature for the day occurs around 05:00 PM.

A couple weeks ago we were talking with a couple of neighbors. They mentioned that some of our plants in the front yard were dead. Today during lunch the company that handles plants and lawns stopped by to remove and replace all the dead shrubs.

On a separate note, things are not going well with the vote counting process. There seems to be a lot of cheating going on. It seems that the candidate that represents communism and terrorism will get elected president. The economy has come to a standstill. The Peruvian currency is devaluating.

In addition the candidate from the left is instigating people to go after the upper and middle classes. Hope this things is resolved peacefully in the next few days. Continue reading “Grid Traveler – Tabulation”

Red John is back

It is another warm Tuesday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. When the COVID-19 pandemic started my wife and I stopped walking on a daily schedule. A couple weeks ago we started walking. Slowly we are trying to get to 10,000 steps a day. Currently we are around 6,500 steps. In addition after every 2-hour block of work I get on a stationary bike and pedal fast and furious for 5 minutes. I tend to get 4 to 5 short sessions per day. My wife decided to skip the bike. That said; we both are starting to feel the benefits of exercising once again. We love it!

On a separate note my best friend sent me a message that he was starting to test ProtonMail for personal and potentially commercial use. I replied that I have been experimenting with it on my defunct Pixel 4 cell phone. After it died with less than two years of use a couple weeks ago, I switched for the first time to an iPhone. I am still installing applications. Today I will install ProtonMail and will continue testing the service. About three months ago I mentioned ProtonMail on my post Largest Triple Products – Revisited. I like the encryption and the fact that they do not use or sell your personal information. Continue reading “Red John is back”

Fib Tabulation

The temperature for the next week or so in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul will be in the lower 90F’s. That is rather hot for this time of the year. Due to this fact, my wife and I will be having breakfast as usual and then heading out for our daily walk. This way we should avoid the high temperatures in the afternoon hours and in addition most bugs. Most bugs then to come out in the late afternoon hours.

Friends in Peru have been sending my wife and me messages with the current results of the presidential election that took place this past Sunday. At this time it seems that the democratic candidate is slightly ahead of the communist one. Not sure how long it would take to have a final count but there is a lot of animosity in the air. If interested you can check what is happening with the vote tallies on the internet. Continue reading “Fib Tabulation”