Green skies and conjunctions

 "Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life." - Marcus Aurelius

 There is an old cliche that "Money can't buy happiness".  New research shows that this cliche is incorrect.  Having grown up in near-poverty, I can assure readers that lack of money hinders one's ability to participate in most of what an average or well-off income can provide.  It's important to throw the bullshit flag on society whenever necessary.  

Having gotten that off my chest, here's a photo I took of a lovely sunset recently.

We had a nice display of the Aurora Borealis not long ago.  Sadly, I was in the middle of a set of day shifts, and had no desire to get up, dress warm, probably wake the entire house, and venture out of the woods to watch.  One person did though, at 2:00 AM, and took this stunning photo, just a few miles away from our house.

Even though I was on shift, I managed to get a picture of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction, shortly before going to bed.  It's a cellphone shot, so not great quality.  Better than nothing!

 I ventured over to the Spokane area yesterday to finalize the programming of the car to match the new key fob.  I was there an hour early for the appointment, so I spent an extra hour in the waiting area.  The crazy 6x6 rig was no longer there, so whatever it was in for (professional Mercedes Wash and Wax???) had been completed.

I took a few pictures as I sat around idly, waiting for them to get started.  I must admit, it's the nicest vehicle repair garage I've ever seen.  Who puts ceramic tiles on the floor of a garage?

Below:  A couple of engines sitting in tires, and a transmission on a moving dolly.

Eventually they brought my car in and programmed it.  Apparently the vehicle can only be set up to recognize two keys, so the technicians first had to delete the memory of the missing one before they could make the car recognize the new one.  At least now there is a backup key.

Afterwards, the technician informed me that the rear tires are nearly shot, and they are not the same brand as the front tires.  I'd assume that the previous owner burned the rear tires off and then replaced them with a cheap off-brand set, which also got the tread burned off.  The technician also informed me that the rear brakes are nearly gone.  

I now have a full set of Pirelli P7 tires on order, as well as some Bosch rear brake pads.   The car may have been inexpensive, but the bills are beginning to add up :)

Afterwards, I took the car through a car wash.  It was a "touchless" car wash that uses high pressure water jets, and it managed to clear most of the road grime that accumulated when I drove it home from Boise.  There is still a thin film of stuff that will need to be removed with soap and a sponge for it to be really clean.

I read a fascinating article about Cisco while I waited at the dealership.  This was one of the Silicon Valley darlings back in the 1990s.  After the tech bubble burst, they did what so many companies do these days, and started "financializing" - buying shares of their own stock, rather than innovating and producing better products.   It used to be illegal for companies to purchase their own stock, correctly being seen as a form of stock price manipulation.  But now that form of corruption is allowed, and this is the result that the plague of MBA's have wrought :(