deliveries

Three packages were delivered yesterday.

1) B's newer and bigger monitor. Her old one stopped working for a while a few days ago. Power was on, screen was working, nothing wrong with the data connection, but the display was blank. It started up again later, but in any case it's difficult to do her job with big complex displays that fall off the edge of the monitor. (They have bigger monitors in the office.) It's my job in this house to install things like this. It was rather puzzling: I'd never seen what it called an HDMI data cable before, and was worried as to whether B's computer would have a port for it. It did, right next to the VGA port. The monitor's instructions weren't clear as to whether it required a VGA cable also. Turned out it did, and a good thing I didn't take out the one from the old monitor, because there wasn't one in the package, though the parts list said there was. Then I had to figure out where the control is to change the screen resolution display. Gaah.

2) A pulse oximeter. Put your finger in the little clamp and it measures your blood oxygen saturation. Obviously useful in the current crisis. I'd ordered this some time ago when the seller claimed they were still available. Then the package was somehow delayed in shipping, or so the seller's messages said. A check with the shipper's site revealed the truth: they were still waiting for the package to show up. Apparently more had been sold than the seller then had. Under those circumstances, I'm surprised it came as early as it did. (We've both used it: we're fine for now.)

3) A microphone, to plug into my computer's sound input jack. If I'd had this last weekend, I might have been able to join the John Garth interview session on Zoom without all that trouble. I'll get to test it later this week with another meeting, this time on WebEx, and at least I won't be forced to rely on my tablet, or the telephone with no incoming video.
But none of that is what I bought the microphone for. What I did buy it for will come up later.