Sunday February 5th 2023

The weather forecast for today was a 70% chance of rain all day. They got it wrong. In this area it was sunny most of the day with only an hour or two of full cloud cover near sunset. The rain seemed to stay off to the east near the coast all day. The temperature reached the mid seventies.

The first agenda item of the day was to find the bolts I needed to install my new TV. Two stops later, I found some bolts I could make work. The size I needed were not available at Home Depot or Lowes. I needed two washers per bolt to make the 5mm longer bolts work.

When I got home, drilling the new holes in the steel bracket proved to be more complicated. I didn’t have a good way to mark the location of the new hole on the black paint. More significantly I didn’t have a good punch to start the hole. My drill bit wanted to wander across the hard surface. A makeshift punch and working up from a small bit to a medium size bit before drilling the actual size hole solved the problem.

The TV is now mounted in the living room. I still need to put the screws back in the bottom of the mounting bracket, but I wanted to wait until I was sure it was working correctly. For the first time in a long time I have a working TV in my living room. My habit of retreating to the bedroom to watch TV is now over. I can watch TV from the sofa, from the kitchen or the table once again. It is going to take getting used to. So far I’m satisfied with my purchase.

While I was out bolt shopping I stopped at Walmart for groceries. The store was busy for an early Sunday afternoon. There were public shoppers like me, Walmart employee shoppers filling online orders and for some reason a ton of stock people reloading the shelves. It was a congested mess. It took extra time to fill my cart with everything I needed. On the positive side, this Walmart had most of the “Assisted” checkouts open.