Arghh communicating with small business owners is so hard

 My homemade hay bunk is failing and I saw a perfect feeder on Facebook Marketplace.   Hope it was not some scammer stealing pictures of someone who actually makes the feeders.  Demanded a deposit of half the price,  which was a bit ughh,  if I flaked out he'd have the feeder to sell to someone else,  but venmo has a bit of buyer protection supposedly, and the design is just perfect for my needs so I sent the deposit.  Now it is the 3 weeks and he is not responding to my queries.   I texted him and will try calling later today.

I may have crossed wires with the nice local mechanic.   I thought he was going to come and get my car to service yesterday.   When he had not shown by the time I was ready to head to work, I texted him and asked if he wanted to wait until the roads were dry.    He texted back that Thursday would work and "no hard feeling on my part".     So I will have to text him again and see if needs me to get the car over there.  I could have done that yesterday, but I thought he had offered to pick it up.   He has done that for other vehicles he has serviced and its really nice not to have to line up a ride back from the shop.  

Abe bucked me off again.

 If I keep him I think I may need to not ride with L for a while, which will be awkward since she has been riding Taj and I'm keeping Taj here.    But I need to stick to only walk and trot for a while with Abe.  One more time of getting me off might tip Abe into being an outlaw, and today he popped a big buck cantering up a hill and I was gone, no chance to do a one rein stop and interrupt the bucking.   I might need to just sell him or find a trainer to see if he can be brought back to being a nice riding horse.  

Such a bummer,  last fall and December riding him, he was so good.  And he stayed good this spring when I was riding with just F and Serena, which was just walk and trot.   I thought I had solved the issue of him getting too amped by keeping him behind Taj for cantering but it didn't work today.   And the bugger doesn't stick around when I hit the ground.   

Working towards getting my trailer tack compartment(s) organized

 I really struggle with keeping things organized.   But the gal that is riding Taj suggested I add some hooks to my little trailers tack compartment and that did get me doing a web search for tips.   I bought a set of hooks and a broom holder dealio.   I'll see if the broom holder works.  It has adhesive but probably also needs to be screwed.   Its such a chore to drill holes in my steel trailers that I try to avoid where possible.  

I saw two pictures of people putting basically cut down cattle panel against a wall and using zip ties etc to hang milk crates, adding carabiner snaps etc.  That looked pretty effective.    

Abe is teaching me humility

 I thought I knew how to take care of horses.  But Abe got pretty skinny on me and it was a challenge to get him to start regaining the weight.   Finally he is, but I need to find a feed that doesn't give him a sugar high.  I have decided to feed up the bag of feed that I think is quite high carbs to other horses.    Plus Abe has been super bad to bridle the last few times,  I tried my friends bitless bridle last week.  It worked ok riding with the slow paint mare but I shortened the german martingale before riding with Taj cuz I felt like I wouldn't have any whoa, and Abe was feeling too constricted.   I will try my little S hackamore with the martingale on, but adjusted extra long so it will only engage if he tries to stick his nose up in the air.   Maybe he needs just a sidepull, or maybe I just need to not pull on him so much and find another way to rate his speed when he is with Taj. 

 Yesterday L and I tried Apex park.   We won't go there again, too many sections of very technical rock where there was hardly spots for the horses to put their feet, plus a lot of people.   The good thing is I figured out the bitless bridle was not working while we were just walking.    

No new mice catches. But have not heard or seen a mouse either. And so tired

 I had riding plans for both Saturday and Sunday, but my PITA friend got in hot water with CPS because she drank again.  They needed her to have someone check on her twice/day to leave baby H in the house on the weekend.   Other people babysat her during week,  I got signed up for weekend check ins.  I did encourage her to keep baby when she found out she was pregnant so I feel some obligation.  Such a shame, sober L is such a great mom and nice person.   She isn't a mean drunk but she gets so drunk she cant function and take care of baby when she falls off the wagon.    

On the plus side, with being stuck at home I finally got myself to move Razz in with Sadie and put CJ with Tanza and Abe.    Abe really needed that.    Razz was stressing him out, as well as keeping him off the free choice hay a fair amount of the time,  Abe is chowing hay now and also eating his pellets and b/p and rice bran better.  

Me vs the mice

 Mice woke me up one night last week,  who knew mice ever make a racket?   I ordered some pretty high rated traps on Amazon they were on delayed shipping and didn't get here till thursday, I also bought a couple of the same brand at TSC saturday.    Well the TSC are a different model than the Amazon.  I had one set up in my office with a couple mice darting around while I was in there.  The larger mouse was able to just lick the bait off the paddle w/o putting its feet on it, but I put a bit of p/b in hoping that might work better.  Caught a 2nd small mouse with that.  Caught two small mice on the main floor with the same model trap.   I ordered a rat trap from amazon and some of the cheese scented paddle board old style snap traps that would come faster than thursday.  The rat trap is probably not sensitive enough for a mouse to spring it.  But I now have 3 traps in my office including the rat trap.   1 of the cheese scent paddle in my bathroom that I put some p/b on the paddle too (that has caught mice for me before)  and I added 1 new trap in my bedroom this morning baited with a choc chip wedged down securely in the bait hole and have I 4 traps,  3 different models on the main floor now.   And I have not caught another mouse after the 3 little ones with the small traps that the bigger mouse defeated.   I haven't seen or heard it again, maybe he found his way back outside when he realized I was trying to kill him, but more likely I need to do a deep clean, make sure  it has no food stash and has to try the bait if it wants to eat.   

I have got to figure out how to get more weight on Abe,  I need to do spring vaccines soon and will say I want the vet to check for things that might be keeping his weight down when he is out.   I meant to buy some different stuff to try on way home tonight but alas I forgot.    I've been giving more concentrate pellets with beet pulp, and cool calories, and I bought some alfalfa pellets and added those, sometimes he won't clean up the alfalfa.  Started feeding him extra again at night since he is at his limit of what he will clean up while tied up to eat.   He has access to big hay bale all day but he doesn't beaver on it all day, like he should since he is a bit thin and should be hungry.    I wormed him, Razz and Tanza today.   Maybe I will have to worm Abe every 2 months, maybe worm him again in a week to get something like the 5-day panacur effect.   I don't know if I'd get him wormed 5 days in a row. 

 

  

I need to stop hoping work loses funding

I'm not actively wishing it, I'm not close friends with folks there, but I like most of them and don't want their lives disrupted.   But part of me has been wishing for an outside force to make my job vanish.   I've been doing better the last few weeks.   Starting to take a day off every couple of weeks to just go riding.  I need to just keep taking care of myself and having fun and not think I have to solve every problem at work.  And I'm pecking away at home life.   I threw out a few boxes of crap from the shed last weekend.  I got my car in and got new tires put on it today, then got a few things at Walmart and bought a couple of mouse traps at TSC.  I have a mouse in my bedroom.  Ugh, it was making noise last night and I didn't sleep very well. 

I'm no longer riding with L and F together.   It has been so much more fun and relaxing just to go with either F and her slower mare or with L and Taj.   Two weeks ago L and I went to Lory state park.  Abe was swirling,  someone had taken off a few minutes before we got mounted and he wanted to go catch that horse.  L had to hold him for me to get on.  I turned on a different trail away from how they had gone and it was technical and climbing right away.   And kept climbing a lot.  Taj actually got tired.  It was a nice change from Taj and Abe getting all racey with each other.  

When I ride with just F and her mare, Abe is pretty chivalrous, lets me rate him to a slower trot so slow mare can keep up better and so on.   Yesterday F and I went to Sharptail.   I was leading Abe on the way back, cuz F's mare had been bobbing her head when trotting, plus I'm trying to get in some walking and hopefully lose some spare tire, and I accidentally went off the main trail.  I didn't want to climb back up the hill so I tried taking a short cut but we hit a fence line and had to bushwhack up a pretty steep hill to get back to the actual trail.   I got on Abe for going up the steep hill, F and her mare did very well clambering up the hill on no trail.   F had her Renegade hoof boots on the mare and a new one had a cable break.  That had probably been irritating the mare,  F said she moved better after I had noticed it and she took the boot off.  Mare does move funny on that leg due to an old injury,  maybe she lands crooked and puts extra stress on the hoof boot.   

Hopefully mouse goes for the bait tonight,  I bought their mouse attractant gel as well as 2 traps.  I have 8 more traps ordered from Amazon.   The Victor, metal tab ones I had did catch some mice with raisins wedged in the tab but the last few that I had are pretty well shot; I bought Tomcat ones that are set up to not have to touch the mouse after the trap springs, they were rated pretty high.   I had bought some cheapo glue boards, not sure if they would even work on mice,  they are good for bugs.  I had some more $$ glue boards and did get some mice with them a couple years ago, but I don't like using the glue boards,  if I spot the mouse on them right away I have to whack it with something and dispatch it, and if I don't check one that had been getting no action and then find a dead mouse later I feel bad.  But I'm not doing any catch and release traps.   I want the mice dead, I just want it to be close to instant death.  Hoping this different snap design works and I can get rid of the mice. 

 

Got rid of a bit of garage clutter today

 I need to note this, and give myself a pat on the back because the garage is very cluttered with stuff mom and dad had accumulated.   The 3 feed bags of stuff I put in the dumpster, and wire crate that I put wood scraps in and took out to the burn barrel being gone is hardly noticeable for the clutter that is still there.  But what I got rid of is gone forever.   I whiffed on no phone games today but I did get my trailer ready to go tomorrow, except I need to get some hay in it for Taj and Abe.

Tomorrow farrier comes at 8 am, then I told my riding buddies I would meet them at 11:30 am where F boards her horse.   I need to make myself a sammich to take to eat.  Probably I will just use the watermelon elyte powder I got at the convention raffle and throw in some cheese sticks and a sweet salty bar plus large water bottle.   I am going to have to get up right away when my alarm goes off so I can be ready when farrier gets here.   Feed at least the mini's early and lock them in the alley so they are easier to catch, maybe pre-halter them, get my camelback filled etc etc.   

Monday I have to renew my DL.    

Sheesh, do menapausal women make younger gals more fertile?

First my friend B,  her kid just turned a year old.  Then neighbor L that was helping me with dad and then with cleaning 1x/week, her baby will be 1 year old in March.   Today I hopped on FB after my ride with the new riding buddy I have been hauling to trailheads cuz she doesn't have a p/u and trailer and saw she had posted an ultrasound, baby is due in June.   None of these was a planned pregnancy.   

Neighbor and her DH did want to have a kid sometime but were not trying at the time.    B had been trying to find a guy she wanted to marry and have kids with pretty much since I met her, but E was not expected, B had told me she had decided to just raise E on her own "because dad is a good man but we would fight about how to raise E", although  E's "other grandmother" was at E's bday party along with B's parents so perhaps B is involving dad somewhat now.    

New riding buddy F, has a boyfriend,  perhaps now will marry him.  I had not seen the FB ultrasound post when we were driving to the TH and back today and she did not mention it.   I guess she is not going to be trying to do endurance this summer.  That's cool,  her mare is a good trail horse but I don't think CAN do endurance pace, especially for 25 miles.   F was then going to buy a pony her barn owner can't use for lessons cuz pony is ornery and bucks if he decides something is too much work, but pony decided longer faster riding (endurance) is also too much work when we went to ride in Nebraska where I met Abe and decided I wanted to buy him.  F certainly can't mess with bucking pony while pregnant.   

Days like today I'm halfway rooting for DOGE to yank my orgs funding

 Nothing like trying to get shit done, even though I feel like the big boss is blocking me from merit raise or promotion, and getting radio silence when I make a request for something I need group action on on a Friday afternoon and its radio silence because everyone started their weekend early.    

 Of course I could risk my ego,  thinking "oh they'd fall apart if I just quit suddenly" and actually quit.  But I still like most of these people and don't want to put them in a bind.   My supervisor especially I feel would be at risk of a breakdown, she is already doing a bunch of extra stuff.   They wouldn't just fall apart, not right away,  some folks that are coasting a lot would probably step up , some that are already working pretty hard would work even harder and hope big boss got off his wimpy ass to fill the position quickly.  

My work are in panic mode again

 over a USA Today story.   Eye roll,   I'm pretty sure USA Today is near the front of the pack for publishing stories that are very nearly pure fiction as fear mongering or in some regions probably Yahoo inducing 'news'.   

But its quite possible that some Tornado belt university like Oklahoma may gain an advantage for bidding for the next 3 to 5 year grant proposal to manage weather research.    That would probably be the shove out of the nest to get me to sell this place and move to a much less blue state or else to NM to get a warmer winter.   I don't think I would sell and buy a place to commute to either OK university for the last few years before I hit retirement age, I would just retire early, maybe get a low level job, but I could probably just do YOLO and go around to different rides if I found a situation where the retired horses would have care while I was gone.   

But I really don't think we will be getting laid off in the next few weeks.   The stupid leadership thought that Barky and Biden policies would be permanent and went all in on idiot DEI that is anti-science and has zero relationship to our core mission; as well as pushing man-made climate change and shunning any researcher who didn't go along with herd on that and I didn't quit over those things, but it has made me lose any empathy if they do lose funding and folks have to either move to OK to stay in weather field or find private sector jobs. 

Toby will cross the rainbow bridge today

 I'm mostly numb about it right now.  Yesterday he was panting in pain, and didn't want to even take a tramadol (sp?) pain pill wrapped in cheese.   Normally I can give him 4 big capsules wrapped in some american sliced cheese and he gulps them down and thinks he got a nice treat.   I took just the small pain pill in a tiny bit of cheese and stuffed it in his mouth and he did swallow that.   I thought I was going to have to use Ruger to euthanize him, which I did not want to do, my mind goes to "what if my aim is not good enough and its not instant" but the pill kicked in and I called the mobile vet that euthanized Tux the cat for me last year.  She is coming this evening.     My housemate gave Toby some CBD oil and because I thought he was starting to pant again 5-6 hours after the tramadol I gave him 1/2 of a horse size bute tablet yesterday.   Toby has been moving slow the last week, but because he has such a history of teasing the horses and occasionally getting kicked or overdoing it chasing a rabbit and making himself sore I had not thought anything of it until he was panting in pain in the very early morning and didn't even want to swallow a cheese pill.    

With all the pain meds, Toby is still not wanting to move a lot but has wanted to eat, although not his normal kibble,  I gave him a small size can of cat food and a hamburger bun last night and he scarfed it up, and I also gave him some of his normal herbal capsules and his Benedryl in cheese.   I didn't want to give him too much cheese, but he got 3 slices instead of his normal 1/2 with capsules.    Why does it always feel like "do I have to follow through with euthanasia" when massive amounts of pain relief gets the critter feeling better.   He wanted more cat food and bread this morning so I gave him some.   I need to not punt and have the situation of the cancer? or whatever is going on getting so bad that pain meds won't help. 

 I need to dig the grave and have not wanted to start that.  But it will be dark today and I made a riding date for tomorrow so I need to gitRdone.   Part of me wants to cancel the riding, but I don't want to yank the rug on the gal I am riding with and Abe needs the miles. 

I rode Abe at home today

 I almost punted on riding at all but it was nice outside, over 50F with no wind.  It was a mental training ride not a physical conditioning ride but that is okay.  Mental training of Abe and I getting to trust each other with no buddy horse along.  He is already a good riding horse, but I need to get to know and trust him and he needs to get to trust me.    I am glad I bought him.   He and Tanza were play nipping at each other while drinking out of the water tank that crosses the fence between them today.   It made me smile. 

 

New screen door is installed

 The Handyman did not get it perfect.   He should have left a bit more trim or whatever on the bottom of the door.   Its closer is overly tight and when it banged the door shut if not held to slow it down it was coming past the frame and then hanging up a bit to open it.  I will have to screw a bit of something on the bottom of the door I think but my quickie redneck solution was to put a paper clip over the frame to have a bit more of something to block the door and, then put a dab of crazy glue to hold it in place when it worked; that is still holding and I haven't motivated myself to do a better fix yet.   

The guy did show up and dig a grave, would not let me even give him some gas money.   Paul came over later after the vet put Lady down and laid her to rest and filled in the hole with the tractor.   I should text their friends and ask what would be a good thank-you gift.  I wish folks would just accept some cash for favors like that; trying to come up with a gift is a PITA and sometimes I just don't get it done.

 P and S invited me and housemate for T-day.   I haven't said yay or nay yet.   I was thinking I might see if anyone wanted to go riding but there is a stinking EHV-1 outbreak.  The friends that board are being told not to take horses off property.   I canceled riding with one to ride Taj because she had recommended riding at the close by fairgrounds, and their arena is closed, have to park at sales barn, which I was not quite comfortable with any equine disease warning.  I would feel ok going to a trailhead, but am not too excited to go alone.  

So I should text S and ask "what can I bring, whipped cream?  fruit salad?, ginger ale or seven up for fruit punch?"  P relayed that "you don't have to bring anything"  S and P's mom are great cooks, so most anything I would bring would not be as good as what they'll cook, last year I brought fruit salad and it was not great.  I should have gone to a regular grocery earlier,  wallys was mostly out of the canned fruits I use when I went just 1 or 2 days before t-day and I had to use some old cans I had around to fill in the recipe and the wally's grapes were not not great either.   I don't want to not bring anything, I'll just stay home and chill or pout if I can't get a suggestion of something I can bring that they won't hesitate to eat.    Housemate has been working long hours at ToysRUs and I haven't asked her if she plans to spend T-day or another day that week with her daughter in CoSp,  the store she got the job at is opening today and has not had a clear schedule for them,  has needed way more man-hours to get the inventory unpacked from the pallets and displayed then the boss had anticipated when she was hired.  The extra hours is good for housemate,  stupid Animal Sanctuary that hired her in Aug, supposedly permanently let her go with no warning in October.   I have zero sympathy for the A.S. getting less donations this year,  they were living high on the hog when the Ds were shoveling federal money at any non profit that pushed any of the commie narratives, and bought up land rather than building up a reserve fund to make sure they could make ends meet if they had a couple of lean years.   

Well I guess the handyman is going to show up soon to install my new screen door

 I'm a bit annoyed,  I guess I failed to ask if he could install a screen door for me quickly when I contacted him three weeks ago.  He simply replied yes and did I have the door yet.  I hadn't bought one yet and bought one at Lowes that same day.   When I let him know that I now had a door then he replied he was out of town until Nov 1.     Had I known he was booked up for 3 weeks I would have tried to get someone else.   But its okay, the weather has stayed very mild all three weeks so it was no problem to just leave the big garage door open and go in and out the garage door instead of using the main entry.   

I did not know that P no longer had access to an excavator attachment for the other neighbors bobcat.  So P asked another friend of his do come and dig a grave for Lady.   I finally forced myself to stop kicking that can down the road and schedule the vet to euthanize her today.   Supposedly the guy who does have an excavator attachment was going to come this morning.  Well it is still morning for a couple of hours, but I'm wondering if he will show up at all.  At least he wasn't here at 7 am before I had horses moved.  But I don't know if I can dig a grave just with the tractor bucket if mini excavator guy does not make it.  If I had known the situation I probably would have just had the vet schedule the guy to haul the horse away.  

I finally had a lovely week long vacation

 The end of the trip went a bit south.   The clutch failed on sister's pickup.  So she had to get towed to Cheyenne and have it replaced, cost her about 4K.   I told her I had about 3K to give her from CO refund, prius sale, and sale of dad's pickup early in the trip and she was "no you keep it,  I owe you some for skid steer from years ago"    I pressed the 1500 I had in cash for the trailer on her after the clutch situation.   I figured she would probably just rip up a check if I wrote her one for the full amount.   

It has been hard to get back into work and taking care of the place now after having had the time off.  Does not help that work did a big reclassification of all the 'scientist' job titles and we got merit raises and I am the same level I was just with a new job description and my raise is just the midpoint raise.   In previous years the UCP director would stress that almost everybody is getting the midpoint raise, if the new director did that I missed that meeting.  The money is decent and its not like they gave me a lower raise for not hitting th e'meeting, and sometimes exceeding expectations' mark.  But I used work as the distraction from sucky life the last couple years and saved their bacon a few times from outages and it feels like our group director has ZERO appreciation.   

But I need to just take this as "here's your sign that you need to not shortchange home life, horse fun, etc. for those ingrates"  Well, mostly not ingrate(s),  just the director; but the rest of the group tell me thanks, etc. but that is as far as it goes.   They mostly feel overworked as well.   My supervisor and the sys admin ARE overworked.   Others, not so much.  

Thinking about buying a Rushcreek bred 12 year old gelding

 I rode him in the LD at Fort Robinson on Sunday.    We ended up going really really slow and pulled at the vet check because we were past the cut off time.    Lisco and I were a bit nervous with each other the first few miles so I wanted to just walk,  then after climbing up a long canyon he had settled in enough that he could started doing a slow endurance pace but the green bean I have been hauling to rides and helping a bit was struggling with her pony being ornery.   After we had gone several miles and he was refusing to go up yet another hill and she was going to lead  him up it my stubborn red headed red neck, year of the dragon self hit the wall and I told her to lead Lisco up the hill and I had a short come to Jesus session with Chip and made him carry me up that hill.   Another rider had caught up to us,  Lisco wanted to trot after she passed us and Chip was being ok with  trotting so we did make a decent pace to the vet check those last couple of miles.   

If I had been on Taj and had a longer lead rope, rather than on an unfamiliar somewhat nervous horse plus shortish lead rope I might have put a lead on stubborn Chip, but the endurance saddle is not really set up to pony a horse plus I would have had some nervousness that Chip fighting the lead could have caused him to step off the trail and fall down the hill even on good old Taj so I don't know if I would have done that or not.   Chip and rider have a ways to go to get to endurance riding,  she gave in too quickly when he got stubborn, although to her credit she led him a ways and got back on every time but I think he figured out he could at minimum not have to carry a rider up the hills if he acted up,  and she was nervous about trotting downhill.   I get that, but on very gentle grades with a ride that is hilly, which is most rides in this area one needs to trot to stay on pace unless it is a steep downhill slope.  

Maybe Tanza is less lame than I thought.

 Yesterday when I came home from riding the horses all went tearing and Tanza really cantered hard.  And he seemed fine afterwards, and I didn't see anything today when he was walking.   I didn't ask him to trot.

An endurance family posted an 18 year old arab, they are wanting to rehome for free,  sound for 25s they think, but would 'need work' to stay sound for 50s on Saturday.  "Bully at feeding time, we would want first refusal"     And I thought about it and was like "no, I don't want essentially another feed lease,  I would want to pay something for the horse, and I would give first refusal to them for free if I just needed to downsize.  But I felt scared that they would think I was not providing good care if I asked to try him and they agreed.

And now if Tanza is maybe going to be sound I don't know if I want another horse.   I have so many now.  But I'm still tempted by the "spicy but seasoned" 15 year old I saw on CL.   But it would be kind of crazy to pass on a horse with an endurance base for the CL horse.  

Toby was pestering when I went out to feed and I yelled, (not super loud) at him "shut up dog",  and I think my housemate heard, may have thought I was yelling at her dog, and even if she knows, I was talking to Toby may be appalled that I talked like that to 'my' (not really, Toby is still Dad's dog, even though Dad is dead now) dog.   And sister has not called and I didn't get her called today, nor did I get online to Progressive for car insurance and call the poor service + stupid $$$ outfit to tell them I'm canceling.   I did text housemate that I was talking to Toby.    Just ughh,   hopefully I'm making mountains out of molehills.     

Thinking about getting another horse.

 There are a couple of completely different ads that have me intrigued.   One for a 'spicy but seasoned' 15 year old small bay gelding.   That is close to what I thought I should get, old enough that I won't worry about how to rehome a prime of life horse if my health fails but young enough that it should have 5-7 years of being able to do the shorter endurance rides.  

The other one is a 5 year old Arabian.   Actually I just read through his ad and he has zero rides.   So I'd have to pay someone to put at least 6 weeks on him,  I can deal with a spicy horse or a green horse, but they have to be good with my somewhat clunky mounting and I would not trust a horse that had only had ground work to handle that. 

 I also found an ad for feed bunks on FB that might? work for keeping horses out of big bale hay net.  It is a falling apart feedbunk, so I would just take the top off and put the frame that holds it up over the hay to minimize horses putting feet in the hay net.  But I've no ambition to contact either seller and maybe check them out.  

 I was pretty productive yesterday.   I did two loads of laundry, ran the robot vacuum on both floors and cleaned out the BATs mangers,  I need to sweep out the crud on the bottom, yesterday I just scooped out big chunks of wet crud ; then I need to put back the buckets I want to have for trips.  And I should clean out the tack compartment today.   

Thank God my 'home' life is not rough right now

 Work has been such a bear the last couple of weeks,  if I was having to deal with breakdowns or sick critters etc at home right now too I'd probably be in a fetal position.    But work will sort itself out.  They can't afford to fire me for the #W*& downlink site that lied about being ready to collect data for us, cuz the group is already stretched very thin and they'd have to actually do some research and trial and error for issues instead of just asking me;  and the patches I made to software have not broken processing, knock wood.   I'm just sooo frustrated with that downlink site,  that outfit is pretty reliable, but this is a tropical ocean location, not their Norway/Sweden sites for polar satellites, I should have expected the tropical attitude would be in play, but nooo, I had to trust their email that said they were all set.  And then I didn't make myself clear enough to the sat ops people in Taiwan that I did not want them to do any extra work to turn on links right away.   Oh well, people are not dying in the streets because of this glitch, it is okay.