One of my older portable external hard drives has a cable with a break in the rubberized casing, but ordering a replacement took research. It turns out that inch-long 5/8th inch thick lumpy device on the cable is a ferrite bead, meant to reduce noise as far as data transmission. Not absolutely necessary, but helpful. The replacement will be a bit longer than the current one, but if this one had been longer the break might not have happened. Better to spend $5 to replace the cable than $80 to replace the hard drive. (Much of this research starts with Wikipedia.)

More important paperwork completed yesterday; too bad it was the last of the nice weather for a couple of days. I gave myself until the end of the month to finish all of the retirement research and paperwork. Cross that off the to-do list.

I have a shopping list to work from today as I run errands with a route that takes me past places where I have soon-expiring coupons. One for the hardware store - I don't have anything on my list right now from there, but I'm sure I will find something useful and save that $5. Seeds or a plant maybe. $20 at my favorite shoe store (I can always buy socks), and $30 at Macy's, a forgotten gift card. Switching to Costco for some of my shopping means I'll have to work out my routes to include a trip past one of their locations when I need gas.