Before we went on holiday, I went through a phase where I became very enthusiastic about various vlog opportunities that were popping into my mind. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because ever since I had become enamoured of the idea, and technology involved in vlogging, the one thing I was severely lacking, was what to talk about.

For that period of time ideas were quite literally popping out of my head, and before long, I had a list of potential candidates, that would evelove as time went on, not quite limitless, but good enough to keep me going for a while.

Then we went on holiday. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved, and really enjoyed the holiday. Even the brief moments of terror that included my now intense dislike of flying, the fear, as we crossed the border from Canada to the USA, that we might get turfed off the Amtrack train, because my wife lacked an I-94 (mine was in place, and in order) of course, I said that if she were taken off the train I would get off with her, even though it looked like we were in the miiddle of nowhere (looking at a map, we weren’t that far from civilisation). Luckily, Elayne was not turfed off the train and we enjoyed our five days in New York. Until our last night in the New Yorker Hotel, when we attempted to finalise our checkin for the transatlantic crossing. The ways we realised that we had forgotten to do the online checkin within the appropriate timeframe were (Sorry, it’s 23:58 I had to publish to preserve my posting count) twofold; Firstly, the checkin website wouldn’t recognise Elaynes log in credentials, the second was when we checked on the status of the cruise using the cruise number, the computer calmly told us “The Queen Mary 2 has already sailed”. Now, as I was looking at the Marine Traffic Service, and QM2’s AIS (automated Identification System) was telling us that she was off the coast of the USA, inbound to New York, definitely not outbound (we were especially worried, as we have a reputation for getting dates and departure times, and locations so very wrong). Luckily, I found a number for the cruise line, and given that it was 22:30, rang it with no expectation that it would be answered, and thanks to American Customer Service, the liine was picked up. The very kind lady at the other end was as bemused as we were, but at least she could confirm that the ship had not sailed, and that we were booked on the ship. her suggestion was; go to the cruise terminal, early, and plead ignorance with the cruise staff.

Obviously, we didn’t have a problem, thanks to a couple of incredibly patient american ladies. We got home safely.

Almost two months after the holiday, and here I am thinking about what I had been thinking about before we went on holiday, and I now realise that I had not lost the enthusaism that had suffused me in those heady times of unlimited vlog topics, I had forgotten the enthusiasm.

And so, we arrive at the title of today’s post, The ideas factory. This is a spreadsheet that contains a list of my ideas for projects (mostly vlogs), and I have it set up so that I can say to ChatGPT; “Please add that to the Ideas Factory” and it updates the spreadsheet. Quitie amazing to watch it in real time.

I quite enjoyed writing this post. As for the ideas in the factory – Hopefully, you’ll start finding out about them. At some point.

Fiona, the Gosport u3a Group Leader had asked if I would go to the Climate Change group presentation this morning, and let me know what I thought of it.

I didn’t count the number of people there, but I’d say 10-15. Guests had been invited as the group had a lady in from Gosport StreetScene who was going to be talking to us about new services that were going to be introduced next year.

This is around the disposal of food waste. All households will be getting two new bins; a small caddy where daily food waste is deposited in the house (or flat) which in turn are emptied daily in to a larger food caddy, which is collected weekly, alongside whichever (normal or recycling) bin is being emptied, the important thing is that the bins will be emptied weekly.

The audience asked a lot of questions, and it very quickly became clear that Gosport Borough Council’s recycling policy is not clear. Frustratingly so. I have that piece to write up.

This evening, I was on Week 8 of the astronomy course, this week it was about stellar evolution, and to really understand it and get benefit from it, you really need to have a little unnderstanding of how stars work. That was one aspect, where Steve, the tutor could very easily have lost the audience, but he was very good, and held it all together.

The weather was another bit ofa let down – cloudy skies, so this week was ruled out as a potential observing session. Looks like we will be going into week 11.

I wanted to get into the garden, just to have a bit of a look around, to see what was going on. I even had my magnifying glass with me, to have a look at nature. It shouldn’t be the wrong time of year, nature is there all year round, it’s just that this time of year, it’s a bit more hidden.

I did see a few things, but I didn’t really go rooting around a lot.

I cleaned off the bird table and put a few worms out in the hanging feeder. I’ll see tomorrow if the birds have been at it.

I was in the shop for 1PM. It was a busy afternoon. There were very few moments whhen I had the shop to myself. I’m not sure if I like it like that. Also, I have to confess, I’m not 100% convinced I will still be there after christmas. That would be a pity.

In Post 265, quite a while back, in fact, May 2021, I joined Queket, the Microscope Club. What surprised me was that I was my timelines had got mixed up again, and that i was a member, a lot further back than I thought. This Stereo Microscope is the one that has been taken out of storage and put, once again, in to use.

Like a lot of things, i became so interested in a subject, that bought a a couple of a microscopes, one a condenser scope, the other a stereo microscope. Now, some years before even that, I had purchased a Brunel microscope for beginners. It has been languishing in a cupboard for a very long time. Out of curiosity, I got it out, and OK, yes it is a beginners device, but it is most definitely not a toy, it really is quite useable. So, I’m going to have another go with it.

When I bought it, I also bought a box of pre-made slides, beyond just looking at them I’ve never done anything with them. That’s going to change. The results of that may appear occasionally in the Letters to Steve.

First though, I have to give it a good clean.

It’s the first wednesday of the month. That means it’s the monthly u3a meeting at Thorngate halls, when as many members are crammed into one of the halls, given a quick review of recent and upcoming activities, followed by a speaker.

There isn’t anything really noteworthy for Gosport u3a itself. This month’s speaker was Stephen Hoadley. The title of this month’s talk was “We had one of those”. As you might have expected, it looked at the first and early versions of things like; vacuum clearners, washing machines, fridges, the Kenwood Chef, and a few others. As you can imagine, there were several shouts of “We had one of those.” And lots of laughter. Mr. Hoadley is an excellent presenter.

After the main meeting, va number of us retired to the bar area for a cup of tea (or coffee) or, in the case of David, whom I seem to sit next to every time we do on e of these, a glass of cider.

We had a good chat, covering of course u3a topics, and what we are doing in the various groups.. All very interesting and enjoyable.