Bills Posts

I managed to get my morning walk in between 8 and 9 this morning. I have this thing going on trying to find good times to walk down the high street. I’ve spent several years doing the 0600 – 0700 slot. That had it’s good and its bad sides. I reached a point where I really didn’t appreciate going out at that time. I’ve found that I can get up, I just don’t want to go out. I’ve said not long ago, that I can get up at that time, and go to work, and then take a long break at 8, to walk then.

The really early walk had its nice times, quite a lot of them actually – mainly, the #Breakfastclub and the dog walkers as we got to know each other – they were as regular as I was.

I have to confess that the 8 – 9 time is actually quite boring. Obviously, nothing is open apart from McDonalds, Greggs and a couple of convenience stores – I actually prefer the American term – Bodega. There might be a few more people around, but they are all in a rush.

I had an interesting chat with a chap who was working in the demolition site. He had SOIL on the back of his dayglo jacket. He was quite keen to talk. He was collecting soil samples to test for contaminants. He had no idea about what the plans were for the site. He said that he lives in Hythe, and that they had a similar situation of an unexploited waterfront.

It was quite a pleasant walk.

The University of the Third Age or U3A as it is known, is an institution that I am planning to join in the New Year. All U3A branches are organised into groups with various interests. I’ve been through the groups offered by The Gosport Branch. There are several that I am very interested in and will definitely make an initial visit.

In addition to the groups, there’s a monthly meet that is open to all members , that usually includes a talk. It’s usually on a Wednesday, and because of Grand Daughter Duties anything on a Wednesday or Thursday can be awkward, but I’m sure I will be able to get away for one, at least.

I do wonder if I am taking it all a little bit too seriously. The groups are meant to be fun, I think. But I will have to wait until I actually start going.

There is one minor problem, there are some topics that aren’t covered by groups that I’m interested in. I wonder what can be done about that? – That’s a rhetorical question, I know the answer, but do I want to do it. Certainly not for the first few months. I have been chatting with ChatGPT about it, and it has actually come up with some quite good suggestions. I’ll keep those in the mind.

The header picture is another one of the Marwell Meerkats, this cutie is relaxing on a nice warm rock.

just very briefly, after last nights post, I’ve managed to get a couple of widgets on to my lock screen, one for written notes and one for voice notes. They work fine. Haven’t had any ideas to use them yet, but that will come.

I have a couple of jobs to do in the morning, but then I am thinking about what to do for the day. I do have a partial plan, but we’ll see how things go.

There were a couple of times today when I had a flashing thought about some random topic to which I think “Oooh – I could blog about that”. Of course, I can’t remember what those thoughts were, which is really frustrating.

I need some means where I can very quickly make a note of the idea. There are, as far as I can tell two ways of doing this; One is to have a pen and paper and just note what it is. The other is to use the device that is nearly always by my side regardless of where I am and that is my phone. But, how to use the phone, I need a really quick way of adding a note (I’d prefer to use the notes app)

I’m working my way through the instructions on ChatGPT, but something isn’t quite right as I can’t see the app as a widget, which it is supposed to be. If I can do it, it should be really useful.

I seem to recall that I first heard about The Internet, was in the mid to late 80’s. That was through the print out of the Star Trek game, written in BASIC (Beginners All Symbolic Instruction Code) Only snag was at the time, I didn’t have access to a computer so that I could type the programme in. But I do recall that the printout had email addresses with @ sign so proper internet addresses.

Then in the early 90’s I got my first internet connection, 14K dial up modem of course, it was painfully slow, but it worked. At some point I upgraded to a 56K modem, in today’s terms, slower than a snail, almost stationary, but again it worked.

My first proper service provider was Compuserve – not really a genuine internet connection, but they did have some interesting forums where we had some interesting discussions, and arguments – oh yes the arguments. They were good. What’s sparked this post off you ask?

Today, one of the blogs that I followed made a post about (it being his contention) that photography is not art. It was actually quite a rant about his objection to it being labelled as such. The nature of the post / rant immediately took me back to those Compuserve days. In a way I miss them. I even made contact with one of the regular posters from those days – her name popped up in article. She runs a quite well known gallery / museum. I dropped her a note saying him, and reminding her of those days.

She did at least acknowledge, but I did wonder if she was cringing as she did so.

Back to today’s ranting photographer. I did put a reply to his rant. I couldn’t resist it. What about, I asked, Abstract photography? And left it at that. I wonder if he’ll respond.

You won’t have noticed that I have done practically no vlogging for quite a while – mainly because I haven’t done any vlogging. OK, yes, I have done some videoing, but mostly it was a few seconds of the demolition engines doing their thing with the bus station. Nothing really coherent or serious. I’ll also confess that this situation will continue for another few weeks.

After 02 January, I won’t be so bold as to say all bets are off, but I really do hope things will change – at least, that is my plan.

I have had to buy some new kit. I changed my phone. The new phone has a USB-C connector. A lot of my kit was set for lightning. One of the first things is a decent microphone.

I’m now getting used to the new kit, ready for when I can start recording. I really do want to start doing something. I should use the time between now and then, to do a bit of planning.

The CaraCara – a resident of the southern hemisphere. I must admit, I don’t remember them being this colourful on the Falklands.

I’ve been sat here thinking what to write about tonight; Politics – no, investing – no, railways – I’d like to, but nothing concrete at the moment. Today’s walk – Well, I did intend to go on one, almost as I was ready, it started to rain. Star Gazing? It’s cloudy. Writing an Essay – why did that pop into my head? I haven’t even thought about writing an essay since 1974. Studying? Well, I do have a free course on creative non-fiction on the go, and I wanted to do some tonight, but it is too late now.

I have had a new microphone turn up for my phone. I had to change because having changed my phone the connector has changed. I’m hoping to get out and do a bit of videoing in the morning. It will only be a minute or two, but I want to have a good chance to try it out.

i have bought a couple of books that I want to read, but I really want to get the current history book out of the so that I can start the one I bought in 2023, which I have been chomping at the bit to read, but didn’t want to without the context – most of which I now have. I’m just missing the spark that starts the conflict. You can feel it starting to build, awkward that the book keeps flitting up and down the years.

This is a bit like mini Morning Pages – I started off with nothing to write about, and just let it flow. Interesting. I may have to try this again.

Remembering; friends whom I have served with especially those no longer with us. Those who gave something special so that we could have the lives we have today. People that I don’t know, and can never know, who gave something so personal, for us.

Just remembering.