Pyro

My neighbor is at it again.  Almost every single time I've glanced out of my kitchen window or headed outside since I came back from the UK, I can see smoke billowing out from a bonfire in my neighbor's yard.  What and why is he burning so much?  It's certainly nothing in his yard, because he cut down all his trees.  I seriously wonder whether he is some kind of pyromaniac.  Or someone gave him firewood as a gift for Christmas.  But to be burning so much, especially when it's so damp and rainy outside, is just plain weird.  Conversely, I guess it's also a bit weird for me to be so bothered about it.  It's not like it's close enough for me to be bothered by the smoke or anything (if I was, then you and he would definitely hear about it!).  But I've noticed that at some point over the Christmas period this neighbor has also added a load of outdoor lighting to his yard.  And it's incredibly bright.  Again, it's probably not the kind of thing that should really bother me.  But it does.  But it's not like I can do anything about it other than wait until the foliage grows back again and hopefully blocks my view of his yard - out of sight, out of mind.       

Advent Calendar

It's been a couple of weeks, but meant to highlight the advent calendar I got this Christmas.  Wanted to go for something different than a bog-standard chocolate one, so plumped for a rock, mineral and fossil one instead.  More for kids, but whatever.  This is what you were supposed to get in the calendar:

And this is what I actually got:

Not bad and I think I got one of each, but a couple of the rocks were quite indistinct and difficult to tell what they were.  Was the extra expense worth it?  Probably not.  But that likely won't stop me getting something similar next Christmas.

January 6th

On the third anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol, I'm greeted on the BBC website by an article with the headline "January 6th: The day that still divides America".  The very fact that such a heinous event has not united the country in it's disgust is extremely disconcerting.  If you've seen the footage, heard the testimonies, etc. then there simply cannot be any misinterpretation of the events.  There shouldn't be any sort of partisan divide in how the attack is perceived.  It was a mob of Trump supporters vandalizing and looting the US Capitol, assaulting police and hunting down politicians with the intention to cause them serious harm.  Yet Trump will persist in his baseless claims of having the 2020 election stolen from him.  Which in turn leads to all his ridiculous false allegations of it being a peaceful protest or that the FBI instigated the actions or whatever other nonsense him and his team come up with.  And the fact that millions of people fall for Trump's intentional misinformation is why I totally agree with Biden that Trump is a major threat to democracy.  And the thought of him winning the election this year is really, really disturbing.  Yet, unbelievably and shockingly, a very real possibility.  Surely the US cannot be this insane?  I fear it can.  

Syncing

Something very weird has happened between my iPhone and my email.  The mail app on my phone decided not to sync properly with my email account, so that a bunch of emails I received never appeared in the mail app.  I only realized this when I logged onto my e-mail account from my work computer, and noticed that I had a load of unread emails that I didn't know about.  And, even more bizarre, I noticed that I was no longer getting a sound notification when I received an email.  I went into my iPhone settings, and notifications were turned off for my email account.  What the hell is that about?  I didn't make those changes, and the software on my phone has not been updated for a while.  So I don't know how this could've happened.  I hate technology.  Well, let's see if my fix of deleting and then re-adding the email account to my phone works.  So far so good.  Though this only supports the decision I've already made that I want to get a new iPhone this year.   

Heathrow

I'm back in the US now.  What can I say about my journey back?  Well for starters, I'm really starting to dislike travelling through Heathrow.  It's such an impersonal experience because, clearly in an attempt to eliminate jobs, you hardly interact with anyone.  You check in online.  You arrive at the terminal to be greeted by these giant automated cleaning machines (like roombas on steroids, the kind of machines that will hunt you down when they inevitably become sentient).   You print your boarding pass from a check in machine (something which I've had loads of problems with it not being able to read my passport in the past, but fortunately not this time).  You queue up for bag drop, which is also a machine where you have to print and put on your own checked bag tags.  But I found a major flaw with this.  I didn't get an upgrade this time (no surprise, given the lack of human interaction and a not very full flight), but I am a bronze executive club member (hopefully not too far away from being a sliver member, which entitles me to a lot more perks - including access to the airport lounge).  Bronze privileges include being able to use the business class check in (but apparently not business bag drop, which would be a lot more beneficial - apparently there is a separate check-in area I could've used, but I didn't know this) and supposedly priority baggage arrival (I had priority labels on my luggage flying into London).  But I never got a chance to print these on this journey.  And hence I went from my luggage supposed to be one of the first to come off the airplane, to my luggage literally being the last bags to come onto the carousel in Seattle.  And I was starting to really panic that my luggage had been lost, and then I feared I'd be stuck at the end of the massive security queues (because, for inexplicable reasons, you have to pick up all your luggage now in Seattle before you go through security).  But the wait wasn't long this time because they shockingly actually had loads of people manning the security desks, which they didn't the last time I came through here.  What is also disconcerting in Heathrow is that you're supposed to get a thorough check of your documentation before dropping your bags off - but the one stressed out employee dealing with everyone gave only a cursory look.  I could easily see people arriving in the US and not being able to get in.  As for the flight itself, I feared the worst - the boarding process was shambolic (not done by groups, and you had to take a bus from the gate to the airplane and then climb the stairs to enter it - where you were exposed to the wet and windy weather).  And then I get to my seat and find it occupied.  But that actually worked out - I took the woman's seat instead (which was the same row as mine but the opposite side of the plane) and because there were loads of spaces on the flight, I was able to nab a window seat nearby with nobody next to me.  So that's about as good as you're going to get without an upgrade to business class.  Despite the windy weather, the flight departure wasn't delayed by much and wasn't as rocky as I feared it might be.  But despite all this, I still didn't get much sleep on the flight.  So I'm back now and once again it will probably take my body clock a while to readjust back to my routine here. 

TV Theme Tunes #62

A classic children's theme.

I only picked this, because then I get to share some YouTube videos I've been enjoying recently, like the following (warning: extremely rude language alert).

Godalming

Grabbed this shot in Godalming the other day of what Google Maps tells me is a stream called "Hell Ditch".  Nice.