iHate

I probably sound like a broken record, but have I said how much I hate Apple, iTunes, my iPod and my iPhone?  I was downloading some photos from my iPhone and iPod to my computer, and I made the fateful decision to accept some software updates.  What a disaster.  All my carefully chosen display settings, podcasts I had subscribed to, music I had saved, and probably other things I haven't even realized yet are gone.  What a nightmare - a pain in the ass to try to recreate everything I had before (I'm sure there's podcasts that I had subscribed to that I won't ever hear again).  Every time I do one of these updates that is supposed to improve things, something invariably goes wrong.  Frustrating.

Here are some photos from Thursday:

Happy Navaratri!

I’m not going to use up one of my valuable vacation days on yesterday’s unplanned day off.  Instead, I’m going to use my designated floating holiday.  This is one holiday day per year that we can use, but it doesn’t carry forward to the next year unlike vacation days.  Previously, the floating holiday could be any day of the year we chose.  But, inexplicably, this year they changed the rules so that you could only use this day on +/- 2 weeks of your birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Veterans Day, a day before or after 4th July, Christmas Eve, or a religious holiday.  Kind of ridiculous – I don’t know why this is so restrictive.  So, I am taking the designation of a “religious holiday” very liberally – and if anyone asks then I took off yesterday to celebrate the Hindu holiday of Navaratri.  Let’s see what kind of can of worms I’m opening up with this... I fear quite a substantial one.  

Mount St Helens - Windy Ridge

Today was probably the last warm and sunny day in the Pacific NW this year, so I made the most of it - I took the day off work and went to Mount St Helens.  But to an area of Mount St Helens that I hadn't been to before - the east side, called Windy Ridge (and yes, it was windy!).  There is a reason I hadn't been here before - it's not easy to get to (4 hours 1-way, on rough roads - made worse by driving through forests where alternating sunlight and shadow on the road makes it impossible to see where you're driving) and is nowhere near as developed as the west side which I went to earlier this summer.  But you get to see a lot more of the devastation that the volcano caused this side.  And it's a lot less crowded, which is good.  There aren't many trails (I think my main exertion was going up a hill at the end of the road for the best view of the area), but plenty of viewpoints on the way.  It's probably best seen in the morning when the light is best, but I only got there in the afternoon - not really a choice, I had to set off after the morning rush hour and get back after the evening rush hour.  I wobbled a bit this morning about whether to bother going or not, but glad I did in the end.

Photos to follow.  

Doodles

I’ve always been a doodler – doodling away during lessons, lectures and meetings throughout my life.  My doodles tend to be meaningless – something to occupy my mind and to stave away the boredom.  But I’m sure you can gleam some insight into my subconscious and inner mind from them.  Take, for example, my doodles from a meeting this week.

 Note the subtle clues as to what I thought about the meeting.

President Dotard Trump

A Trump update.  Where to start…  I think picking a fight with professional athletes was a big mistake – these people are influencers and have the potential to cause him major harm.  And he claims his statements were not racist – I say BS.  He criticized basketball and American football players – which are predominantly black – but praised NASCAR drivers, who are exclusively white.  And I don’t think he understands the point of kneeling or sitting during the national anthem – it’s not to disrespect America or the armed forces, but to draw attention to institutional racism.  And, perhaps most importantly, they have the constitutional right to protest this way.  I also don’t think he knew that Puerto Rico was an American territory  - he didn’t say anything about the devastation there for a long time before finally criticizing the infrastructure.  And all of this was after the most recent saber rattling between the US and North Korea.  Trump and his administration’s contradictory and inflammatory statements only make the situation more dangerous and more confusing – I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again, DELETE HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT.  Kim Jong Un and Trump were trading insults like petty children – though I commend Kim’s (or his translator’s) use of the word dotard to describe Trump.  A perfect word.

USPS Sucks

It was my nephew’s birthday last week, so naturally I sent him a birthday card.  Not just a regular birthday card, but one that came with music and movement.  This was my first time posting one of these – a similar card for my niece I didn’t need to post because I was back in the UK.  So, with the card not being particularly flat I expected to have to pay extra postage.  What I discovered when I went to the post office was that the card was so lumpy and didn’t fit through a regular mail slot (or at least the one they had at this post office) that it had to be classified as a package rather than a card.  So I had to fill in a customs form (for a birthday card!), and then pay for the postage of it as a parcel rather than a card.  Oh boy.  It cost me 10 times as much to post this card as it would a regular card – what a swizz.  So I’m sorry to say to my nephew and niece, you will not ever be receiving any cards like this from me again unless I can deliver them in person.  I hope my nephew appreciated the effort (though I suspect he preferred all the many other bigger and better things he probably got – hopefully including the Paw Patrol stuff I got him)!

Star Trek

So, I watched the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery today - the new Star Trek series.  This will likely be the only episode I see - since this episode was on network TV, but the rest you have to pay extra to stream.  Which I won't.  So I hate the way they are releasing this.  And to be honest, I didn't care much for the episode - I didn't like the uniforms, the credits, the aliens (especially the Klingon makeover) and the overly obvious female perspective.  Politically correct - yes.  In the best traditions of Star Trek - unnecessary.  I don't know how it compares to the last Star Trek TV series with Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, which I never watched.  But I grew up with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and no matter how bad some of those episodes were nothing will compare to it.  This new series may be perfectly entertaining and perfectly watchable - but unless it's truly outstanding through it's run, its never going to be classic.  It's not even going to reach the contemporary level of Battlestar Galactica, since the Star Trek universe is too established and too limiting.  But at least it's better than the truly horrendous and lamentable The Orville currently also airing - which is more of a Galaxy Quest spoof of Star Trek, but is still inexcusably bad.