Light Rail

The light rail service that serves a couple of the neighborhoods north of Seattle - nowhere even close to walking distance of where I live, but within easy driving distance - officially opened this weekend.  I didn't attend the opening festival, which was weirdly on a Friday rather than a Saturday.  And although I've been critical of the disruption caused by the construction of this line, I'm glad it's open.  I'm not exactly going to be a frequent user of the service, but I think I might occasionally use it to go into downtown.  But that crucially depends on the availability of parking.  I've no idea how big the lots are, or how expensive they are.  Indeed, I've got no idea if the travel card that I get through work works on this light rail service.  I think I will have to test this all out one weekend soon.      

Alone

I was watching the season finale of Alone last night (my favo(u)rite survival competition series), and I was struck by how few survival skills I possess.  Let's be honest, I have absolutely zero survival skills.  I've never fished, hunted or foraged for anything in my life.  I wouldn't be able to build a shelter, I wouldn't know how to prepare and cook a fish, bird or animal (not that I would ever be able to catch one) and I doubt I'd even be able to start a fire.  I think the mental part of the game, the actual alone bit of the show "Alone" which seems to cause a lot of contestants the most trouble, is the only part that I would be good at.  After all, I've had plenty of practice being alone for most of my adult life  - and I would really, REALLY, welcome spending time somewhere in the middle of nowhere.  In my current mood, the prospect of spending a day and night not being disturbed by the sound of another human being would be a blessing.  In fact, it's made me want to find some isolated wooden cabin on Airbnb that I could spend a weekend at.      

DVR

This summer has been an absolute disaster when it comes to my attempt to clear my DVR.  Instead it's over 50% full and I've somehow accumulated over 55 recordings of various TV shows, films and documentaries that I need to get through.  The recordings date from about April this year up to last weekend.  However, I haven't given up getting through them all quite quickly.  With the decline of non-streaming TV, there are very few new shows getting added to my DVR - certainly nothing from network TV, with it's endless and mindless quiz shows.  So with nothing else to watch in the evenings, aided by a concerted effort to cut down on the amount of football I watch this season, it shouldn't take me long to get through the recordings.  However, my track record is hardly inspiring - my attempts to watch all the Sopranos episodes or all the Bond films have sadly stalled.      

iPhone

It's time I got a new iPhone.  I've currently got an iPhone 11, which is nearly 5 years old now.  The new iPhones have better cameras, better performance and, perhaps most significantly, use 5G - something which the iPhone 11 does not.  The problem is - it's so expensive.  An unlocked iPhone 15 is going to cost me at least $830.  Plus tax.  Plus all the accessories you need to get (like a case).  It all adds up, and it's ridiculous.  Do I take the chance on paying less for a refurbished phone?  I probably won't risk it.  I believe that because I, theoretically, use my phone for work then my company will pay me something like $200 towards a phone.  But naturally this little benefit was impossible to find on the company internal website - I guess they don't want to freely advertise it.  I need to do more digging.            

End of Summer

Are we already at the point where there won't be any sunsets after 8 pm for the rest of the year?  It feels like this summer has passed really quickly.  I've hardly done any evening walks, which feels like a wasted opportunity.  The last week or so has felt more like "fall" weather - in fact a number of cold temperature records for August have been broken all along the west coast recently.  However, it's looking like the upcoming Labor Day weekend (which is our bank holiday weekend) is going to be a sunny one.        

Is it the weekend yet?

I hate Mondays (no bank holiday for us).

Spiders

I don't know whether it's due to the very wet weather we've had recently, whether it's just that time of year, or whether it's just coincidence - but I've been encountering a lot of spiders in my home over the last few days.  And these are not just small ones, but big enough to give you the creeps.  Enough to leave a big mess when you squash them (ideally I will just use my Dyson on them, but sometimes that just isn't convenient).