I feel the need to blog. An overdue letter to my pen pal Bill has been on my mind, but right now I want to blog. I’ll get to you soon, Bill.
WordPress up and changed the way bloggers write and edit posts. Or did they? Maybe I screwed something up. Either way, I don’t like it. By clicking a series of prompts in the right order I can still get to the toolbar and edit screen I’m used to, but I haven’t mastered the sequence and fumble around trying to find it.
Then, yesterday, the share button on Flickr went away. I store photos and videos on Flickr, including the ones I use here on the blog, and the share button is what generates the html code needed to insert media files into blog posts. I managed to trace the problem to the ad blocker installed on my web browser, and Flickr’s working properly again. Of course I no longer have an ad blocker, but maybe I can find a different one that’ll work with Flickr.
Buoyed by my success, I opened WordPress just now hoping it would be fixed as well, but no. Maybe it’s not me. Maybe WP “improved the user experience,” and this user’s going to have to get used to it.
So here’s a short video of Lulu and Fritzi on yesterday’s walk.
Except for the difference in size (Lulu’s a mini and Fritzi’s a standard), you’d think they were sisters. Well, they think they’re sisters, and that’s what counts. They were puppies together and are inseparable. Before you ask, Mister B, our third dachshund, is fine. He doesn’t always want to go for a walk when Lulu and Fritzi do, and that’s why he wasn’t with us yesterday.
Polly, working again, bought a new battery and insurance. She has her car back and drove it to work today. Finally, Donna has her car back, and since she’s no longer using mine, I have mine back.
Now look at what I just wrote. Isn’t it absurd for three people under one roof to have three cars? Granted, those cars are paid for, but they have to be fueled, maintained, and insured, and not one of us drives more than a couple of thousand miles in a year. The expense. The toll on the environment. There has to be a better way!
Since I haven’t inflicted watch photos on you for a post or two, let me tell you about chronographs. What’s a chronograph? Basically a watch that incorporates a timing function: a stopwatch. There are different kinds, and I think mine cover most of the bases.
These are my newest, both purchased in 2023. The one on the left is a Chinese lookalike of the Omega Speedmaster, the NASA-approved watch worn by Gemini- and Apollo-era astronauts. It has a Japanese movement that’s part quartz and part mechanical. The one on the right is quartz only, and though an American brand I believe was made in the Philippines. More than likely, it too is designed after some expensive and famous watch, but I couldn’t tell you which one. They’re great watches and are amazingly inexpensive. I love to mix and match these watches with colorful NATO straps, but they look their best in black leather.
These are my oldest. The one on the left is 34; the one on the right turns 47 this year. Both are automatics with mechanical movements. The Breitling, being Swiss, set me back a good amount. The Seiko’s the one that got me started, less than a hundred bucks new but worth a good bit more today as a vintage collectible. Both have hundreds of hours of fighter time (the Seiko probably more than a thousand), and have pulled a lot of Gs. Both come with lots of memories. I sometimes change straps on the Breitling, but the Seiko’s metal bracelet is sacrosanct and not to be messed with.
I shouldn’t admit it, but I’ve never timed anything with these chronographs. In my flying days, whenever I needed to time a turn or measure speed between points, I used the big clock on the instrument panel, which had a hack button and doubled as a stopwatch. Since I never took up coaching field and track in retirement, I really have no need for a chronograph today. But they’re cool and I love wearing them. What can I say?