2008 — 14 September: Sunday
Heavens! It's 01:18 already. I've been tinkering gently with a problematic picture. It's a slide Mike took in the evening of Saturday 27th May, 1989.1 He had invited us over for a barbecue (and, if I recall, my first-ever exposure to one of his delicious industrial strength Margharitas — not being a driver back then, I could indulge!)
In his words, "you were both (as subjects) too far away from the camera when the flash went off, so they are horribly under-exposed".
Update: He was kind enough to let me rescan the original slide this afternoon and use the Nikon software to do some of the manipulation, so the version you can see here is somewhat better than the variant I was struggling with about 17 hours earlier:
Christa and Bryan, one evening in Winchester, May 1989
That's an elderly lady called "Lady" in the foreground, by the way. Bryan used to "show" Afghans. One of them once took Christa for a gentle drag on one memorable walk, too. I remember the weather that weekend was hot and sticky (Southampton had reached 29C which mildly impressed Carol over in Florida) and I was taking a week off, partly to get out of the very hot "temporary" offices2 at Hursley.
G'night.
Oh, for the open (country path)... dept.
It's 08:25 and the weather currently looks likely to sustain one more walk before the next wall of rain socks us in the eye. So, some brekkie, and another packed lunch, and it will be off we go again. I shall be needing some new boots at this rate. I wonder where on earth Christa found me the last ones?
The author of "The Bell curve" is at it again, but it's an interesting piece asking whether too many people go to college:
First, we will set up a common goal for every young person that represents educational success. We will call it a B.A. We will then make it difficult or impossible for most
people to achieve this goal. For those who can, achieving the goal will take four years no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward for reaching the goal
that often has little to do with the content of what has been learned. We will lure large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability or motivation to try to achieve
the goal and then fail. We will then stigmatize everyone who fails to achieve it.
What I have just described is the system that we have in place. There must be a better way.3
Now here's a thought: how many birthdays have you had? (You'll find an answer here.) It also is the place to find a webmaster's lament. Good stuff.
Back again
Not an over-inspired walk, but six plus miles in the fresh air is still a lot better than none. And I got back (just) in time to swing by a foody shop and a petrol shop, too. Not to mention popping an item of mis-directed snail mail into its proper letterbox a couple of hundred yards away. But (to quote from Spencer Johnson's "Who moved my cheese?" [which I have not the faintest intention of reading, ever]) where the devil has Waitrose now decided to keep its packaged cheese? Beats me, chief. Hence I predict a trip into Eastleigh and Lidl in my near future.
I also predict a spot more garden tidying up ahead of this week's green bag collection. But can I have a fresh cuppa first, please?
Antiques ahoy
I've just watched another fascinating Antiques Roadshow on the BBC HD channel. One of the PVRs is meanwhile catching a 1972 Robert Redford movie ("The Candidate") that I remember watching in the cinema when it first came out. There's also a promising movie ("Someone Else") on later this evening, but man cannot live by TV alone. Man also needs an occasional bath and laundry session!
I had no idea an Aeroflot subsidiary operated Boeings, but note that one has crashed on a flight from Moscow. Dangerous things, aircraft. Big Bro take note.