2011 — 19 May: Thursday
I was pleased to note that my predominant emotion yesterday (while sorting through those first three storage cartons of all sorts of Christa's stuff) was actually one of mild exasperation a) that it had taken me so long to get around to doing it, and b) that she kept so much stuff frankly not worth the space it takes up. I have to admit I'd been putting off the task as I fully expected it to be an upsetting one. "It only goes to show", though quite what it shows I'm not too sure.
Meanwhile, here's another shot of Christa in 1977 in the pre-Peter days, in the vicinity of one of her birthdays (which were way too close to Christmas for comfort) and in our first house back in Old Windsor:
I suspect my previous attempt at this same scan was taken from a print rather than the original slide. No matter. You can't say she didn't look happy, can you?1 Yet here she was, miles from her family, in a foreign land, newly-hitched to a young chap still wet behind the ears. Brave girl!
Oh well, I'd better try to get some sleep ahead of our walk. I've just finished watching season #4 of "House" for the first time and must say I enjoyed it immensely. Particularly the two-part finale. G'night.
Given the evidence...
... of continuing (massive) failure in large-scale I.T. systems in (for example) the UK's National Health service over many years, not to mention continuing political meddling in that Service in any case, there's an amusing irony to the title ("All watched over by machines of loving grace") of a three-part documentary TV series coming up on BBC2. Nonetheless, it may2 just be enough to tempt me to watch my first broadcast TV this year. We shall see — or not.
Before that, there are more mundane matters to deal with: topping up dear Mama's current account before the next attack of the care-home's computerised highway robbery system, for example. Or making breakfast and a packed lunch in time to rendezvous with Brian on the way over to Mike for our walk later today. Not to mention sifting my way through the remaining 28 storage cartons. If I don't reduce the entropy in Peter's bedroom (currently cluttered by the stuff I had to move out of the way even just to get to the cartons) before he's back from the Bahamas and comes down here again, I'm unlikely to feature high on his next Christmas list for favourite Dads.
A quintillion?
Sounds like a few more than you can shake a stick at, even if it does only work out at 10 billion transistors each. (Link.)
When two technologies...
... go to war. That's to say, Mike's Garmin GPS and Brian's Android phone disagreed by about 15% on today's pleasant little stroll. I'm not certain we averaged the speed reported — nor that our lunch stop was so nearly an hour long, either. But it's good for us.
It's now a sunny evening (19:05) and I await a gentle knock on the door to go to inspect the repair work in my neighbour's flood-damaged house. [Pause] It's truly amazing just how much damage water can do when it gets loose in a house. Now that I don't have either hot or cold storage tanks, I hope the scope for such damage hereabouts is rather less.
Right. Time for some entertainment, methinks. Courtesy of Brian ("I saw this. It was only a quid. So I bought one for you as well as one for me") I now have a film I'd never even heard of (not that that's completely unheard of):
It is, indeed, a quirky little film. Quite good, though.