My younger brother never arrived home last evening until maybe 8:45 p.m., so I was into my bed by 8:50 p.m. to avoid involvement with him and a late evening.
Had he arrived home by 8:30 p.m., I would have sat up and watched an episode each of three of the T.V. series we follow ─ I locate the episodes through the operation of our Android TV Box, which my brother does not understand the workings of.
I had plans for an early-morning grocery shopping expedition ─ I do not drive, so I have to walk. The store ─ the closest outlet of the Real Canadian Superstore ─ is a minimum round trip hike of 5.625 miles.
oooooooooooooo
I began this post yesterday (Saturday, August 15, 2020) using the new Blogger interface. More correctly, I had actually entirely completed the post after working on it for maybe 1½ hours.
Then I went into HTML mode to add some script for an Amazon advertisement at the very start of the post.
I placed my cursor immediately in front of the mass of data that was displaying and representing my post, for it was my intention to tab that unbroken data mass down a space to allow me to paste the Amazon code; but I could see that some sort of adverse reaction was taking place.
Then everything except that first paragraph disappeared.
I tried 'undo' a number of times, but I was met with utter inertia. Even Ctrl+Z failed to restore what had disappeared.
I reverted to Compose mode, but the data was still missing. I then backed out of the post to see if the lost text was in the draft option for the post, but all it contained was that opening paragraph.
My last hope was using the browser's back arrow to "go back one page", but successive actions using that feature merely took me beyond the point where I had even begun the post until I was completely out of Blogger.
I had to accept it ─ Blogger had deleted all but that first paragraph.
And this was the second time that Blogger's new interface had robbed me of a huge amount of work put into a post.
I am now using the legacy version of Blogger ─ this old version is friendly, familiar, and reliable.
Why do the people who get commissioned to needlessly 'improve' something like Blogger clearly have no personal blogging experience in the blogging platform they are changing?
Or if any of them do have experience with Blogger, that experience is of recent vintage ─ the new interface may suit new bloggers, but anyone who has been blogging steadfastly in Blogger for a decade or more are meeting with obstacle after obstacle in trying to make it work for them.
I have been using Blogger since September 2008 and have just over 3,500 posts. I don't blog 'occasionally', nor do I satisfy myself with a mere paragraph or two ─ I generally have rather lengthy posts.
I want nothing to do with the new Blogger.
Why will the colossal idiots at Google not hear the voices of those of us who are 'old hands' with this medium?
I understand that it's possible to migrate the data from one's Blogger blog and have it installed with a hosted WordPress website, but I don't really want to do this. And it's not because I don't want to pay for a hosted website. I in fact have an account at HostGator, and a second one at JustHost, and between them I thus have six websites presently online.
The reason I would not want to convert my Blogger blogs (I have two) into a new hosted WordPress website is because I wanted a medium that offered some longevity. A hosted website will only remain online and accessible to the world for as long as I am willing to pay to have it remain online.
But Blogger ─ being free ─ will supposedly remain online for as long as the Blogger platform exists. There are blogs online that have not had a new post published in years because the blog owner has died.
This was what I have always had in mind. I wanted something that would still be accessible to the world after I was dead, and which would be accessible for untold years to come. That won't happen with a hosted WordPress website. As soon as the hosting fee is not paid, that website is taken offline by the hosting company and the website is effectively gone.
In less than two months, I will turn 71 years of age. My life is not anything that I would identify as being rosy. And since I was a teen, I have at times possessed thoughts of suicide.
Consequently, I know that I am not some entity with an indefinite shelf life.
Frankly, it would be rather nice to have a blog in existence that outlived me for years and years to come once I am gone. That isn't going to happen with my six hosted WordPress websites. They'll be offline a month after I'm gone because I only pay for the hosting fees month by month ─ my limited pension income cannot take the full brunt of a biennual or even an annual outlay of hosting costs.
So I am only able to manage it in the present monthly 'piecemeal' fashion that I have in place.
But sometimes, I feel like I should just walk away from all of it. The new Blogger interface is certainly not helping to deflect that defeatist outlook.
oooooooooooooo
I am not going to try and recreate the lost post from yesterday. But I do want to mention finally publishing ─ after working on it for just over a month ─ a post at my website Siam-Longings: Thailand AAA.
All that effort ─ and the scores of hours ─ for a post that I seriously doubt will be of interest to anyone.
I did get out that morning and got some grocery shopping accomplished. I always try to get to the store as soon after its 7 a.m. opening as I possibly can.
Similarly, I went out early this morning to a considerably nearer store ─ an outlet of Save-On-Foods that might be a 2½-mile round trip hike.
Several posts back, I observed that August around here was a much milder month than was our hot and sunny July. Even when I would have sufficient Sun for some sunning in the backyard, there was often quite a nearly-uncomfortable cool breeze.
And the nights outside seemed damp and chilly.
Well, that all changed yesterday! It has become exceptionally hot ─ perspiration was streaming down my face this morning as I walked home from shopping, and it was only around 8 a.m.
It's scorching out there. I put in just over 40 minutes during the midday sunning my front while wearing just gym shorts; I want to give equal time to my back, but as I type these words at 1:10 p.m., the prospect is somewhat daunting.
One other item I spoke of yesterday concerned my eldest stepson ─ the 25-year-old told me that afternoon that early Friday morning just past, he was tested for his Class 6 motorcycle operator's licence ─ this is the "full privilege" licence as is described both here and here.
He originally brought (rode) his Harley-Davidson XL1200 home back on March 31 / April 1 ─ I had no idea that he was even thinking about getting a 'big bike'.
And now he has full privileges to operate it.
He's quite a brawny lad ─ a 'gym rat'. So he looks pretty good seated on the machine.
I also learned why he has not been working ─ it is not because of the original SARS-CoV-2 shutdowns that so many businesses suffered some months back.
That was initially why his place of employment suspended operation. However, the main company decided to shut down the plant entirely, leaving just two others in operation.
But neither of them are anywhere near this part of the country.
So he's been enjoying the Summer, and hopes yet to even make a motorbike trip with one or more other riders to the Okanagan later in the Summer. We live in Surrey, so it would not be just a day trip ─ camping would be involved.
After that, he plans then to seek new employment.
One other item of note concerning yesterday ─ my younger brother had his final one-on-one telephone session under the mandated Responsible Driver Program (as described here and here).
I don't know how he managed to only get placed into the eight-hour programme (and not the 16-hour version), but he had the additional good fortune to have it mandated when SARS-CoV-2 social distancing was the rage.
As a result, he never had to attend any sessions. Instead, every couple or so weeks, a counsellor would phone him early Saturday afternoon and they would have a friendly long chat. However, never were these sessions for even an hour, let alone two hours as would have been in a group session.
And it was always the same counsellor, so they established a very good rapport.
oooooooooooooo
Okay, I took a break and had that second sunning session after my day's first hot caffeinated beverage ─ my first caloric intake of the day.
Perhaps because I was lying on a pad on the backyard sundeck and had my back (as opposed to my face) to the Sun, the experience was not as oppressive as I had feared it would be.
My brother had left for the afternoon before I went out to sun, and he did so afoot. This is most unusual for a weekend, so I have no idea if he has van troubles, or if he was to hook up with one or more others for some serious partying.
If he is involved in some heavy drinking, then it is very likely that he will fail to arrive back home by 8:30 p.m. and I can have an early evening of things. This is even more likely since he will be busing.
My wife ─ who has been at Whistler since Friday, August 7 (purportedly trying her hand as a housekeeper at a hotel) ─ texted with me this afternoon, and said that she might be back tomorrow.
I had some good news for her concerning a certain mysterious flower.
A few years ago in the Fall, a number of small plants with quite large white blossoms similarly shaped like those of pea plants, suddenly began blooming in a stretch of 'garden' along one side of the walkway to our front door.
The other side of the walkway is a stretch of true garden in that it is mainly soil; whereas the stretch where the mysterious flowers appeared is thickly overlaid with the sort of reddish or brick-coloured crushed lava rock (scoria) commonly used in landscaping.
We don't even tend to water the lava rock stretch of garden because nothing is growing there. It used to contain a number of some kind of low-lying very prickly evergreen shrubs of a coniferous sort, but my wife and her two sons cut them all out a number of years ago.
They were dying in many cases, and I now realize that it was because we absolutely never watered them ─ and that stretch of garden never benefitted from rain due to being sheltered by the car port roof overhang (or eaves).
The plants were to bloom right into the Winter and seemed to defy the cold and snow until finally I expect that they died out.
And we never saw them again.
Well, this morning just as night was beginning to fade, I was watering the front yard flower gardens and I noticed in the murky gloom that there seemed to be something tiny that was blooming at the far end of that stretch of lava rock-covered garden where we had nothing planted.
I was certain that it was one of those mysterious plants that had appeared out of nowhere a few years back ─ no one here ever remembered casting any flower seeds there. And why would we? If we had flower seeds, we would have used them where there was actual soil for them to grow and flourish.
Since I began watering the front yard flower gardens last month on stretches of our driest days, I made a point of drenching the stretch of lava rock just for the heck of it ─ I have always had those mysterious flowers in mind.
So I texted my wife about the appearance of one of those plants, and she wanted me to take a photo and text it to her ─ I took this at 12:46 p.m.:
She became quite excited at this, and is eager to see the small plant for herself. I just hope that no one ─ such as my oafish brother, who parks his van right alongside that lava rock stretch of garden ─ steps on the poor tiny thing.
I took three clearer photos later in the afternoon around 3:29 p.m.:
I wish someone could identify just what the plant is!
There might even be one or two more nearby it that are only an inch or so tall at best, but I'll have to give them time to grow to ensure that they are not just weeds ─ which do often enough try to assert themselves, despite the poor garden choice.
If there are one or two other very young ones trying to rise up, they are at even greater risk of being trodden upon.
Oh, heck ─ it is 8 p.m. I have to proofread and publish this post, have a very light supper, and have myself all set to betake myself to bed if my brother is home later than 8:30 p.m.
Before I take my leave, I want to confess that I skipped today's exercise session this afternoon. It is just too darned hot in the house. At 6 p.m., I read online that it might be as high as 34º C. (93.2º F.) here in Surrey. With the afternoon Sun bathing the entire side of the house where my bedroom is, the temperatures are even more sweltering.
I just couldn't face it. And this is the second consecutive day I have shirked exercise do to the heat.
At my age of 70, I cannot afford such sloth.
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