Productivity has dipped here. Content is not being created at the pace it once was.

Part of that may be attributed to local events. A mayoral election in Jacksonville has absorbed a great deal of my attention, and much of my energy is expended on Twitter.

The election is May 16th, and I plan to remove my Twitter presence by the 18th. However it goes, I'll be interested in reviewing the reactions. But Twitter has gotten worse. I'd originally planned to leave my profile up, but I think I'll just delete the whole thing. I've downloaded an archive, which I've been unsuccessful at importing into micro.blog. I'll investigate that when I have more energy/interest. It always seems to start uploading, but then stalls. It's a huge archive, which I suppose may be a problem.

In other news, I think I'll be ending my subscription to HBOMax after it transitions to whatever "Max" will become. Perhaps it's just another sign of becoming a grumpy old man, but I've always had a positive view of the HBO brand, and I don't want to pay for "unscripted, reality content." That's called "life," and I get that for free, whether I want it or not. Well, "free" as in witnessing it.

I bought a bunch of Joni Mitchell CDs to fill gaps in my music library. I'd forgotten how much I don't care for "jewel cases." They're so fragile! To say nothing of being plastic. Why not just make them out of nice card stock? Anyway, the Blue CD wasn't readable in two CD players, which was a first. I have an external CD/DVD drive that can burn CDs (I think DVDs too), so I put the disc into that to see if I could rip it. Interestingly, I could. So I ripped it, and then burned it back to a CD-R. Plays fine.

I bought a bunch of CD-R and DVD-R discs at a local Goodwill recently. Since my "digital rights" expire with me, I figured I could burn some albums and playlists that my kids might enjoy to remember me by. Will they? Who knows? But I'll also burn the playlist of digital music I bought to accompany the commemoration slideshow I created for my Dad. In fact, I should probably burn that to DVD as well.

I've been doing pretty well printing a photo card for Mom every day. Having just written that, I'll note that I missed yesterday. But, for the most part, she usually receives one card a day. I've had to start adding "Mom" as a keyword to mark photos I've sent her, because I'll be looking for something I think would be nice, then wondering if I've already sent her that one.

I'm still carrying the OM-1 (the OM Digital Systems one, not the film camera) with me on my walks, but haven't seen many birds. A few, but they don't seem to be around as much lately.

Yesterday was Earth Day. Since Wednesday is trash day, Mitzi and I went out last Tuesday evening to pick up trash along the main road around here, Crosswater Parkway. Took the golf cart. I thought we might try to do the whole length along our development, but I think that's a couple of miles at least, and my back was only good for maybe a half a mile. Still, got a pretty good haul of trash. Mostly those snack bags that blow out of people's golf carts, fair amount of plastic water bottles, one beer bottle, plastic grocery bags, a few cans, not much paper. There is a pick-up effort by the local community development board, and it must have happened recently because it wasn't as bad as it looked the last time I'd driven the golf cart.

Lots of golf carts passed us as we worked, and Mitzi saw something fall out of one of them. They're blazing by at close to 20mph, and she wasn't able to get their attention. Turned out to be an umbrella, in good working order. It'll go to a donation center.

Weather's going to start getting hot and humid soon, so I don't know if we'll be making another such effort in the near term. Maybe. I did see a lot of dragonflies and butterflies, so I may just bring a camera along and take pictures, even if I don't pick up trash.

I guess that's about it for now. Hopefully productivity will improve soon. If not, well, "Ya get what ya pay for," right?

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:04 Sunday, 23 April 2023