The Countdown Continues

Days to retirement: 109
I’ve just finished final week 12 to put it the other way.

Bad weather is still the best law enforcement peacekeeper around. So long as it’s cold and wet I get to obtain a good night’s sleep. Thursday morning, however, I was awakened by the chirping of my smoke alarm letting me know its battery was running low. So report me to the authorities, I haven’t gotten around to replacing that battery yet; at least the one upstairs outside my bedroom still works. When I do get around to going out I need to put gasoline in my car. Guess it’s pointless to wait for it to improve, lately the price just keeps rising. So do the oil company profits--ironic how that works. In Burma the military junta in charge would rather let its people die than allow foreign aid workers onto their soil to distribute food and water. Again the issue of political sovereignty comes into question. I’d be extremely suspicious about handing over cash to a regime that has been victimizing its own people for years; I may be getting old and cynical but I’d expect them to line their own pockets and spend the money on arms to support their continued suppression of any dissent. Of course, given the circumstance anyone entering the hardest hit areas would need military support of some kind or they’d be stampeded by the starving, dehydrated masses.

On the subject of the environment this week marks the start of the West Nile Virus season. If global warming continues Malaria will soon be following. The cyclone that hit South-East Asia is only one sympton of the problem that is now a world-wide phenomenon. For the moment tree pollen is my main issue, Oak tree pollen having just peaked. The fact the Oak pollen is still an issue means that at least some have survived Oak Decline. The maples outside my window are in full leaf at this point. Birches are no longer much of an issue here in our urban setting as unless they are regularly treated with poison they do not survive. The flowering crabs are already beginning to open.

I’ve been lazy this week, eating out 4 of the 5 work days. When I get home I just can’t seem to manufacture the energy to cook. At least I get some nutrition this way but having so many different people handle the food you eat is hard on the digestive system. My excuse for not shopping is my attempt to empty my deep freeze before I start travelling.

Spent considerable time getting my portable aps suite up and running on my thumb drive last weekend. I still need to copy my bookmarks into portable Firefox. Unfortunately the import facility doesn’t appear to be compatible with Windows Vista. The list of programs available just keeps growing. I just need to remember that there is a finite amount of space on my thumb drive. The portable menu cannot be stopped in Windows Vista unless one uses the Task Manager to close it.

I’ll write about the movies I’ve been watching in my movie blog and restore the shortcut to my main blog when I get around to it. First I want to catch up on my weekend reading and Weekend America in iTunes. I spent yesterday catching up on E-mail and browsing; then did some computer house-cleaning and housekeeping. There always seems to be something that needs updating.

We’ll see if submitting my blog from PolyEdit works better than it did from Word.