My Day

Going to bed after this.  It was a bright but chilly day, with temperatures below normal in the 50's and gusty north winds bringing them down further.  Too cold to take a walk, so I just stepped in place and did deep knee bends, which was better than nothing, but not by much.

A good day at work.  I've had jobs in the past where I hoped for nothing out of the ordinary, just wishing for one easy day after another, and inevitably feeling miserable when the unexpected occurred.  This job is at the other end of the spectrum.  I know what I'm doing and I like what I do.  If a routine task comes up, I feel confident that I know the answers and how to accomplish it.  But if something out of the ordinary arrives, I still feel confident that I'll be able to figure it out.  And eleven years ago, I was 55, hadn't had a full-time job in more than three years, and didn't see how things would get better as I got older and further from the job market.  But we never know, do we?

Outside of work:  read some more of Fred Allen's autobiography, "Much Ado About Me".  I'm at the point where he had the choice to be a full-time writer or continue as an entertainer, and he chose the latter, which for nearly anyone else would be the risky choice, but in his case was the safer, more secure one.  After his radio career ended, he used the time to write, but that only lasted until his death at age 61.  

Today's Wordlebot gave me an A (>90%) for skill at each step, but only 38% luck, so I'll accept my par 4 on a tough word.

A game of Strat with the 74-79 1958 Orioles.  Above average pitching, well-below average hitting, so games are usually close and low-scoring, and quick.  That's not what happened tonight, though.  The O's dropped an 8-5 decision to Jim Bunning and the Tigers and now stand at 21-19. 

Listened to the first episode of "One Year: 1942".  Liked the focus on everyday life in the first full year of WWII, and appreciated that they chose a little-remembered government official, Leon Henderson, to be this episode's subject.  Of course, they used FDR's "a date... which will live... in infamy" but there were plenty of sound clips that I hadn't heard.  

Used "Read Aloud" text-to-speech on an article in Le Monde.  The man who got away at age 20 comes back into her life at 40, and they live happily ever after.  Able to follow everything, understood most of it and could guess the rest from context.  Still wouldn't try to express myself in French, but it's enough that I can understand it when it's spoken clearly, and that I have the vocabulary to read a story without stopping for translation.  

Clicked a shutter hundreds of times Sunday afternoon.  Even after deleting the obviously bad ones, I still downloaded dozens of images.  Looked through them, culled some more whose flaws didn't appear until they were viewed full size.  

In the end, 24 photos made it to a final version.  This one of Walker was the best.

Walker looks confident here.  It's like he's saying, if you like me, terrific, and if for some reason you don't, well, who cares what you think?