Monday – Walking in circles

Where is our global warming? It was cold this morning, only 18 degrees F when I woke up. The water in the bird bath was frozen solid, my next chore will be putting in a deicer for the winter months.

Proud Dad

I was proud of myself for walking about three miles at the “Bubble”, the airframe athletic center at Franklin Pierce University. However my daughter successfully completed a BAA half marathon in Boston on Saturday. I was walking and she was running. I’m a proud dad.

Less boring than a treadmill

Making numerous laps around a track in the “Bubble” is less boring than a treadmill. At least I can watch people lift weights, play pickleball and shoot baskets. I almost made three miles, a pittance of my daughter’s thirteen mile accomplishment and I didn’t even have a hill to climb.

Choring around

I wondered why there was a puddle of water on the floor in front of the sink. Did I spill something? Nothing lasts forever and I noticed the drain had completely rotted away and separated. I was about to contact plumber until I remembered that the solution is on YouTube. There was no time to tackle this chore today so I fashioned a sign that states “No Liquids” and placed it in the sink. Wish me luck tomorrow when I will “Chore around” and fix it.

Bluesky Social (and others)

Some people collect baseball cards. I collect social media accounts. Someone sent me an invite to the latest offering named “Bluesky”. It was an initiative by Jack Dorsey the former CEO of Twitter to develop a decentralized social network. I am already a member of “Mastodon” which is also decentralized. However the decentralized protocols are incompatible and don’t speak to each other. Zuckerberg’s “Threads” is also supposed to be a “Twitter” killer but they can’t even manage to give it a web interface, phone only. My favorite so far is “Spoutible” which has a cute whale icon and a fun Daily Picture Theme posting which I follow. I’ll list my collections below.

• https://bsky.app/profile/poltraxx.bsky.social (I had an invite, quiet out there)
• https://mastodon.world/deck/@John38E (Mastodon reprints these posts)
• https://spoutible.com/StrangeLife (Fun and useful)
• https://www.instagram.com/johnpoltrack/ (I guess this is Threads)
• https://www.trustcafe.io/en/user/poltracknet/posts/posts (Used to be WT.Social)
• Ello (I couldn’t figure it out and apparently no one else could either)
• https://www.facebook.com/poltrack/ (Facebook of course)
• https://poltrack.substack.com/ (Useful for blogging, but it isn’t as rich as WordPress)

Writing Letters (again)

I need to be more like James Roger. I have been posting his diary entries for a New Ipswich Historical Society Newsletter. His entries have inspired me to make daily postings on this website. He also introduced the term “Choring Around”. Once in a while he will write “Loafing” but the most of the time he was really busy with his poultry business. He was friends with Leonard R. Willard who was the town photographer, another chicken farmer and house painter.

These diaries were written in the early twentieth century. I am currently posting ones written in November 1912. James mentions in almost every entry that he writes letters and post cards. I suspect that very few of us do that anymore, except perhaps the yearly brag letter sent with a Christmas card. I was inspired today to send a brief letter to my Cousin Andee (Andrea). I used to write her often when she was in college and I was in high school. The letter was sent today. Coincidently when I received my mail today, she had sent me a note about tripping over her son’s Akita and dislocating her shoulder. My poor dear cousin.

What kind of cousin synchronicity is taking place when our letters literally pass each other? This is a sign and tomorrow I will send her another missive. Send her healing thoughts, she is a lovely person.

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