Everyone has something one can contribute to society

think it’s fair to say that this year’s summer vacation is still the best I’ve had since I was a teenager. Vacations are always fun, but this year I feel very productive and this coming Monday we plan to do a long journey for Rianne’s birthday, then we’ll enjoy another week of this 3-week vacation.

We are not keeping idle, as being too idle leads to boredom and boredom can lead to misery. Sitting in front of the TV all day long, for instance, was never associated with contentment. Many old (elderly) people do this as they have limitations on their movement and motoric activity, plus they’re retired.

Contrary to what IBM and GAFAM want us to think (because they can barely pay salaries anymore), retirement at 40 isn’t feasible.

T is “proper rainy” today (steady rainfall, not sporadic drizzles) and it feels good, for a change. We need lots and lots of rain. In fact, today we stay home, which means more output like fun (not strictly leisurely) blogging.

This past Sunday I cleaned the pavements here and it felt like I was doing a good job while listening to Discman. I didn’t know the cost of that task though; there was a lot of dust and even though I wore a musk a lot of the dust was still being inhaled and the dust gave me a runny nose for 3 days. That finally got resolved (fully) some time yesterday. So I will no longer work on the floor (I planned to do another round this coming weekend), I will do that again another season, maybe only on a wet/flooded floor where dust remains stuck to the ground. Oddly enough I did not have this sort of problem in past years. I am not sure why.

Housework and housekeeping aren’t worth compromising one’s health.

UST 10 days from now it’ll be the last day of August. It has been a very hot summer.

It’s the warmest season and it won’t be over next month, as some expect further dry spells.

By some standards, summer ends in 1.5 weeks from now:

We are now into the first week of meteorological summer, which began on June 1 and will last until August 31, with autumn beginning on September 1.

Meteorologists divide the seasons up according to weather rhythms and the Gregorian calendar, states the Royal Meteorologists Society (RMETS).

But there is also the astronomical calendar, which marks out summer as being from June 21 until September 21, with autumn beginning the next day and lasting until December 21.

Castlefield, 2013:

think we’ve had a healthy amount of rain today, if not to fill the reservoirs, then at least to replenish and water some local plants, including lawns.

Today a lot was getting done and I even had a one-hour afternoon nap, which is rare.

Today we test some new software and new changes made to the sites.

T is turning out to be a hyper-productive day with lots of stuff done (offline stuff) and some good news online. Tomorrow we plan to go out, seeing that the ‘hired guns’ have not (yet) decided to bother us during this vacation.

This coming weekend I plan to mend many old shoes using superglue. It’s a long tedious task, but it does in fact repair or extend the life of shoes we’ve long had and still like.

Shoemaking is a lost art because of sweatshops and the local shoe repair shops seem to have (almost entirely) gone out of business. The equipment they have is irreplaceable and one common worry is that today’s shoes are made of shoddy material that is difficult to repair properly.

T was “15 years ago when I first met Rianne,” I said earlier this year. “It was at a birthday party of a friend of hers and a friend of mine. We started chatting randomly and soon figured out we had a lot in common, including our Computer Science background.”

A month from now we have our wedding anniversary (Sept. 18^th) and exactly a week from now Rianne celebrates her birthday. Today I asked her what balloon colours she wanted. She said purple. So I got that!

It’s nice that Rianne’s birthdays always happen during holidays/vacations, but jealous snakes fancy trying to spoil these in recent years. Let’s see if they will try the same again this year.

Misogynists generally can’t help it. Nothing infuriates them more than seeing people who are 1) happy and 2) in love.

EXT week it is Rianne’s birthday and we plan to celebrate somewhere nearby. Technically we’re still on holiday for 15 days to come and we’re enjoying every moment of it. We spend more time offline and go to the park to feed many birds amid a worrying drought.

We predict that later this week some thugs in London will try to bully us again; it would be a giant own goal if they attempted to do so.

Yesterday I discussed with a friend how Web search is getting worse over time, maybe by intention (intent would be difficult to prove though).

Is there any in “Tech” that is actually still improving?