My blog a few weeks ago talked about the 3 book swaps I've visited in my home county over the last few weeks. Two are housed in old red BT phoneboxes. There is also a fantastic website that tracks all these old boxes, categorises them on location or current usage (book swap, defib etc). Check out the K6 project; https://www.thek6project.co.uk If you're interested in seeing what your own county has to offer in terms of old phoneboxes. Anyway, I'm also still spending time looking at (previous…

My name is Robert, and I have hemorrhoids. It’s almost at that A.A. introduction level when hemorrhoids get mentioned (on the few occasions when someone even dares to speak about it). It still carries a lot of embarrassment and stigma, even though around 50% of us have it. Why is that? Maybe because it’s about a place where the sun doesn’t shine. Maybe that’s why people feel it’s a pain in the ass to talk about it. It’s a sore subject. Not speaking about it also leads to misunderstandings. More…

While on the bus on my way to work this morning the thought occurred to me that I should really make an effort to get back into meditation. To be honest I’ve been having this thought on and off for quite a while, but something about the way I thought about it today was different, I guess. Today it felt like a thing I should actually make an attempt at.A few years back I had a decent meditation habit going for quite a while, and I most definitely noticed the positive effects meditation can have…

A dull cool morning but a nice sunny afternoon. Mopped the office out this morning. Brushed up around bins. Burnt heap at back of Joe’s. Cut 2 trees.

And somehow, if I get to trying it, I am often able to enjoy it. A side of me thinks my taste is pretty good because of this. I’ve never finished a book or videogame thinking that it wasn’t worth it. To tell the truth, I also happen to get recommendations from friends and reviewers with good taste, excellent podcasts, YouTubers I trust, and all the cool bloggers that I follow here, there is so much good stuff to enjoy, I rarely put myself in a position where I think of something as a slog. I…

For reasons, I recently went into a part of the city known for particularly confusing and bad parking signs and photographed a bunch of them. Los Angeles has uniquely terrible parking signs. Sometimes you'll see a pole with four or so different panels on it, each outlining a different set of rules which must be compared and overlapped. Parking is the worst in areas where district parking permits overlap with public infrastructure like schools, hospitals, police stations, and commercial loading…

My old friend Stephen has started a blog, Sout.ca, using the very simple (and inexpensive) Pika platform.From his first post:Anything except the fact, for me, that social media is heartbreaking. And sickening. So to some degree, this is a replacement for social media for me. And that means that I hope to hear from people. I will tell my funny little stories and in response many people will finger paint. I might finger paint myself.Stephen is decamping from Facebook, where he’s been writing for…

I have been reading up on the auto industry since I was a young tween, going back to at least 1981 for my first-ever issue of Car & Driver. While I had forgotten the cars reviewed in that issue, I remember it being the magazine's debut of longtime auto journalists Jean Jennings (née Lindamood) and the unforgettable Csaba Csere. This was back when LJK Setright, a man whose life seems too preposterous to be real, wrote the back page articles for C&D. There's something to be said for being able to…

Reading on the goSome thoughts on reading while on different forms of transportation Airplane 3/5 - In theory this is a great setting but falls flat the moment you're on the plane. The seats are tiny and uncomfortable and there's the horrible airplane sound to contend with I'm sure the experience in first class is better but that ain't my tax bracket so Eurostar 4/5 - Smooth with fairly smooth with minimal interruptions. Loses a point since there's a non-zero chance you end up next to a crying…

Our neighbour's pyracantha, withour red leaved vine scrambling through it, makes a glorious combination in the morning sunlight.

Today in the drum class, I gave up playing the song I was practicing. I had already spent three days learning it, and still couldn’t play it properly. In particular, I couldn’t keep the right tempo. I realized that I shouldn’t try anymore and decided to give up on it. I am largely an autodidact in many interests of my life. I taught myself programming, reading music, running etc by reading books, watching videos, listening to people. A big part of learning by oneself is knowing when to give up.…

As part of my recent website redevelopment, I added a suite of slashpages (indexed at /slashes)1. /pfp is a new one, and I've got mine here! I'm not sure this particular standard will ever reach the status of being truly well-known or widely-used, but I like it as a concept. /pfp is an archive of the "profile pictures" you've used over the years, chronologically-arranged. As such, it acts as sort of a time capsule and sort of a timeline of how I've "presented" myself online over the decades. I…

Cameras spotted during a house inspection I’ve mentioned before that I would love to see some more photos on blogs. Even if text is the main thing on your blog, a photo every now and then is such a lovely bonus for me as a reader. Maintaining a gallery is a bit of a hassle on most indie platforms. I’ve tried various ways of doing it, but it always ends up the same way: I forget to update it. Therefore, I decided to create a /photo slash page. Like a /now page, but just for photography. One…

From New England to Scotland, from West Sussex to Denbighshire I’m home…I am home and Coalbridge Street has returned to an upper shelf in the workshop, destined to slumber for a few months I’m sure, whilst the warm lights glow on Lochdubh and Paxton Road and I ponder how you could share my experience of ‘arriving’ home…For whilst Coalbridge is small, this pair are tiny; to share their magic would mean letting people stand almost nose to the fascia. It is an interesting conundrum - these…

The weight of adulthood has felt extra heavy lately. Maybe it’s weird to say it that way, when I’m halfway through my 30s. I’m ok, without going into too much detail, it’s just that some things are taking up my mindspace while I try to keep it together. I jump around from game, to game, to game. Nothing feels quite right, nothing hits the right way, it’s like trying to eat while I have a cold and I still love lasagna, but I can’t savour it. I put the Switch or Deck away, I cuddle my dog, I talk…

a merchant asked all his daughters what they wanted from his business trip. the hottest one asked for a rare checkerboard-patterned petunia. he got lost on the way down the silk road and found a huge palace with a vast and beautiful garden. he wandered around and spotted a checkerboard-patterned petunia, which he clipped off with his weed cutters. then a big snake appeared, called him rude and badly dressed, and took him prisoner in the oubliette of the big snake palace, which it turned out was…

they wrote that they did not finish the tattoo on someone, because their friend had died. i had faced a death of someone i cared about, and when i read the post, it's like something inside of me dropped. my hands got cold and sweaty and my the air around me felt heavy again. later, the friend they were talking about commented on the blogpost, being all alive and well evidently. apparently it was a joke (or maybe some slang i had not heard of?). but anyway, i unfollowed them. this is petty but…

Sometimes you'll take a photo of your kid, and it will turn out to be a treasure to be shared among all of your friends and relatives. And other times it'll turn out like this. It's not her fault, she was caught off-guard, squinting into the sun, pigtails so tight that she can't think straight. The bangs mean mom cuts her hair. She's somewhere in Frontierland, back when they had room for things like random patches of grass. It looks like a dirt path was added, probably where people were cutting…

For most of my life I called it laziness. A late ADHD diagnosis didn't fix my brain, but it changed how I talk to myself on bad days.

Like everyone else I spend a lot of time on my phone during a regular day. But I try my best to avoid just doom scrolling Instagram reels (though that does of course happen), and instead try to spend my phone time somewhat intentionally. So here is a short list of some of my favorite apps I use to help me maintain some sort of mental clarity during a busy week.EverlogThis is my journaling app of choice. There are many others like it, but this one is my favorite. It does exactly what I need it…

A sticky note from Philip K. Dick's In Milton Lumky Territory: The roar of water kept either of them from talking for some time. She had put bubble bath into the water, and it foamed up in massive pink layers as she waited for the tub to fill. At last there was enough water in the tub. He marvelled at the amount of water she needed. And she did not want it as hot as it was; she carefully switched on the cold until a good deal of the suds had been damaged. The whole affair struck him as…

i'm trying something t. susan chang mentioned - making a little rhyming couplet from a pair of cards... somehow transmuting a reading into something artistic to kind of imbibe its meaning, make it yours, integrate it into your life. (i didn't ask a question, wanted to just try the rhyming so the message was secondary): woman of wands - sensor she's absorbing, luxuriating in all the sensations and forms of spirit, spirit/god is everywhere and she bathes in them 8 of worlds - change the material…

Since doing an awful lot of thinking about the value of books my brain has gone down some weird rabbit holes. 20 odd years ago, in a different life when I was a different person, I very briefly worked for a company involved in book data. At the time, as now, I had a deep love of books, but the company and life moved in other directions and I was only there for about 9 months. In the same period I spent a lot of time on sites like LibraryThing and Bookcrossing. My use of the later especially…

This is the seventh post in my 'hitting the digital brakes'-series on changing how I use technology and where I stopped using it altogether. These are the previous posts: the joys of imperfection Do we really need the latest tech My e-reader made me a worse reader Not everything needs to be in the cloud Anti AI? Be Pro Human! Algorithms are toxic —- Over the past month or so, I haven’t kept track of what I was reading in the perfect little list I kept in my notes app and then updated on here…

TFW You take your dog for a walk and find an AirTag on the ground in an ElevationLab TagVault. You’re like: “I know exactly what that is! I have a few of those!” You scan the AirTag with your phone so that you can find out who the owner is and give it back to them, and to your surprise, the last four digits of the phone number of the owner are yours. Then you realize that the leash in your hand is missing its TagVault

When I started physical therapy for my neck this spring, the therapist asked why I had stopped weight training five years ago. I gave him a pat answer: “I’m lazy.” But the question nagged at me. As far as exercise goes, I actually like weight training. So why had I quit? Was it really just laziness? I’m trying to apply some of what I learned from working with health coaches in the past and approach problems like this without self-judgment*. There’s a reason (or many) I’m doing what I’m doing,…

First outing with the new (old) camera. East End Park; a walk through the woods. First cool front of the season made it enjoyable, rather than merely tolerable. It’s funny how simply carrying a camera changes your perspective. I’m looking at light and potential compositions. Eyes drawn to the little pops of color amidst the weathered trees. Laughter in dappled sunlight, captured on 35mm. I’m still learning, so I left it in shutter-priority. The light meter is roughly fifty years old and…

Today is my Dad's 88th birthday, and I wondered what he and I had been up to on birthdays past. I have 50 years of diaries so I looked back and checked. The 🎂 symbol means that he and I spent his birthday together. 50 October 20th birthdays Thu 20 Oct 1977:🎂 Opened presents and cards before school/work. In the evening we spent two hours at a Greek restaurant - the Culverhouses were also there! [I can't remember which restaurant, where it was or what we ate, sorry] Fri 20 Oct 1978:🎂 Dad's 40th…

This list will not revolutionize your life. But it just might have a little positive impact on your or someone you encounters’ day. It is just a short list of things that came to my mind and may be updated or expanded over time. If things are present on both high and low shelves and you are able to reach the top one - grab them there. Others who are lower does not have the choice.

## Item! ## My number finally came up on the bowel cancer screening lottery and the vial with instructions appeared in the post this week. Pretty simple stuff, except I’ve can’t remember the last time I had to catch my poop before it hit the toilet water. A rather strange experience I’m not keen to repeat any time soon. ## Item! ## Speaking of butts, we’ve had sufficient rain over the last couple of weeks that the water butts I installed last month are over half full. I took the big ruler out…