Blogger (and life) Updates

Blog List element.

I like it better than my old list because I can see when my friend's blogs have been updated and then click the link to read. Pretty handy.

Scheduled Posting.

It is now possible to set a future date for a post and Blogger posts the entry at the appointed date and time. Very cool.

Of course I see that some of my blogger friends are way ahead of me as usual.

One thing I notice because of this new feature is the increasingly infrequent posts of some of my blog friends. Those who are no longer caregiving are often not posting now for days sometimes. I think that is good. I think it means we are returning to the world. It sounds Tolkienesque. We have all been in search of the ring and have found it and the world has been saved after the great battle. Maybe the world wasn't saved but I think it must have been because I am still alive and here and writing. We are all hobbits I suppose although whether Sam or Merry or Pippin or Frodo I know not. There is no Sam or Merry or Pippin jumping on my bed. Two blogs are gone entirely now from my original collection. A few more are inactive. They must have returned to the shire I think.

Those who are caregiving vary in their posting frequency. The ones that post infrequently I worry about because I do not know what is happening to them. I can guess because I've glimpsed the future. For the same reason I worry about the ones who do post.

I have an upcoming airplane trip soon. I'm nervous about it actually but just a little. I have not flown since the end of December 1998. It is only a one day trip and I will post about it afterwards. I am excited about the trip. It is something that few get to do. I recognize how blessed I am and I am so very thankful.

Speaking of which, blessings that is, I have to file the estate tax return in 11 days. I have yet to decide whether I will write about it. Even writing that I have to do it reveals a lot and maybe too much. It seems too personal right now. I will say that it is a terribly painful experience. I am again in the vice. Maybe later, maybe not.

Weather. Wind and tornadoes and storms. We had the worst wind storm the other day. We have a lot of wind but this was significant even by our standards. Extreme weather of any kind always reminds me of Michener's Texas. I read all of Michener's works. I loved the detail and how he traced the history of a place and its people. I might read him again. In Texas though there is a place where someone settles near a little creek. They build a cabin and the spot was chosen so they could have close access to water. Later on the rainy season comes one particular year and the creek rises well above the cabin location. Afterwards the person looks around and realizes when he chose the spot that the signs were easily apparent that floods had been as high and higher than his cabin spot. He just didn't have the perspective and he was too interested in being near the water.

You look around the earth anywhere. You see the results of these giant forces. My brother and I were talking about a place the other day where you can see sedimentary rocks that have been turned vertical and then covered with more sedimentary layers. You can only gasp at the power that did that. Or all that oil and coal that we extract from the ground. That stuff came from living organisms. They aren't living now and to get turned into oil and coal in the quantities we see is beyond anything I can comprehend.

At the office yesterday we were talking about the big star, Betelgeuse. I posted about this star once before along with an image. It's not the biggest at all. We probably don't even know the biggest. Probably can't imagine it.

Back to bed before I have to get up.