A tale of two tales

Pretty much everyone who has used social media has seen how easy it is to inadvertently confuse people, whether we posted a photo, shared something from someone else, or maybe it was something we said, the opportunities to sow confusion seem endless. Last night, I found out it’s also possible to look a bit muddled.

I made two social media posts last night while I was watching the recorded version of a tech show that streams live on YouTube every Saturday afternoon (NZ time), something I watch in the evening because I almost never watch TV in the daytime, even on weekends, and I also watch other YouTube videos before I wathc the recording of the live stream. My first post was one I made to my personal Facebook, and the other was a photo I shared on Instagram (at the top of this post), and my Instagram posts are set to share to automatically post on Facebook, too. However, the two posts were very different in tone and focus.

My first post, directly Facebook, was about what I was watching, and how I related to the show’s content:

Tonight I was watching a discussion on the weekly live show (recorded in my time zone) show from a tech channel that made videos Nigel and I watched, often together, and as my eyes glazed over watching the video, I thought about how Nigel could both explain to me what they were on about AND educate me about what to do. I find it extremely difficult to navigate *some* of these tech issues, and while I do my best, I’m second-tier at the very, very best. To this very day, despite all my best efforts, I still struggle. And so it continues.🤷🏻‍♂️

I don’t remember what topic made me reflective, and that’s partly because they talk about a lot of subjects on the show. The bigger reason, though, is that once I start thinking about something, especially if I’m wring down my thoughts (even on Facebook), I tune out other things going on around me, especially things on TV.

The hosts of the show were most likely talking about something to do with parts for PCs, or things related to Windows, however, my computers and devices are all Apple (I even watch YouTube videos using an Apple TV attached to my television). The fact I didn’t fully grasp what they were talking about merely made me remember how well Nigel understood it all, and how much I relied on him for all things tech, something I’ve talked about many times.

Shortly after I made that Facebook post, Leo jumped up in my lap and went to sleep. He fell deeply asleep, so much so that he even snored a bit. I took the photo, and shared it to Instagram, writing:

Tonight I was watching the weekly livestream video (after the fact…) of a YouTube tech channel Nigel and I used to watch (though we never watched the streaming shows…), and I looked down. Leo was sound asleep on my lap. He’s somewhere near me always. He’s a good boy. ❤️

My Instagram post was really about Leo, and it actually didn’t matter what I was watching at the time. However, I was still feeling reflective, about an hour after my Facebook post, and that’s why I mentioned watching it. The post automatically shared to my personal Facebook, where it appeared above my first post.

There have been times in the past where I’ve decided to not share an Instagram post to Facebook, usually because I shared a different photo there. Or maybe I shared one to Facebook first. It’s more common, though, for me to share things only to Facebook—actually, I often forget about Instagram for weeks.

All of this means that it’s extremely unusual for me to have two Facebook posts that cover similar ground follow one another. I don’t have a social media “strategy”—though maybe I should—but I often try to share nice or even sweet photos on Instagram because that’s public, and I’m well aware how much of social media is worse than a clogged sewer line. Those same photos then show up on Facebook (and ones of Leo usually get more “reactions” (like Likes) than almost anything else I post there.

Like Instagram, I seldom post anything terribly serious on my personal Facebook, either, however, I’m much more likely to post something reflective on Facebook precisely because it’s not public. It never occurred to me to post the photo only to Instagram, partly because I seldom do that, but in retrospect I wish I hadn’t mentioned watching the show on the Instagram caption. In fact, I thought about editing the caption to take that reference out, but I usually only edit to correct typos, not to completely change what I’ve said.

In the end, it made me realise I need to pay a little more attention to what I’m posting, not as obsessively as “influencers” seem to do, but simply for clarity and to avoid seeming like I’m being inconsistent. In that sense, it’s a good thing that posts were even more jarring right next to each other

There’s one thing more about all this, and it’s the reason I didn’t make any changes to what I posted: Facebook is notorious for not showing FB “Friends” everything that their “Friends” post, and that means it’s probable that only a handful of my “Friends” saw even one post, and that even fewer saw, so I was quite possibly the only one who noticed the difference in tone between the two. Besides, photos of Leo are probably seen more often by my Facebook “Friends” than almost anything else I post (and yes, I'm aware that talking about the two posts could mean more people see the text of both than ever would've otherwise).

It’s easy to inadvertently confuse people when we post to social media. Last night, I found out it’s also possible to look a bit muddled, even if the only one who noticed was me.

Stamping out mail

Will there come a day when no one remembers what a postage stamp was? Unless they read history or visit a museum, maybe? That day seems to be approaching rapidly, something that the Facebook "Memory" (above) reminded me about today.

When I saw the “Memory”, I realised that I have absolutely NO idea when—or even what year—I last needed a stamp. At a guess, I’d say maybe 2019? A year or so after my 2016 Facebook post, I needed to start posting something for work every month, and, as it happened, postal rates were about to go up again, so I bought a roll of KiwiStamps (like “Forever” stamps in the USA). My job ended in March 2020—and I now have absolutely no idea where I put the rest of the roll of stamps (probably, as usual, “somewhere safe, so I can find it again”).

All of this made me curious, so I looked it up this morning and found that a stamp for a letter is now $2 (today around US$1.19 or 0.95 GBP) or one KiwiStamp. That’s for a something weighing up to 500 grams (17.64 ounces in Imperial weight) including the envelope (KiwiStamps apparently can’t be used on larger size envelopes). Also, it wasn’t easy to find the rates for letters on the NZ Post site, most of which is devoted to helping people with sending packages and other courier services).

Currently, NZ Post says that they expect to deliver a letter within New Zealand in “three working days” (which I think must exclude weekends and public holidays). In 2017, NZ Post announced that they were ending “FastPost”, a higher-priced option that aimed to get letters delivered in one business day. At the time of their announcement, NZ Post said that use of the service had declined 23 percent the previous year, and that the volume of all letters sent was declining by 60 million pieces a year.

These days, the vast majority of my business correspondence is electronic (I get two statements in the post because I’m too lazy to change them), and all my bills are paid automatically through direct debit (as I’ve mentioned before, none of my accounts have cheques for customers to use). For those very rare times I need to post something (like the ballots for local government elections), those are always FreePost (which is prepaid, similar to “Business Reply Mail” in the USA).

I’m really just a typical example of why the volume of mail in New Zealand has been declining so sharply for years. While we get mail delivered to our neighbourhood three days a week now, I’m certain it’ll drop to once a week, or maybe twice a week before it drops to one day, and then at some point it’ll stop altogether. I think that the fact that local government elections and most referenda are conducted through the post may be one of the reasons home delivery isn’t disappearing faster.

The end of home delivery is probably quite a way off yet, but in the meantime I think it’s likely that more services will start to disappear, like FastPost did. As an example, earlier this week NZ Post announced that from June 29 they’ll stop delivering packages and newspapers to rural addresses on Saturdays because the volume was too low (17 rural Saturday delivery runs will continue for another year, though).

The issues surrounding this are really about the people who don’t have access to the Internet, technical ability, and or both. Internet access can be a problem for poorer people and older people, both of who may lack the access itself, or a computer or device to access it. In some remote rural areas of the country, Internet access can be dodgy and unreliable. None of these problems will change soon, but maybe by the time home delivery ends, the problems will, too.

I was thinking today that eight years from now, I might not be able to remember the last time I had mail delivered to my house—actually, some weeks, that’s the already the case. It may well turn out that the last piece of mail delivered to my house (not counting packages or courier deliveries) will could well arrive sooner than I realise.

Change really is constant.

This post is a revised and expanded version of what I posted on my personal Facebook when I shared the “Memory”. This “Memory” is what I was referring to in my blog post earlier today.

New, not old

Today Facebook served up two different things that caught my attention. One was another “Memory” (more about that in another post), but it was a"Brand survey" (screenshot above) that made me stop for a moment. It’s probably the oddest thing I’ve ever seen Facebook offer me.

What made this so weird is that FB apart from the title, “Brand Survey”, the thing they were asking me to fill out was entirely in Dutch. Surprisingly, I don’t speak or read Dutch. Sometimes I can get a rough idea of the meaning of a word, or maybe a very short phrase, because I tried to learn German in high school (and a bit after that). This was funny enough (to me…) that I shared it to my personal, sarcastically asking:

Um, you okay Facebook? Or, did you just get confused and not realise that I live in New Zealand and not old Zeeland?

I then added a brief explainer in the comments:

Zeeland is a province of The Netherlands, and the Dutch named the country of New Zealand after the province. Aotearoa is believed to be the original or most common original Māori name that the Dutch didn’t even know about at the time. The British, who later anglicised the Dutch name, didn’t care what Māori called it.

This was simplifying the story a bit, because Dutch cartographers, as was the European custom at the time, used named the places they "discovered" with Latin versions of the name they chose, in this case, Nova Zeelandia, which in Dutch is Nieuw Zeeland (the ending “d” is pronounced more like “t”), and the current official name, New Zealand is just the anglicised version of that. It became the official name when the British started colonising the islands.

The Wikipedia article on the province of Zeeland talks about all of this, and also the fact that at the same time New Zealand was named, the country now known as Australia was named Nieuw Holland (New Holland), something I've mentioned in the past. They did that was because, as the article puts it, “the two major seafaring provinces of the Netherlands in its Golden Age were Holland and Zeeland.”

Personally, I think this country should one day be officially renamed “Aotearoa New Zealand”, though with the current surge in racism and racist attitudes, that day seems farther away now than at any point since I arrived here 28+ years ago. Actually, I don’t even think an adult conversation can be had about it right now, let alone any consideration of a change.

As far as I can remember, Facebook’s post today is the first thing they’ve shown me that wasn’t in English, so that’s—a thing, I suppose. On the other hand, the actual paid ads it shows me are often for Auckland-based real estate companies, and that’s mostly likely because I access the Internet through a VPN (“Virtual Private Network”) that’s set to say I’m connecting from Auckland. But the Netherlands doesn’t have a place called “Auckland”, so—dunno, maybe their algorithms had a computer's equivalent of a brain fart?

Mainly, being served up a “Brand Survey” in Dutch was just funny to me. I don’t know if their algorithms really did mix up New Zealand with old Zeeland, or if there was something else going on. For example, my surname appears in both Germany and The Netherlands—although, I’ve never (yet!) been served up anything in German, so, I guess it’s unlikely to be that?

As corporations decide to rely on computers exclusively, all sorts of problems are emerging. So far, most of them are more annoying or hilarious than they’re actual problems (or worse). For example, people’s posts on Facebook and Instagram being taken down in an automated process using algorithms because there are no human checkers any more. One of the problems with this, apart from having no one to appeal a deletion to, is that the algorithms cannot understand either context or nuance. As corporations push automation farther and harder, serious problems will inevitably emerge. Getting a survey in Dutch will seem so quaint and innocent by comparison.

Still, at least I got a laugh out of it, and it was all a bit of fun. For now.

Kitchen experiments abound

Forget politics and religion, there’s a far better topic to talk about: Food. There are so many levels to the topic, including sourcing it, producing it, preparing it, and, of course eating it. I’ve talked about all three on this blog, though not necessarily all that frequently. Over the past couple months, I’ve tried a product I’d never seen before, experimented with an update to a recipe from my young adulthood, and made a perhaps hasty decision on an old favourite. All of which is fair game for this blog.

The main reason I created my tongue-in-cheek tag (aka “Label”) “AmeriNZ Test Kitchen” was so that I’d have one place to talk about food products I tried and as well as recipes I made. It was all a bit of fun, and something I never took all that seriously (and still don’t), but there have been some that I apparently took seriously enough that I never posted anything about it. Today’s first item (photo up top) is exactly that.

Some forty years ago, I was with my first actual long term partner (in this case, “long term” means more than a few months, though it really lasted around three years). Among other basic meals he taught me was one involving the common boxed macaroni and cheese dinner combined with beef mince (though in those days I called it “ground beef” or “hamburger”) and a tin of chopped tomatoes.

Back in March 2022, I tried making the recipe using a box of American mac and cheese dinner (exactly like what we used more than four decades ago) that I found in a shop called “Crackerjack”, which often sells American food products. I don’t know why I didn’t share it at the time, but I didn’t find the dinner when I made later visits to the same store. However, I recently saw the version in the left photo up top, something I’d never seen before, and decided to try again, in the right photo.

The method is that first you brown the beef, then stir in the packet of “cheese” powder form the boxed dinner, then empty a tin of chopped tomatoes into the pan and stir to mix (this time I softened onion first, something I don’t recall doing back in the day). Let the beef mix simmer while the pasta cooks, then drain and stir into the beef mix, and serve. That’s it—and the speed and easiness of making it was why it was a repeat meal back in the day.

I was disappointed in the result. Unlike the version I made back in 2022, this one had little to no cheese flavour in it. The whole thing started out as a bit of food nostalgia (and the 2022 version was pretty close), but now it’s turned into a new idea: How can I make it simpler (ideally one pan) and healthier—especially since the boxed dinner isn’t exactly the healthiest choice possible. I already have several ideas for how I may do that—to be continued.

Next up, a commercial product I tried:

I bought the product solely because they reminded me of Ho-Hos, which were made by Hostess. The Carbury version wasn’t the same as what I loved in my childhood—although, to be fair, I don’t know if the current Hostess version is the same, either. They reminded me of the Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll of my childhood, which I didn’t like as much (and I have no idea what they’re like now, either). Despite all that, I liked them well enough—even the chocolate, which is something I don’t often say about Cadbury chocolate. I was surprised that one was enough for me—very surprised, actually—so the packet lasted around two weeks. The truth is, I’m just not into sweets as much as I was when I was younger. I haven’t bought them again, and I don’t know whether I will; fortunately for me, I haven’t seen them since, so my resolved hasn’t been tested.

And finally, an experiment of an entirely different sort: Size.

The search for a peanut butter I like has been ongoing, something I first talked about back in 2018. In November of last year, I talked about trying to find a replacement for my favourite, but discontinued, brand. In the end, I went back to using Regular Pic’s peanut butter (which I talked about in 2018), but I now use the regular, not the no salt version.

My next problem was that I was going through jars fairly quickly because they’re not very big. I was in the supermarket recently and noticed the big (or, by NZ standards, maybe that should be big) jar was on special, so I bought one. I was a little worried about finding space on my fridge door (to keep it from separating), but I did. So far, it’s worked fine—however, I didn’t bother to check the prices per 100 grams, so maybe the larger size isn’t more economical, make it’s just easier for me because I don’t have to buy a new jar as often. On the other hand, that’s a valid reason to choose it, too.

And now we’re more or less up to date. Generally speaking, the kitchen experiments that I don’t talk about here are works in progress, and I suppose the first one today is probably that sort. The other two are merely ones that, like so many other blog topics, I just haven’t been able to get to. Hm, I’ve been doing a lot of “getting to it”, lately. Maybe things are improving?

Related: A related tag is Food, which is for my posts about all sorts of food. It also (hopefully) includes all my AmeriNZ Test Kitchen posts about food, too.

Leo has magic, but isn’t a wizard

Today, all the unrelentingly bad news from all over the world, combined with the pressure from seemingly innumerable personal deadlines and challenges, was getting me down. Then this little guy decided he wanted to lay in my lap for a while (and, naturally, I had to take a photo!).

Once again, Leo provided the magic to make me feel less bad. It seems that whenever I feel the worst, Leo’s nearby, usually staring at me—and probably to get me to do something: Let him outside, feed him, give him a treat, or to let him lay in my lap. But it doesn’t really matter what it is he wants, if he wants anything at all, because he always pulls me out of whatever my mind is stuck in at that moment, and that helps keep me focused on “now” and on real life.

Leo’s not a wizard, and he can’t fix what’s wrong in the world or in my life, but he helps me focus on what’s right in front of me, the only thing I know that I have any sort of control over. There’s a kind of a magic in that.

Everyone needs that sort of magic in their lives, I think. I sincerely hope everyone has or finds the magic they need.

Reading the stuff ahead of me

A major drawback of my recent lack of blog posts is that there are things I do that I never talk about here. On the other hand, sometimes a delay means I can essentially include updates the first time I talk about the topic. Today is an example of that.

A week ago today, I went to pick up my new reading glasses (photo up top), and I also got a scan of my optic nerve and a better scan of the back of eye, with special attention to things like the macula, as well as general eye health. Everything was fine, and my eyes are healthy. This visit was three weeks after my first visit to the optometrist, though I could’ve picked up the glasses the week before; I didn’t see a need to make a special trip when I had the appointment last week for the scans.

I took the selfie above when I got back to my car, and explained things on my personal Facebook:

Picked up my first-ever prescription reading glasses today (supermarket ones are same strength both eyes, but my eyes aren’t the same). The top of the lenses is for using my computer, and the lower parts are for ordinary reading (including devices, of course). I didn’t get the blue light coating because I can set my devices to redder light if I want to, BUT, ol’ publishing graphics professional that I am, the incorrect colours annoy me FAR too much. So far, it’s a vast improvement! I don’t need glasses for anything else because of the LASIK eye surgery I had years and years ago. Also had thorough scans of my eyes (optic nerve, macula, general health) and my eyes are in really good health. 🙂🤓

I felt compelled to add in a comment: “Yes, I was feeling tired today, but I’d just had thorough eye scans, and my eyes were more tired than I was!” The truth is, all that irritated my eyes, what with the bright lights and having to hold my open, even when the machine lightly brushed my eyelashes and made me want to blink, especially because it touched them so very lightly. My eyes watered a lot!

If I’d posted this last week, that’s about all I’d have said about it, however, I’ve had a chance to wear them for a week now, and I’ve come to some conclusions I couldn’t have at the time. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t post this story last week.

The first thing I noticed is that it’s not easy to use them for computer work. To see the screen clearly, I need to lower my head so I’m looking through the top of the lenses. If I look driectly forward, head level—as good ergonomic practice requires—I can’t see the screen very clearly. On the other hand, I can see the keyboard more clearly because I my head’s already pointing down, so I just glance down. That’s okay, I guess, but holding my head in the wrong position gives me a bit of a sore neck. I haven’t tried them yet with my MacBook, but that screen is lower, so, dunno, maybe it’s be better for that?

The glasses are great for use with my devices—phone, tablet, e-reader. What I see is sharp and clear, as I’d expect, so that’s a solid win—except for one thing: How big the glasses are.

When I selected the frames, I chose the ones I thought looked the best on me, and they were similar to some supermarket ones I’d bought recently that I quite liked. The problem is that because they’re so much bigger I can’t see the TV screen unless I look over the top of the lenses. My older supermarket reading glasses had smaller lenses, so I could move them down my nose a bit and I could just glance over them when I wanted to see something on TV, and look down to read whatever was on my device. I’ve done that with the prescription reading glasses, but because of their size, when I push them down my nose, they’re not as good for reading.

I think I’ve decided to not use the prescription glasses when I’m sitting at my computer, and will only use them for my devices. I’ve never had two-strength lenses before, so I had no idea these could be problems. If I were to do it again, I’d get single-strength lenses just for my devices (and the lenses would’ve been considerably less expensive, too. Live and learn.

After I was done at the optometrist, I went to the nearby Woolworths (photo below), which still has the old signage. I said on Facebook:

After I was done at the optometrist, I went to the nearby Woolworths St James—which hasn’t yet had its sign changed. Even though it’s been ages since I’ve seen one of these that still has the original signage, I don’t think it’s the very last, so I can’t say it’s the final Countdown.

You’re welcome. 🎶

The post was, as the musical notes emoji suggests, a joke referencing the song by the band Europe [WATCH on YouTube]. As with my earlier photo, I also felt compelled to add clarification: “Yes, I know I need a haircut. The sun was so bright I couldn’t see my phone’s screen, so I didn’t see the messy hair at the time. 🤷🏻‍♂️💈💇🏻‍♂️”. I added in another comment:

Also, this concluded my my visits to all the supermarkets within 15 minutes (or less) drive from my house, and this is my favourite Woolworths. My favourite New World is Te Rapa. I don’t like Pak’N’Save, and, anyway, the possibly “nicest” one is more than 15 minutes away. I don’t go to the two chains’ smaller shops, but if one gets built near my house (a commercial area is coming), that could change.

A couple weeks ago, I talked a bit about my last trip—quite possibly literally—to the Woolworths Te Rapa location. In that post, I also talked about finally finding some hot cross buns at competing supermarket chain New World—along with pantry staples I couldn’t get at Woolworths Te Rapa the week before. When I went to the Woolworths St James, I finally got some of their hot cross buns—marked down 50 cents since Easter had passed. This, too, has developments.

When I bought the buns from New World, I said that I thought that a dollar per bun was a bit much (it was $5.99 for a pack of six). I felt that way mainly because the buns were very small—not good value for money. The ones from Woolworths were $4.50 for six, but even at the original $4.99 they were much better value: The Woolworths buns were significantly larger than New World’s.

This is another situation in which I didn’t know what I didn’t know—in this case, that Woolworths hot cross buns were much better value (and better buns, in my opinion). In addition, I also learned that the St James Woolworths is quite nice, and the only one of three Woolworths locations I’ve been to in recent weeks at which I could get every pantry staple on my list. I think going there from time to time could be worth the drive, especially if I arrange to have lunch with family while I’m on that side of the city.

This post would’ve been quite different if I’d published it last week, and it wouldn’t have contained the things I’ve learned since—after all, I’m even more useless about doing Updates posts than I have been about blogging with any regularity. I guess this post is a combination of both.

Overall, I’d much rather publish in a timely manner, even if later I learn more about the topic. Right now, though, I’ll take what I can get.

Considering myself at home

I know it’s obvious to anyone who’s read many of my blog posts, but I love data: Collecting it, analysing it, and talking about it. Sometimes it’s about things related to my university education and post-university avocation, things like polling and census data, election results, and pretty much anything else relating to politics, elections, and social justice. However, there’s a lot of other data that I collect (and talk about), like the performance of my solar panels, for example. And then there’s the large category of “Other”, all the stuff that’s quite possibly only of interest to me, but that can help me make important life decisions. Like something I ran across recently.

More than 20 years ago, I decided to make a list of every single place I’d lived in my life up to that point. I’ve long since forgotten why I decided to make the list, but when I ran across it, I decided to update it, and I did that over this past weekend. The final, updated version surprised me.

When I looked at the original list, I saw that I’d noted that it was last updated “Monday, 5 November 2001 11:50am”, and that meant that I’d been living in the first house Nigel and I shared (which had been his before I moved to New Zealand) for six years. Actually, it was three days after the sixth anniversary—maybe that had something do with my reason for making the list? Maybe I was going to talk about it in an email to friends and family back in the USA?

At any rate, that house was number 5 on 2001 the list, out of a total of 12 homes. The top three were all my parents homes, which makes sense, and I’d even helpfully listed the places I also lived while away at university, places that were all technically concurrent with the last of my parents’ homes, something I apparently thought required a special footnote. The rest were all the places I’d lived after I moved to Chicago and, of course, that first place I lived in New Zealand.

When I decided to update the list, I noticed that the homes were ranked by the number years and months I lived in the home—but with no specific dates. So, I couldn’t be sure whether the amount of time spent in each one was as accurate as I’d have liked—being a few days off isn’t good enough, really. Still, so much time has passed that I have no hope of remembering the dates of places I lived in Illinois, and I probably didn’t write it down anywhere, either. My addressees in New Zealand, however, were all much easier to work out: I have documentation.

Once I revised the list, there was a new total of 18 places I’ve lived in my life, and the new number one is the house Nigel and I shared on Auckland’s North Shore before we moved in 2017 to south Auckland to be closer to Nigel’s work (I recently talked about my visit to that house, which is now a rental).

Other changes are that the first house Nigel and I shared moved up to number 4, displacing one of my parents’ houses. At the moment, my current house is tied for seventh place with the last apartment I had in Chicago, though next month it displaces the apartment in the rankings, which will move down to 8 on the list. My current house won’t move up to number 6 until early 2026, assuming I’m still in this house at that point (a topic for another day), but if that happens, a few months later it would move up to five.

The entirety of the list is interesting only to me, but the data behind told me a few things I couldn’t know otherwise. For example, the average time I spent living in each place was 3.614 years (a bit more than 3 years, 7 months), and the median was 2.835 years (around 2 years, 10 months). This surprised me at first, because I lived in my top two addresses for around a decade each. However, the bottom six addresses were all under one year (and two were just one month). Of course, the main factor is that I’m now 65, and I’ve had a lot more years other than the couple decades for the top two addresses, and I obviously had to live somewhere for the other 45 years.

This is useful to me as I try to work out what’s next for me: Where’s the best place for me to grow old? How do I even work that out? And, if I decide to move somewhere, when is the right time to do that, wherever/whenever that ends up being? This is a very complicated topic, which is why I said earlier it’s “a topic for another day”.

Still, because of the revised list, and my analysis of it, I now know that I’m not especially attached to any particular place, and never have been. This is actually kind of liberating! If I decide to move somewhere else next month, next year, or in a decade, it’s really all kind of the same for me, based on my history. It even means that I could end up living in my current house longer than any other place. All of this depends on what happens in my life, with my health and mobility, and what I decide I want in the years ahead—none of which I can possibly know right now.

Before I make any major decision, I like to have as much information as possible. This data from this little, seemingly insignificant exercise has given me a lot of new information. It won’t necessarily make my long-term decisions any easier to make, but at least It’ll help me to be as well-informed as possible.

It’s no wonder that I love data.

Sunshine and feathers

Three years ago today, my solar power system was installed, and just yesterday I talked about how that relates to seasonal clock changes. Today I took advantage of the free electricity harvested from the sun’s rays, and that led to something else entirely.

This morning, I mowed the lawns and when I was done, I started recharging the battery using free electricity from the solar panels. As I’ve written about before, using a no-emissions lawnmower, powered by solar power, was exactly what I always wanted, and while Nigel wasn’t keen on me mowing the lawns at our last house, that, too, was actually part of my dream.

While I was at it, I did a load of washing, and dried it in the dryer. I also handwashed some dishes I don’t put in the dishwasher, because my hot water cylinder only gets electricity when the sun is shining.

All of my activities today, then, were the sorts of things I was talking about yesterday. I can’t say I was exactly enthusiastic about the mowing this morning, but it was a few days overdue, and there may be rainy weather coming—in short, it had to be today. And that’s when things went in an unexpected direction.

While I was mowing out front, I saw a feather (in the photo up top) blowing toward my car, then, a little while later, it was laying on the grass a few metres from where I first saw it, in a patch of lawn I'd finished only a few minutes earlier. I was struck by this because some people believe that birds that fly or land unusually close to us are visitations from loved ones who’ve died, which I neither believe nor reject: I have absolutely no way of knowing either way.

I was also thinking, though, that if the belief was true, and if Nigel—the person who knew me better than anyone else in my life—wanted to visit me, he’d know I wouldn’t notice a bird, and he’d also know that I always notice a loose feather suddenly showing up somewhere unexpected, In fact, I wrote about finding a feather in July of last year. I now have a mini-collection of four feathers I’ve found on my lawns, one of which is that one from last year, the other three from this year.

Rationally, I’m well aware that it’s likely that the feather was just a feather that just happened to show up while I was mowing the lawns. Even so, I like to think that, however improbable it may be, it could be something more.

At any rate, that made the mowing a little better of an experience than it often is, and that, along with the fact that I still noticing such things at all, is enough for me. But if there really is any sort of communication from beyond death, it sure would be quite helpful if it was a bit more obvious. Still, feathers are nice to find, I think.

Seasonal time management

It’s time for me to start adjusting my household routines to compensate for the changing seasons, specifically, the shortening days and cooling temperatures. Those changes are mostly slow and not even necessarily easy to perceive—until April arrives. Last night, New Zealand went back to Standard Time (NZST) when we turned our clocks back one hour. That abrupt change in daylight hours is the signal for me to change the way I do things.

Much as I despise winter—something I may have mentioned once or twice—the thing I now despise even more are the two seasonal clock changes, and of the two, the Autumn change is the worst, which is weird to me. I didn’t always despise the clock changes: When I was younger, including after I moved to New Zealand, I was pretty much indifferent—though I often said I enjoyed the “extra hour of sleep” after the autumn clock change. I’ve read that dislike of the clock changes often becomes stronger as people get older, and maybe that’s part of it for me, too. However, the biggest thing for me is the declining number of daily sunshine hours.

As we move toward winter, the earth’s axial tilt causes us to slowly lose daylight hours, and the poor weather in winter can reduce the number of hours when there’s full sunshine. This is a very important thing for me, living in a house with solar power.

For roughly six months of the year—from late Autumn through early Spring—I plan my activities around the times when the sun is shining on the panels. That’s because I always try to use the power I’m generating rather than buying it. When there are already fewer sunshine hours in winter, rainy days can mean the panels may generate little or no electricity. My back-up plan is to do energy-intensive things (like running the clothes dryer or the dishwasher) when the electricity rates go down at 10pm.

This also affects heating when the temperatures descend to winter cold because my heat pumps use more power. On bright sunny days, I make sure the curtains are open when the sun is shining so the house can be warmed for free (the sunshine creates the electricity to run the heat pumps, and it also warms the inside of the house by shining though the windows). Then, when the sun leaves those windows, I close the curtains again to keep the heat inside. This curtain management is something I’ve done for many, many years, but I have an even stronger incentive now that the solar panels will be generating less power over the next few months.

None of this is terribly important for the other six months of the year: I generate so much electricity that I couldn’t possibly use it all. Even so, on hot summer days, I close the curtains on the westerly side of the house once the sun hits the glass. Doing that helps keep my house cooler than if I left the curtains open until evening.

Aside from all those very specific adjustments, I intensely dislike the short days of winter for another reason: Yard work. Over that season, I have to plan my outside work around the fewer hours of daylight—there’s no mowing my lawns on a winter evening, for example. However, the higher number of rainy days, on top of fewer sunlight hours, can add another barrier toward finishing yard work.

All of this may sound like I’m complaining, that I’m annoyed by all this, but that’s the opposite of the truth. In fact, I quite like the challenge of managing all of that, and I feel that mixing up my household routines as the seasons change helps to keep me from getting bored—or, maybe too bored os more accurate—with routine work around the house.

To be clear, I still hate short, cold, dark, and/or rainy winter days, but by making seasonal adjustments to my household routines I distract myself from what I dislike by instead focusing on what I can achieve in a day. I absolutely still hate winter, but focusing on positive things helps me to mind winter a little bit less. I’m sure that this sort of shift in focus wouldn’t necessarily work for everyone, but it definitely works for me. One does what one must, and all that.

Due to the time change, stoday’s unset will be a 6:02pm—and it’ll suddenly get dark an hour earlier that it has been. That’s a noticeable thing, and the seasonal clock changes mess with my body for a week or two, as well. My change in routine doesn’t help with that, unfortunately, but at least it helps me make sure I get stuff done. That’s—well, something I guess.