Monday, September 28, 2015

Day 2113

Each day is kind of like our morning walks. We cover the same terrain over and over again, but still manage to find something new. I like the way the seasons change and the stars progress across the sky. I see faces and shapes in cloud formations and notice the migration patterns of birds. I'm quick to notice a new flower along the trail and can detect a temperature change of one or two degrees. Noticing the little things keeps life interesting. Well, it helps anyway.

Appreciating nuances is an acquired taste that has taken me decades to master. I'll try different blends of coffee each morning, but I'll always limit myself to two 10 ounce cups. Sometimes I'll substitute strawberries for peaches in my morning smoothie. I try to find variety within a two mile radius, but I'll seldom venture further. I'm fascinated to discover there are still things to learn from books I've already read and movies I've already watched. Even though my job requires me to keep up with the latest technology, I'm still discovering new things I can do with Photoshop 7.0.

If I didn't appreciate nuances, I'd probably go stark raving mad. Not much happens in an average day. I submitted some new photos to Shutterstock this morning. At this rate I should be able to earn a comfortable living from stock photography by the time I'm 95. I vacuumed the house this afternoon because I promised Janet I'd clean all the rugs and carpets if things weren't busy this week. Why postpone things? I couldn't even pretend that things were busy today. Dot seemed to appreciate the effort I made cleaning things, because there were no accidents today.

The geek community on the Internet is buzzing about the discovery of liquid water on Mars. I guess I always suspected there was water there somewhere. Comets are made of water. Hydrogen and oxygen are among the most abundant elements in the universe. Temperatures on Mars are often above freezing. Why wouldn't there be water? I doubt that the water on Mars is drinkable, but some of the water on Earth isn't either. I imagine that we'll find lots of water on other planets in the next hundred years. What really surprises me is that we live on a planet where the sun and the moon are almost exactly the same apparent size in the sky. What are the odds of having a moon that almost exactly covers the disc of the sun during an eclipse? That certainly doesn't happen on Mars.

I need to find a more interesting way to spend my days. This minimal life of mine can't really be healthy. What to do? I don't really like volunteering or travel, and I'm not sure that work will ever pick up significantly. I thought my clients would be excited when I learned how to do mobile websites, but most of them didn't even notice the improvements I made to their sites. I doubt that they are going to tell their friends how cool their new responsive websites are if they don't even understand what they've got. Oh, well. I'll upload some more images to Shutterstock tomorrow. Maybe I'll go photograph a squirrel.

Spanky is today's Dalmatian of the Day
Watch of the Day