Work of art

Occasionally I check to see how people are getting to my Flickr photos, and today I found that, if you look on Wikipedia under "work of art", you'll find a photo I took at the National Gallery. Of course it's not my work of art, but at least it means I can autofocus a good picture of some :)

Customer service

Had two very good customer service experiences this afternoon. Firstly, I'd been having trouble with my iPhone, so called up Apple Support. Not only did I get straight through, but they identified it as a hardware problem and gave me options on how to replace the phone, one of which was a good one for me, so I have a new phone winging its way over the next few days.

The second one was a courtesy call from my credit union confirming use of my credit card for a couple of charges outside my usual usage pattern. Nice to know my money's being watched over!

Now off to do my daily mindfulness, then settle down to watch the just-arrived-this-arvo Spin City S4. Everything's coming up Milhouse... I mean Bertie :)

Useful

Watching the Deep Astronomy vodcast last night reminded me of the SETI@Home project. Until recently, my computer power and internet connectivity have been entirely swallowed up just doing the things I want to do day to day. However, since I got my new machine I haven't come close to using all its CPU power, and I have internet quota to burn.

So this morning I installed the BOINC Manager, and established links with SETI@Home, as well as the World Community Grid and Einstein@Home. For the first time ever, I saw all 11 of my CPU cores at 100%, using my personal grunt for the greater good :) Now all I have to do is balance the preferences so I don't fry my computer or explode my power bill...

Up

Have still needed lots of bedrest today, but ventured out for lunch and a photo stroll at the National Botanic Gardens. A little bit of sunshine and fresh air just has to be good for me :)

Brighter day

Embarked on my first real exercise since Friday, a slow walk of the dogs at the edge of Lake Ginninderra. While it wrecked me, that was all the excuse I needed to go back to bed and finish off Tony Martin's Lolly Scramble, which I finally bought via Kindle the other day, after having it sitting on my book wishlist for years. Many laugh-out-loud moments throughout the book, and very glad I finally got around to reading it.

I now have Tony's other book, A Nest Of Occasionals, sitting on my iPad as my next reading target, along with Shaun Micallef's reprinted Smithereens. All part of keeping my smiley self going :)

Watts up

I continue to get most of my historical and/or art knowledge from TV fiction :)

Dark Skies, having finally been released on DVD, has given me a chance to see lots of American 60's intertwined with aliens and conspiracies aplenty. My pre-early-bedtime ep this evening showed the amazing Watts Towers.

How come?

My aspiration is for the new subtitle of this blog - Nothing but sunshine - to reflect a new focus. While there will still be complaining of some variety, I want to focus more on the silver lining aspects of my life. Here's my first example:

The past few days has seen my CFS flaring up, forcing me into a whole lot of bed rest. I've had muscle weakness and spasms, lots of twitches and fine motor control issues preventing me from much in the drawing space, and plenty of general aches, pain and tiredness ("Still sounds like the same old whingeing!" I hear you say...). Well, my attitude, as I'm forced to lie down long before dark, and entirely walk-less for another day, is to look forward eagerly to finishing off yet another book, perhaps rewatching some Mythbusters on DVD, and listening to my growing stockpile of podcasts, each the fallback option as my tiredness grows.

Dunno how successful that was as a piece of positive writing! Hopefully practise will improve me :)