Day 4681

Brr. Winter arrived a little early this year. The furnace was on when we woke up this morning and it was time for a change in walking attire. I wore long pants on our sunrise walk and added a sweater under my jacket. It wasn't that cold, but it's been a while since we've seen temperatures in the 50's. Dawn loved the cooler weather. She was full of energy this morning and we completed our one mile loop three minutes faster than usual.

It was another good day for a long walk in the park. There was no sense in going to the gym on a day like this. I ate my breakfast and waited a while for the sun to get higher before leaving the house. It never did warm up very much, but the sky was clear and the cold front seems to have cleared away my allergy problems for a while. It felt good not to have a runny nose today. I didn't make great time, but I did OK. I saw quite a few photographers with long telephoto lenses looking for the eagles, but the birds appeared to be in hiding. Watching this quest to see the eagles made me feel like I was walking back in time. It was exactly like this last October.

I've been thinking about deleting several of my social media accounts because I never use them anymore. I keep thinking that some of these accounts might be the source of all the spam I'm getting. I haven't used LinkedIn in years. I couldn't even remember my password. When I finally logged in with a new password, I was surprised to discover that only 11 people have visited in the past two years. There was a time when I thought that LinkedIn might bring me business but it never did. It hardly seemed worth the trouble to delete this abandoned account, so I just turned off everything I could on the settings page and left. I also thought about deleting my Instagram account but then I remembered that NASA likes people to use Instagram when they visit the space center. There was also a time when I regularly posted on Instagram, but it is no longer a showcase for photographers and I've lost interest. Once again it didn't feel like it was worth the trouble to actually delete the account. Who knows. I might start using this again someday.

I've become ambivalent about social media in general. I only continue blogging because I'm determined to reach my 5000 day goal. Blogging definitely isn't like is used to be. I don't think anyone reads the blog anymore. A few friends still read the JPEG images of the blog I post post every day on Facebook, but I don't know if anybody still reads the real blog. The last time I looked at the stats, it showed that I only had two readers per day. That can't be right. This used to be a really popular blog back in the day.

I'll probably wind up right back where I started, writing my daily journal with a ball point pen in a little leather book. Writing is still a useful skill. I have a terrible memory and if I want to know what I was doing back in 1985, it's all there somewhere. I saved all the journals, just like I've saved all the negatives from decades of photography before the digital world was invented. I used to spend hours and hours in the darkroom. I don't think I've developed a roll of film or printed anything in twenty-five years but I used to be pretty good at it.

I don't know why I'm feeling nostalgic today. I guess the world in the rear view mirror seems more appealing than the world looking forward. I haven't turned into a prepper yet, but the future does look bleak. I think I'd be happier if I could bring myself to turn off the computer for good and quit watching cable news. I'm pretty good at amusing myself doing simple things and definitely don't need a daily diet of bad news. 

Little Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day