Changes of different kinds
As with so many others on my friends list, I found my Photobucket account throwing up an ugly “you need to upgrade” graphic in place of all the images - mostly story covers and award graphics - for which I created my PB account in the first place. And, as all those other folks had to do (those who didn’t throw up their hands and write it off as a bad loss), I’m painfully creating a new account to accomplish the same thing, and going back to change the links in various areas. (No fun, folks; counting my own personal website, I have graphics being displayed in four completely different locales, and I can only hope I catch them all. Plus, I used my PB account to hold a couple of markers for sroni, and I’ll have to duplicate that and get the new links to her as well.) I started off on Flickr, but it was really cumbersome, so I tried something I’d seen referenced and signed up at Imgur, and that’s working out with much less hassle. Photobucket actually was better, darn it, but their price hike is simply beyond belief.
Susan has finished her first year in California, and is moaning over whether or not she can last two more, as per the original plan. She loves the climate and the scenery, but the prices are horrendous and the prevailing political attitudes do NOT agree with her … and, when you work for the government (even the federal government) on the Left Coast, you darn well don’t rock the boat. She always talks politics during my weekly phone calls, just to have someone to whom she can vent.
Kevin is currently planning to make a vacation trip, along with Mei-li and Amber, over the next Chinese New Year (February), and he’s said he hopes some of us can join them. I’m probably better able than Susan to manage something like that, simply because my income is lower than Susan’s but I save at least a third of it every month, but a trip to Thailand is not as casual for us as it is for Kevin. The flight cost wouldn’t be that much more than to China - if at all - but other expenses … let’s face it, whenever we visited in Shenzhen, we stayed in Kevin’s apartment and his in-laws provided all our entertainment and most of our meals, which I don’t think we could count on in Thailand. I’ll have time to get ready, but it’s a substantial enterprise.
(It would be really nice if sroni and Conal could also make the trip. Even apart from my son-in-law and daughter-in-law, my own immediate family - me, Susan, Kevin, sroni - have never all been in the same country together outside the US. This would be an event.)
Finally, cof_remix is reaching the end of its sign-up period, and we’ll be starting the remix at the beginning of August. We already have enough participants to go on ahead … but if anyone would like to try something new, it’s not too late to jump in!
Oh, yeah, and my submission for this year’s Summer of Giles is due in four days. Don’t want to forget that.
Hard to believe how time has passed. It keeps on doing it, though.