What I Did On My Summer Vacation (OT)

Comments 100% updated at 11:05 this morning

I had a wonderful couple of days! I did nothing. Not only that, but I didn't think of doing anything, either. I do have days in the normal course of events during which I get nothing done, but on most of those days I intend to get things done, so I feel bad and beat myself up when I don't. I don't post on Saturdays, for instance, but that's the day I do housework and yardwork and laundry, so it's a day that's particularly prone to self-disappointment. This time I not only did nothing, but I also intended to do nothing. It made a big difference. It was very luxurious. I feel refreshed.

I live here 365, but this is the week I feel most like a stranger in my own backyard. The empty houses I walk by all Winter are jammed with cars and teeming with people. There are children everywhere this week, which is definitely not usual. Normally I encounter people I know on my walks, but not so much this week. So I feel more "odd man out" than I normally do. Also, people gathered for vacation are already plentifully supplied with people they are supposed to interact with, so they have less desire than usual to interact with random stray outsiders such as moi.

Butters survived the bombardment well enough. I was gobsmacked to learn, however, that fireworks are illegal in the State of New York—at least, everything but "sparkling devices" with less than "500 grams of pyrotechnic composition." So those violent booming explosives that sound like incoming mortar rounds are already illegal. Not only have a lot of people not gotten the memo, but local law enforcement has decided to pick and choose what laws they wish to enforce, and that one is not on the list. You know what they say: Oh well.

The left-hand module of the Glove 80, the most ergonomic keyboard yet made. Note that I've moved the "Q," and the "Home" button is both Home and End—a tap is "End" and hold is "Home."

I didn't even practice typing yesterday, so I am touch-typing this on the Moergo Glove 80 in Colemak. It has taken about 45 minutes so far. Although I am doing better and better on the learning program, it is so far not carrying over to composing. I guess I can't think of two things at once. Before this day is over I hope to get the old keyboard out and type another post at normal speed. Hopefully this didn't take you any longer to read just because it took me so long to type.

Mike

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Comments

[John Krumm]

What's funny is that as soon as you showed me that keyboard, which to me looks like something out of an anxiety dream where you are supposed to type an essay in a hurry but just can't because everything is different, I noticed that it seemed like your sentences were shorter, like your finger-brain connection was running out of steam in the last paragraph.

[That's funny. You are not wrong. —Mike]

[Albert Smith]

Here in Florida (at least my part), fireworks are "illegal" with one exception. Agricultural folks are allowed to use pyrotechnics to keep crop damaging wildlife away from their growth. So the firework stands that spring up in tents on any vacant piece of land or large parking lot this time of year have a workaround. Everyone that buys fireworks has to sign a document saying the purchase is for "agricultural use only."

This morning on my walk around the neighborhood, stepping over the debris from thousands of explosions that happened last night, I could not see a single crop field in this area. Those people signing that form may not have been 100% honest.

[Max Cottrell]

Congratulations Mike! To enjoy doing nothing is a great achievement for modern humans in the west. "It is better to do nothing than to waste time" -- Viktoras Kulvinskas

[Bob Keefer]

Hopefully this didn't take you any longer to read just because it took me so long to type.

Perhaps your funniest line all year.

[Herman Krieger]

Fire Works?
Roman Candles-

[Dan Khong]

The Art of Doing Nothing is in itself a great blessing.

You are in a state of stillness, mindfulness and awareness that many people would give up an arm and a leg to acquire.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life!

[MikeR]

Isn't it sweet, deciding to do nothing, and doing it?

[Grant]

I can understand modifying a perfectly good colors camera to get a monochrome camera, but severely distorting a keyboard baffles me. I get motion sickness just looking at that photo.

[MikeR]

I'll be one of those summer people, in mid August. Staying in a house across the lake from you, by Keuka College. Semiannual gathering of my wife's family, two houses, a B&B, between 20 and 30 of us.

Wanna join us for poetry night? Seriously, we do poetry, some of it radical.

[Fred Haynes]

That keyboard? No offense Mike , that is one ugly keyboard!
But what do I know. I get dizzy just looking at it.
Fred