A burst of busyness

27th & 28th January

Coo, it's nearly the end of January already; doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourself?

Yesterday was a lazy start after a particularly good night's sleep, so, feeling full of beans after I'd done the trek to the shop, I settled down to sort out a picture gallery on the static website, featuring the photos we'd used in the family calendar. It's a matter of creating the web pages using the iPhoto facility, then editing the result in Dreamweaver.

Doing it this lazy way does, I admit, result in much messier HTML code than if I did the whole thing from scratch, but it is so much quicker, and I find that I'm just not patient enough to do it the slow way. I used to feel guilty about being so lazy, but have given up as it's too much effort.

(Just as one of these days I'll get round to doing something about my procrastination). Ronald Reagan famously said "Sure, hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"

Having up loaded the gallery, I posted to the canals list and the Braidbar Owners list to say that I had done so. I must admit, I did have in mind the idea that it would boost my hit rate just at the end of this month.

I should explain, if I haven't before, that I'm not interested in comparisons with other blogs in terms of popularity. There's a bunch of you out there who enjoy reading me, and that's fine. Other blogs appeal in other ways, so comparisons just don't mean very much – it's not as if we're being paid to do it!

For that reason, I've never been tempted to have one of these site ranking gadgets on this blog; I don't see the point, and it seems like a short route to stress if your ranking starts going down. I do though take pride in the fact that this blog attracts a steady number of hits, and that for a couple of months now there's been the possibility of getting over 100 hits in a single day. (Wow!)

Coincidentally, the total hits in a month has been edging towards 2000, and that's encouraging too. So you won't see a ranking counter in the side bar, but I have added the "Followers" gadget for those who want to keep tabs on me that way, and for completeness I've also added the RSS feeds gadget.

When Blogger first started doing the Followers thing, I had just the one (thank you, Adam) and it looked a bit silly to advertise the fact, but having ascended to the giddy heights of nine (thank you, Will), I don't feel quite so daft about it.

After lunch, I did my first bit of geocaching for quite a while. When I met Sue from No Problem I finally claimed that I had found all the local geocaches she had placed, but later that day, on the phone to Sheila, I was told that I was confusing one of Sue's, Tix All Beep Beep, with another one here, The Water Is Wide.

After slogging through the mud on the towpath yet again, and after only a brief search, I found it and was the first to record the fact in the nice new log book Sue had put there the day before.

After all this creative and physical activity, I spent the rest of the afternoon slumped in front of the DVD, watching the last of my Indiana Jones DVDs.

Today was quite windy first thing; I had thought of going down to Rugeley to shop, but decided to give it a miss for one more day. The forecast is for this level of wind for a few days, then a seamless transition to freezing weather, so if Cathy hasn't produced by tomorrow, I may have to go anyway, on the assumption that I won't be seeing Sheila back before I'm frozen in.

The day started on a high, though: according to Sitemeter, I had 114 hits yesterday, so the cunning plan had worked, and as a result, I'm over the 2000 hits for this month. Definitely a result.

I've spent the day, after doing the walk to the shop, tackling a list of minor jobs around the boat. The sink tap had worked a little loose, for example, and needed the nut underneath tightening up a shade. That's the second time I've had to do it in less than five years – you just can't get the quality build standard these days...

Similarly, the bathroom radiator needed bleeding, and my Captain's Chair from Wilson's has got a bit reluctant to tip. I fiddled around with the various fixing bolts on it, and for good measure polished the leather. It seems a little better, but I may have to consult Mr Wilson next time I see him at a show.

Finally, I sorted the plug for the cratch light, which had gone a bit intermittent.

In more sitting down mode then, I got on with another thing I've been meaning to do for a bit. The good old US of A now requires you to get clearance to enter the country by filling in an online form three days in advance. Although my sister Jane in New York is hale and hearty, it's been a source of concern that she might be taken seriously ill (she's five years older than I) and I'd not able to get over there quickly.

Some one pointed out to me the other day that you can fill in this online form without specifying a date of travel, and the clearance lasts (they said) for three years. In fact, on investigation, it's only for two years, but even so, it seemed worth doing.

A word of advice – if you Google 'US Visa' or similar, the first few entries are from websites that offer to help you do it for a fee: in one case, $50. In fact if you go to the VisitUSA site, there's link straight to the form. You need to know your address, date and country of birth and the details like serial number off your passport.

Then you fill in the same marvellous questions as on the old green form (for example: "Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities?" as if you'd say "Yeah, sure, I'm here to assassinate the President"), click the submit button and the response in my case was immediate, job done for two years.

Why you'd need to pay someone any money at all, much less $50, I do not know.

I've also done a bit more of the labelling of earlier posts with the locations from which they were posted. I've now done the whole of 2008, and there's a bit of the early stuff done already, so there's only 139 more to do. As I said, it'll take a while, especially as I keep being distracted being reading what I'd written all that time ago.

I'll definitely go to Rugeley tomorrow, I think, as there's still no news from Lincoln.