Life Marches On

Hello everyone. It's been entirely too long since I wrote a blog entry or much of anything else. No real good reason for that other than enjoying my marriage and coming to better terms with my hearing loss. That last has been irksome at times. When I take my hearing aids out, it's like someone has rapped a bunch of cotton around my head. As Spring has arrived, one bright side of this is that the birds which used to annoy me so much are far less of a bother. I'm certainly counting my blessings over all.
Sara and I have enjoyed the last months together as social life slowed over the Winter. We can both keep ourselves and each other engaged. Games, books and audio dramas are enjoyable for us both. Now, we're both starting to think more about our projects and getting on with things. Now too, things are picking up again in the social life department. We're seeing more friends and look forward to a wonderful Summer as far as that goes. Aladdin hasn't had a whole lot to do but is very loyal to Sara. She's getting more used to his nature so very different from Rocky's. Playing with him is certainly a form of exercise for me, but I've got to get into a habit of walking around the lake again. I've gone on a few good walks and we'll be off again to Symposium Cafe for a dinner with Antony and Angela. It's been quite a while since we've gotten together with them but they're settled in Mississauga so I expect to see a lot more of them over the next while. Steve visited recently. As part of that visit, he joined us at a jam cession with people from my former church. Everyone had a good time. Mushroom FM had its sixth birthday bash. Sara and I caught as much of that as possible with other things happening over the weekend such as Palm Sunday and a visit from Mark and Wendy. Events piled wonderfully atop each other giving me a very nice sense of being connected. Mark and Wendy haven't been able to see us for a while due to a baker's cyst Mark had to cope with on his leg. They've been out of action for quite a while but that seems at last to be getting better.

On the whole, my sleep hasn't been too bad lately. However, there have been some rough patches. I sometimes find myself at my most alert very early in the morning. I've been able to cope well for the most part. I'm hoping more fresh air and exercise will help as I spend more time outdoors with this gear. I'm using my iPHONE as my laptop replacement writing this on my bluetooth keyboard. Rather than using my Trekz Titaniums, I have a new bluetooth speaker in front of me which is able to keep up with my iPHONE thanks to its use of bluetooth 4.1. There's no annoying lag between a touch or swipe and hearing what Voiceover has to say. I can pug everything into my external battery and not worry about any extension cords. It's a nice way to operate. It should serve me well over the Summer and on trips.

I recently had to replace my laptop thanks to a nasty bit of spywere which simply wouldn't let go and die peacefully. Thankfully, the money for a low-end but very serviceable laptop was there. I think it will do what I need for the next number of years. Hopefully, I won't have any more equipment needs for a good long while. Sara's Braille display is really old and that might well be the next major expense. It seems that organisations have banded together to produce an actually affordable 20-cell display. From the sound of things, the Orbit Reader 20 has rudimentary notetaking abilities and can read electronic Braille documents. It's not quite as snappy as a more costly display but is apparently quite durable. My Focus40 Blue will more than meet my needs for ages but I'd love to feel an Orbit Reader20 in action at some point.

May should be a great month for gaming and audio dramas. Bigfinish will be releasing Dracula as well as what I expect is the final installment of this current arc of Pathfinder Legends. There also might be an anniversary Dark Shadows release. All great stuff. Add to that the Robin of Sherwood drama I backed all those months ago. I think it comes out this or possibly next month. Audible has just released a version of Alien with Rutgar Hower. That should be very good. Perhaps, this will finally be enough inspiration to get my EarThought blog going. Guess we'll see.