“I Don’t Speak Binary.”

Despite a ten minute trawl over my virtual fishing grounds, my mobile phone has not seen fit to supply me with an image I could use to help explain Lodestar’s timeline.

And that is, it’s not doing any imagery at all this morning, not even photos. I don’t know why. I probably only use about 50% of the phone’s capabilities often, I suspect, because “I don’t speak binary”.

Don’t you love that line? Pure frustration spoken by the Mandalorian in the last instalment of Season Three at his R5 droid’s explanations that it couldn’t instantly open gate 5 that second.

I felt instant rapport with the Mandalorian at that moment. How many times today already have you been required to speak binary, and didn’t, because you don’t?

The upshot of all that? I will craft an image myself. Sketch, paint maybe, scan-shot if I use digital paint, cam-shot if I use pigments, import into media library. A simple 4-step operation.

About The Lodestar Timeline

The Star Wars chronology has been my go-to viewing for the past few weeks. The Mandalorian has just said auf wiedersein to his small charge and will be at a loose end.

The Mandalorian series got me thinking about novels, such as The Crystal Planet by Vonda McIntyre, set in the Starwars universe.

[All Star Wars related media produced pre 2014 are now referred to as Legends, while for post 2014 material and the original series, Disney+ claims the ‘Canon’ label.]

While they all have only a tenuous position on the original timeline, TV series and books have expanded the Star Wars universe.

The original timeline of the Lodestar universe has always involved timetravel. Not sideways to expand the size of the universe yet, to give more options where to set stories, as in the Star Wars universe.

The Lodestar universe began in the future … I even set a date for its beginning when I was still new at the business of writing a universe. But it turns out that in a story that involves a time travelling, forward falling, octohedrenal spaceship such as the Lodestar, there is no beginning or end.

Because that’s what happened …

A storm lurking above an anonymous suburban scene … a harbinger of climate change … one of the drivers of eco fiction … image from Alex Steffen’s Substack The Snap Forward

“Add new post!”

Seriously? I’m completely boondoggled … is that even a word, I imagine you’re asking … I’ll need to check that myself. It’s been a while since I saw it written.

That suspicion was right. Not the right meaning. The Navy has my favorite explanation … a boondoggle is a fun, but unproductive meeting.

So. Try again. I’m completely at a loss … not as descriptive is it?

But me going to the thesaurus from here and then trying to get back with a good word under my arm… will take me another half hour.

I’m at a loss. My writing is on my laptop and the external hard drive. My research ditto. Everyplace where I might check somthing, also inaccessable.

It’s Friday, and here in Queensland, Monday is a public holiday. I won’t be able to take my ailing laptop to a repair place until Tuesday!

Couldn’t take it today, yesterday or day before due to too much other stuff those days. I have ME/CFS and am constrained by a frequent lack of energy.

I’ve been training myself to take 2200 steps per day. If I go over my daily limit, I’m setting myself up for a three day crash.

The computer repair place visit has to be done on the same day I need to go into that direction for another thing. Three blocks distance is all it is, and three blocks back. It’s all I’ll be able to that day.

Flowers from my garden

Blogging

Blogging by mobile/cell phone is a new thing for me. Entering this one fingered …

My laptop is frozen and I need to find a repair place that I can easily get to.

In former times I used a business that sent technicians on house visits. The local one of that sort is silent at the end of the phone line. Not even a message service. Brrr brrrr. Brrr brrrr.

Just then tried to find the function with which to get an image … lol, went to Jetpack instead and had to sign up for that, to be able to get back to this.

So maybe not an image today!

Nope! Did get a pic! This fearless explorer motorbike riding mechanic suits my present state of mind.

Life: Cataracts? Done!

Colors have improved! In this photo of a sunset during rain looking into the center of the complex where I live, lights are whiter, the pink clouds aren’t as pink as I remember them, but the greens are definitely greener. And there’s a difference now between the greens of the shrubbery and the green of the lawn. The palms at the back look grey-green. Being able to see more colors has also improved my depth vision.

Now to wait for four weeks of healing and having my brain adapt to my eyes’ new lenses, and adapt to how they can now work together before being prescribed new spectacles for reading … maybe.

An additional plus for me is that the original reason that I started wearing spectacles is gone too. When I was 17, I was diagnosed with astigmatism, and my new intra ocular lenses take care of that. I’m sitting here typing without any spectacles. Almost unbelievable after wearing them for nearly sixty years! That, below, was me about twenty years ago.

This, the second day after having my second eye done, I can already clearly see what I’m typing on my laptop, on my lap … a distance of 60 cms … that previously I wouldn’t have had a hope of seeing clearly.

One of the amazing things is how the quality of light has changed to a lighter and brighter tone. The sky is now sky-blue. Clouds are both whiter and greyer, and don’t look like thunderheads rightaway. I’ve had to trust my phone weather app for a couple of years already to figure out what to wear, or whether to take a brolly with me, to go out. I should now be able to learn again, to gauge the weather by looking at the sky, as I used to.

Previously I thought the walls of the complex where I live were a gold-cream tint. I discovered when I had my left eye done that the color is a more neutral-cream tint. The carpet in the unit I rent is grayish, not brownish. Still a “tenant-grey”, according to my son. It’s easier to tell close shades apart.

Another ability I have got again is peripheral vision. Anyone first getting used to multi-focals will know that feeling, of the world suddenly narrowing. I hated that, not being able to see out of the corner of my eyes.

I could go on and on. Colors of anything and everything have always played an important part in my life. I’m happy!