A Mini Reunion, LG G4 it is and an Embarrassing Fall

I hate colds! Tammy has been dealing with one for the past week so I knew I too would soon be. It always plays out the same for me—one minute I'm fine and the next I can feel a sore throat coming on. After a day the sore throat is gone and the sneezing, coughing, and congestion take over. They're such a waste of time.

I got together with some retired controllers a few days ago. I met Jeff Ofthsun, Ed Whitman, and Dan Abbene at Red Cross in St Paul where they were donating blood. They get together once every couple of months, donate blood then go out to lunch together. Jeff has a list of restaurants on a folded piece of paper that he's crossing off as they visit them. They offered up a few choices to consider and had me choose. I picked Burger Moe's. It was a nice enough day that we could comfortably sit outside on the patio. Not bad for November! No photo of us all. Perhaps next time.

Time passes so quickly. Jeff has been retired for over 8 years, Ed for about 6 and Dan for more than 3 years. They kept referring to me as "rookie". It fits.

Rachel and I went out and finally pulled the trigger on some new phones. Her Motorola Maxx had become more frustrating than it was worth because it kept shutting off unless it was plugged in or nearly fully charged. Mine wasn't nearly that bad but had a strange habit of rebooting itself throughout the day with no prompt from me.

We settled on LG G4 phones with 32 GB of storage but with the ability to add up to (I think) 200 GB of additional storage. The battery is also accessible so it can be replaced on the go with a fresh one if needed. But the real reason we decided on this brand and model was for its camera and the ability to use the camera in manual mode, something none of the others offered. All of the reviews on the phone's camera I could find spoke very highly of it. My first priority for any cellphone has become its ability to take photos. Any previous phones I've owned have all been lacking in their ability to take photos in low light conditions. I took the photo to the right of Rachel in manual mode without any additional edits. No, it's not as nice as what my Panasonic Lumix can do but it's so much better than any of my previous phones.

The only drawback I can see in the few days I've had the phone is its battery. It's no better or worse than the other phones I was considering (based on reviews I'd read) but it's noticeably not as long-lasting as I'm used to. I suppose that's maybe a tradeoff for having a stronger processor doing its thing inside.

The hacktivist group Anonymous released the names of 500 KKK members and their Facebook and Googleprofiles. I spent some time this morning looking at some of the people on the list and their social media pages. There's not much shame in a lot of these people in what they put out there for others to see although many of the Facebook accounts on the list have been deactivated. Here's the list.

Yesterday morning's ride didn't start out so well. I didn't notice a layer of condensation on our newly sealed driveway and a lean onto the street that I've done at least a 1000 times had me on my butt so fast but up again just as fast in case anybody was watching. I'm sporting a nice abrasion below my right hip and a bruised rib but other than that I'm fine, with the exception of this annoying head-cold!


Comments

John A Hill said…
At nine months, I still consider myself an apprentice retiree. Maybe after a year or so I'll throw myself a retiree check-out party!
Kevin Gilmore said…
It feels nice to be retired and no longer focused on the time of day or much less the day of the week. I actually have to pause and think about what day of the week it is. Our 3 pups are enjoying their daily morning walks and a more reliable routine for that sort of thing. But the nicest thing of all is a more normal sleep pattern. I'm not missing those early morning wakeups.

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