Mark Carroll's Journal

I took a few days off work, I'm back in the office this Friday. My time off has kept me rather busy with all manner of unexpected things, to some extent that looks to continue. To give one example, on the evening before Thanksgiving, with a raw turkey marinating, there is a large puff of smoke, the power breakers trip, and our electric oven appears to die. Fortunately, the top element for grilling still seems to work, with which R. coaxed us a turkey after all. The new oven arrives this weekend, when we'll see if we can replace the fitted oven ourselves or if we fall back to summoning a tradesperson. Also, for making one of the pies: canned pumpkin seems to have largely disappeared from the general supermarkets, we ended up ordering that from Amazon.

Not wanting to bother with VPNs and Peacock and such, I usually find one of the free Thanksgiving parade streams that shows the centre of the action from some other city than New York. I think it may have been Philadelphia or somesuch last year, this year I stumbled upon Chicago's, not the best choice as it turned out to heavily promote some sponsor's product for cleaning up fæces.

Among other things keeping me busy, today I did my office desk booking for the rest of the month, and tomorrow we are to get our SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations: I seem to have found local Moderna which costs us £85 each but the risks are too high to not do this at least occasionally.

I had thought it a good idea to choose glasses with fairly large lenses, figuring that I would have more of my visible field corrected. However, seeing as my distance vision is fine (though worse than it was in my youth), I find that it's not as practical for me to peer over the top of my glasses, I have to take them off or at least slide them down a bit. Well, now I know for next time I choose some. Additionally, another unanticipated effect of my choice is: having opted for rimless, if I put them down then it is harder to find them afterward.

I saw a surprising sight a while ago, commuting to work: travelling from west to east in the morning at a rather northerly latitude, at one point I noticed the sun on the left of the railway carriage. It turns out that, approaching Edinburgh, the more northerly railway line bends rather south for a spell before passing south of the airport instead of north of it.

My job comes with good enough private vision coverage that I finally visited a local optician. I much liked Andrew Bolton Opticians in Dundee but they're over an eighty minute drive away for me now and that keeps not happening in a way that comfortably fits an eyecare appointment.

I had been getting by fairly well with over-the-counter reading glasses: +1.0 for distance, +1.5 for close-up work. In my youth I had excellent vision, well beyond what glasses will correct me to now. So, in trying out my new glasses, things mostly didn't look great. Then, I tried my previous over-the-counter ones again and things looked even worse. I suppose that I just get to live with vision that's really not what it was. At least the vision benefit claims went easily.

After I got over my cold, I seemed to get another, for the following weekend, which would fit with my contracting them on my commuting on-site days. For my latest day on-site, I realized that, for Reasons, I used my ScotRail card to ride the Glasgow subway, and my Glasgow subway (really, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) card for riding the ScotRail trains. I'll be going back in on Monday via a less inverted arrangement. I use smartcards rather than cellphone apps because I dislike being reliant on my telephone and its apps all working.

I have been frustrated that I am not yet more rapidly productive at work. Yesterday was another example but my legs started off achy and, as the day wore on, it became clearer that I was coming down with some kind of a cold, and that my throat was not feeling good. Then, I didn't feel sleepy last night and stayed up late.

In the end, I slept. This morning, I woke up feeling quite rotten, especially my head, so I got out of bed in search of medicines and drinks. Having rested, I now feel a little better. I have even taken a bath and now feel up to actually dressing instead of lying around in my pyjamas.

At least we didn't have grand plans for this weekend. I expect to be feeling somewhat improved by Monday.

In writing here previously on generative AI I had wondered what happens to society when people can routinely lose themselves in artificial worlds of their own design. I had been thinking from the point of view of their being able to act out dark fantasies then adjusting to the real world where they don't make the rules and their actions affect others.

Anticipated by many works of fiction over the years, I was slow to consider what may be a good side of advancements in training inference models. There are many people who don't have enough contact with friends, perhaps especially the elderly. We may not be far from a point where they can have some artificial companion, patient and configurable, that offers interesting and helpful conversation on whatever topics the user wishes, even joining them actively in some pursuits, far beyond Alexa who can do little more than reading out the results from web searches.

Such companions may be considered a poor substitute for human contact but I suppose that there are probably funded startups chasing this very market.

We recently had a storm pass over Britain, not that it much affected us here in Glasgow. A high pressure system is following it, tomorrow should be pleasant, just in time for not-the-weekend of course. I took the day off for Thanksgiving so perhaps we'll be able to take a nice walk with L. This evening, we drive out to the supermarket to pick up the remaining items for Thanksgiving, including a turkey crown. The traditional meal with the turkey, stuffing, pies, etc. is the kind of food I enjoy, just as I also enjoy the traditional English meals like a Sunday roast. In unrelated news, I remain overweight.

Recently, R. made us some pan de coco. She wasn't impressed with the yeast or the coconut but I thought the buns came out well. I miss living in Maharlika Village where we could walk over to the market with the people with the, er, coconut machines, and R. could select a coconut and instruct them as to what she wanted, then we would come away with our fresh, er, grounds and fluids.

I held my diet for seven weeks, weighed myself, and had lost only a kilogram, which dispirited me enough that I've eaten more freely since, though at least without gaining much. I don't know when I'll actually start my journey back to what I weighed when I moved from Tennessee.

( Work remains busy, bringing my first project nearer delivery. )

( British unemployment benefit isn't generous. )

( I filed my US taxes but am not holding my breath for the refund. )

( Tax paperwork for charity donation irritated me. )

( Me and our dog are both heavier. )

( We are looking to move just a little south. )

I am not managing to read others' journals anywhere near as completely as I once did. Perhaps if I post rather more briefly, I will get around to posting at all. It's been very many weeks. I will try to mention the occasional random things, even if the picture of things as a whole is left even more incomplete than before.

Last weekend, the recent rain had passed. On Saturday, we had a cool, sunny day which was perfect for a couple of walks. In the morning, we strolled a little in Glasgow Green then headed over to Barras Market. After lunch at home, we walked in the other direction, and I picked up more books at the Mitchell Library. For some parts of our walk, there was a strong wind. I wondered why the sun and wind felt so familiar, and I realized that it was from having lived in Cornwall, it reminded me of visiting the coast.

The next day, I visited my kids in Dundee, and rode on a Ferris wheel for the first time in ages. I expect that I must have before but I don't recall when. It was great to get to talk with them and hear how they are doing.

Monday saw me flown to London for meeting my new colleagues in person for the first time. I took the bus to the airport and, after arrival at Stansted, took the train to Liverpool Street from where I could walk. The weather was nice, I joined one remote meeting from a bench in a small, pleasant park before meeting people for lunch then going on to do some work with them before heading back home.

Tuesday we had the property maintenance engineers visiting to check into the recent water ingress into our building. It turned out that the gutters hadn't been properly maintained, they had blocked and the rain overflowed into the wall cavity. We will do what we can to make sure that doesn't happen again. In the evening, my throat didn't feel right.

Yesterday, I felt as if I had a head cold. However, I had wanted to make at least some progress with my work, and I finally managed to make a proper start on my current project, with obvious points for continuing.

Today, I felt unusually dreadful, and took my first sick day for many years. I don't even remember when I was last off work sick but it was at least three jobs ago. Testing tonight, an expired COVID test showed my first positive result. That's entirely my own fault for finally letting my guard down and not being careful enough in travelling to London. It's an education that I ought not have needed but perhaps I can at least learn to try to avoid subsequent reinfection.