Five Random Things from January

Silly AI. Doesn’t have a clue about the days or dates.

I don’t wear prescription glasses. I have a pair of readers from the drugstore, but I don’t use them often. Here at WordPress, some of the fonts are really small. Mine is on the small side as well. I was so tired of squinting and slapping on my glasses to read a blog post, I finally did a search to see if I could make the size of the font on my computer larger. To my surprise, I found I could enlarge the type on any webpage simply by holding down the control key and pressing the plus key (actually, this enlarges the entire page). By the same token, I could make the font smaller by pressing control and using the minus key. Well, slap me upside the head! I suspect this function has been there forever, and you all know about it, but I just found this out in January. Doh! So now, all you “little font” people are getting the biggify treatment from me.

I think I had broken images on my WordPress homepage for ages. In January, I had the bright idea to go into my WordPress media library and delete pictures that were duplicates or from posts I had deleted long ago. It was then I saw via widgets that I definitely had broken images on my homepage. Not only that, but I was aggressive in deleting media photos and wiped out two more from the homepage as well as a handful from still active blog posts. Oops. I’ve managed to repair the homepage and found an old pic to put back on one post, but as for the other deleted images, phooey. As I go back and find the broken images, I’ll delete them. Anyone digging through my old posts won’t miss them. So, a word of advice – clean up your WordPress media files, but don’t do it like a Tasmanian devil. Take your time.

Quite a while ago, I asked for help with changing my Stanley Pearl cover. A new design company was looking to make covers for free to get some feedback and reviews. Disperser Tracks had previously given me an idea that included a man emerging from a shell. I liked this idea and submitted it. The new designers weren’t able to provide anything even close to what I asked for and nothing that fit the book. I moved on – as did they.

However, now that I’m wanting to turn this into at least a three-book series, I still want to change the cover away from a photo to be more in line with the hand-drawn images of my other covers.

I love some of the AI images I see on blogs, so, in January I tossed a few ideas into an image generator, and I love this one!

I sent the pic off to my cover artist. I told her I would have to double-check Stanley’s appearance, but I think we’re good with just removing the beard. I want the briefcase appearing to be dropped – left behind in the shell along with a pair of black glasses. Add a large pearl. Remove the water elements and draw over the entire thing. That the tie is already partly undone is a plus. It’s a place to start. I’m sure she’ll add her own design elements and make it fabulous.

In case you are wondering, AI generated images for covers are acceptable. I will simply have to say yes when Amazon asks if the image was originally AI generated, even if it was modified after (such as my artist drawing over the work). Her original artwork is always copyrighted, but AI generated images are not. Amazon will not protect this image. I have no problem with this.

This random thing makes me mad! Wanting to get a handle on exercising more than just throwing darts (hey, you’d be surprised by how much you move), I decided to follow one of those walking in place videos on YouTube. Fifteen minutes to start – one mile. Easy-peasy. (Insert unladylike language here.) I managed a little over four minutes and had to sit down. Where has all my stamina gone? Spring/summer/fall of 2023, I was riding my bike seven to ten miles at a good clip almost every day. Because of family responsibilities, I didn’t ride as often as I wanted to last summer, and usually only three to five miles per day. I have an indoor exercise bike, which for some reason I hate, so I don’t use it very often. But this four and a half minute “walk” was a wake-up call. As soon as I can, I absolutely must start riding my bike again. I want to be back up to at least seven miles a day by the time it’s warm and I can ride without a jacket.

Finally, poetry. I follow several poets here at WordPress whom I enjoy very much, but I’m not generally a reader of poetry, and I’ve never been a writer of poetry. However, I loved poetry when I was younger. I read loads and loads of poems, even copying them into notebooks.

All through high school, I had a crush on one of my friends. All through high school, he had a crush on my best girlfriend. It was a tad heartbreaking for me. When we were seniors, on our last day of school, he handed a note to me, wished me well, and walked away. I never saw him again. The note was a poem he had written for me. The paper is long gone. I have no idea what happened to it, but I remember one part of the poem. It has stayed with me always because I was so touched by his words:

She glows round and within
As a candle in the night
Giving forth her love and friendship
As free as rain upon the Earth

Anybody here remember David Harding (Monk Monkey) from Australia? He was responsible for the PizzaDraw December party we had on my blog. We were ordering pizzas and asking the workers to draw a picture of a gorilla under the lid. He was loads of fun, and I miss him. He no longer blogs, but he’s still the guy behind Grail Games. They produce table-top card games. I think they have a Kickstarter going right now. Check out Grail Games if this might interest you.

Anyway, David and I used to chat via email. I have no idea how we got onto the subject of poetry, but we both wrote a poem. Mine embodied how I felt about my life (still does). This was several years ago, and I was surprised when I found it (of course, in January) on an external hard drive. Here it is:

I Run
not down the road
not round the track
not for the hills
yet I Run

I Run
not to and fro
not from the cops
not out of gas
yet I Run

I Run
not in place
not in circles
not for the money
yet I Run

I Run
headlong into life

So, there you go. Five random things from January.