Hi-Fi Upgrades - Go Qobuz!

I must have played one too many Spotify playlists. I got tired of Spotify.

I've done Tidal.

So I tried Qobuz.

OMG!

96kHz streaming. 192kH... iPad reboots itself. Set 96kHZ as maximum.

CD-quality streaming.

Why wasn't I listening when various You Tubers talked about it?

Maybe I thought, hey I can barely tell the difference between 320kps vs a CD on my current system, why would I notice the difference between anything more?

Stream CD-quality through the Jitterbug+Black Dragonfly and it just sounds better than 320kps.

As good as my CD player, if not better.

Sources matter.

What I Did In The First Post-Lockdown Week

(aside from the day job, daily walks, cooking food and all that routine stuff)

Monday: the nice man from the AA pumped up my flat tyre and drove with me to the local tyre emporium just before it opened, where I had the whole lot changed over. Later that morning, I stopped by the local Pure Gym. A manager was there to show me around.

Tuesday: early morning shopping at Sainsbury's. Joined the gym online. 50% discount. (Even at the full rate, that gym costs as much in a year as my old one did in a month. And I was happy to pay that money then.) Added Qobuz to my streaming services. I am liking that decision more and more.

Mid-week: lots of hefting of books and building of IKEA shelving. Didn't need to leave the house for that.

Thursday: first visit to the gym. Man those pull-downs felt good.

Friday: a visit to London by train. Haircut at George the Barber's in Bedfordbury; sunbed session at the Tanning Shop, Covent Garden; a visit to the Vodafone and Apple shops; lunch outside at Maxwells; a browse round Foyles; and a visit to Lillywhites for some new trainers.

Saturday: a visit to Sis's new house in a secret location for lunch.

Sunday: second visit to the gym in the morning. That was more tiring than I thought. Snooze in garden sun-trap. Get new iPhone SE2 working, and set the old one up to be another iPod Touch (that's why Apple downplay the iPod Touch).

And all I had to do was wear a mask almost everywhere.

Masks do not counts as "freedom", and sure as hell not as "normal".

This ain't over 'til the masks get burned.

I have my second jab this week.

Two more weeks before I never have to open that work laptop again.

Retirement Countdown

I have to talk about this.

In three weeks' time I will stop working.

I have to fill in some forms, and one reason I haven't already done so is that I did not have a black ink pen in the house, so I had to buy one on Thursday. And some stamps. On Friday I woke up late and did nothing. I should have been filling in pension forms and getting the flat tire on the car fixed. Instead I watched You Tube videos on anything and generally futzed the time away. I got a walk and a few reps in, just so I hadn't had a complete wasted day. Then I went to bed at 22:00, and came back downstairs at 23:30. No sleep Saturday morning. That happens when I feel guilty about leaving things undone. I felt guilty because I'm supposed to be Superman, and never have a bad day.

I spent a lot of time on Saturday dark morning thinking that the sleepless night was about retiring, and not having a job and all those other cliches.

I'm totally down with the I-will-not-have-a-job-to-wake-up-to-do bit. Me? Miss the day job? Have you met me?

Not getting the tyres fixed is about me being indecisive and lazy and maybe it's the pollen. I wake up with a blocked nose, itching and sneezing. At 04:30. I kept dozing until 08:00 Friday, and spent the rest of the day being an hour behind schedule.

If I was going into the office, I would have a countdown of days left commuting. I would be having handover meetings and chats with people. I would have something anchoring me to work in those last days.

But I'm at home. I've been at home for over a year now. My unconscious heard me say I was resigning, took a look around, saw that it was home, and checked out of the job. It thinks I'm done, and it does not like it when I keep opening the work laptop. It gets confused.

I can't concentrate on work because I've almost left it. I can't concentrate on organising things in my life, because I'm still at work.

It's not retirement I can't handle.

It's these last three weeks.

Catching Up: It's Been A Long Time...

...since I published anything. I've written stuff, but held it back.

Vaccine passports. The irrational fear of the insides of pubs and restaurants. Schoolgirl allegations without police charges, blaming boys. The EU threatening to stop vaccine exports. Teenagers burning the Union flag and complaining about 'colonial' history. NFT's in art. Museums turning into social justice institutions. Police breaking up Easter Sunday services.

Never try to understand crazy. There's nothing to understand, that's why it's called crazy. Walk away, have minimum contact if you can't, and never ever try to figure out what's going on. Because crazy makes no sense.

So I have to pass to No Comment.

I put in my retirement a couple of weeks ago. I stop work at the end of April. I have had conversations about pensions, taxes and investments. This stuff I really don't want to discuss, because most of the thoughts I'm having are first drafts, and so are just the cliches and stock responses, that I have to work through to get the real issues.

For the next four weeks I still have to show up at the work laptop four days a week (I've booked every Friday off in April). It wasn't the lockdown that kept me in the house during the week, it was the work laptop.

Retirement doesn't start until work stops. I don't know what I'll feel until the first Monday I never have to show up to work. In the meantime, my motivation to work is... fading.

Writing this, I have realised that I've put my plans on hold for four weeks because of work.

Nope. Don't do that.

I should go ahead and order the things I want, even if I don't unwrap them until the 1st of May.

See? That's what writing a journal entry does for you.