Day 15: Meet the M

I have been unwell for the past couple of weeks, and it has been enough just to get through the day. Today, though, I thought it was time to get going again on the daily challenges!

The challenge for today was to respond to a feminist site in an intelligent and constructive way. I thought I did quite well, and had most of my comments approved. One, though, was rejected, and the excuse given was weak as the reality was that the blogger in question refused to accept me as a person with a valid issue. Elsewhere, on my 'Life by Design' blog I define persoanlity types by comparison to three characters from the James Bond books and films - Bond, M and Q. Bond is the dynamic personality, M the believer in hierarchy and Q the believer in managing change. I am a strong Q, and firmly believe that all changes in technology, for example, are actually changes in the way people act and think. As a consequence, changes are about managing people, caring that they get what they need, even if that happens to be a gun to defend the social group.

The M, though, believes in the hierarchy and the power that they can garner within that environment, and rather than accept change, people must be made to fit the power groups hierarchy. Just mention the word 'grammar' in a group and wait to see who complains about bad grammar and you will have mostly recognised the Ms. To an M, care for you is about another notch on the bedpost of their career, and once they move on to another position you are forgotten.

The strong M in question threw lots of statistics and links to statistics at me, but her underlying message was 'you are a minor statistic I can ignore' - except she couldn't understand why i was not responding by throwing more statistics back.

Day 14: Beat Car!

Time to wake up this city!

Wind down the windows - and pump up the volume!

although the weather was cool, we spent five minutes of our travel to work in our car polluting the city with our sound system as if we were a pair of teenagers with our first car. We got a few looks, including some double takes as we made it through a couple of tracks of Fatboy Slim on the way into the campus of the large UMCS state university.

Day13: Do it like they do...

Tried to keep it simple today, focusing more on generating some micro-adventure ideas for next week, and for Ania's trip to Lodz over the weekend. Went to the gym and we each tried out some new machines. You know how it is - you start something and it seems quite adventurous but quite quickly you find yourself in a rut where you keep doing the same or similar things. We want to keep going and work our way through all that the gym has to offer, learning what is good for us. It was more of a challenge than we realized, because some of the machines are in German, making figuring how to get them going quite a problem.

I tried one of those machines like you see on the adverts, a strider, plus this awkward one that I have never seen being used that is like climbing a steep slope. The strider I will definitely use again, although Ania reckons she needs to build up her knee strength on the bikes before she tries it again. The step climber - well, maybe if I get bored with all the other machines or if everything else is being used.

Such is the life of the micro-adventurer, having fun while other people get on with their lives around you!

Day 12: Piecing it together

We needed something to put our shoes on in the closet, and we bought a set of shelves that fit the available space. Not much of an adventure, you might think, but assembly, as usual, was not as easy as it could have been. However, with Ania in control and me doing the grunty bits all the issues were soon resolved. As it is Autumn it is an ideal time to sort our closet out, and delving into the clutter will require the efforts of adventurers of spirit. Anything that is now worn out or which we never wear will be got rid off, the latter donated to a local charity.

I am still experimenting with the blogging format, and the kind of ideas we should use in our adventures. I like the idea of taking a quick picture, and today I have also made up some paper slips we can jot down any ideas we have for future adventures. I would like to put the slips in a pot so that until we put our hand in and grab a slip we will not know what adventure is coming up for the day.

Day 11: Climbing the walls

When I was a lad, my brother and I devised a way of climbing up narrow passages by leaning against one surface, putting one foot against the other surface, and then putting the remaining foot on the wall below your bum and levering yourself up. I even used the method in childhood adventures such as to get up on the roof of a local school. Much later I discovered this to be a common method used by rock climbers, but that did not diminish the pleasure of discovery.

Today we went down to the basement to try this out as our adventure for the day. I tried in the doorways at home, but the woodwork was too smooth to get a grip on with my feet. However, the basement walls were nicely rough, but I am afraid that the strength has gone from my legs, mainly as the result of fifteen years of arthritis and a more recent lack of exercise. Both of us 'ageing' adventurers did manage to get both feet off the ground, with some mutual assistance, but in no way could you say that we climbed the walls. Perhaps in some months time, if we keep up our efforts in the gym, we will be able to repeat this adventure and climb high enough to touch the ceiling.

Day 10: Where are those new buildings?

Today, early in October, the sun was shining with only a slightly cool wind, and being a Sunday, we found we had more time on our hands than usual and our five minutes adventure became one lasting several hours. Our aim was to take a closer look at some new housing blocks we can see rising beyond a housing estate when we stand on our balcony.


We knew that they were building a new main road to take some of the traffic away from the roads on the western edge of the city and redirect the flow around the southwestern corner, but we had sen nothing of that other than the new junction at the western end. After making our way through the pleasant housing estate, where I got pictures of a locally made Zuk van and a classic 1970s Communist supermarket building still with its blue-painted aluminium roof cladding, now very faded, and some yellow flowers against the blue sky.


The road was a lot more advanced than we thought, and the new blocks were next to the new road. What we remembered the most was that the previous times we had adventured here it had been a mixture of fields and abandoned land. I have some great shots of a small combine harvester cutting the wheat in one of the fields now featuring a new block. The road follows the ridge, and the blocks are just south it, so the city has breasted another barrier on its ever-continuing push forward to the south.

Day 9: Three Blind Mice

Today's adventure was Ania's idea: to stand on our balcony and sing 'Three blind mice'

Three blind mice,
Three blind mice,
See how they run,
See how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
She cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice!

It was just dark when we did it, but no one seemed to mind - or notice!