Today I collected my Galaxy Z 5 flip phone. I had to wait a month and a day after buying the Samsung A 15, which I found too bulky and unwieldy. The Z 5 is lighter and more compact and a better fit in my trouser pocket. It is as easy to use. All the info on the A 15 was successfully transferred to the new phone. I contemplated roaming, but the way I use my phone, it makes more sense to buy a sim card in the UK.
Popped into Gina’s travel agency so that Jodie could transfer the QR code for the West Highland line ticket.
One can expect the kind of presentation and functionality issues (which Jackie was able to promptly resolve) to occur after such a major upheaval to the website. However, I emailed her today about a new set of difficulties I encountered when I tried to overcome the failure of certain photos to download to the albums. They were present on the admin site, but not on the website. When I attempted to create a new image, I was either not allowed to change the sort order (the position of the image in the album) or save the changes. Instead, a 403 error page appeared. Nor was I able to add new images to an album. Jackie replied, saying she would get on to the problem.
Today, Jackie installed Animal Builders as a new category on my blog post page, specifically to contain this article explaining my interest in the subject, and compliment, and provide a link to, the new Animal Builders album. For many years, I have felt that the lack of a blue-chip documentary series about animal builders, has denied a global audience access to an abundance of fascinating information about a major aspect of natural history. One only has to think of beaver dams, bird nests and bowers, wasp nests, spider webs and egg sacs and the huge range of cocoons, mounds, burrows, dens and lairs created by animals. And the list only refers to terrestrial creatures.
I have trawled through my images and found plenty of material for the album. My focus for all the previous flora and fauna albums, had been on showing what a species looks like, hence the preponderance of close ups and zoom images. For the new album, the emphasis has shifted to using wider shots to best show a complete structure. Fortunately, when videoing an animal builder species, I included shots of the structure which they built, as best I could, although… Read Complete Text
With the post-op debrief out of the way, I was happy to make the final payment on my UK/Europe trip for hotel accommodation in Scotland and Singapore. Meanwhile, I decided to book a ticket on the West Highland line, the day before my Waverley cruise. It amounts to another long day of travel, from Glasgow to Mallaig and back.
I thanked the urologist for successfully removing the kidney stone. He wants to see me just before my birthday in November and will require me to have another ultrasound on my bladder. Meanwhile, he has prescribed a tablet to be taken once a day, designed to combat gout, which shares uric acid as a symptom with kidney stones. The hope is that the tablet will prevent a stone from forming.
Jodie, Gina’s administrator, transferred the Britrail pass QR codes to my smart phone. There isn’t a single code for the pass, but a code for each day of travel. The tickets are located in the phone’s gallery.
Since the beginning of 2024, I wanted to launch a new album titled Animal Builders, which has long been a subject of interest to me. Try as I might, all the emails and phone calls I made to Be IT Safe about the album, were ignored, though I received an invoice for AU$75.24 on the 26th of every month for hosting and upkeeping my website, which I invariably paid. It was only today, having engaged Jackie Keys to develop the site on its new domain name, that the Animal Builders album was inaugurated and what a great thrill it has been for me. I set to work and have uploaded fourteen images. The previous new album was Filming it All, launched in January 2016.
Years ago, I stayed with family friends who had a farm north of Inverness near Tain, on the rail route to Thurso. It’s magical country and I just fancy the idea of going to the northernmost station in Britain. I discovered that the Waverley, the last ocean-going paddle steamer on the planet, will be doing a full-day cruise on the Clyde on July 20, so Gina has booked a ticket for me. In 1985, when Simon was four, he and I went on the Waverley from Tower Pier to Southend Pier. We both remember it well. Today, I paid for the rail pass, the hotel in Glasgow and the Waverley cruise.
With time running out, I phoned the editor of The Tamborine Mountain News yesterday morning and she gave me the phone number of Jackie Keys, a highly regarded website developer, whom I promptly phoned. She agreed to fix the faulty functions resulting from the backup of biodiversity.com.au and came up trumps today.