I used to take pride in writing enough every weekend to load up the blog for an every-other-day, always-the-same-time post.  With traveling, vertigo, moving, and sleepless nights due to restless legs, I’ve become untethered from that discipline.

I don’t know that it’s a bad thing; I stopped reading articles like, “Top 10 Tips to Promote Your Blog,” long ago.  No tip I ever tried made the blog stats Boom.  The stats did boom here and there, but I couldn’t tell why.  I pay $99 a year for the WordPress platform and haven’t been curious enough to pay more to maybe find out why someone in Russia or the UK is reading the entire blog—475 posts as of this one.

I never expected to be able to monetize the blog.  What company wants to advertise on a blog about prison, which is how it all started?  I usually only mention specific hotels or airlines when I’m ripping on them, so I don’t see corporate sponsorships in my future.

I pitched the blog to some publishing agents as a book idea and never even received a form reject email in response.  I pitched some of the story lines to local and national publications—most notably Vince’s observations about Pillow King production inside prison (“Made in the USA!”  Yeah, behind the closed doors of prisons, by people who net about 25 cents an hour.  That’s what Makes America Great, right?  We still have slave labor.)  Anyway, there would be initial excitement, then no follow through.  To be fair, there are lots of stories about corporate and political corruption to choose from.

So I just keep writing because I enjoy it.  If a couple hundred of you follow along, that’s great.  Thanks for reading, even if my posting has been patchy lately.

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I came across this flyer in one of the many piles of stuff I am packing.

These stats were on a gigantic sign at the entrance to the Eden Project.  Lynn and I stood there for a long time contemplating it.  I can’t remember if the hand edit was there when I picked it up, or if I did it.  Apparently, the number of rich people who own almost everything in the world has shrunk from 20 to two since 2009.  The Great Recession was great—for those two people.

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At work yesterday, a coworker and I were lamenting about our ailments.  She tore her meniscus ligament and had to have a transplant from a cadaver.  Yeesh.  I’m glad my ailments only involve no sleep and feeling like I’m on a rocking boat all the time.

“But at least we’re not in a refugee camp,” I said.

“No. No—we get to have problems.  A torn knee and surgery and a year of PT are not ‘first-world problems,’” she replied.

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Our first full day in Lyme Regis.  Lynn and I walked into town and had a beach day.

Now, when I say “beach day,” don’t imagine sun and beach umbrellas and people in bikinis and speedos.  Here is a photo of Lynn attempting to use the combo washer/dryer in the public toilet. Note she is wearing polar fleece.

I was tempted to call the toll free number on the machine and ask for help.

This is the town of Lyme Regis.  The sign on the white building notes that Catherine of Aragon slept here in 1501, followed by King Charles II in 1651.  Just imagine.

Yes, it was grey skies in one direction and white puffy clouds with blue peeking through in another.  And they both changed every 10 minutes.

The area is called the Jurassic Coast because you can find 170-million-year-old fossils there.

There was a small, well-done museum and a café serving fresh crab salad sandwiches and tea.  A woman my age had brought her elderly mother for a day out and was yelling over and over, “Ja wanna saaannie ‘n’ a noice hot cuppa, mum?!”   (Would you like a sandwich and a nice cup of hot tea, mother?)

This plaque described, euphemistically, how the locals were “exceedingly hospitable and generous” to US troops, resulting in many trans-Atlantic marriages.

The scenery was stunning.