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Travel Days - June 1 & 2

Airplane wing extending into a bright blue sky flying above a layer of fluffy white clouds creating a serene view of the horizon. The airplane’s winglet shows an Air Canada logo.

Two people wearing headphones around their necks are smiling and sitting close together airplane seats visible behind them airplane interior with overhead compartments and window.

A large ancient stone amphitheater with multiple arched openings stands as the main object The structure appears weathered and historical with visible columns Visitors in modern clothing gather and walk around at the base of the amphitheater The sky above is cloudy The text reads Il Colosseo si racconta

The Colosseum stands as a large ancient amphitheater running semi-circular stone seating structures people exploring its many levels and corridors an overcast sky with clouds forming the backdrop historical ruins and remnants populate the center of the arena wall structures and arches surround the scene

Double doors lead into a dimly lit interior with hanging lights. The exterior left wall has two flower pots with pink flowers and a mounted menu stand The façade features a street sign reading VIA DELLA MADONNA DEI MONTI 108

A salami pizza topped with black olives sits on a table next to a glass bottle of Coca-Cola Zero Zuccheri. In the background, another person is dining with a different pizza and a glass bottle of Coca-Cola Zero Zuccheri. The table features a dark textured surface.

✈️

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A wooden dock extends over calm water with boats moored alongside. The boats are positioned on separate platforms. Beneath a cloudy sky, a lush green island is visible in the background, surrounded by the water and framed by trees. The environment conveys a tranquil lakeside setting.

Boats

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Colosseum stands with its iconic arched structure, featuring multiple levels of large stone arches. People gather in the foreground, creating a lively atmosphere. Signs reading Il Colosseo si racconta are visible inside the arches, providing an informative context. Trees and cloudy sky frame the scene.

Colosseum

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Our full trip notes and photos of our Best of Italy and Croatia cruise are finally posted our travel site - Explore Together. We hope to have more posted here in the future.

It took a while to sort through the bad selfies and an inordinate number of pictures of doors. Somehow doors became a theme.

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Our First Cruise Complete

We finally made it home from our cruise around Italy, Croatia, and Montenegro in the early hours of Sunday morning.

I had hoped to post daily with some photos and a short write up of the day. I did manage to record some notes about each day so but here was never the time to sort through the many, many, photos taken. The on-board Wi-Fi was less than stellar and it was all I could do to make sure the photos were backed up to the cloud. This becomes very important later.

Now that we are back into our regular daily rhythm I will be posting each day over the next couple of weeks to exploretogether.lol, created as a place to keep of record of our travels and upload our photos as we hope to make a habit of getting away more often now that our girls are grown.

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A sandy shore stretches along beside a calm sea. Gentle waves touch the shore. A rocky strip divides the sand and water. Dense trees cover hills in the distance. Grass and small wildflowers grow in the foreground. The sky above is filled with scattered clouds.

Sandy Shore

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Dramatic clouds form in the sky creating a turbulent scene over a calm body of water with a distant shoreline and marshy grasses in the foreground.

Dramatic

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A paved road with a central dividing line stretches into the distance under a dramatic, overcast sky with thick, dark clouds. Rocks lie to the left of the road, while a body of water and grassy terrain are seen to the right.

Overcast

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Aurora borealis streaks across a night sky, with bare tree silhouettes at the bottom, creating a contrast against the illuminated backdrop.

Bare trees silhouette against a night sky exhibiting aurora borealis with shades of pink and green, blending into a star-speckled gradient.

Long exposure images of the Aurora Borealis creating some exaggerated colour from Nova Scotia, Canada.

#weblogpomo2024

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The Perfect Album

I don’t know if any album is perfect but there are some that speak to me.

Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

  • A concept album released in 1988, the year I graduated high school. A couple of years later as the band was touring on their next album, Empire, I was able to hear/see Operation: Mindcrime performed in its entirety live

Dixie Dregs - Bring ‘Em Back Alive

  • Recorded live in Atlanta and released in 1992. I was introduced to this band by a roommate in college, not a band I had heard before but quickly became a staple in the CD player

Both of these albums are on my phone and are still listened to quite often.

#weblogpomo2024

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Why Can’t I Have Nice Things

Major software upgrade testing is going just about as expected.

It worked last week. It doesn’t today. Updates to a couple of procedures is now preventing a clean database creation.

Confirmed with the developer the logs are clean but the tables are not being created. It works for him, just not for me.

No word yet from the database admin. Is it the network or new security policies that no one has been made aware of.

#weblogpomo2024

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Communication - What is it Good For

While at work this morning we started to see random issues, a web page wouldn’t load or a login failed only to then work with a refresh or a second login attempt. Everything thing seemed a little slower.

And then nothing works, meaning no one works, outside of IT. Most of us are at a standstill, absolutely nothing can be done offline.

No attempts to let anyone know what the issue may be or why this is happening. I know no internet means no email but oddly one, we have two, internal messaging system still works. Also no phone calls, they still work, at least get the word out so managers or supervisors can let people know what is going on.

We sort of migrated to teams a few months ago. And by sort of I mean, the icon appeared on the desktop so some departments began using it. It has never officially been released. Other departments still cling to the old system.

We are now over 2 hours in to this outage and rumors are starting:

  • server room has no power (my office is across the hall from the server room it is as loud as ever)
  • Were we hacked again (several years ago we were hit with a cyberattack that took is offline for almost 2 weeks)

Email just came back up and the first thing I see is a Major Incident Notification sent over an hour ago for an impact to email in my inbox. Who was going to see this when email is down??

Still no internal systems or databases.

Communication is not this companies strong suit.

#weblogpomo2024

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A smooth stone rests on textured, rippled sand, with the focus gradually softening into a blurry background. The scene is a tranquil beachscape in monochrome.

Textured - from the archives

#weblogpomo2024

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One Year in the Making

One year ago today we put the deposit down on a cruise for our 20th anniversary. Thirty days from now we will be on a plane heading for Rome before boarding our first ever cruise. Twelve days sailing around Italy and Croatia.

There are still a few last minute items to take care of but all the reservations have finally been made,

I think we are ready.

#weblogpomo2024

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Preparing for Summer

At the end of last season we needed to move our trailer to a new spot. It was settled into a temporary home and was closed up for the winter. Our own piece of land, a new permanent home for our trailer is in the works, waiting on the lawyers.

Opening it this year has a few challenges.

We spent last Saturday doing a complete spring cleaning of the trailer while checking for any new damage and/or leaks and sorting out our power and water hookups as they much farther away this year. We will also need to go back to using the local “facilities” as there will no longer be a sewer connection.

Tonight we take our golf cart and a full truck back to the trailer.

It usually takes three or four weekends with the truck packed full each time to get everything back up. Hopefully our new trailer home be arranged this year and will have our own storage so we no longer need to bring so much back to our house.

#weblogpomo2024

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Getting Started

I have had my Micro.blog account for years, on the free plan for most of that, but never really posted with any regularity until I switched to a paid account year ago. Still not much of a blogger, I would rather find something to photograph and share than to try and organize my thoughts into coherent sentences.

I have always struggled with what to say, I still do, but I see the message of so many blog to just write for yourself

With this Weblog Posting Month I am trying to change that. There will still be lots of photos but I will be trying to use my words more. Sorry about that.

#weblogpomo2024

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An old iPad Mini displays a page from “The Hunt for Red October,” resting on a laptop with stickers, all on a textured surface.

Bonus Day 2: (unputdownable)

#mbapr

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WeblogPoMo 2024

I plan on participating in #WeblogPoMo2024, by Anne Sturdivant, where I hope to publish one post every day in May about something.

Read More ...

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A spirit level rests on a surface, indicating horizontal alignment with a centered bubble, against a background of horizontal siding.

Bonus Day 1: (bubble)

#mbapr

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Modern buildings flank a pedestrian walkway, illuminated at night, near reflective water, in black and white.

Day 30: (hometown)

#mbapr