#371 - More Dictation Practice

Slept in till 10 o’clock in the morning and once again woke to an empty bed.

Robyn was downstairs working schoolwork and studying for a test that she expects to have Monday. She also realized that she done one of her assignments incorrectly and needed to revisit it. I started my day by watching YouTube videos before going downstairs to make myself some toast and a cup of tea.

I decided to rent the do Steven Spielberg movie called, Disclosure Day, that I rented on iTunes. I’ve heard it wasn’t particularly good from people who had seen it as well as online reviewers. It had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 69 which didn’t bode well. Overall, I would say the movie was just okay, and comments of it being derivative were probably spot on. I found the ending to be unenjoyable as well as the opening sequence. I wasn’t surprised to see that the story was by Spielberg since most of his best work was him interpreting somebody else’s stories.

It did have a good cast and the sets really well done but the story just wasn’t there. It just goes to show how important having a good script and story arc is to the success and duration of that success for movie.

Halfway through the movie, Robyn came up stairs and invited me to sit outside with her on the back deck. I brought my Kindle and did some reading and enjoying the sunshine and the cool temperatures while sipping a cup of green tea.

Eventually I got a pad of paper and started brainstorming ideas for my next mentor assignment. The assignment is much the same as before, I’ve been tasked to write a contemporary fantasy short story. The last story I write had too large of a scope to be resolved in a short story format. It needs the length and space of a full novel.

I can’t say I came up with anything that got me interested in writing about it, so I will continue to think about other ideas as they pop into my head.

But overall, my main goal for today was to relax and reclaim some of my energy so that I will be more effective at work on Monday.

The other show I was watching today, on Disney plus was the Stanley Tucci show where he explores Italy and all the cuisines from various regions. It’s the kind of show that makes you want to travel and it definitely makes you hungry watching it. One of the things I’ve noticed is that many of the best tasting foods that Stanley tries are usually made from three or four ingredients. They are often very simple dishes, that may require some time, but they are all made from simple foods that are high quality. And that’s one of the things Italy has over the rest of the world, is great produce, beef, poultry and pork. And of course since they have so much water surrounding them they have amazing seafood options.

I’m not sure why I never recognized how close it really is, particularly as to the African nations, like Tunis. It’s interesting to see all the architectural influences from five or six different invading cultures and how they blended together in certain parts of Italy that had very accessible ports for invading ships to land on and for traders to talk.

Today is one of those days where I’m having trouble remembering what I actually did. I’m trying to remember if the two of us went for a walk in the park today, but I’m pretty sure that was yesterday. In fact around noon Robyn left to go fabric shopping with one of our friends, so we could get a custom made tablecloth for our kitchen roundtable.

It’s funny I’m now just remembering that I made myself fried eggs, toast and tea this morning for breakfast, where I believe I said I have only had toast tea. My brain is definitely off-line today.

My new micro DJI receiver arrived from Amazon this afternoon. It’s definitely much smaller than the original but if it has one downside it might be that it doesn’t appear to have a decibel adjustment booster like the original. However that might be something you can adjust using the iPhone app. I haven’t tried it yet because plugging in using Bluetooth is working fairly well. One advantage of using the receiver might be an extended amount of range between the receiver and transmitter.

But the way I’m using it, everything seems to be working just fine.

Robyn left to go do her second job helping out a man with Parkinson’s disease for an hour. They seem to have indicated that they would like her to be full-time with this man because the only time he laughs is when she’s there. They were disappointed I think to hear that she was not only full time employed in the animation industry, but was also attending school in the evenings. It does make you wonder what the other nurses or attendants are like around this man, who Robyn says has a great sense of humour.

At least it made her feel better about the type of service she’s been giving him and that he enjoys having her around. I figured this was probably true anyways, because I married the woman, I knew she was lovely to be around.

I’m dictating this entry yet again. I think I’m getting more and more comfortable typing by speaking and enjoying the fact that I can move around the room and I’m not put into an uncomfortable position balancing the laptop on myself and overworking my hands and fingers. Even today I can feel my hands are still a little sore from having done multiple marathon sessions of typing to get my story done to complete the word count challenge for September.

I still have to email in my results to the competition for September.

In my news feed, I see that CSIS, Canada’s intelligence service is having to change its hiring practices in order to bring in new people more quickly. Hiring from outside can take 12 to 18 months of investigations because anyone who works for them needs very high security clearance. So it’s always been easier to hire within then from outside.

I did some research on CSIS when I was writing a short story that involved a team trying to stop a bomber from committing a terrorist act. In that story I had my favourite and now defunct greasy spoon blown to pieces. But I was very interested in how differently CSIS works internally than what I thought it would be like. I was also surprised to learn that they cannot carry weapons or make arrests. Any arrests or charges are laid by the RCMP who must launch their own investigation no matter what CSIS discovers. There is a clear separation of power between the RCMP and CSIS. I guess we always imagine everything will be like American television. But the truth is, our intelligence services are more akin to the British model.

All for now.

Until tomorrow.