Dark Days Are Coming

 The dark days are coming. Can you feel them??

Every year I find this week very difficult. The days between the last Saturday of October and the first Saturday of November.

Why are they hard?  Because I find myself adrift. The United Kingdom has moved off British Summer Time while here in the United States we are still using Daylight Savings Time.

Being eight hours behind normally is ok for me. I listen to the BBC radio stations a lot and so have a routine that for this one week is way out of sync. It is amazing what a difference that one hour in time difference makes.

It is not just since coming to the United States that I have found the problem.

While my wife and I were in a long distance relationship. Me living in England and her here in California, the problem was the same. All well with an eight hour time difference, chaos when we came to a seven hour time difference.

But then on Saturday night, we lose the hour. We go back to an eight hour time difference with the UK, but it will be dark shortly after 5pm.  When I was little, the closing in of the dark nights was fun. Bonfire night soon followed, then Christmas and New Year. By then in England you could tell the nights were beginning to grow shorter. Here in California the difference doesn't seem to come for a few extra weeks.

Plus with losing so much of my vision, dark means dark earlier and longer.

Next week comes out my reflective high visibility jacket.

Just like the one to the left.

When out and about in the gloom of a dark morning or growing darkness of evening, I like to feel that I can be seen.

Working with a black labrador as I do, even with his harness which reflects some light, I want to be seen. I am big, and in this bright yellow jacket, well your eyesight must be worse than mine, because even I can see me in this gear.

So I recommend that everyone get some high visibility clothing of some sort. It need not be a full blown jacket, a vest can work too, or even just cuffs and leg bands. Something that catches the eye of the motorist or truck driver.

Be sure to make sure you can be seen. 

You can see a small selection of High Visibility Clothing and safety strips by clicking on my Amazon Affiliate Link here.

I would like to thank everyone of you who have supported my blog by clicking my Amazon Affiliate Link already. You have been very gracious in your support of this blog.

What Am I Reading in October 2020?

 Did I ever mention that I love to read?</p>

I am not one for much fiction. Generally I like more books that might make me think. I also like theoccasional  recorded course. Amazon and  Audible are great for me.

This month I chose a book which promised to have a personal element to its story. The book is   

The book is not new, published in 2005.

I found it fascinating though. The events of the book take place during the Cold War. Most of the initial action takes place on a Soviet nuclear submarine operating in the Pacific Ocean. The boat in question sailed in a hurry from its base in the far East of the USSR in March 1968. It disappeared a few days later.

The book examines how the United States quickly found remains of a submarine just a few hundred miles from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The shattered remains, showed signs of a massive internal explosion. Many of the crew were not at their posts but appeared to have been locked in the forrward section of the submarine. Prisoners in their own boat.

Over several months the U.S. set up a series of covert operations to recover the submarine.

The book details how the submarine became a pawn in the game of diplomatic chess that was played between the U.S., U.S.S.R. and Peoples Republic of China during the late 1960's and 1970's.

Finally reaching the endgame of Detante between the three powers in the late 1980's, when the submarines bell. The beating heart of any ship was handed to the Russians during high level talks in the 1980's. Proving the U.S. knew the location of and had visited the long lost Soviet vessel.

The mission of the submarine had been to launch a  nuclear missile against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. But the members of the crew who attempted to fire the missile were not aware of all the safety devices that would destroy the submarine if the correct  protocols were not folloowed.

My personal interest in this story? Well my wife was born at Pearl Harbor naval hospital just weeks before the submarine tried to launch its deadly cargo. Her father was at the time at sea on board a U.S. navy submarine. So my now wife and her mother were just moments away from a ghastly death.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in espionage or modern naval history. The authors keep up the suspense throughout the book, never revealing all of the secrets until the last few pages when all becomes clear as to how one rogue submarine almost created a devastating nuclear war and how the failure of its rogue mission paved the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

You can read this book for FREE if you follow my Audible FREE Books Trial link here.

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Do Blind People Dream?

 Do Blind People Dream?

 generally don't like answerring such wide ranging questions, since I cannot speak for all blind people, but I can happily say, Yes, I do dream and I am blind.

My dreams often consist of images. Having lost most of my vision in only the last ten years or so, I have forty something years of visual memory. I can tell you in great detail about places which I knew as a child and up until my mid forties. But I cannot tell what my home looks like today. I cannot see it. I have a mental map with which I can navigate around my home today but I never dream of my present home in visual terms as I have never seen it clearly.

I also find that I dream in color. Grass is the proper shade of green, flowers all shades. Leif my guide dog is black, in my dreams he is a blue-black since all the black lab dogs I have known seem to have an iridescent sheen to their coats.

What Do I Dream About?

Most of my dreams I forget immediately. Some are about things that I have worked on during the previous few days, so maybe this blog post will appear in a dream. Then again if I am thinking of doing something unusual it may appear in a dream. Such dreams may be vivid and detailed.

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For example, the other day I began planning a new television program at CMAC, the local community television studio where I made "Blindside Fresno". In my dream I set up the studio, created the script and briefed the crew to create the program. To see this through to fruition will take several months. But I have already rehearsed some of the process in my dreams.

So hopefully this has answered the initial question of "Do blind People dream?" Speaking for myself, yes, I dream despite being blind.

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Almost Halloween 2020

 Well, it's almost Halloween again. Time almost to prepare for a whole bunch of holidays. For us, Thanksgiving and Christmas and a New Year.

The photo to the right shows Leif, my black Labrador guide dog sitting in our kitchen. There is a brightly lit window behind him so we can see him almost only as a silohuette. My camera on my phone, set up this photograph with flash active and as Leif must have been looking straight back at the flash and camera lens, his eyes are reflecting the light of the flash back. His eyes are both glowing white. Quite spooky, and a bad photo technically, but at this time of year, I think pretty good.

Leif and I have been together for seven years now. We were introduced on October 21, 2013. He was about eighteen months old. 

He was then and is still a character. He grumbles a lot of the time. Will throw himself down with a loud "Hummph" Lie beside me as I write or work on my investments. Sometimes he might nudge me with his heavy black nose. A pat is required, or a belly rub. Just to make the bond good again.

This year has been hard for us. The virus and the lock downs make it difficult to go out. I often have to use Lyft or Uber, and many of the drivers don't take kindly to dogs, in spite of it being illegal to refuse us a ride. But I am not picking that fight, it's not worth the bother to me. We used to love riding the bus, but not now. We used to love walking around the local college campus, he always got a little pat from other students. But of course with the colleges and schools closed, we don't go there any more. I am not taking a class either, with the main reason for taking classes being to get out and mix socially, there is no point and my certification classes closed to me as I have heart and lung problems due to having suffered several heart attacks and lungs scarred with "Valley Fever" then a dose of Corona Virus could be pretty serious for me.

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So all in all, 2020 has been a year of sitting at home. Watching Leif's muzzle start to gray.

There are a few gray hairs on his upper lip these days. A reminder that he is getting a year older. Wondering how long it will be before we decide to hang up his harness for the last time.

I must say he is still eager to work. When I pick up his leash and harness, rare occasions this year, he is there in front of me. Pushing his head through the leather chest harness. Padding impatiently beside the door eager to strut his stuff. 

We may go back to college in the Spring 2021 Semester. Maybe, if all goes well.

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