Seven people died in a school shooting in Nashville yesterday. Three of them were nine-year-olds. Three were staffers. One was the shooter.
Representative Andrew Ogles (R-TN), who represents Nashville, said he was “utterly heartbroken” by the shooting and offered “thoughts and prayers to the families of those lost.”
In 2021, Ogles, his wife, and two of his three children held guns as they posed for a Christmas card with a caption that read: “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference—they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
First, I clicked on Write to start a new blog post:
After I did that, a little plus-in-a-blue-box appeared in the upper left corner:
Clicking on that plus-in-a-blue-box gave me options, including Classic, middle of the second line: Notice the elevator scroll bar at the far right. Lots of stuff to explore.
When I clicked on Classic, I got this:
Of course, I could not resist clicking on “Use the classic WordPress editor,” and doing that gave me this:
I guess WordPress really wanted to make sure that I wanted the Classic Editor because one has to click on Classic. Spam emails use the same tactic: Unsubscribe here – Do you really want to unsubscribe? – Do you really really really want to unsubscribe? – Alright, we’ll let you unsubscribe if you click on the Unsubscribe button below…… [Enter unsubscribe loop.]
Finally, I got this:
Yahooooooooo! The Classic Editor tool bar!
I went to work and then tried to use HTML to alter the size of the picture. Nothing was working, but that might have more to do with my lack of HTML use for the last couple of years. However, I did notice that if I click on the picture, corner bounding boxes appear:
Click-holding a bounding box and dragging allowed me to easily modify the size of the picture. Cutting and pasting worked just like it’s supposed to, whereas that doesn’t work so well with the Block Editor. Text-wrapping also worked very well.
Since I have been stuck at home for the last two months, I figured I’d try some of these “make money from home” schemes. The first one I tried was playing games. O.M.G. They are the worst. I was in the middle of a good Solitaire game when I got pushed out for a video ad. I never did get back to that Solitaire game.
Along with four different versions of Solitaire, I played about a dozen other games. They all did the same thing, and many of them also downloaded crap aps to my phone, or required me to do so before I could continue playing. Some of them required a purchase from one of their partners in order to keep playing. Publishers Clearing House—yes, THAT Publishers Clearing House—had all sorts of ways to pay me hundreds and thousands of dollars, as long as I completed certain levels with their partners. Unfortunately, their app would not let me complete certain levels. I would have joined AARP if their app would have let me. Alas. I was pretty sure before I started that all of this was a scam, and my experiences over the past two months confirms it.
As an aside, the WordPress block editor still sucks.
I can highly recommend “Top Gun: Maverick.” It continues the great action from “Top Gun,” as well a great storyline and character development.
As an aside, the original “Top Gun House” in Oceanside, California (my pictures below from November 6, 2017) originally was scheduled to be destroyed along with the neighboring historic beach cottages from the late 1880s. Public outcry caused it to be saved while a huge resort was built around it. The house then was moved two blocks from its original location and renovated. There were historic photographs of the house that helped restore it to its late nineteenth glory.
The renovated house (last picture, from the Internet) has been christened High Pie, a “Top Gun”-themed restaurant on the grounds of the Mission Pacific Hotel-JDV by Hyatt. You can see at the bottom left of the last picture a refurbished Kawasaki Ninja ZX900 motorcycle as homage to the Kawasaki GPZ900R that Tom Cruise rode in “Top Gun.” The exterior of High Pie has been painted as it looked in the movie, including the red door.
I was in a solo car wreck on September 29, 2021. I had a new 2021 Honda Insight with about 5,000 miles on it. The car was full of computerized safety features which, according to the manual, do not work, yet there was no way to turn them off. Makes no sense to me. Anyway, the car decided to take control away from me and drive itself off the road, into a culvert, up an embankment, back into the culvert, and back onto the road where it overturned. I spent 1½ hours hanging upside down by the seatbelt and shoulder harness. I spent 16 hours over 2 days in surgery, having my right ankle, foot, and lower leg reconstructed using metal plates, bars, and screws, as well as a titanium ball joint for my ankle. Bionic man I am!
Ongoing health concerns have caused the California Department of Motor Vehicles to suspend my driver’s license, so I’m stuck at home in retirement, utterly bored. With nothing to do, I shall attempt to learn this WordPress block editing mess and start writing again. Wish me luck!
I have moved to Blogger (Blogspot.com). It’s owned by Google, so it might have a lot more stability than what I currently find at WordPress. Here’s my first post:
Well, I’m 100% certain that I won’t be using Vocal.
I tried to publish a story but there weren’t enough words in it. Minimum number of words is 600. That kind of means that there would be no picture posts.
Next, once I got the minimum number of words and submitted my story for publication, it took them 24 hours to tell me that there was a “technical issue” and that they would be contacting me within the next 24 hours.
They contacted me and said that due to the “technical issue,” they had created a new draft and asked me to re-create my post. Well, I did. I was extremely fortunate that I had created it in Word, and saved it.
After pasting everything into the new draft, I submitted it for publishing. It was approved. Unfortunately, here’s what they approved:
Seriously? They couldn’t even be bothered to removed ‘NEW DRAFT -” from my title.
Unfortunately, one cannot edit one’s stories. One has to contact Vocal and ask them to edit it. Well, I have requested them to edit it twice now. Today I got an email stating that their offices are closed for the weekend and will re-open Monday.
So here I am with a published story—my first—that makes me look like an absolute idiot.
Nope. Vocal is too onerous for me to try to do something with it. Amazing that in today’s world with all this instantaneous stuff we do, there still is a site that makes you wait 24-72 hours for appropriate service.
Notice the elevator scroll bar at the far right. Lots of stuff to explore.
Russel Ray Photos 