Am I Bragging?

When people ask me what I do, I tend to copy one of my Father's answers to such a question:"I haven't decided yet what I want to be when I grow up". Of course he did quite a few things, from inventing and developing products for Fibreboard Products Inc. to traveling all over South America measuring terrestial magnetism for the Carnegie Institution at Washington (from 1916 to 1918, he was the first white man to venture into many areas, especially of the Amazon basin and Amazon river tributaries, as well as crossing the Andes on mule-back - but that's another much longer story which I will share another time).
There are not many crafts that I have not concentrated on from time to time. At the left is one of them - macrame - a hanging that I made for my mother but which has hung in our dinette since her death. You know about my beads - see photo in right column. I have knit, crocheted, sewed clothes and toys, made stained glass. Of actual art, I started with mostly watercolor paintings in college (I was an art major). Those paintings were representational. Since then I have worked with crayons and pastels - abstract drawings, illustrations, etc. I have made a number of leaded glass window hangings.
I also think I'm a writer. I have one published novel (AI is a Three-toed Sloth) to my credit, as well as short stories, articles and poetry published in nationally circulated magazines. I also have one book of translations of poetry from Portuguese (As Evidencias, by Jorge de Sena), published by the Portuguese department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.. (Yes, it happens to be a book of sonnets - I apologise, Elizabeth Barrett Browning).
But then I also want (when I grow up) to be an astronomer or astrophysicist. I do own one patent (on heat rejection from a power plant), but that would never have happened without Otto. He was describing the problem of heat rejection, and I said, "Why don't they just do such and such", and he took it from there. Right now I am in love with my computer, not only because it let's me do things such as this blog, but for composing, creating artwork (and calendars and mailings), and for doing all of Otto's circuit diagrams for his inventions.
There were also years that I worked with and for the homeless on the streets of Berkeley. At one time I thought I might go into politics. Unfortunately (for me, at least) I now lack the energy level to do such things.

Change of subject: After posting the parrot pictures yesterday, the new National Geographic arrived with a horrendous photo of a wild parrot caught entangled in a net. It was to be sold - probably in Europe. I'm sure that the parrots in the photos I posted were not captured wild ones. Of course their ancestry had to include parrots who actually had been wild.

Why do the previews of my blog always look like I want them to, but turn out quite differently when published? That was true of yesterday's post. And I had arranged the text and pictures so nicely!