Lock me in, Lock me out

Songbird posted the Friday Five this week with some disconcerting news:

For some reason, Blogger declared this blog possible SPAM and locked us down yesterday. This morning, we're free to post again, but there was a fair amount of excitement last night among our contributors, who found a dire notice on their Blogger dashboards threatening that this blog might be deleted in 20 days!

We requested a blog review, and I posted a request at the Blogger Help group, where I found we were not alone. Many other perfectly nourishing and cromulent blogs got the same notice last night.

This turned out to be a very small barricade in our blogging community life, but it seemed appropriate to explore locks and blocks and other barriers this week. Also, I liked the picture of the security team above! Could they be Blogger's Spam Prevention Robots, working overtime?

In honor of their efforts, I bring you the "Lock Me Out, Lock Me In" Friday Five.

1) How do you amuse yourself when road construction blocks your travel?
Generally just sit in the car and twiddle my thumbs. It can be an opportunity to explore some of the byways if there is a possible alternative route. If I'm at risk of developing a version of road rage, the story I remember is of women from Hinds in mid-Canterbury at the turn of the previous century, who were concerned that their children hadn't been baptised. So they set out on foot and horseback to traverse over 100 kilometres. On the way home a horse stumbled fording a river (there were no bridges at that time) and one of the children momentarily swept away. Kind of keeps things in perspective when I think of that commitment to travel.

2) Have you ever locked yourself out of your house? (And do you keep an extra key somewhere, just in case?) Yes and yes.

3) Have you ever cleared a hurdle? (And if you haven't flown over a material hurdle, feel free to take this one metaphorically.) Athletics and I were never good mates, but metaphorically - I have overcome a fear of using a lawnmower (my Dad did a very good job at convincing me as a little girl how dangerous they were, and working in Casualty I saw a few chopped up fingers) and now enjoy mowing the lawns. We have a Camphor Laurel in our backyard and I just love the fragrant leaves chopped up in the grass in this wintertime.

4) What's your approach to a mental block? Nothing consistent but a mix of

• Go for a walk
• Spend a set time in a specific creative activity
• Move to another task
  
• Persist and break through the barrier
• Find some more routine part of the project to focus on (e.g. preparing the graphics, data analysis, formatting etc)
• It is a bit strange but I do find PowerPoint can be helpful when I have a writing block. Visualising the final presentation can help to sort out what really needs to be said.
  

5) Suggest a caption for the picture above; there will be a prize for the funniest answer!
My brain does not cope well with 'funny' at this time of night but they do make me think of the nursery rhyme Three blind mice
Three plastic guards
See how they stand
Stolid helmetted fixed in place
Danger lurking beneath each face
Did you ever wonder where they would race
If they could run