A Visit to Endeavour

L and C needed to meet a friend near USC to go camping, so they requested that we make the drive into LA a little more exciting by stopping by the California Science Center to see the space shuttle Endeavour. We had not yet seen it, so it was all-systems-go. 

Art upon entering the Science Center.

A photo of a photo of the Endeavor making its way down the streets of LA to get to its final home. I remember when they had to cut down many trees to get it through some of the streets. There is a cool video of the move in the space shuttle exhibit.

The massive shuttle herself.

We remember this third shuttle mission. We were driving out to Berkeley to look at grad school during spring break of 1982. We left my grandma's house in Idaho in the morning, and by the time we crossed the Nevada border the shuttle had circled the earth a few times. We listened to news reports on the car radio.

This is where you could rescue the crew, if needed.

Art seen on the way out of the museum.

G@@Gle Glass

I had the chance to try out these at HMC earlier this week. It only took me about 5 minutes to realize that as someone who wears glasses because of a high level of myopia, these don't work particularly well. I think that if I really, really wanted a pair of these, I could make it work, but I also think that trying to focus so closely for any length of time might give me a headache. 

No chance of me being an early adopter of these.

What Would You Do?

Um....No thanks.

Waterlogue

I have been having some fun with a new app that I bought for my iPad. It's called Waterlogue, and it turns photos into watercolors. It has a variety of filters, so you can get different effects. Here are just a few examples.

This is the original photo I took at LACMA in November

Her

We have decided that we don't really need to see the middle movie of The Hobbit series. At least not in the theaters. So last week when we saw Joaquin Phoenix on The Daily Show talking about his new movie, Her, we were intrigued, so we took in a weekend matinee.

Despite the fact that it was 2 hours long (and I think the story could have been tighter in 95 minutes), it was a pretty good commentary on our relationship with technology. The main character falls in love with his computer's operating system which is set up to become personalized to him. I loved the irony that he works for a company called BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com.

I have held out for owning a smartphone now. (I held out on owning a cell phone for as long a possible.) I know I would love one. At home I am often tied to my desktop, laptop or iPad, (tv, too) but when I leave the house, I do not have a gadget to distract me from seeing the world around me. I watch as people are deeply absorbed in their devices, but not with other people. I know that some day I will get a smart phone, and I hope to not change my involvement in real life because of it.

Thanksgiving

What a delightful Thanksgiving 2013! We had some of the very best Thanksgiving food ever. Not many of our traditional recipes (except for the zwiebach), but rather new versions of old favorites. I think I mentioned earlier that C had a board on Pinterest devoted to recipes to try, and this is basically what we had. 

Instead of a roasted turkey, we had a turkey breast that was rolled and filled with stuffing. The mashed potatoes had crispy shallots and some amazingly delicious mushroom gravy (B had made the stock from scratch). We found a recipe from Real Simple magazine for cheesy sweet potatoes, and the pumpkin pie had a praline topping which was, in turn, topping with fresh whipped cream (and a little brown sugar and bourbon).

It's a good thing we went to the gym this morning and then had a nice 30-minute walk through the colleges after dark. I may not need to eat tomorrow....

Quizlet

We have discovered a great way to create and use flashcards to work on our German vocabulary. The site, quizlet.com makes "simple tools to let you study anything, for free." You have a choice of creating flashcards for yourself (for any subject), or mooching off of looking at sets that others have created. For foreign language vocabulary you can have the flashcards show both languages at once (seen below), or either language hidden which flip over with a click to reveal the other side. You can star any card to create a subset of words to concentrate on. One added bonus is audio where you can listen to the pronunciation of the words.

Quizlet was started by a 15-year-old boy in Albany, CA who wanted to learn French vocabulary.

Currently I am working on the 100 most common German adjectives, 29 of which I have starred.

Double-Apple and Brussels Sprout Slaw

I am anticipating Thanksgiving in a new way this year. Now that I visit Pinterest every day (mostly for music teaching ideas), I find myself following my daughter's Thanksgiving board where she has pinned ideas of what we will make next week. I was excited about this Double-Apple and Brussels Sprouts Slaw that I saw on her board, and I thought I'd give it a test run before the big day. So I made it for book club, and it was pretty good, so I think it will be a go. Even with the ginger grated into it, it's still a little bit sweet.

The recipe says that it takes 30 minutes to make, but it took me longer what with shredding the brussels sprouts as will as peeling and coring and julienning the apples. Other than that, it's pretty easy.

Return to Sycamore Canyon

We should know better than to try to find a parking spot at the Claremont Wilderness Trail, especially on the weekend, so after looking at the crowds, we drove over to the Thompson Creek Trail parking lot on Indian Hill this morning to hike Sycamore Canyon. I blogged in August that I had not really found a map online, but there is one at the parking lot. I was pretty sure I could get us to the trailhead, but was not totally sure how to get back to the car, so I asked H to bring along his GPS. Turns out the GPS wasn't totally necessary since we found the Thompson Creek Trail at the end of the hike by the Girl Scout place, but the information that the little box gave us was informative and fun.

Official Map at the parking lot

Topo map

View along the way - a little hazy today

Uploaded from the GPS, this is our route including a slight little wrong turn that lead to a dead end.

Information about our hike, including the 5 minutes of non-moving time.

Of Rummage and Pinterest

I had pinned this website to my "miscellaneous" pinterest board because I like the various ideas for hanging photos in interesting groupings. However, I am unlikely to be hanging new photos on my wall in the near and even far future, so I took some photos from this morning's Riches and Rummage Sale at CUCC and made this collage, inspired by the layouts.

The sale continues tomorrow from 8-2 where more Riches and Rummage are still to be found.

iOS 7

I'm not what you would call an early adopter. I enjoy letting other people work out the kinks of a new product before I plop down my money. So, I will not tell you that I was in line today for the newest iPhone. Heck, I don't even have a previous iPhone.

Anyway, I decided to download the new operating system for iPad/iPhone/iWhatever last night on my iPad, and it's not too much different than the previous one. Swiping has changed a little bit, but it's not too hard to figure out, and the apps work the same way as they did before.

I guess one of the new features of this operating system is the filters in the camera, and though I don't take many photos with my iPad, I thought I would try it out. Here is a picture of a rock and its shadow with one of the filters and the enhance button. I don't think this will be a time sink for me, but it's nice to have it if I want it.

Screen-Free Week

I am way behind (or way ahead) of the official screen-free week, but I have decided to unplug from the internet for the next week. No internet means no blogging, no Facebook, no trolling mindlessly from site to site, no Words with Friends. So, when I come back, I hope to have a few more books read to report. Perhaps I will even unplug from the television, that other screen.

Take this opportunity to check out all the other fun blogs that I follow. See you in a week!

Lumosity

Have you seen those tv ads about lumosity? I was curious, so I created my account and started playing several weeks ago. Each day you can play three games which require speed or accuracy or both. I think I may have played a total of 7 or 8 different kinds of games. The whole session takes less than 5 minutes a day. Some days my scores are my own highest, some they are not. I have no idea if my brain is getting any more agile, but I do like to play games, so that's why I keep returning.

The hitch is, though, that to "unlock your full access" you have to give them money. That means, I think, that you get five games each day and more personalized information. I guess. I won't know for sure since I am not that interested.

Internet / Phone / Cable Issues

No photos in today's post. I had planned to write about the Iowa State Capitol building, but technology is not on my side today.

For a little while I had noticed that our television would occasionally pixilate, and then yesterday when I turned it on, the picture was frozen. I changed channels, and there was only a black screen to be had. H said I should check the phone and internet, and, sure enough, both were not working. We called Time Warner on our cell phone (thank goodness for cell phones!) and after walking us through a variety of options, we convinced the company that we need to have someone come fix the problem here. Then H went outside and where the cable comes into the house looks as though it had a little fire, or mini-explosion because there is black stuff on the siding.

So, on the occasion that I can come to Honnold (the colleges library) and check email (with my laptop which does not have my photos), we are without internet. It is quite an experience. I find myself wanting to look something up, and realizing that it will just have to wait. I also realized that I have my calendar on google calendar and was trying to remember just which students are coming today (the summer lesson schedule is more sporadic than the school year), so I just took a screen shot of my week's activities. I can at least do work on my computer that doesn't require internet.

Let's see if I get more read today....

My *New* Laptop!

In December H worked on my 5-year-old Macbook to try to speed it up. It worked better for a little while, but then it went back to its old, slow ways.  After being so frustrated waiting 1-2 minutes for a page to load, I toyed with the idea of buying a new Macbook Pro whenever the next one comes out (June, perhaps?). Then H told me that if he bought a new hard drive for this one, along with more memory, this one would run fast again. Since the laptop does runs the software I need (and I still have my fairly new desktop), I was happy with that idea, and now, a few hundred dollars later, it's like a new computer again - running at a happy speed.

Yay!

Going Solar

Claremont UCC is going solar! 

From the church communication: We are pleased to report that our forward-looking congregation has now donated or pledged the equivalent of 125 panels. The California Solar Initiative rebate will pay for about 50 more in equal installments over the course of the next five years, which means that we only need donations or pledges for the equivalent of 15 more panels to pay for the system. The system will offset 50 tons of carbon dioxide per year emitted into the atmosphere, which is the equivalent of planting 1300 trees. It will also decrease our electrical bills by about $15,000 per year, thus paying for itself in less than 10 years. The panels are warrantied for 25 years, and are expected to last for up to 40 years.  

Feb. 28 - the first week of work  

Solar Panels are delivered - March 13

Solar Panels begin installation - March 14

iPod

This morning while working out at the gym, my iPod nano stopped working. I thought maybe that I had charged it too many times (I usually keep it fully charged), so I tried plugging it in to my computer when I got home.

Nothing.

I use my iPod every day when I teach, and every time I go to the gym. Today my quick fix at school will be to use iTunes from my computer which I can connect to my speakers. This is slightly awkward, but I have done it before, and it will work.

Friends on Facebook suggested that I submerse the thing in a bag of rice, and I am trying that, but I think that solution is good for a wet device. Mine was not wet.

Tonight I will think about my options.

---Later--- All it took was a reset. Dear H figured it out, and now I am up and running again. Thank goodness.

Also, at school today, the heater refused to turn on, but one of the teachers who came in fiddled with it, and soon the room was warm.

Oh, how we depend upon technology!

Thoughts on Cell Phones

I am still holding out on getting a smart phone. I know I want one, but I also know that I can get by without one.

However, I am starting to get into the swing of things with texting. Last month I got a new phone with a little keyboard that looks like a Blackberry, so now I can text without being frustrated. In fact, I have been known to text more than once a week now! I can see the appeal of sending quick notes to people, mostly my family.

On Friday, while walking home, I dropped my phone on the ground and promptly broke it. I think it still calls and works, but the screen is blank, so it is basically useless. Not a big deal in terms of money - I just went online and ordered an identical phone for just $17 including shipping.

The bad news is that I have to recreate my entire contact list since I can't read the screen.

So, do I feel at a loss without my phone? Nope. I've spent the past 3 days without it and feel no twinge.  I will be glad to get my new phone up and running, though, when it does manage to appear.

On a side note, my cell phone carrier is Virgin Mobile, pay-as-you-go, and I am mostly happy with it. I have an old plan which charges $5/month as long as I top up every 90 days. I do that, especially since it  is automatic. (For this rate, phone calls are 18 cents a minute and texts are 15 cents. I am running a $50+ balance which shows how little I do use the phone.)

However, when I when online to see if I had any texts since my phone died, I noticed that I had some charges for "xtras" which came to 15 cents a day going back to January, when I got this new phone. After 15 minutes on the phone (still like my landline!) with Virgin Mobile, they said that it was a feature by which I could access games, etc. Huh? I never asked for that. She said she would take it off my account and credit me with $5. I think I got the short end of that stick, but it was not worth my time to add up all the little charges, so I let it go.

I might not have noticed that if not for my broken phone, so that is another reason that my glass is half-full.

ICE - In Case of Emergency

I have now labeled my husband's phone number in my cell phone under the name - ICE Husband. He's not cold, but I learned a while ago from my daughter that ICE indicates to anyone who needs it the number that you should call "In Case of Emergency". She has me listed as ICE in her phone.

You can read a bit about it on the Wikipedia page.

No Internet!

When I arrived home this afternoon from shopping, I found that my internet was not working. I did the usual thing of cycling the modem by unplugging it and replugging it, but the phone was also not working. After using the cell to call H at work, he contacted Time Warner who said that the machine that fixes the problem (and resides in India) is not working, so they have to send someone to our house tomorrow afternoon to fix it.

So, here I sit at my daughter's house using her internet for a few minutes before I try my life without a lifeline to the world. Well, to the webby web at least.

See you later, world!