Oh so pretty. I didn’t have a window seat today. It’s just as well, though, because I would have been hogging/blocking the view the whole time. 🙂
So I asked my seat-neighbor to snap one for me, instead.
Category: Things
Now, that’s weird.
A week or so ago I was driving through a parking lot at a nearby store and saw this:
I couldn’t help but wonder where the person that needed the walker went … without the walker. Ok, so i just chalked that up to a chance encounter with an abandoned walking aid. But then about a week later, I was in a different parking lot, and saw this:
Now I think someone is trying to tell me something. I just don’t know what it is.
🙂
Abaco sea glass.
Maybe because I’ve been dabbling with beads to make earrings and bracelets, I remembered the other day that I brought home a bunch of sea glass from our trip to the Abacos in 2009. But I couldn’t remember where I stowed it. I guess you can find sea glass along the shore of many beaches. But, I had heard ahead of time that there are certain stretches of beach in the Abacos that are covered with it. It’s kind of sad to think that this is all trash – bottles broken up by the tides over many years. But for some reason the currents deposit a treasure trove of it along the islands.
Well, I found my stash! Can’t wait to go back for more.
What’s in your pocket?
I was absentmindedly sorting coins that were weighing down my wallet today. I lined up, on edge, the nickels, pennies, dimes, quarters…. then I noticed one of the dimes was all silver. It is not often that I find a silver coin in my pocket anymore. When I was a kid it happened much more frequently. I guess more of them were in circulation (way) back then.
Anyway, when I zoomed in to take this macro shot I noticed initials “JS” under Roosevelt’s head. Google tells me those are the initials of the guy that designed the front and back of the coin, John Sinnock. He was Chief Engraver for the United States Mint, and also designed the Franklin half-dollar. You really can learn something new every day! You just have to take the time to look around 🙂
More numis-trivia: this dime is 90% silver, is worth about $2 today, and is one of 85 million minted in 1959. There you have it.
Scenes from the wayback.
On one of my trips out to the shop in the wayback part of the yard today to see what Monte was up to, I encountered this little art exhibit.
He’s been talking about wanting to make a sundial. But I don’t think this is it.
The story behind the shot: Monte is very fond of colored bandanas / hankies, and won’t get dressed without having one or two of these in his pocket. He uses them for pretty much everything. Well, last weekend he declared that he was running low and came back from a shopping run with a couple dozen bright, crisp, new colored bandanas. They bleed profusely, though for the first 5 – 10 washes. So he’s taken to washing them in a bucket of saltwater to set the colors. This is apparently the drying cycle for the latest batch. 🙂
The old and the new.
The marine survey was scheduled for today. I took the day off work so that I could be there with Monte for it. The marine surveyor was fantastic. He spent about 10 hours on the boat with us, inspecting virtually everything on the boat while explaining how everything worked as he went along. He didn’t find much wrong, and no surprises. So, pending getting the final report from him, I think we will be upgrading from our beloved, homebuilt wooden catboat that we’ve been playing on for the last 8 years, to a big-kid, plastic boat that we will be enjoying for the next 15 or so years. 🙂
Moving on up?
We went to the lake today early, to finalize an offer we’ve made on a new boat. It’s not a done deal – we still have to take it out for a sea trial and have a marine surveyor inspect it, but if there are not problems found, this may be our new ride in a couple weeks.
We have infinitely enjoyed sailing and playing aboard our unique, homebuilt wooden catboat for eight years. We treasure the friends we have made at the marina in those 8 years, too. We are not ones to make big decisions lightly. But we recently decided to make a move up to a bigger boat, and this is the one that presented itself. If it doesn’t work out, no biggie, we’ll wait for the next one that feels right. If it does work out, I look forward to another 10-15 years of fun aboard this boat on our beautiful lake with our sailing friends.
I’ll keep you posted!
The perfect omni-tool.
One of Monte’s vast array of swiss army knives is missing. Probably in a bilge, or perhaps at the bottom of a cove. So we ordered another, which arrived today. Did you know that there are about 100 different models of swiss army knives, with different combos and numbers of gadgets attached? This one is called The Tourist. Upon opening the box, Monte declared it the “perfect” swiss army knife. So, go get you one!
You have to check out this one though: http://www.amazon.com/Wenger-16999-Giant-Swiss-Knife/dp/B001DZTJRQ Monte doesn’t have *it* yet. 🙂
Plyboo?
Our friend John has been working in the shop all week on a desk for a client. Monte’s been out there making tables. It is a magnificent shop, if i must say so myself. 🙂
The material that John is using to make the desk sides and top is a plywood made out of bamboo, called plyboo. Pretty cool looking.
Green & black denier.
I drove down to Julie’s apartment this morning to pick her up so that we could spend the day together. We came back home and watched a bit of the boat parade for the Queen’s Jubilee celebration on BBC America. Before too long we were at the marina. Lots of the usual B-dock suspects showed up at some point. We saw Marty, Sue, Joe, Kurt, Wally, Kevin, Robert, Tasha, Jay, Mike, and Dave. Summer is here! But the day was pretty overcast. We put up the shade and floated for most of the afternoon.
Afterwards we opted for dinner at Jardin Corona and then we deposited Julie back home.
Twas a nice day.
The shot above is a swatch of my official “bound-for-the-lake” backpack.
A simple fix.
We’ve owned a Harmony One programmable universal remote control for almost 4 years. A few months ago it went on the fritz. It would reboot itself randomly, making it impossible to use, because it would forget the state of the devices it was supposed to control between reboots.
So, it has been sitting in the closet gathering dust. In the mean time, we’ve had to dig out and relearn how to use the multiple remote controls that it was intended to replace.
I was just about ready to buy a new one on Amazon today, when I thought to google for any known issues and recommended fixes.
Turns out that a common problem with the Harmony One is that the battery, after a year or two, can become a tad loose inside the remote, and if that happens, the battery’s contacts with the remote can be disrupted as it is moved around. When that happens, the remote reboots itself. The “fix” is to put a small piece of thick paper, like from an index card, under the battery to take up any slack. Voila!
We are back in business!! I ♥ my Harmony One 🙂
Good advice.
“And we must study through reading, listening, discussing, observing and thinking. We must not neglect any one of those ways of study. The trouble with most of us is that we fall down on the latter — thinking — because it’s hard work for people to think. And, as Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler said recently, ‘all of the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think.'”
— Thomas J. Watson, 1915 (audio)
IBM founder Thomas J. Watson was an inspiring figure and entrepreneur. He introduced the “THINK” slogan in the early days of the company to motivate and inspire IBMers. It was the first US trademark registered by IBM. Over the century, this one-word slogan has adorned IBM buildings, publications, ads and presentations. Back in the day, IBMers carried around small, leatherbound THINK note pads to capture great thoughts and ideas.
Those little notebooks later inspired the name of the IBM ThinkPad line of laptops in the 1990s. I’ve always thought that was clever. I think TJ Watson would, too.
Before I punch out…
Just a quick post before “punching out” for the night. The meetings I’m attending this week are at an IBM facility. IBM celebrated 100 years of innovation in 2011. Let’s hope the next 100 are as impact-ful. These and other former state-of-the-art artifacts grace the lobby. The placard for this one says:
IBM 016 Electrical Duplicating Keypunch. The development of automatic feeding and ejecting mechanisms for keypunches and duplicators helped to increase the speed of key punching and reduce operator fatigue. The Type 016, introduced in 1929, fed cards into the punching unit and automatically removed or ejected the cards after punching. It was withdrawn from marketing in 1960.
This one’s even older. Not electric. Notice the hand crank.
And it says:
IBM 501 Automatic Numbering Gang Punch. Brought to market in 1926, the Type 501 automatically recorded on a series of punched cards common fixed data from a master card. This punch operated at the rate of 125 cards per minute, and was withdrawn from marketing in April 1948.
I guess progress is always relative to where you’ve been…
Score!
Monday of VACATION for Sheila! Today Lori played hooky, and we hit the San Marcos Outlet Malls (north and south). We showed up before the stores even opened! It was awesome. We had the entire place to ourselves (almost). I don’t do this very often – i think the last time I made it down here was 2 years ago. But when I do go, i like to perform a surgical strike on only the stores I am interested in seeing. No leisurely windowshopping for me. I expect a call any time now from my credit card company asking if my card has been stolen.
We cleaned up! I ran into Santa and he gave me some of the presents he got for monte – said it would save him a trip.
I also (finally!) found an area rug to replace the one in the game room that is showing lots of wear and tear. I don’t enjoy shopping for rugs. They all look the same, and nothing ever grabs me. This time, i found one – at the Pottery Barn outlet. The price was right… AND it fit in Lori’s car, so, even better.
Once I put it on the floor I decided that now we need a new couch, chair and ottoman to go with it. 🙂
Sheila365 