Musings

All cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti—at least that was what I was taught for decades, although I find whispers on the Internet that this is no longer considered a truth. Cacti are New World—except one species in southern Africa. Cacti have spines not thorns (modified leaves vs modified branches). The strange growths and textures of the cacti exterior help it conserve water in part by trapping an air layer that reduces air movement and helps the plant retain water.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »

King Arthur Flour calls these 50 lb bags (the two outside ones) “professional flours.” They have cutesy names like Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guinevere. What I’m not sure about is the Gold Medal bag in the middle from General Mills, which says: DO NOT EAT RAW DOUGH OR BATTER. Why is this on the flour bag? Not that the advice is flawed, but why the concern by General Mills (not to be confused with another General, General Motors)?

Posted at 7:27 PM | Comments Off on Flour power

By David Sipress in The New Yorker (4 Aug 2014).

Flyer’s nightmare…soooo glad the sign doesn’t read “Delta.”

Posted at 9:11 PM | Comments Off on Checking bookings

Of course we sat down at 1pm to watch the Apple show. The feed wasn’t there, then it came in with fits and starts with an audio overlay of a Chinese female translator’s voice. So we got the size of the new iPhones, but not the cost. Eventually, by the time Tim got to the New Product, the stream was mostly okay, and the Chinese voice was gone.

Not sure about the strategy of announcing a product starting at $350 that won’t be available until sometime in 2015 (“early”). Struck me as an awfully high price and on balance meager details. However, enough info is out there that the app developers can get busy. I guess that was a key part of the decision….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Breaking down complexity

The fortune-writing gods are quite the jokers—this sentiment, plus two smiley faces….

Or maybe I don’t know myself??

Posted at 7:31 PM | 2 Comments »

We noted a red stripe on our route about 50 miles before we got to it. There was a way around, but it’d take longer than waiting through the red, if it diminished. And it did. We stayed with the highway and got to see the red-creating conditions. Repaving. Under bright artificial lights, as the moon, bright as it was, wouldn’t have illuminated the aborning asphalt.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on “Night Moves” slowly

I don’t think I have been to a wedding with a color theme that was so tastefully deployed, or one with midnight blue (dark blue, anyway) as the color.

More important, however, were the vows—sweet, loving, committed, genuine—and the toasts—sincere, warm, heart-felt—and all with a layer of good-humor and intelligence. Such a pleasure to be witness to the commitment of this couple.

It took me until now to figure out that the chosen shade is the Michigan blue…call me slow. I only saw a football come out once during the festivities, with a quarterback-quality throw by one of the bridesmaids….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »

We shifted geospatially.

We socialized in the best way.

We slid through a power outage. (I emphasize we.)

We are a happy duo!

Posted at 10:10 PM | Comments Off on Lots going on

I love that the maps app I have advises on the “best” route from here to there, but its algorithms and my ideas of “best” do not always match. Today we got a device “best” that matched my “best.” And life was good. The photo is from a detour during the sunset-afterglow. [You know I’m not up early enough to catch this marginal light in the morning (usually).]

Posted at 10:20 PM | 1 Comment »

All this iPhone security talk, and I got worried about the technical health of my device. Keep it simple, I think. I deleted a few apps—never use them. I cut access to the GPS location data to a few others. I am annoyed about the Yahoo weather app I can’t delete; I never use it, don’t intend to use it—no need for it to tell Yahoo where I am…. This privacy stuff is tricky. I ramble.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Just housekeeping