Musings

Prepared

Landrover ready offroad

This Land Rover is ready for off-road adventure and the Fourth of July!

Well, the Fourth is over, and…it’s been parked for days…weeks…on a neighborhood street.

Love the reinforced panels over the fenders and the shovel and super-high jack—won’t stay stuck long!

#fitbit problem

Fitbit time active double standard

Mostly, I quite appreciate my Fitbit One. Lately, it’s been quirky…actually, a little error-producer.

Here, I’ve caught it in the act. The pie chart is accurate in that the red section reflects 10 active minutes the Fitbit was registering minutes before. Honest minutes of activity. The legend has already deleted them. Sure enough, after a refresh of the browser, the pie chart reflected 0 active minutes.

I just want to say: arrrrgh.

A bit of googling indicates other people are having the same problem—a minority though, and some indication that Fitbit-corporate is aware of it. Seems like the code for this can’t be terribly complex. I see a company in amidst a downhill slide?

Well water is COLD

Trillium almost carpet

I’ve been wanting to photo the trillium carpets we’ve been seeing, and just haven’t stopped to do so. Now, the leaves on the trees above are filling in enough to leave these spring ephemerals in shadow, making the photos like this, spotty, and less eye-catching.

Second post because I forgot to mention that the toilet plumbing project Part 2 happened as hoped. Now that there are no leaks, we still have the excess humidity of the tank to deal with, so I’m desirous of one of those nifty models with an insulated tank.

Wandering thoughts

Music hall ceiling

I spent about three hours this afternoon watching these fixtures hanging from the ceiling of this music hall—and the events below them. Just light diffusers? Or also sound reflectors?

Yeah, I’m admitting I couldn’t concentrate on the main speaker’s…um-hmmm…yawn….

More distorted reality

FL sunset pines waterlogued ADJ

I’ve been wanting to try Waterlogue again. I didn’t have anything good for this from today, so this is a Florida sunset photo from our recent trip. I’m liking this better than previous efforts….

Who dat?

Elvis not in our house

Giving that watercolor-filter app another try….

I think I have to make a crappy hyper-contrasty photo to start with. Or maybe I have no eye for this at all….

Distortion art

Bridge watercolour

I got a tip last night that this app* did fun things with regular photos—a watercolor transform. I have been wanting to try it on a Bridge photo, so I dug one out of the archive a few minutes ago. In my mind’s eye, it looked even better. I’m still early on the learning curve….

I just had a spoken name for the app, so it took me a while to discover it’s Waterlogue. $2.99 USD.

Not yet assembled

Ikea food

Took a deep breath and headed over to the Sweeeedish Inexpensive Furniture Place. Looked at several possibilities for creating an elevated desktop surface for My New Stand-Up Desk.

I arrived thinking I had my variables nailed, then developed doubts as we ticked through options…namely: add a piece atop an existing surface—somewhat like a table-top lectern, but wider as I have two monitors, and duh flat OR get a new group of pieces that would assemble to create a work-surface of the correct height…or presumed correct height.

Circled the place twice, deliberating. (Avoided the meatballs and cinnamon buns both times.)

Bought a Snorgbröd or Snøttkkragg or Årdnoskk or something. Strictly speaking, probably too much particle board buried under plastic veneer, but undeniably cost effective.

Have to clean and de-clutter office before assembling, to make The New Arrangement work….

Metabolic research/solutions

Tin reflections

Given how much talk is floating around about how healthy it is to use a standing desk—or, with the addition of more $$, a treadmill desk—there are surprisingly few options offered…via googling and amazon…in the marketplace.

Lacking obvious choices at under $800 (!!, or $1300, or??!!), we’re off to Eye-Key-Ahhhhhh on Monday. Probably to find something that will function as a raised surface to add atop my current desktop. Which is really a table. (Long story.)

Still, if I were in the mood to Shark Tank into the furniture business, it would be with a standing desk, adjustable, with a two-level work surface, one level for the keyboard…and “materials”…and another for the monitor (monitors, in many cases) to sit on, at the proper eye-level.

It’s not simple: see this UofM webpage (love the photo; off to find brand-new, clean seee-ment blocks haha).

Thunk thunk

Archery training

Love the two sisters in the left foreground.

I hear archery has become quite popular among the younger set. Proof here.

The amount of gear needed is more than you’d think. The bow (fancy, er, compared to Back In My Day), the arrows, of course. But also the quiver, and a belt or shoulder strap for the quiver. At least two gizmos for your fingers. A bow-string stretcher/facilitator. Arm guard. Notebook (requirement for class, to record what you worked on during each session). A clicker-counter (unused while we were there; not sure what it’s for). Some folks had alignment gizmos (my guess as to function) that included a y-shaped tubular metal dealie along with a calibrated t-shaped thingamabob.

Do we call these fancy (calibrated) bows devices?