Not what I want

 

 

I want to send out a really good closeup of an American Oystercatcher.  But I don’t have one.  The best I’ve got this year is this.

 

He wouldn’t let me get any closer.  The faster I walked, the faster he walked.

 

What to do on a hot day

 

 

Stand under a random van.

 

At the parking lot for the bridge to Mexico.

 

Bronzed Cowbirds beating the heat.

 

 

Cataract surgery

 

 

Got the first eye done about 15 years ago.  Got the second eye done today, already.

 

I’m a little bleary.  Or is that blurry?  Hard to tell from here.

 

 

Better light

 

 

 

 

Bird of Paradise and Amaryllis.

 

Be careful

 

 

You don’t want to spoil your dinner.

 

How many times have we heard that.  And how many times have we actually spoiled our dinner.  Like never?  Until now.  I broke the streak.  I was hungry at 4:00.  So I ate some corn chips.  Then I was thirsty so I drank a bottle of water.  At 5:00 it was time for dinner.  Oof.

 

I wasn’t up to the task.

 

 

Wilson’s plover habitat

 

 

 

There is one right at the top of that lower puddle.

 

Looking cool.

 

A coastal bird.  Widespread across the Southeast, but probably never abundant.

 

 

Update

 

 

We’ve done the background sleep sound setup one better by improving the system.  It no longer requires a tablet Bluetooth connection.  We bought a standalone Sound Oasis sound generator

 

 

 

that will hardwire to the Avantree pillow speaker.

 

 

 

 

Simpler.  The sound machine sits on the bedside table, and as long as it has the wire plugged into it, it doesn’t make an audible sound in the room, just in the pillow speaker.  No tablet having to run all night.  No Bluetooth required.  Less connections to go wrong.  Can run all night without being plugged in, so it will work just fine for the van as well, and recharge during the day when it’s not being used.

 

Today’s adventure

 

 

Judy didn’t lose her phone today.  It was stolen.

 

She was looking at the shopping list on her phone at the grocery store.  She finished at the self-check-out, and as she was walking away, about eight feet, she patted her pocket to make sure she had everything and found her phone was missing.  She retraced her steps back through checkout and backtracked her path through the store.  Nothing.  She went to customer service to see if anyone had turned it in.  She talked with them for a while and ended up with store security.  They have a very good security system there at our H.E.B. grocery.  Security guy called up video of Judy walking in the front door, followed her from camera to camera just like on TV, saw her drop her phone at the check-out, saw the woman at the check-out next to her pick it up, look around, stuff the phone in her pocket and walk out, right past Judy.  Security couldn’t identify the woman or track her all the way to her car, but they had a clear picture of her.  Judy called the police.  They showed up and took a report.  Back and forth with the police on the phone.  A visit to the station to fill out the affidavit for charges.  More calls and texting with the police.

 

Meanwhile, Judy remembers that she and Becky share locations on their iPhones.  We call Becky and sure enough, Becky tracks her mom’s phone from place to place all over town for the afternoon.  After extended stops at three different locations (we have street addresses for each), the phone makes its way back to the H.E.B. grocery store and stops moving again.  We called customer service.  Bingo.  Phone returned.  We asked if it was a young woman who returned it.  No, it was a man.

 

We can imagine the scenario where someone convinces the woman that grabbed it that this is not a good idea.  Virtually no upside for her, iPhone are notoriously difficult to hack so it’s basically useless, and there is a tremendous downside if she gets caught with it.  iPhones are expensive so this is not a misdemeanor.  Since we’ve recovered the phone though, perhaps we’ve moved from grand theft to kidnapping, with the victim released unharmed.  I don’t know if the police actually have the time to follow-up on a crime that resolved in about six hours, but we volunteered that it might be worthwhile for them to at least go have a visit with the perpetrator to make sure that the life lesson here is clear.  Since there is no longer a missing phone to go recover, they’re going to assign the case to an investigator for follow-up.

 

 

What a thing

 

 

Matt’s girls have been going to gymnastics.  Matt got a call about Ayla.  She’s six.  They want to move her up to the team.  Competitions.  Here they go again…

 

And on another front, Christie’s son Kyle just got his first finish in a full Iron Man Triathlon.  Swimming 2.4 miles, bicycling 112 miles, then running a 26.2 mile marathon!  Congratulations, Kyle!

 

 

Texas Humor

 

 

Why did the chicken cross the road?

 

 

To prove to the armadillo that it could actually be done!

 

 

We drive a lot

 

 

Thousands of miles all across the country observing roads, cars, and driving habits, and I’ll have to say I’m impressed.  I’m impressed by how much Judy and I know about how other people should be driving!

 

Summer Tanager

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed like a good idea

 

 

The Mazda sits parked with the windshield facing south.

 

 

It gets hot inside.  I measured it at 140 degrees.  We decided to get one of those silver windshield covers that pops open to block the sun.

 

 

It worked.  In the heat of the day, it knocked the temperature right down to 130 degrees.  A little later, as the sun moved across the sky, it was now coming in the passenger side, and the temperature went back up to 140 degrees.

 

Oh well.

 

1970

 

 

“Love it or leave it.”

 

 

2025

“They hate America.”

 

 

Echoes of the past.

 

 

Uh-oh

 

 

I don’t have anything I want to say tonight.  Better go find a duck picture.

 

Wait.  Here’s an Acorn Woodpecker!

 

And all our children are above average

 

 

You know, sometimes we brag about our kids.  But while we’re doing it, talking with someone about our kids or our families, when it feels like we’re getting too boastful, I’ll quote the final line from Garrison Keillor, as he’s waxing eloquently about his fictional small town of Lake Wobegon.  He would conclude each episode with “Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”, a nod to small-town pride and self-delusion.  As an acknowledgement that maybe we’ve gone a little far in our praise, I quote that line, “All our children are above average”.

 

Only recently have I considered that maybe not everyone we talk to is conversant with Garrison Keillor and Lake Wobegon.  After all, the last live broadcast of the show was in 2016.  The people who remember Garrison Keillor will get it when I say it.  For every person who has never heard of Garrison Keillor or Lake Wobegon though, my effort to deflect will have come off as even more annoying.

 

Oops.

 

Maybe before I repeat that line in the future, I should first quiz our intended audience about their past PBS listening habits…

 

 

Age, weather, and walking

 

 

I walk a lot.  Most days.  Often for several miles.  Sometimes for five or ten.  Once every few years I walk a marathon distance just to see if I still can.  During the summer though, when we’re here, I don’t walk so much.  It’s the heat.  At 90 or 100 degrees, I go walk around in the sunshine for a mile, 20 minutes, and call it good.  I’m ready to get back inside where it’s cooler.  I know that’s the age factor.  When I was younger, I used to love running in hot weather.

 

So every fall I have to wonder: When it cools off, will I be walking as much again, or will I naturally walk less because another year has gone by.  Is it just the heat abbreviating my outings or will I find the age factor reigns.  No conclusion this year.  We’ re not there to the cool weather yet.

 

 

Judy and me

 

 

We’ve been together for so long, I say that I no longer do what the voices in my head tell me to do.  Now I do what the voices in Judy’s head tell me to do.

 

Judy doesn’t actually have voices in her head, but she does have music.  Uninvited music.  There is such a thing as Musical Ear Syndrome.  It’s not really well known, but it is real, and it’s annoying.  (And it’s not an earworm.  It’s not that.)  Apparently, as a person loses their hearing, it’s not unusual for the brain to continue to look for that stimulation, and if it can’t find it, it just makes up sounds to play for itself.  It’s usually music, but it can be just increased tinnitus, or roaring.  Whatever a person’s head decides to do.

 

Good hearing aids can counteract Musical Ear Syndrome and tinnitus during the day, but when the hearing aids come out at night, the chaos bursts back to the forefront, which can make it a little hard to sleep.  We’ve been using sound machines for white noise, but that noise can be too consistent to be effective.  It’s too steady to distract the brain, and just turning up the volume doesn’t drown out the noise that originates inside the head.  She sleeps better to the sound of a babbling brook or something else sporadic like that.

 

We’ve found a really cool solution that lets her get the noise she needs at night, without me having to have the same sound.  Pillow speakers.  We got one for her pillow.  She can play a babbling brook track or anything else that works on her iPad and bluetooth it to the pillow speaker.  Mission accomplished!  The sounds she needs in her head, and not in mine!

 

The neighbors knew

 

 

We didn’t know.  Until we went outside to see what they were looking at.

 

It was the Starship launch from Boca Chica.

 

By the time we went out to look, the contrail was still there, but the earlier arrivals got to see the rocket go up, the upper stage separate and blast on, while the booster returned to a splashdown.  We’re only about 60 miles away, but it never occurred to me that we would be able to see a launch from here.  We’re going to have to pay more attention.

 

OMG

 

 

A few weeks ago, I was bemoaning the looming loss of that warm weather hug at 80-degrees when I opened the door each morning.  Well, summer has eased its grip, and the temperature has been in the 70s every morning.  Until today.  I opened the door this morning and there was a six in the number.  67 degrees.  And the high today only in the 80s.  OMG.  How do people live like this!

 

 

Six years ago, today

 

 

 

We drove to Upstate New York and picked up this little puppy Jesse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we were younger

 

 

There were go kart tracks.  We could take the kids to the Green Scene in North Boulder.  Video arcade games, miniature golf, batting cages, and go karts.  That was worth a couple hours.  Then a Malibu Grant Prix opened in North Denver.  Again, video arcade, and a go kart track, but these karts were patterned after Formula 1 cars.  It felt like a step up.

 

Malibu Grand Prix is long gone, but now there are F1 Galleries.  Food, drink, and Formula 1 race simulators, with feedback.  Sophisticated high-end immersive simulators for people to race against each other at specific F1 tracks, with up to 20 racers at a time. Driver’s view screens that keep it real for each participant, and another higher-level view that allows the gathered fans to watch and root for their favorite drivers.  Competitive Socializing.

 

 

 

We haven’t been to an F1 Arcade yet, but there is one in Denver, so it could happen.  The dream lives on.

 

 

Do you ever think about aluminum foil?

 

It is so common and easy to use, it could be overlooked.  But look at it.  A metal so thin it is perfectly smooth, flexible, and strong.  It comes off the roll easily.  It’s flawless.

 

I remember aluminum foil’s predecessor, tin foil.  It was not so uniform and flexible, and not as cheap.  Tinsel on the Christmas tree was made of tin foil.  Metal.  I know it was metal because when it fell off the tree and landed on the train tracks, it would spark and short circuit the train.  Tin foil was precious enough that we would recover it from the tree after Christmas, piece by piece, to be put away for use again the next year.

 

But back to aluminum foil.  The aluminum gets mined, refined, and rolled out into these fine flexible sheets for our convenience, and it’s so inexpensive, when we’re through with each piece, we just crumple it up and throw it away.  Amazing.

 

Andy and Christie

 

 

Always fun to have kids come visit, even if the kids are now closer to 60 than 50.

 

Picked them up at the giant McAllen International Airport today  (McAllen International Airport has all of six gates.)  and walked the 300 feet to the car in the airport parking lot.

 

 

Nosedive!

 

 

 

 

Bird on a wire

 

 

 

It’s a flat dove.

 

I have no idea why it’s spread out flat like that.  It just is.

 

Hey

 

 

How about those Broncos!!!

 

 

I watered the Lantana

 

 

 

It still looks a little dry though.

 

Evening Light

 

 

 

 

Hummingbirds

 

 

Here is what the buff-bellied hummingbird, our year-round resident, looks like.

 

Big.  For a little bird.

 

 

Most of the little hummingbirds, that aren’t males, look like this. 

 

Nondescript.

 

Here is a different one though

 

The streaky throat.  That’s different.  A spot of red in the middle.  Orangish around the edges.  Juvenile male rufous, I believe.

 

 

The Eagles

 

 

The Brocos go play the Eagles on Sunday.  Maybe the Eagles will be as nice as the Bengals were and let the Bronco offense run up and down the field all they want.  Do you think?

 

Of course the Eagles are the reigning Super Bowl champions and undefeated so far this season…