Rocky Mountain N.P. in VR

NPR has published a _virtual reality_ presentation on the geology of Rocky Mountain National Park:
<https://apps.npr.org/rockymountain-vr/>.

I have just watched it on my computer, but in a few minutes I am going to see if my new twin-lens VR goggles can view it on my celephone screen.

Note that for either method, headphones improve the experience (as they do with nearly every possible sound presentation).

Also: Various places on the Internet host similar presentations on subjects like this one and others. More are linked at the end of this one. (Or perhaps not; for me, clicking does nothing.)

Anyway, it has made me want to go back to the Rockies and spend more time than I have.

Mark_

Fall color and some sunshine @ UW's Seattle Japanese Garden

Nice day among colorful trees in this beautiful garden.
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/4OcrF4nrxKrAc9gD2>

Mark_

At Home: Fall _and Snowfall!_

We have a couple of trees here that turn pleasant colors in autumn.
• 31 October <https://photos.app.goo.gl/kglUJgagLfVGSSv23>
• 30 October <https://photos.app.goo.gl/SIGrrxK9z6j8JwEw2>
• 28 October <https://photos.app.goo.gl/IfU3vokc4L6Xr8Ew2>
• 27 October <https://photos.app.goo.gl/9H3C6NoI9x13ZmA62>

Also, it _snowed_ today.  Not a lot, but the atmosphere was quite festive.
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/W7Dv3G1Wl2qp37iy2>


Mark_

Fall sunshine and color @ Kubota Garden

We recently visited the Kubota Japanese Garden, a bit south of Seattle.  The day opened with some cloudiness, but the bulk of that dissipated and we were left with much bright and warm sunshine falling upon gorgeous autumn color.

<https://photos.app.goo.gl/r69zj7C5jN8UpVYf1>

Mark_

Weird Thorens music box

I saw this little Thorens music box in an antiques store a few days ago. I had to spend a few minutes examining it (trapped as I was _outside_ the locked display case) to work out what it was: A music box that used swappable disks as the "programs" for the music, played by a mechanism otherwise familiar.

• <https://goo.gl/photos/MUheQHyzNSbH6Xsk8>
• <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorens>
• <http://www.thorens.com>
• A guy's history & collection with images: <http://keithwright.ca/Thorens/Thorenspage.html>

Thorens made some really amazing and wonderfully weird high-end turntables--including some changers that used machinery different from what most of us had during college: Thorens TD 224. Consult your Google image search for pictorial evidence: Antique Thorens, for example.

Aside: There was at least one changer mechanism that automatically flipped records and played their "B" sides: 1938 Garrard RC-100 Turn-over Record Changer.

And who wouldn't want to play the black vinyl (lacquer, actually) on something that looked like this?: 1921 Kurtzmann Glass Phonograph. Look at the thickness of the record being played.


Mark_
26 February 2017

Pictures from another fine early-Spring afternoon.

<https://goo.gl/photos/EwtTrfXMx3ZUNCU76>

Mark_ 

22 February 2017

Chinook Winds Concert @ Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Excellent recent concert by the double wind quintet ([flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn] x 2) Chinook Winds in the historic Good Shepherd Center's (former) chapel.

• Pictures (only a few): <https://goo.gl/photos/R8BycMKZPJwqyPzW9>

• Good Shepherd Center: 

 - <https://historicseattle.org/project/good-shepherd/>

 - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_of_the_Good_Shepherd>

This was a very nice evening of pleasantly interesting music in a fine old Seattle landmark building.

Mark_ 

17 February 2017

Spring @ Home 17 February 2017

Today has dawned brightly sunny, and the crocus make us tend to believe that we could eventually have something like Spring.  This would be good.


<https://goo.gl/photos/kgXpv5195TEMPg7VA>

Mark_
17 February 2017

My Pictures Online: New System

The picture-hosting service I have been using, Google's Picasa, has changed.  The result is that my friends can no longer see the entire group of "albums" I have put there, but can open only the albums for which they have specific links.

This is a nuisance for everybody; as mitigation I have put album links into blog postings here, labeled as "pictures".  Links to albums posted at the same time may be on the same page; others will be on individual pages.  Use the label links to find all of the picture-link posts, etc.

This is, to some extent, experimental--although I don't actually expect to have to mess with it (much) after this.

Regrets for the inconvenience.


Mark_
06 February 2017

Snow @ Home, 06 February 2017

We have just had a very good snowing; accumulation to roughly 8.5" according to Cindy's little plastic ruler.

Snowfall began last evening, piled up further during the night, and although the air temperature is not particularly low at present (36° F. at noon), it is again snowing lightly even as the trees shed what they had been holding.

Winter wonderland!

<https://goo.gl/photos/5YQCHNiSbM5L45yu6>

Mark_

Yurts in WA State Parks (pix)

We recently "camped" in Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, a few miles nearer the Cascade foothills than our home is.  While there, we saw that a pair of their yurts was grouped at the end of a long, double-wide, RV place.  We inquired, and were told that we might be able to have two trailers on the gravel _and_ two non-RVing, ordinarily-tenting, friends occupying the yurts.

Such an arrangement could make for a nice outing.

Pix of the yurts:
<https://goo.gl/photos/UJxgbJMfxpymiDFT8>

Mark_

Daughters of Norway Christmas Festival

C. & I were invited to attend with other friends the Daughters of Norway Christmas Festival at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Burien.  It was a fine afternoon of foods, friends, music, and fun.

Also, _dancing_!  In a church!  (Rather a shock for a pair of Southern Baptists.)

Here are some celephone pictures (not all of which are very good, alas).  You can, of course, download any image(s) you wish to have for your own.

We very much enjoyed the celebration and its fellowship.  God jul!

The pictures: <https://goo.gl/photos/NbgKt3fLxNUoUEff6>
UPDATED 11 December: 3 videos added.


Mark_
10 December 2016

161126 Day's Outing with Friends

Recent outing to nearby Hylebos Creek park, Federal Way, with Linda & Brad:
<https://goo.gl/photos/dyAGJNTKogPpdTqj6>
A bit overcast & gray, but we saw beauty anyway.

Mark_
161126

161030 Tidal Bore, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

During our September 2015 trip to NE U.S. and SE Canada, we visited several sites along the Bay of Fundy--famous for its _world's greatest tidal range_--including Moncton, New Brunswick.  That town, roughly 30 miles up the Petitcodiac River, is famous for its tidal bore.

In general, a tidal bore is a wave that runs UP-river because the rising tide (or other surge) at the mouth has overwhelmed the river's flow, rising past the normal surface level of the river.  It is not so unusual for the lower reaches of rivers to be tidal, but when the difference in level is significant (large and sudden) the wave forms and the river appears to flow backward for a time behind the bore, following the wave upstream for miles.  The event will have ended when the water level has equalized and normal river flow re-established.

There are several of these around the world; the Bay of Fundy's tidal swing is enormous--the world's largest, at 40 feet or so--but the bore on the Petitcodiac River at Moncton is not the biggest.  (That might be an annual high-tide, sun-and-moon alignment, Chinese bore, which kills people every year.  See the Youtube video[s].)

Even so, Moncton's is an impressive and wonderful thing as it hisses and foams along its way upstream, moving past the town at about a swift walking pace.  It's such an important tourist attraction that they built a viewing area complete with bleachers.  I made a pretty good video from there, but the file size is extremely large; it is (for the time being) trapped on my computer.  In place of that, here are links to information, explanations, and videos:

• Tidal Bore
• Bay of Fundy
• Petitcodiac River: "Before the construction of a causeway in 1968, the river had one of the world's largest tidal bores, which ranged from 1 to 2 metres (3.3–6.6 ft) in height and moved at 5 to 13 kilometres per hour (3.1–8.1 mph). With the opening of the causeway gates in April 2010, the river is flushing itself of ocean silts, and the Bore is returning to its former glory." (Wikipedia)
• New Brunswick Tourism
• Moncton vids @ Youtube
• Other (all) Youtube examples

All pretty amazing.


Mark_
30 October 2016

131005 Missouri Trip Pictures 2013

In 2013 we traveled to Missouri, where we took some pictures.  Because Google's online image service does not support "sharing" access to multiple "albums", here is a list.

The 6-digit numbers are the dates of the albums: YYMMDD.

• 131005 Our multi-legged Missouri friends <https://goo.gl/photos/iz4ZnXbRZAybz1kG6>
• 131021 Forest Park, St. Louis, MO <https://goo.gl/photos/kW2iuae7xstzjuaP6>
• 131021 Gateway Arch, St. Louis, MO <https://goo.gl/photos/dS9oc1VwevGtZ2L18>
• 131021 Historic Courthouse <https://goo.gl/photos/yfvw4DuC9HZHBHJf8>
• 131020 Southbound along the Mississippi, from Hannibal <https://goo.gl/photos/pxMthmhvD4DHMurv5>
• 131019 Hannibal, MO <https://goo.gl/photos/W2NmcPcQo2hBPoYN6>
• 131012 Knob Noster, MO, SP camping <https://goo.gl/photos/Gj1WUgn2achFhJ9LA>
• 131011 Jazz @ 18th & Vine, KC, MO <https://goo.gl/photos/rGVxKXjPkoJDVt2d8>
• 131007 Walking along the Little Blue River <https://goo.gl/photos/Tve3ScJrxbv4FjVb6>

Mark_
26 October 2016

Back From Our Trip to Kansas City

We have returned from our 5,500-mile trip. We had a great time, and we're already thinking about the text trip.

We did spend some time inside the grandparents' house, which was both worse and not as bad as I expected. Not as bad, because I had been lead to believe that everything had been stolen. The truth is different--and stranger--than that: There remains virtually nothing of ordinary /collectable/ value, but we did find some things that probably are worth something to the right collector. Example: _Reader's Digest_ from 1942. Wow.

Unexpectedly, pantry shelves still contained foodstuffs in glass jars--including home-canned foods (now altered beyond recognition by 35 years of storage). Clothing and shoes I recall having seen worn were still in the place. Appliances I recognize from childhood were still there.

The _worse_ was in the fact that the house still contained a large amount of ordinary household furnishings--mostly small stuff, but including clothing, small furnishings, and such that I recognized. Some of these materials had apparently not been touched at all (grandmothers dresses still in closets, jacket and gardening had still on the hook in the mud room, for example), but the whole place was strewn with /stuff/ that had been pulled out of its normal locations and dropped on the floors and onto every other horizontal surface. In some places, piles of /things/ made walking uncertain. In other areas, there was less on the floors but it was obvious nevertheless that things had been carried in from other rooms and abandoned there without any kind of intentionality. Not like someone had been interrupted in the process of moving out, but as if children had overrun the place for an extended period.

This place is down a natural-surface road two miles outside a very small town that is 50 miles from Springfield, MO. Even the vandals seem unable to muster the energy for anything serious; there was virtually no intentional damage beyond some wiring ripped out of walls. There were no drifts of beer cans, no indoor campfires, and in fact nobody had even sat upon any of the few chairs that remained; stuff was on every flat surface. The glass faceplate on the gas stove light had been broken, but the fluorescent tube inside was intact. Several mirrors all over the house were undamaged.

There were newspapers & magazines, picture frames, cooking utensils, jars of spices & flavorings, things, objects--all of the little paraphernalia that houses have in them--everywhere: on the floor, on tables and chairs and couch, on kitchen counters--and still on pantry and closet shelves.

Despite a few broken windows, a roof penetration or two, and open doors, the house is in pretty good condition, considering. Some hardwood floors were still actually nice. The house as a whole is probably not actually restorable to the kind of state that most people would want to pay for, but it is not immediately threatened either.

The barn was another matter. It is over a hundred years old, I think, and an important roof support has failed. Even so, the central structure is stacked log, most of which is still in good condition; the bulk of its metal roof is intact, which has surely helped. It seems safe to enter, but normal use is no longer possible; doors mostly don't work, and climbing into the loft would be seriously imprudent.

We could not enter other outbuildings, which had recently been fenced away from the main property, but I imagine that little of interest remains in them and I doubt they were safe to enter, anyway.

After a few hours, we departed with a large number of photographs and the feeling that we had just spent a period of time in strangeness.

Our trip hope was largely uneventful after we had spent a couple of very pleasant days with Cindy's relations in Morse, TX, and Albuquerque, NM.  We saw and photographed scenery, vistas, views, novelties, and sun-rises and -sets.

And in the course of several legs outbound and back we consumed roughly equal measures of gasoline and coffee.

Great trip! (Pix @ my Picasa.)

Mark_
Federal Way

Our Casita Trailer, Christened

We had very much liked the name of our previous R/V, the Coleman Santa Fe pop-up _Walden_, for its literary and historical associations: connotations of simplicity, Nature, and contemplation. I had a bit of difficulty coming up with anything like it for the new trailer. Despite our fondness for that name I did not want to break my own rule about recycling the names of vessels, RVs, and vehicles, so our shakedown outing occurred before christening.  (Perhaps this isn't uncommon; I don't know.)

However, a week or so ago I arrived at a name that I believe will do--a name that has historical, literary and artistic, social, aspirational, and to some extent mythological associations.

Phil & Ann R. (R/V _Andy_) helped us christen the trailer by dining with us during our Point Hudson, Port Townsend, "camp"ing outing over the 2012-2103 New Year's holiday. 
<https://picasaweb.google.com/socrates4718>

In addition to dinner, Champagne has been consumed in celebration of the advent of our new "camping" thing, the R/V _Arcadia_. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(utopia)>


Mark_
03 January 2013

Our New Casita Travel (Camping) Trailer

Several months ago, we began thinking ahead to Cindy's retirement--and about how we would like to travel among these great United States (and Canadian provinces) on an extended basis. Pop-up trailers are not so good for this kind of travel (although plenty of people do use them for that) because of the inconvenience of the format:

- No access while on the road.

- Roughly an hour to cycle up and then down.

- Only a tent between you and cold or heavy weather--or bears! (Really.)

The benefits of the form are unmistakable: Despite the small footprint when closed, they can seem unexpectedly large when open. In good weather, all of the walls "disappear", because everything opens to screens.  In cool or wet weather the large side windows admit a lot of light and view.

They are great. However, we knew that we would chafe at the inconveniences, so we began considering a _next camper_.

We knew that we wanted the usual amenities (hot, pressure water; forced-air furnace; air conditioning for travel to places where heat and humidity are issues; real head with shower; good-sized refrigerator; twin bunks; all in a small package that is easily towed and parked. The sleeping arrangements are very important to us, and because not very many people like that style--there were none like it on the used market--we ordered one from the factory in Rice, TX.

Casita manufacturer:

<http://www.casitatraveltrailers.com/showroom/liberty/liberty-exterior.html>

Ours is a 17' Liberty Deluxe, which means that its interior has a split galley and a real head with stand-up shower; twin bunks can be converted into a king bed or a very large dinette.  We believe that by converting the entire sleeping arrangement to dinette it may be able to dine _eight_; six would be easy.  Enclosed head compartment, stand-up shower.

Its dry weight is only a little more than _Walden_'s (note that it has far more tankage); it tows extremely well.

They would have delivered it to our home, but going half-way for it seemed like more fun; Phil. R. and I drove to Crescent City, CA, for the handoff. There are pictures.

Casita Handoff Trip with Phil, to Crescent City, CA:

<https://picasaweb.google.com/socrates4718>

We will miss using the name "Walden" for our place of away-from-home refuge, because of the literary and other associations that come with that name. However, we are going to move on. (Nothing has come to mind just yet. "Casita Royale" and "Eggstended Vacation" just don't seem quite right.)

We'll see.

Mark_

11:42 04 December 2012

Dick's Pix

Dick S. (Maggie Rose) has had some of his regatta pictures published in The Anacortes American.

Mark_
16:34 15 June 2011

Pictures! (2010 Ranger Cruise, and more)

My Picasa photos.