Miscellaneous Missives

Today's learning comes via the Larson Creek Farm Bed and Breakfast in Port Wing, Wisconsin.  While I was complaining about sweating during workouts, MC talked Frog Toggs , a wonderful cooling apparatus.  On arrival back to the B &; B, I was able to see the cloth in action... Incredible.                                      Speaking of incredible, The South Shore has been delightful!  From the morning walk to Lake Superior to the afternoon trip to Madeline Island, it's been full of laughs and beautiful scenery.     BTW... I'm still waiting for someone to learn how to add links to Blogger on FB, so I can learn too.  I'm going to try to open in Chrome to add links.

www.audubon.org Today I finished the young adult book, Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt.  I thought it was thought provoking on many different levels.  One of the story lines is the main character, Doug, learning to draw with the help of a mentor and James Audubon's pictures.  Of course I recognize the name Audubon from the Audubon Society (I learned the Audubon Society was founded to honor James Audubon).  This evening I thought I'd try to read another chapter from the other book (tome) I'm reading, The Greater Journey:  Americans in Paris by David McCullough.    In Part II of my book John James Audubon comes up since he is in London overseeing the production of his fourth volume of The Birds of America .   The Birds of America happens to be the same book that Schmidt talks about in Okay for Now .  Both books I'm reading mention James Audubon and The Birds of America.  Ahhhh... I decided to learn more about Audubon and his book....

Somedays one is off, not with it, spazzing out...  My morning started with the farmers' market, and I returned home without purchasing the strawberries I really wanted and grilling steaks (need the red meat for iron since I give blood on Tuesday, and my iron counts typically suck).  I did have a baguette, raspberries, and sweet corn.  I was a bit off my game, but I took a nap and went to the gym in preparation for the Beer Dabbler Summer Festival .  The location (on the Mississippi River) and the temperature was perfect, and I was excited to try a variety of craft beers.  Unfortunately, I wiped out on the sidewalk after turning an ankle before I had imbibed in any alcoholic beverages (down on the sidewalk with bloodied knee and scraped hands).  Later after tasting several delicious brews, I ran into a cop.  Lucky for me, I was a white female and not a black male, and he was understanding of my state.  It was, after all, a beer festival.  I ...

Today's "Kayak a Wetand" launched from the shores of Marble Lake.  Thirty-Five (I counted 34 and 36??) kayaks embarked on the lake.  It's a super peaceful way to start the day.  During our break, we learned about some restorations to area (Iowa Great Lakes) and learned a little history too.  Of course growing up in the area, I knew about the Spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Lake_Massacre).  Abbie Gardner was one of two women that survived.  Today I learned the other woman was Mrs. Marble.  Marble Lake and Marble Beach are named after her family.  Inkpaduta was the Indian who took the women and started the massacre.  Charlie, our guide, actually did a nice job with both sides of the story instead of merely describing the Indians as savages.  He also told us how the Ladies of the Lake (http://www.isdar.org/chapters/ladiesofthelake/) went around in the 1920s (?) and placed markers on the different historical places of the "massac...

I have allergies.  This is nothing I learned today.  When I was in high school and would go with my dad to the farm to water the new seedlings (trees), not really a farm but land in the country, I would need to bring tissues.  The land now has his home, grown trees, and fields.  My allergies have subsided some as I've gotten older.  Unfortunately I learned today that this is not true.  Sitting on the porch reading, watching the deer eat the beans, and listening to the birds is incredible, but it took less then fifteen minutes to learn my allergies love being out here too.  Benadryl and a box of Puffs is helping, but I may need to go in shortly before I itch my eyes away.   Im also attempting blogging from my iPad, but it takes me a bit longer.  At least I've learned how to insert photos.  My iPad doesn't have a camera, so I also had to learn how to get photos to iPad.  Done and done.

I've been trying to use my iPad more and my laptop less.  The only thing I can't convert is blogging.  Blogging on the iPad seems difficult.  Also, I don't know how to take a screen shot on the iPad.  Of course, I could merely take a picture of the entire screen, but...   If you LEARN about blogging and/or screenshots on the iPad, please share. Anyway, while playing around with the iPad, I found something new on Chrome.  First, I love, absolutely love Chrome because I can have three different users (home, school, blog), but I learned something new.  If one clicks on the three lines under the icon (cat, dog, flower), there is an option to have an "icognito window."  What?! I'm not sure when I would use this, but I think it's cool.  Perhaps I would use it if I was perusing items that I didn't want to purchase since it doesn't leave any cookies on the computer.  Teens must love this because it doesn't show up in the history! ...

Since I learned how to make a ringtone , I should be able to teach it (fist to five--2 try it ... BTW... my five would have been easy, but I'm using LH's fist to five... for LH a 2... for mm a 4). Try it!! First choose your song.  I made a new one (Just Breathe by Pearl Jam) this morning to make sure I could do it. Go to File (I'm assuming  you're using a Mac.). Go to Get info. Change the time...  I chose the part of the song I wanted, the chorus. Click OK. After you click OK, go to create a new version. Create an AAC version. Then go to show in finder (still under file). Change from m4a to m4r. It will ask to use the m4r file.  Use m4r (r = ringtone). Next delete the song (the 30 second version... ringtones can only be 30 seconds) from your iTunes library. You want to delete the song but keep the file. Finally, go back to finder and double click on the m4r file. This should make it show up in your tones file. The next part is where I h...

Tonight I decided to figure out how to use one of my songs for a ringtone, so I googled make a ringtone.  When I realized I could do it for free using iTunes, I was excited.  A couple of different sites gave the same information, so I figured it would be easy.  My problem came when I followed the directions verbatim instead of using my brain.  I don't sync all of my music to my iPod, so my settings for backing up my phone are a bit different.  Basically, I deleted (second time in a month) everything from my iPhone when I tried to add the m4r file to my phone... duh!  Since last time I learned how to get my information back, I merely needed to reconfigure the location of my apps on my phone.  This time I chose to use more folders, so I have less pages of apps.  It's probably better, and I think I have everything in its correct spot.  Plus, after I took the time to reconfigure the phone, I had some time to figure out (and reread) the ring t...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalzoo/5509174023/ As of this morning, I have read 17 young adult books (and four adult books (sounds creepy) this summer).  For each of the young adult books, I write a blog post on the school's blog .  I learn how to be positive even when the book sucks.  The truth, however, is that even when a book sucks, I learn from reading.  IMHO, Escape under the Forever Sky was horrible, but it did teach me about lions.  "A LION can eat one hundred pounds of meat at one meal and then eat very little for a week... Lions are the most powerful members of the animal kingdom."  My guess is the author actually looked up the facts about the lion and other wild animals found in the book.  Another young adult book, Outcasts United , I recently read gave facts about refugees and their countries of origin while telling the true story of soccer team made up of refugees from various countries.  For example, "Liberia was founded...

I don't go to movies although I did start watching some documentaries while on the treadmill.  In fact, I could probably count on one hand the movies I've seen in the theater in the last ten years... truthfully.  For some reason, I wanted to see World War Z.  1) I've heard good things about the movie ( LH said awesome things as did others).  2) Brad Pitt directed and acted in the movie  3) IDK... what was I thinking?  Anyway, my pal J, and I planned an outing to the movie.  1) We searched the movie times (on Thursday... important to note).  2) We decided on a place for an early dinner before ( People's Organic ).  3) We figured the time that would give us time to eat, converse, relax, and make it to the movie on time.  Yea us!!  Everything worked out perfectly with enough time to purchase a cookie at Good Earth .  As we entered the movie theater a perfect fifteen minutes before the movie started at 5:40, we realized movie t...

Caption under FB Picture...This happened over the weekend at a Tim McGraw concert: As he sang "Live like you were dying", he leaned down to kiss a lady on the head. As you can tell she is bald....Because she has been fighting cancer for 7 months. What a moment.... Let's be honest.  Today's learning comes from sitting on my butt and geeking on the internet.  Instead of being productive, I've been staring at a picture a friend posted on FB.  It's of Tim McGraw.  Since I'm not a fan of country music, I knew zero about McGraw, but I couldn't help but stare at his biceps... damn!!  Of course I wanted to learn more, so I googled Tim McGraw.  The picture of him on the front of his home page was also somewhat amazing.  The guy looks ripped.  From the side note on the Google search, I learned his married to Faith Hill, has three children, and his dad's name is Tug (sounds like a country singer's dad's name).   For some reason, I couldn't...

Today my friend, S, and I went to The Beer Dabbler in St. Paul to get some ideas for our upcoming trip to Duluth (tall ships and beer... of course the Beer dappler gave no advice on the tall ships... only beer). These guys were AMAZING.  Even though they are closed on Mondays (of course this is something we LEARNED when we walked into a darkened shop),  the two guys talked to us about the different craft brews in Duluth.  Of course, we had heard of Fitger's, but they reinforced the need to make it a priority.  They gave honest advice about which ones were more touristy, had good pizza but average beer, etc.  Basically, we LEARNED about four breweries/pubs that we want to visit ( Dubrue (housing Blacklist ), Bent Paddle (we promised to bring back a growler for them), Castle Danger , and Carmody Irish Pub ).   Fitgers and Thirsty Pagan Pizza are on the list, but we did not learn of them today at our visit to the Beer Dabbler. The most interesting on...

Today is a slow day.  I skipped church yet went to the gym this afternoon.  Basically, I've done little except watch Wimbledon and geek on the internet.  One of the pages I look at on FB is called Rethink Church.  Today they had a video from Chuck Knows Church .  Without being too judgmental, I think Chuck is a huge fan of himself, but that's merely my opinion.  His video talked about the word amen... what it means and where it comes from although I'm not really sure he covered where it comes from.   Actually, I think he used Wikipedia  since the information is similar.   Amen It's used to "express that you are in agreement with whatever came before it."  Basically, it means so be it, verily, or truly.  Amens appear in both old and new testament.  The first hymns did not have amen at the end.  It supposedly touches all cultures and religions. Yep, that's what I learned today.  I alos learned that watching Mur...

When I returned from my walk this morning, my dad asked about my iPhone.  He has a 4G Droid, and I have a 3G iPhone, but I use mine all of the time, and he basically uses his for phone, e-mail, and texting.  His questions centered around the music on my phone.  Although I wanted to help him get music on his phone, I'm a Mac person, and he's a PC person.  It did foster good conversations about digital media (especially music and books).  We looked at my purchased music vs. my downloaded music.  My purchased music is probably $600.  This doesn't include the amount of money I've spent downloading books.  Since I have 146 downloaded books, this is at least $700 (if each book only cost $5).   Enter today's learning...  We talked about in the past, when one died, people could disperse the books and music.  Now it's a little more complicated because it's in "the cloud".  I did a little research (still have more questions that kno...

...sooooo, my May Mix became my May and June Mix.  Today I set out for a walk and decided I needed to pull together a July Mix (Today... it needed to be today!).  I think it's a good combination of new and old. Dani California                              Red Hot Chili Peppers Live it Up                                      Jennifer Lopez (featuring Pitbull) Have a Nice Day                           Bon Jovi Love Somebody                            Maroon 5 Listen Like Thieves                       INXS The Other Side                            ...

Today I learned very little.  I did learn that I don't really have the patience to attend multiple flea markets.  Although it was a long day of flea markets (and Coleman cooler sale), I did make quite a find.    One stand was selling rocks for one dollar.  The man selling them said that we would be the first to open these 350 million year rocks.  How could one go wrong?  Actually, he gave us a lesson (therefore we learned?) about how to open the rocks (score the outside, keep scoring, eventually it will crack.  Ours cracked.  It was actually prettier on the inside than we had imagined.  Also, I learned that the Iowa State rock is the Geode. 

Ok, perhaps it's lame to use another Mental Floss video for today's learning blog, but I did learn quite a bit of trivia.  Plus, although I'm done packing, I need to eat before I play 18 holes of golf.  Golf and vacation and LEARNING... it's difficult to balance. If you don't watch the video, you're missing out, but these are the facts I found worth recording. Gold Rush...1848 not 1949.  It looks like I'm going to start calling them the 48ers.  Hee Hee! Florida more lightening strikes...  I'm sure this has to do with their political beliefs and not weather. Mason-Dixon line... I knew the historical significance thanks to a story I use at school, but I did not know the beginnings. Britt Iowa... I did know about Hobo Days (also Hobo Days in college... completely different), but I did not know that hobos were migrant workers.  This will come in handy when a student is referring to someone as a hobo. No one knows what Hoosier means?   LH , te...

Thanks to Facebook, I found a new app for my phone.  It's call Pic Collage, and it's free.  Since it's been an insane few days, and I'm leaving again tomorrow to go out of town (after playing 18 holes of golf and packing), I really haven't had a lot of time to play with it.  One is able to take pictures or use their camera roll.  Actually, I think they're other options too.  Anyway, I used a few of the cave pictures to create a collage.  I also added text and stickers.  Although I probably won't use it super often, I thought it was something that was kind of cool.  Basically, I learned about a new app today, and I learned how to use it. I also... 1) Gave $250 to the plumbing and heating guy to fix the AC. 2) Corresponded with the vet concerning KK (We think he's probably OK.). 3) Lost my credit card and then found it after it was canceled.  The new one is on it's way to God's Country... we hope. 4) Made various calls to Earthlink and...

Today I finished another young adult book called Between Shades of Gray , not to be confused with Fifty Shades of Grey.  It's a war about the Soviets taking a family from their home in Lithuania.  The story is similar to others WWII stories I've read.  The captured families must ride in a cattle car, and they throw out the dead bodies.  Unlike the other stories, these Lithuanians are not Jewish, and the it's the Soviets not the Germans taking them to work camps in Siberia.  The mention the NKVD often.  Although I knew it was the Soviet Secret Police, I knew little of the devastation to Lithuania.   Lithuania last 780,000 people in WWII.  Who knew?  Certainly not me. Other news from today:  I took Kitty Klaus back to the vet for follow up x-rays.  He's doing better, but I'm giving him small, frequent meals and monitoring him.  At first he was supes glad to have food since he hadn't eaten since Thursday.  Now he's gett...