Are you ready for this?
June 12th - your analog TV stops receiving over the air analog broadcasts. The long talked about and delayed transition from analog to digital TV occurs in just under two weeks. Do you have your digital TV tuner? Or a new HDTV? Or maybe you subscribe to cable or satellite - you don't need to do anything yet, because they probably provide a device which outputs an analog signal to your good old Channel 3.
Remember when TV was simple?
Housekeeping note - Yard Work 2009 #10 - May 25th. A little later (and thus the grass was longer) than needed due to the Memorial Day Weekend. Now - we're in a stretch of warm without rain - maybe the grass growth rate will slow down. If you compare the your current 'weather' with your expectations due to the 'climate' of where you are - it seems that it is never normal. Right now is just about Rose Festival time in the Portland area - and that usually means rain on your parade.
For an interesting book on how we as humans deal with randomness in everyday things like the weather - check out The Drunkard's Walk - How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Not too mathy for those of you without a math degree. Interesting ways to think about experiences and how our brain classifies them. Like - with ten checkout lanes at the grocery store - why do you always pick 'the slowest line'?
Just how random are these letters? Did your brain run a randomness test? Probably not. I'll bet even unconsciously you are looking for patterns. One pattern is highlighted for you.
Can you find your name in these letters?
- What if your name was John Twelve Hawks?
What symbol is made by following the letters in a word you can make up?
- What does that mean?
Why are six hearts visible?
- Does that have anything to do with six letters in 'random'?
If the letters are random - there is no meaning there. But what if they are carefully placed on the table, and not just poured from a container? Did someone hide a clue for you to find? Or is your brain trying to make sense of randomness?
Fun stuff!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Are you ready for this?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tour de Cure 2009
http://tour.diabetes.org/goto/TeamTegan2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Yard Work 2009 #9
May 14th - break in the rain, and a jump start on the weekend. Lawn work number nine of 2009.
May 16th - my neighbor mows his lawn for the first time this year. Guess what his yard looked like before he accomplished that task....
The previous week, our other neighbor had a yard service come in and trim some bushes, pull some weeds, and lay down some nice bark dust. Her yard was looking pretty good - and now I didn't have to think about the bushes growing through the fence. A few days later - up goes the For Sale sign. Not quite sure why she is moving - she has only lived there a year and a half, and we really don't see her much at all. Maybe it is the mortgage crisis...
Maybe the work involved in keeping up a house was too much for her. It sure ain't no picnic. She did have woodpeckers knocking on her chimney. For a while - we had the same problem. They land on the chimney cap and hammer away on the metal cover. Inside the house it sounds like a machine gun in the fireplace. We solved this problem by putting a small 'dome' of chicken wire on the cap. The woodpeckers could no longer land where they wanted to - so they moved to the neighbor's house.
I don't have any woodpecker photos - but here is a squirrel that was chirping away quite loudly yesterday morning. He wasn't happy about something. Maybe he had been talking to Woody...
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Yard Work 2009 #7 & 8
Another mindless post...feel free to ignore. My in-depth analysis of days between lawn mowings is still to come.
Cut #7 was April 30th - a quick break of a sunny day in between rain.
Cut #8 was 8 days later on May 8th. A sunny day after quite a bit of rain. In fact - soccer practice was canceled this Monday night because of the rain downpour. Not your normal Pacific NW light rain - this was a Midwest thunderstorm.
Some cool photos to be posted soon. Stay tuned!
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