A year ago, I got a plant for my desk at work. It’s called a China Doll, and it looks like this:
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| From China Doll |
I think it’s doing pretty well after a year under my care. I put my 15″ MacBook Pro near it for size comparison. When I was in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago, I spotted a nice-looking tree:
It had an identifying plaque in front of it, and to my surprise I learned that I had been looking at a China Doll!
Have you ever noticed that people often yell a concerned “careful!” (or the “ooh, careful” variation) right at the moment when the advice is no longer helpful? Try slipping and falling* sometime. At some point after you begin to lose your balance, someone will likely tell you to be careful, as if your fall may not be enough convince you that some extra caution is necessary.
Here’s a typical scenario:
[Thwap!]
Victim: Ouch, that hurt! Too bad there nothing I could have done to prevent it.
Helpful stranger: You should be careful.
Victim: Oh, yes, thank you. I certainly will be very careful the next time I’m WALKING.
* Do not try this
A few weeks ago, I spent a week at home in Pennsylvania and it was awesome. For the past three years, whenever I’ve gone home, it’s been for an event, such as a holiday or a graduation, which means lots of running around. That’s fun, but I wanted to spend some time back home without any big plans, so that’s what I did. I got to see my sister on her birthday, visit my grandparents, spend some time with our cats, eat lunch at Dilly’s and dinner in Doylestown, hang out with a vertically gifted friend, hike along the Delaware Canal, and see a bunch of family for a dinner at our house.
They* say that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and that’s true. Like lightning bugs. Such a small thing, but they don’t have them where I live in California. In fact, they don’t even have lightning. Well, while I was home I got to ride through a passing thunderstorm and then 20 minutes later find myself sitting out on a balcony on a beautiful afternoon. And man, Beah is right. Pennsylvania is green. That’s really the first thing I noticed on the drive home from the airport. Big yards full of green grass. When I first stepped out onto our patio, I felt like I was in a rainforest. The humidity certainly helped add to this feeling, but the plants were really doing well this year thanks to the rain.
The nature theme continued when we walked along the Delaware Canal’s towpath, where within about an hour or so we saw a deer, a bunch of turtles hanging out on a log, a big snapping turtle, a blue heron, and some ducks.
Sitting outside at night, I really noticed how much of a luxury the quietness of the country is. I’m so used to hearing my neighbors coming in and out of their apartments, plus the traffic, trains, and planes that I could actually “hear” the silence at home, plus the sound of crickets. Another perk of being away from everyone else is the lack of light pollution. I was sitting out on our patio with my family when I randomly looked up at the sky to see the stars. Just moments after I looked up, I spotted a shooting star. Maybe next year I’ll try to be home during the peak of the Perseids.
Besides just enjoying being in the area, I also took care of some stuff I’ve been meaning to get to. I packed up a bunch of negatives of family photos to be shipped to ScanCafe (I’ll certainly blog about my experience with them at a later point), and I also got a box of home videos to send to California for a similar project. I didn’t send them all, but I should have enough to keep me busy until the next time I go home.
* The Amish, I think.
I don’t really like talking about music, but I will say this: I like Ronald Jenkees. I was first introduced to his stuff when Boing Boing linked to his YouTube channel. I bought his first album on iTunes shortly after, and since then have been following his progress via YouTube and his blog on his second album.
The second album, Disorganized Fun, was released on July 31st, and I downloaded it a little over a week later when it was released on iTunes. I actually didn’t like it that much the first time I listened to it, but I was sick and not even in the mood to listen to music. When I gave it a second chance a day or so later, I became a fan, and am now coming up on my 10th time enjoying the album.
I have a few better blog posts in progress but I just wanted to share a couple of things that happened tonight.
At the grocery store, I saw two people shopping in pajama pants and disapproved. At first I was mad at myself for feeling like a grumpy old man, but then I remembered that both of the pajama wearers were older than me Ai. So, they’re just weird.
Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting with the back of my head against my couch sans cushion, and the back of my head fell asleep. I didn’t even know that was possible.
I’d like to have two children: one boy and one girl. The girl would be named “Uncle” and the boy would be named “Aunt.” Then my grandchildren could talk about Aunt Uncle and Uncle Aunt.
This is why I was not allowed to name our cats.
There’s a new girl at the office and I love her.
Her name is Keep.
She fell asleep while eating lunch today.
I think I first heard about Zubbles in 2006 when I came across a link to an article about them in Popular Science. I have been waiting for them ever since. When I emailed them in April 2006, I was told that a toy company had signed an agreement with C2C Technologies, “the emerging leader in temporary color technology,” and that Zubbles would be released in 2007. That same day, I set a Google Alert for the query [Zubbles].
In January of last year, after 2007 had come and gone with no Zubbles, I contacted the toy company, who told me that they would not be manufacturing Zubbles. I tried contacting somone from Zubbles, and my messages bounced.
In February of this year, I was able to get through to someone who was pleased to announce that his company had recently acquired the rights to Zubbles and would soon be going into production with a “limited spectrum” of colors in the spring.
Finally, on June 24th, Google Reader let me know of a new item in my Google Alert feed for Zubbles. Dennis Williamson, who had been keeping an eye on the Zubbles Store domain, had successfully ordered Zubbles. I placed my order as soon as I could.
Today, after no shipping notice or order status update on their online store, my Zubbles arrived. I opened them up right away, and started blowing blue bubbles in the office. There was some brief concern that they would stain the carpet, but within about 15 minutes the dye had faded from where the bubbles landed. That’s part of the great innovation of these bubbles. The dye doesn’t stain. Inventor Tim Kehoe spent years trying to find such a dye using science, but the label clearly states his final breakthrough: He used magic.
I soon took the Zubbles outside, where it was a bit windy, but the bubbles that made it off of the wand did pretty well. As you can see in the video above, I also had fun with them after work on my balcony. I enjoyed my time in the fresh air, so I think I’m going to start a healthy bubble habit. As in, “Hey, you want to go chat outside? I need a bubble break.” A bottle of regular bubbles is like 60¢ at a party store, so it should be pretty affordable.
While I was waiting for the dye to fade from my shirt (I thought I would shoot a time lapse), I accidentally spilled a bottle of Presto Pink. It looked like a crime scene:
The liquid dripped down to the patio below, so I really hope nobody is living in that apartment right now. I don’t need the cops knocking on my door.
Yes, I’m the creepy guy from upstairs who blows bubbles on his balcony, dumps blood onto your patio, and then takes pictures of it.
Fortunately, the dye did fade after about an hour, so now it just looks like I over-watered my plants. Perhaps I should now actually get some plants to make this more plausible.
As you can see, it looks like my wood floor should be unstained as well.
By the way, the color didn’t fade from my shirt on its own like I thought it would, but after dabbing it with some water it was gone.
Overall, I’m pretty happy that I finally have Zubbles. The dye does collect at the bottom of the bubbles making them a bit bottom-heavy, and you don’t get as many bubbles per blow as you do with normal bubbles, but hey, they’re colorful! Now they just need to release them in more colors. I think it’d be really fun to have all of the Google colors. For now, Zubbles can only be used to mimic the Flickr logo.
Ok, gotta step outside and get my bubbles on.
Sometimes after I’ve prepared some food, I put it on a plate before taking the plate out of the cabinet. I think it’d be fun if life really worked like that. Just open up a door, and there’s your sandwich, ready to go.
You’d think that in a struggling economy, all businesses would be on their best behavior, doing everything they can to gain and retain customers, and not taking any revenue for granted. I’ve found that this isn’t the case. Here’s what’s bugged me recently:
Mint.com is broken. I’ve heard great things about Mint. I really wish I could use the service. But I can’t. In March, I tried signing up, but it was unable to get my credit card data imported so I deleted my account. I’ve recently changed my primary credit card, so I tried again tonight. I was unable to get the new card (or the old one) imported, so again, I deleted my account. As I was writing this, Mike suggested that I wait a few days. There was nothing in the Mint UI telling me to do this. It is broken.
Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) is broken. I went to their Sunnyvale store to buy a screwdriver today, and the tools section was almost completely cut off from the rest of the store, with only one entrance/exit. Take a look at this diagram I drew on a napkin:
The shelves surrounding the tools section had it completely enclosed except for the opening marked with the arrow. I had to backtrack after noticing the tools section a couple of aisles into the store. Annoying.
Mozy is broken. Like Mint, I’ve heard great things about the service. And I probably wasn’t a typical customer. But their technical support is what makes it broken. More on this in an upcoming post.
Anything I buy for my bike is broken. Not physically, but the instructions are always enough to break my brain.
Jamm Companies is broken. I ordered something from them a couple of weeks ago and have had no update on my order status or a shipping notice, yet they have charged my credit card (via PayPal). Sent an email over 24 hours ago and have not received a reply.
Hulu is broken. Why should content expire after a period of time or certain number of episodes? I don’t care whose fault this is (Hulu or the content owner’s), but it’s broken.