Here’s a super-cute ad for Robinson’s Squash(? I’m guessing that’s UK-speak for ‘juice’). Why don’t we see more clever ads like that (and like the ones for the Sport Ka) here in the US?
Enjoy!
Archive for the ‘Fun!’ Category
The Secret Life Of Birds
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009What Are The Chances…
Saturday, August 1st, 2009Had a weird one happen yesterday…
Caleb & I drove up to the Twin Cities to go to the Mall of America & goof around a bit. Actually, the Mall thing was more of a secondary excuse for going there, as I’d arranged to buy some needed BMW parts from a guy in St. Paul who was parting out a 528e. But we had a great time at the theme park inside the mall, so it was a great excuse to get us up there!
Anyway, when we finally got to the mall, found a parking spot and walked into the building, we bumped into my niece Kelsey and her mom, my brother’s ex-wife. Wow; what ARE the chances of that happening? For us to be walking in the fourth floor east parking ramp entrance at the same moment that they were walking out the same entrance… It kinda boggles the mind.
We didn’t exactly get to the mall directly… We drove up 35W, and I was looking for signs along the freeway that would tell me which exit to turn off to get to the mall, and didn’t see anything. When I finally decided we’d gone too far north, we were at the University of Minnesota (go Gophers!) Checking the map, I saw that where we were was directly north of the mall (way north, by about 15 miles!), so rather than taking 35W back south, we took the more circuitous route through the city, following Cedar Avenue, which connects directly with Minnesota 77, which passed right by the mall.
That took us to a side of the mall that I hadn’t been to on my previous few visits, and that put us in the east parking ramp, which I guess is a mirror image of the west ramp, which I was originally aiming for. We made a couple of sorties into parking areas only to be frustrated by finding no empty spots. Caleb suggested that we go to the top floor, and I suggested the one just below so we’d be in the shade, so we ended up near the fourth floor. Then we couldn’t find a couple of things in the van and had to hunt around a bit for them. Then we headed into the building for the surprise…
It makes me wonder how things like that come about, and why. All those delays put us in the right place at the right time for something wonderful to happen. I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as a ‘coincidence’. Things happen because they are allowed to happen and we’re guided to appointments that God has arranged for us. We don’t always know what the purpose of those appointments is, nor should we be consumed by trying to interpret what they’re all about… I just have to sit, slack-jawed in awe of the Master of the Universe who can coordinate things so… beautifully.
That incident reminds me of something minor that happened years ago; I happened to look out the back window of our house on Norton at the very moment that a leaf fell from our neighbor’s Silver Maple tree. It was a solitary leaf falling after most of the others fell, and that leaf fell in such a manner, and the wind guided it just so that the hook of the stem caught on a branch of a smaller tree at the back of our yard. Like yesterday’s ‘coincidence’, that made me sit back in wonder at how intricately woven our lives are, and how awesome is the God who orchestrates this marvelous tapestry of our lives.
Wow.
Gremlins In My Garage
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009Saw these guys hanging from the shelf in the garage a while back, and had to do a double-take.
I feel like I’m being watched. Any guesses on what they are?
How Low Can You Go?
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009Here’s a car that Caleb & I saw at last September’s Oukasts’ Car Club show in Mitchell. The thing is so low it’d probably be grinding just rolling down the street. When the owner started it up & drove off, hydraulics raised it up a bit to make it at least drivable, but it was still low.
The whole thing was done up very nicely, with a Caterpillar radiator up front, a flathead engine… Parked right down the street from the Corn Palace. Very cool. Very much undrivable, but very cool!
Sleep In A Wigwam!
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009On our Kentucky visit last week, we intentionally drove some of the two-lane highways when traveling between the sites we visited, and the rural Kentucky scenery made the longer drive times very worthwhile. After our Mammoth Cave tour we had dinner in Cave City, KY, then drove Highway 31W back to Elizabethtown. Not too far down the road we happened across a very special sight, the Wigwam Village Inn.
The sign welcomes visitors to stop and “Sleep in a Wigwam”, and offers fifteen teepee-shaped rooms, complete with modern amenities, arranged in a semicircle around the main teepee in the center. The name of the place confused me a little, as the term ‘wigwam‘ is usually associated with a dome-shaped hut used by Native Americans, while the structures in the Wigwam Village were more like tipis… I won’t argue semantics with them though; wigwam or tipi, they are definitely cool!
The history of the Wigwam Village Inn is interesting; turns out that the one we saw is one of seven that were built some 70 years ago, and they even have a tie to South Dakota!
Wigwam Village Inn No. 2 began as a dream of Frank A. Redford in the early 1900s. Frank’s inspirations in this dream were a popular ice cream shop shaped like an upside down cone and authentic teepees he’d seen on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. His dream became reality in 1935 when construction on Wigwam Village #1 was completed in Horse Cave, Kentucky. Realizing he’d hit upon a popular idea, Frank patented the design with the US patent office in 1936.
Wigwam Village Inn #2 was completed in 1937 in Cave City, and five more were built over time in Alabama, Florida, New Orleans, California, and Arizona… Of the seven original Wigwam Villages, only three remain: #2 in Cave City, Kentucky, #6 in Holbrook, Arizona. and #7 in Riallto, California. Wigwam Village #2 is an impressive sight and is truly a monument to one man’s American dream that came true.
When we saw it, my first thought was, “This is where they came up with the idea for the Cozy Cone Motel in Pixar’s Cars!” Sure enough, the website for the California Wigwam Village confirms that thought. And it fits right in with the Route 66 theme in Cars, because that Village is located right on the real Route 66.
When we drove by the Village in Cave City, I knew it was pretty cool, and I’m glad I at least stopped to take pictures. But had I known that the place was this old and unique, I definitely would’ve at least stopped in the gift shop. Next time I’m in Kentucky…
Countdown to Canaries!
Friday, May 15th, 2009A while back (two years ago!) I wrote a blurb about our then-new pet, Pippin, a male canary. We’ve enjoyed Pippin and his singing ever since, but I somehow neglected to mention that we brought home a girlfriend for Pippin a year ago. Pippin was a birthday gift for Yvonne two years ago, then last year’s birthday brought Melody into the family.
Like Pippin, Melody is a color-bred bird, but has a little more yellow than orange, which is Pippin’s primary coloration. Female canaries don’t sing like the males do, it’s more just peeps, chirps and squawks, but Melody has plenty of character all her own. The two of them get along pretty well, but we keep them in separate cages most of the time, mainly because (being a male) Pippin always thinks it’s mating time. If they’re in the same cage, he’ll start in on a song, strutting about with his throat feathers all puffed out and his wings slightly extended. Next thing you know he’s flying all around the cage in hot pursuit of Melody, who is doing her best to keep ahead of him. He usually catches her and pins her to the floor for a little, umm, roughhousing. Melody isn’t very appreciative of those little sessions, and when it’s done will chase him off, wings spread out, beak wide open; “Don’t you mess with me, buddy!” So, yeah; we keep them separated, for Melody’s sake. But nothing seems to faze Pippin; he’s totally twitterpated, and dotes over Melody terribly. He tears up paper from under the cage floor and carries it around, trying to give it to her as a present. He actually shows more interest in the nest and fitting it for eggs than she does.
This spring was a little different though. For the first time since we brought her home, Melody started to show some interest in the nest cup & started filling it with torn up newspaper, yarn, paper toweling, and whatever else she could get up there. It seemed mostly like a game to her as she’d carry something to the cup and goof around trying to put it in. After she’d get a bunch of it in there she’d pull it all out and start again. Either she’s frustrated that she can’t get it just right, or maybe she’s just not very serious after all.
Then on Monday, there was an egg in there! I was a little concerned because there was hardly any nesting material in the cup — the egg was sitting on bare plastic. Yvonne put some extra fluffy stuff in the cage, and Melody managed to pack the cup pretty well, but the egg was still underneath all the stuffing and she wasn’t spending much time on the nest. I pulled the nest out, rearranged some of the stuffing and got the egg on top, but she still wouldn’t spend much time on it. I didn’t have much hope for that egg that day.
But then Tuesday morning brought another egg, as did Wednesday. And Thursday. So now she has four eggs in the nest and is sitting on it pretty steadily. She’ll get up to have a bite to eat and drink, and to have an occasional splash in the water dish, but it’s right back to the nest without any playing. She’s turning out to be a great Mom!
Since all this started, Pippin hasn’t quite been himself; he still dotes over Melody like the lovesick thing he’s been since she came into his life, but he doesn’t sing much. He spends a lot of time flitting around chirping, and is pretty good about feeding Melody so she can stay in the nest longer, which makes me think he knows the score and that he needs to pitch in.
So now it’s a waiting game; keep them fed and see what happens. The incubation period for canaries is about two weeks, so that sets the ETH (Estimated Time of Hatching) at about May 25… Can’t. Wait.
Pause, Stop, Play
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009I think I want this on my car. No, scratch that; I need this on my car!
Digital Music Pads
Saturday, May 9th, 2009Here’s something quite cool; the Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus. It’s essentially a Linux-powered keyboardless tablet PC that specializes in displaying music files. It uses a back-lit color LCD touch screen to display the music files that you load onto it by connecting it up to a Mac or PC. It can use music that you scan from sheet music, music files you buy & download from Freehand’s website, or transfer from an app like Sibelius.
The MusicPad Pro essentially replaces the sheet music a musician would use during a rehearsal or performance. It can hold an entire library’s worth of music, and if the user is playing outdoors there is no worry about having sheet music flying around in the wind. The user can also write notes on the music displayed on the MusicPad Pro and save those notes with the music. It’s a great concept, but at the price of $899, probably a little out of reach of most musicians and performing groups.
While I can’t take credit for this concept, it does remind me of something I thought up and sketched out while sitting through one of the kids’ band concerts years ago. I was bored out of my gourd (is it right to say that?) and my mind started wandering, thinking about all the work that goes into organizing sheet music for a band or orchestra; the conductor has the full score and most every player has a different set, and that’s duplicated for every piece the group plays. Just trying to wrap my head around the system needed to track all that paper makes me dizzy.
So I thought, what if the conductor had the music stored on a central computer — the server — with its display at the podium? And what if each musician had a wireless display — the client — that linked into that central computer & received the music from it? The musicians could tap a button on the screen or click a foot pedal to advance to the next page, or have the music scroll up as the piece progresses. For a stage performance, a tablet-sized screen would be great for the musicians, but when the cost of a display is usually keyed to the size of the screen, how about shrinking the screen down to the size of a recipe card — 3 x 5 inches — and attached directly to the instrument? I remember my older sisters using something like that for marching band back in the ’70’s, and the coronet that I used in junior high has an attachment that allows for that. With the display closer to the user’s eyes it doesn’t need to be very big (just look at the popularity of watching movies on iPods and other handheld devices.)
The difficulty I guess would be keeping the server & client pads coordinated through a performance… There are lots of things that could go wrong, and with a system like this, and going wrong in the middle of a performance… it would be ugly. Actually the real difficulty is in getting the concept to actually work in the real world, and to be able to sell it at an affordable price. The $900 MusicPad Pro is a great device, but it’s overkill for most bands and orchestras, and at that price just isn’t accessible to most primary & secondary schools and private organizations. An exhaustive three minute Google search shows that other than a few software solutions (like Music Reader) that can be run on a Windows or Mac computer, the Freehand device is pretty much the only game in town for digital music pads right now, so I think there’s potential for a system like this to really do well.
But the practicalities of the system won’t be my worry because I don’t know where to even start bringing an idea like this into reality, so I’ll leave the gritty details to someone more capable. I doubt I’m the first person to think of something like this.
Flying Like An Eagle
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009Or in this case, a hawk. Very similar experience, I’m sure. I’ve had incredibly vivid flying dreams before, and this reminds me a lot of those dreams…
Anyway, this fella strapped a video camera to the back of a hawk and let it do its thing, and came up with a stunning piece of videography.
For years I’ve had this idea of a robotic suit that allows the wearer to fly like a bird… kind of a single-person ornithopter. Turns out I’m not the only one with that idea. This guy, D.C. George, had the same idea and even committed the concept to paper. In 1972. It seems a pretty well-thought out design, reminiscent of the Icarus story in Greek mythology, although I’m not so sure about the h2o2 power source; I suppose he was counting on a method being developed to separate the hydrogen & oxygen and use them for clean combustion. And no worries about melting wax at altitude.
The Monkey Bars
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009How’s this for obscure… On one of the rare occasions I sat down & watched an old, old re-run of the original Knight Rider (starring David Hasselhoff and the talking early-’80’s Trans Am with the funky strobe light), I happened to spot a set of monkey bars identical to the ones we’ve got in the back yard! That is the only time I have ever seen another set like that. Ever.
Our set is a little more weather-worn than the one in the TV show, which isn’t surprising considering they’ve been sitting out in the weather for about 50 years. The bars were purchased by my parents and have been part of growing up since before I can remember. I recall hearing from someone that they were bought when my eldest sister was little, but I doubt that’s true, as that would make them 60 years old, and counting. When Mom & Dad moved from the house on Walts in 1977 I think the monkey bars went to Dick & Dawn’s house, where they stayed until Yvonne & I bought our house on Norton in 1991 or so. We’ve had them ever since, and they’ve been a fixture in our kids’ backyard playtime.
That’s Caleb, at about 18 months old, after having climbed to the top of the monkey bars. That horizontal bar near the top of his head is about 8 feet off the ground. Enough to make any mom a little nervous.
Yes, 50-plus years does a number on the paint covering the bars, and on the metal underneath. The leg ends get rustier every year, and two have broken loose. I’ve been planning to replace some metal and repaint the bars for years — I even went so far as to buy a few rattle-cans of Rustoleum for the job — but it’s the colors that have delayed me for these many years. The bars were originally painted red, yellow and green, but with the years of fading plus the coat of white paint that Dick applied over everything at some point, I’m just not sure which bar was painted what color.
And then I saw this show, Knight Rider, Season 1, Episode 6, broacast on RTN. My first thought was, “YES! I can finally nail down the colors and get it painted!” Problem was that the set was only seen in one short transition shot in the show, spanning maybe three seconds in the frame, and not very clear. I dug around online looking for the video without much luck. I finally tracked down a copy through Google Video last night; the video is actually hosted by a Japanese YouTube knock-off called YouKu.com, and even has Japanese subtitles! Too cool! (link)
But even after looking through the video frame by frame, the colors aren’t clear enough to make any solid determination. So I guess, to paint the thing accurately I’ll have to go back to my original plan to do some judicious sanding in obscure areas that have maybe been spared the fading effects of the sun & hopefully see what the original colors were. Maybe it’ll get done before it ends up as a heap of iron oxide bits in the grass. Maybe…