Tales of Seven

Idea for New Travel Map Tool

I recently did a map of my recent trip to Jordan manually in paintbrush, but would love to find an online tool that would automate this a bit.

The idea is that a traveler could select cities or destinations and apply an 'order of travel' to the list. The tool would then draw a map connecting the destinations. There would be options to apply 'dates' to each destination, and the opportunity to click through to pictures and stories for each.

It could be an easy way to share an itinerary with friends, and to provide more context to travel pictures and stories. Has anyone seen a tool like this out there?

Neon-ness

I'm am the proud, new owner of this blindingly-bright-neon-orange-walks-its-own-path kind of bike. It will carry me around Burning Man and be easily found amongst piles of other bikes in the pitch dark. Such glory deserves a name. What shall it be?

Polka Dot Discovery

Thank you, nature, for creating such cool-looking creatures.

Meet a newly discovered creature of the deep; the glass squid.

Source: National Geographic (photo by David Shale, University of Aberdeen)

The Art of Traveling....

Travel with curiosity. It is not how far you go, but how deeply you go that mines the gold of experience.

Travel slowly. Jet planes are for getting places, not seeing places. Take time to absorb the beauty and inspiration of a mountain or cathedral.

Travel expectantly. Every place you visit is like a surpise package to be opened. Untie the strings with an expectation of high adventure.

Travel fearlessly. Banish worry and timidity; the world and its people belong to you just as you belong to the world.

Excerpt from 'The Art of Living',  1961.

Yankee Harbor, Antarctica

"At the break of dawn, the majority of the ship's passengers opt to do a sunrise landing at Yankee Cove. It's freezing cold and a biting wind pulls the warmth out of us immediately.... toes and fingers go numb. We're dropped onto a pebble shoal that juts out into a small harbor. Glaciers are on all sides and the outline of rocky mountains can be seen through the gray darkness."

Sunrise is a beautiful and dramatic peach and yellow as the light hits the glaciers and mountains. We walk, shivering, along the windy shoal toward the mainland, passing a few scattered penguins, whale bones, and one, lone fur seal. And as we hit the mainland, a colony of 1000s of penguins are in the hills leading to the mountains, shuffling and calling out to eachother."

"We can hear the sound... the chatter of millions of tiny pieces of ice... as each quiet wave drifts in and out with ice and pebbles in tow."

- Notes from my Diary, Yankee Harbor, Antarctica

 

New Type of Photography (for me)

I've been taking tennis lessons for about a year now with a great instructor, McClain of McClain Tennis, and I recently offered to take some shots of him in a continuing effort to practice photography skills.

It was a bit challenging in that tennis is fast moving, the racquet is often in the way, and the player is faced away in half the shots, but some shots did manage to work. Here are a few from that session --- PhotoShop Elements helped add a little jazz to two of them. It was a fun experiment!

In the future, I'd like to try to get better angles so the eyes are more visible and have some light in them, and avoid the early afternoon sun as it tends to wash things out a bit.

 

Hook...Jab...Double Jab...LeftRightLeftRightLeft

Hook...Jab...Uppercut...Straight Right...Double Jab...Combination

This was my first time in a boxing class and we were on the gym roof of the JCC. We started with three, 2-minute sets of jump roping, then raced each other across the court multiple times, and then paired off to practice, shifting back and forth from foot to foot in non-stop movement.... leftrightleftrightleftright .

Stay on your toes...keep knees bent...angle your body...hands at eye level...elbows in

leftrightleftrightleftright ....The trainer watches me hit the bag and then starts with these basics. After that, we pair off and move directly into 'bouts' where I'm told to 'really try to hit' my partner. I have five minutes of opportunity to go get 'em. The trainer pops me one on the head or ribs each time I let my defense down.

Jab...Double Jab... Right Hook

leftrightleftrightleftright ....There are a trainer and two other class participants. Each one pairs off with me to instruct in sequence and there's a feel of genuine team-like camaraderie. Push-ups, crunches, more punching, knees high....50 minutes straight of non-stop movement and enough fun and challenge that it flew by.... It will be good fun to give it another go!

At Grandma's House

the smell of bacon wafts up the stairs into my chilly, syracuse-room-in-winter

voices follow in its wake

I pad down to breakfast in pjs, over old, unfinished, squeaky wood floors

down to the kitchen warm with conversation,

coffee and people. A glance up at the cookie jar grandma always kept full.

sugar cookies taste better than eggs and bacon. can I reach them?

-- Followed later by evening --

after pie. after homemade whipped cream. bellies full.

out come the guitars, someone steps up to the piano.

aunts and uncles + mom makes eight.

jamming, harmonies, cover songs, impromptu creation

of original songs. a brief tussle over the correct chord progression.

a few different tries at the harmonies. then off they went...

hot, homemade cider steaming in my hands,

I sink into the old, worn couch to listen, absorb

and remember.

Childhood Memory of Grandma's House

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In German. In Blue.

I was recently feeling a bit nostalgic and did a search on a treasured book I lost years ago to the black hole of 'overseas shipping'; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My wonderfully unique copy was in German (I lived in Austria at the time and I first read the book in German) and all the ink in it was a royal blue.

Today I searched on "german hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy blue ink", and google faithfully fetched me the opportunity to buy a vintage set in blue and purple ink. I just purchased the happy little pair pictured below. Thanks, Google, for sending me a memorable little piece of my past!

Stars and Planets - a Perspective on Scale

It's hard to keep perspective in a place as big as the universe. I thought this video did a great job of showing us just how big things can get out there.  And with Earth being so small, we can imagine how this minor clerical error could occur. A memorable passage from one of my favorite books -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

Trillian: You idiot! You signed the order to destroy Earth!
Zaphod: I did?
Arthur: He did?
Trillian: Love and kisses Zaphod? You didn't even read it, did you?
Zaphod: Well, I'm president, I don't have a lot of time for reading.
Trillian: My whole planet destroyed because you thought someone wanted your autograph? >

(FreeScienceLectures.com)