Midday Visitor

One of the reasons I enjoy telecommuting is you never know who might come visit. This furry friend and her daughter strolled by while I was sitting at my desk. Almost didn't notice her I was so intent on my work. It's always fun to watch them and the elk and even the bears that come by, though the bears get to be a bit much.

Unfortunately, while it was a pleasant diversion, their visit did nothing to get me out of my writing funk. Still stuck for some words to finish this newsletter. :-(

Slide

OK, so I just discovered Slide. It's yet another site that lets your create Flash slide shows from your images. You can bring in pictures from Flickr and other sites and even post directly to Blogger, etc. Here's a slide from our recent Day Out With Thomas adventure. Nice!

Kelton And His Elk

Our grandson, Kelton is three years old now. He still loves to run out into the field when the elk are visiting, which is pretty much a daily occurrence. He doesn't seem frightened by them at all.

The first time he did this we managed just a few shots at dusk. You can see them here. Lately, he just runs out there and then off to his next three-year-old adventure. This evening it was he and his grandfather walking (running, mostly) out to get the mail and shut the gate for the night.

We moved here when Kelton's father, Jesse was just turning four, so not much older. It was the wildlife and seclusion and lack of traffic, among other things that attracted us. We're ever so happy to see Jesse and Jennifer able to raise their two kids here as well. There's something special about what has become known as The Orchard Compound in Hobart, WA.

BTW, that fenced off area is our humble pumpkin patch. We wall it off to keep the elk and other critters out of there.

A Day Out With Thomas

The Orchards left Hobart for the day and visited with Kelton's favorite characters at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie, WA. It's a great trip even if Thomas isn't there. Highly recommended.

Here's the photoset. And here's more on the Railway Museum.

The After-Bite Of Seattle

After three days of non-stop eating at Seattle Center, it's a busy day of cleaning up the mess. Seagulls and crows gorging themselves, the sound of guys with gas-powered blowers pushing the garbage into piles, and another guy with a steam-cleaner trying to get the goo off the concrete at Fisher Pavilion.

Just when I was feeling less than excited about going to work behind a desk at Pacific Science Center, I walk past these folks with one big, dirty job on their hands.

My job looks pretty good now.

BTW, this was taken with my first-gen iPhone as I walked to work across Seattle Center. Uploaded with AirMe. Works great!

Foggy Needle

Summer in Seattle can mean many things. Cloudy, cool weather is always part of the deal.

As the annual Bite Of Seattle is shaping up at Seattle Center, Mother Nature dropped our hot weather and gave us a foggy, cloudy, cool Thursday, the day before thousands descend on all the elephant ears, cheese steak sandwiches, clam chowder, etc.

Here's hoping sunshine makes an appearance.

The Irony Of Broccoli

While walking to work this morning I noticed something growing in the landscaping. This was on the west side of Seattle Children's Theater at Seattle Center, next door to Pacific Science Center where I work. It's broccoli. Probably a decorative variety, and this patch was already starting to go to seed, but it looks just like that you buy at the market. Is it edible? Not sure.

The irony is this: just out of range of this shot, off to the left was a bag lady. A woman who lives on the streets of the city. I see her frequently in and around the neighborhood, pushing her shopping cart full of treasures. This morning she was savoring a flat of wretched looking mushrooms and a few other scraps that appeared to have come from a dumpster. Yet right in front of her was fresh produce still on the vine. Weird.

First AirMe Upload

UPDATE: ARGH! Just made an interesting discovery about AirMe. If you delete the photo on your iPhone it also deletes it off Flickr. Oops!

Decided to try the AirMe app installed on my old iPhone. Pretty slick. It used cell tower triangulation to locate me in Seattle and tagged the photo with the current location as well as current weather data. Nice!

This is just a shot at sunrise of the Space Needle looking through the arches here at Pacific Science Center. I then walked back to my desk and added a new title and description. But if I had been out all day with, say the family or friends AirMe would be kinda cool for keeping a running photo diary of what we were up to. Would be great for coverage of events.

Impressive.

MobileMe Ready To Go

Sitting here working on some things when all of a sudden Apple sent me a message.

I tried and tried to get my old .Mac account to work over the past couple of days to no avail. A number of blowhards...er, tech bloggers have been chronicling the failure of the new service. But it looks like things might be resolved.

I remember signing on to .Mac when it first came out. remember that? It was free at the time and the stanorchard@mac.com address was cool. Frankly, I think mac.com is cooler than me.com. But me.com is one character shorter so that's a good thing.

Just tried the Web interface and it works now and looks pretty good. That part is an improvement over the old .Mac Web interface. But frankly, I never used it much. I use the OS X mail app and iCal. But maybe now I'll change. Change is good. usually.

Apple Love

OK. So I ran into some trouble this morning while trying to upgrade my first-gen iPhone's software. Like many others, Apple's over-worked servers took forever. But they finally spoke to my iPhone and the upgrade is complete. Now, I'm in love with Apple again.

Heck, I always was. Sure, we had a little disagreement this morning. But now...oh my! I just installed Remote. I'm controlling iTunes running on my very old G-4 through my iPhone. Amos Lee is playing through my SoundSticks on my desk. Cool!

But wait! There's more! By using an Airport Express attached to our home entertainment system out in the living room, my iPhone can control music out there! My GAWD! This little guy is awesome!

OK. So I was frustrated earlier. But that's history. Apple...Mr. Jobs...you're awesome.

Been Bricked

Great. Now my first generation iPhone is useless except to make emergency calls. Seems there are quite a few of us out there having the same experience.

Also, MobileMe isn't working.

What's the deal, Apple?

Rude Awakening

So, I woke up this morning and stumbled out to the living room. When I looked up, there was this big furry critter staring at me through the window. Talk about a rude awakening!

Between my blurry eyes and the fact the sun wasn't fully up, the image is a bit out of focus. Plus, s/he was as startled as I was so it started to wander off.

Here's hoping this encounter doesn't portend stock market activity.

Boxwood

Walking to work this morning across the Seattle Center grounds I noticed many of the trees were enclosed in neat little boxes. Some of the boxes were closed, some were open on one side as these are. Some of the trees are young and newly planted, some are many years old. Clearly they are to protect the trees and may be in preparation for the Bite of Seattle. But the effect was kind of funny. As though the trees had run into phone booths. Phone booths? What are those?

A Safe, Sane, Soggy 4th

Anyone who ever said "hotter than the 4th of July'' probably never spent America's birthday in the Pacific Northwest. The 2008 edition of Independence Day was typical: highs in the 60s and rain for the evening's pyrotechnics.

But, as is usually the case around here, the weather only dampened the area, not our spirits. Jesse and Jennifer brought out a nice array of fireworks and we set them off after a traditional meal of roasted hot dogs and corn on the cob. Fun was had by all, including Kelton. He's three now and unlike past years, this time he really got into the fireworks. His little sister Kira seemed to enjoy them as well, though she was a little nervous.



The video was shot on Jennifer's Flip Video camera. The music comes from archive.org. It was hastily thrown together with Final Cut Studio. Here's hoping your holiday was a good one.