June 23, 2007
June 21, 2007
It's the little things
- I am inordinately pleased with my new vacuum. It not only sucks up the dog hair, it even made the carpet nap stand back up. 24 hours later the living room still looked like it had just been vacuumed. Not a small feat with two adults, two kids (and assorted friends), one shedding dog, and one cat going in and out all day.
- The garden is doing pretty well. It's more shaded than in the past, so some things are a bit scrawny (including the strawberries and the basil - drat) but we'll be picking cucumbers in a day or two.
- We went out Monday night to watch the Space Station and shuttle Atlantis pass overhead. It was very cool to see. Though we have long twilights here in the summer, it was bright enough to be seen very clearly as it came over the hills to the west. And it passed directly across the face of a waxing crescent moon. Venus, Saturn and Jupiter were all identifiable as well.
- We will be on vacation when HP7 comes out, but we won't miss the festivities -- the little independent bookstore in the town nearest where we will stay is hosting a midnight release party. This is the first year that the kids are both old enough to be excited about it (though Daughter probably won't be reading it for a while yet-but she did just finish HP1 all on her own).
- Hot weather. First day of summer. Mojitos. Mmmmmmmm.
June 05, 2007
Make me a map
create your own personalized map of the USA
I love maps. There's something about that transition between two dimensions and three; maps obviously can't capture everything, so the decisions about what's included and what's left out are intriguing. The boundary lines are on the paper, but not on the ground (unless you're looking at a US border these days; having just spent the weekend about half a mile from Canada, yes, there is even a fence.)
When I played with this fun widget I had to make up some rules for myself about what I would count. Any state that I've spent a night in counts, but that couldn't be the qualifying criteria, because that would leave out Rhode Island and the time that we drove there from western Massachusetts to go swimming in the Atlantic. Being a native westerner, I was completely amused by the idea that you would drive to another state to go to the beach (and we went through Connecticut to get there, so that was really a three-state trip). And Connecticut counts because we spent the morning at Mystic Seaport on the way, so we didn't just drive through. I didn't count Michigan and Texas, though I've passed through Detroit and Houston multiple times to change planes. I did count Minnesota, because I got stranded in Minneapolis overnight once because of a late flight, and had to go downtown to find a place to stay. I have never stayed overnight in Illinois, but I traversed two-thirds of the state by train, and had enough time in Chicago to visit the Field Museum, so that counts.
I will now end this post and leave the computer before I wander over to Google Earth and start in there...
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