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Kite hydrofoiling

After our visit to Hood River, I’ve spent a little time on Youtube “researching.” Here are a couple of my favorites videos. Love the vibe. :-)

Discovering Tingsek was just a bonus!

Don’t miss his more recent work. :-)

Playlist: Seven Songs – Live from the Malmö Festival 2016

Sunday in and around Hood River

Suzi and I took a quick trip to Hood River. As we neared, we discovered our main reason for going wasn’t going to happen. It was time to improvise.

We found a cool, little taqueria for lunch and then drove to Parkdale. On the way back to Hood River, we saw a sign for Lavender Valley. What could that be? Sure enough, a lavender farm. Fun!

After returning to Hood River, we watch the kite sailers zip around on their hydrofoil-borne craft. It’s wild! Certainly nothing like the Hobie 14 I used to sail. These things are faster and are likely transportable in commercial air travel.

Another good day!

Hearts, Part VIII

Our local Dawson Creek park has a tunnel high schoolers pose in for their senior portraits. Its interior is painted black, now flat black, so taggers can use chalk instead of spray paint. This gambit is only partially successful. Regardless, after a quick pressure wash and a fresh coat, it’s primed for more artwork.1

I found this set of hearts on a recent walk there with my dad.

Be Kind! Rewind!
Tweet! Tweet!

  1. Actually, I don’t know if:

    • Chalk “tagging” is allowed
    • The flat, black paint is merely an attempt to encourage already-illegal behavior to be less destructive, or
    • Someone in facilities accidentally grabbed flat paint instead of the original, glossy black paint to cover over some earlier tags and people are taking advantage of the accidental chalkboard.

    ↩

The Washington Post recommends books for every age

Books for the ages. “Here are our picks for worthwhile books to read during each year of life, from 1 to 100, along with some of the age-appropriate wisdom they impart.”

Looks like a good list. I’ve read only nine of them … so far.

How many have you read? Any favorites you’d recommend or others you’d add for a specific stage of life?

Naming a 1:1 meeting

Suppose you’re Mike setting up a 1:1 meeting with Julie. What should you name the calendar meeting request?

  • Julie / Mike
  • Mike / Julie
  • Julie

If you’re like me, you probably choose the first option. You’re meeting with Julie, so her name goes first. It would feel egotistical to put your own name first, right? Besides, this is what Google’s newish scheduling feature does. (Video)

But what’s most useful for Julie? When she looks at her calendar, she’ll want to know who she’s meeting with, not her own name. She already knows that. So put your own name first. Then, even on a small phone screen, she’ll see it.

Yeah, it will be a little harder for you. But you’re the one setting up the meeting. Be kind.

Btw, if you include only her name (the third option), she’ll have to open the appointment on her calendar to see who sent it.1

  1. Don’t laugh. I have meetings like that on my calendar. This post is apparently my passive aggressive response… ;-) ↩

#ShowYourStripes

#ShowYourStripes. “These ‘warming stripe’ graphics are visual representations of the change in temperature as measured in each country over the past 100+ years. Each stripe represents the temperature in that country averaged over a year. For most countries, the stripes start in the year 1901 and finish in 2018. For the UK, USA, Switzerland & Germany, the data starts in the late 19th century. […] For each country, the average temperature in 1971-2000 is set as the boundary between blue and red colours, and the colour scale varies from +/- 2.6 standard deviations of the annual average temperatures between 1901-2000.”

It’s interesting to see how the average temperature for the globe is much more dramatic than any of the smaller areas I chose.

Morning Pole

A couple of days ago, as I walked from the parking lot to the MAX station, I heard a mourning dove. The previous morning, I’d heard a dove and quickly found it, not in the trees, but on the power lines. This day, I didn’t see it on the power lines or in the trees.

With a little more searching and looking from another angle, I found the dove on the pole. He was peering down, watching the commuters.

This picture is interesting because all the diagonal lines make the pole look bent and leaning.1 It’s actually straight up and down and not bent. Looking at the sky to either the left or right of the pole seems to change the perceived bend.

  1. If you know me, you’ll also know I find this picture interesting because it’s of a pole. That’s enough! ;-) ↩