Megan, Abigail and I just saw the summer fireworks show at The Butchart Gardens near Victoria, BC. It was an even more beautiful show than we had seen 5 years ago on our honeymoon! The show is a gorgeous, playful, exposition of light-art, part representative, part interpretive, all pleasurable! A youtube search turns up some nice displays at Butchart Gardens but be forewarned that no fireworks show well on a screen.
I spoke with a few people in Victoria, BC about this and they said that Canadians use fireworks differently than Americans. American fireworks are almost universally a monosyllabic ejaculation of sound and color while Canadians use it as a medium. Curious! Wonderful!
How did it take me 20 years to figure out this “one weird trick” to know which way is up on a USB cable? All hail the sharpie clown nose!
Don’t buy a cheap cell phone, buy a used flagship phone! I was never really happy with the new $150 LG Charge android phone I got a year ago. I just got a used Pixel 2 from swappa.com for $190 and it’s a wonder! Fast, awesome camera (I got it pretty much exclusively so I could take better photos of Abigail), and a lot of nice features. Hurray and hurray!
For my birthday I asked for a potluck party. It was fantastic! We had some 20 friends and we were able to spread out in our big place on the little hill. The food was so much fun, the energy level great. There are definite plans to do this monthly-ish!
I like the plaque in front of the El Cerrito Library
El Cerrito Library
Where the individual may acquire
the wisdom to contrive
the strength to support
the beauty of the arts
that adorn man’s undertakings
Adopted by: El Cerrito Albany Masonic Lodge No 686
July 4, 1996
At my first reading aloud to Abigail, I saw it all spinny-aroundy:
Where the individual may
acquire the wisdom
to contrive the strength
to support the beauty
of the arts
that adorn
man’s undertakings
Possibly full of beautiful hidden meaning, or just my tired brain.
It looks like it’s an annual event around here. I have achieved inbox 0 at home! Celebrate! I should be getting my next email any moment now… waaaah!
Previously
Did you ever wonder how terrible it would be if you used that expired medicine in your medicine cabinet? In brief: far far less bad than you might think! Here’s an article from the Mayo Clinic about the US military Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP). Nearly every drug tested out of the 122 drugs they tested maintained full potency 2-8 years after their expiration date. The only ones on their list that lost potency was Albuterol and Diphenhydramine (Benadryl). If you store your medicines in less than ideal conditions, your mileage may vary. Read it for yourself. Especially look at the tables.
Mayo SLEP
Did I mention that I have the most amazing, wonderful, daughter in the entire universe?
Who is your favorite artist? Arthur Ganson has topped my list for many many years! Look him up.
Videos of many of his art pieces… AMAZING
His TED Talk
His website
This piece is at the Exploratorium. I love it.
A few months ago we were at the ECPC Messy Art Day. Abigail had just gotten off of the spin art ride and while they were mopping up her spin art and making it go away I said to her “It makes me a little sad when they make the art go away.” And Abigail responded, “It makes me happy because they are going to make new art.” My job here is done.
