Cuba! exhibit at DMNS

We enjoyed our visit to the preview of the “¡Cuba!” Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I learned a lot, reading about the history of Cuba on the various displays, and seeing the interesting representations of current and past life there. Most people know about the Cuban cigar industry, but I wasn't aware of their reputation for having so many classic old cars. They're taking the lead on urban farming, and are providing guidance to other cities around the world. They have a fantastic underwater park, Gardens of the Queen, on 850 square miles of reef south of Cuba. There were also some fascinating displays of animals that are unique to Cuba. I especially enjoyed the display of the words and works of dozens of Cuban artists. They had some touching quotes from people that migrated here, about what they wish for Cuba in the future.

We moved on to the “MindBender Mansion” exhibit sponsored by Anschutz. Lots of challenging puzzles for the enjoyment of children and adults alike. So many fun puzzles in the MindBender Mansion exhibit! Finally, an excellent series of examples for “thinking outside the box!” I've heard that phrase used inappropriately, by so many people who have no idea. I think we need to understand the box, before we start trying to think outside of it.

New word: Adduce

I learned a new word today - Adduce: To cite as an example or means of proof in an argument. The context was... [the judge rejected the government’s challenge and approved the merger with no conditions imposed, citing the government’s failure to adduce “economic evidence of any kind” and reliance on “bare conjecture” as the basis for its case.] It's fun learning new things, but I suspect I won't think to use this word any time soon.

Estes Park

Kind of a whirlwind visit to Estes Park - in and out in about 24 hours, courtesy of Jennefer’s tricky work schedule. Glad I got to meet her cousin! We went for a short walk down to Lake Estes on Friday afternoon after we got there. It was cold and windy, but we saw some beautiful views.



 

So it’s “bugling season“ in Estes Park, and apparently that means you never know when you’re going to run across a bunch of elk in town. We saw this herd just down the street from our hotel on Saturday morning.





 

We enjoyed a somewhat strenuous hike up to Kruger rock, in Hermit Park, southeast of town. There were still a few Fall colors to be seen.

There's a spectacular view from the top of the hill - of Estes Park, Lake Estes, and the surrounding area!

Visit with Sis

Mandy and I spent a fun week visiting my big sister and her dogs, cat, and chickens on the northern California coast. Such a beautiful area. Mandy was once again a great little traveling companion, taking the voyage in her regulation-size airline pet carrier in stride.

We went on lots of walks and hikes in the lush Arcata forests.

My sister has beautiful redwood forests within walking distance of her house. Such a treat.

Mandy liked exploring the forests at her own pace. I think she really enjoyed getting to explore the forest off-leash.

Three independent dogs, and three possible ways to go. It figures, that each dog would position themself at a different choice.

Hike to St Mary's Glacier

We hiked up to the ridge above Saint Mary's Glacier on Labor Day Monday. We made it up much higher than I've been able to climb here, so far! One or more, of time, weather, energy, and poor planning always seem to conspire to keep me from my goal of making it to the actual top. This time, it started to rain/snow on us. And, hey, the glacier is back! Small and separate (there are actually three small glaciers right now), but it's here. Mandy was once again our intrepid hiking guide dog. Once she realized that I wanted her in front, she did a great job leading us up the loose rocky trail. She made lots of friends, of people and other dogs.

Looking down from above St Mary's Lake, with the bottom of St. Mary's Glacier a little below us. We were about halfway up as far as we were eventually going to get.

Looking around at the height of our climb, a little above 11,000 feet, it's mostly high tundra up here

I'm always a little amazed, at how well Mandy does on our mountain hikes. She's such a little dog, but she acts like a big old mountain dog. Here she is, leading the way back down toward the upper part of the glacier. Nice view of the mountains and weather off in the distance.

Here's a striking view of another hiker looking down on the lake, from the ridge across the glacier from us, with some rain clouds in the background.

There are some interesting twisted pine trees around St Mary's Lake!

Hike from Echo Lake

Enjoyed a gorgeous hike at the beginning of the Labor Day weekend. We started from Echo Lake, tried an interesting trail that headed West away from the lake, got partway up that trail toward Chicago Lakes, and turned around at Idaho Springs Reservoir. Mandy is such a great little hiker! We saw the beginnings of some of the Fall colors that make our mountains so pretty. We finished up with dinner at BeauJo's Pizza in Idaho Springs, on our way home.






Pretty view of incoming weather while we were hiking.

Mandy had no problem leading the way on the trail. Beautiful view of the mountains off to the west of us. We didn't make it that far!

Our intrepid little hiking guide, Mandy led the way across the creek with no hesitation.

Brighton and Marissa's Wedding in San Simeon

Jennefer and I  just got back from attending a beautiful outdoor wedding, at the end of San Simeon Point, on the central coast of California, just a teeny bit west of Hearst Castle. My nephew Brighton married Marissa, his fiance of two years, after a sweet surprise proposal at Disneyland, one of the places they both love to play. Wishing the two of them the best life ever together!



The one mile walk to the wedding site from the beach parking lot seemed so short, with all the before-and-after wedding excitement, that I barely remembered to take any pictures. I was also preoccupied with trying to run a GoPro video camera that they had given me, as their videographer for the walk out, and the wedding. Here's a pic that I snapped on the way back, with my sister, her best friend, my girlfriend, and my sister's daughter in law. That's William Randolph Hearst State Beach, below us in the background.

The wedding site was so pretty itself, with an awesome Pacific Ocean view, that we almost forgot to look the other way, and notice Hearst Castle up in the hills, just a bit inland from us. The fog was rolling in below us, which made the entire site look beautifully surreal.

We had several fun family breakfast gatherings at the Country Touch Cafe in Atascadero. We also went for a few walks around Atascadero Lake, near my sis's house.

Short bike ride!

Fun! Jennefer and I  went on a short, introductory / calibration ride around the block - my first ride in years. Lots of stopping to adjust things. No injuries! All in all, a good first ride.

Dad's 99th birthday

My sister and her husband joined us in Littleton for a few days of fun, then the four of us flew to Florida, to visit Dad for his 99th birthday. My cousin from New Hampshire joined us there. Dad had started out saying he didn't want any kind of party, but by the time we got there, he had a dinner for 20 planned! I invited my friend Jennefer to come meet my Dad and his friends, and she changed the family dynamic of our visit, in a very nice way. With some encouragement from my cousin, we did a few extra fun activities, like swimming in the pool at Dad's condo, exploring Morikami Gardens just inland from Del Ray Beach, and walking around MacArthur Beach State Park near my Dad's, all of which we enjoyed a lot. And... Jennefer is now my girlfriend :-D

Fun X-Plane adventure!

I tried out a high-end Asus ROG Strix gaming laptop computer from Costco, hoping a faster computer would make the X-Plane 11 flight simulator run at realistic speeds. It *was* fast enough to run X-Plane in real-time, but had some quirks I decided not to live with. For anyone interested, my big issue was about how hot and noisy it got, when trying to keep up with the complex flight simulation graphics. I was also thrown off by the small solid-state drive. Solid-state drives are cool, because they allow very fast access to applications and data. The man at Costco told me it was going to be a 256 GB drive, and it turned out to be only 128 GB. After installing just the one application, X-Plane 11, that drive was over half full. That didn't bode well, for future software installations. I was also annoyed by the lack of keyboard indications (the usual three lights) for the caps lock, num lock, and scroll lock modal keys. When I used the computer for everyday things, I really missed those lights.

Still, I did have a blast during the 90 day trial period (thank you Costco!), flying the little Cirrus Vision SF50 personal jet Northwest from Denver to Steamboat Springs, Jackson Hole, Missoula, Spokane, and Friday Harbor, then North up the coast to Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, then Southwest to Kenai, King Salmon, Cold Bay, and Dutch Harbor, before turning back Northeast, and threading my way back along the coastline to the continental USA, by way of Sand Point, Kodiak, Homer, Yakutat, Sitka, Prince Rupert, and Portland.

I tried lots of different flight conditions: day and night, clear and cloudy, rain, snow, ice, and fog, flying into large metropolitan and small unattended airports. The ground scenery, starlit night sky, sunrises and sunsets, and weather effects were so beautifully realistic! I was able to setup a connection over my WiFi network, to my iPad, so I could use the Foreflight app to plan and execute each leg of the trip, in the exact same way it would be used on real flights.

Each night, I flew a different leg, or multiple legs, of the trip, depending on how late I wanted to stay up. Omigosh, it was way too much fun and time-consuming, for a working stiff - so it's a good thing I'm retired! I was very sad, to have to return that laptop computer, as X-Plane 11 runs too slow on my old desktop computer, to be usable at all.

So, I've got two takeaways from this experience: 1) I need a new, fast, quiet-and-cool-running computer to run X-Plane some more, and 2) I need to win the lottery, and buy myself one of those really cool personal jets!

Sad event last night

I'm feeling sad for the pilot of the Cirrus SR22 aircraft that crashed near here last night. Because of the events that made me into who I am today, I continue to have an insatiable thirst for the details of these things. It was cool, overcast, and drizzly last night, with cloud based reported at 6800 feet - about 1000 feet above the airport - and it was after sunset and getting dark. I got online at liveATC.net last night, and listened to the recorded radio transmissions between Centennial Tower and the Cirrus pilot, from his 8:11:11 VFR takeoff clearance, to his admission at 8:17:24 that he thought he would return to the airport, mixed in with a series of requests from the tower, for him to avoid other aircraft on the final approach course, until he asked at 8:18:30 for a repeat of the wind numbers, when the tower offered him a choice of runways. Wild guess on my part – but it sounds like a VFR pilot blundering into IFR conditions, or an IFR pilot attempting to scud run. He sounded a little overwhelmed to me. It didn't help that the tower controller was getting very irritated with his failure to comply with instructions. So sad for the individual, but it also sounds like there was a little bit of luck, for the big news story to not be about a midair collision in the clouds last night.

If you want to listen, the audio recording starts at 8pm, so the time numbers are minutes and seconds after 8.
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http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kapa/KAPA-May-12-2018-0200Z.mp3
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Free Sound Effects!

Kinda cool: The BBC is offering more than 16,000 free sound effect samples for download from its archive. I don't think I have the time or the storage space to download any of these, but they're fun to listen to. Here's the online blurb that announced them:

Attention all sound effects enthusiasts! Over 16,000 classic BBC Archive sound effects and field recordings, from air raids to zebras, are available on the BBC Sound Effects Beta: http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/ -- they are FREE to listen to, or download and reuse for non-commercial purposes.

Dining Out For Life!

April 26: Dining Out For Life! After Kristan's leg was amputated, Project Angel Heart was there for us, when we were having trouble putting healthy meals on the table on short notice, with our weird schedule. Every Saturday, they would drop off a week's worth of diabetic-thyroid-kidney-patient-friendly frozen meals for her. Then a month later, after I broke my ankle, and was bedridden for awhile, my sister Mikele (❤️ thanks again sis) asked them to drop off meals for me too, which they did, and it really helped us out in that time of need. They didn't charge us anything, but once things quieted down, I started making regular donations, to make it up to them. I also try to take advantage of this "dining out for life" event every year, by simply going to a restaurant that donates to them. I would love it, if anyone else did that too, in her memory, or for any other reason. They mailed me a brochure with a list of the places in the Denver metro area, but you can use the link above, to find places near you that participate, if you're interested.

Walk around Echo Lake

Super cold, very windy walk around Echo Lake. Fun adventure! Scenic drive on the back roads! Pretty iced-over lake and snowy surrounding countryside! A challenge for Mandy with her new boots (they didn't last long)! Did I mention it was windy and COLD?! Good test of the gaiter-mask-hoods that Jennefer bought us! We had a satisfying hot lunch in Idaho Springs, after surviving our cold windy walking adventure.

Rejected again

Well, I was called for Jury Duty again, this time for Arapahoe County, which requires me to drive way over past Centennial airport, to the Justice Center over there. I've been called so many times over the decades, and never made it onto a jury. This time, I made it all the way into the jury box for about 30 seconds. I took the place of a potential juror that had just been excused by the prosecution. Within seconds of moving to the front row, the defense attorney chose me for one of his peremptory challenges. This felt a little like the last time I was excused. I suspect that when they asked me to list my favorite TV shows in their initial questionnaire, my answer probably made a difference. I said, "Blue Bloods." ;-)

Cold morning!

We're experiencing one of the coldest mornings in Denver in awhile! I think we set a new record low for this date of -7°F, with the previous record being -2° back in 1953. Still, it warmed up enough, that I ventured out with Mandy for a post-breakfast late-morning walk. It was a beautiful sunny day, but I'm glad the wind wasn't any stronger.


I had a funny moment at the restaurant this morning, when my server came over to sit with me for a few seconds. She asked if I was some kind of restaurant reviewer, and I said no, I'm just a frequent food eater. I think someone there must've noticed that I occasionally post on social media about the places where I eat, and jumped to a conclusion. So, you may never know what's being said about you.

Anti-RoboCall Article

Here's another good article on dealing with Robocalls, those annoying sales and malicious calls made by automated systems. Some good tips for anti-robo technology. I started using the "Call Protect" app from AT&T on my cell phone last year, and it's so much fun, to see incoming calls labeled as "Suspected Spam" and "Telemarketer." It makes me giggle. But really, I've learned that the simplest way to avoid being annoyed by automated telemarketing calls, is to only answer calls from numbers that are already in my contacts, or whose caller ID I recognize as someone I know. I'm counting on a legitimate caller who isn't in my contacts to be willing to leave me a message.

Florida in January

I flew to Florida for the past week, to visit with Dad and Adele. I was expecting / hoping for nicer weather than Colorado in winter. The first day, it was 46 degrees in Palm Beach, and 48 degrees in Littleton, so not that great a start. Later in the week, it warmed up into the seventies in Florida, and Denver got several inches of snow, so I felt like I was getting at least some of what I had been hoping for. Dad and Adele are both doing pretty darned well, especially considering the alternative for their ages.

I helped Dad cleanup stuff on his computer a little, replaced the dead battery in his APC UPS, recycled another dead UPS unit, pulled a bunch of disconnected cables, and helped him get his primary phone line working. I scrubbed the mold (I thought it was "moss") off the stepping stones that lead from his parking spot, through the back yard to his patio entrance, after my cousin reported that they were so slippery she had almost lost her footing when walking out. I was able to go out for a few short early morning walks during my visit. The landscaping at Dad and Adele's places is so lush and nice, that it makes those walks even nicer.

\My cousin flew down from New Hampshire, coordinating her visit with mine, and we got together several times. We went for a couple of short walks, dragged Dad and Adele to High Tea at the Flagler Museum's Cafe Des Beaux-Arts, spent an afternoon touring the Morikami Japanese museum and gardens near Delray Beach, and enjoyed lounging in the delightful pool provided my Dad's condo complex. I really enjoyed her company.

Holiday with family

Mandy and I visited my younger sister and her family for Christmas! My niece is now working, and didn't want to take as long off, so she declined to drive out with us, so I booked an airline flight instead. I was glad to be able to take advantage of the new non-stop flight from Denver to San Luis Obispo. That route has one of the smaller airline jets, a CRJ-200, so I was careful to not overpack my single backpack, and it worked out perfectly. Mandy was once again an awesome airline traveler, and rested comfortably in her travel carrier by my feet, the entire time. She didn't even raise her head for takeoff or turbulence or landing. Our seatmate didn't even know she was there, until I pulled her out to disembark.

We had a pleasant 10 days out there. We visited with my friend Sher in Los Osos one day, and went for a short walk in Baywood Park, after meeting her friends for lunch there.

We went for several walks with family, many of them around the local lake enjoying Christmas lights.









We took a very pleasant walk on Cayucos beach, and had a delicious Albacore sandwich in Cayucos afterwards.

My nephews and I went to see a movie at the Atascadero Galaxy theater. Such nice reclining seats! I almost fell asleep!

We had a delightful Christmas dinner, hosted by Brighton and Marissa, narrowly avoiding their awful flooding event that occurred a few days later.







Mikele and I took a nice walk up in the hills just west of Atascadero. We got to meet Tyler and Annalisa's baby Alice for the first time. Mikele and Bob took us to the Pismo Beach Melodrama, where they were showing their holiday extravaganza triple-bill show, and we all loved it. We stopped at the Butterfly Grove in Grover Beach before the show, and I enjoyed reminiscing about the first time I was there, 48 years ago, with my soon-to-be college girlfriend. And last but not least, I (and more than half the family) managed to come down with a third annual post-Christmas nasty cold. I hate to jinx anything, but I'll say that it appears I'm already getting over the worst of the symptoms, after just five days, which is way better than the last two times. I had really wanted to continue my tradition of driving up to visit with friends and family in Northern California, but I didn't get it together to make it happen. After coming down with this cold, I'm really glad I didn't run up there, and spread it to them. I also think that being tired from fighting the virus I didn't even suspect I had, probably tipped the balance, in feeling like it was just too much to attempt.

Wedding in Portsmouth

I spent some time in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with my younger sister and most of her family, watching our cousin's daughter get married, and exploring the East Coast a little. While the girls were getting mani-pedis before the wedding, the boys were climbing around inside the USS Albacore, a test vessel that was the first submarine to have the low-drag bulb-shaped nose, and the last non-nuclear sub. Although my sister and her son had to return home early for their jobs, some of us stayed with my cousin and her husband after the wedding. We enjoyed dinners and board games together, and we also drove down and toured the town of Salem, and the witch trial museums. We walked the freedom Trail in Boston, and toured the USS Constitution sailing ship. That was a very fun trip, but I really felt bad, being away from Mandy, who is so dependent on me. My friend volunteered to watch her for the 10 days. That was a big commitment, for a cat person who has never taken care of a dog before. But Mandy got along just fine with her, and her cat. Mandy and I were so happy to see each other, when they met us at the airport.

Facebook shadow profiles

Interesting article on Shadow profile information that Facebook collects about people, even non-users. The gist of it, is that, even if you never create a Facebook account, the Facebook site still collects information that your friends and acquaintances may have provided, in the process of searching for you there.

Feeling dumb

I gave an acquaintance a ride across town Sunday night, with his bicycle in the bike rack on top of my car. After I dropped him off, and was driving away, I heard a loud rattle coming from the roof of my car. I quickly stopped and surveyed for damage or loose pieces, and found nothing in the street or on the nearby sidewalks. In the process of trying to get out of my car quickly on a busy street, I slammed my pinky finger in the door and trapped it. It hurt so much, that I yanked it out, without opening the door first. I am so glad I didn't pull off the end of my finger. I finally figured out in the light of day Monday morning, that I had lost a moderately large rubber seal off the end of the bike rack. Not a huge deal. But man, does my finger hurt. And it's purple, very swollen, and quite sensitive. I feel so dumb. This is the only time in my life I can remember having caught my finger in a car door. I've always felt so certain, that I was going to avoid that particular misadventure. Sigh...

Film On The Rocks

We had so much fun, watching "Twister" at Red Rocks Amphitheater tonight - the last movie in the 2017 "Film On The Rocks" summer series. Oh my gosh, what a sound system. We didn't need to see the twisters -- we could feel them in our bones! And the crowd had clearly all seen the movie many times, as they were calling out some of the fun lines along with the actors - "OK find this road… It's like, Bob's Road" - "We got cows!" - "Is there an F5? [everyone goes silent] What would that be like? … The Finger of God" - "That's no moon, that's a space station!" - such a culty kind of thing, it reminded us of "Rocky Horror Picture Show." The opening act, a fun band called "Gasoline Lollipops," kept us entertained until it was dark enough to show the movie. Many thanks to Jennefer, for making this fun evening happen!

Hurricane Irma

I spent several days before and during last weekend, helping Dad and Adele stay informed about Hurricane Irma, its predicted and actual path and strength. The weather forecasters were saying that Irma was the strongest Atlantic hurricane, category 5 with sustained winds exceeding 185 mph for several days, when it was approaching the Leeward Islands. I tried to provide some helpful advice, and some humor to keep things lighter, as they seemed quite (and justifiably) concerned, during the storm passage. Dad didn't seem very concerned, for the week before Irma actually made landfall in Florida, but he spent a few nights at Adele's house, which is a few miles farther inland than his place, while the hurricane was passing through. The prediction at first had Irma running up the East coast of Florida, which would have been a much greater impact on them, but it eventually went up the West coast, which was significantly farther away from them. They got through it pretty much unscathed, although the winds and rainfall were both very strong and intimidating. Adele's house developed a dripping leak, but it wasn't coming in very fast, and she was able to keep up with it, using a large bucket to catch it.

Basement leak... ugh!

I went into a basement storage room this morning, after freeing the stuck door, and found the carpet drenched from wall to wall, with a large six inch wide dimple on the ceiling. Not sure when it started, as I don't go in there very often. So much for the breakfast/walk routine. Frantically moved piles of stuff to other rooms. Safeco Insurance recommended a plumber and a water damage mitigation company. The first guy from the plumbing company came to evaluate - he pointed his infrared camera up, noted that there's a large area of cold (ergo wet) ceiling, and notified his company that they need to send the plumber to find and fix the probable leak.

Funny, haha 😞😡😬 that this water mess is happening at the same time I'm worrying about Dad and Adele in the path of Hurricane Irma. I guess we might have bad water Kharma in our family right now.

Update 9/7: Ugh. Didn't sleep well, after yesterday's water leak event. The bad news yesterday, was that the plumber got backed up (haha) and couldn't get to the house, and finally had to reschedule for late this morning. So, it was difficult to sleep very well, with the problem hanging out there unresolved. The plumber finally arrived, tore into the soggy ceiling, and found and fixed the leak, which was a pinhole in a hot water line. Replaced about six feet of copper line at the joints. Yay? The water damage mitigation guys will come tomorrow morning.

Update 9/8: The water damage mitigation folks lifted the carpet, and started the process of dehumidifying. Will check back tomorrow.

Update 9/9: The water damage mitigation folks came back this morning, pronounced the carpet bone dry, announced a negative asbestos test result for the ceiling, cut out the remaining moist ceiling drywall, and left warm air blowing up there to dry it out. They will probably be done tomorrow.

Update 9/10: The water damage mitigation folks came back this morning, tested for moisture in the ceiling and found none, and took their equipment out. I guess now I need to find someone to replace, texture, and paint the ceiling drywall.