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Happy Tuesday! A bright and sunny one here, perfect for someone to take and pass his learner’s permit test this afternoon…
Well then best of luck to that someone;-)
Good luck to him! Four years from now we’ll be doing the same thing.
Is it me or did the comment font size get just a little teenier? Full disclosure – I just loaded Firefox 4.0.1. Tried increasing font size in tools/options to no effect.
I’m running Firefox 4.0.1 and it doesn’t look small to me. But Jim says he thinks it looks a little smaller.
Well, I’d switch to my stronger NYT crossword glasses, but then I’d have difficulty walking for a few minutes after getting up from the monitor while my eyes struggled to return to normal.
I finally had to get some prescription glasses. Seemed the print kept getting smaller and smaller to the point it was all a blur to me. In my case the joys of middle age. 🙂
Unfortunately, I’m a bit beyond middle. The eye doc says I have the beginnings of cataracts, but it shouldn’t be a problem for years. Guess we’ll “see”.
My 89-year old mother had cataract surgery last year and I was amazed just how minor the process has become. The improvement in her eyesight was almost immediate and she was over the surgery by the next day. The only tricky part is that she couldn’t get new glasses until the doctor was sure everything was okay (which was about 4 weeks after the 2nd surgery) and her old glasses were way too strong and she didn’t like to wear them.
I have had them for a few years now. Distance is okay but reading is extremely difficult now. Yep, middle age.
I have the same problem, compounded by looking at a computer screen all week at work.
You just need a bigger font. 😉
Apparently, folks who spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen need to take breaks & look beyond the computer, to something a bit farther away. It’s better for the eyes.
Hard to remember to do this while you’re engaged, but in my experience, it does help the sense of strain.
It’s extra nice to look out of a window at something green.
🙂
BTW, hope the driving test went well!
In the early 1980s, I got into ergonomics as it related to computers. I had the beginnings of what is now called tunnel carpel syndrome. I experimented with the typists, data entry clerks, appointment clerks and myself in two offices.
Eye strain, muscle strain and deterioration of motor skills were already known to cause problems then.
If people will simply set the timers on their computers to shut off for 5 minutes in every hour, it is much better.
Also, if people readjust the position of their mouse, terminal, chair and tables every time that they get up, it lessens the strain on the body enormously. Ideally they will have adjustable tables and chairs that will move in all directions – up, down and angled.
Human bodies are not adapted to remaining in the same position for hours.
When you take a break, reset everything to the most uncomfortable positions. Then get up and walk around. Then you will reset when you go back on. If the physical environment is adjusted to the most comfortable level every hour, it reduces strain enormously.
Eye wise, check out the reflections in your terminal. No one does. Bright lights reflected on the screen or the sun shining through a window and moving during the day behind you can really strain your eyes. Even having a lamp or light that shines directly on to the screen at an angle strains your eyes. Tilt the monitor up and down, try a slight angle.
Junk your regular mouse and buy a thumb controlled roller ball. An old style mouse is bad because it is going to cause repetitive motion strain eventually.
Ideally, everyone would have different configurations of their keyboards. I use a laptop keyboard for a while, then switch to a standard keyboard, then switch to a small keyboard, then to an ergonomic keyboard.
Thirty years later, I don’t have tunnel carpel. I’m positive that I would have had it if I had followed the routine procedures.
This only takes a tiny amount discipline. As far as I know all computers have timers that can be set to shut off for a specific period.
Thanks for sharing advice! Great ideas.
I appreciate this report from the voice of experience.
Andi, the photo is just lovely. Is that white trillium?
Nope, rue anemone. I’ve never seen the white variety around here, just red trillium.
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Love this image! Not only for itself, but for what it means.
The rue shot is lovely too. Both very lyrical & pretty.
I should go out & take photos of our flowers in the sun. I can hardly believe it!
Happy Hump, everyone!
I’d love to see your flowers. There’s photo flogging friday and the theme is “Spring” so the timing is perfect. 🙂
We have never seen so many flowers — they were carpeting a mult-acre area in the woods. I guess the flowers really liked having all that rain.
We’ve noticed many more flowers in our neighborhood, too.
Looks like we’re in for a little dry weather now, so we’ll see what happens.
Thanks for the reminder of the Flog! I’ll see what I can do.
Sure do miss my walks in the woods with camera!
And spring is the best season for walks in the woods — there are always new things to see.
Plus the sense of rejuvination as the world comes visibly alive again.
It’s the only time that I can start to appreciate what it feels like to be a born-again Christian.
However, I’m still not inspired to vote Republican.
That’s a wonderful shot. What an amazing carpet of flowers, on that green undulating surface.
It was really amazing … and unique. We’ve never seen the flowers so abundant before.
FFF is tomorrow.
The theme is: Spring. The season, the movement, the object, or whatever the word inspires.
Beautiful pictures!! good morning, all!
Good morning and TGIF.
Ooops – just noticed I have lost my magic powers (saw a spam comment from yesterday). Got to come to the cafe more often.
Yes you do. 🙂
And you’ve got to go put up some spring pictures from Geneva in Friday Foto Flogging. Okay, you don’t have to but it would be very, very good if you did.
Wish I could, Andi.
But my laptop has finally given up the spirit and a new one is not in the budget until July. During non-working hours I must resort to my iTouch, which is OK for reading, but not conducive to posting.
What a bummer about the laptop. I’m glad you have a way to stay in touch after hours though.
Hi Errol. Hope you have been absent because you have been off doing interesting and fun things.
Good morning! Its a lovely day so far here in the bible belt. An arts & crafts show is forming on the block south of us, so I’ll have to wander down that way later and see what’s up. Some of our friends said last night they would be participating.
We’ll need photos of course. 😉
I’ll try to oblige a little later.
What a perfectly great day they had for it. I hope they had big crowds.
Don’t forget to stop by the flog and share your pictures with us or just share enjoying the photos that are there.
Thanks for posting it!
Yes, Happy Birthday CabinGirl! Let ’em eat cake ~ and ice cream too;-)
Happy birthday, CabinGirl! It’s your 29th, right?
Have a very happy birthday, CG. Wishing you a great day, terrific presents & loads of TLC from all the men in your life!
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Very nice, Andi!
Now there’s a superb action shot!
I’m curious as to your shutter speed to accomplish that effect on the flowing water?
EXIF says the shutter speeds was 1/4 but I was also using the neutral density filter and think that setting is the result of the actual camera setting and use of the ND filter. I can’t find any doc that says that the case but I’m very, very sure I didn’t have the shutter speed set to 1/4.
P.S. I’m not using a DSLR but a canon g12 p&s.
I’m feeling like NDD — well except for not having the below freezing temps and the snow and the bare trees. But other than that, just the same.
It’s chilly here too – I had to pull the down comforter back up last night. brrr!
And the rain is fierce here. Monsoon would describe it.
I’m girding myself for another round of urban flooding late this week. Hopefully we don’t get a whole month’s worth of rain in one evening again – nothing like having flood waters reach the indoors to completely mess up an evening.
It’s still raining here, and apparently will through Friday. I hope that you don’t get flooded out.
We’ll be okayish as long as we don’t get 4 inches falling in the space of a couple hours. In normal years that rarely happens. This however is no normal year. So I’ll be a bit skittish til we get past the weekend. I’ll count my blessings that I don’t live along the Mississippi.
I really enjoyed them, especially since we decided to push my birthday celebrations back till Friday, when we can all enjoy them (work insanity intervened with my original plans for a day off yesterday).
Hope everyone is well, and not getting too wet in all this rain. Seems never ending.
We’re back into chilly here too and radar is showing rain on the way from the east – pretty unusual.
Have a great time Friday. Everybody (even Finny) needs to be on their best pamper-CG behavior.
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Good morning.
Look at that fresh green…
Summer is back, a couple of days with a few showers did not provide anything close to sufficient water to remedy our extremely dry winter and spring.
Unfortunately we seem to have counterbalanced you by having way to much rain. I heard on the radio yesterday that some fields are so wet here that the farmers won’t be able to plant any crops in them this season.
Heh – I just spoke with curly. She was ‘happy’ that it would not rain as much today as yesterday. It’s been crappy for a while, I understand.
We escaped the heavy rain the northeast had. Ours was normal — which was good as the ground is well beyond saturated.
I hope some of that rain decides to take a nice Swiss vacation.
Good morning Andi,
I read an article yesterday on how the drought in large parts of Europe is on track to end up as bad as the one in 1976. So, it’s been a while since it has been this dry.
I doubt that CG wanted spam for her birthday…
mmm, spam and eggs for breakfast. 🙂
Good morning to all!
TFSMIF really is today’s word…
Good morning ask! Woke up to a large coffee mess ~ apparently the pot chipped and we had set the brewer on auto last night so we could have our coffee immediately when we got up:(
It is a lovely morning, though, despite the messy counter top.
Good morning, and sorry about the mess. You probably have all day to fix it, though, if needed…
Waves to all before this crappy public wifi gives out. See ya later. Maybe.
I’m off today – taking the day in place of my non-vacation vacation day Monday. 🙂
Slept in a bit, next I have to take a friend to the train station, and then I have lunch plans with my mom and the Finny.
And of course, it is still raining (I wish could send some your way, ask). Not likely to change before Monday, wither. sigh.
Yay for sleeping in and Happy Unbirthday!
We had a brief thundershower last night. Opened the door to my (tiny) veranda and enjoyed the sound of falling rain. The whole show was over in 5 minutes, though… 🙁
I think that’s almost crueler than having no rain. We had a severe drought last year from July through October and every time we would get one of those 5 to 10 minutes rains it would just remind me of how much I wanted it to really, really rain. So of course now we’re having the opposite problem.
In my little slice of Dixie, it seems we went through long stretches with barely any precip, and then spring came and it seems every storm that hits now gives us a month’s worth of rain in an evening. We know now that the house can flood, so needless to say we get a bit skittish when the heavy rains start. Tonight we’ve been on edge.
Fingers crossed for you. We love up on a hill so flooding is one thing we don’t have to worry about.
We did end up with quite a bit of precip, but thankfully it fell fairly moderately over the course of several hours rather than all at once. Today all we got was a typical dose of Southern humidity. We won’t be out of the woods for a few days though. In the meantime, we’ll all be keeping those fingers crossed.
Here’s hoping the water stays away from your door.
Hope the good luck with precip holds. Very dry thoughts heading your way.
My thoughts this late evening go out to the folks out in Joplin, MO, who were hit very hard by a tornado. The damage defies easy description.
We saw it on the Weather Channel. The devastation was truly horrifying.
Hi everyone, been a while since I’ve checked in here. Hope you’re all having a great start to the weekend. It seems like the older I get the faster I go. This is unacceptable to my slacking regimen.
I just smited a few spam diaries & comments, let me know if there are any others lurking out there. paz
I’m having a soggy start to mine. I’m just hoping to avoid flooding.
Manny! How great to have you here, even if it’s mostly to smite the unrighteous and obnoxious.
We decided that we weren’t getting old enough fast enough so Jim decided to go ahead and retire this year instead of next — sometimes hurrying is the perfect way to satisfy a slacking regimen. Something for you to think about for the next few decades. 😉
Good to see you, Man E!
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Great photo, Andi! Beautiful light & colors. Beautiful subject, too. Subtitle: ‘Joie de Vivre’ ?
I’m wondering about those flowers. Can you identify? I thought at first hypericum (St John’s wort), but then I think no.
Hope everyone’s staying dry & safe this week. Thoughts go out as well to so many who’ve suffered this week. So far we’ve just got endless rain here. Almost 2 weeks & counting. I guess what they say about the Catskills becoming more like the Northwest weatherwise may be coming true. I’m starting to creak & grow mold.
The rain continues here too. I set up a 50 gal. rain barrel a couple of days ago, hooked it up to one of the downspouts and it filled to overflowing during the night. We had strong thunderstorms yesterday evening with lots of trees down, some into cars & buildings & of course, the power went off. After Joplin, though, I’m not complaining.
Sounds like you need another rain barrel, ID.
Glad you & yours made it through the storm ok.
In a sense, we’re all in Joplin, Missouri — if you consider climate globally. Where will the next disaster hit us?
They’re grounsel. They look much nicer from a distance than up close. 🙂
A photographer friend sent me a link this morning to some amazing photos by street photographer Vivian Maier. There’s also a Mother Jones article. Her work reminds me of some of the Philly street scenes Stand Strong posted in the Foto Flog awhile back.
Waves to all. Just back from Cape May. Yes, more material for paintings. 😉
Lucky man! Hope the weather treated you well.
I have a yen for the sea lately. Fat chance! The closest I’ll get will be some of the lawns down in the valley ..
🙂
The weather was nice mostly. We had some good seafood while there.
Sounds great.
I can almost smell that sea air coming from your post ..
🙂
We’ve been without power (and phone and cell) since 7 p.m. yesterday and no estimate on when the power and phone will be restored. At least the cell is back.
Anyway, back when the power’s back.
Sorry about your power issues, Andi.
Thank you for the flower ID. Never heard of ‘grounsel’ before.
I like a flower that looks good in waves.
Now with power (but still no phone).
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Glad you’ve been re-energized. We used our power out time productively by napping and reading by flashlight.
Sounds like time well spent. I’m surprised that we haven’t lost ours with all the storms we’ve been having.
Please tell me you had your fingers crossed while posting, b2.
🙂
Amazing news here: woke this morning to a terrific light — very bright — it seemed to encompass the entire sky! I thought I was dreaming! Not only that but, as I stepped outside (after debating with myself about safety), it actually had warmth in it! The longer I stood under it, the warmer I got! Wow!
What could this fantastic phenomenon be? Were we really raptured after all ??? omg! omg!
Yes, there was a strange golden orb in the sky today. 😉
Yes! And it was up there all day !
It’s gone now, though. I wonder if it’ll ever come back .. ?
30 hours of napping and reading will make you not appreciate even those nice activities. Duke did beat their estimate by 18 hours, which I suspect is a psychological ploy to make us feel good about getting the power back (early!) instead of bad that it was out so long. (Note to Duke Energy: didn’t work).
napping and reading by flashlight
Nice euphemism there, ID.
😉
Only 4 more snow make up days to teach the children what they missed in January and February that they have already been tested for in March and April.
Does that make sense?
It shouldn’t It doesn’t.
yet again.
Only got to enjoy the electricity for 24 hours before storms finally did us again.
Ta for awhile.
Hope it’s back soon!
Not back yet. 🙁
Fortunately for me, I’m on my way to an out-of-town meet-up with some college friends. Unfortunately for Jim, he’s still at home.
A utility pole behind our house broke in the middle during the last storm. Cause – a big mulberry tree that was resting heavily on the lines for at least 5 years. Duke wouldn’t come out and cut it. Now they’ve got to come out and replace the pole and put three businesses out of power while they’re doing it. Makes perfect sense, no?
Sheesh, the nerve of that tree.
We’ve had tree knocked out left and right it seems from severe storms. Part of our problem is the soil is so saturated that winds that ordinarily wouldn’t knock down trees are now capable of doing so. Of course that also has implications for the availability of electricity, phone, and internet as we’ve come to be reminded.
Have fun at your meet-up!
According to the clock on the stove, power came back at 2:35.
And ours went off at 3:10! Back on a lot sooner than yours though, at a few minutes after 4. Good trip to Carmel and back to see Mrs. ID’s surgeon. Her bone grafts are healing nicely, he says. We wisely took I-465 East to stay away from the speedway.
Looks like we’re done with the rain for a while, and can go back to a more typical hot and humid summer-like pattern. I don’t think we could take too much more rain, or any more tornadoes in our region.