Taking Gmail to Task

Well, I'd like to tell Google 'that dog don't hunt' because I'm really frustrated with them.  For the past several posts, as I've done my usual 'notification' gmail telling individual readers there's a new post, gmail has balked at delivering the gmails.  You've probably noticed when you get the gmail saying 'new blog entry' from me, you and me are the only two gmail addresses shown.  So, I have about 130 people in a 'group' in my personal gmail account who are blog readers.  I send out the notices BCC, so nobody else's email address is shared.  Google's rationale is they are trying to stop bulk emails which are spam.  Ok - good thing, but now I've got to figure out a way to get around this annoying 'fix' they've put into their gmail program.  The long and short of this is you are going to get a personal email from me asking you to respond back if you want to continue getting the blog posting notification.

From what I can figure, gmail group mailing list needs to fit certain criteria:  Be under 100 people, or not automatically go to 'spam' in any receiving email account.  I know I have problems with being sent to Spam (kind of like getting sent to the corner, isn't it?) because I have a weird email address that doesn't include my name.  I actually have that gmail account, but I don't use it.  Ok, maybe another approach - use that gmail account to send out blog post notifications.  Something to think about.

My current fix is to send out individual emails to people who I wonder whether or not they read the blog, and ask them to respond if they still want to be on the notification list.  Now, I have people who have never responded or commented a single time to a single blog.  Keep in mind I've written 403 entries.  You'd think they'd have SOMETHING to say at least once, but that's just me.  I never pass up an opportunity to talk.  However, I know of at least ten people I'm sure who read the blog who've never had a thing to say.  So, I'm tightening up my automatic notification list of people.   Believe me, I've had thoughts of, "I wonder if so and so is dead?"  

Then, this whole Google/gmail thing started me thinking.....  Yes, usually dangerous the way my mind works.  First, do you realize that gmail is becoming like "Kleenex" - the name an awful lot of  people use when they mean email.  I've never heard anyone say, "Give me a paper handkerchief anymore than someone asking for my electronic address.   I've heard lots of people say, hey, text me your gmail/email account.  Ironic, isn't it?  Send me your electronic mail account address electronically (and don't forget wireless) over my telephone.  Hmm....can you just imagine Ben Franklin trying to figure out the meaning of that sentence?

Then, there's this whole snail mail/email thing.  First, the term 'snail mail' goes all the way back to the 1840's when a Philadelphia newspaper used the term snail mail to refer to the overland stage mail delivery vs. that newfangled telegraph.  Russell Baker, long time New York Times humor columnist, referred to 'snail mail' in a 1969 column lambasting the post office who had raised their stamp rate to $.06!  Oh, how I long for those stamp rates since I sometimes feel I'm the only person on the planet who still uses stamps.  Well, except for my friend, Paula.

Electronic mail, to give it the Sunday Go to Meeting name, has only been with us since 1971 when Ray Tomlinson, a computer scientist at BNN Technologies at Cambridge, wanted to send a message from one teletype machine to another teletype machine (in the same room) on Arpanet (the pre-internet used only by scientists).  He's the one who picked the @ sign as part of the address since that symbol wasn't really used in the computer programming of the time.  Tomlinson doesn't even remember the first message.  Pity.  I was hoping for the equivalent of the Alexander Graham Bell first message on the telephone ("Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.").  If you don't know what a teletype machine is - go google it. The ultimate corporate success:  your company's name is a verb.

So, back to gmail.  Google has a great product.  I suspect the limiting of group  gmail is more about trying to sell 'business gmail accounts' since it makes them more $$ than it is about spam.  And, as we all know, it's always about the money.       

Welcome to San Diego

We've landed in a new village.  Actually, it's a big town of patched together villages.  All together it's 1.3 million people.  This is San Diego.  It is such an interesting town.  From my early, cursory observations, this is a meld of three cultures:  Anglo, Hispanic, and Asian. This makes for colorful neighborhoods, and some very different shopping experiences.

Here's an example:  We live next door to the "Fashion Valley Mall" - oh, and it's an outdoor mall; it's true, the weather is perfect here.  The anchor tenants to fashion valley are Nieman Marcus, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom.  Now, I may not shop in these stores, but I do know what they sell, and it doesn't get any more Anglo than this.

Drive less than a mile and you find an Asian supermarket.  The entire back wall of the full sized grocery store is fish:  swimming, or on ice.  This is the only place since New Orleans where I've seen heads on shrimp.   There were three long cases of frozen fish in front of the live and iced fish.  I guess it goes from swimming, to on ice, to frozen.  Most of the frozen stuff was sans heads.  The Thursday Farmer's Market in this shopping center certainly has an Asian flavor - literally - with veggies I don't even recognize.

Around the corner from the Asian Market is my new library.  (Yes, I found the library the third day I was here.) Across from the library it is a tienda - a store selling Hispanic products and foods.  I thought there was a lot of Mexican food in Arizona.  Nope.  This corner of California is crammed with taco stands, food trucks selling enchiladas, and mom and pop Mexican cafes.

We've already sampled the beach when Cody came for a visit before he starts at Berkeley. We spent the day at LaJolla, waded in the beach at Torrey Pines Reserve, visited the Lajolla Historical Society, and had dinner at the LaJolla Fish Market - you pick it; they grill it.

Our first outing in San Diego was to 'Old Town' which is literally the spot where the mission and the fort were started by the Spaniards in 1769.   Pretty typical for Spanish America.  Nothing is really left of that time, so the city fathers rounded up buildings from the early to mid 1800's and they've recreated a 'living history' sort of place which is pretty light on history and heavy on commerce.  However, it was interesting place to start to get the feel of this place.

Finally, we headed to Balboa Park for the day - most famous for being the site of the San Diego Zoo, but we are saving the Zoo for after Labor Day - after back to school for the kiddies.  The rest of the park is filled with museums, the city's botanical garden, a phenomenal rose garden, and a great outdoor 'band shell' for concerts.  We had a wonderful day there, and could easily go back for another day before we even think about the zoo.

As always, it's all about the pictures.

https://goo.gl/photos/rfR4DTLXe3DmV3tP9   (LaJolla and Torrey Pines)

https://goo.gl/photos/iJnfD7CYLNaYUczo8  (overview - Balboa Park)

https://goo.gl/photos/Cba9eknLR3xNxHZJ6       (for the flower people - really great pix of                                                                                    roses)

Death Rays in the Desert

When we motor between Arizona and Texas, we are ALWAYS looking for a different route.  After having driven between these two states umpteen times, it seems we can always find something new.  Did you know while we were driving back to Arizona, we came across a GROUP OF MEGA DEATH RAYS IN NEW MEXICO!!!!!

That got your attention, didn't it?  Well, they aren't EXACTLY death rays; they just look like they are.  Actually, these are radio telescopes, and they are part of The Very Large Array off Highway 60 west of Clovis.

Can you believe that name?  These people have obviously never thought about 'punching up the name' to make it more appealing.  It really is called 'The Very Large Array', and some very serious astronomy is going on at the array.  For example, the gravitational wave was documented here.  (Look it up.)

Another fascinating thing they have there is the Bracewell Sun Dial.  It's named for a famous astronomer, and it shows using the shadow cast by the "Sun" - center pedestal with big silver ball -  things like the equinoxes and the summer solstice, and so forth.

Here I am standing in the Sun Dial with one of the radio telescopes in the background.  I managed to take a few more pictures for those interested.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NrlAjp6jykE12dlP2

(I still think these things are Death Rays directed at outer space aliens, and the telescope thing is a cover story.)

 

Tsankawi Ruins Hike & Jemez Scenic Drive

On the road again doing a hike and taking a scenic drive.  We discovered why we could spend a month or so in Santa Fe.  It's the outstanding recreational opportunities which are all around the town.  We've seen the Georgia O'Keefe Musem, The Folkart Museum, and The Palace in the square of downtown Santa Fe.  This time we wanted to do something different.

Perusing All Trails, a great computer program/application which shares hiking and biking trail information from all over the country, I found a short (1.7 miles), easy (how it's rated) trail just outside of Santa Fe.  It's called the Tsankawa Ruins hike and is part of Bandolier National Park which preserves excavations of Ancient Pueblan ruins.  The hike we chose is actually on the outskirts of the park - a good thing on the 4th of July weekend - and explores unexcavated ruins.  We arrived early, and at 7000 feet, the 70 degree temp felt like heaven after the hell of a 117 degree day in Sun City.

The reason the hike was so interesting was it was laid out along the same route the Ancient Pueblans walked to get up and down the mesa.  Their 'cavates' (rooms dug out of the compressed volcanic ash, called tuff,) were hundreds of feet above the floor of the valley where their crops were planted.  People went up and down all day long tending the crops, hunting, carrying water from the water source to the cavates.

We walked in trenches - literally - which were the paths worn down by thousands of years of Pueblan feet.  We used ladders to ascend in place of the foot and hand holds going up toward the top of the mesa.

After the hike, we took the Jemez Scenic Drive, a loop roughly between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.  On this drive, we discovered the Valles Caldera, a nascent National Park,

preserving a unique geological formation.  This is a beautiful place which was completely uncrowded because no one really knows about it, and it has developed almost no facilities.  The park's electric shuttle van took us to a wonderful picnic table back into the interior of the park.  What a great lunch with a breathtaking view, and then we got picked up and returned to the visitor's center.

The Jemez Scenic Drive was breathtaking and totally full of wonderful scenery

As always, the pictures tell the whole story.  I will say that walking in the trenches and climbing up using those little foot holes have made my quads bark like dogs.  However, the view from the top of the mesa was worth it.

https://goo.gl/photos/8p54AoxS7crRiefR9

       

A Trip to Tinkertown

One of my many interests is finding and enjoying the off the wall museums you run into on the road.  I was really thrilled today when Drake found one of these jewels, and THEN, he actually suggested we go tour it.  These types of outings go all the way back to when we first moved to Texas in the early 1970's, and I discovered "The Beeville Museum".  This was the outcome of the Beeville Texas historical society (which no doubt met around someone's kitchen table) trying to preserve their local history through collecting and displaying pioneer family artifacts.

It was carefully curated in a surprisingly sophisticated way.  I've seen this style of museum all over the United States, and even in Twillingate, New Foundland.  Some are successful, and others less so. They all have one thing in common:  They are a community's vision of who their people are.

First, you have to admire the execution of a pretty complex idea which involves lots and lots of people having to agree.  Second, these kinds of places have a 'vision' of who they think they are.  Third, to sustain these museums takes real dedication to the idea and vision their history is important.

It's a step farther to see the display of one obsessive person's collection. There was the "Fairbanks Museum of Natural Science" in Vermont which was the collection of a self proclaimed naturalist who gathered monumental amounts of everything that came into his path.  There was the bird carving museum in Nova Scotia.  And who could forget "The Christmas Museum" in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  The Tinkertown Museum, on the Turquoise Trail between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is this kind of museum

RJ Ward (1940 - 2002) was a 'whittler'.  For those of you who have never tried whittling, you take a pocket knife and a block of wood and carve out 'something'.  It could be a person, a thing, a building, an animal - well, you get the idea - the world's your oyster.  Mr. Ward whittled and whittled and whittled.  He carved an entire circus.  He carved an entire New Mexican pioneer town.  He carved a boot hill.  He carved a doll house and all the furniture.  He cared horses, wagons, carts, and just about anything else you can think of.  He just kept whittling.  

When he wasn't whittlin', he was collecting license plates, bottles, and horse shoes to name a few things.  He was constructing his museum out of concrete which he used like modeling clay.  There are embedded shells, stones, bottles, pieces of turquoise, broken china and just about anything else you can  push into soft cement before it sets up.  And, there are the old 'booth' fortune tellers, grip measuerers, love meters, and one man band each of which you can get to play for just a quarter.  If you are mystified, think the 'booth' fortune teller Tom Hanks encounters in the movie "Big".  

Then, hand paint signs which offer all sorts of witty advice generally said by other people over the ages.  Connect the various 'rooms' with a boardwalk painted barn red.  Stir it all together and you have The Tinkertown Museum.  It was a hoot and a half.  It's still being run by family members, and all these obsessively whittled and collected objects so carefully arranged are slowly rotting away.  I think cleaning the place and the objects would take two full time people working 52 weeks a year.

The pictures tell the story:  Prepare to be amazed.

  https://goo.gl/photos/YZYN7sKoCWt7MP3e6      

Can You Cook an Egg on the Sidewalk?

It was officially 120 degrees this afternoon in Sun City according to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).  The station which recorded this is two miles from our house, so the reading is about as accurate as it gets.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the temperature, and, oh, now a bit anxious about whether our local power grid can sustain all the Valley of the Sun air conditioners going full blast 24 hours a day.  That's the official nickname of the Phoenix area which sits in a valley surrounded by mountains.

NOAA is the national weather service.  It's the origin of all the weather you see on TV whether it's from your local weather person or on The Weather Channel. If you read your weather on your phone, or somewhere else on the internet, in your newspapers, or idly peruse the temperature listed on the local bank marquee, the source of all that info can be traced back to NOAA.

Here's what's really funny.  Although the local weather people make all their forecasts based on the NOAA projections, they are not above moving the temperature up or down a degree or so to make 'better TV'.  Example:  It's more dramatic to proclaim today's temperature is going to be the first 100 degree day of the summer rather than the 99 degrees forecasted by NOAA.  Those television weather wanna bes must be dancing with delight today to have such a juicy story.  I mean 120 degrees doesn't come along every day.  You should see their long and serious air time faces.

Well, I suppose they are right.  This kind of weather is quite dangerous.  We went out before 11 am this morning, and it was 105.  I pity any one trying to cope with these temperatures without air conditioning.  According to Popular Mechanic, the development of residential air conditioning was a result of the post WWII economic boom.  First, window units, and then in the 1970's centralized air conditioning was invented.  This town wouldn't exist without it.

You had to expend a lot of energy to cope with the heat prior to air conditioning.  First, and really foremost, people acclimated.  (Even today, people who are 'year rounders' get cold when the temperature hits 70 degrees.)  Acclimation actually involves physiological changes in your body to adjust to a new climate.  Extreme climates need drastic acclimation.

If you live at high altitudes, you actually make more red blood cells, so you can access more oxygen.  That acclimation takes about three months.  When you live in a place where you can have 23 hours of sunlight during the summer, you learn how to train yourself to sleep when you're tired instead of reacting to the cue of darkness.  In places which experience extreme high temperatures, people actually route blood and open the veins in their extremities as a cooling mechanism.  Conversely, in a cold climate, acclimation involves keeping blood circulating close to the body's core to keep those vital organs warm.  Thus, when the lifers here say, "I'm freezing!" it really means their body's blood flow is circulating in their arms and legs, and their core is cold - even at 70 degrees.

Acclimation is the first tool in the arsenal of how to keep cool in a hot climate.  Architecture was the second weapon.  The older houses here have strategically placed windows and doors to take advantage of air flow.  And all the oldest houses here are built of thick, thick adobe which trap and hold colder air indoors especially with a little help.  Relocation was also an option.  Anyone with a lick of sense and the financial wherewithal went north up into the mountains when it got hot and came back down to the desert floor when the snow started to fly.  

If you had to stay on the valley floor for the summer, one trick to survive the heat was to soak sheets and place them over doors and windows.   Another was to take those wet sheets, wrap them around yourself at night and sleep outside.  It was pretty common for people to get up when it was beastly hot (like it is now) and actually re-soak the sheet, re-wrap it around their body, and then lay back down and return to sleep.  With the advent of residential electricity came the house fan - either on the ceiling or via an oscillating fan sitting on the floor circulating air.  Prior to air conditioning people use the evaporative cooler to cool their houses.  It worked great as long as the humidity stayed low.  All of these electrical appliances must have seemed sent by God.

Another trick to stay reasonably cool was to get up the instant the sky began to turn gray (about 4:30 AM), and do any necessary physical work, then retire during the heat of the day to rest.  You can see this schedule still happening all over this town even in the winter.  Tomorrow morning, the yard crew that services our common area will be running loud, whining blowers and mowers in and around our houses beginning about 6:00 AM.  Every single Wednesday it happens.  When it's this hot, it's hard to complain.

Prior to refrigeration it was hard to keep milk from souring, butter from outright melting, and other fresh foods from becoming dangerous to eat in an impossibly short period of time.  And, lets don't talk about the water. First, it had to be strained through cheesecloth - too much dirt in it to drink, and then you had to wait for the 'mud' to settle to the bottom of the pitcher or bag before drinking it.  The high mineral content must have made the water here almost undrinkable - but take my word for it,  you get excessively thirsty in desert heat, and thus much less picky.

Even today, you have to fight this climate.  Currently, my hands have that 'pruny', wrinkled look - not from being in the water, but from the lack of moisture in the air.  Everyone I know wears some kind of lip stuff - otherwise, your lips crack and bleed.  The tops of my feet have been itching as if I have poison ivy - again the skin is drying out.  I coat myself in a product that's mostly mineral oil designed for skin use after every shower.  When I smooth it on, I can watch it literally sink into my skin. Within 20 seconds you'd never know I'd used any product.  I use eye drops for my dry eyes, and a product to moisturize the inside of my nose. It's an insane and annoying ritual which if not religiously practiced results in cracked and bleeding skin as well as nose bleeds.  And people wonder why I hate the desert.

Circumstances have stranded us here for this bizarre heatwave. However, if you look at the climatic forecasting of NOAA for the next three months, this may be the first heatwave, but it won't be the last.  It's going to be a brutal summer here.  San Diego here I come.  When it was 120 degrees today in Sun City, it was 71 in San Diego.

Tomorrow, we are going to do the 'egg on the sidewalk' thing.  I can hardly wait to see if the heated pavement will really cook it.      

Letting Go

There are two major difficulties to raising the average child.  (Yes, I know, you're thinking right about now, "Only TWO????)  But, as I see it, it's two: Letting go and saying no.  Perhaps, that's my own parenting speaking out of my head.  We all understand saying no, but letting go is not so straightforward.

When you have a baby, it's overwhelming.  We just dropped off dinner and a gift to the new three week old baby in the family, and the mom confided, "Well, our first was already sleeping five or six hours a night at this time, but this one is a typical newborn; he eats every three hours!"  We all remember those days.  Getting a shower was a major accomplishment, and sleep deprivation was just the way it was. However, once that newborn phase passes, and you get the rhythm and routine of caring for the baby down, you're mentally high fiving and thinking, "I've got this baby stuff knocked and locked!"

Then, the second year starts, and you have to learn the painful, parental lesson of  'let go'.  It starts easily.  You let go of chubby fingers and the little cruiser learns to toddle.  Remember the wincing, vivid outcome of some of those first efforts to step back? It's the first truly bad fall that left the lump, or even worse, a scar.  Little did you know that was the easy training wheel phase of letting go.

Remember the, "No, I do it!" knowing letting go of some control even if  'it' would take three times as long.  The wheedling for the sleep over you knew they weren't ready for, the movies you knew would cause nightmares, and gulp, the first time you stepped back and allowed deliberate failure.  I'm not even going to mention the minefield called, "getting a driver's license."

Finally, there's the letting go dance of 'I am not my parents.'   I think the parenting Gods save the worst for last.  It's that final teenage separation. I'm sure it must happen seamlessly in some families, but it was agony for me.  Having an 'only' makes it all so dramatic.  Am I doing this right?  Is she going to hate me like this forever?  Can I kill her and get away with it? If she's driving me crazy when I'm stepping back as fast as I can, why am I so sad?

We just returned from a visit to the home of our adult child and hubby, only, we didn't actually see them.  People were amazed, and I could tell, just a little shocked.  We've been asked repeatedly, "How were the kids?"  And, our answer, "We don't really know. Fine, we assume.  The cat was great!"  Then, people have looked a little befuddled and replied, "Oh, well, good.", while inside their heads, they are thinking, "I wouldn't have flown all the way to New York and not seen my kids!"

Doesn't that phrase my kids just say it all?  Where's the line when you shouldn't be using the possessive pronoun anymore?  Yes, of course, your children will always be the products of your family, but when do they belong to themselves instead of to you?  It's an arrogant assumption and a failure to let go to think because you are the 'parent', you should automatically have first call on their time and resources.  

 A true final 'letting go' is accepting adult children don't need parents so much as considerate friends who are their parents. Insisting on playing the 'parent' card is not going to endear you to adult kiddos juggling their increasingly complicated lives.  It means babysitting the cat and being glad you get a free apartment in New York City for your own vacation.

 It means not insisting on their time when entertaining you is just one more chore to be squeezed into the 'to do' list.  Know when it's time to 'let go'.