Sunday, May 22, 2011

Happy Toad Eating

The snow finally stopped, so I’ve been learning how to run a pool.  Not swimmable yet, but getting there.   To help manage the solar water heater on the roof, I’ve started instrumenting the house.  I put a weather station by the bird feeder so the birds can help me keep an eye on it:   

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And the neighborhood cats keep an eye on the birds:

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And I keep an eye on the mountains!  This is a view of our house from our neighbors deck across the street:

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Nick came for a visit, on his way to a summer in CA:

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We hiked 22 miles on his new 5 fingered shoes, including a trip to an observation deck at the top of an LDS building downtown:

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The temple is closed to outsiders, but they have a model of it in a visitor’s center.  If you look close in the lower left, you will see 12 oxen under a basin used for proxy Baptisms, allowing after death Baptisms to relatives who never had a chance to learn the LDS gospel:

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One of our hikes was up a mountain just north our house.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so sunglasses were out in full force:

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The snow slowed us down about 5 miles in:

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The 5 fingered shoes require periodic stops to thaw out the toes:

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Here is another toe thawing strategy Nick tried:

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Nick found a happy toady, and he was hungry:

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But the toad remained happy even in ‘face’ of almost certain death.    So he let him go.   

We invented bouncy ball on a Congo drum chess:

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We had a nice visit with Tim, Abby, and Luke:

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As well as a visit from friend Philadelphia Helen:

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Helen’s co-worker Pega showed us wonderful swimming pool on top of a hotel at Alta, one of the nearby ski resorts:

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For you iphone users, you gotta try Microsoft’s PhotoSynth app.  It allows you to easily create 3d’ish panoramas.   Here are a couple:

Here are the less exciting but still fun 2d versions:

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Bruce

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