45th and stable but the sun's in our eyes

If we didn't live on the 45th parallel, I swear these things would never happen. Well, especially in the midwest where the roads run on the compass.

We feel like we live on the 45th parallel even though we know it is at least 10 miles north of us per the sign on I-5. However it is so close that we can be fooled on certain days. Take the Monday morning in mid-September as I headed off to work. On that day, it really seemed like it was the 45th parallel here.

You see, the 4 lane road I sometimes use goes directly East - no, really really directly East. And my day got me to the roadway just as the sun had crossed the horizon, directly in my face.There was only about 2 degrees of difference between the sun and road way.

As I got closer to town and the sun got up a little higher, there really wasn't much to see but Mr. Sol. My assumption was the road had not changed and was still straight, so I watched my review mirror to make sure it was right behind me. Sure enough, it stayed there and I ended up in town.

Had we been on the 4oth or even the 42nd, the sun would have been at an angle and all would have been different. And the same thing happens at sunset on the road - sun directly in your eyes on the equinox, assuming the sky is not covered in clouds, like usual.

Oregon on the equinox - I still love it.

September brings new grandson video

Here's Calum using his feet as well as his hands - kind of monkey-like.

Click here to see Video on Google

That's it for now.

'nother iPhone Blog - something the world needs now

I got a cell phone finally. Big deal to me and maybe soon to others. Years have past since the first time I saw someone talking without wires and years since Karen got her cell phone. I was not going to have one. I would remain free of the tethering; free of the conversations with strangers; free of interruptions to conversations with people one can touch.

Of course all along it was a matter of time before some device came out that pegged me with it's ability to do all the things I need - all the things that make me go find a computer. Almost got hooked on the Treo but no, not quite enough. Then it was the whole blackberry family that looked appetizing. But with that one, the screen seemed so small and so were the buttons. It is a fine phone thought with lots and lots of 3rd party stuff.


Then one day, Alan came by and said I should watch the Annual Apple conference and Mr. Jobs demo'd the iphone. I was hooked - I knew it and could do nothing about it. The best resistance I mustered was to wait two weeks after the release before plunking done the dough. In some kind of frugal (and futile too) gesture, we decided to transfer our landline number to the iPhone. That sure had unexpected outcomes - more on that bout of 14 phone calls with Quest later.


Now I spend some of my evenings reading about iphones, playing with getting my contacts into groups, wishing I had some way to hook up the iphone to my Groupwise calendar at work and generally having a hell of a good time. Having the iphone made me discover:

• the wonderful world of podcasts
• the beauty of a movie on a 3" screen
• the awesomeness of having maps interact with the phone and the web
• the ability to listen to my old tapes, albums, CD, cassettes, etc at any time, anywhere
• watching stock pricess for the first time on a daily basis
• realizing that the weather in New Orleans really is horrible in the summer
• finding that I have phone numbers of over 200 people
• finding that when I put contacts into groups, I have over 34 friends (not so many really)
• texting for the first time and lovin it for it's simplicity and ease of use
• setting reminders every day to get myself on time
• etc, etc, etc

The most wondrous thing about the iphone is really the thing that any phone, even the "10 button just a dial tone phone for old people" has - a way to reach out to more people more often.