Playing with a few Google features...

Two awesome features that people may be interested in.

First up is Google reader. This is an RSS reader subscriber service. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, I didn't until last night. It works like this - you give it a number of site URLs that you visit often that also happen to support RSS. This (behind the scenes) "subscribes" to you them, so it there is any change on the web site, it will send the change to your Google reader. Here are some examples of things you can subscribe to in this way (it is free, of course):

• This blog (just paste in the URL), or most other blogs for that matter
• Photo sharing sites - no need to check anymore. Just include the URL, and if they post, you will then be told of the new pictures or changed albums. For example, our family/friend site. Very useful!
  
• Comics that only get published now and then. My strange favorite is www.xkcd.com.
  
• News feeds - that way new stories get pushed to you, instead of you going to your various sites to see what is new. (Personally I don't use this one, because there is just too much news in this world)
• Public Google documents, or calendars.

You can add this to your iGoogle home page for easy access.

Next, a cute trick, and it works, at least in the US: Google voice phone search. This cute and free service is like 411 - it asks you for your city, then you can ask it to look up businesses, or categories, such as "pizza". If you tell it to SMS the results (say SMS!) it does, otherwise it tells you in voice, and lets you select entries. I tried it from my office phone, and it had no problem with my voice, and told me where to get pizza.

Summer Progressions

As spring emerges out of winter, the world explodes into action. It seems that in a mere two weeks everything changes from a stark, latent state to a light green whirl of motion, of growth, of change. In the spring Nature has no time to doddle, the word is Now, Now, Now!

Life is so busy, and you hardly notice that as the days get longer, the world starts to settle into somehow, to become slowly satisfied with itself. The birds sing early in the morning, you count new songs every day, but the familiar pattern of Summer is forming itself.

Then, surprise!, it is Summer Solstice. Change itself changes to pattern, to familiarity. As July begins, morning warblers are changing to the continuous announcement of the red-eyed vireo and the wonderful song of the wood thrush. Spring peepers give way to crickets.

Summer days and nights feel long and balmy, and change seems absent, too lazy itself to make an appearance. It is with some sorrow that I see the bright magenta flowers of the vetch and wild peas - they remind me of fall, and I am not yet ready. But I still relax at night to the sound of the crickets. Quiet world, quiet nights. Even our hooded warbler is taking a rest for its incessant, urgent calling.

Now we sit near the end of July. Or rather the beginning of the end. The bird song has changed from the search for mates to that of insistent fledgling birds of all types, clamoring "feed ME! ME! ME!". No peepers, but now croaks from distant frogs.

For the first time this year, I hear the first tentative, occasional call of the first kay-dee-did. In several weeks, we will have so many of these that we will need to close the windows at night to sleep. Yes, that time will come soon, and with it August.

Summer changes still, but slowly, in ways measured in weeks. Summer rest.

Sailing Weekend for Chuck

This was a very busy weekend for me- tiring, but lots of fun too. The plan of the week(end) was to attend a regatta at Willow Bank Yacht Club, in Cazenovia, NY. This is a Flying Dutchman regatta that I have been attending for many, many years now. It usually gets between 9 and 14 regional boats, and is quite competitive and fun.

This year was a bit different, however, as several of the boats were attending the FD Worlds in Spain. Add a few more absences and we had 5 boats. This sounds low, but of these 4 are usually within striking range of ourselves - in the end we change places, but Kevin (my crew) and I usually finish ahead of them in the end. And, luckily for us, this pattern continued this year - we won the regatta with scores of 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - (2) for a perfect score after throwout.

After that we packed up the boat and drove back to Canandiagua lake on Sunday. The wind there was surprisingly nice and not too strong (for a change - this has been the year of the "very windy" instead of the year of the pig, it seems). Gwendolyn and I went out for a wonderful evening sail - truly the best sail of the year. Finally the sun started getting lower in the sky, and we then retired to dinner on the club porch. A very nice day indeed!

Chuck saves himself from sure embarrassment

Just a few minutes ago, I was in the men's bathroom near the end of the day at work. After doing what guys do in bathrooms (which as best I can tell is a subset of what women do in the women's room), I hear a cricket singing. Or maybe a cricket - certainly sounds like a cricket.

So, I walk up and down the length of the bathroom (amid a few confused stares), and can't seem to find him. I then listen to the wall the urinals are mounted on (more stares), and think I hear it in there. Hmmm.

Well, I know that on the other side of that wall is a janitor's closet, so I decide to check that out next. Luckily the door is unlocked. I walk inside, and can hear a cricket, but can't tell how near it is, because there is some noise from the vending machine in the hallway. To reduce that, I shut the door for a second.

Well, two problems - the first minor, the second more problematic. First, I had not turned on the lights. No problem, really, as I was only trying to find out where the sound was coming from. Now, about that second problem. After I pulled the door shut, the inside door handle pulled off! Result? VERY dark room, a door handle in my hand, and a "ching" of falling metal to the ground.

At this time, I was musing over the amusement everyone would have if I just started knocking on the door calling for help. Discussions such as "I don't know, Ken, should be let him out? Its really quiet in the engineering area without him around!". "I tend to agree Dave - let's enjoy a half hour of quiet, at least".

In the end, once I located in pieces, it didn't take long to assemble the door and let myself out. But it was a fun thought while it lasted!