Flowers

Here's a picture of one of my favorite flowers in our garden right now. Check out those great reds and yellows.

Sunset Party

Today we went into the city for a fun day in the sun listening to beats and playing. We brought hoola hoops, juggling clubs and our bodies to dance and play with. It was a good time, albeit very windy. The fun part is that I got to see a new part of the city.

This is a pretty fun and educational geography game.

Just make sure you only use letters and numbers for your username/password. Otherwise it blows up.

http://www.geosense.net/

(Thanks Lance!)

Bathroom Window

We've always had this curtain on half our our bathroom window and I've not liked it for a while now. It was fabric salvaged a while ago when we needed a cover on this window that is part of the wall around our bathtub. So, yesterday I picked some paper that I like and flour pasted it to the window. I've decided that I don't really like the paper that much, so I'll probably change it out again soon. I think I would prefer a nice paisley instead of the squares.

It sure does put some nicer light into our hallway now, though.

Tomato Plants Planted

We've had this section of yard that's been laying fallow as I've been getting rid of all the residual vine in that section. We could have planted it a while ago, but I just haven't made the time.

A couple weeks ago Sarah's neighbor gave me 5 tomato starts that she's not going to use. And today I went to the farmer's market and picked up two more tomato starts, albeit different kinds.

Having those tomato starts sitting there all unhappy in their tiny little plastic containers motivated me to get them in the ground. So I dug out these holes and added good soil and these plants. I hope they do okay. I've never really grown tomatoes in clay soil before.

In this picture the tomato plants are on the bottom right side. You can see how crazy our non-food garden is doing too. All this, and we're not even watering this year due to the drought.

Enchilada Sauce

There's this restaurant that I really like to get huevos rancheros at on the weekends. They have really good super hot habanero salsa too. The thing is that quite often they really under cook the eggs. I really don't like that. And it doesn't seem to matter how you order them.

So today I made huevos rancheros at home. And as part of that I found a recipe for enchilada sauce online and tried it out. I ended up doctoring the recipe some and it came out really good.

Yum!

Rainbow's Enchilada Sauce

• 2 cups water
• 3 Tbs veggie broth powder (from bulk at Berkeley Bowl)
  
• 4 Tbs ancholi chili powder
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 2 Tbs of minced raw garlic
  
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon (less than 1/16 tsp.)
• 1/3 tsp. sugar
• 5 Tbs. cold water
• 5 Tbs. white flour
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
  

Email Tidiness

I used to be that person that never moved any email out of my inbox. This was true for both my personal and business email accounts, but has only been true for the past couple of years. This also means that for my work email, every single message was still sitting in my inbox.

Before this period, I always kept me inbox empty. It was how I kept myself organized. There must have been a point when I just became so overwhelmed with the sheer volume of email that this purging habit slowly faded away.

Recently work asked us to reduce the storage we were using for our email accounts. So I basically emptied mine completely out, and haven't looked back. I had over 3,000 emails. I also cleared out my private email account too.

I feel so much more tidy and organized. The only messages that stay in my inbox are things that still need action. It works really well.

Prototype Done

I finished it. I only have a really sore thumb and small spot bleeding on the tip of my finger. A small sacrifice for an led hoop.

Top picture is a 2 second time lapse of me hooping. The bottom one is without time lapse.

Half Way There

So after much learning, and thinking it would work when I turned it on (and it didn't)....

It Works!! (Well, half of it, so far)
The wiring of one set of colors, the blue LEDs are working!
The other color is going to be yellow for this prototype and there will be a total of 30 LEDs.
It was probably better that it didn't work on the first try - or I would have gotten too much confidence and possibly been sloppy for the next set. The wiring was a simple swap of some leads on the chip, and presto! It worked.

I actually shouted will glee when they lit up!
On to the other set, and then putting them all in the hoop and securing them in place.

LED Hoola Hoop Prototype

111 posts is somehow lucky.

Tonight, after weeks of gathering together the supplies and thoughts on the LED hoola hoop, I started construction. I realized I was missing some things, so tomorrow I'll have to go to Lasher's or this place as a last resort. I think it's pretty much going to work the first time, but I have plans to make even better ones later. This is going to be a hoola hoop year for me.

My GPS tracks for Japan

This may or may not be interesting to anyone besides myself, but I wanted to post up the GPS tracks for the rides from my trip. Most of these rides were done with all of my luggage, about 35.9 Kilos, or about 80 lbs.

Onomichi to Imabari
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118602

Imabari to Takamatsu (more or less)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118600

Takamatsu to Himeji (aka The Moon-key Ride)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118599

Himeji to Kyoto to Gifu
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118598

First day in Tokyo, trying to find the Tokyo Century ride:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118604

Crossing Tokyo on my last big ride to get to my last hotel in Shinjuku:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118594