I'm Amazed: 3D Printer

I am SO behind with technology.

Yesterday I saw what the new 3D printers do.
(I thought it was for making a 3D picture like you see in the movies. I. Was. Wrong. Oh so wrong...)

We are way past that kind of small potatoes.

We ARE living in the future!

This video shows how a wrench, a REAL workable tool, can be "printed".
Imagine no more "borrowing" tools, instead one would just download the specs or make a copy from a tool you already own.

Another video showed how a home 3D printer would be used: They used it to "print" a new stove handle. Imagine just making a brand new stove burner handle when needed..or printing up another button when needed that would match the rest of the buttons on the shirt. Or creating a new part for a kid's toy?

The cost of such a home printer?

About the same price as a really good sewing machine.

Right now at least. They will probably get cheaper over time.

Oh, and you can print clothing too. Cups and plates and vases for a dinner party.
And musical instruments like flutes.
A working motorcycle has been printed.

(DON'T TELL YOUR HUSBANDS ABOUT THAT ONE!!!)

Won't be long before we will be printing out a new dishwasher or crib or....well, anything that is three dimensions. Like you could print a perfect sculpture of your toddler maybe? How cute would that be?

Oh, and of course you know about how they are printing out skin now?
And also making a spray on skin that makes it possible for a charred human to have fresh healthy new skin in about three days time?

If you are interested, you can see different kinds of 3D printers making stuff like flutes by clicking HERE. OR just go to Youtube and search 3D printing to see more.

Hey Everybody!!!

Hey Everyone...What's on the menu?
That's the question to you from the New York Public Library.

Only they aren't asking about what food is on YOUR menu tonight...they are asking you to tell THEM what is on THEIR menu.

Or more accurately...what the words are on their menus.

All 40,000 of their menus.
Menus that were created between 1840 to the present.
Mostly hand written, or printed in very unusual fonts that just can't be scanned in and translated by a computer program.




With approximately 40,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present, The New York Public Library’s restaurant menu collection is one of the largest in the world, used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts.

Trouble is, the menus are very difficult to search for the greatest treasures they contain: specific information about dishes, prices, the organization of meals, and all the stories these things tell us about the history of food and culture.

To solve this, the library is working to improve the collection by transcribing the menus, dish by dish. Doing this will  dramatically expand the ways in which the collection can be researched and accessed, opening the door to new kinds of discoveries.

The library has built a simple tool that makes the transcribing pretty easy to do, but it’s a big job, so they need your help.

It really is simple and easy to do:  You click on a menu that catches your eye from a page full of menus.

Then you click on the first word in a sentence and a box opens up beside the menu.  You type in what you think the sentence says.

Like with the last sentence of the menu above:  I read it as:

Crackers + Cheese. Tea + Coffee.

That was easy to do, right?

But you have to admit...one of the lines looks like Boiled Beef Spanish.

That couldn't be right...but Boiled  Beef Spareribs?  That sounds more like it.
Once a sentence has been transcribed by someone, a green check mark shows up next to the sentence.

A second read over is possible so other people could offer what they think the sentence said. Maybe someone regularly has Boiled Beef Spanish as part of their own culture's family recipe?

Want to try doing a little Menu transcribing yourself?

 Click HERE and get started.  You just need to click on one of menus pictured, then click on the first letter of a sentence on a menu page that will be shown and a box will open where you will type in what you see. 

A green arrow will point at the sentence you  have selected to transcribe.

Take a  peek at several to find a menu that interests you.

Do one sentence, or two or the whole menu.  The library doesn't even ask for your name...no one will ever know what you have been up to!

As I am posting this the library already has over 400 pages of transcribed menus to look at.

And if you are curious about what a certain food might have been served with on a fancy-schmancy menu, you can search by menu items.

ABOUT THE MENUS

The New York Public Library’s menu collection, housed in the Rare Book Division, originated through the energetic efforts of Miss Frank E. Buttolph (1850-1924), who, in 1900, began to collect menus on the Library's behalf. Miss Buttolph added more than 25,000 menus to the collection, before leaving the Library in 1924.

The collection has continued to grow through additional gifts of graphic, gastronomic, topical, or sociological interest, especially but not exclusively New York-related.

The collection now contains approximately 40,000 items, about 10,000 of which have been digitized and made available in the NYPL Digital Gallery. More information can be found here.

Finding Farmington Bay

This time of year lots of articles are in the paper about Farmington Bay.
Or what is more properly called "Farmington Bay Wildfowl Preserve".
I've been wanted to go see Farmington Bay ever since we moved here, but the time has never quite worked out.

I checked the address...and had Bernie drive some thirty miles north above the Bay.  Turns out I had looked up the address for the Farmington Bay Wild Fowl Preserve's business office.

Oh well.  It was a pretty drive.

Using a trusty GPS link, we wound back down the highway and onto a dirt road and on to the shores of Farmington Bay.

There was even a sign saying this was Farmington Bay in the small parking lot that was filled with duck hunter's trucks.

We booted up into our hiking boots and started to hike in. 

It just didn't look right though.

The articles always showed lots of dead trees with huge eagle's nests.  And the articles always made it sound like you just pulled up and there they were.

We hiked a few hundred yards down this icy-snow covered path before we decided something just wasn't quite right.

After we got back into the parking lot, I spotted a truck with a duck hunter chatting away on his phone inside.  I went up to him and asked him if this was were the eagle nests were supposed to be.

He had news for us: This was the SOUTH entrance to Farmington Bay.

We needed to go to the NORTH entrance.

Directions followed that included such landmarks as a Burger King restaurant, a paved over rail road track and a yard filled with school buses.

Huh.

With my GPS still instructing us to make a U turn, Bernie drove us back up north.

He drove through housing developments and farmland before finally finding an address that was close to what another website had said was Farmington Bay Wild Fowl Preserve.

There was a parking lot there too, and a sign saying Farmington Bay. 

Maybe this was it?

Well, it sure was pretty.  But dead trees with eagle's nests?
I didn't see any.

There was these structures with nests...but clearly these are not dead trees like I had seen in the Farmington Bay Wildfowl Preserve articles.

The sun was setting and the temperature was plunging down below freezing.

We both were enthralled with the area's beauty...even if my jeans were not suitable attire for the temperature at this point in the day.

Bernie pointed out how the bay's water had frozen in bubble forms around the aquatic plants.

The setting sun set the world around us ablaze with golden light.

Animals had tracked through the water while it was semi frozen; now the tracks were frozen hard.

Overhead wild fowl honked as they few away from us.

It was so cold...yet so beautiful...

Every moment the play of light on the frozen landscape intensified.

In the distance we could hear shot guns being fired. Bernie thought it was the last day of duck hunting season and perhaps that was why the eagles were not yet settled in on their strange nesting structure.

So...apparently we were at the Great Salt Lake Nature Center of Farmington Bay.

Which apparently is NOT the Farmington Bay Wildfowl Preservation Center.

Huh.

(We agreed that this would be a really amazing place to visit in the spring or fall though).

We finished the short hike back to the parking lot, and started to drive back to the highway.

And wouldn't you know it...at last!  A sign, not even a mile up the road, saying Farmington Bay Wildfowl Preservation.

We drove in...and saw the only bird that we saw all day.

Some kind of hawk.  And in the distance we could see dead trees too.

It was almost dark; we decided that exploring FBWP could wait for another day.

And just like that...the bird in the photo above took flight against the fading sky.
We couldn't have asked for a more perfect ending our day!

January is so boring...unless you have cats.

Is it STILL January?
Is anyone else out there as bored as I am with this month?
I just can't seem to find much to interest me.
I  find myself watching with envy when the cats get a good game of turbo chase ball going on this thing:

 Funky picture I know, but for all you non-cat owners, this is what is known as a turbo track.
The ball is "stuck" inside the track,  but it can be made to race around the track with the slightest pat of a kitty paw.
In the middle of the night, one can lay awake listening to the sound of the ball rrr-rrr-rrr'ing followed by a thwack and an increased rrrrrr pitch.
I figured if I was bored with January, then the cats must be kind of bored too.

Saturday they got their belated Christmas gift.

I had barely snapped the pieces together before the ball was set into motion.

Now the three of us sit on the floor and play turbo chase together.

After a few hours, Tate was finally tuckered out and took a nap.
Actually we all took a nap.
January is a month that inspires nap taking.

We have only tried the 8 track and the Hearty Party configuration so far.

Of course I think it would be more fun if I got them the scratching pads to go with the track.  A small catnip dump onto the scratching pads adds so much to the game.

(The first picture is what the game looks like when played on catnip I think...) 

We might have to move our furniture out though. 
With HUNDREDS of design possibilities and a bottomless check book, a turbo track could be installed that would allow epic turbo ball games to be played.

We could probably sell tickets to our neighbors so they could come and watch. Maybe even sell tickets to our neighbor's cats for that matter.  We could set up cat teams...have little cat team uniforms made...have fantasy turbo cat track games being played on the Internet...

Bernie has his own kind of non-turbo track game that he is playing a lot.
That's him out there before dawn today.

Yeah, we did get a lot of snow this last dump.

If you look closely at the picture you will notice that there are a lot of cat tracks leading up our walkway.
Guess the word is out, and our cats are already selling tickets to the neighborhood cats during the night.
Wonder when the big game will be played.
I'll keep you posted.
My  money's on Bitsy to win fastest ball around the track, with Tate coming in second!

World Cup!!!

World Cup!  Speed Skating!
You had it on your calendar to go on Saturday, didn't you?
And then something came up...and you missed going?
Not to worry!
Bernie and I went...and took lots of pictures so you wouldn't miss out!

Seriously...can you believe it?
Bernie just casually asked if I wanted to go watch the Speed Skating; I said yes, thinking it was just a practice thing.
Thinking it was up in a totally different area.
Frankly not really thinking much at all except it might be good to get out of the house on Saturday and go do something.

It turns out the event was WORLD CUP! 
And it was not up in the mountains at all.
But it was an Olympic venue, and those things are all over the place here in SLC after we hosted an Olympics ten years ago.

(Bet those are the same flags that they put up for the Olympic event....pretty aren't they?)

I had a lot to learn.
First of all, I expected the skaters to have outfits that said where they were from.
No luck there.
And oddly, almost all the skating outfits had KIA (the car manufacturer) spelled out on them.
Didn't mean that they were skating for Korea though.

 

See what I mean about KIA?
Eventually Bernie pointed out that there was a board that told who was skating and from what country.

Then I had to figure out where to stand to get the best shots as the skaters whizzed by.
I was just as facinated at how beautiful the advertisment reflection on the ice looked as I was by the skaters that came into the scene.

 The skaters had their families with them cheering them on, like this lady from Korea.
(In the paper the next day we read that the event had the most people in attendance since the Olympics themselves.  4,000 people had squeezed into the venue and were avidly enjoying the competition, much to the athletes delight). 

The skater's postures and uniforms created some really great sculptural forms.
Check out the size of this guy's upper leg.

This is Russia's uniform.  I thought it looked rather oriental in design. I was wrong of course.

Again, look at those upper legs!

The board said the guys in this uniform were from NED.
Huh?
Bernie clued me in...Netherland.
As in Holland.
Oh.
By now you should know I love the color orange, and so of course loved their uniform a lot.

It eventually sank in to me that I was watching the folks that will be competing in Russia in the next winter Olympics. 
They were just a few yards away from me here.
Cool!

Cute NED guy...in a teenage girl's dream poster pose.

Just to remind you where we were...

In between the Men's and Women's shorter and longer meter events, a girl was introduced who did a skating routine.
Sadly, I didn't catch who she was.

But I did do pretty good catching her moves.

Isn't that something?

Everyone reading this who can get into this position standing on a rug in your living room...raise your hand.
Uh huh.
Yeah...I think I counted zero hands go up!

Bernie kept saying I should be on the look out to see the athlete's bottoms when they are just walking around in their sweats.
I thought that was a pretty weird prodding on his part...I usually don't go around looking at people's backside in sweats.
But he had a point: The athletes, including the women, had just the most developed glutes I have ever seen.

Later that night after I went to bed I wondered if they are able to sleep on their backs.
Like, are their fannies so hard that it isn't comfortable trying to sleep that way?

OK...enough of that little side trip.
The winners of the Men's 500 M
US took bronze!

Kind of funny when they had the guys the flowers.  They hold them like "What am I supposed to do with this?" for a second then wave the flowers around appropriately.

I had not idea that the Oval had its own mascots....three Mascots no less!

Then it was back to competition for the longer course.

The girl in the light blue cap...our town's Heather Richardson!
Go Heather!!!!

Japan had the most facinating uniform...the uniform made the competitor look like machines instead of a human.

Go Canada!

Go HEATHER!

Go Holland!

Go France!

Go CANADA!

And there are the final scores!
Canada take Gold
USA takes Silver
Holland takes Bronze

w00t!

Christine Nesbitt looks pleased with the results...

Not sure what the Canadian cheer guy was so unhappy about.

CAN
A
DA
!!

Since the skaters would zoom by between heats, I got a chance to zoom in with my camera on their skates.
They were so beautiful.
And I know they are SO expensive that they deserve to a thoughtful documentation. 

These are Christine Nesbitt's skates.
Isn't she graceful slipping on her skate blade guards?

 
I got a kick out of the barefoot and half peeled NED guy.

Back to competion: Germany v. Canada

Canada is gaining...

And Canada wins the heat!

USA v Canada
Shani Davis, Olympic medal winner skating for us.

And USA wins!

Showing a little skin...reminds me of the surfers who used to walk around the beach with their wet suits half zipped like that.
Good times...

Another  nice pair of skates.

Now what do you suppose these two are up to?

Good that this was happening where it happened.
In context, it is obviously something to do with skate training.
If I had seen this anywhere else...
 I would probably be calling the cops on the guy.

Standing next to this guy I felt totally out gunned camera wise...

Canada's Christine looked so sweet getting her Gold medal.

Fixed her hair up a bit for the cameras...

Heather Richardson got silver...

Let's hear it for the girls!

(No National Anthem was played, and if one wasn't paying attention it would have been really easy to miss the awards being handed out).

And let's hear it for the guys!

Shani Davis..

More than a few National speed records were broken during the day.  It was a good World Cup meet.

Had to love this fan from Holland showing her team color boldly via millinery.

Bernie didn't miss a chance to get a photo op with some of the other skaters who are Olympic bound. They were so sweet as we chatted with them at their table where they sold items to raise funds for their team.
They sure did look tiny standing next to Bernie.
I had never really thought about if skaters are short or tall before...

Or even how skaters are trained!
*****
The pouring rain outside turned into heavy clumping snow as we walked to our car after the meet.
I got a new profile picture with the snow on my hat taken once we buckled in to drive home.

 

It seemed so perfect to have snowfalling on us after a day  of watching speed skating.
Hope you enjoyed coming along with us too!