Text Me

 

We do not have an iPhone or an Android or anything close to a smart phone. We have an old-fashioned (more than two years old) dumb phone and texting is a chore. You know how it works, the “1” key is A, B or C depending upon how many times you press the “1” key in quick succession. You have to switch between upper case and lower case letters and punctuation is a whole new button grouping. I watch my sister texting on the mini-keyboard of her iPhone and she breezes through a message in seconds. Me … I spend as much time looking for the letter “s” as she does to type and send a full page document. Our nephew says e-mail is old-fashioned and way too slow.

So … why no iPhone or at least a phone with a keypad … besides the fact we're cheap? Well, when you only plan to be in a place for a short period of time, the options are limited. You can't buy a 2-year contract and without a contract, rates and actual phones can be very expensive. In Australia, for instance, you have to be a resident with an actual address plus have a bank account in order to get regular phone service. Otherwise, you're relegated to very limited, expensive, buy-by-the-byte phone and internet service. We have a collection of dumb phones from several different countries. Rarely does a phone from one country work in another and the phone service is different in each as well. Sometimes we've been able to simply buy and switch out SIM cards, but more often than not, the $10 go-phone we purchased in Panama along with leftover minutes do not work in Ecuador and the Ecuadorian phone does not work in New Zealand and … you get the picture.

All that aside, since it wasn't really my blog topic anyway, I just read that there's a U.S. National Texting Championship coming up. Last year's winner won $50K. The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 250,000 people compete in the qualifying on-line competitions which test speed, accuracy and dexterity. We're not talking an Olympic event here, but wow! Who could have known? Certainly, not us boat folks. These kids (ages 16-24) compete while blindfolded, with hands behind their backs (really?) and then have a Text blitz where they are required to copy random phrases displayed for only a few seconds. According to the Huffington Post, 42% of teens say they can text with their eyes closed. I can't even open our phone with my eyes closed.

I might add that the US is losing serious ground in education compared to kids around the world, but heck, who cares as long they can text fast.

First Snow - A Tribute to Snowflake Bentley

I'm not crazy about snow. We're sailors … not skiers nor snowboarders nor ski-mobilers. Snow is cold, wet and many times needs to be shoveled. It makes driving hazardous. All that said, there's something about the first snowfall of the year that's nostalgic and uniquely beautiful … like each snowflake itself.  

bentley's snowflake

I remember reading that the anthropologist, Franz Boa, postulated that Eskimos (translated into current PC, that's the many dialects of the Yupik and Inuit languages) had over 1,000 words for snow. That theory has certainly been contested over the years. I wonder if the Inuits have a word for “lazy” snow … because that's my favorite. Watching big, individual flakes float down lazily before your eyes is mesmerizing. It's a good time to go outside, stick out your tongue and let the snowflakes just melt there. It's magic. Once snow accumulates a bit, it weighs heavy on the tree boughs and muffles sound. A comforting, welcome silence settles over the shimmering, white neighborhood.

snow bending boughs

After visiting the tiny museum in Jericho, Vermont in early October, I've been thinking about Snowflake Bentley quite a bit. Snowflake Bentley, aka Wilson A. Bentley, native of Jericho, first proposed the theory that no two snowflakes were alike. He was enthralled with snow and frost. His photographs of snowflakes to document their unique crystal formations was a lifetime passion. Obviously done outside in icy cold weather, he pioneered in the field of photomicrography. I've never tried photographing snowflakes or frost. This year, I might.

snowflake bentley

I found a CalTech website on snowflakes that's incredibly informative and fun. You can learn something about snowflakes, find out why snow is white and/or download snowflake wallpaper.

caltech snowflake

Snowflake Bentley, by the way, is also a wonderful children's book about the snowflake man. Exquisitely illustrated, it's magic for adults, too. I might just get one for someone special this winter. It’s out of print, but available used on several used book seller sites.

A self educated farmer, Bentley attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.

He would go on to capture more than 5000 snowflakes during his lifetime, not finding any two alike. His snow crystal photomicrographs were acquired by colleges and universities throughout the world and he published many articles for magazines and journals including, Scientific American and National Geographic.

Black Friday

 

Black Friday ...Wherever did they come up with that name for the day after Thanksgiving. I always thought it referred to the infamous stock market crash of 1929, the predecessor to the Great Depression. Oops! That was Black Tuesday. Black Friday referred to the stock market crash of 1873. Now it's a reference to the biggest shopping day in the year in the USA … although for some, that can be depressing in itself. Many retailers do most of their business in November and December and as such, move from being in the “red” to being in the “black” today. Hurray for the retailers!

Seems that we get to blame Philadelphia for popularizing this moniker. Back in the early 1970's, it was dubbed Black Friday by the Philly cops because of all the traffic and pedestrian mayhem caused by the crowds shopping on this day. It's typically a 4-day weekend (except if you work in a store) and everyone takes advantage of it to get a head start on their Christmas shopping. Stores lure you in with outstanding sales, free goodies, early openings and promotions up the wazoo. Where it's allowed, some stores open Thanksgiving evening, now dubbed Grey Thursday. Massachusetts' law forbids opening on the holiday, so retailers settle for opening at 12:01am on Black Friday. Of course, there are those retailers who advertise pre-Black Friday sales. Perhaps they should start in August?

While on the boat, this never mattered much. We don't do any Christmas shopping. But since we're back in the land of milk, honey and major consumerism for the holiday season this year, it's forefront in our minds. Even boat parts go on sale on this day. Lord knows, we ALWAYS need boat parts.

So, do we participate? Well ... yeah! We stood in line at Best Buy at 3am in the cold to buy a Toshiba laptop for $300 a few years ago. We've gotten DVD players for $19 and photo paper for $1. The buying frenzy overtook us though. The prices were sooooo good, we ended up buying things we didn't need.

We won't be heading out too early to buy our boat parts or electronics this year because we can buy on-line instead. You see, Cyber Monday follows Black Friday. People are out and shopping over the post-Thanksgiving weekend, but once they head back to reality on Monday, they've got time for the internet again. That's when cyber sales and shopping kick in … aka Cyber Monday. We'll make our buys then, in time for David to carry them back to Oz in a couple of weeks.

(pssst, this ad is an affiliate link...you can click it for Amazon's deals, but only until tomorrow!)

Unfortunately, I just received a $10 off merchandise coupon from Kohl's in the mail earlier this week. Not $10 off $50, just $10 off anything in the store … even if it costs $10.01. $10 … just barely enough to make me want to get up early to use it. Lin got one, too. Kohls opens at 1am on Black Friday. Guess what we'll be doing?