Historical Recordings Made Public

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Gail

One of my fondest memories when I was young was listening to “Old Time” records. My parents were antique dealers and they bought a Victrola at an auction. It was so cool to turn the crank on the side and listen to music I’ve never heard before from the “old days”. It was also fun to go to Flea Markets and auctions to get some “new” records. Yesterday, the Library of Congress has made a large collection of historical recordings public. Here is the NPR story.
I can’t wait to share this website with my son who keeps asking me how they did things in the “Old Days”.

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Duckmaster for a day!!

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Gail

Things to do in Orlando, FL; Be an honorary Duckmaster at the Peabody Hotel. For my son’s 7th Birthday, he wanted to be an honorary Duckmaster, and help march the ducks from the lobby fountain to their $100K Penthouse Fountain suite. Every morning at 11am the ducks are marched from their suite, to the elevator that is reserved for them, down a red carpet, up some stairs and into the lobby fountain. Every evening at 5pm the march is reversed and the ducks are escorted to their fountain suite. My son had a fabulous time helping the Duckmaster who is named Donald. Donald the Duckmaster said their are 2 other Duckmasters at the other Peabody Hotels in Memphis and Little Rock, but only the Orlando Peabody has a Duckmaster named Donald.

Going over the Rules of Duckmaster!

Ducks Leave Fountain!

March Ducks to Elevator.

Ducks enter their reserved elevator.

March Ducks to their Suite!

Inside Duck Fountain Penthouse!

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A friend wrote a book check it out on the Kindle

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Boomer

The younger brother of an old friend wrote a book about two brothers and how they related to each other and their friends. Try the book out on Amazon link below. The book is called Running with Vince and follows the two brothers on a five day journey from New Hampshire to their mother’s house in Maryland.

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Sandhill Cranes; Chick expected soon!

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Gail

The Sandhill Cranes in our backyard should have their eggs hatch soon. We saw an egg in the nest on February 6th and Sandhill crane eggs take about 30 days to hatch. So we should expect to see a little crane any day now. There have been 2 other signs that the Crane family will be larger soon. 1) The cranes are always together. Everytime I look out my window I see the crane off the egg is almost always right near the crane on the nest. They even sleep standing up near the nest. 2) I saw the “Dad” Crane going through the “Drive-Through” at the bank, no doubt to make sure the family finances were in order for expected addition to the family. See photos; sorry pics are not best quality; I don’t want to get too close and upset the parents to be.

"Off Duty" Cranes hangs out near mate on nest.

Crane goes to bank!

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Space Shuttle Discovery: The Last Launch

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Gail

The Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch for the last time ever, today, February 24, 2011 at 4:50pm. The External Tanks (ET-137) began loading this morning with a half-million gallons of supercold propellants. It looks like everything is on track.
The Discovery will have a human-like robot. Robonaut 2, will perform repetitive tasks in zero-gravity. He will pave the way for later models that can perform “high risk” tasks for humans.

Here is a picture from Port Canaveral, FL

here is the link to the NASA blog covering the Shuttle launch.

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SandHill Cranes

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Gail

This week on “Sand Hill Crane” Update…
(This is an update to the original post on our Sandhill Cranes!
There are definitely at least 2 eggs!!! We can expect an egg to hatch the first week of March, and then the other should hatch the next day. My friend Lenore, mentioned getting a webcam for instant access to the cranes. I’m looking into this.
Not much other news. The swamp is getting greener as it gets warmer. Haven’t seen much of the Vultures. Perhaps Mister or Misses Crane taught them a lesson and they are keeping their distance. The pair of hawks that used to frequent this area are staying on the edges of the swamp, no where near the cranes, even though the cranes’ nest is right next to on of their favorite trees.
Below are pictures of the cranes near the nest and you can see 2 eggs. The other pic shows the whole swamp is getting greener. I am experimenting with photos; I like the “gallery” because you can write a description and then people can click on it and learn more, but the pictures are so small?! So I put them in the normal way, then gallery. Let me know which you like.

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Sandhill Cranes in our backyard!!

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Gail

We moved from a 2000 square foot house to a 2 bedroom apartment with no storage about 6 months ago. It is really starting to get on my nerves!! I need space!! The best part of living in our apartment is that it overlooks a swamp… I mean a “conservation area”. I can sit on my balcony and see all kinds of wild-life, mainly different birds. We have 2 hawks that like to come visit and hunt in the marsh. It is so cool to hear their call and look out to see them fly by or even roost on our balcony. Recently we had a pair of Sandhill Cranes make a nest in the marsh! We noticed an egg on February 6th, and it will take about 30 days for it to hatch. If there is more than one egg the second egg will hatch a day later than the first. From what I can see there is definetely one egg, but there may be two. The pair take turns sitting on the egg. We have even seen them turn the egg, and if you watch the parent long enough you will notice they turn themselves while sitting on the egg. I felt kind of bad for them last week; we had some nasty storms with high winds and rain. But the Mom sat on top of the egg even if her feathers were getting ruffled. It kind of reminded me of “Horton hatches an egg”.
Yesterday two vultures sitting landed in trees near the nest. While one crane sat on the nest the other crane moved closer to the vultures to scare them off, but the Vultures would just fly to another tree. It was like they were playing “Monkey in the middle” with the Dad crane. The vultures finally got tired of “playing” and flew off.
I will post more pictures and hope to have pictures of the little cranes the first week of March.

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Lego Mini Build Workshop: February 2011

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Gail

We just discovered that Lego stores host a Monthly Mini Model Build workshop the first Tuesday of each month. This month, February 2011, we went to the Lego store in Orlando at Downtown Disney and my son built a Skier. The bonus is that the kids get to keep the minifigure and take it home, free!
The workshop is from 5-7pm while supplies last. I was told that you should be prepared to wait. We got there at 5:45 and finished our project and headed home by 6:20pm. So, the wait wasn’t too bad this time.
If you are going to the Lego store at Downtown Disney, you will find that the original location is closed while they are renovating the store. They assembled a temporary store that looks like a giant yellow Lego brick near the “Once Upon a Toy” toy store.

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LEGO Creator: Ferocious Creatures

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Gail

My son LOVES legos. For Christmas his Grandpa gave him the LEGO Creator Set #5868; Ferocious Creatures. Thanks Grandpa! It is really cool! You can build 3 different creatures with the bricks from this kit. So far my son has built the crocodile and the T-Rex. Tonight he hopes to tackle the prehistoric fish. The animals have joints and a flexible tail so they can (according to my son) “move like real animals”.

T-rex my son built!

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WARRIOR DASH

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Gail

This past weekend I entered and completed the Warrior Dash, Lake Wales FLorida (Jan 30, 2011). It was a great time! There were so many people in costumes and acting completely wacky that it was like running with a comedy act. It helped keep your mind off any pain you may have. Mental note; next time I am not wearing socks. After the first mud pool my socks got so full of mud and water that they balled up in front of my toes and was extremely uncomfortable. And with each subsequent mud pool it seemed to get worse, and there were a lot of mud pools (like 10).
I had invited a friend, who is also my Zumba instructor, to run with me. Unfortunately my heat was filled up by the time she registered, so she signed up for the heat after me. We were hoping to at least meet up at the end, but the place was such a zoo, it was impossible to find her. She was only given 2 weeks notice and she did fabulous in the race! It must be the Zumba!!
Here are some pictures of the event. My favorite is of a huge Captain America racing a woman to the finish. The race was quite entertaining thanks to all the people who dressed up and were comic relief along the way. Also thanks to the people who stopped to help me up and make sure I was OK after my wipeouts in the mud and log jump.