School won’t start at UC Davis for almost another month, but the athletes are on campus because while we start late the rest of the college schedule starts in early September or even late August.

So what does this have to do with Ultimate Frisbee?

Well, tonight I was doing my rehab ride through campus. I rode past one of the vast IM fields where a UF game was happening. Now you may have seen Ultimate Frisbee but you haven’t seen it played like this. There are some coaches that might have issues about how this game was played because this was to normal IM Ultimate Frisbee as the NBA is to Div II basketball. It was awesome. And they were just having fun.

It’s good to be out on a hot summer evening. I just wish there were lightning bugs.

My grandson loves WALL*E. So do I. I’ve seen it a LOT. There’s so much detail. The characterizations of the machines is amazing. But I wonder: why is EVE so quick on the draw? How did the plant stay green inside a fridge?

And I love the evolution of art during the opening of the credits. It’s wonderful.

Exploring late afternoon reflections while cruising the Venice Lagoon, autumn 2018

“Determination” My wife and I when I rode from Bridgeport, CA to Yosemite Valley - 100 miles with about 8,000 feet of climbing. The biggest ride of my life. This was taken on Ohmsted Point with Half Dome in the background. Half Dome is my muse. For @macgenie

When you’re five Marble Genius creations are amazing!

At WWDC this year there was an excellent presentation on the new Swift Playground features. There was a presentation by Jonathan Penn, a playground engineer. He demonstrated an exploration of an iPad’s accelerometer function and went on to made a small game using SpriteKit.

Now I’ve never written anything to do with SpriteKit or written a line of code for iOS and only played with Swift for doing command-line things. My last bit of software was written for VAXen. But there was something quite special about the way Jonathan presented and I saw the chance to make something for my grandson who is on the autism spectrum. He loves marble maze towers and Rube Goldberg machines - watches youtube videos and makes things.

So I thought maybe I could make a simple Rube Goldberg machine app for him. I have tons of time, since I’m recovering from a knee replacement, and I work on a laptop and my iPad. The learning curve has been a bit steep for me but I’m having a ball.

So I wanted to thank Jonathan Penn for the inspiration. It was a talk done right. And if you haven’t pondered Playgrounds they are fun both on the iPad (amazing!!!) and on the Mac.

BRAVO ZULU Apple and the Playground team.

I miss fireflies. They don’t exist here in the Central Valley. In west-central Ohio, where I grew up, they made for delightful dusky summer nights as they rose from the lawn and flower beds. Of course I captured some in a mason jar to have them flash beside my bed.

Why Yes, Total Knee Replacements Are…Fun?

Three weeks after a total knee replacement and I’m getting seriously stir-crazy. At least I have moved away from the walker to a stick but I’m still supposed to be walking for function. No trips around the block yet. But being able to carry my own dishes to the sink or do my own ice packs feels pretty wonderful.

The physical therapy certainly consumes my day. Three sessons a day, icing before and after, with two of the exercises being particularly painful. But it’s good to see progress is being made.

A green heron does a bit of hunting along the UC Davis arboretum.

Learning craft began NSL early.

A fun evening

A future maestro or Andy Warhol Boulder Concerts - adam-bridge

Sunset, Kasey formations, China

Pixar ponders a leap down onto Pixel.

If I had known how dirty cork oaks are I’d never have chosen then for our yard. They drop leaves all year round in massive amounts. They’re pretty trees, no doubt about it, but they’re sure messy and labor-intensive.

Web site designers: we need to talk.

For those of us “of a certain age” the trend toward low-contrast design makes life so very squinty and so very unpleasant. Using light text on a light background makes for an unpleasant experience. Maybe it’s all trendy but it’s user-hostile.

STOP IT, please.

Thank you.

I have read all but one of the Nebula Award novel nominees. Wow, am I underwhelmed. Three of them I had to just skim through because they were simply not interesting.

Two I genuinely enjoyed: “Jade City” by Fonda Lee which I can recommend and “The Stone Sky” by N.K. Jemisin - but the latter is the 3rd in a trilogy and not accessible for someone who wants to enter.

But “Autonomous” by Annalee Newitz, “Ammberlough” by Lara Elena Donnelly and “Six Wakes” by Mur Lafferty just don’t make the grade.

I haven’t tried “Spoonbenders” by Daryl Grfegory having been so disheartened by the novels I just mentioned.

Either I’m totally out of step or I’m just becoming a grumpy old man.

And now I have to stop and find out what kind of trouble the cat is making in the studio. It sounds serious…

The first weekend of Facebook Freedom.

The results: Delightful!

Also Margaret brought Fred up who is being very 3 but still fun. He loves riding in the trailer behind the bikes: a natural born tourist. Can you say “ROAD TRIP”?? because Fred will be a natural, I think.

2018-04-07

Landing in LA on first leg to China.

2018-04-08

Looking out from the balcony of our 25th floor AirBnB in Guangzhou

2018-04-09

Along the Pearl River looking at the Guangzhou Tower.

I need to understand how to share images here and how to mark posts as being related to books or photographs or whatever.

Sometimes I think this medium is designed for people who already understand how the medium works.

An unusual ice cream

We went out to lunch at one of the oldest restaurants in Guangzhou . The food was Cantonese (of course) so it was bland. But they had ice cream and smoothies. One of our party ordered (get ready) Durian Ice Cream. I was invited to have a taste. After a few swallows in trepidation I took a chance on a spoonful…

It wasn’t awful. It wasn’t even bad. What it was…was strange. And I can’t begin to describe the flavor. I do know it was complex. I know it had an immediate flavor and then another that oozed in afterwards. I found I wanted to have another taste - but only to try to understand what I was experiencing.

Now, weeks later, the experience 7,000 miles away, I no longer remember anything specific about what I tasted. I remember the strangeness. Would I try it again? I think so. But not to enjoy, but to experience, like a particularly violent amusement park ride.

If you have a chance to try durian ice-cream…give it a shot…but be prepared.

Evergreen News: Evergreen 1.0d32: Send to Micro.blog

Well, this is good!

Midnight Diner: A Tokyo Story

While we were on our trip to China our hosts, David and Xurry, highly recommended a Japanese series they had been watching. We found it on Netflix. Last night we watched the first three episodes and found them wonderfully compelling.

There is a diner open only from midnight until seven in the morning. Run by “The Master”, a man of indeterminate age with a nasty scar that begins above one eye which descends down his cheek, his menu offers only a single dish. However, if you ask for something, and if he has the ingredients, he’ll make whatever is asked.

That’s the setup.

But the story isn’t about him, it’s about the people who come to his diner, who interact with each other and with The Master. The stories, at least the first three, are small and sweet.

If you are looking for the video version of a short story collection that doesn’t involve super-hero, massed alien invasions, or high level action, then this might be the place for you.

Give it a try.

So, this has become my sharing place since today I abandoned Facebook in favor of something more open and less invasive.

I’m hopeful this format will work for me. And it should. I suspect I’ll be using Ulysses as my composition source and moving work over here.