Tuesday, November 23, 2010
2010 News
We are still here in Chapel Hill and life is still good for us. Today's temperature is 75 F and we are looking forward to a joyous holiday season and really exciting 2011.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Solar Eclipse 2009
Although we are going to China to see the Panda Preserve, the added attraction is the total solar eclipse. Nevermind that we will be in an area that has a 75% probability of complete cloudiness during the time of the solar event. We have begun our regimen of shots, which wasn't so bad until we got the flu shot, and we are starting to decide how small a suitcase to take with us. In a perfect world we will take two carry on suitcases and two backpacks
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Looking for the next wave
Did I mention that we used our leisurely trip to the Keys to begin to get ourselves ready for the trip we are hoping to take to China. We stumbled across some tours that will be set to view the solar eclipse on July 17th in the area around Chengdu. If all goes well, Matt and Eve will get to visit one of the Panda research centers, and spend some time in a remote town, on a hill [or a mountain? - we can't tell from Google Earth] and witness the total eclipse - probably using a box viewer [or make us a suggestion that would work and either use materials we would find in China or carry with us]. For all of our time driving we subjected Rachel to the training CDs to learn the 4 basic Chinese language tones and basic words and syllables. Eve has signed up for the China as a second language class at the Raleigh Chinese Language School and we'll see what happens. We also started reading books on China - a must read for the most recent impressions is "Lost on Planet China" - The other book that got us interested in China was 1421 by Gavin Menzies. It is a great read and starting point for looking at world history from a different perspective. We are looking forward to 2009, we know there are challenges ahead but we look forward to meeting them with creative thinking and perserverance.
Friday, January 2, 2009
New Year 2009
Saturday December 27, 2008
We went to the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy key, two islands away from Conch Key and in beautiful downtown Marathon, Florida. As you can see from the pictures, we got "kissed" on the cheek, gave the dolphin a back rub, shook hands, and got a short tow around the exhibit area. Our dolphin was Merina, well into middle age at 24 years, but the mother of a two-year-old, nonetheless.
They do things very intelligently there. Each group gets an entertaining talk on the hand signals, and also where to touch the dolphin, which came down to, "on its back, between the blow-hole and the dorsal fin." Anywhere else -- hands off. (One exception for the pectoral fins, the dophin's "arms": We got to touch them during the handshake.)
Later, Eve and I attended a brief lecture on dolphin birth. The babies come out tail first, so they have a better chance at their first breath. Considering that birth takes three to four hours, it amazes me that the occasional headfirst birth ever succeeds. The Center does not breed to sell, however, merely to maintain their population. The movie, Flipper, was filmed there, and some of their dolphins are direct descendants of the five animals used in the movie.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Matt decided to take this day easy, while Eve went back to the Dolphin Research Center for a more intensive experience than yesterday's.
Rachel and Matt, out for a walk, ran into a fellow named Chad Nedland, also known as "the walking man." Apparently in his mid-thirties, Chad said he had been "walking for peace and safety" for nine years, and was coming up on enough miles to go twice around the world. He was traveling with two women and two children -- theirs, I presume, not his, though we didn't ask. He showed us a backpack, which, he said, contained everything he owned. But the women had a van, the children always rode, and the walkers did their stints in relays. Chad has more to say, including that he used to tend bar in Key West, and where we should go and not go. He has a "personal Web site," http://www.mywalkingman.com. Before you look, prepare for disappointment; it doesn't have much.
Monday, December 29.2008
We all went to Curry Hammock State Park, a few miles south Conch Key (definition: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hammock). It consists of a few acres of campgrounds, a hundred yards or so of beach, and a covered picnic area. Eve and I went kayaking, taking the scenic route around the island. On the way, we saw a few green shoots sticking above the shallow bottom in places, advance scouts of a
mangrove invasion. Almost as soon as they paddled out to the ocean side of the island, Rachel saw a manatee about 50 yards behind them. A family of four followed it in a power boat until the manatee decided it had had enough of humans, and disappeared under the surface. No one around there saw it again.
Wednesday December 31, 2008
We went to a church on Key Largo to the opening ceremony and begining of a peace mandala, painted in sand by some Tibetan Buddhist monks. It takes them about about 20 hours, over five days, to finish. Then, after another ceremony, they destroy the mandala and go on to their next destination.
In the evening we had a thoroughly relaxing and delicious dinner at Braza Lena, a Brazilian steakhouse on Islamorada, just south of Key Largo. We saw in the new year at the Caribbean Club, "where the movie Key Largo was filmed," with a 20-minute fireworks show.
Thursday January 1, 2009
Rachel and Matt went back to Curry Hammock for another round of kayaking. This time, they saw several iguanas in the mangroves, two blue herons, some cichlid fish in shallow areas, and some ospreys, but no manatee.
Later in the afternoon, Eve went back to check on the mandala. We finished up the first day of the year by watching three or four hours of the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel.
We went to the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy key, two islands away from Conch Key and in beautiful downtown Marathon, Florida. As you can see from the pictures, we got "kissed" on the cheek, gave the dolphin a back rub, shook hands, and got a short tow around the exhibit area. Our dolphin was Merina, well into middle age at 24 years, but the mother of a two-year-old, nonetheless.
They do things very intelligently there. Each group gets an entertaining talk on the hand signals, and also where to touch the dolphin, which came down to, "on its back, between the blow-hole and the dorsal fin." Anywhere else -- hands off. (One exception for the pectoral fins, the dophin's "arms": We got to touch them during the handshake.)
Later, Eve and I attended a brief lecture on dolphin birth. The babies come out tail first, so they have a better chance at their first breath. Considering that birth takes three to four hours, it amazes me that the occasional headfirst birth ever succeeds. The Center does not breed to sell, however, merely to maintain their population. The movie, Flipper, was filmed there, and some of their dolphins are direct descendants of the five animals used in the movie.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Matt decided to take this day easy, while Eve went back to the Dolphin Research Center for a more intensive experience than yesterday's.
Rachel and Matt, out for a walk, ran into a fellow named Chad Nedland, also known as "the walking man." Apparently in his mid-thirties, Chad said he had been "walking for peace and safety" for nine years, and was coming up on enough miles to go twice around the world. He was traveling with two women and two children -- theirs, I presume, not his, though we didn't ask. He showed us a backpack, which, he said, contained everything he owned. But the women had a van, the children always rode, and the walkers did their stints in relays. Chad has more to say, including that he used to tend bar in Key West, and where we should go and not go. He has a "personal Web site," http://www.mywalkingman.com. Before you look, prepare for disappointment; it doesn't have much.
Monday, December 29.2008
We all went to Curry Hammock State Park, a few miles south Conch Key (definition: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hammock). It consists of a few acres of campgrounds, a hundred yards or so of beach, and a covered picnic area. Eve and I went kayaking, taking the scenic route around the island. On the way, we saw a few green shoots sticking above the shallow bottom in places, advance scouts of a
mangrove invasion. Almost as soon as they paddled out to the ocean side of the island, Rachel saw a manatee about 50 yards behind them. A family of four followed it in a power boat until the manatee decided it had had enough of humans, and disappeared under the surface. No one around there saw it again.
Wednesday December 31, 2008
We went to a church on Key Largo to the opening ceremony and begining of a peace mandala, painted in sand by some Tibetan Buddhist monks. It takes them about about 20 hours, over five days, to finish. Then, after another ceremony, they destroy the mandala and go on to their next destination.
In the evening we had a thoroughly relaxing and delicious dinner at Braza Lena, a Brazilian steakhouse on Islamorada, just south of Key Largo. We saw in the new year at the Caribbean Club, "where the movie Key Largo was filmed," with a 20-minute fireworks show.
Thursday January 1, 2009
Rachel and Matt went back to Curry Hammock for another round of kayaking. This time, they saw several iguanas in the mangroves, two blue herons, some cichlid fish in shallow areas, and some ospreys, but no manatee.
Later in the afternoon, Eve went back to check on the mandala. We finished up the first day of the year by watching three or four hours of the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Christmas Day
After we got the laptop fixed we drove all night Christmas Eve, to St. Pete Beach, Florida. Rachel dressed appropriately for the day while Matt and Eve crashed for the day. Christmas dinner was at IHOP. Why the rush to the Tampa area? To make the Friday morning tour at Big Cat Rescue . We had great weather and very good tour before making our way down to Conch Key to spend the rest of our vacation.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Computers that won't behave
We drove to Charleston, got to the Mills House - and everything was going really smoothly. Then one of our laptops died. We were on a very tight schedule and thought that we would be able to call some old friends, who have been sending us invitations to visit for the past 8 years. But right after we had dinner with Matt's sister, Elizabeth, on Monday we had to spend the majority of our free time deciding how best to restore, rebuild or replace our laptop that was supposed to be used for updating the blog, and otherwise keeping up with work emails [we can't relax if we don't check emails]. The Compaq nc6220 [ne Hewlett Packard laptop] crashed with no possibility of recovery after about 5 hours worth of trouble shooting. The shortened version to this story is that we were able to rebuild the laptop with a new hard drive and a free downloaded copy of Ubuntu 8.04 - which we were able to get from Rachel's laptop on a fast internet connection [which still took 1.5 hours to load]. So a piece of useful information: Linux client software has come a long way. Once we burned the installation CD we just had to turn on the laptop, insert the CD into the CD drive and it began to install faster than any Windows application. It comes with Open Office [free word and spreadsheet applications], a firefox internet browser and the network drivers are ready to go as soon as it detects your wireless or NIC [network interface card] hardware.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Happy Holidays from our home to yours.
We will be posting to this blog during December as we go to visit family and friends in Charleston, and Florida. Let us know how you are doing. Post to our blog or email us at ebarkley@nc.rr.com we will be glad to hear from you. We will be visiting a lot places and we will ring in the New Year in the Florida Keys.
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