Well, I got sick anyway

Norma Jean texting her daughter

I don't know why it always happens to me when I visit my sister. Perhaps it was the plane, or maybe it was a residual illness after the sore throat I had last week. I am congested and coughing up a bit of stuff. No sneezes but I sure don't feel all that well. Fortunately, the swimming we do in the morning makes me feel better, and tomorrow I'll stay home from walking with Norma Jean through the park. I need a break.

Norma Jean talking to her daughter and granddaughter

Once we got home from the coffee shop, Norma Jean suggested that I might want to talk to Allison (her daughter), Alicia and Lexie, her granddaughters. Here you can see the younger one, who was not talking last year when I visited but is now talking up a storm.

This is the same setup that we use when we talk on FaceTime every other week. It works great and makes it so nice to have virtual visits. I feel like I'm not missing out on my sister's life.
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Attempt at an iPad post

we're off to see the wizard 

One of my blogging friends. Far Side of Fifty, mentioned that she was able to write a blog post from her iPad. I figured I'd give it a try. For me, the hardest part is that my pictures in photos are not available. So I went into my new iPad Pro and here I am, giving it a shot. The picture above must have been used sometime earlier and there it was in my Google Images.

I also tried to highlight Far Side of Fifty to link it, but I can't figure out how. Plus hard as I try, I can't seem to download pictures that I took right here on my iPad! No, this is much harder so I won't be doing it except in a pinch.

We had a wonderful but rather difficult walk this morning with the ladies: first up Taylor Street and a full seven miles of walking. There were only eleven of us. Many stayed home when they saw it would be up the hill. I'm glad I went, though, now that I'm home and happily ensconced in my favorite chair! I was the oldest today but I wasn't the slowest. I'm bragging now.
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The Internet is changing everything

Oh, how the world is changing

My little grand-niece Alicia is proficient with her iPad at sixteen months. Unfortunately for her mother, this particular iPad is now toast, since Alicia decided to see if it would float in the bathtub. I just learned from my sister Norma Jean that Alicia already has a new one, this time with a waterproof case.

In many ways, I don't feel a huge need to dash down to Florida to visit my sister, since we talk every other week on FaceTime, and it's simply wonderful to sit down with this technology and have a good long face-to-face exchange. Phone calls aren't the same at all. How much I look forward to these visits!

I also do all of my banking online and don't even have a physical place nearby. The number of checks I write in one year is in the single digits; everything else is electronic. The only thing that bothers me is my complete dependency on the digital world and the internet. I surely do hope that the People In Charge (whoever they are) are also cognizant of our need to keep all this going.

Does it scare you? When Delta Airlines a few weeks ago lost their internet connection, things were chaotic for days. What would happen if it happened on a larger scale? Sometimes I think about things like this and really wish I wouldn't.
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Fun in the sun

Sunrise and geraniums

When I was out on the front porch at sunrise, I saw the sunlight giving my front porch flowers a pretty halo, so I grabbed my iPhone and snapped this picture. I love my iPhone camera, but just this morning I realized that in the years since I bought my new iPad, I hadn't taken ANY pictures with it.

Taken with iPad Air2

Since I knew I would be volunteering at WAHA all day today, I thought maybe I could forward this picture from my iPad into Google blogspot for a new post while I was working. But even though I had wifi connectivity, I could not figure out how to transfer a photo from my photos to blogspot. Therefore, I came all the way home during a break to write this. I'm fairly confident that somebody out there can tell me how I can get a picture from my iPad to my blog. When I'm on my laptop, I export the picture onto the desktop in a low resolution and do it that way (as I did above).

It's probably an easy fix, and when I have time I'll do some research on it, unless YOU know how to do it. Anybody?
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Changing my photograph albums

Me in a Florida wind tunnel in 2003

Well, will you look at that! It's me flying in the Orlando wind tunnel way back when. And how did I find this picture? It found me, actually. I decided a couple of days ago to take my pictures off my individual devices and put them all in the cloud. This came about for a couple of reasons.

First, I had some of my pictures on my laptop, some on my phone, and sadly, none of them on my iPad. I made the mistake of getting the entry-level memory option last year on my iPad and in nothing flat, I ran out of space on it. I reluctantly started using it only for emails and reading blogs and websites. Oh yeah, and watching Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming videos (which it is really great at).

I went to the local Apple store and looked at the new iPad Pro, thinking that maybe I'd just upgrade my iPad to the latest and greatest, so I ordered one. The salesperson, however, once he found out the dilemma with my current iPad, suggested that I consider using the iCloud Photo Library, with the other major benefit being that I have ALL my pictures available to me on all my devices. It costs $1/month for 50 gigabytes of iCloud storage. I started the changeover, and before I knew it, I had over 5,000 pictures, all right there to peruse. Some of them were in albums I'd forgotten about.

Just before I started this post, I scanned over my treasures, and several pictures from the ancient past surfaced, like the one you see at the top. Until yesterday, I didn't even know where to look for that picture. Not to mention that there are cherished pictures of family and friends who have died. And pictures of me that reminded me of the fact that my hair has not always been white.

Another benefit is that if I edit or delete a picture from one device, the changes take place all the way across because they are stored in the cloud. I experimented and sure enough, it works! While I was looking quickly at my pictures, I was also able to delete almost a hundred, because I tend to take more than one picture of the same thing and keep them both. Wow!

Smart Guy and me getting married in freefall

I smiled when I saw this one, too. We got married in freefall on May 5, 1994, and our Best Man was the videographer. When we got our marriage license in Colorado, we said we would be married when we passed through 5,500 feet over Loveland, Colorado, and nobody batted an eye! Yes, skydiving has been a big part of my life, but I am suddenly reminded that there is a wind tunnel in Tukwila and I can always get my knees in the breeze if I want to, no matter how old I get.
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My October present

This morning from the fourth floor of the YMCA

Well, yesterday evening about 7:00pm, the UPS truck FINALLY rolled into the parking lot and the delivery man brought my much-anticipated package: my new iPad Air 2. I took it out and admired it for awhile before turning it on. The first thing I did was to activate the Touch ID feature, by taking an imprint of my thumb so I can turn it on without having to enter the four-digit passcode. This is such a cool feature and it seems to work well even with my aged thumbprint. It will take up to five different fingers, so I'll probably also enter my first finger, just in case I cut my thumb or do something that will make it hard to read.

On Tuesdays, I don't spend much time at the coffee shop first thing in the morning, since I have a class at 8:00am and another at 9:00am right afterwards. I did take the time to connect my new iPad to the free wifi before heading off. I went into my class and took the picture above with the iPad camera, using the "pinch out" method to focus on what I wanted to capture, a little like a zoom lens. It's taken through the window on the fourth floor of the Y. In comparing it with the picture from my last post, there's not much difference to be seen in quality, partly because I must always save these in lower resolution for the web. But I was pleased.

I took a picture of my MacBook Air (isn't it totally appropriate that all my favorite gadgets have the word "air" in them?) while I was sitting in the recliner, and it shows my wallpaper picture, which was taken with my regular camera, very well, don't you think?

The screen picture is of Whatcom Falls last month

There is so much to learn, and I need to figure out the best way to use all the fancy features that I now have available to me. The speed is much faster, and once I plugged my new iPad into my Mac and restored all apps and pictures that I had on my old one, it seems like the only thing that has changed is that I've not a lighter, faster, prettier iPad to play with! I feel like a kid at Christmas who got just what she wanted.
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A new toy is in my future

Red ivy on a downtown building

I took the picture above with my iPhone4S, a now rather dated Apple product and not worth much any more, since the iPhone6 and 6+ have been released. I've been really happy with my phone, although I use it for almost everything BUT a phone. I have been continually amazed at the quality of the pictures I'm able to take, and I'll be eligible for an upgrade in another month. Will I do it? Probably not right away. Even though the camera in the iPhone6 is really outstanding, I made the mistake of watching the keynote from Apple about its latest additions.

Tim Cook explaining about the new iPad Mini and iPad Air 2

And instead of getting a new iPhone right away, I decided to pre-order the iPad Air 2. It is the sixth-generation iPad, and I've got a second-generation one. There have been a lot of changes in the last three years. I vacillated mightily about whether or not to go with the Mini or the Air, and finally decided to order the larger one, since it weighs less than a pound and all the reviews make it sound just perfect for me.

And it's got the same camera in it as is in the iPhone6. However, I've never been one to hold up a ten-inch tablet to take pictures, but that may be about to change. I was told the tablet was shipped by UPS Ground and would be here yesterday, but they lied. I watched out the front window obsessively yesterday, but when it didn't arrive, my enthusiasm deflated down to a normal level. It's arrived in Bellingham, but will sit in the UPS closed office until Monday (I checked this morning). I'm still excited, but instead of getting to know my new toy today, I'll go to the movies with Judy. Monday will be here soon enough.
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Our electronic world

Gene with his Android tablet at the coffee shop

These days, when I walk into the coffee shop in the morning, I usually find my friend Gene sitting there with his tablet. He used to complain about me always being plugged into my iPad, but now it seems he's gotten the bug himself. He stopped carrying internet in his home, so he waits until he gets to the coffee shop and its WiFi before he reads his email and checks Facebook. Yes, even my Luddite friend Gene has a Facebook page now! Gone are the days when he would scoff at me for my addiction; he's right there with me. And now I have a Kindle Fire which seems to be taking the place of my beloved iPad. The apps for Android tablets (the Kindle Fire is in this category) are different from Apple apps, and I think I might be stuck with the two of them when I'm out and about until I find apps for all my favorite things.

I skipped my exercise class yesterday so that Smart Guy and I could be at the local Social Security Office when it opened. On Friday, we received our notification of benefits for 2014, and we both had some expenses that were unexplained and rather worrisome. They were the same on both of ours, an extra $80 out of each of our benefit amounts. That sort of adds up! We found that whatever the issue was, it had been cleared up by the time we got there. The clerk pulled up our accounts and saw that everything was as it should be, and NOT what had been printed out on our benefit letters.

She also explained that we could check our accounts ourselves at any time, if we wished to set up individual accounts with the SSA. I will do that, but not any time soon, since I'm still a bit shaken up by what happened and not quite ready to verify that she is correct. I won't receive my money until the middle of January, anyway. But what a shock it was. I lost sleep for a couple of nights over the weekend, wondering what was wrong. I slept just fine last night.

Now about that Kindle: I am enjoying it very much indeed. It's cheaper than the iPad mini I contemplated buying, and just the right size for reading books, reading my email when connected by WiFi, and reading websites, just as I do with my iPad. It's quick to respond and definitely a different beast than my iPad. Right now I'm engrossed in a book my sister Norma Jean told me about (a John Grisham novel, Sycamore Row). I've finished more than half of it and find myself being pulled back again and again. That would be just fine if I was traveling or something, but I had to put it down so I could get this post written. It will wait for me, just like any other book. I pretty much love my new toy.
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My new iPad

There is something to be said for ordering items a bit later than for the holidays or when an item first comes out. I found on Tuesday that my Social Security deposit would be coming to my new checking account as hoped, so I got on the internet and ordered myself a new iPad. On Friday it arrived!! Using the "ask an expert" chat feature on Apple, I asked how to restore my new iPad to have all the apps and pictures I had on my stolen one. It was easy, since I had backed it up on iTunes just two days before the theft. All I lost was the "Kindle for iPad" app I had loaded the evening before, so all I needed to do was reload it and all my books were there in the Archives folder. It was seamless. When you plug in a new iPad, it asks you if it is to be treated as new, restore from iCloud, or restore from iTunes. I was impressed.

The flowers are from Smart Guy. When I ordered the new iPad, he was happy for me, and when I came home from my workout, these pretty mums greeted me. I've been burning that candle to light up the darkness in the evenings, as I wrote about here. I'm amazed to realize that we are almost a third of the way through winter. And we are gaining more than two minutes a day to the length of each day.

Yesterday my friend Judy and I went to see The Iron Lady. Although the reviews are not stellar, it's certainly not because of Meryl Streep's performance. She is simply outstanding as Margaret Thatcher. The critics apparently are not fond of the fact that the movie concentrates too much on her later years, but I thought that was expecting the movie to have been more inclusive of her accomplishments, rather than a look at what happens to us all: no matter how famous and accomplished a person might be, by the time we get into our eighties (she's 86), we all become a shadow of our former selves. I thought the movie was wonderfully done and entertaining. I immediately got on Wikipedia (link provided above) and learned a bit more about Thatcherism. The depiction of her husband Denis in the movie (played brilliantly by Jim Broadbent) showed how a couple becomes dependent upon one another, even when one of them has passed on. The makeup artists who made Meryl age so perfectly deserve an Oscar, too. I'd love to know what you think of this one, but if she doesn't win THIS time, there's no justice. I thought she deserved it for portraying Julia Childs so brilliantly, but this portrayal is unbelievably perfect, IMHO.

I just peeked outside and saw that it's snowing! You can see the snowflakes falling in the upper left against the dark leaves. I don't know how much will actually accumulate, but right now the view from my front porch is lovely. We have been expecting this snow, and the temperature should plummet in the next couple of days before warming up just in time for our Thursday hike. I know I am being optimistic, but since I get to choose my state of mind, why not?
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Snowy owls and camera fun

Photo by Fredrick Sears

The Whatcom birding group sends around pictures and information about local birding, and members have been capturing pictures of the rare influx of snowy owls that has been going on in this area during the fall and winter. I found an article in the Seattle Times about this phenomenon that only occurs once in a great while. The article tells me they will be around here until March, when they will return to the Arctic for the breeding season. I have been enjoying seeing the wonderful pictures pour in of these magnificent birds. On January 8, Fredrick said about this picture:

Still several owls and fair number of birders on Salt Spring Road (bear left going in to Sandy Point).  Owls were vocalizing a bit at eagles apparently. Enjoy.

They are so beautiful! And I don't even have to leave my home and go looking for them; I've received at least a half dozen really beautiful pictures. I have also been traveling around at various times and places and taking pictures with my new camera. Sometimes they turn out well, and sometimes, well... I need to find the right settings. This one was taken right at sunrise after I got off the bus.

I was hoping to find a setting that would capture the color in the sky, which this did, although it was much more vivid just before I started fiddling with the settings. I figured I'd better just go ahead and snap a picture. The bus station is on the left in the dark, but lightening it up enough to see detail there washed out the sky. Before heading to the coffee shop, I tried out a camera setting that is supposed to capture vivid color and is called "foliage." I looked up at a nearby tree and took this one of the leaves and berries, and it does seem to be more vivid. I'll have plenty of chances to use this particular setting, I suspect.

It makes me excited to find out all the things my new camera will do for me. It's also got a fish-eye setting and a wide angle setting. Those, plus the macro feature on this camera, are still to be tried. The good part is that things in my part of the world are beginning to settle down, back to normal.

Last thing: my Social Security showed up in my new bank account this morning, so I decided to go ahead and order myself a new iPad! A friend sent me a link with information about the iPad3 that is likely to be coming out in the spring or summer, but the new features are not anything I'm really interested in (faster processor, better camera). I was so happy with the iPad2, and I still miss it more than anything else. Soon I will be enjoying it once again. I'm smiling right now and feeling a lot of gratitude.
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My new purchase

Remember way back when I was getting an iPod (for those who have been following this blog since then)? That was in December 2009, which my blog helped me to remember by giving me a link to the post I wrote. It was the gateway drug for this new purchase:

Yep, I am now the proud owner of an iPad2! It's interesting to contemplate why I thought I needed one, since my iPod still functions perfectly well for what I use it for, mostly reading my email and the news while at the coffeeshop where I have free WiFi. I almost embarrassed to tell you I am writing this on my iMac desktop with a nice big screen and a real live keyboard. The virtual keyboard on the iPad2 is functional, and if I can remember not to rest my fingers on the glass, I can actually type pretty fast on it, and that's only after having it for a day. What it does have that the original iPad doesn't are two built-in cameras, one on the front and one on the back. It also shoots video, which I still haven't tried. Here's a picture taken with the camera.

This is my friend Leo, who waits for me to show up at the coffee shop every morning with either a book for me to read him, a slimy snake or scary spider, as in this picture. I have known him for most of his life and watched him learn to walk. Now I'm listening to him learn to use language. He knows the names of most of the people in the coffee shop. I downloaded a Winnie the Pooh book on my iPad so I could read to him out of it, and he just loved it. I am having a lot of fun with this new toy, but the very best part, and the real limitation I felt with the iPod, is being able to show people pictures from my iPhoto Library. On the iPod they are small and hard to see in all their glory, but on the iPad, they look fabulous! The iPad is actually just like an iPod on steroids, so learning how to use it was easy.

As you can see from this picture taken this morning at the front of our apartment complex (with my regular camera), spring has arrived here in Bellingham in all its glory. This cherry tree only has blossoms for about a week, and then they begin to drift to the ground as the leaves emerge. This is my favorite time of the year for pictures, especially when it's so beautiful outside. Our temperature is still cool (around 50 degrees F, 10 C) but after all the rain I am really enjoying the sunshine!

Tomorrow the clouds return and we have a 40% chance of rain for our Thursday hike, but it's amazing to me how much better I feel when I've got white puffy clouds to gaze at in a beautiful blue sky! My neck is all better, and I'll let tomorrow worry about itself, while I play with my new toy.
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