We recently got back from mid-coast Maine, and I miss it. Here are some flowers from the trip . . .
rhododendrons outside our front door – there are some big bumblebees in there
foxgloves across the road
peonies (actually from New Hampshire)
Some exuberant elderberry bushes from our nature center at home
gratuitous lobster roll photo
Last week we traveled to Beaufort, South Carolina and stayed at the beautiful Anchorage Inn. With many porches and porch swings.
I was there for a pastel workshop taught by Eve Miller. Below you can see my color palette . . .
. . . for my first ever pastel painting (below).
Beaufort features mermaids. We were there for their 25th Shrimp Fest. Beaufort is right on the water.
And so there could be alligators.
The second Saturday of September is Pie Day in Pie Town, New Mexico. This small community (population 186) has earned a reputation for offering excellent pies for sale. It started as a crossroads community – a stop for people traveling west – and is now popular with tourists. This Saturday is Pie Day. I would like to stop by the Pie-O-Neer cafe where they serve pie, “that’s it.” It sounds like my kind of place. Here is a story about the town at Cowboys & Indians magazine.
Scenes from the road – in no particular order.
Flying Monkeys
Fresh Peas
Looking up the River
Off our dock
Surf
My Favorite Lighthouse
Giant Lobster
Former Stable
Former Stable Door
Puppy1 is the world’s 1st self-balance and auto-follow suitcase.
Puppy 1 drives on 2 wheels, supported by Segway’s balancing technology.
With modes of auto-follow and remote control, you can either let Puppy1 follow you anywhere or ask it go wherever you want. It can also go back and forth with its bi-directional intelligent follow.
It can follow you at a speed as high as 18 km/h with positioning accuracy up to 5°.
Its electric power assistant, power ramp, deceleration and parking brake makes it capable to meet all your travel needs.
The Puppy1 will launch in middle of the year on crowdfunding.
What do I need?
A farmer in China creates ‘Suitcasemobile’ an inexpensive small-sized scooters, by recycling old suitcases, capable of carrying two people.
The farmer came up with this suitcase invention, after ten years of work, that runs up to 12.5 Mph (20 km/h) for 37 miles on one charge.
The Suitcasemobile consisting of a stripped-down electric scooter embedded into a suitcase, also includes a navigation system.
I recently read about a house in Japan that features an inclined wall of bookshelves. The slant prevented the books from falling off the shelves in case of an earthquake (usually), and was constructed so that one can climb up the shelves to find a particular book. I thought it was genius.
It reminded me of our crossing on the Queen Mary 2. The ship’s library was just steps from our cabin. Their solution to keeping the books in place during heavy seas (and there were some), was to have locking glass doors on all of the shelves – also genius.
We spent a lot of time there.
The Pleiades
Messier object 45 is known in many cultures by many different names – the water girls, the orphan boys, the lost wives, and in Greek mythology, the seven sisters, daughters of Atlas and Pleione.
Yes, I bought a Subaru and I am calling her Maia. Judging from the picture above, I may need to invest in some new clothes.
“The Pleiades in Japanese culture are known as ‘Subaru’ and are usually referred to as being seven stars. ‘Subaru’ also means ‘unite’ or ‘unity’ in Japanese. However, when the car company Subaru chose the name for their business, they decided to depict only six stars in the company logo, supposedly because only six of the stars are visible to the naked eye.” – Lucinda Riley
From the Red Sea to Hong Kong on a 30-day time lapse voyage on a container ship. Filmed by photographer, Jeffrey Tsang.
The Fire of Rome by Hubert Robert
“[One July 18, in] 64 A.D., a great fire ravaged Rome for six days, destroying 70 percent of the city and leaving half its population homeless. According to a well-known expression, Rome’s emperor at the time, the decadent and unpopular Nero, “fiddled while Rome burned.” The expression has a double meaning: Not only did Nero play music while his people suffered, but he was an ineffectual leader in a time of crisis. It’s been pretty easy to cast blame on Nero, who had many enemies and is remembered as one of history’s most sadistic and cruelest leaders—but there are a couple of problems with this story.
For one thing, the fiddle didn’t exist in ancient Rome. Music historians believe the viol class of instruments (to which the fiddle belongs) was not developed until the 11th century. If Nero played anything, it would probably have been the cithara, a heavy wooden instrument with four to seven strings—but there is still no solid evidence that he played one during the Great Fire. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero was rumored to have sung about the destruction of Troy while watching the city burn; however, he stated clearly that this was unconfirmed by eyewitness accounts.
When the Great Fire broke out, Nero was at his villa at Antium, some 35 miles from Rome. Though he immediately returned and began relief measures, people still didn’t trust him. Some even believed he had ordered the fire started, especially after he used land cleared by the fire to build his Golden Palace and its surrounding pleasure gardens. Nero himself blamed the Christians (then an obscure religious sect) for the fire, and had many arrested and executed. But while Nero may have been guilty of many things, the story of him fiddling while Rome burned belongs firmly in the category of popular legend rather than established truth.”
quoted from the History Channel site
It is tattoo Tuesday:
Firearms, fibers, any news or behaviors that make me say, "hmm, let me take another look at this."
I still miss my man, but my aim is getting better.
Gunsmoke and Knitting 