tekchic

After using Blogger for over six years, I’ve decided to move over to WordPress. I’ve been using it for several other sites and just love its features, plug-ins, and customizability.

I’m currently taking a backup of my entire domain (I have years of old stuff on there, sketches, animations, books, etc).

I’m also moving my hosting from PowWeb who I’ve been with for over ten years, and switching to GoDaddy. All of my other domains are hosted there, so it’ll be nice to finally have everything in one single control panel.

I’m also hoping that the move to WordPress will encourage me to blog a little more as well. It just started feeling stale using Blogger, and I found ways to avoid blogging (such as tweeting way too much for one).

That being said, since I’m transferring my hosting as well, my email and site might be down awhile. I’m hoping for a super short downtime, but meanwhile, please use my tekchic @ gmail dot com email address if you need to get something to me quickly.

Looking forward to posting some of the art I’ve been working soon on as well as some pieces for a new novel. And of course all the usual about what hikes we’ve been on, what restaurants we’ve been craving, and what musicals I’m dying to see…

I’m not disappearing, just coming back new and improved!

The clue was “A butterfly’s wings” and answer was “alae”. Had to look this one up. Dictionary says:

The blogosphere has been busy the past few days about Sony announcing that they’re going to start selling their ebooks in open ePub format. This has caused a lot of people to focus on “ePub” itself and acting like this is new for Sony. I wanted to do a quick blog entry to clear up the fact that Sony has supported ePub format since shortly after releasing the Sony Reader PRS-505 (the second-generation Sony Reader) almost two years ago.

The reason this suddenly became news is because Sony will now going to change the ebooks they sell in their Sony eBook Store from the old *.lrf format to this new open ePub format. This is fantastic, because now it means I could potentially read the same book on both my iPhone (using Stanza eReader app) and Sony Reader. I carry my iPhone everywhere, but I don’t tote my Sony Reader around with me as much anymore, even though it’s a better reading platform. Now I’d be able to work my way through the same novel whether I’m standing in line at the grocery store or curled up at home in my La-Z-Boy chair.

A largely overlooked benefit to the Sony Reader is that it also supports the Adobe Digital Edition books format. This is a biggie for me, because it means that if my Phoenix Digital Library has a copy in this format, I can check out the book, download it to my Sony Reader PRS-505, and I’m reading new releases on my Sony Reader for free.

Barnes and Noble has also tossed their hat into the ebook sale ring. All of this new competition is great for ebook fans because it now gives us a choice of where we purchase ebooks (provided they truly all go open format down the line). If I don’t mind reading the book on my iPhone exclusively, I can compare prices between the BN ebook store and Amazon and buy the ebook from the cheapest retailer. The fact that both offer iPhone reading apps (neither as good as Stanza, but competent enough to get through a novel) means that I can shop for the lowest ebook price and send my dollars to the cheapest. My dream is that all ebook merchants go open ePub format which would allow readers to read on their hardware of choice rather than proprietary Amazon Kindle / Sony Reader configurations. They did it for mp3’s, it’s time to do it for ebooks!

(Disclosure: I’ve owned both the Sony Reader PRS-500 and the Sony Reader PRS-505, and have been reading ebooks since my first Palm Pilot Professional back in 1997. I bought both my Readers outright, I’m not employed by Sony or anything, hehe, I’m just a rabid ebook advocate).

Seeing the ISS (International Space Station) fly directly overhead tonight gave me goosebumps — I was so excited! It would be such a neat experience to see the shuttle (or whatever it becomes in the future) launch in person at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

It got me thinking about what other great life experiences I want to have before I “kick the bucket”. So, here’s my Bucket List. I’ll probably add and edit this one as I go along. I don’t really think they’re in any particular order.

Bucket List

1. Ride in a hot air balloon
2. Visit India and see the Taj Mahal
3. Visit Japan and eat fugu (blowfish)
4. Take an Alaskan cruise
5. Sing the national anthem at a game
6. Publish at least one novel
7. Play in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (and not suck!)
8. Be able to hike down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon
9. See the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)
10. Learn to speak (and read) Japanese
11. See the shuttle launch in person

What’s on your “Bucket List”?

This fourth of July found us in Grand Tier seats at ASU Gammage for the Broadway musical, Wicked. Having waited over a year for the touring company to come through Phoenix, it was difficult to contain my excitement. I had it marked on my calendar in big black Sharpie letters and eyeballed it every so often wishing I could port myself to July 4th.

We arrived around 7pm for the 7:30pm curtain. Normally, arriving at the door a half-hour before curtain gives us plenty of time to get to our seats, relax, and read the Playbill. Not so this time. Wicked’s immense popularity had us parking at the far garage complex rather than the main parking lot. For both Annie and Lion King, arriving 30-40 minutes ahead of curtain was no problem to park in the main lot. Note taken — when we go to see “Phantom”, I think we’ll try to arrive even earlier than usual.

We still made it to our seats about 20 minutes before curtain, even though I was walking in heels. (This girl is much more at-home in hiking boots than pumps.) Here’s a pic of the stage with the large dragon at the top that flapped its wings and had red glowing eyes…

Wicked is essentially a tale about the witches of Oz — the “Wicked Witch of the West” named Elphaba, her sister, Nessarose, and of course Glinda “The Good Witch”. It’s based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, to which I admit trying desperately to like but ended up losing interest halfway through. The musical was so much better than the novel. Also having had the soundtrack to Wicked for about six months, I was familiar with much of the story and knew the music almost by heart.

The musical had something for everyone, with humor, a brilliant orchestra, and wonderful vocal talent. It was great to see families bringing their children to the theater. I would have liked to see people wearing slightly more formal attire — there were a lot of people in shorts and t-shirts! I believe in bringing theater to the masses, but shorts and t-shirts? Surely some could have dressed it up a little after paying nearly $100 a ticket to see the show. But I digress.

The cast was magnificent. Elphaba’s “bite” and attitude was crisp and likeable, and Glinda’s “Miss Popular” demeanor kept the audience in stitches and really stole the show. Timing on unexpected quips like, “There’s no place like home”, really lent a comedic “inside joke” vibe to the performance. Wicked was a treat for both eyes and ears, as the entire stage was used — flying monkeys, Glinda’s floating bubble, the Great Oz speaking through his Rube Goldberg-like contraption.

Wonderful evening, brilliant cast and orchestra, fantastic musical. Absolutely a must-see if it ever comes through your town or if you’re visiting The Great White Way in New York City!

Our Mogollon Rim trip last Memorial Day weekend was cancelled because of the unusual amount of rain we had over the weekend. So instead, we hiked pretty close to home (almost an hour’s drive away).

Here are pics from Wind Cave Trail at Usery State Park.

The hike was almost 3 miles round trip, I think. It sure seemed a lot further than that, but we hung in there. It was a pretty easy grade trail with moderate switchbacks. There were a few spots where Joe had to jump up or down a rock to get to the next part of the trail, but all in all, pretty manageable.

The “cave” at the top is really more of a big notch with lots of tiny crevasses and thousands of bees who have made a hive out of it all. I might not have hiked to the top had I known this, but at least the bees weren’t aggressive, and they didn’t seem to mind us sitting down for five minutes to catch our breath.

Fun hike!

Good old Arizona and its mysterious objects floating in the sky! Took Joe for a walk on Monday evening around 7pm. The sun was setting, and it was still about 100 degrees but much more tolerable than it was at 5:30pm when I got home. I saw something in the sky that looked like a planet — only much, much larger. It didn’t twinkle like a star, it was a constant glow like a planet.

I hurried our walk a bit and we rushed home so I could grab some binoculars. Chuck and I went outside and focused in on the object, which was not moving at all, and was still glowing. We looked closer and saw something like a clear bubble that wasn’t perfectly round, but was reflecting the sun around its edges. WHAT on Earth *is* that thing? The picture below is much closer than what the general public saw. What we saw looked like a clear plastic bubble, almost like transportation for “Glinda the Good Witch of Oz”.

We went back inside the house and started our Google-Fu and found that we weren’t the only ones seeing the strange object in the sky… here are a few links:

Mysterious Object in Sky Identified
UFO Chronicles – Mysterious Object No Mystery

It was a weather balloon belonging to NASA! It was the first time either of us had seen a high atmosphere weather balloon, which was estimated to be around 400 feet in diameter and can go as high as 120,000 feet into the atmosphere. Exciting!

Here’s where you can track where the balloons land even! This one landed somewhere in Kingman, Arizona.

Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility

Yet another fine Arizona adventure!

Been on a bit of a crossword kick lately. Discovered how difficult the New York Times crosswords can be (towards the end of the week) and decided that it’d be a worthy brain challenge. So far I’ve been doing the Monday thru Wednesday puzzles — I’ve been too chicken to attempt late-week puzzles. I look at the speeds of the crossword tournament players and they have these ridiculously fast times like three minutes for a Monday. My best Monday so far clocks in at thirteen minutes. YIKES!

Anyway, it’s been a nice relaxing (occasionally frustrating) thing to do after dinner or before bed, so I’m having fun with it. I’ve been doing crosswords since I was probably seven or eight from Dell Puzzles or Games Magazine. Clues in the New York Times puzzles are just savory in their difficulty. I go back to my old Dell crossword magazines that I hadn’t filled in and just slam through those puzzles now.

Lately I’ve gotten into finishing the NYT crossword for the day and then reading either Rex or Amy’s blogs to see what they thought of it. It’s fun to commiserate on clues that I thought were ridiculous or unfair.

Here are links to their great Crossword blogs:

Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Diary of a Crossword Fiend

We both got iPhones recently. Absolutely addicted to the thing. Wasn’t interested in one until the App Store started exploding with brilliant apps (uh, and games too)

My favorite apps: iMafia, New York Times Crossword puzzle app, Flight Control (oh shoot…those are all games). And Pandora. There — one fave app that isn’t a game.

We also adopted a wonderful German Shepherd named JoJo (we call him Joe). He’s four and a half years old, and was a Eye Dog Foundation candidate. At a year old, he was adopted out of the program because he didn’t track straight due to a shoulder issue. We adopted him from my boss and just love him to bits. Great dog — goes for his morning and evening walks, but when we’re home at night, he just snoozes on his dog bed or on the cool tile. Calmest dog I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning, that’s for sure.

Here’s a blurry pic of him (took it on my cellphone):

He’s wonderful company and since having him, I’ve been walking about a mile and a half a day minimum, so he’s keeping me super fit!

In other news, it’s going to be a killer Broadway season here in Phoenix. ASU Gammage Theatre is showing Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, In the Heights, Avenue Q, and *drum roll*… Legally Blonde! I’m so excited — we got our tickets for Wicked last night, so we’re set for a Saturday night date in July. For the rest of the Broadway shows, I think we’re going to buy season passes this year since there were so many of them we wanted to check out.

Starting to heat up here in the 623. Had a few 100 degree days this week but it’s going back to normal which is mid-eighties for the highs during April. *Almost* time to open up the pool for the summer!

Cavalia was magical. It was held under a massive “big top” white tent in Scottsdale. I had no idea what kind of seats we had until we got to the front and went to a separate line. We were handed a program and then a “backstage pass” with a lanyard. Then we were led to our seats. Literally front row and center — I had to remember to close my hanging jaw. Not only that, but the lanyard and pass gave us access after the show to meet the horses and riders in Cavalia. My fantastic husband must have had to pull some strings to get those incredible seats

We sat there waiting for the show to start — the dirt stage stretched out in front of us, no more than six feet away. There were a bunch of toy horses littering the stage, some with spotlights on them, others looked like antique beloved rocking horses. The lights finally dimmed and the show began with two young horses trotting out and weaving their way around the toy horses. They stood around for a minute or so, and then trotted across the stage to the opposite exit. Then the human performers came out, each grabbing their favorite toy horse, and the music and show began.

Trying to describe the show is difficult. Imagine a Cirque du Soleil performance, with the whimsy, playfulness, grace, and acrobatics — then add in horses mere feet in front of you galloping full-bore across the stage from one end to the other. The music was incredible — there were live performers essentially built into the back part of the stage, invisible to the audience except when the sheer cloth covering that area was lit to reveal them as they played. The acts consisted of humans doing acrobatics, either balancing on a huge “swiss ball” or flying through the air as trapezists with silk cloths wrapped around their limbs.

Then the horse acts… they were wonderful. There were dressage numbers where gorgeous, thick-necked PRE’s (Pura Raza Espanola) horses and riders performed dressage to music. The flowing costumes draped over the back of the horses and made the horses and riders look like a single unit. Then the Roman and trick riding where they galloped full speed while standing on the backs of two horses, one foot on each. Then acrobatic riding where a man on a stallion did dressage while his partner flew on silk clothes above him and straight out into the audience. The performances were spectacular and we watched with rapt attention. Tissue paper leaves fell from the sky and scattered through the stage and the audience. We were showered with snow bubbles that clung to our eyelashes before they melted away without leaving a trace. It was an absolutely brilliant show.