Gotta love the internet!

While I was trying to avoid preparing for lecture tomorrow, I found this article on the internet.

At first, I thought “How cool is that?!?” A friend across the ocean that you’ve never met in person diagnosed a rare form of cancer from a simple snapshot of your baby. Now that is a true friend!

Apparently, this online friend noticed a white splotch or shadow (can a shadow be white?) in the eye. This friend must be a scientist (at heart at least) because instead of thinking that it was just a bad photo, she did some research and found out that this might be one of the signs of retinoblastoma, a potentially fatal form of eye cancer. A fast trip to the doctor determined that this was the case. Now, thankfully, the baby will probably live (with the unfortunate nickname of Cyclops or something else cruel that only kids can come up with).

But this story, coupled with my own experiences in the ER this weekend, made be start thinking. Will there be a day when we are forced to diagnose our own illnesses? Now that WebMD is available to anyone with an internet connection, will doctors expect patients to come in with a preliminary diagnosis? As HMOs start to regulate more and more of a doctor’s time, will this be thought of as a time saving device and those with a self-diagnosis will have higher priorities in the waiting room that those without one?

Before Jim and I left the house, we both spent a few minutes on WebMD, reading up on appendicitis (my self diagnosis). We weren’t convinced, but there were too many convergent signs. After several blood draws, a few more exams, way too many recitations of my symptoms and sixty-eleven reassurances that I don’t need any pain medication the doctors still don’t know why it hurts when I poke myself in the stomach.

Of course, because there is no diagnosis, it means that I will probably spend more and more time on WebMD and talking to doctors in inappropriate venues trying to figure out what possibly might be the problem. But hopefully before all of that happens, the pain will go away and we’ll forget all about this!

_______________________________________________________

Project 365 - No. 6 (August 27, 2008)

Because we were gone until the end of June, I didn’t get a chance to put in tomatoes. But I was very happy to see that I had some volunteers! This is the first set of tomatoes that are coming ripe in the garden this year. They are pretty late this year so I probably won’t get that many. In the foreground is a leaf of the basil that I planted. Now all I need is a mozzarella plant and I’ll be good!

Project 365 - No. 7 (August 28, 2009)

This is the view from my bedroom window. Indi is on her string and straining to get over to the tree. I don’t know what was so exciting about it. The trees are both oaks. Did you know that deer like oak? A lot. The one on the left is one that I planted last fall. The deer ate the branches over the winter. The only leaves that came back were at the base of the tree. Before I could get out there are fence it off, the deer ate all of the new leaves. They grew back. Then the deer ate them again. They grew back, again. I figured at this point that there might be something special about the tree and decided to fence it off too.

On a side note - I’m not sure how well this Project 365 thing is going to work. I forget to pull the camera out while I’m at work and so have to find something during the evening at home. There are only so many pictures that I can take of my house…

Radio Star!

The report appeared on the radio! Jim wasn’t kidding when he said it was only a few seconds, but it was so cool when they said his name on the radio. I got chills.

http://www.environmentreport.org/story.php3?story_id=4142

Here’s the link for those of you that want to hear the story. Just a word of warning - the reporter got it all wrong. The catalyst generates oxygen, not hydrogen. Why is this important? Jim tried to get her to correct the report before it went out, but he didn’t have any luck. He was pretty bummed, but I’m still super excited to know that my husband was on the radio!

_____________________________________________

I spent some time a week or so ago stalking the hummingbirds again. This time I set up at a different window. It really funny; last year, I had feeders at the same window, but the humming birds would only visit the one in the back. This year, they love the front feeder. They empty it about twice as fast as the one in the back. Strange.

Anyway, this time, I decided to go for the one in the back. The light is better, but the curtain thing wasn’t working quite as well as the front window. So instead, I turned the chair around and hid behind the back rest. I think it worked just as good. Plus it was much more comfortable.

I love the look on this guys face. Claire asked me about the spray on the window, was it raining? Nope, just dirty windows. So I cleaned the windows inside and out (man were they filthy) and went back to my hiding place to see about catching some more shots.

I also played around with the setting on the camera. Instead of using the Auto setting, I changed the ISO to 1600. It is a faster “film speed”, but the picture is pretty grainy. I like it though because it didn’t need the flash with the faster speed. I also adjusted the color balance, using the “cloudy” setting. I’m not sure what it does, but I like the colors that it gave. They are much truer to the colors outside.

Enough with the talking, more photos!

You can see how changing the film speed really lets you capture the wings! Pretty grainy, so I might try to play around with lower speeds the next time I stalk the hummingbirds. I didn’t zoom too tight on that photo either. Our camera has a digital zoom and for this one, I tried to make sure that it wasn’t engaged. I think that it made a big different in the quality of the photo. I went into Photoshop and cropped a lot of the window frame out the photo. I got rid of a lot of boring stuff out of the photo, but didn’t lose quality.

The window is cleaner, but you can see in the next photo, it isn’t great…

I think this is the male still, just the colors were a little washed out.

Anyway, fun with photography. It’s a hobby, so expect to see more! (Feel free to ignore all of the technical stuff if you want to.)

What to my wondering eyes should appear…

But two tiny little deer!

I was looking out the window one morning and these two little fawns went tripping across the backyard. They were so stinking cute. I didn’t have the heart to run out back and chase them away. I know that in about two months I’ll be regretting this because those little suckers will be eating all of my flowers, but they were so cute!! They still had their white spots and everything.

I love this next photo. It really makes me laugh. But no one else seems to think it is nearly as funny as I do. This photo is one of the reasons that I have started carrying Jim’s camera around with my everywhere. You just never know what you are going to see:

Yes. I stop and take photos of other people’s trash cans, especially when they killed Barney and are trying to get rid of the evidence.

Random Italy Photos

I’ve been procrastinating with these photos because I don’t want it to be over! There are still some more to post, don’t worry. I’ll probably dole those out in small pieces, not to keep you in suspense, but because I’m not ready to become mundane. I was looking through the photos tonight and it was making me a little sad. But enough with the moping. Time for some photos!

One photo that I never posted from Sicily. It is the reason that I would go back to the resort.

That’s right, Prosecco on tap!! I’m not sure that the way he is pouring it is best for the bubbles, but prosecco on tap!! I want one for my house. Jim is thinking about getting a wine cellar stubbed in in the basement; I want Prosecco on tap.

We couldn’t leave without getting some photos of our favorite place in Florence, Le Volpi e L’uva (The Fox and the Grapes). It is the most amazing little wine bar.

There are some outdoor tables and room for about ten people inside. After the first couple of weeks, we would call earlier in the day and make a reservation for a table outdoors. It is one of the things that I really miss about Italy: eating outside. Some friends came to visit today, and I took them to the same place that I took them to last time: The Taproom. It’s the only place close that has outdoor seating in the summer. I love to eat outside!

We love wine!! We’re all happy, but it is our last day together in Florence, so a little sad too!

The place has an amazing wine list, that is constantly changing.

They specialize in small, out of the way wineries with great values in wine. Most of the glasses cost between 3-4 euro each. (Of course, that’s about 6 bucks now, but it is still a pretty good deal.) We tried to taste everything that they had on the list. If there was something new that we had never heard of, we had to have that! They also make cheese plates and the most amazing crostini. Our favorite was sausage and cheese. YUM!!

Our last dinner in Florence was with the University of Florence contingent. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but we had the hardest time finding it. It was by Pitti Palace, but it took us a good 15 minutes to finally find it. It was good, with lots of traditional foods. We started with Fritto Misti (Mixed fried stuff, hard to turn down), and I think Jim had a truffle pasta and I can’t even remember what I had.

We tried to get a picture of everyone but honestly, photographing Italians is like herding cats:

We took about four photos but all of them are bad. Either people aren’t looking at the camera, they are chopped out or making funny faces. This is best.

From the left: Dante’s wife (cut out, but an amazing cook), Andrea Dei (he was our host), Roberta Sessoli (really smart and super nice), Jim, me, Dante Gatteschi (lots of fun and also really smart), Andrea’s wife, Andrea Caneschi (runs the group in Florence).

We miss you all!!

__________________________

Thinking about going to Florence? I got two books for you:

Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King - talks about how the dome was constructed. Very interesting!

The Agony and Ecstacy by Irving Stong - amazing book about Michelangelo. I wish that I had read this before going. I think I would have seen his sculptures and art in a new light. Long but I couldn’t put it down, especially the first half. I think he ran out of steam for the second half. But the second half is mostly about Rome, so who really wants to read that if you are going to Florence?

A Day at the Pool

I have to admit that lava was pretty much the high point of the Italy trip. But there were some other pretty cool things. And then there were the random things. One day by the pool in Sicily was a little bit of both. Cool and random.

Random first.

I spent a lot of my time in Sicily sitting by the pool. Reading, working on the blog or just sitting. One day, I was engrossed in getting a post done when some action at the pool caught my attention:

Scuba lessons in the pool. I guess they have to learn somewhere and the big scary ocean isn’t the best place for a newbie to go under for the first time. But two things really caught my eye.

One - the guy on the side of the pool, gesticulating wildly. Teacher? Cheerleader? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the teacher to be in the pool with them? I guess I don’t have a lot of confidence in an scuba instructor who doesn’t have the breathing apparatus on. Does he really know how it works?

Two - The camera crew. I agree, people scuba diving in a pool is unusual. It was salt water, but come on. Is there really anything interesting on the bottom? I can see the bottom, without actually getting in the water.

I don’t know what they were doing, but one of the pool critters (of which there seemed to be more and more every day that we were there) thought they were great fun.

Trust me here, the little girl is riding on the back of one of the scuba divers. Either that or using her arm floaties to help pull him to safety. I’m betting on the latter.

Pretty soon, the scuba divers were out of the pool and on there way to the next site. Maybe an aquarium in town?

Anyway, I stayed by the pool, because where there is one random event, there tend to be a few more to follow it up. I wasn’t disappointed. Again, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.

What is that? It kind of looks like a palm frond, but I think it is a boat. It sailed up out of no where and all of a sudden several boats from the hotel raced out to meet it. For the next 40 minutes or so, it raced back and forth in front of the hotel beach, practicing tacking I think.

It was really cool. One of the conference goers said that it looked like an old Americas’ Cup race boat. Maybe the Italy team was practicing for the upcoming race? (Disclaimer here: I don’t know jack about sailing. Is “tacking” the the right word for turning? Are there teams in the Americas’ Cup that aren’t associated with either of the Americas? I make it up as I go along.)

When they were in the middle of a turn, the crew on the boat would go mad cranking this hand crank:

You can kind of see them in a row, hand pedaling away. I think a friend called it a coffee grinder, but I don’t remember.

I took lots of pictures, because it was so very cool. This I think is the best one of the lot:

It needs a little cropping, but what picture doesn’t?

Some people would say that watching the boat out there would make them want to take up sailing, but from what I saw, it was a lot of work for the crew. I wouldn’t mind riding on the boat, but up near the front. Not at the back where they might need help turning something.