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Kansas

Midway USA. We’re on our way back to Colorado. Stopped for the night in Goodland, Kansas.http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107013362562471418011.00047964b60d16d130156&z=5 The birds have been a little different for us here. Ring-necked Pheasant, Brown Thrashers, Dickcissels, Baltimore Orioles, and Red-headed Woodpeckers. Here is our Kansas list:

Ring-necked Pheasant
Turkey Vulture
Swainson’s Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Killdeer
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Red-headed Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Western Kingbird
Eastern Kingbird
Horned Lark
Cliff Swallow
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Dickcissel
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Common Grackle
Great-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
House Finch
House Sparrow

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Computers

We got a new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite. It’s big for a laptop but that’s okay, I don’t really have to carry it much. Mostly I pick it up and put it on the floor while we’re traveling, then put it back on the table when we’re stopped. Windows 7 operating system. 64 bit processor. It boots up, opens programs, and shuts down in seconds. The screen is big enough to open two windows side by side. The keyboard is big enough to include a 10 key pad. I love it.

(I guess that’s not a good picture. Mostly it just shows glare off the ceiling. Really, it’s a very nice screen.)

We don’t have everything loaded onto the new computer yet, so I have to use the old and new computers side by side for a little longer. I’m used to using two screens, so I catch myself trying to move objects from one screen together when they aren’t actually connected.
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Truth varies

  We may think of ourselves in static terms; as having certain characteristics or not; of having certain abilities or not.  That may not be the case.   I’ve had a realization; something even more profound than figuring out why I have that callus on the tip of my left thumb.  When I was a kid, I had calluses just like this on the tips of all four of my left fingers.  I played guitar.  Now, all these years later, the fingertip calluses are long gone and I have one callus on a digit that never touched a guitar string.  A mystery.  It’s not painful and doesn’t interfere with my life in any way, but it’s a mystery.  Or it was…   I’ve been paying attention to what I do.  I figured it out.  Since we live and work from the beach, I only wear shorts.  Whichever shorts I wear, I only use one belt.  The belt is a little odd and requires I hold the buckle at a certain angle when I thread it.  Holding the buckle at that angle requires a tiny repetitive pressure right on the tip of that thumb!  Mystery solved!   But the more important realization is that not each day is the same.  I get this from Sudoku.  Judy’s brother-in-law John introduced me to Sudoku.  It’s his fault.  There is a 9 by 9 grid of squares (divided into 9 blocks of 3×3) with some of the numbers filled in.  The challenge is to fill in the numbers in the rest of the squares without duplicating a number in any row, column, or block.  Simple.  When we got the ITouch for its birding program we discovered we could download a Sudoku program too.  The ITouch Sudoku is good. There are four skill levels to choose from for every game.  The Easy and Medium levels can be solved every time by applying a few simple logic steps.  The Difficult and Extreme levels require more than that.  They require cognitive leaps, beyond simple patterns, to solve the game without guessing.   I progressed past the simpler levels of Sudoku to the more challenging ones, then one day I discovered I could solve them all!  Extreme Sudoku.  No match for me.  I mastered the game.  But to my surprise, a few days later, I discovered that I got stuck every time I tried a game above the skill level of Medium.  My mind was not leaping effortlessly, creating patterns to solutions that day.  Since then I’ve found that some days are better than others.  Some days the mental acuity is there and some days it is not.  Mental acuity is not a constant.   Life is shades of gray.  Categories and labels are our shorthand for dealing with life, but no-one is all good or all bad; always smart never stupid.  We all have our talents.  We all have our shortcomings.  And even at that, it all varies from day to day or even moment to moment!     Today we’re comfortable in Kansas; in Wa Keeney at 2,200 feet.   http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107013362562471418011.00047964b60d16d130156&z=5   Hot this afternoon, then thunderstorm warnings.  Tornado warnings.  It’s raining.  Lightning all around.   Glad to be here.    
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Limon

  We left Grand Junction and stopped at Rifle for a quick visit with Janis and Brian.  We drove on and crossed the divide without incident.  We stopped at Chatfield for a quick visit with Matt and the boys.  We drove on to Limon in time for dinner.   So here we are, out on the Colorado plains. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107013362562471418011.00047964b60d16d130156&z=5   We’re doing much better than our brother Tom, who is making negative progress right now.  He only briefly made it as far north as Corpus Christi.  Now he’s fifteen miles from home. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109311542386358702480.000487c2576b23e261ef3&ll=27.215556,-98.085937&spn=32.952553,78.662109&z=4   Yesterday we saw two golden eagles, one bald eagle, a red-tailed hawk, an American kestrel, and two peregrine falcons.