Steve and Judy's Travels!

It’s not uncommon for people to not like the way they look in photographs.  They’re fine with how everyone else looks, but they’re just not happy with their own appearance, even when everyone else tells them they look good.

Turns out there is a solid reason for this.  How we see other people is not the same as how we see ourselves.  People are not symmetrical.  One side of a face looks different from the other.  We see everybody else as they actually are.  We only see ourselves when we’re looking in a mirror.  We think we look like the mirror image of ourselves and when we see the true picture, it doesn’t resonate.  Amazing but true!

We’ve tried turning the television volume up to “way too loud”, and bought sound bars enhanced for dialog.  It can still be hard to follow all the speech on television though, ranging from “doesn’t matter” like football games, to “impossible” for British programs.  I’m okay with normal programs, but it’s a little harder for Judy.  We have a couple wireless Bose headsets that help a lot, but still not quite enough for Judy when characters are speaking in British.

Judy’s latest hearing aids however, have a cool feature.  They can be set to Bluetooth the television sound right into the hearing aids.  That works!  Clear and understandable.  The only drawback is that if the sound is beaming right into Judy’s head, and still audible from the television, there is a slight lag which makes the sound unintelligible for her again.  If she is watching television by herself, no problem.  If I’m in the room too, I don’t hear anything.  Except, we still have the Bose headsets.  Turning down the sound in the room for the television doesn’t affect the sound in the headset, so Judy tunes the sound to her hearing aids (controlling them with an app on her smartphone), we turn off the sound in the room from the television, and I put on the headset.  Now we get to watch our new favorite British crime program, New Tricks, and understand every word. 

(If you were going to ask, our British discovery is a lot like the old series of “The Closer”, or “Major Crimes” solving crimes.  Nice ensemble.  A collection of characters we always enjoy dropping in on, and bonus, it goes on for 12 seasons!)

A butterfly kind of day.

Queens, on milkweed.

I imagine that someday I’ll repeat that backpacking trip brother Bill and I did all those years ago.  The second day in, we rounded a corner and unexpectedly came upon The Eagle, a feature in the Indian Peaks Wilderness that I had never heard of and wasn’t expecting.  It took my breath away.  We camped on the edge of a high-country lake at the foot of The Eagle, Lone Eagle Peak, that night as the only campers there.

(Not my photo, but it captures the spirit.)

In the occasional moment of lucidity, I consider that carrying a backpack over steep terrain at high altitude to spend the night at a remote backcountry lake may actually be a little beyond my remaining capacity.  The trailhead is at 10,000 feet.  Pawnee Pass is 12,500.  Lone Eagle Peak is on the other side.

But then I think “Naah.  I could still do this!”

Remember I sent out those pictures last February of a freshly planted orchard of citrus trees in bags.  Rio red grapefruit trees.

Those bags look like a lot of extra work, putting one on every tree to protect them from harsh heat, freezes, and probably from insects too.  They seem to be working.  These trees look like they’re developing really well.

But at some point isn’t enough enough?  These trees are about to burst their bags!

What is it going to take for the orchard owners to let them out?  A public outcry?  Do we have to demonstrate on the street (dirt road)? 

Free the fruit trees!