Does your workplace have one of these?

I bet it does not!


Isn't it ... um ... charming? Cute? Funny? Something? I mean, I know some companies have fountains outside, but I haven't seen any others that are quite like this one.

But of course the main attraction is the rubber ducks:


There's only one duck in there at the moment, which is kind of unusual. Normally there's at least two of three of them, swimming around in the little pond of a fountain. The ducks do have a tendency to get knocked over onto their sides by the water stream, but this one looks cheery enough so far.

Of course, the fountain just got turned on for the season this past Monday (a very exciting event I can promise you), so we'll see how it holds up over the course of the summer.

Maybe other companies can put in little duck fountains in front of their entryways, too!

Too strong for its own good

Anyone know what these things are actually called?


When you're in the hospital and people need to monitor your vitals, they stick these things on your skin and attach snap-on cords that lead to heartbeat monitors and whatever else. Electrodes, maybe?

Anyhow, the adhesive they use on those things is sick -- I had five of them on my torso from my hospital adventures last month, and it took days for it to even be possible to pull them off. Why do they have to use such nasty glue? And don't get me started about the tape they use to secure IVs to your arm. I saw stars for a good minute when the nice nurse yanked it, along with about four layers of skin.

Contrast that with the very gentle tape we used on the actors at the theater, to secure their body mikes to their neck and ear. If anything, that tape could have been a bit stickier, because there were a few times when I could see that the cords were coming loose and I had to re-tape them during intermission.

Someone backstage even made some crack about using hospital tape instead of this mild stuff. Ha! Right. Well, the cords definitely would stay in place through a show, that's for sure. And hey, you'd know when the actors were taking their mikes off at the end of the show -- from all the screaming!

Yeesh ...

Turtles!

We're having a very nice, summer-like weekend, and yesterday afternoon I was walking on the bike path that passes next to a nature preserve. I saw this fellow crossing right across the bike path:


By the time I'd gotten my camera, he'd hoofed it off the path and was halfway down the embankment of the other side. Those snapping turtles can move if they want to, and I guess he didn't like the attention.

Then, just a couple hundred yards later was this little pond, and I saw these guys having a sunbathe:


I liked watching them crawl in and out of the water and onto their nice sunny logs.

I do like watching for birds, too, but turtles and frogs are my favorites.

Look at all the pretty buttons!

This is what I have to deal with whenever I do "sound op" work at a theater:


For the show I'm working on right now, I only have ten channels to worry about. The show is a musical so a lot of the actors have body mikes, and each row on the board is all about one of them. So I have to know when each person is entering and exiting, when they talk, when they sing (and with whom!), and where they are on the stage when they do said singing (because if they go upstage, they'll need more volume, but not too much more because there's a monitor speaker for the band near there and it could cause feedback). I follow along in the script and watch the stage and try not to miss anything!

It's kind of daunting sometimes but once I relax and get to know the show, it's actually kind of fun.

Of course, all of these people need to have an actual body microphone attached to them, and that's a bit of a process, but we do that in the green room before the show. Luckily the cast members in this show are pretty cool and do most of the fastening themselves, and I just have to tape the little mike securely behind their ear.

So that's what this weekend is all about for me -- body mikes and monitors and sound balancing.

Happy Easter!

I wonder if the Whopper Robin Eggs would make a good cereal topping ...

Mmmm ...

I never thought I'd see this here ...

Seen in the international foods aisle ...


Now, okay. I've been to England lots of times, and in all fairness, the desserts there are fantastic. And I have heard of this particular ... delicacy before. I'm sure it's delicious. But seriously. "And would you like some lovely spotted dick for dessert?" Um, whoa.

I mean, I can handle the steak-and-mint, pickled-ham, or chicken-and-mint flavored potato chips (I mean crisps), I love a good sticky toffee pudding, and I won't leave the country without a big package of Skips.

But this one seems to be where I draw the line.

Seeing it in the grocery aisle here was definitely a surprise! I'd never known it came in cans like that, and made by Heinz no less!

And maybe I'm way off base here, but I have a sneaking suspicion those two cans won't exactly fly off the shelves.

Things to do while convalescing

Anyone remember construction toys called Googolplex? Each set gives you a bunch of plastic squares, triangles, and pentagons, plus hinges to clip them together. I don't think they're made anymore, and actually I think the main problem with them was how tough it is on the fingers to take things apart. Tugging off those hinges really tenderizes the fingertips!

But they're still fun to play with, and I hadn't gotten them out in awhile. So I got reacquainted with my Archimedean solids (doesn't everyone do that once in awhile?).

Like the rhombicuboctahedron ...


The icosidodecahedron (sporting the attractive frame covers) ...


And, the big one, the rhombicosidodecahedron.


And of course, a little homage to the starship Enterprise ...


What? It looks like it, a little. Kinda?