Tea stain designs

As a daily Black tea drinker this development in tea cup and mug surface design is a stroke of brilliance. Naturally the breakthrough occured in England, a country that takes is tea drinking to a proper extreame. Artist Bethan Laura Wood created the process that reveals the stain designs overtime.

from her site:

Stain is a set of a teacups designed to improve through use. This project examines the assumption that use is damaging to a product (For example, scratches on an iPod).The interior surface of the cup is treated so as to stain more in predetermined places. The more the cups are used, the more the pattern is revealed. Over time they will build up an individual pattern dependent on the users personal way of drinking tea.

When Marine Mammals Attack

Yesterday I was out on the deck of the condo and had been watching some bottlenose swimming pretty close to the beach. I figured I should at least get some film of the fins swimming by but as the camera was rolling the casual finning along the beach turned to a scene of death.

Dolphin Attack movie

And here is some file footage I took in the San Juan islands, on San Juan island a couple years ago with Shawn and some friends. Had to add it here because it is of the bottlenose dolphin's big brother.

Orcas below movie

We return home tomorrow with sorry. The trip was way to quick and the weather could have been much better. There are actual freeze warnings just inland of the island we are on.

Four more weeks of light at night this year.

At 2 a.m. on March 11, groggy Americans will turn their clocks forward one hour, marking the beginning of Daylight Saving Time (DST).At 2 a.m. on October 29, groggy Americans will turn their clocks back one hour, marking the end of Daylight Saving Time (DST).-->
The federal law that established "daylight time" in this country does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe DST, it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law. From 1986 to 2006 this has been the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October, but starting in 2007, it will be observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, adding about a month to daylight saving time. (See: New Federal Law.)

Footages of Florida

Tortuga nesting season
Originally uploaded by spappyjones.

As promised here are some vids of the action taking place over the course of the trip thus far:

Part 1 :Ben's 1st flight

Part 2: Swimming Lessons, Beach tour and Breakfast

Warm and humid currently 76F and 96% humidity, I like it. Ben is napping and we are about to hit the beach for a walk.

My Pops is in Logan (Bos) trying to get clearance for take-off. Looks like they are holding most or all of the flights in "delay" status. We will see if the poor guy ever gets here. Serves him right for choosing work over a planned family gig.

Not much else to report just eating plenty and taking some naps. May go swimming later. That is what it is like around here in phase 2 of Sanibel Arms West.

Sunday then Monday

Sunday
Originally uploaded by spappy_jones.

Sunday we awoke to very nice skys and sun. Instead of hitting the beach we had a notion we would hit some stores and get some stuff we didn't feel like packing in our luggage, like a kid carrier\backpack and a booster seat for eating around the house\condo. We figured we could get them both at the local Walmart about 15 miles away. Well that was a mistake. Just like Seattle, everyone and their mother is out and about on a Sunday with no sports on TV.

WallyWorld had one of the main things we were looking for, also some pretty good water sports gear for kids and adults but not the kid carrier so we had to go up to Target where I proceeded to take a bag of cookies off the shelf, because I hadn't eaten yet, and walk around the store looking for the carrier, by the time I ran into Shawn the bag was pretty much gone and I didn't find the carrier thing. So we went deeper into the traffic to Burlington Coat Factory Outlet where we were blessed with a returned carrier that was in the box and about 40 bucks, but we had to return to target where we had left my sister, so back through the congestion, red light after red light to target. To make a long story longer we found her then had to go to another strip mall\plaza to look for a battery charger for her phone only to find the cingular store didn't have a charger because "the phone was too new. Ahh the south.
Also we realized we should have hit the beach and gone today while it was cloudy - duh.

Video highlights of Ben from January 2007.

I will start posting the Florida ones tomorrow.

Ben in HartsField Intl

DSC_0667
Originally uploaded by spappy_jones.

Here is Ben hanging out at busy Hartsfield Intl. He doesn't seem to upset about his first day on the wings of aluminum eagles. On the leg to Atlanta from Sea-Tac he did very well. No issues except that there was no nap during the 3:53 hour flight we left the house at 6am, and were driven by Nate (the Godfather) to a pretty tame airport.

The in-air entertainment movie was " Love Story" the love story with Ryan O'Neil and Ally MacGraw. I was rather shocked that they were playing a film from 1970 rather than some crap like you usually can follow with no head set while reading Sky Mall. I suppose Delta Air Lines didn't need to pay Hollywood much for the usage of "Love Story".



We had a pretty relaxing layover in Atlanta (Hartsfiled Field). I way we meaning Me, Ben, Shawn and my Sister and Duncan. My sis and Dunc were also sitting next to us on the 767, we in the middle asile and they on the window row. My sister was popping Xanax and was sleeping with her mouth open during the majority of the flight which was cute.

After we left HartsField ontime we had some turbulence when we flew through a cold front. We had the best flight attendant ever. We were in the last two rows of the 757. I had a row to myself. When you sit in the back and have a cute flirty kid like Ben the flight attendants will perk you all the way there. I had all the milk and Quaker Chewy Granola bars I could eat. It was great. Ben had a little issue during the rapid decent into RSW (Ft Myers Intl). It took some crying and some cheese to get his ears to pop. Now we are in Florida, the movies will be short in coming.