Scotland – Day 2

I slept pretty well most of the night, only waking up for a while around 1:30 am local time. Jaeger did worse though possibly because he got more sleep on the plane. The alarm woke us up at 9:00am. We got ready and went down to breakfast. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a huge number of vegetarian options but there were enough.

After breakfast we headed out. Our plan was to visit Edinburgh castle but we first needed to run a couple of errands. We wanted to get local SIM cards for our phones and Calvin needed a fleece to replace the one we lost at security. I saw a promising looking department store and headed that direction with Calvin while Jaeger went to procure SIM cards.

The department store turned out to only have adult clothes but a tourist shop a couple of doors down had a navy hoodie proclaiming “Scotland” in white letters that fit Calvin. Jaeger also had moderate success. The SIM card worked well in his phone but mine wouldn’t work. We’re not sure why yet. I was hoping we could both get local cards so we could communicate in case Calvin required a playground break and we didn’t want to tie down both adults.

We started walking again and meandered into Old Town and hiked up the streets to the castle. The hill it’s on definitely adds to the grandeur of the look. The ticket line was long (though I bet much worse in true summer) so Jaeger stood in line while I took Calvin to the restroom. Then Calvin drew a bit while we waited for Jaeger to get through the line.

Calvin adored the castle. He spent most of the time dragging us around or running ahead. There is a lot in the castle complex and we spent several hours there. Calvin really enjoyed looking over the wall which provided a spectacular view of everything around. He took a lot more interest in many parts of the castle than we expected. For instance, when we visited the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Museum Calvin insisted that we read almost every plaque. Rather than getting bored and making us leave early, he spent more time than we would have chosen to look at everything. When we went to the great hall they had some weapons on exhibit so Jaeger got a picture of Calvin holding a broadsword that was bigger than he was. We ate lunch at a castle cafe and wandered around a bit more before going back down to new town.

On the way up to the castle we had noticed an odd neo-gothic spire sticking up. Jaeger looked it up and found that it was a memorial to Sir Walter Scot. We decided to take a closer look at it. It turns our that you can climb up within the spires for a fee. The first staircase was fairly normal. It wasn’t overly wide but does allow people to pass with caution. We got up to the landing and looked around. It was a decent view. Then Calvin found another set of stairs, stairs that were narrower and didn’t have a railing. Passing on these stairs was a bit tricky and required one person to hug the outside while the other person clung carefully to the central spiral. But we made it to another viewing platform. Then another set of stairs that stated out as wide as the original but fairly quickly narrowed to the second set. We initially passed up the third viewing platform in order to make it to the top. At the very top the stairs became so narrow that Jaeger was almost too wide for it. The last platform was extremely narrow, no wider than a person. I think it might have been my favorite experience of the day.

After the climb we sat for a bit and admired the scenery. Edinburgh has a lot of benches in this area and the weather was very pleasant. The climb had made me hungry so we stopped by a cafe. Calvin and I got hot chocolate with [whipped] cream and marshmallows and we split a “Belgium Chocolate Jaffa” (something like this) which was very good and rich.

Refreshed, we wandered by St. Andrew Square which does not have a statue of St. Andrew and instead has the Melville Monument. However, Calvin found the most exciting feature to be a shallow waster feature that he amused himself by splashing with his hands. After prying him away from that we headed toward Princes Street Gardens which is a lovely stretch of paths, lawns, trees, and flowers that divides new town from old town (I adore how green Scotland is, very Wahington-like). More importantly, it was rumored to have a playground.

I was a bit disheartened when the officially posted map of the gardens didn’t list a playground but we tried anyway. The walk was nice with quite a few flowers, including rhododendrons which were blooming. Also there were benches lining both sides of the path which allowed Calvin to frequently stop and “rest”. Eventually we reached the end and discovered there was the promised playground. It was quite nice. I took pictures so once I get back I’ll do a more detailed playground review.

After the playground we started walking to supper. We ate at Henderson’s which is a vegetarian restaurant. I got a stacked polenta dish with all sorts of grilled vegetables and pineapple. It was very good. We also got vegetarian haggis which appears to be a thing in Edinburgh. I’ve lost count of the restaurants, even non-veg ones, that I’ve seen offering it. Possibly because it’s innately less disgusting than the real thing. I got one of the kid meal selections based on the waiters suggestion which was a mistake. I should have gone with my original inclination of pasta and tofu, even if it was adult portions and price. At that point Calvin was obviously tired and didn’t feel like exerting much effort to eat.

Since we were the farthest we’d been all day from the hotel and it was already 8:30 we decided to take a taxi back. Now Calvin is sleeping peacefully beside me as I write this out.

For a parallel account of our second day in Scotland, see Edinburgh Castle.

Jaeger’s Pictures from May 16.

Scotland – Day 1

May ended up being a very busy month. The previous week I had been in Detroit for my library conference. This week I was suppose to have full day training on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and on Wednesday night we planned to leave for Scotland. Unfortunately for the project, our database server died right before it was suppose to be shipped to us which delayed our training. However, canceling training provided more time for packing :)

We left for the airport a bit after 5pm which would have allowed plenty of time if the plane had been on time. As it was, our plane was delayed about 1 1/2 hrs so we spent a fair amount of time waiting. While waiting, Calvin found another boy to play with. At one point they seemed to be competing with who could jump up and down exclaiming, “I’m so excited! I’m so excited!” There was also some shrieking involved which we tried to suppress, not always successfully.

Once we actually took off the flight was pretty standard. We stayed awake till supper was served and then dozed most of the rest of the trip. Calvin slept pretty well. Once we got down on the ground we had to wait quite a while for another plane at our assigned gate to finally leave. Then, once we were at the gate, we had to wait some more for someone to actually move the jetway to the plane so we could get off. The pilot claims he had to open a window and gesticulate wildly before anyone bothered to help.

Once we got off the plane we had less than an hour to make it through immigration and try to catch our next flight which was due to leave in less than an hour (we would have missed it completely if Jaeger had chosen the original connection BA offered when he first booked the tickets). Because of the short connection we were fast tracked through immigration, though not security. While UK security does not require taking off shoes it turns out that my shoes have metal on them. Oddly enough the metal detector didn’t go off when I went to Detroit. At some point during the process we also misplaced Calvin’s fleece.

We speed walked (Calvin ran) to our gate and got there 7 minutes before departure time only to discover that flight had also been delayed. So, we got to board in a relatively leisurely fashion. We landed in Edinburgh and procured a taxi to take us to the hotel.

Jaeger booked a room with a queen bed and a fold out twin bed right next to it. The room isn’t large but is adequate (it probably is extravagantly large for a European hotel).

After we got settled in we walked a mile to a local vegetarian restaurant called Bindi. Both Jaeger and I got the main thali plate and two appetizers: samosas and chaat. Calvin ended up eating rice, roti, and most of a samosa. One of the curries was particularly interesting as it contained kidney beans and corn. It reminded me of a combo between a regular curry and chilli. Jaeger liked it more than me. I liked the dal soup better.

Calvin fell asleep toward the end of the meal so Jaeger and I took turns carrying him back to the hotel. I fell asleep almost immediately after we got back.

For a parallel account of our first day in Scotland, see On Holiday.

Jaeger’s Pictures from May 14 and May 15.

Bookmark

For Mother’s Day this year Calvin’s preschool had him create a bookmark. This is one of the more useful Mother’s Day presents I have received from daycare/preschool because I always need more bookmarks. The front has a drawing which I suspect is suppose to be me. I have very large feet. The back has typed written descriptions of what Calvin must have told his teachers about me. It must have been in the form of fill-in-the-blank but they aren’t explicit about which parts Calvin filled in. I found it pretty amusing:

Gem

Her hair is brown.
My mom’s favorite food is food I
don’t like.
My mom likes to wear whatever
fits her.
My mom’s job is working at home.
My mom’s smart because she knows
I don’t know if she’s smart.
My mom works hard at I don’t know
if she works hard.
My mom relaxes by exercising on the
treadmill in our basement.
My mom tells me a lot to hurry a lot
when we’re late for school.
I’m happy when my mom reads
to me.
I love my mom because she loves me.
I know my mom loves me because
she hugs me a lot.

Love,
Calvin, age 5

Mother’s Day 2014

Garden, 2014

Today I made my annual pilgrimage to The Flower Bin. This year I’m trying:

Heirloom Pineapple Tomato
Lemon Boy Tomato
Heirloom Black from Tula Tomato
Sun Gold Tomato
Super Chili
Genovese Basil (2)
Columnar Basil (2)
Chocolate Mint
Borage

The Pineapple, Lemon Boy, and Black from Tula are all beefsteak tomatoes. I’ve never grown beefsteak before. Generally I haven’t had a huge amount of success with tomatoes so I decided to go all out and try even more tomatoes. I have managed to grow the Sun Gold before so hopefully we’ll get at least some tomatoes.

The Borage is an experiment. It may, or may not, help reduce hornworms with the tomatoes.

I’ve grown the rest of the herbs before. Columnar basil is my go-to variety for seasoning basil and the Genovese is for pesto. The Chocolate Mint is for random recipes calling for mint. I’m going to see if the mint will grow in a container¹ outside the basement window well. I have dreams of being able to smell it while I work but we’ll see.

The Super Chili is Jaeger’s. It’s my current favorite chili for Indian food. We actually still have a huge quantity from last year stored in the freezer.

Always, always plant mint in a container or future home owners will assume you were senile. ↩

Reading Goal Housekeeping Note

Because my reading goals seem to have gotten out of hand, I’ve created specialized categories for each one in addition to the generic books category.

Original 2013 Reading Goal – completed
Children’s Book Reading Goal – in progress
Discworld Audio Books – in progress
2014 Hugo Nominations – in progress

Many Reading Updates

No, it’s not your imagination, I’m not checking off my goal books particularly fast. However, I am making progress. I think one reason I like having goal books is because it provides handy reading material when I want to read but am not in the mood for any particular book. Also, it’s working well as a way to scout new books and audio books for Calvin. We recently finished listening to The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs, mentioned in my previous reading goal post, and Calvin seemed to like it.

At the beginning of the year I didn’t have any book goals but now I seem to be acquiring new ones monthly. I’ve recently decided to listen to all of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Up to this point, I’ve listened to about half of the Discworld books. There are some, such as Monstrous Regiment that I seem to listen to at least once a year. I decided to make sure that I haven’t missed other equally good Discworld books by listening to them all in published order. This is a bit tricky because most of the unabridged¹ Discworld audio books appear to be out of print or are really, really expensive². However, Interlibrary Loan is coming to my rescue. I searched and it appears I should be able to get the whole series one ILL at a time.

So far I’ve listened to The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. When we went to London, many years ago, we took public transportation for everything. This was before the days of the Kindle and I quickly ran out of books to read while transiting to and from places. As a result, Jaeger and I expanded our must-see attractions to include a bookstore. I was aghast at how much the books cost (like everything else, it helped to pretend I was paying in dollars) but picked up UK editions of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. Unfortunately, they didn’t speak to me. At all. After listening to them, they’re still not my favorites in the series but I like them a lot better. I’d give them a solid 3 stars. I’m not sure why I have such different reaction to reading versus listening. As a side note, I also watched The Color of Magic miniseries. It’s not the highest quality but gives a very good flavor of the Discworld series in terms of laughing at stereotypes, etc. What I found weird though was that even though the miniseries was called The Color of Magic, it contained a lot more plot elements from The Light Fantastic. It obviously was meant to cover both books but I felt a lot more of the second book ended up in it.

Listening to the Discworld series is more of an unofficial goal. However, I do have one other official goal I’ll be working on: the 2014 Hugo Nominations. This year Jaeger and I decided we really, really should take part in the Hugo nominations instead of just watching from the sidelines so we both bought “supporting memberships”³. I only submitted nominations for “Best Novel” as that’s the form that I’m most familiar with. However, I’m going to try to commit to reading all nominations for Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette, Best Short Story, Best Graphic Story, Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, and the nominated authors for John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Committing to read all the nominations for Best Novel seemed relatively easy until I saw that the entire Wheel of Time series has been nominated. I hadn’t even realized entire series could be nominated but apparently there’s a clause in the WSFS constitution that makes this possible. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. I think I’ve read the first three books in the series and then gave up with plans to reconsider if it was ever finished. Well, Robert Jordan died before he finished the series. However, Brandon Sanderson, working from Jordan’s notes, has finished it. That being said, I don’t think I’m willing to commit to reading 15 books in one series in the next couple of months. So, I’m contemplating reading the last three that Brandon Sanderson wrote. I’ve liked every Sanderson book I’ve read so hopefully I can get through these three. I imagine ardent fans will say I can’t possible get the scope of the series with just reading the last three books. That’s probably fair but being a long-time library user, I’m pretty good and figuring out what happens in prior books without reading them. Also, given I gave up after the first three books implies I wasn’t invested enough to be interested in voting for it anyway.

My nomination for Best Novel was Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. It’s an excellent book but I’m worried it’s against really tough competition this year. However, it’s nice that there are worthwhile books to be nominated this year. I was really not impressed with the options a couple of years ago. I suppose it’s better to have too many good choices than no good choices.

And at long last, my progress on my children’s books . . .

Children’s Goal Books I’ve Read Since the Last Update

Shakespeare’s Secret, by Elise Broach (Shakespeare, new school, friends)

Hero, named after Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, is having to adapt to yet another school. Hero is hoping that her new classmates will ignore her but she ends up the butt of a joke her very first day and it goes downhill from there. Fortunately, an elderly lady next door provides a mystery that helps Hero forget her socialization troubles.

Good juvenile book. I always like reading interesting female characters.

Bearwalker, by Joseph Bruchac (contemporary Native American, stereotypes, adventure, life lessons, new school, horror)

Baron has moved to yet another new school and has been dealing with bullies. His class goes on the annual eighth-grade bonding experience to “Camp Chuckamuck.” Baron senses that something is wrong at Camp Chuckamuck. Things get particularly strange when it seems like a Native American folk tale is coming to life.

This is a book that I would have never picked up on my own. After all, it has a male protagonist. However, it was really good. It’s way too old for Calvin at this point but I’ll put it on my list to introduce it to him when Calvin is older.

The Dark Pond, by Joseph Bruchac (contemporary Native American, loner, adventure, horror)

There are a lot of similarities between this book and Bearwalker. Both deal with boys that are having a hard time making friends and both deal with nature and Native American legends. However, in this one Armie, the protogonist, is going to school in an area surrounded by nature instead of just taking a trip there.

Again, another really good book that I’ll keep in mind for Calvin later.

The Fairy Tale Detectives, by Michael Buckley (fairy tales, sisters, self-reliance)

Two sisters are shipped of to live with a woman claiming to be their grandmother after their parents mysteriously disappear. The girls have always been told their grandmother is dead so they are deeply suspicious of the old women. The old women is very strange, has a strange man that appears to live with her, and lives in a strange house. However, eventually the girls realize that they come from a long line of Grimms whose job it is to protect normal people from real fairy-tale characters.

I expected to love this book. I usually adore fairy tale retellings and similar stories. However, I never really got into this one. I don’t know if it’s because it was too young an audience or something else. I won’t bother saving this one for Calvin. However, if I happen to end up with a girl at some point, I might introduce it to her. Maybe she’ll like it better than I did.

Keeper of the Doves, by Betsy Byars (girls, words, prejudice)

Amen McBee is the youngest of five sisters. She loves words and writes poetry. Her older twin sisters are both her mentors and tormentors. The twins willfully misunderstand Mr. Tominski, an old recluse who lives on their lands, which ends in tragedy.

This was a short book which also felt very reflective. Amen spends a lot of time thinking and trying to figure out things which is in stark contrast to her twin sisters who appear to enjoy jumping to conclusions. It’s a good book. I might request the audio book for Calvin to listen to. It deals with some heavy situations but I think it could provide some good conversations about judging people without understanding them.

Reading Goal: 23 of 180

And who would condescend to listen to abridged audio books (though I sometimes make an exception for non-fiction). ↩
Audio books are naturally more expensive than printed books due to the narrator, who can make or break an audio book, and all the additional production requirements audio requires. I understand why audio books are expensive. I’m just personally unwilling to spend more than $40 for any audio book. ↩
We contemplated actually going to Loncon 3. I’ve never been to a Worldcon before and would really like to try the experience. However, the timing was really bad. We might try to hit the 2015 “Sasquan” which will be located in Spokane Washington(state). ↩

Pineview Park, Boulder, CO

Several weeks ago Calvin and I made it to another park. However, then life got busy and I never got around to posting about it. We visited Pineview Park which is relatively close to his preschool.

It’s a nice playground with a “nature” theme that was just remodeled in 2013. It even has sand!

The playground structure itself has a lot of different climbing options. Calvin ventured out on the rock but didn’t want to try climbing down that way.

He did venture up the petite climbing wall though.

And the ladder.

An interesting feature is the “tree trunk” was created to be hollow to allow climbing ladders up and down.

The park also has a nice covered area for parents to sit on and both regular and bucket swings. As an aside, the Boulder park website claims there are restrooms, a water fountain, and a parking garage which is incorrect I assume that must be a copy/paste job from another park.

All-in-all, it’s a cute park and is close enough to Calvin’s preschool we might visit it again.

Summary:

Features	Curved slide, “wooden” ladder, rock, small climbing wall, tree house, swings, bucket swings, accessible digger
Surface Material	Poured Rubber and some sand
Restrooms	No
Water fountain	No
Shade	Seating area for parents in shaded and there are some trees, though I’m not sure it’d shade the playground
Picnic area	Yes, one picnic table
Parking	Street parking, the best parking is on Cloverleaf drive then you walk down a path and over a bridge to the play structure
Pros	Nice new equipment Secluded Sand! and a large field by the playground for running around
Cons	No restrooms

View Random Parks and Playgrounds in a larger map

45 Miles

My treadmill desk has been working out well for work. In fact, it’s working good enough that I decided not to buy anything more expensive for now.

However, I’ve done a bit of tweaking on my end. For the first couple of months I was walking at a 2 mph pace in two 1 1/2 hr segments. However, my legs and knees were really starting to kill me. I couldn’t figure out why there were hurting so much since I was walking so slow. I talked to Jaeger about it and he pointed out that I really should be stretching¹. I decided to give in and I now do a hamstring/calf stretch for a minute on each side after finishing a walking segment. I think that probably fixed most of the problems I was having. In addition, I noticed that my normal stride felt more comfortable at 3 mph so I upped my speed a bit. Finally, instead of doing two 1 1/2 hr segments, I changed to three 1 hr segments.

Since I’m still walking for 3 hours but am walking faster, I’m walking about 9 miles each day. Theoretically, anyway. In practice, I don’t walk while I have meetings because my treadmill is loud. So during most weeks I end up with about 9 miles three of the days and 6 miles the other two days. However, this week was abnormally meeting-free so I got 9 miles in each day for a grand total of 45 miles this week on the treadmill.

The one thing I still have to figure out is my shoes. My regular outside shoes are a fantastic pair of hiking boots. However, I want an “inside” pair of shoes for the treadmill so I’m not tramping dirty shoes all over the basement and treadmill. I purchased my current pair of inside tennis shoes at Ross and they worked really well for step aerobics but aren’t holding up on the treadmill. The soles are wearing out and I’m developing blisters in spite of the first aid tape I’ve been faithfully applying to key parts of my heels. Of course, multiple sites on the internet all seem to agree that walking shoes should be replaced every 500 miles which sounds like a lot but really isn’t . . .

Walking 45 miles this week sounds like a lot but I’m not entirely sure how much exercise that should count as. I dusted off my old heart rate monitor² and it turns out that I average about 98 beat per minute while walking, not a very aerobic pace. However, I assume walking an easy 3 mph is still better than sitting still at a desk.

I’ve always had trouble with stretching. I’m not naturally flexible at all. Also, I know stretching important but it always seems like a huge waste of time. ↩
From the days when I had time to be unhealthily obsessed about diet and exercise. ↩

Children’s Books Reading Goal: Update 4

I’ve been slacking. This goal is definitely going to take a while.

Goal Books I’ve Read

The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs, by Betty G. Birney (small town, stories, juvenile)

Eben longs to explore all the exotic places around the world and get away from his boring town. His father makes him a deal that if he can find “seven wonders” in Sassafras Springs, he can go to Colorado to visit his relatives. Eben doesn’t believe that Sassafras Springs has any wonders but starts looking in hopes of escaping his town.

I enjoyed this book. Eben learns to appreciate his town and the people within it. I’ve requested the audiobook version because I think it’d be a good one for Calvin to listen to.

Hoop Girlz, by Jane Lucy Bledsoe (basketball, girls, commitment, juvenile)

River loves playing basketball and dreams of playing in the WNBA. However, when the “A team” is chosen, River doesn’t make the cut and is devastated. Instead, she has to learn to commit to making the “B team” as good as it can be

This book didn’t really grab me but I think if I was a girl that loved basketball, I would have loved this book. I could be wrong but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of fiction around girls playing sports.

My Last Best Friend, by Julie Bowe (Juvenile, girls, bullies, friends)
Ida’s best friend has moved away and she’s heartbroken. She decides it’s too painful to make friends when they just end up leaving. It doesn’t help that the room’s bully seems to have a personal vendetta against Ida. However, a new girl arrives who is (amazingly) persistent at trying to become Ida’s friend.

More juvenile than I’d choose to read but a good story for that age range. Discusses several issues around friends, bullies, and lying to sound good.

Storm Catchers, by Tim Bowler (teen, family, secrets, kidnapping, ghosts)
Ella is kidnapped one night when she’s babysitting her 3-year-old brother. Her older brother was suppose to stay but left to hang out with friends. As a result, he blames himself for her disappearance. In addition, the younger brother is acting very odd and keeps leaving the house unattended.

This was my least favorite of the ones I’ve read recently. It was a good story but ghosts in a context other than fantasy freak me out. I’m going to blame it on my upbringing but I like ghost stories to stay firmly in fantastical settings. All that being said, there were a lot of interesting themes that the story dealt with.

Reading Goal: 19 of 180

Shanahan Ridge Park, Boulder, CO

The weather was marvelous today. I spent the morning working on money but after lunch Calvin and I went thrift store shopping and then stopped by Boulder’s southernmost park, Shanahan Ridge Park. The Shanahan Park Page, on Boulder’s site, said the park was “small” but I didn’t understand how small till we got there. The picture below shows you most of the park.

Parking turned out to be quite tricky. In addition, Google maps took me a couple blocks past the park and into an apartment complex. I followed Google’s directions hoping it knew about a parking lot I didn’t but, alas, it was just confused. I backtracked and decided the road next to the park was too narrow to park on the street. Eventually, I parked on Smuggler Way which had a path to the park.

As I stated above, the park is really small. However, it did have a very unusual feature: a human sundial¹.

Human Sun Dial: Stand along the centerline opposite the current day of the year with your arm raised above your head. Your shadow will point to the current time. *Tempis Fugit*

Hours are arced around the the sundial:

I had Calvin try it out but I think a taller person would have worked better. It seemed roughly accurate, within an hour or so².

The sundial amused me a lot more than Calvin. However, even though the park is really small Calvin had a blast running up and down the slide area. When I looked at the city’s picture of the park, I thought the slide had asphalt on either side but it turned out to be poured rubber.

They also had a random hole that kids could run through.

Lastly, the park did have two regular swings and one bucket swing. Even though the park is small, it was completely overrun with kids so Calvin had to make do with the bucket swing.

It was a really interesting park to visit. The parking’s horrible but it was a fun visit.