Month: May 2013

bookmark_borderButch Bag Part 2

Posted on by PaulaO

A while back, I got myself a new bag. Not a purse, a bag. Yes, there is a difference. As I said in that one, I self-identify as butch yet carry too much crap to keep in my pockets.

I loved the bag for about a week or two but some things about it just didn’t work for me.

– One, it is all black inside. I couldn’t see a thing. Normally, I see just great in low light but apparently that does not transfer so well to a dark bag.
– Two, it has velcro on the front flap. There’s a clip but then you had to peel the velcro apart to get in the bag. Noisy. Although it meant you didn’t have to clip it closed all the time.
– Three, in that dark inside were too many pockets. I know, sounds odd coming from me but it was just too many. It wasn’t like I could just feel my way to whatever I was looking for.

Lorna, however, loved it. So she stole it. She says she appropriated it. Whatever. She likes all the pockets, can find things relatively quickly, and really likes that it has the pocket for her Nook Tablet. And neither of us feels we wasted the money since she is using it.

I’ve been looking around, still trying to find something that worked. Duluth Trading Company has a cool leather bag but I just could not justify spending the money ($149). Same for the LL Bean oiled canvas bags they have.

A few weeks ago, I went back to eBags to see if they had anything new and I found it. It is actually the same bag, just updated. The two major updates? No velcro and the inside is yellow. Way. Cool. The other bag was 11.75″ x 8.5″ x 4″ and this one is slightly larger at 12″ x 10.5″ x 4″.

It came the other day and I’ve messed around with it some. The flap has a pocket. It’s odd shaped but roomy. My phone fit just fine but it made the flap heavy. Under the flap is another zippered pocket. This is where I’ll keep my phone. On each side of the bag are pockets. One is a mesh bottle holder and the other is a fleece lined pocket for sunglasses. My sunglasses are prescription so I’ll keep ’em in the case and not there. Not sure what I’ll use that one for. Inside is a large pocket for a tablet computer on the back and in the front are a few pockets. One for a pen, one narrow one, and a wider one that just holds my sunglasses case. Behind them is another big pocket. In the back is an odd pocket they say is for your boarding pass. I’ll try that out going to Dallas in a month. And I just looked at the photos and saw another pocket. It’s a zippered one. Maybe there’s as many pockets as the other one after all. But maybe they feel like less since I can see them.

We went out to do an errand this afternoon and I got to actually use it. My water bottle fits just fine. Took some convincing but that should get better with use. At least it holds it in! Everything else I carry fits just fine, too. It is the same width (front to back) as the first bag but it feels and looks wider. They added a pocket, removed some of the inside ones, and changed the design of the front flap. I don’t need the strap right now so I took that off when we got back. It’s just extra weight and gets caught on stuff. Lorna catches the dogs with it every day when she comes home. However, that strap will be great for Dallas since I can hang it on the back and carry extra stuff in there. AND my camera fits, too. There’s a cool camera store here in Asheville called Ball Photo. We were there not that long ago and I saw they had a lot of the old style camera cases/covers. We’ll go back and see if I can find one to hold my camera. I dropped my sunglasses case into the main compartment then later had trouble getting them out. So I’ll try standing them up on one of the smaller pockets to see if that helps. This is the fun part of getting a new bag, figuring out where everything should go!

Of course, pictures!

Top row: the bag and my Nalgene OTF. Next row is my phone and the bag that holds my folding headset. Then there’s the glucose meter, wallet, sunglasses case, glucose tabs, pen, and bandana. Still to be put together will be the medication supply, eye glass cleaner, and a small notebook. Hey, that can go in that padded pocket! (also, as a side note, that thing dangling from the arm of my chair is my holder for the water bottle.)

The next two are the inside of the bag.

The two bags together.

bookmark_borderSpring mornings and squirrels

Posted on by PaulaO

A scene that came to me this morning. It is rough, there’s some grammar bits that need fixing.

Ellen is a character in Nikki’s not yet named Butch Girl book. Nikki is a character from BGCFA. Spam is her dog, a big Rottweiler.

***

Ellen stepped out into the chilly late-spring morning. She could see the steam from her coffee as she raised it to her lips. She leaned her hip against the porch railing and watched Mother Nature in Her natural element. She could see fog down toward the river (no, creek as Nikki keeps reminding her). Wet dew glistened off the tall wheat-like grass in the field beyond the yard’s fence. As she sipped her coffee, she watched the sun’s rays slowly crawl across the yard, causing first the yellow iris then the purple ones to bask in the spot light.

Despite the house being fairly far off the road and in a rural environment, it was quite noisy outside. Dozens of birds flitted about from feeder to feeder. It seemed to her they spent more time chasing each other off than actually eating. The birds hadn’t noticed her standing there or perhaps they didn’t care. Mourning doves and bright yellow finches fought for positions on the thistle feeders. Big blue jays and several grackles hopped around each other as they ate the cracked corn from the flat stones Nikki used for ground feeders. A red and black little bird (something towhee?) scratched at the grass where the sunflower hearts had fallen from one of the feeders. A bright red cardinal perched on another feeder where he pulled out a big sunflower and cracked it open on the edge of the tray.

Ellen heard a low growl and turned to see Spam staring out in the back yard. She followed his gaze and saw a squirrel on a branch. It seemed to be weighing its options as to which bird feeder to feast from first. Ellen grinned. “Must be new to the neighborhood”, she said to herself. The squirrel ran up the branch then came down the tree trunk. It clung to the bark, upside down, about a foot from the ground. Last minute perimeter check.

Spam waited, his big head getting lower and his rump got higher as he slowly rose to stand. Ellen was fascinated with this. She’d seen him chasing the squirrels away before but had not seen him preparing for the event.

The squirrel reached the ground and in leaps and bounds, made its way across the yard toward the closest ground feeding station. Just as it was about three feet or so away from it, Spam let out a deep “woof!”.

For a brief half second, nobody moved. Then the backyard exploded in feathers and fur as the birds and the squirrel frantically tried to disappear. The birds flew away but the squirrel didn’t seem to know where to go. It ran in a circle, still looking for the source of that bark. By then Spam had charged off the porch and was across the yard. The squirrel seemed to realize the errors of its ways and headed back where it came. Ellen laughed as it looked like a gray, blurred line straight back to the tree and back up the trunk.

Spam stopped where the squirrel had been and he sat down. His mouth opened in a wide grin. His duty for the morning was done.

bookmark_borderStaying All Connected

Posted on by PaulaO

In case you don’t visit my Facebook page, Lorna and I finally got “smartphones” a week ago. After much thought (and procrastinations), the final decision was based solely on money. The Samsung Galaxy S III is way way cheaper than the iPhone 4S. As in we got two phones, upgraded Lorna’s plan, added my phone, got two cases, two memory cards, and two screen protectors for less than half what the iPhone would have cost us without the accessories.

The biggest warning we got a while back was “There’s a big learning curve between Android and the iOS.”

So, is there? Granted, we’d not used an iPhone before other than to borrow my bro’s for a moment here and there. But we’ve had iPod Touches for years and years so we’re familiar with all that part of it. Back at the question: is there a learning curve? The answer? Um, no. It was what I thought it would be like.

Go to contacts, tap the contact, tap the wee little phone icon, and call them. Wow. Hard man, really hard.
To flip between the screens on the S3, the user must swipe their finger across the screen. Oh, wait, iPhone does that, too.
To move icons around the screens, the user must hold down the icon then drag it. You guessed it, iPhone does that, too. (but Android does it better because you can put an icon anywhere on the screen vs right after the previous one)

Perhaps the biggest learning experience has been how the music works. At first, I was NOT happy with that part. I wanted a smartphone for several reasons. I wanted one device instead of two or three. Music, phone, games/entertainment/productivity. Not all of my cool games on my iPod are available as Android but enough of them that I’m not in withdrawal (no Zombie Gunship, though!!). Phone, yeah, it does that. But music? It was annoying. It sorted differently than I wanted it to (alphabetical order? within an album? really?). I wanted to stomp my feet and demand they fix it. Instead, I left it alone and messed with everything else first. Then came back to the music when I was ready. And…it works. I figured out how to do a playlist, how to put it in the order I wanted. The sound (without headphones) is much clearer than on my 4th gen iPod Touch. The sound WITH headphones is phenomenal difference. Lorna loves it. She had my old old 2nd gen iPod Touch so her jump in clarity was wider.

The screen size difference between my Touch and the S3 is fantastic. There’s about the same amount of room for icons and the like, except it is all bigger. Everything is bigger. And more detailed. Not image detail, but fine points detailed. The ability to add tasks to the calendar. The ability to check off those tasks. Being able to switch between calendar views.

But perhaps the biggest difference between the iOS and the Android? Editing text. With my iPod Touch, if I wanted to edit a word, I had to delete the entire word. I couldn’t choose the middle of a word to add a space or delete a single letter. But I can now. That aspect alone has me now drooling over the idea of an Android tablet. I wouldn’t have to lug my laptop to do simple brainstorming while eating pizza at Blue Mountain. Or to the laundromat while doing editing or re-reading. Cut and paste is a little tricky on the Android but I think I got it figured out finally.

And the final thing is how well Lorna is doing with hers. She’s going through the large pdf user manual on her own, learning as she goes. She’s doing great. The only problems she’s had is how to set up stuff like email and all the “Sign up for this and that” stuff. But even then, once stuff is set up, it’s done. She has even figured out how to text!

– Do we like them? Yes.
– How is it as a phone? Lorna’s biggest problem with her cell phone was it would drop calls. She had the LG Rumor and she hated it. But now, even on the route and with just one itty bitty bar, she can call the house and I can hear her clearly. Some skipping but no dropping.
– Music? Getting better. I tried to import our playlists and they didn’t translate well. Starting over with that is no big deal, now that I understand the magic.
– Games? Lorna’s not into that although she’s already said she wants to get BeJeweled 2 for it. Some of my favorite games to play while waiting or whatever aren’t available in Android. No Zombie Gunship. No Solebon Solitaire. I haven’t found a card game yet that has that level of graphic clarity.
– What we love is one thing in our pockets. Just one. No cell phone AND mp3. One device. Loving it. Lorna didn’t think she’d care one way or the other but she’s enjoying it.

Below are some images of my iPod Touch (left) and my S3 (right). Click the image to see the larger version.

The game Train Conductor 2.

The game Zombie Highway (some major difference in the menu, not sure I like it)

The calendar

An app called iHandy Carpenter (we use this a lot)