All the right things, in three parts. Item two.

Image by LearningLark at Flicker.com. CC license.

Years ago, I worked in a bookstore called “The Paper Cutter”. As a receiving clerk, one of my duties was to field phone calls. One particular type of call really bothered me.

Caller: “Do you have the Cliff-notes for Fahrenheit 451?”

Me: “Lord, no! Do you know what that book is about?” Caller: “No. You read it?” Me: “Of course.” Caller: “Can you tell me about it?” Me: “Just read it. Seriously, if you come in before my shift is over, I’ll buy you a copy.”

I was good to my word and purchased that title for a few people who came in before 5 PM. I wish more people loved reading as much I as I do.

Incantato, il mio vecchio amico Alsamixer!

If you use Duolingo on a chromebook, you may have microphone problems. I tinkered around with the settings and chromebooks do not allow websites to access your microphone and camera by default. Change that by going into settings and Privacy.

Now for the surprise. This didn’t completely fix my problem. I did a little more searching and found that Alsamixer is the key. Press crtl+alt+t to pop open a new crosh tab. Type shell and enter.

Bamb! Alsamixer almost like linux. That shouldn’t be a surprise. One issue I did encounter was the function keys wouldn’t work even when I used the function key. Not all is lost. For some reason the search key needs to be pressed to invoke the function keys.

No problem. Press it with your desired function key. Escape to exit. 

I like Duoling to keep up on my Spanish, but it occurs to me that it is also useful for my horrible Italian. Duolingo lets you select multiple languages at the same time. I have no idea if there is a limit to the number, but I thought that I would stick to the two I know pretty well. 

New chromebooks are much better than the one I have. I'm going to start shopping for a new one soon. 

All the right things, in three parts. Item one.

I was on the hunt for a book last weekend. It has been so long since I bought a physical book. We ventured out to Barnes and Nobles and I tried to find something I would enjoy. As tried to browse, the kids were hounding me for books for them. I couldn’t say “no” to them and said so. I blew double what I budgeted for my book and I was lucky it was that little.

I seem to recall a trip to a local five and dime called “The Tec” on Main Street, where my parent’s had this same conversation with me. My dad said “I can’t say no to a book for you.” There was no mark language back then, but “for you” might as well have been underlined and bolded.

Somethings are important. Instilling a love of reading in your kids is one of them, and I am glad that my parent’s gave that to me.

Markers

This morning, I passed the time with some sketches using Tul Markers.

These markers are labeled “fine” but I find them a little fat. That is ok, this is my first attempt with using markers.

For my first subject, I picked a jaguar like creature from the zoo. All and all, I was pretty happy with the results.

#tbt – Astronomy Cast Episode 1

Today’s post is for Throw Back Thursday. I decided to take a listen to AstronomyCast’s first episode. After the first few minutes, Pamela and Fraser catch their groove. It is surprising how fast they found “the formula” and established the sound and style of the show.

Timely, as New Horizons approaches Pluto. It is a long way off, at least the way I drive, but surface details are becoming obvious.