the laanba blog

Instapaper Reading

I'm back!  Panama wrap-up posts coming soon.  

One thing I was determined to do on this trip was to clear out my Instapaper backlog.  Instapaper is a great service that saves articles for reading later.  I have been using it for a long time and have really kicked up my usage when I discovered one click in Tweetbot to send to Instapaper.  But that also meant a huge backlog of articles to read.  I  caught up on the trip and am now down to 2.

So here are some articles that you should take some time to read.  If you don't have time right now, Instapaper them!

Instapaper
http://www.instapaper.com/ 

1. Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad?
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/08/overdone.html

2. A Sister's Eulogy for Steve Jobs
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html

3. 10 Crazy Science Experiments that Wound Up In Your Kitchen
http://io9.com/5845223/10-crazy-science-experiments-that-wound-up-in-your-kitchen

4. 10 Things Every Creative Person (That's You) Must Learn
http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2011/10/ten-things-every-creative-person-must-learn/

5. Bad Science Leads to Bad Policy No Matter Your Beliefs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/bad-science-leads-to-bad-_b_1035626.html

6. Seven Reasons for Returning to Film Photography
http://www.lightstalking.com/returning-to-film-photography

7. DeKloutifying
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/11/14/dekloutifying/

8.  Pizza Is a Vegetable? Congress Defies Logic, Betrays Children
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/pizza-is-a-vegetable_b_1101433.html

If you read only one please read the last one.  It is important that we know what we are up against in the battle for healthy food. 

Errr...

So this whole writing posts while I am here thing isn't going to work. I have realized on this trip that I need silence to wriet in (I always mute the TV at home)and I am sharing a room with someone who always has to have TV on.

More and more of my life is spent in silence and I love that. Today I sat on the balcony for two hours reading and listening to the sounds of the birds and the thunder and the wind. Not exactly silence, but certainly not the sounds of a TV. I am made for the quiet life.

Anyway I am taking detailed notes each night that I will use to write up my blog posts when I get back. I took detailed notes by hand on my first trip to Panama and I never wrote the posts but this time I am typing them quickly in the iPad and I will us Siri when I get home to help me go even faster.

Time for bed. Today was a good day. Tomorrow Monkey Island.

A Panama Thanksgiving Day 1

Hello from the rainforest. The real honest to goodness rainforest. Why does traveling make you so tired when the majority of what you are doing is sitting? I don't know but it does. It may have something to do with the fact that I woke up at 4:40 so that we could leave at 5:15.

The trip down went very smoothly. No upgrades to first class but we we're able to upgrade to more leg room and it sure made the trip nicer. When we got to Panama there were no lines at immigration or for the luggage. We got it of there way faster than I did in June. My dad and cousin met us at the airport. A hop, skip and a 30 minute car ride later and we were at our hotel, the Gamboa Rainforest Resort.

We dropped off our luggage and sat in The Monkey Bar (yes, The Monkey Bar) to chat and have some drinks and snacks. Then it was time for my family to go and my aunt and I went back to the room to settle in and rest before dinner. The light dropped quickly after sunset. I was standing on the balcony in the near dark when I noticed a flying, swooping thing. Then another. Bats. And that ended my standing on the balcony in the near dark. I also had a near collision with one on the way to dinner. Nature indeed.

I'm all unpacked and ready for tomorrow. Even though I loathe early mornings I want to get up to photograph the sunrise. Our day is going to consist of a trip to a native village and a trip to the hotel's orchid garden and butterfly house. The rest of the time I will be staring at the hills, looking at the greenery and listening to the rain.

Brain Dump

A kid coughed directly in my face (by accident) yesterday and now I'm paranoid thinking I'm feeling the signs of getting sick.  I have a feeling it is all in my head but that didn't stop me from buying some Airborne.

I haven't done anything to get ready for my trip to Panama other than locating my passport and doing some laundry.  I had a plan to slowly clean my apartment this week so I wouldn't be stressed over the weekend, but I've abandoned that.  Saturday for cleaning, Sunday for packing.  That should work.

I have two real posts I want to write about Flickr and The Incomparable Podcast.  I hope I can soon find the time to sit down and write them, but the short hand version is that I have totally revamped my Flickr usage and I am head over heels in love with The Incomparable.  

I think I need to start walking.  I love riding my bike more than walking, but I just don't do it.  I think it would be easier for me to start walking.  I'm going to try when I get back.  I can definitely feel myself slowing down with age and I need to get more active.

Also I need to break my computer addiction.  I'm not sure how I'm going to do that, but I have a few ideas.  When I'm on the computer I don't do focused things like blogging or photo editing. Instead I randomly click around and around social media sites.  

I hope Matt Leinart can pull through because I have been have so much fun watching the Texans.  I've been a Texans fan since they started and it has been a long 9 years. This is our year. 

Thus ends the brain dump.  I figured it would be better to write something, anything, than leaving my blog neglected anymore than it has been. 

Hold me to it

The last time I posted was one week before a big competition at work.  The competition consumed all my before and after school time since the beginning of September, but it gets very intense the last few weeks (one of the reasons I don't like October.)  

So I thought that last week things would settle down.  I made a vow on Facebook that I was going to leave at the earliest time possible (3:55) each day.  Then I changed it to leaving the earliest possible time on Monday only.  Instead I left at 5:45, 5:30, big homecoming game so I didn't get home until 9:00, 5:30 and 5:00.  It was necessary to get things done for my classes.

BUT!  This week.  I vow to leave at 4:15 each day except Thursday where I have an event.  I vow!