Meridian, Idaho

I found a solution to a scheduling problem that I’ve been searching for for a very long time that some of you might find useful.

It’s called Doodle and is available on doodle.com.

It’s a free online scheduling solution that was designed to let people figure out that the best time to schedule a meeting so that the greatest number of invitees can attend.

I looked and looked for a way to figure out who could play pickleball at specific times. A group of us used to send multiple emails to try to figure out when and where was the best time and place to get the most players. It was a nightmare…

Doodle came to the rescue.

I set up a poll for each of the two parks that we play at and players indicate what days they will show up at each park.

We need at least four to play, so if four hadn’t signed up for Monday at Terry Day Park I would have contacted those who had signed up and cancelled.

The great thing about it is that only the person establishing the poll needs to have an account. All the invitees can just enter their name in.

It’s as easy as pie… 

Meridian, Idaho

We both tied and broke a record on July 4th here in the Treasure Valley.

Tied Record:

Nine consecutive days of triple temperatures.

We tied the record for the number of consecutive days (nine) which happened in 2003 and 2006.

Broke Record:

And we broke the record for those nine consecutive days happening the earliest in the year.

Normally the really hot weather doesn’t come here until late July and August.

Guess we’ve got a head start on heat this year.

That’s not really a record I’d vote to break. 😐 I’d rather break good records, not bad ones…

How about a record for the most consecutive days with total cloud cover? Heaven on earth for us cloud lovers… 🙂

Meridian, Idaho

Both of our kids are in Vancouver, Canada to watch the gold medal match in Women’s World Cup Soccer today: USA vs Japan.

They have been planning to go for years and are so excited to watch the USA team compete for the gold!

Oddly, they are sitting in the same numbered seats, one row apart from one another even though their tickets were bought at different times. 🙂

What’s interesting to me is that they watch the game in totally different ways…

Melissa has been playing soccer in a women’s league for many years. She didn’t play soccer in high school, but she’s a fan and player now.

Richie didn’t start watching soccer until about six years ago. He watches not only for the athletic competition, but he’s intrigued by how countries’ different cultures come through on their different playing styles and coaching strategies.

Rich and I have started watching the games because of our kids’ interest in it. Slowly, ever so slowly, we are starting to understand it.

But tonight we won’t be able to text them to ask what something means because I’m sure they won’t respond during the match. 🙂

Go USWNT! (United States Women’s National Team)

PS Here’s a short video about true ‘soccer moms’ — players on the team who are actually moms!

Meridian, Idaho

Crud. I can’t sleep and am writing this post just after midnight.

Insomnia, for me, often visits during and just after the full moon.

The July full moon situation is rather unique this year.

From space.com:

Wednesday, July 1, 10:20 p.m. EDT. The Full Moon of July is known as the “Hay Moon,” “Buck Moon,” or “Thunder Moon.” It rises around sunset and sets around sunrise; this is the only night in the month when the moon is in the sky all night long. The rest of the month, the moon spends at least some time in the daytime sky. This is the first of two Full Moons this month.

A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in one of two situations:

• the third of four full moons in a season or
• a second full moon in a month of the common calendar.

I didn’t realize that each month’s full moon has a name. From the Farmer’s Almanac:

The Full Buck Moon – July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon.

It’s amazing what one can find out during a bout of insomnia.

And yippee skippee for me! I get two find lots of things because of this month’s two full moons… 🙂

PS Stayed up a bit later and found this amazing photo of the International Space Station passing between the earth and the moon taken in Australia. Wow!

Read the story of the photo at http://deography.com/.

Meridian, Idaho

I’m addicted to an app on my phone.

It’s called Cookie Jam.

It’s very similar to Candy Crush Saga, but I think it’s a bit easier to play.

I play about 10 rounds total a day. Usually I run through the five maximum lives given at one time fairly easy. Then I have to wait either 20 or 30 minutes to get another life.

So then I can move on to something more important like balancing the checkbook, answering emails, paying bills, whatever… until I have all my five maximum lives built up again before I go back to the game.

But this weekend, all Candy Jam players have been given an INFINITE number of lives! Instead of the number 5 showing how many lives I have, there’s an infinity symbol.

That’s never happened before. Ever…

I  can keep playing and playing and playing.

But here’s the thing, I have noticed that part of the fun is anticipating playing again.

It’s not as much fun and I thought it would be to play over and over and over again.

I’m not enjoying jamming Candy Jam as much as I thought I would.

Meridian, Idaho

I had a totally car free day yesterday. No, not a care free day, but a car free day. 🙂

I didn’t drive anywhere. I didn’t ride anywhere. I just stayed home.

And, my oh my, did I get lots done.

Cleaned my filing cabinets (which is the job I hate the most), caught up on bill paying, and other tasks I’ve been putting off for way too long.

And then the best part of the day:

A 90 minute nap with Sophie. Lovely! 🙂

Meridian, Idaho

I’m sewing a shirt for myself, and it’s been at least a decade since I’ve sewn clothing.

I’d rather buy clothing already made, but I’m having a hard time finding summer shirts that are made from a fabric that doesn’t contain rayon, polyester, or some other fabric that doesn’t breathe and help keep me cool. So I bought some 100% cotton and a pattern.

All the patterns I looked at contain multiple sizes, from 6 through 16. And that’s a good thing because I was not really sure what size I needed.

I’m not a clothes horse and HATE shopping, so I buy most of my clothes at Walmart.

I have always suspected that Walmart uses a different ruler to measure their sizes than other stores.

I’ve almost finished sewing my shirt and tried it on last night. It’s a little snug, and according to the pattern it’s FOUR sizes LARGER than the last shirt I bought at Walmart.

I think Walmart and other stores want their shoppers to think they are not as fat as they are.  So we feel good thinking that we’re “only a size 12” when really we’re a size 16.

The pattern company I bought is called New Look, but they aren’t using new sizing.  🙂

Meridian, Idaho

We got DirectTV yesterday. Included in our package is HD–high definition–for all of our TVs.

We’ve never had HD before. We’d seen it at other people’s houses, but I guess we never paid that much attention to it then because we were too busy visiting…

WOW–are we shocked at how clear everything is on TV now. 🙂

For example, we watched a commercial for the new San Andreas movie.

On Dish, where we didn’t have HD because we would have had to pay more for it, the commercial looked somewhat like this:

With HDTV it looks more like this:

I had no idea how much differently things would look in HD. Amazing.

All this time, I thought I needed better glasses.

I just needed to get a better satellite package or cough up more money for a better picture.  🙂

Meridian, Idaho

I spent some time yesterday catching up on computer stuff. Now that I have DSL, that’s actually FUN! Yep, I’m a computer geek…

And what made that time even MORE FUN was the ability to watch something on Netflix while I’m working on the computer.

I love Netflix.

It’s so great to have something on while working on something else. During those times, I only watch something I’ve watched before. The only time I watch something new is when I’m not working on something else.

(I just wanted to see how many times I could use ‘something’ in a paragraph and hopefully make some sense… 🙂 Apparently, it’s five times. )

I watch TV series or miniseries the most. I was intrigued by House of Cards so much that I actually bought the trilogy of books it was based on from England. (Very good books.) Law and Order reruns, any of the three, are perennial favorites of mine. Top of the Lake was excellent. And I’ve lost count how many times I’ve watched (let alone read) Lonesome Dove.

While I was deciding what to watch yesterday, I got to wondering a bit about Netflix. So here’s a little Netflix 101 with most information coming from Wikipedia…

First,  the most shocking statistic about Netflix:

Nearly 35% of ALL Internet downstream traffic is for Netflix!

Now some less shocking information.

• Founded in 1997 by Marc Randolph, a former math teacher, and Reed Hastings, a co-founder of a computer mail-order firm.
• Randolph and Hastings worked together at a software company that Hastings founded–Pure Software.
• Hastings sold Pure Software for $700 million and invested $2.5 million of that into starting up Netflix.
• Hastings came up with the idea for Netflix when he was forced to pay $40 in overdue fines after returning Apollo 13 well past its due date.
• Netflix launched in August 1996 with 30 employyes and 925 titles available for rent.
• In 2000, Netflix was offered for acquisition to Blockbuster for $50 million, but Blockbuster declined.
• Netflix initiated an IPO in May 2002  and June of 2002 selling over 6 million shares of common stock for $15 per share. ($83+ million)
•  Netflix did incur substantial losses during its first few years, and it posted its first profit in 2003–earning $6.5 million on revenues of $272 million.
• In 2005, 35,000 different titles were available and Netflix shipped 1 million DVDs out every day.
• In July 2014, Netflix surpassed 50 million global subscribers, 36 million of them from the United States.

Happy Streaming!