Coffee for Buddha

Sandra occasionally has her nails done at a salon nearby. The salon is run by a Vietnamese woman with other Vietnamese women in her employ. They always greet Sandra warmly and are especially reverent to Sandra's mother. Each morning the owner brings a cup of coffee and places it before the status of Buddha that sits on a small shrine in the shop. Buddha likes coffee with milk.

And when we don't go to Buddha, we go to Google. You can use Google as a quick currency converter. For example, recently, we learned that a Canadian prescription cost about $C74. That translates to about $USD56 or so. More here on how to use it.

The first time you try it, you and your partner are apt to be clumsy, uncoordinated, and unexpectedly wet. Doubles kayaking isn't for everyone. We rented a twin kayak over the weekend and learned that, for a variety of reasons, that's not what we want.

My father may have a buyer for his sail boat. He was sad. As he was looking it over to prepare for the potential buyer, he inspected each of the pulleys, stays, and spreaders. He knew he could have spent all day tinkering with it, but finally just had to walk away. Even if Sandra and I agreed to take the boat and readied it for the water, it wouldn't change the fact that his sailing days are drawing to a close.

We attended the annual lake association meeting on Saturday morning. Sandra is assistant treasurer and I'm on the board of directors. Her job requires much more work than mine. Most of the discussion revolved around inappropriate and, in some cases, illegal, boating practices on the lake. (The ne'er-do-wells, of course, don't attend the meetings or don't speak in their defense.) The beavers keep plugging the dam. The police chief said a couple of times that, "the complexion of the town is changing."

There are lots of reasons that bring people to vegetarianism - religion, politics, health, preference, the after-effects of a trip to a meat or poultry processing facility, or any or all. Well, for those who don't eat meat because of the way that the meat industry treats its animals, here's something to thing about - lab-grown meat.

We have friends who don't particularly enjoy dairy products. They have their morning cereal with orange juice. I may try it, but will do so with a skeptic's palate.

Other than Karl who took over Mike's landscaping business, I can sometimes go for years without bumping into another Karl with a K. Here's the science: the relative popularity of baby names over the last 120 years.

Last week I mentioned that Google had invested in a company that was planning to deliver high-speed Internet access over power lines. News reports this morning indicate that IBM is moving into this area as well. In the meantime, we now have a POTS (plain old telephone service) line to the outside wall of the camp. We might be connected this week. Or not.