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Here is a very poor resolution timelapse of a robin’s nest.

April 16:

April 16:

May 2:

May 8:

May 14:

For those who are keeping track, this is very similar to the post I wrote 9 years ago about a robin who made a nest over our front door.

And now I have a sample size of two for how long it takes robin eggs to hatch and the birds to grow up – still 2 weeks from hatching to flying away.

Meanwhile, the dove who made a nest in our gutter has been sitting on her eggs for this whole time, about 5 weeks now. I might have to break the news to her that her eggs are bad and will never hatch. The gutter was a bad choice, because every time it rained, the eggs were sitting in cold water, which I’m sure was the reason for their demise.

It seems that using the name of Wish on anything will from now indicate low quality.

At first there was wish.com, and it has become synonymous with cheap things. For example, when people wanted to mock the new gateway sign to Detroit along I-94, they wondered if the city bought it on Wish.

But then last week my son wanted to watch a movie and we saw that the Wish movie was on Disney+ so we decided to watch “the new Disney movie”.

It was the wish.com version of a Disney movie.

The plot and characters were boring, there was no princess, the songs were extremely forgettable, etc.

Spoiler Alert
And the main premise of the movie is a re-hashing of the theologically-incorrect assertions of Carl Sagan that we’re all connected to each other through the stars.

Although I suppose I wouldn’t recommend Disney movies in general for theology.
End Spoiler Alert

Long story short: don’t bother watching the Wish movie. So many other better options.

We were driving home from some event, and the topic of conversation turned to blood pressure. One of the kids asked what the two numbers were, and I couldn’t remember the term, so I just said the top one was “apostolic”.

The funny thing was that it sounded close enough so that people just went with it.

I then admitted what happened and the kids were throwing out other options, just about anything that ended in -olic (but not -holic).

• apostolic
• anabolic
• diabolic

Those are the terms I could remember. Feel free to use any of those next time you’re discussing blood pressure.

A few weeks ago, we watched the MAC championship football game. I wouldn’t normally plan to watch the MAC championship, but two things happened.

1. The top team in the MAC going into that game was the University of Toledo, and our oldest son goes there, so we’ve been to a game at Toledo both this year and last year, so it was of interest to us.

and 2. Thanks to a friend’s generosity, we got to be in one of the Terrace Suites. So that was another vote for going.

I have to applaud the person who setup the arrangement of TV screens. But first, some background.

The way the Terrace Suites are setup, they are not fully private. You have a seating section in front that’s open to everything, and then a small counter area that’s somewhat enclosed. The enclosure is a partially frosted glass pane, so you can see your neighbors in the next suite. Like this:

Each suite has a TV screen in the “inside” counter area and a TV screen in the “outside” seating area. You get a remote to be able to change the station if you want. Here is what they looked like in our suite.

When we got there, our screens were on but our neighbor’s screens were off. At least they looked off to us, but the kids noticed if you look through the glass, you could see the image. Like this:

The initial guess was there was some sort of filter, but then we noticed the images were reversed, and it was actually a reflection of the screen in our suite.

And that’s why I was impressed with the person who setup the suites. Because I moved my head up and down, and no matter at what height I viewed the other screen through the glass, the reflection lined up perfectly.

Here are some GIFs of how well the inside and outside screens both align.

That was me just moving the camera left to right. I didn’t get shots of it moving up and down.

I was always impressed with people who could make life lessons out of things.

“Wow, that’s a really good way of looking at that.”
“How did they think of that?”
and so on.

But then I discovered that you can make anything a life lesson if you want. You can even make the same thing two opposite lessons. People just make them up.

This realization came to me last summer as I was figuring out how to keep our pool clean.

I read something about how you should stir the water and brush the sides so the gunk doesn’t settle and can get pulled into the filter. It won’t stay clean unless you keep things active. And I was reminded of relationship advice – not to let problems fester, but to get things out in the open. You can’t resolve any problems by ignoring them.

Then we went away on vacation, and the pool sat unattended for a week or two. And all the gunk settled and congealed into a mat at the bottom of the pool, and it was easily scraped up in large chunks. And I was reminded of relationship advice – not to keep bringing up disagreements and hurts, but to give things time to heal.

No, it’s not a perfect analogy, but I never was that good at making life lessons out of things. But the life lesson here is that you can get lessons out of anything. Like Ratatouille – not that everything can be a life lesson, but that a life lesson can come from anywhere.

With the daylight hours diminishing, I can’t spend all evening working outside on yard projects anymore. So I’m stuck inside after dinner.

I’ve found myself wondering if I should catch up on some of the movies I’ve been thinking about watching. But then I remember that it’s football season, so half the time the evening could be spent watching football.

I then got to comparing watching sports versus watching a movie. If I have to spend two hours of my evening, which is better?

With movies, they have different characters, but the plots are generally similar and the ending is about the same.

With sports, they have the same recurring characters and the plots are generally similar, but the ending is unknown.

I usually end up watching football because it’s live. I know the movies aren’t going anywhere, and it’s not very fun watching a game a week or two later after you know the outcome.

Yes, there are still plenty of projects inside the house to do, but it seems my motivation sets with the sun.

One of main complaints with the iPhone is the inconsistent interface for clock notifications. I use both the alarm (for waking up in the morning) and the timer (reminders during the day) just about every day. And I never know which button to press to get it to stop.

Here’s the alarm:

And here’s the timer:

My problem is that I want to press the larger, more colorful button. But Apple has made the decision that for the two parts of its clock app, the larger, more colorful button will have two different meanings.

So when my iPhone starts making clock noises, I have to look at it, figure out which button means “stop” and which button means “remind me again soon”, and press the one I want.

One of these days, I’ll change my alarm setting to turn off the snooze option…