Wednesday, August 3

Today I am grateful for:

Pleasant temperature today, right around 20 C, a hair cool, but nice.

I went to see River, and we had a lesson today.

R and I are both not real happy about the last online show (the last video I showed was my entry).

My entry was disqualified, and I got no official score (they did e-mail me with what they felt I would have gotten, which I thought was a good score). The reason: I was not wearing the correct shirt.

I showed last year in a clean T-shirt, and this year only a few weeks before this show, I showed in a short-sleeved shirt.

Yes, their rules do state that they want people to wear a shirt with a collar and long sleeves, but...well...no one really did. They didn't dock marks.

I got an email AFTER the show, saying they would now enforce that rule.

It's fine to me that they want to enforce a dress standard, but why say so after the show, and disqualify me?

Even more confusing, is that R was disqualified for one entry, but not several others, and she was wearing the same shirt for both entries. Some of the other students got disqualified too.

It makes R look bad too, because she is thinking it's okay for us to wear whatever, and up until now it seemed okay, and then people get disqualified.

I am not horribly upset because I thought we did well, and I guess I'm burnt out about caring right now?

Anyhow, R is likely going to complain, and she and I are going to collaborate on how to do so in a constructive manner.

Our lesson went well, though it got kind of derailed talking about the shirt rule and disqualifications.

We continued to refine our homework from last week, the side passes and backing from a voice command, halts while lunging, and riding with just a neck rope (circles, halts, backing). River did well, and was relaxed.

I spent a fair amount of time letting him use the Surefoot pads again, and just hanging out. Sometimes I just like sitting with him.

I came home and messed around with my bluetooth speakers. I have no idea how they work, but I downloaded the app for my phone, and got the speakers to play stuff from YouTube. I don't know how to store music on my phone, and I don't want to have to pay money to subscribe to a music service.

I painted for a while.

My husband seems to be enjoying time with his parents. His Dad always has stuff that needs doing at the cabin. He helped repair some stairs, and now they are sanding and painting some exterior window frames on the enclosure over the deck.

I am sad for them that the cabin is up for sale. Most of the people they knew at the lake who also owned cabins aren't there any more, and it is younger people. A lot of them are not being used this summer at all, so I guess this feels too isolated for them.

His Dad likes to fix things and putter, and if they only have the condo, that means he won't have anything to putter and work on. He will likely have to get rid of most of his tools. I think he is maybe part of one of those wood shop groups, kind of like the craft center? If he isn't, he could consider joining one. He is in much better shape than his wife, and he could still be doing interesting things.

There are parts of the ocean with no tides which are called amphidromic points, some even directly border land.

The shape of the sea floor, the depth, the interference from the coast or other features, cause the currents to move around a central point, and cancel out the vertical rise and fall that would normally occur from tides. There is still current and movement of water, just no change in depth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphidromic_point

Thursday, August 4

Today I am grateful for:

Another cooler day. It oddly feels like autumn.

The farrier was supposed to come today, but had to reschedule for tomorrow. I really hope she makes it, because Wonder's feet are chipping.

I worked at stuff today, but none of it felt like I got "finished" anything. I took two wheel barrows of manure out of the goat/pony pen.

I took some dirt from the pile beside the house over to a spot in the yard that is low.

I pulled weeds from a different spot beside the house, and took dirt from one spot that was too high, and used it to fill in a hole beside the house that my husband was leaving open to access wires that can be filled for now.

I let everyone out for a while, and mowed. First, I had to get a yard cart and pick up rocks all along the edge of where we park the cars. My husband at one point, thought it would be a brilliant idea to put big rocks all along this area, so we wouldn't drive on the grass. Well, it's not that hard to figure out where the grass is, and all that happened is that I couldn't mow the edge of the driveway, and then the grass right there grew about waist high, and it's a pain in the ass to weed-whack it. So, I pulled out all the rocks and put them into a cart, and then I could finally mow the edge of the driveway.

I only mowed about 1/4 of the yard, but hey, it's better than nothing.

Talking to my Sweetie; he and his parents paid their respects at the cemetery today.

I learned that sound travels faster through materials that are less elastic. Slowest through normal air, faster through water, and very fast through a rigid material because there is less movement (think of sound moving as a wave, and being able to move in a much straighter line through a solid).

"sound travels at 343 m/s in air, it travels at 1,481 m/s in water (almost 4.3 times as fast) and at 5,120 m/s in iron (almost 15 times as fast). In an exceptionally stiff material such as diamond, sound travels at 12,000 metres per second (39,000 ft/s),[2]— about 35 times its speed in air and about the fastest it can travel under normal conditions."

When we hear about a plane travelling at Mach 1, that is actually the speed of sound as it travels through air. Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound travelling through air.

Personal thought: It is interesting to think about how sound might move through very fast through a metal cymbal, and it would slow down in air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound