Teleidoscope

Sat, Mar 01, 2008

Bluetooth

Posted at 10:17 pm MST to Technology

I have joined the 21st century. When I replaced my cell phone today, I got a bluetooth headset for it. The headpiece is charging now. I'll set it up tomorrow.

My company cell phone had gotten very unreliable. This was bad since I use it for conference calls with my customers. During a couple of long calls this past week the phone went garbled before dying completely, and the phone was refusing to work except in one particular location.

I have been wanting hands-free support, so I can type during the conference calls (putting the phone on speaker more or less worked before the phone got cranky, but lately that has not been possible).

The new phone fits in my existing belt clip, a bit more loosely than the old phone did, and it uses the same power connectors, so the travel AC connector I carry in my briefcase will still work, as well as the car adapter from the old phone. And I can keep the old phone's AC adapter as a spare. Replacing the belt clip, and power adapters would have cost as much as the headset.

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Red Chard Omelette

Posted at 9:02 pm MST to Weather

It was 70 F today in Boulder. We still have our two historically snowiest months ahead of us (and in fact, it is supposed to snow tomorrow) but it was nice to have a little taste of spring.

I had one of my Farmers' Market meals for supper: red chard and eggs, with chard that was picked only few hours earlier. I usually make a sort of frittata, but didn't feel like firing up the broiler, so I folded it over into more of an omelette. And I have to say, that was some of the darkest, reddest chard I've ever seen.

I was able to get the super-fresh chard because I took advantage of the nice weather -- and being mostly not sick -- to run a few errands and stop by Nanette's farm for a cup of tea and some conversation. I was watching in the greenhouse as Nanette plucked the chard leaves I just had for supper.

Nanette and her oldest daughter, Rowan, have been selling fresh veggies through their website since the Farmers' Market ended in November, and many of their crops are still going strong.

And they are running out of lighted shelf space in the small building where they are starting their seedlings for the coming season. (Nanette was planting tomatoes and onions when I arrived at the farm.) And there are already lots of trays with little green leaves sticking out of the dirt on some of the shelves that were filled earlier. Some of the seedlings will move into the big greenhouses, some are being grown for eventual transplanting into the outdoor fields. A few flats may be offered for sale at the early markets.

I keep thinking I would love to have some edible plants in my yard, but my soil is bad (unless you want to make bricks), my well water is worse (unless you want oven cleaner straight from the tap), and I get way too much wind and hail here.

I haven't had much luck with houseplants since I moved to Colorado. When I lived in Connecticut, I always had houseplants, but it is so dry here that I can never get the water right for them. I'm doing good at the moment, actually: I bought a few herb plants at the market last year and two of them (two little bay plants with about a half dozen leaves each) have not died yet.

I have a 30 gallon long tank in my living room that once held goldfish (before I started travelling all of the time). One of these days I need to either clean the minerals off the glass, or replace it with a clean tank. It might be nice to have a terrarium that size: I wouldn't need super-tiny plants, since the tank is 30 inches wide by 18 inches tall by 12 inches deep. The plants and cat would be safe from each other, too.

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