Thursday, October 18, 2012

Mushrooms along the bike path, and other creepy stuff

 Cool mushroom growing along side one of the parking lots  that I ride through on pretty much every bike ride.
 More cool mushrooms along the bike path in Genesee Valley Park - Rochester, NY.  This one I know the name of because I Googled them?  Omphalotus illudens The Jack O'Lantern mushroom.  The Jack O'Lantern part comes from the bright orange color --- they are even brighter orange in person!  Halloween is coming up soon .... a time for weird scarey things?  The story of Google and the Jack O'Lantern mushrooms.  Thinking that maybe I could find out what these were because they were very bright colored.  Also the size of the clumps.... the smaller clump was about 18 inches across!  I started typing --- b r i g h t  o r  -- and there it was!  Second on the list of Google provided options was "bright orange mushrooms"!  Pretty weird and/or pretty scarey!  Did Google know where I was, and deduce that Genesee Valley Park was a good spot for bright orange mushrooms?  Did Google have a record of somebody else having Googled "bright orange mushrooms" from that location?  Did  they somehow access  the pictures I had just taken?
And, in the scarey Google line of thought, the image above was the Google Logo on my Birthday!  Hovering the mouse over the image even made the little box say "Happy Birthday, Don".  Again - pretty cool, or pretty creepy!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Happy Birthday to me!

Recently Cheryl has taken up making paper beads.  Instead of stringing them like most folks do, Cheryl has been using them on cards, and other things.  This is the birthday "card" she made for me today.  Very Cool!  Click on pic to embiggen!

A great day to turn 67!  Over 50 birthday greetings on Facebook, a few real world cards, including the hand done cards by Maya and CJ of course, and a hand drawn "card" from my friends Jim and Lucia whom I haven't seen in at least 20 years, but their birthday note shows up every year without fail!  And of course the obligatory card from my life insurance agent!  :-)

I spent some time designing today (I"ll post pictures someday?), also cut some of the tops I've designed for CJ's 3rd birthday - hint - John Deere is the theme!  Some great books and balloons from Cheryl, dinner at the South Wedge Diner with family, and a gift card to our neighborhood bike shop from my son and daughter-in-law - support for my bike riding habit!  Didn't ride the bike today because of high winds.