We put the flannel sheets on the bed yesterday. Just in the nick of time! We woke up to 36 degrees this morning. Flannel sheets, wool blanket and winter quilt, propane furnace and electric space heater, and I'm OK until I have to take Odie for a walk! I'm afraid it's conservation-be-damned when this Florida girl gets cold!
We're leaving today to go to Quartzsite for Christmas. Think it will be warmer there?
I've been wanting to visit Biosphere 2 ever since my good friend, Chris L. was there in 1992. She visited during the time when people were living in the Biosphere 2 and it was completely sealed.
Only in map-browsing, did I stumble upon the fact that the biosphere is just over an hour away from where we are. We've been here several times before, and I never realized it was nearby. Even now, it took the fact that my good friend Liz was visiting Tucson, to get us to make the trip. It has changed ownership a couple times in recent years. It is now part of the University of Arizona, and they're reviving it as a research facility. It was actually in danger of being bulldozed for a housing development ... what a waste that would have been.
It's an impressive facility.
Here's Liz and Stan in the rainforest area inside the structure. There's a salt water ocean and a beach behind them on the lower level.
And, here's our tour guide explaining the coastal desert region.
There was lots more. The living quarters, the viewing area for under the ocean, and the global warming research findings display. I'm glad we went. What I enjoyed the most is the warm air and humidity! My parched lips just soaked it up ... ahhhhhh. Being a Floridian, I just dry up and crack apart in the desert. We walked inside the door to the rainforest area of the Biosphere and I felt at home!
The only problem was that I heard a lot of 'overwhelm' talk ... "Oh dear, I'm so lost ... this is a lot of information to absorb" But, when I told them that I would be cutting down the amount of material for the next class, they said, "Oh no, it was all such good stuff!" Music to my ears. I'm still going to try to cut it down some. I got to thinking about years ago, when I used to teach hands-on classes all the time. We would have a full day class just on Beginning Word Processing. In my current class we spent one session - 2 hours - on that topic. And, years ago, I was teaching office workers - they worked on a computer all the time. These ladies are new to the computer game. The complete outline of the class is on the Geeks on Tour webpage if you want to check it out.
What made it possible was my tutorial videos. Each student received the tutorials on CD and they used headsets to view them on their own computers - then I would give them exercises to work on - allowing them to work somewhat at their own speed. They all brought their own laptops ... there were 3 on Vista and 2 on XP! I learned a lot too!
In the end, learning is all about attitude - being open to try new things and willing to take risks. These ladies were shining examples! And guess what? According to Dr. Perls in Living to 100, exercising your brain like that will do the most to add years to your life!
Today was the first morning since I came down with this cold that I've felt good enough to go for our morning walk with Odie. We had classes to teach on both Saturday and Sunday and I was fine for them thanks to the miracle of coldeeze. If you try it, I recommend the little white tablets that you let dissolve under your tongue. The lozenges are nice but haven't been as effective for me. Ah ... better living thru chemistry!
Anyway ... all 3 of us went for our morning walk. Our thermometer said 42 degrees. Apparently there had been a freeze warning for overnight because we noticed that all the delicate plants had been 'tucked in' for the night!
I'm not sure if these are golf balls, or snow balls?!
We took our longer walk this morning and ended up at the airfield. There's a bunch of guys who like to fly radio controlled model airplanes.
One pilot gave Odie some exercise letting him chase his 'flying pizza.'
Uh Oh . he actually caught this one!
The pilot assured us that he doesn't mind with this flying pizza plane, but we made sure to keep Odie leashed when they were flying the real ones. You can see video of Odie chasing the planes on this previous post.
I was already a little apprehensive about the hike today because Jim (one of the hike leaders) said this one was pretty strenuous. So, when my friend Liz called yesterday to say she was in Tucson for the week and let's get together today, I easily abandoned the hiking plan for the visit Liz plan.
By the time I went to bed last night, I had developed a significant sore throat telling me a cold was on it's way. Darn! I believe in resting to avoid major cold symptoms - and I certainly didn't want to be responsible for passing a cold along to Liz when she's on vacation. So, scrap plan B.
When the phone rang at 7:30 with the first Wi-Fi support call telling us a part of the system was down this morning ... we went on to plan C. Jim gets to work and I go back to bed.
Sorry Diane :-( but thanks for the encouragement!) Maybe next week. At least I got to spend some quality time with George yesterday talking about computers and blogging stuff. What fun!
