LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Gadget

Christmas in July

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A box full of magic! (Don't drop it.)

Well, June, really. Lloyd got his iPhone! He was 13th in line on Friday, and at 6:24 p.m. it was in his hot little hands. (I’ll let him go into the details of that.) He hung on to it for 24 hours to be sure he didnt have buyer’s remorse, and even put it up on ebay to see if he could make a little profit. (It didn’t sell.) So last night at 10:30, he finally opened it up. Great for him, not so great for Brad and me, who were pretty tired and did not completely share in the iPhone experience. (Really, only one person can hold it at a time. It’s like being 7 and watching the birthday boy drive his cool truck around the carpet. Fun for one.)

It is pretty dang cool, though. Once I got to hold it, I understood the hype. So – Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas for the next three years, Lloyd!

iPhone Eve

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˜Twas the night before iPhone,
and all through the houses,
the dorks and the geeks
click-click-clicked with their mouses.

The nerds were lined up
In collapsible chairs,
In hopes the new iPhone
Soon would be theirs.

The iPhones were snuggled
All safe in their box s,
Secure in the knowledge
They would run OS X (s).

Lauren in her jammies,
And Brad sleeping tight,
Lloyd’s on the keyboard –
On Apple’s website.

When what to his wondering
Eyes should appear,
But Steve Jobs on a Segway,
With eight wireless speakers.

“On iTunes! On Google!
On pictures and mapses!
On e-mail! On browsers!
Use touches and tapses!

On photos! On movies!
On phone calls to mom!
Dear legions, your dreams
Have come true -it’s da bomb!”

His eyes twinkled wildly
As he pulled from his pack,
a sleek-looking thing
like a tiny iMac.

He spoke not a word, but
He tossed it to Lloyd,
An iPhone! So shiny!
So geeky! Such joy!

Lloyd jumped around
All over the place!
“God bless you, Steve Jobs,
and your cool interface!”

Prototypin’

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I think it looks like a little guy... with a spoon head.

Brad is a cereal eater, and since he’s a guy, his custom is to rinse off his cereal bowl and spoon and set them by the sink to use again the next day.  Since I’m a girl, I kept putting his bowl in the dishwasher every other summer.  Oops!  So this year, we’ve got the perfect solution!  Lloyd helped with it’s construction – he’s got mad Dremel skills – and made the spoon notch just right!

That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

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Well, I would call our sheet experiment a grand success!  Today we hit a high of 91 degrees, and the upstairs stayed quite cool.  I took some pictures tonight to show the 4 – 5 degree gain (loss?) that a bit of cloth made!  By the way, we upgraded to a flat sheet – more corner coverage. 

(I think I get my ‘watching the temperature’ interest from my dad. I grew up in western Colorado where it was dry, and we didn’t have central air conditioning.  We would open windows at night and close them the next morning in the summers, and in winter he would manually turn the heat down at night and up in the morning.  Let’s hear it for programmable thermostats of today – it’s like having Dad around!)

Side one:

The 'wrong' side of the sheet.

Side two:

The 'right' side where we abide and reside - good nide!

Grand Opening

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Like Christmas in May

Deborah called two days ago and left a message telling Lauren that they were opening an Ikea in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, so Lauren hopped on a plane and flew out. Charles was in on the caper and picked her up from the airport and dropped her off at their house where she opened with, “I got your message and came right out.” It was a big suprise for Deborah and it sounds like they are having great fun.

In other news, I haven’t overslept without Lauren’s 5 alarms going off every stinkin’ morning.

Foldy Bowl

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I love gadgets – or at least the thinking that goes into most gadgets.  (There are some that are completely useless – like the machine that scrambles an egg while it’s still in the shell for ‘easy scrambled eggs’!  Are you kidding me? How hard is it to scramble an egg?)

Anyway, I’ve been visiting a guy’s website, http://www.kk.org/cooltools/ , and if you click on the categories on the left side he’s got articles on all kinds of cool stuff.  I’m drawn to the backpacking things, because even though I’ll never hike in my life, I like all the stuff that goes along with it – the tiny pots, the tiny tents, it’s all good.  One of the things he wrote about was a set of foldable dishes.  They snap or fold together to make a cup, plate or bowl, then unsnap for easy packing.  I remembered that my sister had sent me one of those years ago!  I’d played around with it, but never used it for actual eating.  Well, I tested it can can vouch for it’s bowl-ness.  Behold:

Bowl or frisbee?

Folded, with a little life-giving Life cereal. (I'd already eaten First Breakfast.)