Today I felt very unfocused at work, although I did manage to get quite a bit done. We had another meeting, and by the end I felt irritable and just wished everyone could shut the heck up. But I did have a fun experience this morning doing a research study on driving systems. It was like a video game where you drove, only at a certain point the car could take over and then you were supposed to do a second task while the car drove for you. At the end I got an Amazon gift card, then I was walking back to my office and saw all the preschoolers in the campus daycare playing in the sunshine. I noticed one little boy looking at me intently, so I glanced at him and he did look familiar, and then I realized he was the son of one of my bandmates. I said his name and he kind of ran off, but he seemed to be giggling so I don't think he was that scared or anything.
Meanwhile, Travalon took some photos of birds. Here are Tux Duck and his lovely wife.
He saw another Tux Duck at Mendota County Park, but he only had his cell phone.
He saw pelicans around the little island in Cherokee Marsh. You can see how they move in sync while doing their cooperative fishing.
Eek! I wouldn't get this close to them! Those things are HUGE!!
Travalon made a cool video of them swimming in a line along the shore of the island, which I will try to put on YouTube and post here soon.
At work he supervised the small children doing art projects. This first one is a cartoon by a kid who never wants to be at the club. "After all these years" - he's seven!
He made it double-sided.
This one is labeled "My brother" in Spanish.
This one is labeled "Me and Too." No idea what that means.
After work I went to the Lone Girl for the monthly ukulele strum, wearing my ukulele T-shirt and ukulele earrings. As we were playing, a train went by right outside and blew its horn in an entirely different key. Even though I only get to strum once a month, I am improving and can now play a number of chords without too much difficulty. It's funny that E7 is a pain on the ukulele, because it is on the mandolin too. It's the main reason I don't like playing in the key of A major. (A minor is fine on both instruments.) Wait, maybe A minor also uses an E7 - I'm probably thinking of modal tunes, where the other main chord is a G. We never play anything modal on the ukuleles, mostly old rock and country tunes with a 1-4-5 chord structure, and a few weirder chords thrown in today, but I'm having to sit out less and less chords. Progress! Then Travalon came up to hear us, and afterwards we had dinner. Always a pleasant evening out.
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