A Couple of Fun Things

The ska band that Paul plays in, the Fists of the Proletariat, had a gig up in the mountain town of Nederland on Saturday and Ben and I went up to see them play.  My, they were good!  They've been together now for about three years and not only sound great but are quite the performers.  They really enjoy playing and it shows. 

Paul's been involved in a lot of creative work lately, spending hours at the Boulder High School theater helping create the set for the upcoming spring musical, Les Misérables.   We thought it was nice of the theater department to let him work, since, after all, he did graduate last spring.  But it appears that the directors not only allow him to work but welcome him.  One of them told him he could come help out any time and another said he'd get some pay in the end.  When you calculate all the hours he spends there, I'm sure he won't even get minimum wage, but he's sure having some fun and is learning a lot, which is a good thing for a gap year.  

Paul is also co-teaching a digital arts class at Boulder High, which is a fancy way of saying that he helps the teacher out and even teaches a class every couple of weeks.  A great benefit of this volunteer work is that he gets to borrow new technology like 360 cameras and virtual reality headsets. 

 He had a lot of fun a couple of weeks ago arranging for a 360 camera to be mounted on a drone and do a flyover of the high school and is now editing the footage to show to the class.  Last week he brought home two virtual reality head sets to try out.  VR is a "computer technology that delivers an experience through headsets."  

I'm Paul's guinea pig as he develops a class session using these VR devices.  Just putting on the headsets is so cool because you are suddenly immersed into some new world.  I was first dropped into an underwater scene that was so real and beautiful I almost cried with the joy of it (yes, really!)  There's another one with a walk through of Paris which I'd like to spend more time in.  Last night I tried out the other headset which comes with hand controls as well.  Paul called up a program that put me into some kind of interior that looked like a high tech spaceship, where I interacted with a robot type of creature who handed me things to use, such as as pinwheel and then a "blaster,", i.e, arcade type gun.   I can see why the women in this photo using a virtual reality set is smiling; it was way fun.   

halfpoint/123RF Stock Photo

VR is being marketed to game-loving teens and young adults, but also to senior communities which use it to decrease isolation in home-bound and institution-bound seniors and to increase muscles that control balance.  If you're interested, do a search for "virtual reality seniors" or click here  to read a Forbes article on "How Virtual Reality Helps Older Adults."  

Early Saturday morning I got a text from my friend Janice who I've known since high school.  She sent me a photo of this quilt which I had given her a long time ago.   

With the photo was this message:  "I love this quilt more everyday.  I liked it when you gave it to me and look at it every day and I just love it more and more.  Thank you for sharing your talent and work with me!"   Pretty neat way to the morning started, wasn't it?

 The snow is pretty much melted around our neighborhood but you can still find it, along with ice, on the upper trails in Chautauqua.  Friday Ben and I hiked up to Amphitheater rocks, using our ice cleats to make our way up the snow and ice covered stair steps that take you high up above the city.  It was difficult work for me but I liked the experience so much that when Ben asked me Sunday morning "Where shall we hike today?" I suggested we go back up again before the ice and snow melt.  So we did, and this time we went up even further, past the Amphitheater rocks and on up, following a trail that eventually treks over a ridge and down the backside of the park.  It's a relentless uphill climb and I was really tired when we reached the ladder you have climb before reaching the ridge, so we turned back there. 

It's a beautiful world on the snow covered trails.

I'd like to go back up and see if I can muster enough energy to actually hit the ridge before we start the hike back down.  The trick is not to do this hike in the early spring when the trails turn to icky, slippery mud.  So I was glad to see that it looks like we'll get some snow on Wednesday that will cover the trails again and make them good for winter hiking.

The forecasts for this upcoming storm are all over the place, with different sources giving different estimates of snow totals, from 3" to 12".  One says to expect blizzard conditions with 1" of snow.  Now how can you have a blizzard and only get 1"? 

Well, as the National Weather Service states dryly, "Slight shifts in storm track and when rain changes to snow will play a large role in snowfall accumulations with the storm."   We'll see what happens!