Footle and Grok

I was supposed to run a half marathon today.

As I explained last Saturday, my Grand Teton and Yellowstone races were canceled. I deferred them to 2021.

In honor of my canceled run, I thought I would share some Yellowstone facts. Entire books are written about this fascinating park, so I am just going to give you a taste. Perhaps we can all visit together next year.

A few fun facts about Yellowstone National Park:

• Encompassing 3,472 square miles, Yellowstone is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined
• Yellowstone has more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, including geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles
• With more than 500 active geysers, Yellowstone has more than half the world geysers
• Yellowstone Lake is the largest high elevation lake in North America
• 285 species of birds live in Yellowstone at one time or another
• There are about 290 waterfalls in Yellowstone
• If you like to hike, there are about 1,000 miles of trails for you to try

I believe science teachers should blow something up in their classrooms every day (or online if the class can’t meet.)

I have taken more boring classes than I can remember. If there had been more than notes on a whiteboard (or worse, a chalkboard), I might have remembered more.

Of course, I went to school before YouTube and even before Bill Nye the Science Guy (Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!) I watched Mr. Wizard, and he was okay, in an old school way. (I can still remember him putting a powder on the water in an aquarium and then sticking his hand in the water but not getting wet. Cool.) Nowadays, there are a ton of awesome videos of both professionals and amateurs doing STEM experiments,  

Mark Rober has been making awesome videos for a while, but his squirrel obstacle course brought him to my attention. If you haven’t seen this video yet, watch it now. Phantastic Gus is the best, but all the squirrels are amazing, and the science is so fun you won’t realize you are learning.

And that is how it should be. No one learns when they are bored. Using squirrels, watermelons, and dinosaurs to teach ideas is a way to get kids (and big kids) interested in science.

Below, I have included a few of Mark’s other videos. He has a lot more, so check out his YouTube channel. And most importantly, share these videos with your kids or grandkids and then let them make something themselves. It might not work the first time (as Mark often shows), but we don’t make it to the moon without first lighting a match.

Rocket-powered Golf Clubs

World’s First Automatic Strike Bowling Ball

Drinking Nasty Swamp Water (to save the world)

I need help.

I want to do something that I think is simple but apparently is not. I have 12-inch by 12-inch scrapbooks (one is Creative Memories, and one is an old post-style.) I want to scan each page of the album and then create a Shutterfly digital album with the jpegs. Simple, right? Not exactly.

I did this before with 8-inch square albums, and it worked great. The problem with this new project is that I can’t scan a 12-inch square page. Here’s where I am at:

• My scanner is only 11″x17″.
• I’ve looked online, and I can’t find a scanner that is 12 inches on any side.
• I don’t want to scan half of the page and then the other half.
• I can not remove the photos because I am returning the albums as they are, so the page must be scanned intact.
• I took the pages to Staples, and while they can scan any size, they use a roller, not a glass plate.
• I can not put photo pages through a roller (at least I’m not willing to do so and Staples did not recommend it.)

So, I’m asking for help. Does anyone know where or how I can scan a 12-inch page without hurting the page? While I don’t have an unlimited budget, I am willing to hear any idea. Thank you for your help. I’d hate to abandon these projects.

I wrote a post to go out yesterday. I really did. You just got it today.

When I hit the publish button on the app, something strange happened. It backdated and posted on May 24. However, it never went into my Mailchimp send-out list (possibly because Mailchimp thought I had published it in May), so you didn’t see it until today when I fixed the date.

I didn’t know I could backdate posts, and I don’t know why I would want to. It doesn’t go out into people’s emails, and it isn’t the date that I actually published it. Is it so I can insert a post, should I actually miss one (which I haven’t yet)? That would be cheating.

Now that I know I can backdate, I will be more careful with the app, so I don’t do it again. I hope you enjoyed making yesterday’s bookmarks… today.

You can’t have too many bookmarks.

While I don’t believe that dog-earing books is the crime of the century, I do like bookmarks. I have a large collection and often add to it. So when I found this video for making Harry Potter house-themed bookmarks, I had to try it out.

This is truly an easy way to make neat looking bookmarks. You don’t have to do them in Hogwarts colors. I used paper I had on hand, and they look good. (Okay, they look a little ragged because I desperately need a new Creative Memories paper cutter blade and I keep forgetting to get one.)

The next time I make these, I’ll use a bit of stick glue on the paper each time I fold it. It’s not necessary, but it would strengthen the braid.

Try this with the kids in your life. It’s so easy that they can make one for each of their friends, or for every reader they know. I made some for my book-loving family.

Here is the video.

I love big numbers.

The bigger the better. Nine zeros after a number? Great! Fifteen? Even better. How about a hundred? Bring it on.

If you like big numbers too, or if you want to understand how to understand these sorts of numbers, check out this video* by Neil deGrasse Tyson. With the help of his co-host, comic Chuck Nice, Neil helps everyone visualize big numbers and how they relate to each other. Just remember, big is relative.

*This eighteen-minute video really is amazing and I hope you will watch it. It’s fun to have your mind blown occasionally.

The summer reading program at our library has started.

I love that it is online and that adults are welcome to participate. Points are earned by doing various tasks. One is to learn five words. I found a website with a fun list of words and will work through it. To earn this point, I have to use the words in my life. Here are the first five words.

• Zenith – the highest point above the observer
• Zealot – a fervent and even militant proponent of something
• Yearn – Desire strongly
• Yawner – someone who yawns
• Xenophobia – a fear of foreigners or strangers

These are some great words. The one I was drawn to was xenophobia because I wondered what its opposite was. I guessed it was xenophilia and was correct.

According to Wikipedia, xenophilia is an affection for unknown/foreign objects, manners, cultures, or people. I believe that if everyone traveled outside their home, there would be less conflict because people do not fight what they recognize as normal.

As I googled words that started with “xeno,” I learned something cool. Luna Lovegood, an awesome character in the Harry Potter books, has a father who enjoys meeting new people and learning about them. His name is Xenophilius Lovegood. J. K. Rowling once again showed how clever she is by describing a character’s personality with his name.

Let’s be more like Xeno Lovegood and treat strangers as new friends. It isn’t necessary to travel to another country to be a xenophilic (although it is a great idea.) Just step outside your door, or if you can’t do that, open a book.

I was supposed to be running a half marathon today.

It was going to happen outside Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. I had signed up to run a 5k yesterday also. Next week, I had planned to do a 5k in Yellowstone on Friday with another half marathon the day after, too. It’s called the Quad, and I would have earned eight medals. It was canceled, but I deferred to 2021. I’d love for you to join me next year.

In honor of the races that didn’t happen, I thought I would share some fun facts about this gorgeous park. Next year, I’ll go in-depth, but today, I just want to give you a taste.

A few facts about Grand Teton National Park

• Earthquakes that shook over millions of years created the 40-mile-long Teton Range.
• Two blocks of land on either side of a fault line slipped past each other. The west block rose upward to form the steep mountains. The east block dropped down and created the Jackson Hole valley.
• This mountain range is the youngest in the Rocky Mountains.
• The Grand Tetons would be much taller than their 12,000-feet peaks if it hadn’t been carved by massive glaciers 2 million years ago.
• Twelve glaciers still exist in the park today.

I’m working on a couple of reading goals.

One item on my summer (sand)bucket list is to re-read a favorite book. The first book I ever read to my now husband (at the time we were only dating) was James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. It is my favorite book, so I chose it as the book to re-read this summer. The hardback copy I own was a Christmas gift from my Aunt Susan and Uncle Pat in 1981. It is well worn due to years of re-reads. To keep with tradition, I’m reading out loud to my hubby. This has become an evening ritual that we both enjoy.

My other reading goal is on a different list. I made a “Fifty Things to Do Before I Turn Fifty” list (I’m forty-six now.) One item on this list is to read the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I have wanted to read these books forever, but for one reason or another, I never got around to it. Thanks to digital checkout at my library, I have started Book 1. I’m not that far into it (chapter 6), but I already love it.

What reading goals are you working on? In a time of upheaval, books can bring comfort. Why not re-read an old favorite tonight?

I promise to keep this positive because that is Footle and Grok’s mandate.

Whenever I feel crushed by world events, I listen to music. For some reason, this time, it had not been helping. I had been playing upbeat, happy, inspiring music, thinking it would lift me up, but it didn’t.

So this morning, I played Mumford and Sons. I love their music, but can’t listen to them all the time because they sometimes bring me down. Apparently, that is what I needed today. I felt a little better and thought I would write about something that’s on my mind.

On Facebook, a friend posted a picture of a large metal dragon and said they needed it. Someone in the comments disagreed. They said that my friend “needed” new knees, but no one needed a huge metal dragon with all that is going on.

In my humble opinion (and this is my opinion, so no hate, please) we need art. We need music. We need books. We need ways to express ourselves when it is impossible to do otherwise. Someone made that big metal dragon (it was amazing), and if it brings a little bit of happiness and joy to my friend than she needs it.

I needed Mumford and Sons to settle my mood and would hate for someone to say that music wasn’t a need. During World War II, we had military units saving art and monuments from destruction, just as there were other people creating music, art, and books during that dark time. I’d say we need it.