Happy New Year, it’s 2011. I had some time today to finally upgrade to the latest version of Headway, 2.06. I had the old version of 1.0 and the last time I tried to update, I almost lost everything. Today, things went smoother and the upgrade went well except for a few small glitches.
I learned my lesson from last time and made a complete backup of the site. I have the backup on my hard drive and on my server. I’m still working with video and have learned a great deal about web video. Yesterday I had some time to work on a technique called green screen. I got it working in iMovie09 and I’ll post a small video using this technique.
Other than that, I’ve been spending time with my family and taking it easy. Easy like reading books on science and web video and shopping with the family. With time being the limiting factor, I would like to spend 90% of my time on content and the other 10% maintaining the site. It should be easier now since Headway and WordPress can now be automatically updated, saving a lot of time.
I gave a demonstration of dry ice to my students last week. Here is a video showing what the graduated cylinder looked like at the end of the day. I put a few drops of red food coloring in the water and then put a few pieces of dry ice in the water.
I have this drinking bird on my desk and the kids can’t stop watching it. It keeps drinking the water all day long. As long as I keep adding water to the beaker, the bird will keep drinking. It’s not really drinking the water, just dipping its beak in the water. The water evaporates and cools the beak, thus the liquid moves up.
The temperature decrease causes some of the dichloromethane vapor in the head to condense.
The lower temperature and condensation together cause the pressure to drop in the head (ideal gas law).
The pressure differential between the head and base causes the liquid to be pushed up from the base.
As liquid flows into the head, the bird becomes top heavy and tips over during its oscillations.
When the bird tips over, the bottom end of the neck tube rises above the surface of the liquid.
A bubble of vapor rises up the tube through this gap, displacing liquid as it goes.
Liquid flows back to the bottom bulb (the toy is designed so that when it has tipped over the neck’s tilt allows this), and vapor pressure equalizes between the top and bottom bulbs
The weight of the liquid in the bottom bulb restores the bird to its vertical position
We’ve been here in Mindanao, Philippines for almost two months now, and tomorrow we are leaving to go back to Pennsylvania. Our bags are packed and we are ready to go. Our taxi will pick us up tomorrow morning at 5:30 am for the hour and a half drive to Davao International Airport. My mother in law and sister in law are flying up to Manila with us to help with the kids and to get a little more bonding time in. We’ll stay in Manila until Wednesday morning, when our flight for JFK.
We had a great time here with the usual ups and downs. The weather was hot and humid but there was an exceptional amount of rain with some flooding in our area, especially last month. I’ve had lots of time to read, think, and spend time with my family.
Our long flight leaves Wednesday morning and 20-something hours later, we arrive at JFK on Wednesday night. I’m usually good on long flight as long as the baby sleeps for a while. I walk the kids around the aisles to stretch our legs and to pass the time on the plane. I’m just hoping I can make the time change quickly when I’m back.
Last week we went to Samal island to swim at the beach. We took a small boat (bangka) ride from Davao to Samal. The ride is about 15 minutes. As you can see the water is very clear at Paradise island Resort. We stayed until noon and went back to Davao where we went to People’s Park for a stroll. We stayed in Davao for the night and then went back to Digos.
I’m trying a new video player for this post. I’m using the same flv video as before but I’m not using the plugin to play the video. I’ll see how this one works.
We got together with our wedding Ninong and Ninang last weekend at his church and home. Two years ago when we were here, we didn’t have time but this trip we wanted to visit all our friends and family. Our Ninong is a pastor at a small church here in DIgos. We were invited to their home on Sunday. Before we left, though, Jaycee received a text for us to come to his church as they were all there and it would be better for them to take us to their home instead of us trying to find it.
We found the little church on the other side of town and went inside. They had a small band and were singing so we joined in. It was a nice sermon as he mixed Bisaya and English together. I could understand some of what he was saying. After the sermon, we all went to their home, first stopping for some Durian and other fruits.
As you can see from the video, they live off the main road and we had to walk to get to their home. We all ate some Durian and lunch together and Jaycee talked about when she was younger and living in Digos. We also talked about what it’s like to live in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After lunch, we walked around and they showed us the local high school and a river where some kids were swimming.
They have a new park here in Digos. Actually, it’s the same park, just updated. We went over there the other night after dinner to see what it was like. New to the park is a beautiful multicolor water fountain and brick surface. You can rent a bicycle for 15 pesos an hour. We all rented bicycles and rode around for an hour and had a good time. Enjoy the video.
I was out the other night taking some pictures with my camera and I wanted to see how the sky looked long after the sun sets. It’s referred to as the blue hour and this is the time where you will get a blue tone in your images. The picture of our store is in the blue hour, but the rest are a little past as I was using a high ASA to get some blurred images of the moving trikes.
I brought with me a monopod to help keep the camera steady. It’s not as steady as a tripod, but it works good enough. In these images of our neighborhood here in Digos, the large clouds are a familiar site. They usually build into rain clouds during the night that produce copious amount of rain. We really need a few sunny days here with no rain.
Yes, those two topics go together and we had to deal with both the last few weeks. Fortunately, everything worked out for the best.
Last week we had a party for little Kevin’s first birthday. But in the beginning of the week we had a bit of a scare. KayceeAnn woke up with a fever one day. She had the fever on and off for two days and we were worried that she might have Dengue fever. Here in Davao del Sur, Dengue fever is at epidemic levels and there were over 375 confirmed cases with 10 fatalities last month. We’ve had lots of rain and there are too many mosquitoes here.
This past Sunday I went for a ride up to Makilala in Northern Cotabato to visit the family of my brother in law, Fernando. It was about an hour to get there riding on his motorcycle. The ride was nice, but it started to get hot when the sun came out. We left early from Digos, around 7:30am.
By the time we got there, the temperature was a little cooler because of the altitude and the cloud cover. We brought some pancit caton and pan, which is a noodle salad that you can eat with bread. We met his mom and dad coming from church and then headed for their house up in the mountain. We walked for about 20 minutes up the mountain to their house where we all ate the pancit. I was amazed how quiet it was up at that house as I couldn’t hear any cars, trucks or that faint noise that comes from distant trucks on a highway. Just peace and quiet.
While we were there, some of the relatives showed me how they harvest the rubber tree and gave me a chance to try. They are able to sell the liquid coming from the tree locally. On the way down from the mountain, Fernando dropped me off so I could walk over a small suspension bridge that spans a river. He met me on the other side, where his sister lives.
On the ride back we stopped to see the new stadium Davao del Sur is building. It was much bigger that I thought it would be and is due fro completion in another year or so.
