Turn It Up! (Innovative iPhone Amplifiers)

His

Hers

Funny thing how people separated by great distances sometimes stumble upon similar ideas. My husband, who is always on the lookout for interesting blog ideas found this cool way to turn up the volume when you play your favorite jam on your iPhone. Lately I have been enjoying Weird Al’s Mandatory Fun on mine but regardless of your taste in music this trumpet iPhone amplifier is pretty classy and uses no electricity either. These devices, like the one pictured here, are made from salvaged trumpets and other brass instruments, with assorted machine parts and they’re designed to amplify and direct the music (or other sounds) played through your iPhone and iPad. Here is a similar idea I found. Using a paint roller cover and 2 plastic cups from your local Dollar Tree you can make a cheap iPhone amplifier. The how-to you tube video I watched was in Spanish but it needed no translation since the concept is pretty simple. Yep, so back to the like minds (or as we sometimes say-great minds) coming up with similar ideas at the same time, well we may have like minds but we are miles apart!

 

Street Harassment

After becoming the million and one-th viewer of Hollaback!’s, the nonprofit dedicated to ending street harassment, you tube video currently trending and then reading some of the comments I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to add my point of view, two cents, or what have you. This post comes on the heels of my last post about Fat Girl Costumes, no less. The women in the video who spent 10 hours walking the streets of New York is just a regular sized girl wearing regular clothes, nothing ‘provocative’ and she doesn't acknowledge any of the attention she receives as she follows her videographer who is wearing a hidden Go Pro video camera needless to say, unbeknownst to the rest of the world and specifically the girl’s street harassers. The girl is the recipient of more than 100 harassments which include catcalls, verbalized comments, and several short stalking periods but not all are shown in the video. None of the comments were simple good mornings or good evenings. That’s a quick summary in case you aren’t one of the more than one million and one viewers and might have missed this on social media or the Today Show or wherever this is being shown. The comments I read were quite interesting and point up to me the difference in how men and women basically view the subject of street harassment. Several commenters state that what Hollaback! labels as street harassment are simply compliments but I tend to agree with one of the Hollaback! founders, who says (and I am paraphrasing here) that hearing comments about your body every five minutes makes you change the way you walk down the street, because women are often not hearing these ‘compliments’ the way the complimentors may be intending them. I wave and say good morning to everyone I cross paths with on my walks and bike soirees around my small town of St. Marys, GA and I feel pretty sure that any words of encouragement I pass on to other joggers and walkers don’t fall into the street harassment category. As you may also guess, I am not a recipient of street harassment either.

Fat Girl Costumes at Walmart

Here is another reason I just plainly cannot stand Walmart. On their website yesterday they advertised a fat girl costumes category for Halloween. With the actual photos of the costumes the labels used the more PC term, plus sized. But seriously, who wants to be a fat female vampire for 30 bucks or a fat diva or witch for $50. For that matter who would want to dress up as an emaciated any of the above? Not to mention did you notice the prices for these costumes are seriously outrageous too? Then there is the whole issue of body image. The emphasis on this and photo shopped images through various advertising venues, billboards, and all kinds of TV and electronic media is tough enough on young girls and even old girls (like me) these days. The truth is there is a lot of variety in the sizes and shapes of the human body, and that is how it is supposed to be. Ever consider that perhaps your imperfection is perfection for you? Regardless, I am not going to Walmart on line or in person for any kind of costume ever. This latest stuff even though it was quickly removed from the website cinched it for me. I’d rather save my money and dress up as Robin William’s Mrs. Doubtfire or Martin Lawrence’s Big Mama with clothes out of my own closet! 

Volcanoes, Hawaii, and the Moon

What do Hawaii and the moon have in common? The answer is volcanic activity.

Right now in Hawaii, Mount Kilauea is sending lava in a different than usual direction (the opposite of where it was flowing when I last visited the big island), toward Pahoa village, a historic former sugar plantation consisting of small shops and homes with a population of about 800 people, a populated area that may soon need to be evacuated. The leading edge of the flow is about 110 yards wide and spreading, and is only 100 yards from the nearest residential property there. Walking out on the lava field as tourists was fun when my husband and I were there a few years ago but having lava creeping toward my home would be another story.

The moon, a place I have yet to visit, and our planet’s natural satellite, isn't just a dead rock orbiting us out in space. It may still have some fire at its core. Dozens of small rocky formations spotted by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were laid down by lava more recently than researchers originally believed, as recently as only ten million years ago. These rock formations suggest that as far as volcanic activity goes, the moon is not yet dead.

Non Scale Health Victories

So I am continuing to work on improving my health and fitness level and I came across an interesting article about alternative ways to assess health, alternatives to using my nemesis, the scale. Even though there is a big emphasis on obesity which of course is measured in pounds these days, there is more to being healthy than just your weight. There’s more than one way to measure success. It's not just a number on the scale. Here are some things that say more about your health than the scale, sleep, movement, social interaction, and the mirror. Think about the amount of sleep you get, 7 good hours each night is what you need. Then consider whether or not you sit for prolonged periods. If you do you need to move more. Think of social interaction as the opposite of loneliness. Research shows that loneliness leads to unhealthy habits like drinking and overeating. Social interaction has been found to be a stress reducer too. And lastly, the mirror, it matters because you can use it to see how your body weight is distributed and whether you have lean muscle or too much fat. If it is hard to look at yourself honestly in the mirror then snap a selfie or better yet a belfie (a photo of your own belly) with your phone and don’t send the photo to the trash can. Use it for motivation. It won’t change until you do. Let how your clothes fit and feel help you realize the positive impacts of exercise and healthy eating on your body. I’m going to drop a towel over my scale and work focusing on other ways to measure my health and fitness. 

Muscle Metabolics

Yes, I have been on a health kick lately, but here is something I didn’t know about muscles. Your body’s muscle is a huge metabolic organ. What? I thought muscle was what moves my body parts, (and gets sore when I exercise), and it does, but muscle’s role in our health is so much more than that. Muscle consumes glucose so if there isn't enough muscle to use up the glucose, diabetes here we come. Muscle is also the only place in our bodies where we store amino acids, the building blocks of protein. When someone without enough muscle falls ill there isn't enough in reserve to call on in order to help them get well.

Muscle is especially important as we age since we tend to lose muscle mass with age. As muscle strength in the elderly decreases the odds of falling and breaking a hip goes up. A study in the UK showed that one in every three folks that fracture their hip dies in the next 12 months. The double whammy is that person with the broken hip who was losing muscle mass due to aging probably loses even more muscle due to being bedridden for several weeks after their fall. It’s a vicious circle of circumstance and all the more reason for people in my age group to should work to and maintain good muscle health. I had been told by my doctor how important doing weight bearing exercise is for my bones but now I realize it matters to my muscles too. This is all the more reason to consider adding some kind of (light) weight training to my weekly exercise routine.

Every Dog Has Its Day

Every dog has its day usually means everyone has a chance to be successful during some period in their life. I agree with this sentiment but am taking a more literal approach to this idiom by mentioning the dogs that recently took down the latest White House fence jumper. Hurricane and Jordan, two Secret Service Belgian Malinois dogs are the ones to thank this time. They kept the latest jumper from reaching the White House by stopping him basically at the wrong side of the fence. A Belgian Malinois can run up to 30 miles an hour and spends about 20 weeks in training for this kind of work, with police, the military, or Secret Service. Hurricane and Jordan were kicked and punched by the jumper that they cornered but after being checked out by their vet they quickly returned to duty. These two heroes, Hurricane and Jordan, certainly had their day and will, like most dogs trained to serve and protect, work until they are around ten years old.

Closer to home, a couple of weeks ago a St. Johns County Sheriff Department K-9 named Baron was killed in the line of duty. His killer, wanted on a felony warrant for selling cocaine, drowned Baron in shallow water during a police chase. He is now facing an additional third degree felony for killing a dog that's a K-9 officer. Baron had his day too. It’s just a sad one for his handler and the entire community he served.