Wednesday’s Word

Last Wednesday, my friend and I went to a ropes course at the Adventure Park in Sandy Spring, Maryland. Going there, I didn’t exactly know what I was getting into, but it sounded like fun and I hadn’t seen my friend in a while, so I didn’t see any harm in it. Having never heard of a ropes course before, I was in for quite the surprise. For those of you who are like I was prior to last Wednesday and don’t know what a ropes course is, it is a type of obstacle course suspended in the air. The use of many, many steel cables, harnesses, clips, and, in the one I went to, sturdy trees, makes it very safe.

Since the whole thing is kind of hard to explain, I’ll give an example of an obstacle that a ropes course might have. A hypothetical obstacle would be a steel cable stretched tightly between two trees with planks of wood at intervals of a few feet. In this hypothetical obstacle, there would also be a steel cable stretched tightly between the same two trees but at a higher height. You would be clipped to the top steel cable and would also probably hold on to it for support as you edged across from one tree to the other. This would be one of the easier obstacles. The real obstacles range from very easy to very, very difficult requiring strength, balance, agility, or all three.

Anyway, it was really fun. In addition to fun obstacles, they had things like ziplines. My friend took a video of a zipline in action on his phone. We tried a series of easy obstacles, then a harder series of obstacles, and then we moved right on up to the hardest set of obstacles that they offered. That probably wasn’t the best idea since it was my first time there, but I lived. When I was about half way through the hardest set, I ran out of time and had to quite early.

Overall, it was quite the experience. I think the word that I used most frequently on Wednesday was “terrifying.” In addition, I think my biceps were mostly non-existent for a large portion of Thursday. And now I know what a ropes course is!

The Back-Facing Dash Cam

This is an update to our other dash cam post – we tried the back-facing camera! It has the same resolution as the front camera unlike some front and rear dash cams, so if someone does hit you in the back of your car, you will have a recording of exactly what happened as well as their license plate. We are equally as satisfied with this camera as the front-facing one and feel more protected driving with these cameras on.

 

On a different note, a young chicken recently escaped from the chicken enclosure. It took about half an hour to get the chicken back in, and later we found this picture. It’s pretty accurate. A chicken who doesn’t want to be caught is surprisingly hard to catch.

Dash Cam Review

My dad recently bought a dash cam for our main car. If you don’t know what a dash cam is, it’s a camera that goes on your windshield like a GPS. It records when you start your car (assuming everything is set up and plugged in) and saves a series of 1 minute long files. Most people purchase dash cams in order to have a recording available in the case of an accident.

Ever since Dink was involved in an accident, we thought a dash cam would be a good thing to have (a man was texting in the car in back of Dink, rear ended him, and then lied and tried to lay the blame on Dink).

The dash cam we now own, the Thinkware dash cam X500D, has a camera to go in the back of your car as well as in the front, and it also alerts you of red light cameras and speed cameras. That’s quite convenient for us, especially when we’re driving in new areas. We live in the sorry state of Maryland and speed cameras are all the rage, neatly tucked away behind trees, hedges, telephone poles, etc.

Some more of the features that come with the camera are: a 32GB MicroSD card that can store two hours of footage before it records over previously saved footage, the ability to operate in extreme temperatures, and a screen which shows what is being recorded.

We haven’t tried the back camera yet, but the front-facing camera is very good. The resolution is good, the audio is respectable, and it’s not too bumpy unless the road is. It’s pretty easy to attach to the windshield, and it has a good system for saving and loading files onto a computer. If the camera detects an accident, it will start recording ten seconds before the accident and ten seconds after and save it in a special file that will not be recorded over on the MicroSD card. Time, date, and location are automatically saved. You can also press a button to manually make it record 10 seconds before and fifty seconds after you pressed the button. The camera does great in daylight and surprisingly, it also does great at night.

So far, our dad is so happy with it as a whole, that he wants to get another one for the car he drives to work. We’d rate the dash cam an average of a 9.8. It is pricey, though, at $233.00.

Note: The following video is a minute from the University of Maryland campus during the daytime and then another minute on a random highway at night. It’s not terribly interesting, but you can at least see the quality of the video in the daytime and at night. Also, when you watch the video of us driving through the college campus, it looks like we are driving faster then we actually are. Not exactly sure why it looks this way.

52…?

No. Fifty.

Americans just celebrated the 4th of July, a holiday which some people seemingly celebrate without knowing what they are celebrating.

In the past, we wrote an article about Mark Dice’s interviews with people on the 4th of July. In one particular video he wanted to know things like what country we declared independence from, but most people he interviewed couldn’t even answer that.

As has become somewhat of a tradition, he has again asked random people questions on the holiday. This time, he wanted to know how many stars are on the American flag. Perhaps you should simply observe:

For a while, these videos were rather funny in a sickening sort of way, but this is such basic knowledge for an American that it’s just pathetic and disgusting that some people could not answer the question correctly. As usual, there was a foreigner who knew the answer while most of the Americans who were questioned had no idea.

So remember, if you ever get asked, there are 52 stars on the American flag 🙂

Self-Watering Planter Review

The following video is a creation by Dink and me. If you bother to watch it, do keep reading afterwards because I include some links and explanations. Also, the volume fluctuates, so don’t have the volume up too high.

And in the intense awkwardness of the entire recording, I forgot to mention a few things.

Right now the plants are rather small, but that’s because we just harvested all our greens a few days ago. I also forgot to mention that while the planters do cost $119, we got them on sale and the website occasionally offers free shipping so these would be best purchased if you can wait for a good deal. You can also use some coupons if you can’t wait for a sale.

I was also mistaken about the fact that we got the planters because we ran out of room in the house. We actually ordered them because where we have them gets the perfect amount of sun for lettuce and spinach, and it’s right outside our front door so it’s very convenient to harvest right before supper.

The company we got these from is the Gardener’s Supply Company, and this is the exact planter. It’s expensive, but we think it’s well-made, handy and nice-looking. It should last for many years to come. We rate the planter a 10.