With all the sediment coming in, and the sometimes tea-colored water, we attempted to turn the water pump on and switch to well water. That experiment didn’t last long. The well water is literally black and smells most terrible. Well, it’s worse than “mountain water”, but that’s not saying much.

Arp and I are getting really excited about the coming move to Florida. We’ve both admitted to ourselves that we don’t do well staying in one place for very long. When Arp asked me, I agreed that if I had to predict, I doubt we’ll stay in Florida for more than 2-3 years, tops. We had a good laugh when we admitted to each other and ourselves that we feel this way!  I’m just incredibly thankful that we are both like this. I can’t imagine being married to someone who didn’t feel the same way as I do on this matter. We were obviously meant to be!

[Water photo icon by darkpatator]

I’m always on the lookout for free online resources since I spend a lot of time at a computer. I’m getting close to mastering my Inbox. I use Google Reader and Google Alerts to keep up with websites, blogs and news topics. And now I’ve come across some websites that offer opportunities to learn Spanish for free, thanks to Wide Open Education, a website devoted to online learning.

Previously I’ve mentioned the Coffee Break Spanish podcast and the free Destinos videos (requires registration, and you’ll really need the text materials by episode 4). Since there there seems to have been an explosion in podcasts and I’ve subscribed to a few, including SpanishPod, Notes in Spanish and Spanish Para Todos. I’ve added these after we got back and haven’t been commuting as much, so the jury is still out on whether they’re as good as Coffee Break Spanish or not.

Podcasts are great when you’re stuck in car, but something structured would be more helpful to gain a deeper understanding of Spanish. I’m going to give each of the following 4 websites a try over the next 6 months and see if they work for me or not. They’re all free, so the only thing I’ll be spending is time

1. Livemocha

Livemocha seems to combine the traditional lesson-oriented approach with the possibilities added by social networking. There are 4 Spanish courses that seem to correspond with university level classes: 101, 102, 201 and 202. The total time to complete those courses is 160 hours. Course 202 seems to complete what I want to learn at this time – simple past & irregular verbs. I like the solo structured approach with the option of social networking – I’ll try Livemocha first.

2. Mango

Mango seems to have the most traditional approach to learning, a complete course with multimedia exercises and audio of native speakers. They just added an ‘On the Go’ feature involving mp3s, but it turns out that it’s a $149 audio course. I’m sticking with free for now.

3. iTalki.com

iTalki is a social network focussed on language learning. Looks like I can create a profile, find a Language Partner and ask questions to the Spanish-speaking community. There are also files, seemingly pdfs, provided by members as well as comprehensive lists of resources. I like the idea of a Language Partner, but my preference is to learn solo to start.

4. Lingro

The last website I found is a tool rather than a learning resouce. Lingro allows you to load a webpage, click on a word you don’t know and have it translated. It’s useful just in English for providing definitions, but I think it’ll be great for learning new words in Spanish. All you have to do is go to site, enter a website for browsing and pick a language at the bottom of the page. You can even save words to a list after making an account. I loaded Tiny Grass and proceeded to find translations for lots of words, from journey (‘viaje’) to unschooling (which has no Spanish translation )

There’s enough free resources out there that I have serious doubts I would spend money on stuff like the Rosetta Stone. I’m happy with the Destinos texts we have for a nice traditional reference, and I look forwarding to giving all these online options a test drive in my quest to master Spanish.

1. Took several digital pictures of me holding a ruler in front of my eyes (as close as possible, either resting on my nose or forehead). I took some self-portraits and Trish took some as well. Picked the 5 pictures with the clearest views of my pupils and used Photoshop to measure in pixels a) the distance from the middle of one pupil to the other and b) the measurement of one millimeter. The results ranged from 50.6mm to 64.25, which freaked me out a bit. I expected things to be a bit more constant. The average was 57.09mm.
2. Trish then measured it the old-fashioned way. She thinks it’s 57 or 58mm and is leaning towards 57mm before knowing what the Photoshop results were. This is more promising!
3. I measure myself using the bathroom mirror. It’s either 57 or 58mm, and a close look at the center of my pupils makes the smaller figure seem right. 57mm will be the choice for the test purchase.

I have several choices for online eyeglass stores, and people have been posting their reviews and experiences in the GlassyEyes google group. My online eyeglass stores are (in no particular order):

• 39dollarglasses.com
• specsonthenet.com
• optical4less.com
• zennioptical.com
• goggles4u.com
• eyebuydirect.com

I check glassyeyes.com which keeps a running tally of the ratings people have given the various shops. Since 39dollarglasses.com, optical4less.com and goggles4u.com have 5 star ratings, I head back to the google group and read up on them a bit. It’s all generally positive with some negatives sprinkled here and there. I figure I’ll find something I like from each, price them and take it from there.

I currently have glasses with clip-on sunshades. They were the first pair of sunglasses I ever had and I loved not being blinded on a nice sunny day. You probably noticed that I used the past tense – the clip-ons got bent and scratched and haven’t been used in 3-4 years. They were also non-magnetic, which I’m sure contributed to the bending (though I bet magnetics have their drawbacks as well). I want a pair with magnetic clip-ons, but a nice looking pair on the cheaper side would be fine for now. I figure for $30-60 per pair I can afford to try 3 or 4 until I get it right, then maybe get a pair of prescription shades. That would still be about half what I’d pay at brick & mortar.

goggles4u.com does not have clip-ons, optical4less.com does and 39dollarglasses.com seems not to but has a nice selection of cool plastic frames. I decided before that I wanted to go with plastic because I’ve had metal only for years. I want something totally different and funkier.

The choices are mindboggling.

Usually in a store, the choice was totally dictated by budget. Now – I can pick almost anything, and it’s overwhelming. I decide to find 2 frames from each place, see what their options for determining fit & looks are and then let Trish have her say. Anything she’s ambivalent on gets tossed – she either has to love it or hate it. If she REALLY hates something, then I may have to consider that more because she’s distinctly more conservative than me. I wish I owned an orange leisure suit, if that tells you anything. Here’s me with my current broke-ass pair:

I immediately find a frame I like at 39dollarglasses – the Pasadena. It comes in brown, which is one of my preferred colors, and I measure my glasses to see if the numbers are close. Their explanation of the measurement numbers is very helpful. Suckily, I have to ditch the Pasadena because the frame is 10mm wider than what I have now, and the width of the lenses is wider too. What I have now works so, I look for something else. My current frames are 130mm wide, and though 5mm wider seems too much, I see too many cool frames at 135mm to ignore. In the meantime, M comes in and insists that I should get ‘robot glasses.’ have no clue what he means, but if trish hates them, I’m interested. I also add the 3-star zennioptical.com to the mix since they have some plastic frames with sunshades that I really like. My choices:

1. the Omega (with a final cost of $64 with $25 of that for anti-reflective coating; for another $50 I can get higher index plastic lenses – meh)
2. a black frame (with a final cost of $50 w/ no shades and 1.6 index plastic lenses)
3. brown & black with sunshades (final cost $52 with 1.6 index plastic lenses)
4. bizarro blue plastic half-rims with sunshades (final cost $52 with 1.6 index plastic lenses)

I finally settled on #3 because I’m not sure about the half-rims with my higher prescription and I really want some shades. I’d at least like the option of shades if the glasses work out. Maybe later I can get a pair of prescription shades, but I’ll let practicality take over for now.

Ordering was nothing special – with shipping it came to $57.  I got an email receipt instantly and my prescription was in order.  Now let’s see how long it takes!

For the doghouse, Anthony basically just installed a new lockable door on the outside, and cut a hole on the inside so the ducks can walk back and forth between the structures.

Here you can see, from the inside, how the old doghouse and the new structure connect. I just hope the runner ducks don’t get a neck ache from ducking down through the opening! They are kind of tall, but everything I’ve read says you don’t need a very big opening for doors that ducks will walk through.

And here is the house after I painted it and installed hardware cloth over the soffits and the window. I used 1/2 inch welded hardware cloth so that raccoons can’t get in and kill my ducks. The soffits in the front and back of the house will help to ventilate the house, although I might have to close some of them up in severely cold weather. I plan to paint the doghouse part also, but I ran out of time the other day. I also plan to insulated the walls of the house sometime over the summer so that the ducks are well-protected from the cold by the time winter is here.