Weekend Rambles

I think I've mentioned before that Petunia's class has a class stuffed animal who visits a different kid each weekend. She is in the Penguin class, so their class "pet" is a big stuffed penguin named Pete. He came home with us this weekend. Since we went to Disneyland last weekend,* we would probably have just lazed around the house this weekend. But the presence of Pete spurred us into doing something, so that we'd have something to put in his diary.

It was sort of cold (low 60s...) and almost raining, so being wimpy San Diegans we couldn't do anything outdoors. Instead, we went to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park. It was cheap (total cost: $16) and the kids really liked watching the trains.

There was some sort of choir concert going on at the organ pavilion, so parking was a mess. We ended up having to park down in the "remote" lot in Gold Gulch. This was actually an unexpected treat- it wasn't all that remote at all, and we walked up to the prado on a path through fields of wildflowers instead of along a street clogged with cars trying to find  parking place.

More pleasant than walking through traffic

 And we discovered the Zoro Garden, which I've somehow never seen before.

Petunia smells the painted flowers

The real flowers were pretty, too

So in the end, Pete got some outdoor time, too.

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As I mentioned on Friday, I've been reading Escape From Cubicle Nation, by Pamela Slim. It has been an interesting experience. I currently have ideas for two businesses and one non-profit. I also have a renewed respect for the difficulties I'd face in trying to make any of them reality, so they may never go any further than an entry in my ideas notebook. 

I have decided, though, that I should check out some of the other social media out there, in case I ever need to do some serious marketing, or just decide to make one of my ideas a serious side project. I haven't yet been able to bring myself to sign up for Facebook**, but I did get a Pinterest account. It is linked to my real name, but if you would like to connect there, send me an email (wandsci at gmail dot com) and I'll tell you how to find me. I think I will mostly use it for travel-related things. So far I have two boards, one of places I want to visit and one for ideas and tips for making travel more fun/easier. Given its focus on the visual, it isn't a completely natural fit for me, but I like the idea of being able to easily gather and organize things to come back to later. I may check out some of the other similar options out there, too, to see if there is a service that feels like a better fit for me.

I also finally got a GoodReads account a month or so ago, just in time for GoodReads to get bought buy Amazon. I'm enjoying it, too- again primarily for the lists, in particular the "to read" list. I think that over time, I'll like having a record of what I've read, too. I used to keep an old fashioned notebook for that, but keep forgetting to update it.

What other social media are you active on? Any recommendations for me?

*I'll probably post about that at some point- the short version is that the kids had fun and the grown ups were exhausted. 

**I dislike Facebook's privacy policies and they way they keep changing behavior to share more by default, so I do not have an account. This is why I am so amused by people who complain loudly about Facebook's policies or behavior. People, if you dislike it, you don't have to be on it! Unless you are a small business, in which case, it seems like you sort of do have to be on it for marketing, so complain away.