The other night I went on a Ghost Walk. It was a mile and a half walk in a downtown area with actors telling ghost stories and local stories about the city. It was well done and a nice night for a walk.
Category: perSonaL
Fair
This weekend, I went to the Fair with a friend and her daughter. We rode a few rides, had some fair food, but it was way too crowded. The rides looked pretty at night though.
Canon Selphy CP780 vs Selphy CP900
Owning a Selphy CP780 for over a year or two, and having an iPhone for about a year, I had been wanting a Selphy printer that would allow me to wirelessly transfer photos to print from my iPhone.
First of all, why a Selphy?
- The photos I print are for grandparents and other members of the family that don’t have a computer.
- Portability to bring a photo printer on vacation to write above family members postcards (KP-36IP) in down time at the hotel
- The ability to create card sized photo stickers (KC-18IF)
- The ability to print (8) mini stickers (KC-18IL)
- lasting over a year for a printer that costs in the $100 range is a good investment for me
Finally, Canon released the Selphy CP900 which can now print wirelessly, so here are the Pros and Cons I noticed, being a previous Selphy printer owner.
PROs of the CP900:
- The overall body is basically the same size, but more square and flat on top and seems lighter
- wifi printing was easy to set up
- able to print photos from my iphone (though, at the moment, it seems to only print one photo at a time even if a different layout is selected on the printer)
- the paper and cartridges are the same as the CP780, so you won’t have to buy new paper or “ink”
- mini flip up screen is a nice bonus so you don’t have to rotate the whole printer up to see the flush screen on the CP780 (though a Con might be that you will have to be careful when grabbing the printer so as not to flip up the screen and put stress on that weakness point.
CONs of the CP900:
- The paper cassettes are a different size from the CP7800 (shorter and a different fit) which is fine if you have never owned a Selphy but annoying to have to purchase a second set of the card size cassettes (PCC-CP400) for the new printer. I ordered two card sized cassettes from the Canon website, one for the stickers (eight on one page), and one for the card size sheets. For me, its more convenient to switch out the cassettes versus the paper. They arrived quickly, which is definitely a plus.
- While the battery used for the CP 7800 is the same for the CP900, there is yet another adapter (CG-CP200 Charger Adapter) to have to purchase for $80 which makes it so the battery does not fit on the printer like it does on the CP7800 (another cord to have to carry). Likely due to the small fan in the back of the new printer needed for the WiFi connection usage.
Overall, am I happy with my purchase? Definitely. Now I can print photos from my phone and print them directly, can edit my photos on my phone, use Diptic to create a mini collage and print them on postcards.
Am I going to keep the old model printer? I’m not sure yet -haha
Elephant
One of my co-workers came back from India for his wedding and brought back these cute hand made elephants from his home town.
Hello Kitty Cookie
Got this cute Hello Kitty cookie from my friend this weekend ^^
Delaware & Philly
My friend Adrienne and I went to Delaware to visit Longwood Gardens, mostly because I really wanted to see the light displays by Bruce Monroe.
Because the gardens are open until 11:00pm, we went to the Delaware Art Museum first.
I was excited to visit because of one of their current exhibits; Tales of Folk and Fairies: The Life and Work of Katharine Pyle. We also saw her brother Howard Pyle’s work. I feel like I grew up seeing their work and didn’t even know about it. I added some of their books to my ‘books to read’ que.
Afterwards, we went to Nemours Mansion and Gardens which was by tour appointment only, we had the 3pm appointment. The tour part was interesting enough, though our tour guide was a bit tart and rude at times. I did liked that the tour group was divided up into smaller groups of 4, but I prefer touring locations on my own and that is not an option here.
Afterwards, you can tour the gardens on your own, but only for about 45 minutes which was fairly short since there is a bit of walking and it felt a bit rushed. The bus guide taking us around the mansion was knowledgeable and had interesting stories. Overall though, it was worth the tour cost. They do have gardens only tours, but only once in the morning.
The house was build by Mr. Alfred Dupont for his second wife in hopes that she would love him. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but were allowed to take pictures outside. You can see a virtual tour on their website.
Afterwards we went to Longwood Gardens. I loved this section across from the Italian Gardens with the nook for the door.
There were a lot of great gazebos and archways.
At night, the lights display was beautiful. The lights on the lake gradually morphed into different colour sections:
This was my favourite piece in the Conservatory, it was like a fountain of stars:
This piece is out in front of the entrance to the gardens, I took a picture when we arrived in the daylight, and then a picture when we left:
We drove to Philly after Longwood Gardens and spent the day there. We rode on the carousel in Franklin Square:
found the Love statue (which was a lot smaller than we expected), visited the Rocky statue, and walked around looking at the architecture:
We walked around Independence Hall, saw a lot of the churches on our walks, and stayed in a nice area with little shops and eating spots. It was a fun trip 🙂
A Funeral and a Birthday
We drove up north to go to a funeral wake. Gary’s Uncle died at the age of 92 last Saturday.
We were really glad we were able to be there for sweet Aunt Leona, and I think she really appreciated us being there. There were a lot of people that came to see her which was nice and kept her occupied in the receiving line. I think she held up pretty well, seeing as she had been somewhat dreading the date but looking forward to getting it done with, since Uncle Henry had died on Saturday but didn’t get buried until Friday.
It was my first dead body that I can recall. I am used to cremations, so I never had to actually see someone after they passed. I’m glad it was someone that was more distant, because I don’t know if I would be able to deal with seeing someone I was closer with in that state. Sad to say though, that Uncle Henry looked better dead than alive towards the end. I was fortunate enough to see him in May though (2 months ago).
Driving up on Wednesday the 4th was lovely, in that there was no traffic to get stuck in whatsoever. CNN news apparently said this would be the worst travel day due to low gas prices, but they were wrong. No traffic, not even in DC.
We made it to Baltimore the next day to pick up Gary’s parents from the airport. Beforehand we had time to go to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore for lunch, which unfortunately wasn’t the best, but we did get to stop in to massive Barnes and Noble.
We went to DC for a vacation with Gary’s parents for the weekend to celebrate his birthday which was last month. We had planned this trip a while ago, but little did we know that the record high temperatures we had back home only a couple of weeks ago were going to follow us and be record high temperatures for DC this time of year.
Between 100 and 106 degrees with rediculous humidity, we tried walking in the bits of shade from the hotel to the metro – metro to museum. How glorious it was to come back to the hotel after walking in the heat to our . . . as Gary put it “meat locker”. I’m pretty sure our hotel room was at a steady 60 degrees during the day and 65 at night, since as I put it “I’d like to feel my toes”.
On Friday the 6th, we went to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Saw all there was to see there. My favourite sections were seeing thoughts of flight, even before a plane was ever brought about. Such as the winged creatures and Cyrano de Bergerac aloft by bottles of dew tied to his belt. I also liked the sculpture depicting the big bang.
Sunday the 7th we went to the Smithsonian Natural Science Museum during the day, and the Washington National Symphony in the Evening (an outdoor event). I so absolutely love Natural History Museums. I think I want to visit every single one that I can. We saw most of the museum, including the (very small) ‘Korea Gallery’ which I have wanted to see for a while now, and the Hope Diamond my mom said, “you must see”.
The symphony was held at Wolftrap, an outdoor pavilion, which was a really great performance (that would have been even more enjoyable if we weren’t sweating so much) by the National Symphony Orchestra for this one night only. The conductor’s shirt was soaked by intermission … good thing he brought a change of clothes. Even with the sun set, it was still hot.
The evening’s pieces were a collection of popular John Williams pieces from movies. Superman, Jaws, Memoirs of a Geisha, ET, Harry Potter, and Star Wars.
The best pieces in my opinion (though all very good minus the bubble bubble toil and trouble choralle) were the Star Wars pieces. They even had storm troopers and other people in costume, which was kind of fun. I’m glad they didn’t have people dressed up for all the pieces, but it was apropos for Star Wars.
Sunday, Gary’s mom and I went to the Smithsonian American History Museum while Gary and his dad sat in “the hottest baseball game I have ever been to”. A quote said by both of them. The museum was interesting, though not my favourite, but it was the closest walking distance from the metro. So we went there for a few hours, had lunch, and then relaxed at the hotel lobby reading until it was time for us to drive home.
Birthday Celebrating
Some friends, Gary, and I got together to celebrate his birthday this week. We met for dinner, froyo, and then played some board games.
One of our friends couldn’t make it because she was going to Alaska, but she made cupcakes before going out of town, which was super sweet of her. They were lemon cupcakes with a raspberry type icing and sprinkles.
Birthday Dinner
Gary and I went over to my parents house for dinner and celebrated his birthday early. We had strawberries on angel food cake for cake / dessert, and he got to open some birthday presents ^^
Date Night at the Theater
I had gotten a voucher for two free tickets from a friend to the theater, so Gary and I went to see Cat on A Hot Tin Roof. Normally I only go to plays that are classics or that I have heard of, but we tried a new one. This one was by Tennessee Williams, and apparently one of his best known. I have not seen the movie.
The first act was (as seen above) in a bedroom setting. We couldn’t get into the play . . . the first act lasting an hour until intermission was basically the woman talk, talk, talking, and the guy mostly grunting and drinking. Then the two of them were smoking in between quarreling, and I felt like we were just watching a married couple argue. After the first 15 minutes of her talking and nattering on, all I could think of is, “no wonder the guy keeps drinking”.
We didn’t stay for the last two acts, so I don’t know if it got any better. Gary and I got dinner instead and joked about the part of the play we did see and then went home so he could do laundry and pack.
I really appreciate our friend giving us the voucher . . . to bad there weren’t any other options because I have liked the plays put on in the past by the theater we went to.
Either way, it was a good evening we still talk about.
sue-leigh.me 