Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Double Rainbow

My day's highlights: double rainbows, finally finding a solution method I like for solving the old Rubik's Cube, tweaking Pandora yet again, learning more Italian vocab, working out, and making a damn good iced coffee.

Marie saw her first rainbow! Well, she's seen a rainbow before, but hasn't comprehended it until now. She and I went outside after it rained, and she spotted a double rainbow. It was so fun to see her light up!

Lately, my knitting and Ravelry time has been usurped by Pandora, Babbel, and the Rubik's Cube. (Facebook, too, although I've been pretty good about limiting my time there.) Pandora and Babbel have been fun and time consuming. The Rubik's Cube craze will be slowing down soon since I've finally found a solution method I like.

The whole Rubik's Cube thing started Easter Sunday when I picked up a cube at my parents' house. No kidding when I say there are 2 or 3 lying around. When I was a kid, I never did solve it. Being math-y 'n' all, I just HAD to try once again. That led to an online search for all the different solution methods out there. All methods unfortunately require to a varying extent the memorization of multiple algorithms. All the speed cubers know a huge number of algorithms.

The first solution method I learned was a beginner one on YouTube. It was great until the last "layer" (cube talk for the top layer of cubies). I don't see the fun in memorizing a bunch of difficult algorithms that will be forgotten weeks or months later. I want to "see" what moves I need to do next. Recently, I found this. It's a method that leaves a column of cubies "free" in order to solve the cube easier. There is only one step that I felt I had to memorize, and even then it's still intuitive. If you ever want to learn how to solve the Rubik's Cube, I'd suggest watching YouTube videos for beginners and following that with the link I provided.

Today I had a horrible headache that was severe enough to compel me to work out. Yep, it took a bad headache to make me work out. That's so sad, right?! I followed the workout with a soak in the tub (lavender and eucalyptus, mmm). After dinner I concocted a pretty good iced coffee in the blender using double-strength coffee, milk, creamer, sugar, Nestle Quik, and ice. I wish I'd paid more attention to the amounts of things I added because I'm not sure that I can create that good of a mix again. I made sure to enjoy every last sip.

Well, it's time again for AI and Biggest Loser. Can't wait to see how the disco theme suits the contestants. Adam will be awesome, but I'm not sure about everyone else. Speaking of Adam, I'm still haunted by his rendition of Mad World and Kris' rendition of Falling Slowly. I'm really glad I downloaded the studio versions. Now I can listen to those along with David Cook's awesome rendition of The World I Know.

Ciao :-)

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