Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I found a tool that looked super promising. You plug in what you’re looking for in a trip, and it spits back out an itinerary. How brilliant is that?

But I didn’t know if it would plan a good trip, so I decided to begin with a place I knew very well. It sent me first to a restaurant that closed at least one year ago. Not a great start. But it redeemed itself with a fun free morning activity. Then it sent me on an expensive activity that was a repeat of the free activity, but it broke it up by sending me to cooking school in the UK for lunch, giving me a half-hour window to get from Virginia to the UK and back. The next day, they finished the itinerary with another closed restaurant. In the meantime, it missed the island’s two vegetarian options.

Maybe not.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I’ve been playing two new games: one from the Washington Post and one from the New York Times.

Keyword gives you words missing a letter, and filling in the missing letter gives you the center word. It’s not difficult, but it’s on a timer. So you’re trying to work quickly with the smallest amount of guesses.

Connections gives you sixteen words. You need to group each set of four that go together. So a perfect score is that you group the correct four together four times. You also get four chances to mess up.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Mental Floss had a list of the least popular names — number 1000 on the SSA list — from 1880 to 1932. And while I think “Lockie” is ready to hit the top 100 list, it made me think about what it means to have a least popular name. Most of us are near the middle, and my name was #7 the year I was born. But Marlena was 989. And the most Marlenas there have ever been was in 1978 when it was #429. It’s a world of few Marlenas. What does it mean to move through the world as a Marlena? Not an unusual name for the place you live but an unusual name anywhere in the world?

You can put your name into the SSA site and see its popularity over time.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I found out about the fish doorbell too late to participate this year, but this is the Internet at its best. Migrating fish get caught at a lock, a problem solved if the lock operator opens the gates. But one human can’t sit day in and day out, watching for fish who may need to move through. Instead, the city has hooked up an underwater camera, and anyone anywhere in the world can watch the camera. When you see a fish, you push a button, and it signals to the lock operator that they should check the camera, too, and open the lock.

I love the idea of a fish doorbell.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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A Strong Sense of Place linked to a piece on ocean-fed pools. I love these! I’m sure they exist in the US, but I’ve only seen them in Europe.

It’s the joy of being in the ocean without the fears of being in the ocean. A barrier allows water to flow into the enclosed swimming area, but people can’t get dragged out to sea by an undertow. The first place we ever saw one was in North Berwick, Scotland. I didn’t realize it was a thing in many places until we saw one the following year in St. Malo, France.

New vacation goals. Aim for ocean pools.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.