Sidetracked!: My Phone Got Smarter Overnight

Tags

iPhone photos

It has been a long while since my last post on this Sidetracked! section. Could it be that my life has been on track all this time?

I doubt it. Ha!

In fact, it has been quite the opposite. Life had been but a straight road. I have encountered a lot of twists and turns (people and places and state of mind, too) that sometimes I ask myself, where the heck is this life going?

Mostly, I go with the flow and deal with it one by one.

So, I was going through my photos on camera roll on my iPhone, looking for something. I have about 12,300 (and counting) photos to search through. So, instead of searching through the thumbnails, I clicked on the search icon (that magnifying lens… currently looking for that magnifying lens icon among the emojis and could not find it). I might have missed it or is it just my imagination that it exists on the emoji selection board?

I really could not find it.

Anyways! Where was I? Ah, I was in the middle of telling you what I was doing with my iPhone.

I was looking for a photo when I accidentally typed in “Bi” on the search bar.

Whoa!

Indexed photos of Bivouacking came up!

I have only heard and used that word when I was in school (which usually happens in senior high school) that there – this bivouac happens.

All this time, I did not even know the spelling of this word – until now iPhone had shown me. Well, I may have a faint idea of how the word is spelled, but seeing the word written in my phone and my photos in it, seemed unreal.

I have never gone bivouacking.

This is bivouacking according to my dictionary, (the free dictionary) …

This is not (at the least) the sense I know of.

Bivouacking, as I know it (from my brother’s and friends’ anecdotal tales), meant sleeping in tight quarters with all your classmates in a one big hall (no camping, no tents), with access to toilets (restricted to very limited use – meaning you go only when they tell you to go) then going out in the wild with weapons on shoulders.

It was war time.

Rows and rows of students with vocally-gifted-of -intense-volume students telling you what to do.

Like time to form a line, put your arms up, when to pick up your weapons and put them on your shoulders, practicing marching, crouching, commando crawling on your elbows and knees … all the while with the students looking ever so alert.

(Might get punished for being slow-moving and yawning!)

If pretending to be alert while doing all these is not enough, well you have to do all these at the crack of day!

Over and over and over.

So you see, I have never done any of those or even heard of these things in a long time.

So, I haven’t gone bivouacking, I’m telling you, my iPhone!

Photos I have on my phone are from just within the year. Most are anyways. There may be a few stray ones that I’ve kept for more than that.

Take for example this Walkers biscuits and Cadbury chocolate bar of mine that I have consumed for countless times this year (ssssshhh!) :

Walkers has been indexed as under the category of afters, baked goods, biscuits, chow, comestibles (not a very common word ’round here I tell you) , cookie, dessert, eats, food, grub, meals…

While my Cadbury chocolate bar is under luggage and suitcase.

Luggage and suitcase? Strange… (scratching my head)

Perhaps it’s the way it was photographed? The outline did look like a luggage.

Perhaps my phone could sense that I want a suitcase full of it?

!!! Now we’re talking!

I hate to admit it. I think my hubby had been right all along.

Me and my phone are one.

Take a look here at some snaps of my snaps :

This one is under my category, “No Freaking Way!”

Look at photo with cupcake, muffin, cake – I tell you, the photo pictured is not any of those.

I thought it looked like a cross between a kiwi and a guyabano (soursop). The size and shape of a potato.

I saw it in the grocery store, was intrigued by it, so I took a photo.

It is, in fact, a kiwano. It is also called a horned melon, according to Wikipedia.

But I did not buy it. So, I would not know how it tastes like.

What about the tap, spigot category? That is my 25th high school reunion fundraising pendant that’s been mistaken for a faucet because it’s shiny?

Next category : My Pets!

Or at least the ones which have visited me. For some reason, they all keep bugging me!

These were/ are my pets, according to my iPhone.

My fave? My beagle! (Who happens to be also my daughter) She’s doing a selfie here.

And the reptile/serpent pics is just the zipper part of my bag.

The malamute? Categorization of this must be based purely on color. It’s actually our cat.

Now, we go to my drinking photos!

I do not know why my phone seems to think this is tavern-ly.

Maybe the photo screams a drunk photographer!

Let me take you to the next one.

Category morning after…. dawns! Then dusks!

It was one of my favorite compilations. I could not blame iPhone for confusing dusk and dawn (although I’m sure it could detect the times these photos were taken so appropriate / accurate indexing is still possible.

Nevertheless, one of my favorite compilations.

This is me and my hubby.

Imagine, my phone cannot deny my singing prowess!

It knows its master 👌

This category, Who Knew?!

Who knew a jacuzzi and kayak is a possibility in one?!

Both photos pertain to our MINI car, in case you’re wondering.

A kangaroo scaled down to a rabbit.

A glimpse of the freeway mean a fleet of combat ships and warships and war vessels.

I could have been wearing a hat and didn’t even know it! (See chapeau)

What about danseuse? What about it? I haven’t even heard of that word. Come on, I was just having fun with the app.

Those big words .. accoutrements and habiliment. Honestly, never heard of them. Both pertain to apparel btw, if you’re in the same decade as I.

Lastly, I have visited tombs. But these photos are not representative of them. Oh well!

I wonder what the dead think of these photos though?

What about you? Care to share any photos on your phone (iPhone or Android?) that are silly-ly (or right-on-ly!) categorized?

Advertisements

Sidetracked: For The Love Of Bikes!

Tags

bikes, DTLA, metro bike share

Five years ago, who would think of going to Downtown Los Angeles to bike? Are you out of your mind? 

Leisure biking in downtown LA was unheard of up until a couple of years ago. 

I’d always just think of it as a means to deliver food or a very small parcel. 

Hard to navigate traffic, not to mention the one-way streets. Honestly, in all my seventeen years of working in downtown, I could not remember which street goes this way or that way – still.

Then there are big buses, more cars and NO BIKE LANES. 

Thanks to the City of LA and Metro and its plans on Bringing Back Broadway, Metro has taken the intiative of dedicating bike lanes around downtown, or at least starting to, encouraging more and more people brave the lanes of downtown LA. 

Being given the opportunity to try out their Metro bikes (read: free tickets – finally!), together with couple of my co-workers, we decided to cycle around LA (or more like go around a few blocks) during our lunch break. 

Tickets were for free for first 30 minutes. Then $1.25 every minute after. 

Because we didn’t want to get too sweaty after biking, good, cool weather was what we hoped for. 

And luckily, our wish was granted. 

Now, we had to make sure that each one of us would be guaranteed a bike. A very helpful app, Metro Bike Share which tells you the location of where the bikes are and even how many are available for use. Cool, huh?

Closest accommodation was in Pershing Square. 

Just a pair of cons we’ve noticed:   1. Be sure to be armed with a credit card (or two!). The machine would not accept mine. It keeps saying “card read error” no matter which way it was slid in.   

2. One machine for an entire fleet of bikes. Luckily, we were the only ones there using the machine. And with the sun shining on the screen makes it harder to read the screen, thus taking up precious time of our lunch break!

Pros:

1. Machine was touch screen. Just like using an ATM or a smartphone. No problemo.  

2. Bikes were sturdy. No worries about those bumps on the road! An adult could easily carry and steer it with ease. 

3. It comes with bells and trinkets! On the inner part of the right handlebar. With your hand on the right handlebar, give it a rev and you ring the bell. Haha!

It also has the speed adjustment. Didn’t try it but my other co-worker did. Just don’t try to fiddle with it with a bus behind you. You could get stuck with the big bus trying to eat you from behind. Ha!  The bike also comes with a basket. Not those natural, weavy kind. But the metal kind with a closure. 

One thing was for sure, biking around downtown was surprisingly —  fun! 

Grab one today and try it! 

P.S. Don’t be surprised if the next day your card gets charged $26 and $1. Just temporary charges. In another three days, they will be gone. Granted, of course you have and entered the “free” code. 

Sidetracked!: Bruce Lee Writes To Molly Malone

Tags

fiction, green hat in china, irish sayings, paddy's day, st. patrick's day

Hello Molly,

We meet once a year on this day
Where we drink in this pub and be merry all the way.
We both wear green
And this year, we’re happy being only sixteen. 

I always ask, “How are you?”
You always answer, “Divil a bit.”
We just always raise our glass to “Sláinte” (slancha)
Thinking it might be our last hurrah.

It seems like it’s been donkey’s years since we met,
And how much I fondly think of our day along the Boulevard Sunset.
All evening we’re having a whale of a time
And now we observe Daylight Savings Time, it seemed we’ve been robbed of a lifetime.

You’ve given me hints of interest and I love it when you say…

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face

As well as..

May neighbours respect you, trouble neglect you, the angels protect you, and Heaven accept you

I try to impress you with some wisdom words but they always seem to juuust get in the way.

May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks. May your heart be as light as a song. May each day bring you bright, happy hours that stay with you all the year long.

I really feel it’s about time I take you to meet my parents no matter how scared I am of them, being my father a very important man, to which you’d reply,

You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your father was.

By what now seemed like a thousand hundredth swig, you were starting to talk gibberish.

I tried to kiss you and you say,

May you be afflicted with itching without the benefit of scratching.

I just thought you might like a kiss especially your shirt says you’re Irish.

I asked for your number and you kept repeating,
Eighty Four Three Hundred Big-Face

I didn’t get it.

I swear I tried to get your number.

By now you were shouting your number for everyone to hear,

Whilst singing songs and giggling and swaggering your beer

I couldn’t get along with this much merriment and think we had a bit too much of a pint of gat.

It’s all too much now especially when you’ve given me that very much decorated and very much — GREEN HAT.

Much love,
Bruce Lee

—-
*Just learned the other day that in China, it is taboo to wear green hat. It means to cheat on your husband.
So, I thought of the mixing the two up*

As they say in Ireland,
A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.