We have chosen... wisely.

Jeanne and I came to live at Waitakere Gardens Retirement Village in Henderson just over three years ago.  We made our decision to move here fairly quickly, having looked at only two other retirement villages before walking into the Atrium building here, gazing up, and saying, "Wow," as Amanda started our tour.  Still, when we signed on the dotted line, and handed over the biggest check I had ever written in my life, we hoped that we had not been hasty.   

Time has proven how good a choice we made.  We have come to feel that this place is truly home.  

The list of positives is long. I won't go into all of them here, because I've talked a lot about them in several other past blogposts.  

Today, I'm going to talk about just one, but it's a major one, and I'll show you what few pictures I have relating to it. (so far)  It's a major renovation project involving the Palms building, which is perpendicular to our own Atrium and only one apartment away from us.  

Twenty four apartments are contained within it's four floors, and it is getting old. A total remake is scheduled to start very soon.  The first step is the removal of all the plants around it.  

This is the Palms from near our front gate. I have placed a yellow rectangle on our apartment window.  (Sorry for the rather hard to see, mustard yellow of my rectangle. I used to be able to go to a color palette and choose any bright color of my choice, but with the last software "upgrade," that was taken from me.  Now, I can choose between blue, black or the yellow you see.  I believe its another example of how the world continues to dumb down.) 

This is what the Palms looks like from our balcony. (It's early morning in this shot and the shadows of the palms growing in our roundabout are evident.)

I'm going to miss one aspect of this building.  I have been going out to the very corner of the top floor and taking pictures from that vantage point of the Sky Tower, sunrises, the Moon, planets, the Pleiades (Matariki), and other stars.  I call that spot, Arthur's Corner, because Arthur and Chris used to live in that corner apartment.  

That corner will still be there of course when the renovation is complete, but it will be enclosed in glass. Very limiting for pictures because of reflections.  

This is the back of the Palms shown in this first photo, from the windows at the end of our Atrium, and in the second photo from Rosecourt, which, as you see, lies across the gardens and carpark.   

I'm very impressed that Metlifecare, the company that owns our village and dozens of others as well across New Zealand, it so pro-active in maintaining its properties in the best possible condition.  

Consider this:

All the residents of the Palms have been moved into comparably sized apartments elsewhere in the village.  A moving company assisted with each move, even to the extent of packing dishes up at the old apartment, and unpacking them into the new, temporary apartment.  

Each resident has been given choices they can make about how they want their renovated apartment configured.  

Each person or couple is being given a percentage reduction on their monthly rate, and a monthly credit for our cafe, while they are out of their apartments.   

Finally, in about 18 months time, they will be moved, once again by the moving company, back into their brand new homes.  

All this is being done at no cost to the residents. As you have just read, they are actually benefitting financially from the inconvenience of having to move during the work.  

And I have heard that our Atrium is next in line for renovation. (A few years down the road)  Based on what I've seen so far, I'll face that challenge when it comes with a good attitude.  

This is a shot from the end of the Atrium, of the removal of the plants along the back of the building.  This was done just a few days ago. You can see the chipper and truck down there. 

Yes, it's sad to see beautiful growing things destroyed, but...

The resulting chips are being used by our Bark gardeners and by our own team of volunteer gardeners to mulch plants and to improve garden paths. 

Check this out:

This pile was originally twice as big. A lot has already been used.

Ruth was busy spreading chips when I arrived to take this picture.  

Several gardeners combined their efforts to 'pave' this path with new chips.

And the path extends all the way past the asparagus bed.  

Furthermore, the Bark gardeners dug up and moved a number of plants before this clear cutting happened, and our own volunteers worked to replant them in new areas. I call that  sustainability.  

This is what it now looks like from Rosecourt.  Admittedly, it is a bit of a shock but it'll be beautifully landscaped when it's completed.  

You can see part of the African Garden on the right in this shot. It will not be impacted by the build.  

Early in April the scaffolding will go up, with supports over the top of the building as well, and it will be wrapped in plastic to allow work during all types of weather and to minimize the noise and dust

.     

Jeanne and I were talking about all this the other day and thinking about how much different, and hugely better we have it here, than we would be experiencing had we purchased an apartment somewhere through a realter. 

Finally, because our apartment is so close to the Palms that we'll be able to almost touch the scaffolding when it goes up, we have also been offered a reduction in our monthly rate and some cafe credit for the duration of the build. That'll make putting up with the racket and mess a little easier to take.   -djf

Seasonal eating?

We've all heard about seasonal eating, right? It's proponents suggest we try to eat those foods which were grown locally and have ripened naturally. To avoid those foods that were grown far away, picked while still green and shipped across country or even internationally. It's a macrobiotic thing. Supposed to minimize carbon footprints too. 

This post is not about that.  

This post is about seasonal viewing. I think it's somewhat similar.  Every photo you're about to see (assuming you look at them) was locally and sustainably harvested by me and was snapped within about the last 24 hours or so. I uploaded them myself and offer them to you now without additional packaging. They have never been looked at before by anyone else; talk about fresh, huh?  And, since they were gathered nearby my residence, my footprints were definitely minimal.  I hope you like them. 

We'll start with a real seasonal photo. This is the first tree that I know of that shows color each fall.  

This is a pukeko, feeding it's baby. I saw them in Tui Glen, a park about 5 minutes from our village. 

An unknown (to me) flower in one of our gardens. 

To appreciate this picture, you've got to imagine these girls, who are about to turn left into the West Wave swimming  pool complex, multiplied by about 10.  Jeanne and I both saw the entire student body from St. Dominic's Catholic Girl's School, arriving for a day of swimming fun.  I would guess that the school is about a mile away from West Wave.   

I do love palm trees. To this northern-born Michigander, there is nothing more exotic. 

This is a closer look at the spathe and seed pods of one in the center of our  village roundabout.  

Amazing to look at.  The spathe splits open along one side like a giant pea pod.  

I am surprised to see how flat a bee's head is.  Image collected from our gardens. (No bees were injured during this shooting-nor was the cameraman.)  

Here is the upside down Southern Cross as we approach fall.  Remember that the lower of the two pointer stars is actually a binary star, Alpha Centauri.  What looks like a single star is actually two that circle one another every 79 years. Their separation varies; it's not a circular path they follow.  At their closest, they are about as far apart as our sun is from Saturn.  At their most distant, they are separated by the distance from our sun to Pluto.    

Okay, I guess I do have one small bit of seasonal fare in here after all. I picked these pears from trees in Cranwell Park, just across the Oratia Stream from Tui Glen.  The trees have been neglected but still gave me a very nice product. 

Just a little brown sugar and we had several night's desserts.  

This final shot is the only one taken about a week before I worked up this post. Jeanne and I were attending a pajama party in our Twin Streams Lounge. We matched.  Thanks, Gary, for providing the picture.   

And yes, that's a toothbrush around my neck. It's a pajama party after all. Jeanne brought a teddy bear.  (Ursus theodorus)                 -djf

"When I was young, I had trouble reaching high places,

Now that I'm old, it's the floor that's out of reach."  -djf

Guest hosts visit my post.

If Rod Serling were speaking:

You are a traveler moving unceasingly into the future. Your one-way ticket was purchased at birth and listed your destination as, "Unknown."  You will soon be confronted by words and sights beyond your control or experience, as you view one person's unique version of reality, separated from your own by space and time. You are about to enter these pages and view this post about a place known simply as, The Twilight Home.  

If Alfred Hitchcock were speaking:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we bring to you a glimpse into a life that, shall we say, is markedly different than your own.  The main character in our story decided some years ago to travel and has now settled into a place about as distant from his starting point as is possible to achieve. He has lived one life there, and is working haard to document his new life here.  So, without further ado, except for a very brief message from our sponsor, we bring you, Aotearoa, South by Southwest   

If Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) were speaking:

Oh please, what makes you think that a new life spent documenting life in a south sea island paradise, a temperate rainforest inhabited by species known as Kiwis, which might refer alternately to humans, Homo sapiens, to the flightless bird, Apteryx haasti, or the very delicious fruit, Actinidia chinensis, which, by the way, causes me to break out, is any better or worse than your lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, aka, God's country?  It's just different, that's all. So, read what this guy has written, and peruse his pictures of sunrises if you must, but while you do, I'll be doing something useful; like comparing the quantum states of dark matter. On the other hand, if he ever publishes a comic book on the order of Time Jumper's Journal, volumes one through four, let me know. 

I want to thank each of my pseudo guests today for their introductions.  

My post today is indeed about sunrises. We have the luxury of living on the east side of the Atrium building, here at Waitakere Gardens Retirement Village, in Henderson, New Zealand, and on the 2nd floor besides. (It would be called the 3rd floor if we were in the States.)  Because we are where we are, we have a good view of the eastern horizon and have the opportunity to see some great sunrises. When the clouds don't mess things up for us, that is. Unfortunately, our climate here, as Sheldon pointed out earlier, is described as temperate rainforest, so we have lots of cloudy mornings.  

Happily, we have just gone through a period of clear, or mostly clear mornings and I have been out on our balcony snapping pictures on most of them. I thought you all might like to see a few of the shots. Some nice things about looking at these photographed sunrises is that you won't have to squint nor suffer after-images from looking into the sun.  

I was warned by the salesman who sold me my camera not to shoot directly into full sun, that it could be damaging. You'll notice that these sunrise photos are taken through the maximum distance of atmosphere, and with additional clouds, or vegetation partially obscuring the sun. I use the auto focus setting for these, and that shows the current shutter speed of the auto setting on the screen.  My very fastest shutter speed is 1/2,000 sec.  When I see that I'm at that point, I am very careful not to take more pictures, if the sun continues to grow brighter.  And if I see the the shutter speed is less than the max, I know that I'm still okay. The very short shutter speed is a sort of protection in itself I think.  

Some of my very close up sun pictures were not taken quite how they look.  I upload the pictures from the camera of course into my computer and then blow the picture up.  

I mention this because if looking at my pictures might make you want to take some as well, I wouldn't want you to damage your camera.  

You may also notice that the sun is slowly moving from right to left as our summer has changed to fall. Your Northern Hemisphere sun would do the opposite.  

You might want to get a cup or coffee or tea to go with these photos since they're all sunrises.  Mine was always nearby as I took them. 

I'll end this week's pictures with my favorite series.  I love looking at the details on the last one. I feel as though I'm soaking in the rays of the world's most blazing intense sun, but am suffering none of the consequences of doing so.  It's like diet sun.  Enjoy.   -djf

Yeah, that's right, I like magnets. You got a problem with that?

This post may not appeal to everyone. I feel a particular fondness for magnets, but I fear that some may find it boring if they don't share my interest in this subject. This is one of those posts that I'm writing mostly for myself.  

I started playing with magnets when I was a kid, dragging a horseshoe magnet on a string along what we called the Junky Road, to pick up magnetic sand, which years of trucking iron ore from a Castile Location Mine (in Wakefield, Michigan) had deposited along its route through the woods opposite our house. I also acquired an Erector Set one Christmas with a dry cell battery and would wind copper wire around a 10 penny nail in order to make my own electro-magnet crane.  I moved a lot of paper clips from point A to point B back in those days.

But the years pass, one grows, a living must be made, and magnets were put on the back burner while I was busy with other matters.   

After I retired, I once again began 'playing' with magnets, but they were a new generation of magnets by then. Impressively more powerful than anything I had experienced or even imagined as a kid. These were neodymium magnets and had been developed during the '80's.  

A quick comparison for you.  Magnetic field strength is measured in gauss.  The earth's magnetic field is about .35 to .60 gauss, (Notice, less than one gauss.) depending on where you are measuring it on earth.  A refrigerator magnet has 50 to 100 gauss.  My childhood horseshoe magnet might have been around 300 gauss.  I now have mainly N45 grade neodymium magnets and their gauss reading is pushing 7,000.  Larger magnets of the N52 class, the most powerful currently made, can reach 14,800 gauss. 10,000 gauss equal 1 Tesla. You must agree there is no comparison between magnets then and now.   

The first new magnets I bought were nicknamed Buckyballs.**  They're silver colored (coated in nickel) and 5 mm in diameter. I can't put the individual spheres any closer to the string of them you see on the counter because even at that distance, I can see them 'quivering' in their need to join the string.  

I wrote in a post that I published a couple of months ago, that moving into our modest-sized apartment here at Waitakere Gardens Retirement Village, in some ways, felt to me like returning to the Hunt Hall dormitory where I lived for a time while attending Northern Michigan University, more than 50 years ago.  But obviously, here we have many improvements.    

One of the first things I did to decorate my room back in 1969 was to display this poster, called Relativity, by Escher  

In keeping with the theme shown in the poster, of a multi-dimensioned world, I thought I'd try to add the same flavor to our present day apartment using some magnets. The result is below.

Why should a  vase always have to be displayed on top of a shelf? 

As I said, just playing.  And let me address all you younger folks at this point.  I'm presently 72.  You need to know that you'll never be too old to play.  And if you're old, like me, and not playing in some way, shape or form, you ought to be.  Get with it.  

The actual magnets I so enjoy are not the whole story however. They are like the physical manifestations that allow us to interact with the fundamental structure and properties, and particles of the universe. The molecules, atoms, electrons and the basic forces of nature that scientists still don't fully understand. 

When I began playing with buckyballs and other magnets, I also began studying about what makes them work.  I learned first that the magnetic fields they generate are caused by unpaired electrons in the orbits of the atoms that form them.  That sounded simple enough. But since then, I have learned that that is the very tip of an enormous iceberg.  

Many years ago, I gave Jeanne the teddy bear you see here for Valentine's Day. It has a LOVE tattoo on its arm.  It is holding a string of buckyballs leading up to a couple of ostrich egg balloons, held in place by magnets, of course.  

Another thing I learned when I started studying, was that electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin. (My interpretation)  A changing electrical field creates a magnetic field, and a changing magnetic field creates an electrical field. I have now also studied about dipole moments, magnetic domains, magnetic susceptibility, and saturation. I've studied Lenz' Law, and Faraday's, I know what the Curie Point is and what the Neel Temperature is. I know that there are different types of ferromagnetic materials and that there are also paramagnetic, diamagnetic, and antiferromagnetic materials, and I learned about the newly discovered altermagnetism.  I've read about how crystalline structure affects magnetism. (I like this particularly.)

And I've barely started. I learned that to really understand what is going on inside the toys I stick to walls and each other, I would need to study quantum mechanics and I'd need to become proficient in using equations at a level of math that is over my head.  

But basically, I have learned that I enjoy learning about the physics of magnets every bit as much as I enjoy playing with them.    

Inside the container, I have connected three of the same size of magnets which you see suspended above it.  That is a 3 mm brass rod (nonmagnetic) and each magnet has a 4mm hole through it. The floating magnets have their like poles facing and so repel one another and seem to levitate.  The buckyballs, cubes, coin and washer are there simply to add interest to my 'sculpture.' 

Remember how I compared my university dorm room to our present apartment?  Well, there is yet another similarity between these times of my life.  I'm taking a university physics course again, in a way.   

I discovered this series (30+ ) of 801, 802 Physics lectures, given at MIT some years ago. The professor is Walter Lewin.  This is the link to the series and his first lecture. He won't get into his magnetism lectures for some time, but I very much enjoy his style, and demonstrations, and I am picking up bits and pieces of physics during each lecture. (I even take notes.)   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9c0MRooBzQ

It's wonderful.  All the pleasures of learning about an interesting subject whenever I want to and none of the worry about homework or exams.  I intend to watch the entire series. 

Here, I have a short string of buckyballs standing on the base of a glass,  being held in place by the field from the neodymium sphere magnet above it. It's interesting to note that if I added one more buckyball, the string would jump up to the sphere, and if I removed one, the string would collapse.  We're right at equilibrium. 

The  big sphere is the perfect shape for this demonstration. Its magnetic field lines curve together very close to the bottom point on its surface. The exact center would be the south pole.  If I used a flat-ended magnet instead to attract the Buckyballs, the lines of force around the edges would pull the string to one side or the other.  I don't think it would support the string as well. Furthermore, the field lines in the Buckyballs also leave the top of the uppermost ball very near the north pole, which is at a point in the very center. The south pole above and the north pole below line up very closely, which optimizes the support of the string of Buckyballs.  

If you're at all interested, I also have found videos made the Khan Institute which also explain some of the matter that Lewin discusses, but from a slightly difference angle.  Here is one that I just watched. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEGLcpmIIBY

This set up is interesting too.  Note first the strength of the buckyballs.  I have two coins between them and yet the sting holds together.  The large size of the magnetic field of the cylinder magnet can be seen due to the reaction of the string. and remember, that field extends 360 degrees around that cylinder.  And there is another equally powerful field extending through and below the shelf as well. 

This is another demonstration of like poles repelling each other.  And just think, neodymium magnets are long-lived.  They lose only about 5% of their strength every 100 years.  

Here is a new stack I recently bought. Again, they have a 4 mm hole through the centers of each.  The manufacturer places plastic washers between each magnet to make it easier to separate them. 

Below is what I made from some of them.  I used another 3mm brass rod and the electrical tape on the ends keeps them from jumping off the ends. Each magnet was placed so the like poles face one another.  Each is trying hard to repel it's neighbor(s). They're extremely single-minded about that.  (Think of them as a neighborhood of alternating Green Bay Packer and Chicago Bears fans.)

 

Finally, here we have Jeanne compressing the magnets. I didn't measure the force she needed to move them as close together as she has, but it is already significant and gets even harder as they come closer together. BTW, each one of those magnets, if it were attached to a clean sheet of steel, would require about 23 pounds of force to pull it straight off.    

Well, that's pretty much it for this week.  I haven't told you about hard and soft ferromagnets or the Bohr magneton or the degree to which magnetic fields can be redirected.  (Did I just hear a sigh of relief?) 

I have also been hearing about iron nitride (Fe16N2) magnets. They are still being researched and developed but could turn out to be even more powerful than neodymium (Nd2Fe14B) magnets, and much, much cheaper to make.  The element neodymium is expensive to mine and the sintering process they use to make the magnets is complicated.  I'll be watching to see what develops.   

I said at the beginning of this post that I might bore some of you who don't share my interests in magnets.  I think we've all shared some experiences with them, but most of you out there also have more going on in your busy lives than I do.  If you've made it all the way through this post, good for you.  I appreciate being able to share and I had fun writing it.   

One word of warning. These neodymium magnets I've been talking about are surprisingly strong. I think the big ones are actually somewhat scary.  I use a pair of gloves when handling anything stronger than the buckyballs.  And you need to keep even them, especially them, away from small children. There have been deaths caused by babies ingesting them.  

Back in Michigan I had purchased a 2 inch round magnet with a 1/4 inch hole through the center. It was 1 inch thick. It had a holding power of 220 lbs. against steel. I had many others that were smaller but proportionally as strong. If two magnets with such power come together unrestricted, and your hand or finger were in the way, you would suffer badly.  There are videos on You tube showing the correct way to join or separate such magnets.  If you ever intend to buy any, you Must watch these videos first.  Absolute necessity.

And they reach out and grab knives, nails and other sharp objects from surprising distances. Remember the picture I showed you above that demonstrated the size of the magnetic field that was repelling that hanging string of coins and buckyballs? That was from a magnet with only 23 pounds of holding power.  The magnetic fields are proportional in size to the power.  Get those gloves and be careful!  I like snug fitting rubber coated ones but I've seen leather gloves used in some of the videos showing really massive magnets. An N52 magnet, six inches in diameter and two inches thick would have over a ton of holding power. 

Finally, be aware that magnets can affect anything electronic, including phones, computers, heart pacemakers and even credit cards. Don't carry magnets in your pocket next to your wallet.   

Okay, So what do you think? Am I nuts for liking magnets or not? 

According to the guy that does the Science Asylum video's on You Tube, it's okay to be a little crazy. I rest my case.    -djf 

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**

The reason for the name, Buckyballs, is interesting.  Let me tell you about it very briefly.    

There was an American architect and futurist named Richard Buckminster Fuller. He is most well known for his geodesic dome structures.  

'Buckminsterfullerene' is composed of 60 carbon atoms, arranged in such a way that it looks like a sub-microscopic soccer ball. It does exist in nature (in soot) in very small quantities, but in the 1970's, it was generated in a lab for the first time.  Apparently, the scientists wanted to honor Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes and so named this material after him. The tiny structures did look something like his domes after all. It was at this time that they also coined the nickname, Buckyballs. 

When these little neodymium magnets were first being marketed as a product, a catchy name was important to generate sales.  You can see from this cylinder that I made, that they can resemble a geodesic sort of pattern.  The marketers borrowed the name Buckyballs.  

I suppose I could try to make a geodesic dome out the them, but I think that would take a lot of work. This structure is easier to make.  I simply formed a long string of spheres and wound one end into a circle.  Then, I continued laying the rest of the string over the previous layer and each magnet snaped into place next to the last.  Once you have the string, you can build this in a few seconds. It's beautiful, don't you think?

-just one more picture... 

This is one of the 'magnet people' that my grandsons and I used to play with.  Fond memories for this old grandpa. (They're 17 and 15 now)  

There is another more powerful magnet under the table supporting the 'person.'  Moving the magnet under the table causes the people to 'walk' with a somewhat jerky gait.