SPEAKERS

       I belong to a local naturalists group that has speakers for 6 or 7 months of the year.

     We are not a rich group so have to be careful in selecting speakers. We have a policy where we cover the speaker's expenses. Of course that limits getting some of the more prominent speakers. We sometimes have speakers from the local college, grad students from various universities and some scientists doing research. Speakers are quite often looking for publicity about their studies.

    Last night we had a speaker on bison. He is connected with the Grasslands  park in southern Saskatchewan where they are trying to establish a large herd of prairie bison.

    I have always been interested in bison. The speaker we had last night was disappointing in a number of ways. I was expecting to hear about the history and operation of Grasslands Park. There was nothing except in questions after the presentation. I was expecting to hear abut prairie bison in North America. There was very little. 

    The speaker gave the world history of bison over millions of years and how they got to North America. I was not interested in the long history of bison. So , although the guy was well prepared and knowledgeable I was not interested in the part of the topic he presented.

   So close to 100% of our speakers are great and  their topics interesting. So one disappointing speaker once in a while isn't bad. 

                                               Birders

            The scary moose at the nature center reminding us to be cautious.

What in the World?

     Did you ever get the gift where you said,"What in the world is this thing?" I got such a gift this year and the puzzling thing was that came from  someone who is and excellent gift giver.

    So the box said, "Stereo speaker and something about ipod."  Now I like my ipod and the ear buds with it. I get to hear music the way I like it. It's clear and I can hear all parts of the music. Why would I want a speaker for my ipod?

The mysterious box

    So today I got around to opening the box and going through the material with the stereo speaker. The directions were clear except that you need more than trifocals to see the print. They must really want to conserve forests these days when they make the print so small. 

    I did well until I was to connect the ipod to the device . I took my cord to hook the ipod to the computer to plug into the stereo. Something's wrong here. These don't match! They're two female ends. So I thought oops somebody has sent me something that I don't have all the parts for. I checked a little further and then said, "Oh Ya. I plug the ipod into this device not a cord." After that everything worked and it was simple.

The gizmo beside the box

     It wasn't until I turned the device on and listened for a few minutes that it hit me what the purpose of the stereo speaker was for. So it allows you to listen to your music without being attached to the ear plug! I like to sit at the computer and listen to music but when I want to get up and go to another place in the house it's a small inconvenience to take off the ear phones.

     So my, "What in the world is this thing?" turned out to make sense after all.