Free Word Lens App from Google

Word Lens, an app that Google purchased last month and is currently offering for free on both iPhone and Android platforms, has the cool ability to "look" at a sign in Russian, German, Spanish, French, Italian, or Portuguese and translate it on screen, as you're walking along, probably lost, in a foreign city where you don't know the language (provided its signs are written in any of those six languages.)

Best of all, it doesn't require a connection!

It does have trouble doing script. And, like Google translate, it leaves a lot to be desired, but when you're staring at Cyrillic characters completely lost, it could come in handy.  . . .  in some cases.

I tried it out on a few Russian signs online.

Pictures help, no?

So, here's the first one I screen shot with the app to see what it translated.

Other words that flashed in place of these: Ordinary / Sharply Feet /Torn / Rotor)

Tigers was pretty much a giveaway, no? But I couldn't keep it on the screen long enough to screen shot it.

The word after "tigers" that came up quickly and then disappeared, varyied between Next / Rank /Series

I'm hoping this was in a zoo and not on the street corner.

This one is a bit more concerning... I'm not too sure about whatever I'm supposed to be doing in an emergency here.

Okay, here I would at least have some idea that this wasn't the restaurant I was looking for:

Fourth try:

well, that was just maddeningly unhelpful.

Fifth sign looked kind of similar, so I gave it a shot.

I'm guessing Stump Life isn't as cool as Thug Life?

I gave up after the sixth. The most interesting looking word on the sign had zero suggestions. I'll never know how dangerous that (unknown) limited room might have been.

The cool sunny morning on the deck

The quartz was catching the morning slant of sun and looked like jagged teeth along set along the rail of the deck.

The rest of us were enjoying it, too.

6/1/14 Zoo with Joanna

So Friday, I changed my Facebook profile picture. That afternoon, Joanna comments on it. I hadn't heard from Joanna in years, other than casual FB postings, which I hadn't seen in a long time from her. But I replied, and it turned out she was flying in from Houston the next day for the weekend in Denver and wondered if we could get together. 

Joanna and I had met when she was in Denver for training with our company four years ago and we were working the same car lines and struck up a friendship in that short time. A couple of weeks later, she was gone, back to Texas and then moving off to California where I'd lost track of her. So we spent this afternoon roaming the zoo and talking and catching up. After that, we had a late, long lunch at the Cherry Cricket, which, if you've never been, just can't be summed up into words. 

So, yeah. More zoo photos. It's my thing.

My big boy was out lounging in the sun this time, waiting for his close-up.

When we got around to the tiger enclosure, I, at first, though he was chowing down on something in a block of ice. A bit closer inspection however, revealed fur, paws, and a lot of blood.

The sea lions were doing some synchronized floating when we passed by

I spotted the snowcones and could not resist a suicide (well, of the three flavors they had, anyway.)

Joanna did the same.

We sat in the shade to eat and talk and realized mama bird was flying in and checking on her sightless, noisy, babies.

Otter naps mean they lay their heads on one another's tummies and rise and fall with each other's breathing. There is nothing in this word cuter than an otter.

Zoo handlers were feeding Vinh, the white female Gibbon, who is 23 years old, apples by tossing them to her from across the water to the island. She is an amazingly good catch. If the handler got distracted by talking to onlookers, Vihn made sure to remind her why she was there in the first place.

That's the "throw me another apple, woman!" face.

We also got to see Katy the Capuchin in action. Katy had discovered a water bottle some careless visitor had tossed aside floating in the moat of the island she stays on. (The Capuchins here don't realize that they can escape by swimming across, so they don't try.)

One volunteer with a walkie-talkie was calling in Katy's discovery, so a handler appeared a few minutes later to check on her. Katy had taken the top of the bottle off, put it back on, taken it off, banged it like a drum on the rocks, filled it half up with water, drunken from it, banged it some more and realized it sounded better empty, and emptied it by this time. As soon as she saw the handler approaching, she ducked down, turned her back, and pretended not to notice her. After the handler determined it didn't need to be removed and left, Katy resumed her water play with abandon. We could've sat there and watched her all afternoon.

Our last stop for the day before lunch was the grizzlies, who were roaming and scratching, and being bored. Their space is just so small. I hope a new expansion is on the books to give them some room to roam.

And then? Lunch!!

(the kitchen is behind the aquarium)