I’ve been learning Italian and am always looking for ways to enhance the learning process.  A friend of mine told me about an interesting new site http://www.babbel.com/ Babbel is a language learning site with social networking.  They have content for English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.  There are chatrooms for each language and ways to match up Italians looking to learn English with English speakers who want to learn Italian.  The language content goes a bit fast.  It seems aimed at someone who has already started learning a language and would be a good refresher and way to keep in practice.  In fact, they have reminders on the site telling you how many days you have before you should review material again.

The site requires flash (so I can’t use it from my iPhone) and not all the kinks are worked out.   The interface is a bit confusing when you first attempt some of the lessons.  On the other hand, they have a feedback link on every page so you can send the feedback you want to provide.

The site is free (for now at least) and I’ve really enjoyed it.

Tonight I made a bracelet and earrings.  It was going to be a necklace and earrings but someone got a little carried away crimping the clamshell and had to do some creative work with materials on-hand.

All you burning man folks may have some advice here.  How do you clean your tent and sleeping bag that are now coated with a fine coating of red dust?  It is EVERYWHERE? I have everything else from the trip cleaned and put away except for my sleeping bag (not too bad) and tent (VERY dusty)… help!

For me, the second day was the best. We had a yummy breakfast (I skipped the scrambled eggs and had MEs delicious zucchini bread and some bacon and potatoes. I also tested out my new Moka pot and made some decaf (Sigh) espresso.

Then came the fun. We drove to the lake and hiked down to the water and managed to find a place in the shale that was flat and free of large rocks and set up our day area. M went and got the rented Waverunner and shuttled some of the family over to our setup. I was in the water pretty much the entire day except for time on the Waverunner or my 30 min lunch break.

The water was the only place that provided relief from the 104 heat, there was no shade at the lake and barely any at the campground. I rode around the lake on the WR and it was awesome! I got it up to 51 m.p.h. and my back didn’t hurt. My back muscles were fatigued and then I stopped before it got to be too much. We spent the rest of the time lounging in the water, making mini raft islands out of various floating devices and just talked. Very relaxing and the most relaxed I have been in a long time.

Except for the 2 inch burn around my arm where my farmer tan hit the protective tee that I was wearing.

Dinner was great and M even made cobbler in a Dutch Oven in the coals (reason 27 I love Boy Scouts) The evening cooled down a bit and we had s’mores and chatted around the coals.

The air mattress wasn’t really comfy for my back so I deflated it, put the sleeping bag and a towel on that, and then slept on top. It actually got chilly at something like 4am, which was great!

The drive to the camp wasn’t bad.  The fact that it was called the Gloryhole campground (fun for the whole family!) made for a lot of fun jokes along the way.   We also stopped at Sonic so I have finally eaten a Sonic burger after years of seeing ads.  (It was pretty good and they have a LOT of interesting drink choices)

When we got to the campground it was about 104 degrees with a hot wind.  It was like being on another planet with no real relief from shade.  The lake which looked walking distance on the campsite map was hundreds of feet low so it would be a long hike down uneven terrain to get to the water from our site.  We set up camp and had dinner (thanks M!)

The camp manager came by to talk and I asked if there was anything I should know since I hadn’t camped at Lake Melones before.  He starts, “Well, we have rattlesnakes…” then goes on to tell me what do do if I see a rattlesnake (back away and don’t kill it), that they have scorpions, “no, wait, tarantualas,” bobcats, and cougars and I finally ask if he is just pulling my leg.  He says no and mentions that they relocated a rattlesnake about 10 feet from where we were standing just two months ago.  He also claims that he might have Lyme’s disease from the rumored ticks.  The place was covered in Martian-y red dust, that got on EVERYTHING and also made me feel like it would be impossible to see a snake, scorpion, or other vicious creature headed my way.  I spend the first few hours walking around scouring the ground for the signs of snakes in the neighborhood.

That night, when taking E to the bathroom, I walk in and see my first ever scorpion… the tail, the stinger, the ball of evil poison.  It stopped me dead in my tracks.  I took E to the most distant stall and then kept an eye on him while she facilitated.  He didn’t move the entire time.

We had to wait up for J and M and when they got there I was pooped, it was still something like 70 degrees and I got some fitful rest on my new air mattress.

I am going on vacation and am looking for great mascara that is also waterproof. Whatever they change to make it waterproof always messes with the quality of the mascara, makes it clumpy or ruins it in some way.

As sort of a mascara snob, I’ve avoided trying Great Lash, the best selling mascara for years. I bought some waterproof and let me tell you, that is probably not the best selling version. It was horrible. It is one thing to have clumpy lashes if they at least look thick, but clumpy, wimpy lashes are right out.

On the other hand, it is vacation, so if I don’t get it worked out, I’ll live

I’ll be gone from th 14th to the 22nd at my yearly retreat to Italian land in the Catskills — bocce, swimming, drinking, and beno (bingo). I’ll probably do some from posts from the pool, just to make people jealous

In other news, the crazy energy from the steroids has been really good for cleaning my office. I am organizing and going through paperwork like nobody’s business. Got rid of my crappy file cabinets (3 minutes from when we put them on the street to when they were picked up, Gratis!), moved my bookcase from the bedroom into the office, bought cool, new, file storage.

I want to get a nice reading chair for the bedroom and then rearrange that too I don’t know how long I’ll be on the steroids, though.