It is the 4th day of the 2 week quarantine at JW Marriot Hotel in Singapore. We stay at the 20th floor of the hotel, in a room facing west. The view of the Sunset is one of the few positives of the quarantine. The second time we saw the sunset, we felt that it was somehow different from Texas' - the Sun sets earlier! Why? My curious inquiry to this and another trivia provided me some brain exercise.
Sunset - viewed from Quarantine room
Sunset and Latitude
A quick check of Sun set time today, June 27, Singapore time:
Singapore 7:14pm - latitude 1.29 degree N
Dallas 7:39 pm (standard time) - latitude 32.78 degree N
Beijing 7:47pm - latitude 39.91 degree N
Toronto 8:03pm (standard time) - latitude 43.65 degree N
Anchorage - 10:41 pm (standard time) latitude 61.22 degree N
Thinking about it, the Sun is to the north of equator during summer in northern hemisphere, so the further north, the later the sun set. It makes sense.
Thinking about it a bit more -- how do we define Sunset or Sunrise ?
This must be a question solved long time ago in astronomy. I thought about it purely as a mental exercise, before checking the literature. I would make a tangent plane - horizon - for any location on the earth, if the the Sun is on the other side of the plane to the earth, the Sun is up, it is day time, otherwise it is night time. The time the Sun touches the plane, it is Sunrise when Sun goes above horizon or Sunset when Sun goes below the horizon.
Of course, the Sunset, Sunrise time calculation was developed long time ago, in fact, there is a equation to do the calculation - Sunrise Equation.
Furthermore, near equator the sunset/sunrise time varies little in a year, so there is no need to institute daylight saving time. In fact Singapore abandoned daylight saving time in 1936
Closet lights
A frivolous feature in the guest room is the closet light, that turned on when the door to the closet opens up, and turned off when the door closed. I would have paid no attention to this feature but light in the room's closet was on all the time since our 3rd day here even when the closet door was closed. This made the night time like dawn, disrupting my circadian rhythm, making my jet-lag worse!
The first night I noticed the malfunction, I pushed the closet door a little bit, and the light went off. But it went back on after a few minutes. Using a pillow against the door yielded similar outcome.
A examination of the switch and the door, I determined that the malfunction was due to slight deformation in the frame of the closet or in the door itself, which make the deflection of the switch just a little bit smaller.
Two ways to solve the problem: 1) fix the door or the frame; 2) find a way to add the deflection to the switch when the door is closed. Option 1 would be a non trivial project. Option two is easier. What I did was to add a bandit to the switch, which just added a layer of material between the switch and the door. When the door is open, the light is on, when door is closed, the added layer compensates the lost deflection, the light is off. Problem solved! Hopefully I won't wake up in the middle of light due to the closet light again.
the switch to the closet light - in the horizontal beam to the right
light remained on when the door was closed
bandit fix!
the bandit fix worked
These brain exercises made me alert, helped to beat jet-lag, and made the quarantine less boring.
Our first stop upon landing in Singapore is a SHN (Stay Home Notice) dedicated facility - JW Marriot Hotel, a five star hotel, for a two week mandatory quarantine.
We stayed in 2 connected 20th floor rooms which have floor to ceiling curtains. No strings to open close the curtains. The curtains are open and closed via electric motors. A push of switch reveals a spectacular view.
Sunset viewed from 20th floor of JW Marriot
The toilet in these rooms is TOTO Washlet, i.e. a toilet that can wash the bottom and genital area. Fortunately the washes are not automatic, one has to use a remote to start the process. A one second clean wipe from toilet paper will take a minute or two on the toilet. It may not totally clean the soiled area in stick situations :). That may be the reason TOTO Wahslet is not widely installed.
TOTO Washlet
Our two rooms are connected through face to face double doors. Person in one room can open the door on his side, but has no knob or key to open the other door to next room. The other door has to be opened in that room. So the connection is made through mutual consent, privacy is established either side. A very clever design, purely mechanical !
These doors and entrance doors have 3 layers, with a metal layer in the middle, seem to be bullet proof. They are very heavy, and make people feel safe.
The special door to the next room
When we tried the double doors the first time, Nicholas came to our room, the door on his side closed behind him! He could not get back to his room through the connecting door. Unfortunately he did not have the card key to his room with him. We had to call front desk for help. Waiting for hotel staff to come to open the door for him for more than 5 minutes, we called again, we were told it was open already … it was opened remotely.
How convenient and efficient for the hotel staff! But it gave me chill. What about security? This was what prompted me to write this post
The bullet proof door is a nil if it can be unlocked remotely. Of course there is the same issue with card kay or the old time hotel master key. So one needs to activate the mechanical door stop from inside, at least one knows when someone tries to trespass.
The perceived security is not secure. Same to electronic locks.
What about the all the conveniences that require electricity?
The elevator will stuck, people strand mid air when electric outage occurs. In case of emergency people can still get out of building through the old fashioned stair well. The elevator is a convenience we can not live without, but the stair well is the critical structure we must have.
The motorized curtains can be an annoyance when electric outage occurs. Our rooms are facing west, they have great views of sunset, but also could warm up quickly. If the curtains stuck open in a sunny afternoon, no AC, the rooms can be a green house in no time!
Do we need all those good to have conveniences? Not all of them, e.g. the motorized curtains.
Are we more secure with digital technology? Most of the time but individuals are even more venerable when people in power want to control their life.
Are we more safe?
The title subject is too large a topic to discuss in this post. Just some random thoughts on it.
What is common among these three totally unrelated subjects? Our curiosity led us to learn something new or find something unexpected.
Brown Thrasher
While walking in the community, I heard a new bird chirping, looking around I saw this brownish bird, it had a shape of mocking bird, and the its color resembled that of Robins. I took a few photos of this bird in a neighbor's yard. Curious about what it is, I used Google lens to find out approximately what it is, and then pinpointed its exact name.
It turned to be brown thrasher, in the family of Mimidae, which also includes mocking bird. It lives primarily in eastern and central US, and also in central Texas. So spotting it in North Texas is a relatively rare event.
Brown Thrasher
Cottonwood
While walking around Russell creek pond park, we noticed this snow like white fluffy floats in the air around a few big trees. Those fell on the ground formed a thin cotton like thin layer.
We noticed this for many years but never really know exactly what it is. Curious now, I described what I saw for Google search. The trees are cottonwood, we heard this name numerous times before, but never connected the name to specific trees.
Now I know more about cottonwood: Cottonwood trees actually have genders - male and female cottonwood trees. Female cottonwood produces the parachute-like white fluffs, which are capsules of seeds! Male cottonwood produces no fluffs.
June Snow
Winnwood and Celestial Parks in Addison
While staying in a hotel in Addison, we looked for places after hearty dinners for after meal walk. I remember seeing a neat small park on Beltline Road, near Beltline and Preston. So the first evening at the hotel we went to look for the park.
The park turned out to be Winnwood park, but there is no parking along Beltline road, so we drove further to Winnwood road hoping to park there and walk to the park, but two suspicious cars on Winnwood road entrance made us to abandon the idea. We drove a little bit further, and found out that we entered an enclave of million dollar mansions. So we decided to tour the enclave, which includes both Winnwood road and Bellbrook drive.
At the end of Winnwood road, we reached the Celestial park, which has public parking. We stopped there and had our walk along celestial park and along Bellbrook drive, and eventually to Winnwood park as well, a total of two mile walk. It was a very pleasant walk, few people anywhere along the routes, and beautiful parks and mansions.
Celestial Park
Winnwood park
The gazebo at Winnwood
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Bert Fields Park
The next day we chose a larger park on Preston road, Bert Fields Park, which we thought was a community park. When we got to the perceived trail head in the park, we entered another enclave of million dollar mansions.
The park is right next to White Rock Creek, and a has good paved trail. The community and the park, are less elegant an less beautiful than Winnwood, but has more rustic beauty!
Here is a collection of videos I recorded around North Texas - flapping lone star in my front yard, duck and ducklings at Davis library pond, a great grey heron at Russel creek pond, Heron trying to chase away an egret at Russell creek pond, Red-Tail Hawk ate mouse live in a neighbor's front yard, Pelican landing at Hagerman Wild Life Refuge, Snow Geese at Hagerman Wild Life Refuge, Scissor tailed fly catcher dancing at a soccer field, Egret flying along Lake Lavon shore line, our paddling along white rock creek, our paddling on Lake Lavon, Lily sky diving at Ennis Texas, and sweet bird sound from chimney!
We went to Beavers Bend State Park in Oklahoma during Memorial Day weekend. Several changes from previous outings made it an "adventure", and we all had great time.
This time our group had more than empty nesters! The freshman college students came home and joined their parents. We also had two more families joined for the fun!
No Cell signal
The first challenge we had was no cell signal for many of us in the park! Only ATT has cell signal, all other providers have none! This is why providers with much cheaper plans for cellphone can not gain too much on ATT. Cheaper but not working means nothing.
It made communication really hard and tested our capabilities to deal with uncertainties. Some handled it very well. We made it eventually and had a fabulous time.
our center site
Hiking across flooded creek
After settled down at Acorn camp site, we went on hiking on south park trail and lookout mountain trail. These are two connected trails, and they are steep, more difficult and strenuous. What was unexpected was that a creek the trail crosses flooded, though water was pretty shallow, but not enough stepping stones for us to cross it without wetting our shoes.
Walking around is too long a distance. What to do if we want to continue?
Kevin, a college student, jumped on two far apart stepping stones and got across without wetting his shoes. That is one way, but most parents could not do it.
Taking off shoes and crossing the creek on bare feet, then dry feet on the other side. This is the second way. But many cringed on this proposal.
The third way was to build a "bridge", a few dads, started to collect large stones and dead tree branches and built the path forward! One by one, with some efforts and thrill, all of us crossed the creek and continued the hiking.
Dense wood, steep slope made the hiking really strenuous for some. I led the hiking and made a decision to turn around after 2.5 km hiking, much shorter distance than original plan, returning at 2.5 mile, due to the flooded creek.
We had the same thrill on the return trip crossing the creek again!
Sunset at the Dam
We returned to camp around 5pm, and had an early BBQ. The college students went into a big tent to play cards after a hearty dinner. It was only 7:00pm, it was still bright daylight, it was too early to start camp fire. I suggested to go to the Dam to see the Sunset.
It was still early when we got to the Dam, so we went off the Dam to Mountain Fork Park downstream to the Dam. It was unexpectedly beautiful even with Beavers Bend standard … water rushing in the shallow, rocky mountain fork river in this section, blue sky, white thin clouds, scissor tailed fly catchers swooping by the bluff, a few people were fishing, I was mesmerized.
The group took a few group pictures before heading back to the top of the Dam to see the Sunset.
Looking northeast, the broken bow lake was at its serenest at this time, calm, blueish with green islands. It felt like Acadia. Looking southwest, the Sun started to set, coated the mountains, surroundings and us with golden shine. With green forest, and the silver mountain fork river, what a beautiful tapestry it was! We seemed to be in great smoky mountains.
Kayak in Early Morning
Since most families don't have kayak or boat with them, we decided to get up early on Memorial Day to kayak in early morning, and then join the rest of the group for boating later in the day.
Our camp site was right at the bank of mountain fork river. When we set up the tent on Sunday, the river was very calm, and we noticed no flow. When we came back from hiking, the river was flowing at 1 to 2 mile per hour speed! The spillway lifted flood gates on Sunday in anticipation of more rain. We heard the sirens multiple times during hiking.
I got up at 6:10 am, when I stepped out of the tent, the Sun was just rising, the eastern sky was in deep red. The view was spectacular. Unfortunately I decided to go to restroom first, and when I came back that Devine vista was gone. Nevertheless, the surrounding scenery was still breath taking.
We started to assemble our inflatable kayak Emma when Lily got up around 6:40 am, we finished the assembly in our standard ~ 15 minutes.
We paddled upstream of the mountain fork river from our tent site because there is a small dam downstream separating level 1 and level 2/3 section of the river.
At this time, clouds built up, the Sun shine receded, but the river looked green, the trees on both banks greener! Small birds were flying in and out of the dense trees, chirping, big bird glided over the river, a beaver was swimming near the bank, vortexes formed downstream of the elegant cypresses trees standing in the river. In fact our kayaks, ours yellow and our friends' blue, added the accent to this already amazingly beautiful scene. We had to paddle continuously otherwise the kayak would float downstream with the river flow.
On the return trip, we let the river flow carry us forward, paddling occasionally to control the direction, and enjoyed the scenery even more.
Boating on Broken Bow Lake
We have been to many lakes around Texas and Oklahoma, but we mostly stayed at a corner of a lake, kayaking and hiking. As we had so many people this time, nearly 20, we decided to ride motor boats to tour the big lake, to see the islands and coves, up close, from water level.
An interesting episode with the boating occurred at the marina. The lake water level rose ~ 8 feet due to heavy rain , road signs were submerged. There was a gap between the dry land and the temporary bridge the marina built for customers. A similar situation as that happened on the hiking trail the previous day, but this time many took off shoes and wade through the water, others changed to sandals. We rented two boats and split our group into 2.
The college students initially were reluctant to go on the ride, but eventually enjoyed the boating a lot because they got chance to drive a boat at high speed in open water.
The lake did not disappoint despite a cloudy sky … islands, coves, water, other motor boats and ski jets.
