The AR Sandbox was done 12 years ago now, but the concept is still the same today as then.
If you want your own, you can buy a museum-grade one from TOPOBOX from Reactive Digital Systems for only $18,900, or a educator edition for $7,990
Or maybe just build your own with an old XBox 360 Kinect:
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You know it’s bad when the governor of the bluest state in the country tells it’s political leadership that they need to be able to ‘walk and chew gum’ at the same time.
“The county must walk and chew gum at the same time…and fix the program before the next tax year to reduce the burden on Multnomah County residents”
The governor of Oregon has come down on hard (well, as hard as anyone in this state can do) on the Preschool for all Program that cannot seem to reach any of it’s goals and caused a huge tax that is driving people away from Portland – even while it has over $485 million (much of it unspent) from a massive new city income tax in its coffers. Despite spending literally millions, it has only produced 2,225 openings for children.
I seriously doubt anything will happen. Oregon and Portland are rife with graft. Local voters voted in this very poorly written tax law, even when audits show their money is being wasted.
There’s speculation that Salem’s leadership has become seriously spooked by something in the budget numbers. There’s clear evidence that the Oregon tax base is visibly shrinking due to mismanagement, some of the highest taxes in the country, and high and middle income residents fleeing Portland and Oregon in record numbers.
Meanwhile, NYC achieved pre-school for all success in just 2 years.
35 When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. 37 Above his head they placed the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.
38 Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
Matthew 27:35-45
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Luke 23:39-45
If there is one thing I have learned – it is that God doesn’t act the way we expect. We struggle and wait for prayers to be answered. Sometimes for years or even decades. Sometimes things get much worse the harder we pray and try. We wander through dark nights with no comfort.
2 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?4 Turn, Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?6 I am worn out from my groaning.
All night long I flood my bed with weeping
Psalm 6
and drench my couch with tears.
7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.
Many people will simply say they are turned off by organized religion. Some don’t see the value at all and just live as they like. Others like to say they are “spiritual but not religious’. Some like to point out that organized religions have scandals and are full of hypocrites. Wars have been carried out in the name of religions.
Like the mocking thief on the cross, some become angry because God doesn’t act the way we want or expect. Others dismiss God as too cruel. ‘I can’t believe in a God that lets people suffer or die. Why would a supposedly loving God do and allow all these things?’ Others mock and scoff people who follow God as repressed, brainwashed fools.
I cannot claim to have the answer for the mysteries of suffering. What I can say is that, believer or not, we all go through both good and difficult things in our lives. What we can do is share them with God and they can help transform ourselves and the world. In our everyday understanding, it is success that brings change into the world. Instead, God shows His power in that He can take what appears to be abject failure by all standards – and use it to completely change the world. Jesus died this way – abandoned and condemned to a shameful death. We can mock God in our struggles and gain nothing like the scoffing thief. Or we can ask Jesus into (even our own self-caused) tragedies and bring transformation and eternal good from them – if we just ask like the good thief on the cross.
This isn’t just academic. We have in Jesus someone that knows exactly what we’re going through. Before He was even born, His parents experienced an unwed, unplanned pregnancy. As a child, they had to flee for their lives and they lived as political refugees in Egypt. Joseph likely struggled trying to make a living as a refugee in a foreign land. They came from a poor, backward hick region of Israel held in low regard. Their country was conquered and under a brutal military dictatorship. Joseph was very likely a simple blue-collar worker with little education. Jesus public ministry was one of long days, low/no pay, rejection, sleeping wherever He was offered, and had no possessions other than what He carried. He likely slept outside on cold nights, went hungry and thirsty, and was exhausted by hot desert days. He barely escaped being killed in His own home town when He insulted them. His friends misunderstood and even betrayed and abandoned Him. He was rejected by the thought leaders and those in political and religious power. He was falsely accused, arrested, and sentenced to death under an invading military force. He was made a pawn in power games between the Jews and Romans.
Jesus knew what it meant to struggle. Almost every follower of God did. Abraham, Moses, Elisha, David. The world doesn’t understand because we misunderstand what true peace and eternal happiness really is.
The kind of peace and freedom that is the Kingdom of God doesn’t depend on what we are going through, how rich we are, how many people like or follow us on social media, or having the perfect family. It doesn’t depend on the madness or rejection of the world we find ourselves in. It’s an eternal peace in which our hearts rest in eternal love that is God. A peace this world cannot give – because nothing in this world is permanent.
This is just a part of the mystery of suffering.
Like the men crucified with Jesus, we can blame God and miss salvation right beside us. Or, we can humbly admit the truth in our lives, turn and ask Him to be with us as His friend, and find ourselves invited to eternal paradise.
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It was about 1 month to the day that I got the surgery results back from the labs. The prognosis came early afternoon via a phone call I almost didn’t take because the number was unfamiliar. It was my surgeon. They biopsies showed clear margins and the lymph nodes were clear – indicating there was no spread. There was no more need for treatment. No chemo. No radiation. He said that he only had 2-3 cases like mine – it was something of a miracle for as long as the tumors had likely been there.
We scheduled a follow up and hung up.
I cried.
I gave thanks to God for answered prayers. I remembered the story of the 10 lepers:
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[a] met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Luke 17:11-19
I vowed the first decade of the rosary I prayed each day, I would recall and give thanks for the healing I had just received. I have done so ever since.
This day you have died, live as a new man
Marcus Aurelius
As I did this and continued to give thanks, I journeyed deeper in prayer – prayer that was based on the question, What’s next? How do I take advantage of these gift of a second chance. How was all this supposed to transform me or others?
I got some powerful challenges and some painful admonitions; I am still trying to sort them out. I have made concrete changes in my life and am re-evaluating where I am going for whatever time I have left. The cancer may return any time, but I believe there is still a lot more to this story and I am excited. I’m starting by re-doubling my efforts to walk each day with God and let Him run the show. My life ended that day. Time to live again in Christ.
To all this, cancer was a gift.
It was probably the best gift I have been given in the last 10 years. I realize it likely cut out years and years of laziness, floating through life in frivolous pursuits, and prideful self-indulgence. Now I have the opportunity to change course and again invite Christ into my soul every day. No matter how many more I get.
Every time I pray the rosary – this is just a little of what it means.
Atomic Shrimp noticed that a number of recent mushroom foraging books had errors. These weren’t simple errors, if you ate some of the things they say you could eat, you could destroy your kidneys or even kill yourself. How did this happen? He realized a lot of these books were being generated by AI and it looks very much like the people that put them together didn’t even know how to fact check them.
It’s a great discussion of how AI generated books have become very prevalent and the dangers of people just churning out AI slop without quality control.
There’s been press about people moving full time to a cruise ship (The World Residences at Sea) during Covid.
Tips For Travellers asks how well this really works.
There are two ways to do this. One is to take many different boats during the year. The other is to buy a full-time residence.
The cheaper option is to hop between the cheapest cruise lines. In his video, he finds several people using several different methods.
Mario sticks to the cheap Caribbean cruises for 80% of the year and does not spending extra for port fees, excursions, drinks/food packages, etc. He targets about $200/day for cabin costs. With extras, Mario lives very frugally for a full year on the cruise ships on about $72,000-$100,000/year. Mama Lee also does this at about $175,000 for her more upscale life. Beatrice Meuler lived in an interior cabin on the QE2 for about $80,000. These match his investigation of a 9 month Royal Caribbean cruise that would cost about $112,000 for a balcony cabin with drinks, wifi, laundry, and a few excursions – but requires to be paid PER PERSON for a double occupancy.
Permanent residence on a single boat costs much more. Cabins on The World residences cost millions to buy, and annual fees often run around $113,000 (studio) to $1M (3 bedroom)/year depending on size of residence you buy. Storylines has studios start at $350,000 with $55,000/year maintenance costs – up to millions for the penthouses (along with up to a million a year in maintenance fees!)
Even if the costs work for you, there’s still other considerations.
1983 Electro Technics Gunslinger game used compressed air and a light gun to create an interesting real-life old western shootout gaming experience. These were updates to the Mr. Topgun Arcade games of the 60’s and 70’s.
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Are You Being Served is one of my favorite British comedies. It very much reminded me of the funny and interesting characters that worked with me at one of my first jobs.
It turns out, his amazing characters/stories were based in some truth. In the early 1950s, scriptwriter Jeremy Lloyd was employed as a junior assistant at Simpson of Piccadilly and he drew on his experiences to come-up with the idea for Are You Being Served?
When Simpsons opened in 1936, it was the largest menswear store in Britain. It’s now owned by Waterstones chain of bookshops.
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Is your household income LESS than $49,560 ($56,640 for 2, $63,720 for 3, etc)? You could get a free air conditioner from Portland. There are apparently other programs if you have wood burning heat to get free furnaces and conversions – all paid for by local tax payers.
https://www.portland.gov/bps/cleanenergy/cooling-portland/apply-cooling-unit
In another sign of Portland’s declining situation, the metro area lost nearly 7,500 jobs in May 2025 and employment is down about 14,000 in the past year according to a new report from the Oregon Employment Department.
Statewide, the unemployment rate was 4.8% in May 2025 – up from 4.1% in May 2024. The U.S. rate was 4.2% in both months.
Conveniently delayed until after the passage of a massive $1.8 billion bond measure, the 2023-4 PPS audit report was released with 23 improvement areas identified. In what is a continued trend of leadership failures and overruns, it called out PPS’s significant project delays and major cost overruns.
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