Day 685: Wisconsin Dells, Day 2

This morning we checked out of our campground spot and moved the RV to the day use lot for our second day at Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park:

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We walked over to the indoor theme park area, which has mostly rides for young children.  We did enjoy the bumped cars:

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The kids rode Pegasus again:

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M convinced B to ride Cyclops with him:

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M rode Zeus many more times today, and we took many turns with the go karts:

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B solos on Pegasus:

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The park also had a small goat petting enclosure:

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The kids rode Manticore again.  The swing assembly goes all the way to the top:

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Trish made theme park-themed funnel cake, which I had never heard of:

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We left the park around 5pm and drove south to Madison.  We went to Uncle Dennis’ house and went for a walk with him and Grandma DiAnn down to the lake:

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For the next few nights we will be overnighting at a Walmart in the Madsion area, and bringing the RV back to Uncle Dennis’ house during the day.  See the trip map for today’s drive and out current location.

Day 683: On Being an Alumnus, and the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass

Shabbos in Appleton was made tolerable by fans that kept the worst of the heat and humidity at bay.  Late Friday night we were visited by our friend Jessamyn and her father.  Jessamyn and I co-led the Jewish student group at the college and were a quarter of the membership.  We talked about old times, Jessamyn’s newly released debut novel Safekeeping which has received many glowing reviews, and her father’s experiences travelling by RV.  On Shabbos, our friend Chuck stopped by to say hello.  I had the chance to speak to a couple of my professors as well, which was fun.

This morning M broke out his rollerblades:

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…And then mocking figure skating.  Or something:

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We went for a drive and stopped at Skate City, where I was a member of the speed skating team during my college years:

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We continued on to High Cliff State Park:

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We walked up to the observation tower where I proposed to Trish many years ago:

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M and B did a reasonably convincing reenactment for us:

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After making googly eyes at each other for a couple minutes, we came down from the tower and walked down to the shore of Lake Winnebago, where there’s a marina:

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On our way back to the RV, we stopped at the private school that we used to skate to from the college:

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While Trish made lunch, I walked to campus one last time with my camera.  We both found the reunion to be depressing, as we found ourselves thinking of all the things we wish we’d done but didn’t, and all the dreams we had that have so far gone unrealized.  I found walking the campus alone after the reunion was over to be even more sad.  The empty, locked buildings seemed to be telling us to leave. 

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The dorm where we met:

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Main Hall, built in 1853:

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Shaking off our malaise, we drove south to the town of Neenah to visit the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass.  The museum is currently hosting a temporary exhibition, titled Native Species:

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The Mahler collection is composed primarily of European glassware from the past 500 years:

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The museum is most well known for its extensive collection of paperweights:

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My favorite paperweights were made using millefiori:

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Each petal of each flower is made of glass and assembled into a bouquet:

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We visited the research library upstairs:

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We stayed at the museum until it closed, then walked across the street where the kids played on this great structure:

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We drove south to overnight at the Walmart of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 679: Exploring Wausau

This morning the kids played the strategy game M received from our friend David in Minneapolis:

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Trish made more jewelry for her online jewelry store:

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We went to visit Tricia’s cousin at their house in Merrill, built on land formerly owned by Tricia’s father.  Their home is beautiful, and on the way back we had to pass this tractor:

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Trish drove by her childhood farm:

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Endomondo Embeds Still Broken, Switching to SportyPal

As I mentioned three weeks ago, Endomondo broke their embedded URLs, so all the workout maps that are in my daily posts now just show a large white space (see here for an example).  I submitted a support request, but received no answer, so I’m switching to SportyPal, where embeds actually work:

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I sent another support e-mail in to Endomondo, we’ll see if they answer:

Hello,

      Endomondo recently stopped allowing HTTP requests for URLs, routing them instead to HTTPS.  As a result, the embed URL given by Endomondo no longer works.  This is because web browsers don’t allow HTTPS in an iframe, so this HTTPS URL from endomondo:

<iframe src=”https://www.endomondo.com/embed/workouts?w=rZemiRzMhgw&width=580&height=600&width=950&height=600″ width=”950″ height=”600″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

gets converted into the HTTP equivalent by the browser, like this:

<iframe src=”http://www.endomondo.com/embed/workouts?w=rZemiRzMhgw&width=580&height=600&width=950&height=600″ width=”950″ height=”600″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

This wasn’t a problem until a few weeks ago, when apparently Endomondo switched to no longer allowing HTTP requests.  As a result, embeds no longer work, since the browser turns the HTTPS within the iframe into an HTTP request, and endomondo then reroutes the request to HTTPS, which the browser doesn’t allow to load in an iframe.

To see this, paste this URL into a browser address field:

http://www.endomondo.com/embed/workouts?w=rZemiRzMhgw

Note that when it loads, the URL gets changed to an HTTPS URL.

To see what it looks like when embedded in a webpage, try this URL and note the large white area where the embedded workout is supposed to be:

http://lookbeforeyoulive.com/?p=16258

Again, this worked until a few weeks ago.

I’m now migrating from Endomondo to SportyPal, as SportyPal doesn’t have this problem.  Is there any way HTTP requests can be turned back on in Endomondo so that embeds once again function correctly?

I do prefer Endomondo’s presentation, so I’m hoping this will get fixed someday.

Day 678: Exploring Wausau, Wisconsin and Flying a Spacecraft

Today we drove into town with Tricia’s sister to explore Wausau.  Our first stop was Marathon Park, where we took a look at the concession building grandpa Glenn built back in the day:

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The ice rink building where Trish and her sister skated was open, so we looked around inside.  The ice is gone for the season:

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Next we walked through Isle of Ferns park near downtown:

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We visited the downtown plaza:

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After we got back to the RV, Trish made a bracelet for her online jewelry store:

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While in downtown, I picked up tourist information in the local visitor information center, and we found out that Tuesday nights the local high school planetarium hosts Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator games.  In this game, five players each control an aspect of the ship: Helm, Weapons, Engineering, Communications, and Science, while the captain gives orders.  The main screen was projected onto the planetarium wall:

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The kids and I watched the first game as we had never seen it before.  In the second game of the night, M was at Weapons and I was at Engineering.  It was great fun!  B opted not to play, and she put on her best bored face.

Meanwhile, back at the RV, Trish spent the night visiting with relatives that came over to Aunt Diane’s house where we’re parked.