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Showing posts from February 19, 2006

Wyoming and Idaho

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We are back from a quick vacation. I managed to score three (actually several more) bucket list items in 4 days. 1.) Long Snowmobile Trip. 2.) Yellowstone Park and 3.) Wyoming. I reached my 50th State --Wyoming! And we took a 90 mile snowmobile trip in Yellowstone National Park. We went to the "Craters of the Moon--National Monument and Preserve" in Idaho and also stopped at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where I got to see (with my own eyes) the very cool nuclear powered twin turbojet engine. It was a successful experiment in the 1950s and 1960s. https://whatisnuclear.com/safety-minutes/htre-3-meltdown.html Of course, I had my Radiacode scintillation detector with me and yes, the apparatus is "Hot". The screenshot of the readings from my three walk-arounds the artifact. I swear you could smell the radiation. There was a very un-natural burnt smell something reminiscent of burned bakelite. Although, I am quite certain the emitted radition was not the source...
There must be a term surrounding the concept of analying but not understanding. I mean the alpha llama Professor can stare at me and a match, watch me strike it and light the heater so close, right next to my face with all his might and sadly will never figure out how to make his herd-friends warm when he wants. This is a fact of which I am certain. The same condition applies to watching something like the Nightly Business Report. You can talk about all sorts of stuff and show all sorts of graphs, how do you communicate what took you a lifetime to figure out to another individual? The llamas got their rabies shots the other day. In NY we have to have a licenced vet administer a rabies shot. Jim the vet said, you have to watch out, your llamas may give llamas a good name. It took about 15 minutes for Dr. Jim to get them all. He agreed, our llamas are well trained.
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It was cold this weekend; It got down to about 5 below on the farm. It was pretty windy and nasty until it got down to about zero. The cool air felt great. The wind was a pain. The llamas decided to hold up for most of it in their house until the temperature dropped and the wind calmed. They have the heater, their straw and each other. I decided to spend some concerted effort on CAD for the property. I am getting frustrated on my lack of progress on the plan. We have lots of concepts. I have the tools; let's get it on drawings with scales, numbers and realities. I am somewhat taken back that the GE low voltage switching system that seemed ubiquitous with remote switching is no longer made. I was relying on that stuff. I hope there is a replacement. I suspect there is. I have been getting a Debian (linux) machine going in the ham shack. My common sense and "off the cuff" realization continues to be that L inux is unix but since there is no real "paper trail...