Hartree Fox's Journal

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Procyon conspiracy?
MORRIS, Ill. - Police say a trailer loaded with 14 tons of double-stuffed Oreos has overturned, spilling the cookies still in their plastic sleeves into the median and roadway.

Aw'right, you Chicago area raccoons. Fess up. Which one of you was deploying spike strips up there on I-80?

Merry Christmas to all!

The trip home from MFF:
Note number 2, to self:

Spilling an entire extra large coffee full of cream and sugar on yourself and drenching the drivers compartment while backing out of Dunkin Donuts does not lower ones blood pressure.

However, realizing that what you hit when you stopped so suddenly was a large piece of concrete, that you hit it squarely with the trailer hitch, and thus there was no damage to either your beater of a Suburban or the concrete light base you missed seeing does provide some sense of relief.

(No real harm done, but it was a bit uncomfortable and sticky. I jumped in the shower and did laundry as soon as I got home.)

Things mostly went well this year for me at MFF. Rather tiring, though.

Now, to make up for the sleep I missed during the con.

Current Mood: silly

Note to self: Turning on appliances amazingly improves cooking times.

Thus far this morning (well, morning for me.), I've had a piece of meat sitting for 10 minutes in a cold oven, and a quart of water for coffee sit for 5 minutes or so in a dark and silent microwave.

Obviously, the other appliance that hasn't been turned on yet is somewhere between my ears.

Current Mood: silly

I'm not a huge Marshall McLuhan fan, but:
In the "send a message back to your 16 year old self" meme,

( The medium really IS the message. )

Current Mood: devious.

The problem with the current meme going around is not how to send a message back in time to your 16 year old self.

The problem is how to get a 16 year old to actually listen and not just say "Yeah, right. Whatever."

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Little River Band: Cool Change

It's 8 pm:
Do you know where your head is?

Why, yes! It's dissolving in a haze of diphenhydramine.

Current Mood: silly
Current Music: Leonard Nimoy: Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

Lookit the size of that wombat!
Because as Ursula Vernon of Digger fame states: "The world needs more wombats!"

Current Mood: amused

I know it's too good a story to not be true, and I keep seeing it repeated, but in fact:

It wasn't a drunk pulling cables that took down 365 Main and LJ with it.

Current Mood: cynical

As if the news of reports of astronauts drinking before flights, and word of a contractor employee sabotaging a flight computer bound for the International Space Station weren't enough for one day.

We also have an explosion that killed two at Mojave Spaceport. That's Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's company (or Northrop Grumman's. They bought full ownership this week.)

Story Here

Not a good day for space exploration.

Current Mood: annoyed

Some butts will be several pounds lighter after the chewing:
Oh, I am sooooo glad I don't manage backup power at a certain data center at 365 Main in San Francisco.

Current Mood: amused

Still living:
Mowed the lawn today. Yay. We finally got a decent amount of rain this weekend. The lawn had mostly stopped growing for the past few weeks.

There are a lot of very happy farmers around these parts. They were starting to get a bit worried about lack of rain impacting their crops.

I'm still kind of boggled at the prices soybean futures are up to. The guy who farms my field down near Harrisburg says the beans look very good. It might be a time to do some contracting to lock in prices. *shrug* I'm no commodities expert.

Current Mood: good

Ridiculous temperatures 3.0
Well, the furnace will definitely melt aluminum. I tested it the weekend before this past one. I didn't actually cast anything. I just poured out the molten metal into several blobs.

My first loading didn't really work. I loaded the furnace with a pretty small amount of charcoal and had the home made crucible sitting on the bottom of the furnace. after getting the charcoal going I turned on the air blast. It got the aluminum to the crumbly stage but didn't get it to melting or a good pouring temperature.

I then reloaded it with a heavy charge of charcoal with the crucible sitting on top of it nearly to the top of the furnace. This worked much better and melted the aluminum in a few short minutes. I still had a lot of charcoal left after melting, so I can probably reduce the charge a little.

The old vacuum cleaner I'm using for an air blower is squeaking. I think a bearing is going out in it. I'll likely have to find another one to replace it.

Current Mood: weird
Current Music: Crazy World of Arthur Brown: Fire

It seems I've made it through yet another year cruising the universe on Sol 3. That's 45 times, so far.

Thanks to all who wished me happy birthday!

Current Mood: good

Ridiculous temperatures 2.0:
Finally got my somewhat repaired charcoal furnace fired up. I was just curing the repaired lid and bottom that had broken quite some time back when it had fallen off a table in the garage.

It works, but it certainly was better the first time. The place where the top of it sits on the bottom leaks and blows fire around the edges.

Now I just need to rig up some sort of field expedient crucible and tongs. It'll probably be a black iron 3 inch pipe nipple and cap for a first try.

Edit: By way of explanation, this is a small furnace made out of a five gallon metal bucket lined with refractory clay. It's for melting nonferrous metals like aluminum for casting. I'd made it a few years back but got sidetracked and then it got broken.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Bowie/Queen: Under Pressure

My past couple of days:
Get home 8:30 pm. Go to bed 10:30 pm. Get up 6:30 am. Work till 8:30 pm. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There are good points to this. It's hard to get into much trouble. :)

Current Mood: silly

Happy Easter to everyone!

Regardless of your beliefs, it is spring, (though awfully chilly here), a time of renewal and a time of new hope.

I finally got to see the season finale of Battlestar Galactica last night. I think Col. Tigh summed it up best when he said "Whoa..." ;)

Current Mood: good
Current Music: All Along the Watchtower.

Yeah, I'm still kicking:
Loved the warm weather today. Fixed the tail light on the Suburban (AKA the short bus).

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Pretenders: Don't Get Me Wrong

A good night to stay home:
You know it sucks out when the furnace repairmen are snowed in.

The service van took a dive this morning. Initial guess/diagnosis, failed head gasket. My partner (Ken) limped it back from Urbana just before things really closed in. My truck is still up and running, but with the drifting we're limited to within town at best. Thankfully, no "no heat" calls as yet.

I just got back from taking Ken up to get some stuff from the store. We tried to help a car stuck along main street. No soap. It was buried in a drift at an intersection and we didn't have anything to tow it out with. Just pushing and digging wasn't going to help. It had snow packed in under it so the tires weren't in good contact with the ground. Someone was going for a tow strap and a jeep was waiting to yank them out.

Translation: Don't drive into something when you're not sure how deep the snow is. Especially in a light low ground clearance sedan.

They stopped plowing the roads sometime around noon. We've got 20+ mph winds forecast through tomorrow. There may not be much more new snow, but there's plenty around to blow and drift.

Tomorrow, it will make up for less snow by getting to below zero in the evening.

This isn't going to get better quickly. It's been since the 70s that I've seen things this snowed in here in Homer.

Got some good news yesterday. On the way home, we stopped at Allen's Meats (shameless plug for a local store. ;). The man who owns it is the father of the guy whose wife was in the car accident (mentioned in my last post), and he gave us an update.

Turns out she had two shattered vertebrae in her neck. The surgery went well, they were able to get it stabilized and all the bone fragments out. She's been up walking and will be home soon. She's quite lucky.

Current Mood: relieved