Sunday, March 27, 2011

Comin' At'cha!

One came from the west.....


One came from the East......


We met in the middle on a bright Saturday in March.....
 Actually, we all met at the local Cracker Barrel and had a leisurely breakfast and a family reunion type visit over the meal.  The mini reunion was brother's idea and it worked out really well.  He said it was a shame we couldn't get together with our sister (Ranger) and see each other while we were all at the same end of the state at the same time.  Ranger and her husband, J - are staying to the east of us while they are helping J's mom to recover from a stroke.  Brother lives to the west of us in the state capital, along with his lovely wife - whom we missed seeing this trip.  Each drove about an hour and a half to meet in the middle and we had a nice meal and then adjourned to my home where we continued to re-une (is that even a word?  No matter, I'm going to use it.) 

We had a lovely long visit and sat around the dining table talking our heads off and catching up on our lives until time to head back to the east and the west where spouses and houses waited their return.

I hated to see them leave.  Ranger and I did give each other a bag of reading material so I have a reminder of the visit.  I'm half way  through the first one.  Heh.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Letter to the Gov.

Governor Rick Scott,
Tallahassee,Florida

Dear Governor Scott:

Re:  Daylight Savings Time.

I.  Want.  My.  Hour.  Back!
 Sincerely,

Ol' Doc

Sunday, March 20, 2011

These are the times.

T and I went grocery shopping as we do on weekends.  We shop at Walmart and meet near the registers, after filling our baskets - to check out.  I watch the register total mount higher while he packs the bags into our empty basket.  Once the groceries are rung up, I will hand the cashier my Walmart card and have enough put on it to pay for a tank of gas at the station on the corner of the lot.  We like to use that station because they give you 3 cents off, when using a Walmart card.  It kind of feels like taking advantage of the system -  to get that cents off the price of a tank.  Groceries in the back seat, I drive around to the pumps with T. and he gets out to start the pump and fill the tank.  Usually things go well.

Yesterday, not so much.

He got out and had a slight problem locating the gas tank door and I got out to show him where it was.  I got back in the driver's seat,  thinking things would go as usual.  Put in the card, choose the grade, begin fueling.  It's a routine he is familiar with.  He has done it lots of times.

T. called me to come back out, slightly frantic.  He had shoved the gas card up inside the receipt slot, instead of the card reader.  He couldn't get it back.  I got out.  We couldn't even see the card.  He pushed the pump button to generate a receipt.  It seemed a logical step to him.  Nothing  happened. 

The guy on the other side of the pump was kind of peering around the corner toward us.  If he had offered to help we might have accepted but I believe he was laughing too hard to speak. 

I would just have left the card stuck inside the pump and driven off, except that it did have $30.00 on it. 

I told T. to go tell the person  inside the little office what had happened and ask her if she could retrieve our gas card.  He went.  She came.  She unlocked the little door and opened it to reveal the receipt roll and our card.  She handed it to T.  We thanked her profusely and she returned to the office.

T. went ahead and successfully pumped the tank of gas, and from that point onward things ran like clockwork.  He mentioned that this was the first time he had ever tried to put the card in the wrong place.  Now I know, I can watch him to be sure he isn't repeating the error.

I keep seeing that guy on the other side of the pump laughing without understanding. But you have to keep your sense of humor and it was kind of funny as it unravelled.   

Friday, March 18, 2011

Why I don't like watching the news....

This is a copy of today's earthquake map showing a 4.9 in the Gulf of California.  It is along a fault line between the mainland and Baja.  This is near southern California.  If you look closely, you can see that the red box, for today is not alone.  There are other quakes that have happened along the fault in generally the same spot for the past few days .  It kind of reminds me what happens when you insert the tip of an icepick into a block of ice and start chipping away in the same area.  Doesn't it fracture in the weakest line?  I kind of think Mexico will miss seeing La Paz across the water.

But that isn't the most important thing to think about.  Nor, the most worrisome.

If this weren't bad enough,  I passed the spot pictured in the next image - on the way home.  It is deceptively lovely and covers a vast field that is just coming into bloom after the cold of winter.  We should be rejoicing over the  fact that the long days of cold and early darkness are coming to an end and the Spring is bursting into bud before our very eyes.  We should be glad, except that this is part of a large field that is directly across from the church we attend.  I drove along beside the blooming fields as I headed out in the morning and returned in the evening.  For those highly allergic folk who haven't guessed what this is, don't get too close to the photograph.  This is the weed commonly called Red Top.  It is an amazing sight to behold a half mile long parcel of field that stretches from the  road, clear back to the next section at the tree-line.  The setting sun sets the color to glowing a shade of red that's hard to describe.  Not because we don't have the words; it's hard to describe because we are rubbing our noses and snuffling back a sneeze as we hastily roll the windows up all  tight and turn off the air conditioning.  Just the thought of this huge field makes my nose itch and tingle.  My eyes start to water.  I need to get some tissue and quit thinking about pressure in my sinus.    I need to go now.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

How many does it take....

I am fascinated by the technology that allows us to track earthquakes and have found a site that also shows mapping so you can tell where they happened, how long ago and the magnitude of each event.    I'm beginning to suspect that earthquakes happen much more frequently than we (and even some of the experts) realize.  The past few days, when I have checked the website, the majority of quake events has been near the coast of Honshu, Japan.  There were one or two in other locations - but aftershocks are still rocking the area off Japan and some of them are quite large.  Once you click on the link and look at the page, rreload the map page to see any new quakes that have occurred.  I reloaded one time since I copied the link and found a new tremor that just happened.  It is a good thing to pray for the people of Japan.

I'm thinking that, if I lived in California and was keeping up with the tragedy in Japan, I'd be making plans to move right about now.  Haven't we all been expecting "The Big One" to hit along the left edge of the country and kind of drop it into the ocean?  People make jokes about it but I halfway really think it's time to buy land in Arizona, if you want to own oceanfront.  That is not a joke.  Look at all the tremors recorded for California.  And Arkansas has a large number of shaking events.  There was an earthquake off the coast of Alabama the other week - near Mobile Bay.  Younger daughter called and said she didn't feel it where she was but there were people on the coast who did wonder why their pictures were dancing around. 

Um, too close for my liking!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Of pinholes and vacuums.

I've been following the shuttle trip as it is docked at the International Space Station, or ISS for short.  Today, I thought it would have been apt to rename the thing ISH!  As in,  "Ish, what are they thinking."

Just a couple of thoughts and I'll let you go.  First off, the team on ISS has been joined by the shuttle crew plus a new humanoid robot.  The humans will leave eventually.  The robot will remain on the station.  There's just the one part that really bothers me.  I mean, other than having a robot in outer space.  Didn't 2001 A Space Odyssey teach us anything.  Doesn't anybody remember H.A.L.?  Open the Pod Bay Doors, H.A.L.? 

But I digress.  Aside from all that angst, it turns out that this particular  robot has no legs.  In order for it - him - her -whatever... to remain upright, the team had to mount it on a pedestal.  I'm sure it's interesting to talk to a robot that can't do anything like move around.  The legs will be brought up on another mission and then joined to the top part of the robot.  At that point I'd have to wonder if the robot programming included the Prime Directive - "Do Nothing to Cause Harm to a Human."   What if the crew tells the robot to dump the trash and it tries to open the outside door. 

The second thing that gave me a jolt about this mission is the second planned space walk.  The first walk went pretty well until the robot arm stopped with an astronaut aboard.  There was a glitch in the program and the crew on the station changed to another controller and finished the task.  I read in the online news that the second space walk was delayed.  There was a hole in a space suit.  It had to be repaired before the walk could start.

Okay, my question is, how do you repair a hole in a suit that has to be pressurized and function in a vacuum.  Is it like an inner tube patch?  Do you just slap on a piece of duct tape?  What exactly is the protocol.  And if you do manage to patch the hole - which one of us is going to put on this suit with a hole and step outside into cold airless space.  Not me, for sure.  I read science fiction.  I know about the dangers of exposing even a centimeter of skin to what is on the outside of the suit.  I don't care how much the manufacturer promises the patch kit will hold under extreme conditions. 

It's like a famous attorney might say.........

If the suit might blow,
This girl don't go!

That's my theory.