An Interesting Monday

Sleeping last night was waking two, or three, times for no reason. I blame it on knowing I would have jury duty, and since I retired, having a set time to awaken does that to my sleep. So, I was out of bed at around 4:00 am, which gave me plenty of time to make breakfast, drink coffee, and go outside to see if I would have the opportunity to observe Tsuchchinshan-Atlas. 

The site linked gives a real time perspective of viewing times. This morning, even with some trees blocking my view to the East, there was enough darkness, and a transparent sky, to view the comet before the Sun brightened the sky. It was barely visible to the naked eye, although it was for a few minutes. My binoculars gave the best view, and it definitely looked like a comet. I woke my wife, she was happy to see something she has never seen, and within a few minutes, the sky was too bright to observe any longer. It wasn't nearly as observable as Comet West in the '70's, but it was a treat. 

Jury duty was all morning, a Voir Dire I thought was too long, and a $20 bill for my four hours of time. If I had been chosen for the jury, tomorrow would have yielded more money. My county pays $60 a day, if serving beyond the first day. It was an interesting experience, and I didn't have any facts to determine if the defendant is guilty, but in Texas, a felony charge of driving while intoxicated is after two other convictions. The defense attorney was, according to what I could surmise, pushing for the traffic stop being illegal, which should remove any other evidence from use in the trial. He might be successful. The only real question I have is who struck me from the jury. Was it the prosecutor? Or, was it the defense attorney. I don't know, but would like to know why. 

A family member was taken by another family member to the hospital to determine why they're having severe abdominal pain. They went in this morning. As of 9:00 tonight, they're still there waiting for results from a CAT scan. Hopefully it's all good news, and a simple problem easily fixed. My wife is not at peace, and worrying about both. Neither is young, and stress leads to fatigue. 

So, Monday has been a busy day, a nap didn't do much for rest, and it's looking like it will be long evening, if not a long night. Time will tell, and what will happen is unknown. 

After it was all said, and done, the abdominal pain was not due to a serious condition. It's some type of after-effect of hernia surgery from around a year ago. It's not dangerous, can be surgically treated, and the final result a clean bill of health.

More of the Same

I was looking at the National Hurricane Center 7 day forecast. Something in the Caribbean is anticipated to form, and will enter the Gulf of Mexico. At this time of the year, with the change in weather patterns, such systems are more likely to travel to the Eastern Gulf, which will lead to another storm affecting Florida. They don't need it, and the states just inundated with so much rain don't need it either. Maybe it will fizzle out, and nobody is affected.  

This is Irritating

 I received a notice my credit rating dropped tremendously due to an account in collections. My first reaction was to see what account, and to determine if it was any account I knew existed. An examination revealed something I didn't want to see. 

Apparently, someone opened up a cell phone, or broadband, account in my name, failed to pay their bill, and the account was sent to a collection agency. The original account was an ATT Mobility account, which had unpaid fees of around $1,400. The collection agency is out of a city in New York, and that's all was able to find out. A little research gave me methods to handle this problem.

I notified the credit agencies of the fraud, filed a report with the government agency that handles identity theft, and wrote a letter to the collection agency to send me all information they had on the account. Also, I notified them it was part of an investigation, and requested they remove the credit report. Next, I probably will freeze all my credit, and see how this plays out. 

There is an acceptable punishment for such thieves. It requires a ship with a hull covered in barnacles, four long pieces of rope, and enough strong individuals willing to drag the offender along the bottom of the ship. Video the event, and place it on public television.

Late Night Quiet

Last night, just before I went to bed, I thought I heard thunder. A peek at the radar showed a broken line of thunderstorm to the northwest, so I went to the porch to watch. 

It was quiet; really quiet. As I looked to the northwest, a flash of lightning lit the sky. I started counting, which allows determining the distance, if there are no other bolts. I was at sixty seconds when I heard the low rumble. This is a new record for me. Most storms have too much lightning to determine an accurate distance. At twelve miles, and with any background noise, I wouldn't have been able to hear it.

After a short time, more bolts occurred, but within thirty minutes, the storms dissipated. Radar only showed a line of light rain, which stayed above my location. The front stalled, but this morning, it was reinforced by a stronger front helped by Hurricane Helene's winds. This will bring us cool mornings, and bearable afternoons. It's a good start, and I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures.

I'm Impressed

My wife loves quilt stores. I like them, too, but not like she does. I get more out of watching her examine the different fabrics. She's like a child in a candy store, and while she browses the inventory, she's thinking what she can make. Her current quilt, which she finally finished yesterday, was something a little outside of her box, but she had a compulsion and followed the urge. 

I'm holding it up in the first photo. The finished dimensions are about 5 ft. by 6 ft. The photos really don't completely capture the brilliance of the colors, but are close. The fabric between the panels, due to the pattern, give the appearance the borders are not straight, although the pieces of fabric are all cut straight. 

I'm impressed, and while she can critique the quilt, I know it's her expert eye finding things the majority of people would miss. I think it's one of the most beautiful things she ever created and I'm proud of her creation.

I Can Only Blame Myself

 The best intentions are easily forgotten, and my intention to use the pressure washer yesterday led to some time in the heat I didn't envision. 

Before I added gas to the pressure washer, I checked the state of the gasoline. I knew it had been awhile since it was used, and couldn't remember if fuel conditioner was added in the past. After smelling the familiar odor of old gas, decided I needed to drain the tank and carburetor bowl. It didn't take long, so I hooked it up, made sure the pump had water, set the choke, pulled the pull rope and was rewarded with the engine running one second. I pulled some more with the choke off, tried it with the choke on again, and it wouldn't start. 

I let it sit for a few minutes, took a break to rest my arm, set the choke, pulled the rope, and it started again...for one second. Pulling the rope again, and again, was a useless endeavor, so I resigned myself to the task of delving deeper into the problem. 

I knew it was getting fire, since it ran for a few seconds. That left only the carburetor, and I didn't relish the task of removing it, but without any other recourse, did so, which led to the usual fighting with throttle linkage, and hoses. That, and the careful examination of disassembly to guarantee replacement didn't end up with extra parts. 

The bowl was full of varnish, which verified there was probably more deeper in the carburetor. So, I removed the float, which revealed an accumulation of crud, and the realization I didn't have any carburetor cleaner. A trip to the parts house was necessary, and I was soon ready to finish my cleaning. 

I removed the main jet, cleaned the small passages with a small wire, sprayed carburetor cleaner through the ports, and was rewarded with all being open, instead of being sealed, and possibly, not being able to be opened. Reassembly was a short task, and it wasn't long before I had the pressure washer back together. A short pull after choking showed I was successful. 

In the end, it was all good. I accomplished the washing I intended, and I know the washer will now be stored with fuel stabilizer. The only problem was the cool of the morning I anticipated for cleaning was lost to repairing the washer. That rewarded me with doing the power washing in the sun and the temperature at 95 degrees. I live, and I learn. How that relates to a learning curve is unknown, but I have a feeling it might be described as steep.

Jury Duty

I received a summons for jury duty the other day. In the past, I've served on one jury, and been called a few times. Since I'm retired, have no work reason for not going to serve. 

I know many people don't like jury duty, but it's an interesting process, and allows some time to observe the slow, grinding wheels of justice. From what court the summons is for, it will be for a criminal trial, and those can be eye opening. The only trial I was a juror was a criminal trial, and the responses by the jurors in the jury room were sometimes astounding.

The Battle For Territory

This year brought new arrivals. We've always had fire ants, but what are known as "crazy ants" have arrived. They don't bite (at least I've never been bitten) and are tenacious foragers. Their big problem is their attraction to electricity. They'll fill a junction box, or a circuit board, and eventually short it out. I've experienced their destruction on a project where they filled the computer on a changeable message board, and the only repair was complete replacement. 

So, I spray them when they're around the house, carefully watch outside electrical appliances, and have to accept they're here to stay. One good thing is they will overwhelm fire ants. Where last year mounds were all in the yard, this year hasn't revealed but a few. Still, they're an invasive species, and I don't like having to deal with them.

Free Range Pets

Back in the late seventies, my hometown took money sponsored Vietnamese refugees. Local churches, including my grandmother's, were proud of their money being spent for the endeavor...until they came. I'll explain the problems. 

First, the plan was to relocate the refugees in an area that best matched the environment they were accustomed to living. My hometown was on the coast, so the fishermen were relocated to the area; including some of the suburbs of the Houston metroplex. Sounds good? Right? 

A local wealthy grocery owner conveniently had a multitude of rent house near his store, which allowed them to be filled with the refugees. This area was near my grandmother's, and somehow, she ended up with a family across the street from her house. That's when reality set in. 

Without careful thought, and planning, nobody realized the people that fished in Vietnam were not the same as the people that fished in the United States. The cultural difference was immediately apparent, and the results were not pretty. 

The people across the street from my grandmother's would hang their nets in the trees to dry. For those that don't understand fishing nets, they acquire an odor when drying. Not everything washes out, and residue takes on the odor of dead fish. To add insult to injury, commodes were not readily available to many of the refugees in their country, so the porcelain storage area in the small room was convenient for storing shrimp. A little chlorine bleach in the water prevented the shrimp from becoming unsellable in a short period of time, and buyers of shrimp became wary of any shrimp that smelled like chlorine bleach. Shrimp were cheap at the roadside sales on the highway, but not smelling the shrimp before buying was not recommended.

Children, when afflicted with intestinal problems, were allowed to play outside with nothing but a shirt. That allowed them to drain, without soiling their clothes, and this infuriated my grandmother, who wholeheartedly promoted the refugees, and now wanted them gone. She commented one day: "They need to bring them all to the ship channel and throw them in."

I was living in an apartment in the same area at the time. One thing I noticed over time, was the absence of the neighborhood pets that once roamed freely.  Rumor was they were being supper, but I never had any proof, although I did notice the absence of pets I'd watched over a period of time. 

Local fishermen had a huge problem with the refugees. The refugees were given resources the local fishermen spent years of accumulating, and the refugees were exempted from many of the wildlife laws, which gave them an advantage over the local fishermen. To add insult to injury, the refugees, with their free resources, could cut the prices and the local fishermen suffered. There was even an incident of violence in Seabrook, Texas that made national news. 

So, here we are again. This time it's not being swept under the rug, and the internet offers daily views of the problems created by the unbridled relocation of refugees. It doesn't work, and it never will. 

I have to add those of Vietnamese heritage have assimilated into our society, most are productive, good citizens, and those I've known are blessed with strong family values and integrity. It took a long, long time for their adapting to our society, and the method used was far from what anyone could describe as a good solution.

Dancing Monkeys

The economy is terrible, but it's good. Most of the media chooses a side, and the reports they publish confirm their opinion. So, who do you believe? You can't trust most of the media, and politicians have to lie to stay in office. Samuel Clemens had a good quote about this: 

"There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus." 

Unfortunately, too many people have a malfunctioning mental apparatus, and fuddling is not really that difficult. The most educated have lost their ability to perform critical thinking, and they pontificate ideas influenced by money, power, or both.  The least educated are willing to accept their opinion because it's presented by self-appointed "experts". To make things worse, their dancing monkeys present sometimes erroneous "facts" as truth, and dare you to question their opinion. 

So. is everything terrible? It isn't for those that are blessed with resources that adapt to whatever the economy does. For those that don't have this blessing, their shrinking ability to acquire resources is leading to decision that are earth shattering. They have to accept less, watch investments lose value, put off retirement until they may have the ability to retire, give up their dreams and endure the increase in crime that follows economic downturns. To add insult to injury, they have to adapt, and pay, for the politicians, and bureaucrats, salary with benefits increase they decided they needed. 

It's hard to accept our society is now run, and financed, by those without integrity or morals. Maybe it always has been this way, but it doesn't make it easier to accept. 

It Was a Beautiful Morning (Annual repost 2024)

With all the pandering about the debate, too many forgot how pandering to evil led led to disaster. Unfortunately, those that were the worst of our problems have now infiltrated into the United States and are free to wander our streets.  

****


It was an early Fall. The temperature was in the mid 50's and the skies were crystal clear. I had just finished breakfast and we were driving to the job site in the twilight of dawn. The motel was close to our project site, so the trip was short.

Traffic was light as we placed the advance warning signs and started closing down the inside lane of U.S. 59 in Cleveland, Texas. We had five sections of concrete to pull. We sawed the concrete the day before, drilled lifting holes and now needed to pull the sections of failed pavement and start preparing for the new concrete. The pour was set for 10:00 am.

It didn't take long for the lifting machine to pull the first section of paving. As soon as the broken slab was moved to the shoulder, the crew started drilling holes for the anchors. When the anchors were placed, the crew placed a mat of rebar and moved to the next patch.

The procedure was moving as planned, so all five patches were well on the way to being prepared by 8:00 am. We would be ready for the concrete. I checked the work and started documenting the sizes on a daily report.

Around 30 minutes later, my boss called my cell phone. I assumed he was checking our progress, but he wanted to tell me that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Towers. He didn't have any details. I wondered what failure had led a pilot to fly their small plane into the tower. Bad weather? An error in judgement? I thought about it for a few minutes and then went back to work.

It didn't seem very long after that when my boss called me again, which I thought would be a progress check. It wasn't. He explained that it was a passenger jet that hit the first tower and another had flown into the second tower. He described the preliminary news feeds he was watching on television. I could only stare while my mind raced.

We continued working. My boss kept me informed. It was now clear it was a planned terror attack. He was in contact with the area engineer office for the Texas Department of Transportation. We were working for them and their decisions would decide whether we would pour concrete, which required hours of time to set, or place a temporary material to be removed in the future. The decision was to proceed as we always did, so we prepared for the concrete pour.

Before the concrete arrived, my wife called. She was terrified and wanted me to come home. I told her I couldn't leave until the concrete was poured and we were off the highway. Even then, I couldn't leave if we were to continue with our project. I told her I would come home immediately if the project was shut down, and to go to her mother's if she became too worried.

More information was now available, so I knew there was an immediate call for all air traffic to land. I noticed the absence of air traffic immediately. We were close enough to Bush International in Houston to see the constant flow of air transports, which dwindled and eventually ended.

We poured the concrete and started the process of preparing for the next day. I went to the motel to catch what I could on television. The loops of the impacts, the falling towers and the smoking section of the Pentagon was almost unbelievable. My mind was having a hard time wrapping around the fact we had been attacked and the result was the death of thousands of innocent people.

We finished the day as usual. We were prepared for the next day when we started opening the lane in the early afternoon. I had spent long minutes as we were finishing staring at the empty skies, It was bizarre to not see the heavy air traffic. Contrails from military jets stretched across the skies. I wondered if they were ours, or the jets of an enemy that was in the process of invading.

I had kept in contact with my wife during the day. After I reached the motel, we had a long conversation. She was calmer. I knew she still wanted me to come home, but she understood that it probably wouldn't happen until the week was over. Since I was only about two hours from home, I reassured it wouldn't take long to reach home if anything changed.

Watching television was like watching a fictional disaster movie. I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the events of the day, but it was becoming clearer that it was a middle eastern terror group. My anger was rising and all I could think of  was how cowardly it was to attack innocents. I wanted our military to bomb half the Middle East to Hell. Kill them all and let God sort them out.

I'll never forget that day. Time stopped and it became apparent that the cruelty in the world is always only moments away. Barbarians had tested our defenses and managed to find a weak spot for their advantage. It wasn't a pleasant thought then and still isn't. I feel no compassion for such people and can only offer their death be swift, although many days I'd prefer they would suffer the agony of those trapped on the upper floors of the World Trade Center Towers.  Even after years, I'm still angry. I'm not ready to forgive, or forget. 

Sliding to the East

 On Saturday, when the tropical system in the Gulf was first being modeled, we were nearly dead center of the cone. Yesterday, the cone was slipping to the east, and we were on the left side of the cone. Today, we're out of the cone, and the newest forecast track of the center is somewhere near Vermillion Bay in Louisiana. That's good news for us, but New Orleans will be on the dirty side of the storm; whatever it does. It may be a hurricane, but some forecast are saying it will be only a tropical storm at landfall. Either way, there will be a surge, lots of rain on the east side of the center, and those on the coast will see some type of storm surge. Hopefully, it moves fast, and the damage is minimal compared to a storm that sits on the coast.

Different Days

We didn't have air conditioning when I was in school. The teacher's lounge did, as well as the administrative offices. Some teachers were kind, made sure the class caught some of the breeze from the fan, and suffered with the students on the days when the temperature was in the nineties, and the humidity was high. Other's didn't, and only kept the fan where they were. It was that way until the year I graduated high school. The next year involved huge amounts of money to air condition buildings not designed for the systems, and guaranteed many of the old buildings would be demolished for the new schools needed for replacing the old buildings with only one problem: they didn't have air conditioning. It was all for the children...or not.

Lacking Profundity

 There are many things that cross my mind during the day. I think about writing about the thoughts, but the lack of profundity guarantees the effort will be futile. Maybe some earth-shattering revelation will cross my mind, and I will write a post that impresses......or not.

Bleh!