Ice-Ageddon

Tomorrow, two weeks to the day from the snow storm that dropped an nearly an inch of snow on our Fair City, we are primed to get nearly an inch of ICE!

Snow makes driving very problematic, but that won’t be our problem with the ice. Matter of fact the roads might not even freeze over because of their ambient warmth (bridges are a different story), but that kind of ice brings downs tree limbs, whole pine trees and power lines. That means no lights or heat and, cripes, no internet…

The Reichter magnatude scale is a number to quantify the energy that is released during an earthquake, there is a Fujita scale for rating tornado intensity and hurricanes have the Saffir-Simpson for a rating based on their sustained wind speed, but did you know there is one for ice storms as well? I didn’t either, until today, and it is called the SPIA Index.

The Sperry-Piltz Ice Accumulation Index is a scale for rating ice storm intensity, based on the expected footprint of an ice storm, the expected ice accumulation as a result of a storm, and the expected damage a storm inflicts on human-built structures, especially exposed overhead utility systems such as power lines. It goes from zero, minimal up to 5, catastrophic.

A band from say Atlanta, GA to Columbia, SC along the I-20 corridor is expected to get a Big Ol’ Four or a damage and impact description of “Prolonged and widespread utility interruptions with extensive damage to main distribution feeder lines and some high voltage transmission lines/structures. Outages lasting 5 to 10 days.” So if you don’t see any blog posts from me in a while you will know that the weather guessers got it right and it is not just me taking a Blogging Avoidance Holiday.

Big Plans?

Yesterday after breakfast we were off to visit with a friend for awhile, get some lunch and do that grocery shopping thing. Donna suggested getting some cash from the ATM to pay for lunch seeing as we were driving right by our bank on the way out of town.

Insert card, type in my PIN and when the screen comes up with my choices for services I tap the screen for $20 Fast Cash. Nothing happens. I hit the touch screen again with the same results. I try again, nothing. I pull back my hand and look at my fingertip like it could possible be the cause of failure here. I try tapping on Other Services, but, you guessed it, no response. While I contemplate the location my next futile screen press, the ATM beeps and the screen changes to a question, “Do You Need More Time?”

I think to myself, “Do I really need more time to unsuccessfully poke at the screen?” I answer myself, “Nope.” So with out thinking further, I press the screen where it says NO. Doh! As you would expect, nothing happened. Fortunately there is an physical Cancel button on the PIN number keypad.

So I go inside and walk up to the one of the two tellers and say, “The ATM touch screen isn’t working.” The other teller says, “We know, a technician is on his way.” My teller asks how much do you want, to which I say, “Just twenty bucks.” While my teller is filling out a withdrawal slip, the other teller asks, “Got big plans for the weekend?” I look at her, smile and say, “What do you think? I only asked for $20 bucks.”

Reason #127 Why I Shouldn’t Be Sent On Errands Alone

Because we hadn’t done our weekly grocery shopping yet the cupboard was nearly bare, so this morning I was sent out for breakfast. Donna wanted an order of Biscuit ‘N’ Gravy from Hardee’s and I volunteered to make the run as long as I could stop at DD too and get my morning Cup O’ Joe too. She said fine, but don’t pay the buck eighty nine for a Hot Chocolate for her as she could make her own at home.

Hardee’s was the first stop where I picked up Donna’s breakfast. Normally I get a Sausage and Egg Biscuit here, but I decided to forgo that and get a muffin at Dunkin Donuts instead. At the DD drive up I ordered and when I got to the window I handed the clerk my DD Card and she handed me my muffin. She rang up my bill then handed back the receipt and my card. It wasn’t until I was driving around the back of the building that I realized I was missing my coffee. I was so keyed in on the fact that I was getting a muffin that I drove off too soon.

So I parked the Purple Whale and sheepishly walked inside the store to pick up my Medium Coffee with Cream & Sugar.

In case you are wondering, this is Reason #1

Clone Club Emails

In my personal quest to broaden the TV viewing horizons of my co-workers I have managed to get 13 other individuals to watch Orphan Black. To keep their interest up I have taken to issuing a Clone Club email about once a week of tidbits discovered on the web about the show. This week there were actually two emails sent because right after I mailed the first one, something really interesting came to my attention that I wanted to share.

First Wednesday’s:

Subj: A Clone Phone Ringtone, A Video and A Romantic/Scientific Relationship

A Ringtone – Now all you need is a pink cell phone cover…

A YouTube video – Tatiana Maslany talks to Space Channel about Season 2

A “Spoiler:”
Show runner Graeme Mason says that season 2 will explore Cosima and Delphine’s relationship, “That Cosima-and-Delphine relationship is as complex as ever. It stays romantic and stays scientific, but there’s a lot of gamesmanship going on”

Brian

Delphine: I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.
Cosima: Ah, like in a… not bad way?
Delphine: Oh, like… I have never thought about bisexuality. I mean, for myself, you know? But, as a scientist, I know that sexuality, is a… is a… is a spectrum. But you know, social biases they, codified attraction. It’s contrary to the biological facts… you know.
Cosima: That’s… oddly romantic. And totally encouraging.

Now today’s:

Subj: 10 Weeks, Down Under & A Fan Based Award

Only 71 more days, so if you watch one episode of Season 1 every Saturday night starting tomorrow, you will see the finale on the 19th of April, the same night as the premier of first episode of Season 2.

Last Tuesday night at 8:30pm in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide & Perth a combined 4.2 million Australians were watching the second half hour of a show called My Kitchen Rules. On Network 9, 1.9 million people were watching a re-run of The Big Bang Theory while only a total of 26,000 people were watching Orphan Black on SBS 2. Just like the continent, their idea of quality TV is upside down…

No Emmy, no problem. An OB fan has created a crowd funded award to give to Tatiana. There are several donation levels to choose from with different “perks” for each. My favorite level is The Helena, a $500 donation and you will get your own replica of the award, but I’m probably only going to be donating on The Beth level. This is already 1/3 of the way to reality, so hurry before it is too late to get in on it.

Brian

Mrs. S: I was tempted to claim the remains and feed them to you both on toast.

Crap, That Long?

I have been not posting and not missing doing it, so I thought I would see when my domain name expired and if it was close just go ahead and quit. Well, it doesn’t expire until August and it would be a shame to waste that approximately $25 I still have left, so I am going to try and chug along for awhile longer.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1295

What’s New?

New Windows

Notice anything different in this photo? No I don’t mean the snow, we get this level of snow every couple of years. Don’t believe me? Here is a picture from January 10th, 2011:

Old Windows

Now what’s different? It’s not the green door. It’s not even the new “carport.” Yesterday before the Snopocalypse hit we had replacement windows installed. They did the 7 windows you see on the front of the house and the three on the back in 4 hours. Tearing out the old 55 year-old windows was short work. Putting in the new ones didn’t take too long either. Putting in the outside flashing took the longest part of the job. Cleaning up the mess they made was the second longest part of the time.

Drone Down

Subject: Micro Drone 2.0 Troubles
From: Me
Date: 1/26/2014 8:25 PM
To: customercare@extremefliers.com

Folks,

Bought the Micro Drone 2.0 via the 2nd StackSocial group buy. I received it on January 21 and have had only a few chances to fly it. Being a complete novice at flying RC things I’ve been trying to get it to hover a few feet off the ground in my spare room. Today I was quite proud to be able to claim around a whole minute flight time before pushing a control the wrong way and crashing into the carpet from 5 feet up.

I was ready to try my first video. The camera has been mounted from the start, but this time I put in the SD card.

I plugged in the battery to charge it up and after an hour the red light was still on, but I hooked it up to the drone anyway. I performed the linking procedure and when I pushed the throttle forward to take off the motors would wind up and then abruptly stop, leaving all four leg lights flashing in sync with no further response from the drone. Turned off the controller, unplugged the battery and waited a minute. Hooked the battery up, turned on the controller and linked to the drone. On throttle up, it did the same thing, shut off with just the four leg lights blinking.

I tried it with removing the SD card and when the throttle reached 35% the drone would quit. I unplugged the camera with the same results. After 4 or 5 attempts the drone would stop at 30% throttle. Thinking it might be the battery was not fully charged, I hooked it up to the charger and left it for 2 hours (the red light never went out.) Before hooking the battery to the drone I tested the output of the charger with my multimeter and it read 5V. I tested the battery and it read 4.5V.

This time when I connected the battery the drone did nothing, I didn’t even get the usual flashing blue and white lights. The linking procedure on the controller seemed fine (it beeped with the up and down throttle movement), but the drone didn’t flinch. I turned off the controller and unplugged the battery. Plugged the battery back in and I can hear a faint buzzing (the gyroscopes spinning maybe?), but no lights and no motors spinning on throttle up.

Is my battery no putting out enough juice? Battery charger bad? Bad CPU? Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Brian