Occasional thoughts and deeds of an Engineer
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  • Sailing Grace

    Posted on January 30th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    I had dinner tonight at Steak n Shake – 5 way chili.  Then I wen to B&N to check out the books and have a cookie and a cup of coffee.  I found a book that looked like a new one in the Nautical section and started reading.  It is about a guy here in Grand Rapids that had severe heart disease – a plugged LAD and this grew into much more serious complications.  I got half way through the book.  I finish it some time later.

    The weather people were right!  Last night I looked out the window at 10:00  and it was raining plus warm and then again at 10:30 and it was snowing real hard.  The winds picked up soon after and raged throughout the day today.  Somehow I did not get the weather outlook blogline posted so I published it tonight.

    I am in the process of learning  a new software program that does microwave path analysis, loss budget and many other wonderful things relating to designing microwave systems.  My first analysis was for a shot in Wisconsin – for confidentiality reasons more details cannot be revealed.  It was fun and I compared the results to my own freeware program and they were nearly the same.

    I sold the urls charleswmoore.com & .net to another Charles W Moore.  I kept the .org and .us urls for myself.  It is all part of cutting back for the impending retirement.  Marc let me use space on his server for my most important sites like this one.  With the fall of the stock market I will have to be very careful about spending as SAM’s medical insurance has take a drastic turn for the worse.  There will not be a lot of extra money.

  • For Tonight We Will Receive?

    Posted on January 30th, 2008 cwmoore No comments
    .WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM
    7 PM THIS EVENING TO 12 PM EST WEDNESDAY...
    PLUMMETING TEMPERATURES AND SNOW WILL ICE OVER
     THE ROADS THIS EVENING. WINDS GUSTING TO
    50 MPH WILL RESULT IN NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS.
     EXPECT UP TO 6 INCHES OF SNOW ALONG
    WITH THE HIGH WINDS...AND HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS
     TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING.
    SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES ARE ALSO POSSIBLE TONIGHT
     AND WEDNESDAY MORNING DUE TO THE HIGH WINDS.
    A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF
    SNOW ARE EXPECTED ALONG WITH STRONG
    WINDS...MAKING TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.
    AVOID TRAVEL TONIGHT IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
  • No time, No time

    Posted on January 25th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    Boy, it does not seem like I have much time to write and yet so much has happened.

    My boss asked me into the conference room 1 Central (also known as the fishbowl) to ask my retirement intentions.  I basically told him I would like to stay full time until April when the work runs out and then go half time.  In Lieu of that I guess I am finished whenever.  We just purchased a $8K software package to allow us to perform path analysis for microwave.  This has been my specialty for several years and I like to do this work.  So this kind of leaves me in never land.

    My daughter in Germany came over with her husband and my new Grandchild Alex.  It was nice to see them and even though it was a late Christmas (they missed their Christmas flight due to new and tougher USA laws on International visitors). 

     SAM’s company blessed us with a new healthcare plan that at this point appears to really suck.  We have had excellent insurance for a number of years and now have to join the ranks of people who will have to do without a doctors care due to the much higher costs.  Maybe we can go on the road together if the insurance gets so bad that it won’t pay to stay with the company.

    I am reading a book on Wild Trees (Richard Preston).  It is about the people who are mapping and climbing the tallest of the worlds trees.  These would be in the 300+ feet category.  Redwoods, Douglas Fir and Eucalyptus’s are the tallest.  Nobody really knows what the tallest tree really was but it would probably be the Redwood or Douglas Fir.  It is a great book about trees and their environment and with a real human aspect and narrative.  These guys are scientists and keep the locations secret but with Google Earth it is just a matter of time before recreational climbers find and start destroying hundreds of decades of upper canopy development.  I wish I were young enough to climb one of those baby’s.

    My mind says do all these things but the body is aged.  Still, maybe…….

  • VII & Connected Vehicles

    Posted on January 16th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    Here is a good article on the type of elements that I design for the transportation industry.  The Feds (USDOT & FHWA) are spending a lot of time developing these types of systems that will allow much more traffic to occupy a given bit of roadway and to do that in safety.  This urls should give you just a bit of an insight of what the near future holds for the automobile driver.  Be sure to download the pdf from the site too.

    http://www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov//JPODOCS/BROCHURE//14397.htm

  • Another evening of kayaks

    Posted on January 16th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    I adheared to the same schedule as last night. Dinner tonight was at Steak n Shake – I love the 5 Way Chile.  Then on to Barnes & Noble to read some books.  I stayed with kayaks again tonight but did a little more detailed reading on the various subjects.  the author plugged his designs and he is from Great Britain and a proponent of small cockpits and openings and longer lengths.  Admittedly, he is an ocean kayaker that goes very long distances in all kinds of conditions.  I need a book about the kind of kayaks to use on inland waterways and rivers.  A lot of the rivers I am on are more narrow that the 17′ sea kayak that seems the norm.  So how do I turn around?

  • Barnes & Noble

    Posted on January 14th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    After working all day, doing 40 minutes of meditation and eating dinner I went to B&N to do a little research.  They had exactly two books on kayaking.  One was more for the whitewater river runners and the other was more of a ground up kayaking 101.  I read the interesting bits but did not really get the info I was after.

    There are long kayaks and there are real short ones and all sizes in between.  Not only that there is one called a fish style and one called Swede.  Then there is a term called Rocker.  After that you have to get a paddle and there a thousand types for those.  If you want to go on cold water in the winter you need a dry suit, a skirt and a few other necessities that have hundreds of styles.

    Understand this equipment is not cheap.  We are talking a couple of grand and that is for just one.  For other applications you need two or three types.  This leads to serious money.  I feel defeated already and then there is the equipment tha SAM needs. Wow.  What to do.

  • Interesting Weekend

    Posted on January 13th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    This weekend has been interesting.  Beth, oldest daughter, living in Germany with her two sons came to our house Staurday with her husband Ingo and son Garrett and baby Alex.  we exchanged Christmas presents and played Yatzee.  Even I played a game and that is unusual as I can find plenty to do in my solitary way.  But we had fun and it was sad to see them go after only 9 hours.  I will say that this is the longest we have seen them for years.

    Today we went to church and then had lunch and took a nap.  After that we went out to look for one of our Geocaches that apparently had gone missing – indeed it had so we will archive this cache as it is right next to a deer stand and I’ll bet the hunter wanted the ammo can that our cache was in.  After that we went to Fish Creek Trail in Hamilton to walk that trail and to check on another cache we had there – It was in place OK.

    Pretty soon it will be time to start packing for the trek North tomorrow AM.  The day was reasonably warm at 33-36 degrees in light mist and snow with a slight SW wind.  Perfect for trail walking. 

  • Hilton Honors

    Posted on January 9th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    Complements of Hilton next door I am on the internet.  I wanted to place a buy on URS stock at $44.50 in hopes of a bargin.  We will see what happens tomorrow.  If the market is down then I will probably get the block.  If not I re -evaluate early in the AM.

    Yesterday I was in Detroit and found out a frind of mine is retiring and it seems appropriate for me too.  Ah, what to do.  Anyway it was a 12 hr day and I slept good until the buzzer this AM at 0630.  With all this extra time this week, Friday will be a short day unless something else comes along.

    Well, I am tired of sitting in the lobby of my cheap hotel that cannot even get the internet running.  Maybe time for a new hotel.

  • High Temperatures & Rain

    Posted on January 7th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    Up at the crack of dawn and drive to GR.  The Monday morning saga continues.  My jobs are running low but tomorrow we drive to Detroit for an OEC meeting.  There is a little work here and there but it looks like I’ll have find some new work or retire soon.

    Well, it is up at 0500 for the drive to Detroit so I better finish the SciFi program, take a shower and hit the hay.

  • Off to the big town

    Posted on January 5th, 2008 cwmoore No comments

    Today was the day to return some Christmas presents that did not fit to Kohl’s.  We left at 1100 and returned about 1630.  Olive Garden was real near so we stopped there for lunch – soup and salad for $5.99 each.  We had two bowls of soup each and two of the salad.  What a good lunch.  On to Penney’s to look for new curtains for the new windows.

    When we returned home we put the curtains back up, ate dinner and are now looking at Hillary’s New Hampshire presentation to a group of its’ citizens.  I like her.