A quick dash North

Left at 0945 this AM for a trip to Holland, MI via Saugatuck.  Stopped at the boat to get some things we left and departed for the dentist office for a quick tooth cleaning.  The next one will be towards the end of May and we will be back on the boat by then.  The Dr. & cleaner said they thought my gum health was real good.

Not too much to say about the trip but that it was the winter shades of brown all the way and we took a new route from Holland down to the junction of 40/89.  By the time I arrived back in PL I was whipped.

Finished watching episodes 3 &4 of Surface.  Reasonably good but not quite believable as there is too much of a disconnect from the starlet & the mad scientist.  An interesting sci-fi series.

An interesting article

• Microsoft Surface Has Twitter Client And Some Nice Healthcare Related Software (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)

Westerly Winds

I finally went to the store last night and got some 5 minute JB Weld and epoxied the old hard drive bearing to the top of the the steel pole I have had in inventory for the last 10 years.  To this I added a bit of Aluminum angle I had.  After drilling a couple of hole and cutting a arrow feather type of indicator I attache the wind sock.  All this being done, I took it down to the beach and planted it into the marl.  I now have a roller bearing indicator with a wind sock attached.  The 15 kt winds of today let it show it’s stuff.  Hopefully, it will last for years.

After that came the leaves – another 4 loads for today and it looks like a sure 4 more loads.  That good old Westerly wind was blowing the neighbors leaves to us as well.  Last year we missed the event but this year we continue the tradition of loading an extra 10 loads and we might make 40 this year – a record.  Thanks to Marvin, Gene and Loren.

Rogue at the airport

There is a rogue at the airport causing trouble.  The subject involved was a contender for airport FBO and, as it turns out, was rightly rejected.  The rogue does not seem able to get along in civilized society or function as a mature adult.  I know I am ranting but this is serious.  The dirty rat sicked the State IDEM on a non existent problems that is going to cause the taxpayers a lot of $$$ we do not have.  He also destroyed in a day what a group has spent a year building.  Boy am I glad he did not get to be the FBO.  End of rant.

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Fall weather

We did four mor loads of leaves yesterday and this brings the total to 21 loads.  The yard looks pretty clean – as clean as it can be without raking – and our westerly neighbor is a startling contrast since the dividing line is well defined by his leaves on the ground to our none.  I think he is waiting for the West winds to blow them over to us.  This is no joke as he never works down below but only on the upper yard.

Tonight is the security detail at AG and it will be the first time outside today.  I have updated the ITS Michigan website and played around with unhub.com and socialoomph.com.  Social Oomph lost some of its value when Twitter said they were in violation of the Terms of Agreement for repeat posting of bylines.

Yesterday I set up gmail, facebook and twitter accounts for my area Pickens Plan but I see no value as yet so I might delete or de-activate them.  I heard about a guy in Ohio who used it to his advantage but I see no value yet.  Unhub might have some value but I have not got too deep into the details yet.  Speaking of Pickens Plan – not only are they promoting Natural Gas but also wind power & here is a map of wind strengths.  Indiana has a big wind farm in the NW part.

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Today-A little rain, mostly sun & a new Armey

This Surface Prog Chart says it all – a passing cold front dropped a little rain and behind it glorious winds, skies and cooler temperatures will be here tomorrow.  Behind all that is a stacking high pressure that will give some more moderate weather.

Jerry M called today.  The are on Kentucky Lake and heading South to Mobile via the Tenn-Tom.  This is their second trip and now they have a boat that goes 20+ knots if they so desire.  Slip fees are $0.70 per ft with electricity.  Much better than the Lake Michigan prices of $2 per ft.  We hope to meet them in Florida this winter somewhere near Sarasota.

Nephew Ben A. & wife had Natalie today.  As far as I know sister Ann was nearby and so was Grandfather Lee.  The pictures are posted on Facebook and she looks very cute.  This is from a guy that thinks babies do not look cute.

SAM headed for Walmart and would be gone only a while.  In that while, I did the whole lower yard picking up leaves – 4 loads today.  If I recall correctly, that brings the total to 17 loads.  Hopefully, tomorrow we can finish the whole area and then we will be on the back side of the curve.  I suspect this will be a 25 load year.  Weather was sunny and calm down by the lake with a west wind of 7 kts up on the top.

Firefox Zemantha Plugin

The sole purpose of this post is to test the Firefox browser Zemantha plug in.  Within IE8, I liked this add-on.  Within FF I have found a whole bunch of If’s and If You’s.  They also get sole rights to data content submitted to them via any site using their service.  This is not a Facebook community.  It is steeped in legalize and other things I do not really understand and I suspect no one else really does either.  I just added the Firefox logo from the pop-up list provided by Zemantha add-in.  From here I will add a whole bunch of hyperlinks that Zemantha suggest’s.

Next I will use the current links suggestions below:

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To be a kid again!

Man, I wish I could be a kid again with a brain like a sponge and a whole passle of years left to soak it all up and to contribute the great genius that I could be.

 I am just getting into the Zemanta thing but it is great and I am beginning to think eve I could be a great blog host with lots to contribute to the mental evolution of our species.

To wit, I have tried modifying the Zemanta structure in html.  It can be done but it is not real easy as it keeps trying to change things back to the way it or WordPress likes.  But I digress – This is about Science Friday.  I love this SF. 

When I was young I watched Mr. Wizard every time the TV would work – which was sometimes – and in those days there were no repeats.  For may years Chemistry was my passion.  I could repeat the Periodic Table by heart. I cooked up this experiment and that and made baking soda fire extinguishers and tried my hand at electroplating and won a Science Fair with a “Transmutation of Elements” experiment.  Wow – to try it all over again!

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Domain Name Pricing

I spent the afternoon messing with various web sites and researching less expensive options for domains. I am currently with Godaddy for the most part but lately they have been jacking up prices without providing much more in the way of services. I think they need the extra money to pay for all the advertising that the head honcho has incurred on the company.  I think they must be having a mid-life crisis.  Ah well, for me I think I need cheaper prices for domain names so good bye Godaddy.

I found one company Active Domains that looks like they have most of what I need.  By moving to them it could save me significant amounts of cash.  We shall see what happens when I try to move one domain name.

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Over done it again!

The day started off sort of slow but gained momentum when the rain stopped – 0.625″ of rain.  It all started at the top ground.  Went down to the building and prepared the tractor & chopper.  Went to top ground and ate three loads of leaves with the wind whistling  from the West.  Great!  Left over leaves were blowing over the hill into the woods.  After all this it was time for lunch – home made bread with Herring ( vitamin D3 you know) and topped off with grape jelly from last year.  I also ate a piece of Lindt 85% chocolate.
About 1330 hrs the wind was tapering off so I went down and carried the ladder up to the lower pole light and removed the photo sensor for an exchange with the upper pole light.  Did the exchange on both poles and then it was a wait until dark to see if it was the sensor – Not the sensor so will have to replace the light.  After that it was time to vacuum up the leaves that blew over the hill and down the driveway – that was three loads and now it was 1700 hrs & I was really tired so I called it quits for the day.  My estimation is that we are at 13 loads and this leaves 6 – 10 more for the year if it is a typical year.  We shall see.

• Keeping storm drains clear of leaves is a draining job in the fall (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Uncategorized

Dissecting the nanoworld: The atomic force microscope nanoscalpel

All the Cut & Paste actions were completed using the free Ditto – an easily installed and removed program..

(Nanowerk Spotlight – by J.D. Beard) Traditional techniques in cell biology involve chemical or pharmaceutical treatments of entire cells; however, in many cases it would be advantageous to target a single organelle or other structure within a cell without damaging overall cell structure. If scientists could inject a drug into a chosen organelle within the cell, or even destroy, extract or isolate the whole organelle without significantly harming the cell itself, new insight could be gained into the inner workings of the cell. In recent years, techniques have been developed which allow the manipulation of the individual nanoscale structures within biological cells.

The complete article can be viewed at the Nanowerk site.  They have some really good nano technology articles.  Most of them boggle my mind & challenge it too.  If I could do it over, I think this is an area I would enjoy working within.