Sunday, December 25, 2011
It's About Time...
It's about time...
Really...
After MANY years...
It's been missing...but I had to SEE it in order to realize what's been missing...
What I'm stoked about is LED Xmas lights that not only look like the traditional C7 type bulbs we used to have on Christmas trees decades ago, but they also now include a WHITE colored bulb...!!!
Modern LED Xmas light manufactures have overlooked the WHITE bulbs that we used to see...
But...I recently found some quite by accident...
I was doing some last minute shopping, looking for indcredible bargains, which for me includes looking at the LED Xmas light section...
I was at a hardware store I often patronize, and I noticed that just about ALL the colored LED lights were gone, leaving just the clear lights...
But I spied a couple of boxes of colored LED lights,and was estatic when I saw the white bulbs...
And they look GREAT...!!!
They're marketed under the "Smart Color LED" name, and were $10 per box of 25 lights, and they have a facebook page at www.facebook.com/creativeholidayliving
Back in the "old days" the incandescent C7 bulbs were the standard...and part of the ritual, after putting the lights on the tree, was re-arranging the colors by unscrewing the bulbs and moving the bulb colors around until pleased...
And WHITE bulbs were common on both indoor C7 and outdoor C9 bulbs...
With the advent of color LED Xmas lights, we had a splash of bright colors, but what was lacking was WHITE lights (not the harsh clear bulbs)...
I thank whomever it was with the foresight to include white bulbs...they look identicle to the incandescent white C7 bulbs from decades ago...
LED Xmas lights that say they're rated for outdoor use are not like the old fashioned screw in incandescent C9 light strings...thay just can't take being left out all year 'round...and they have a high rate of failure...and I end up replacing several LED Xmas light sets every year...
My future LED Xmas light replacements will be the new ones I just stumbled upon...
Happy Happy Joy Joy...!!!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Lunar Eclipse
Tonight (Saturday Morning)...
West Coast Times:
West Coast Times:
| Time (24-hour clock) | Object (Link) | Event |
|---|---|---|
 |  Lunar Eclipse | Position Angle=67.6°, Altitude=26.5° |
| Lunar Eclipse | Position Angle=210.7°, Position angle vertex=158.3°, Altitude=12.0° |
| Lunar Eclipse | Saros-Number: 135, Magnitude=1.110, Position angle=0.7°, Position angle vertex=310.2° Brightness: -2.5mag, Danjon scale L=3.5 (very bright) Duration total phase=52.3 minutes, Duration partial phase=212.9 minutes, Duration penumbral phase=359.8 minutes, ET-UT=66.6sec, Altitude=7.5° |
| Lunar Eclipse | Position Angle=150.6°, Position angle vertex=102.2°, Altitude=3.2° |
| Lunar Eclipse | Magnitude=0.772 |
Sunday, November 20, 2011
It's not academic anymore...
Nope...
It's no longer academic as to when winter will start up here...
Winter started yesterday up here just before 4:oo PM, when the snow began to "stick"...
We had snow on Nov 3rd, but it didn't "stick"...
This past Spring (2011) we had snow unusually late: 4" in the 1st week of May...!!!
It's no longer academic as to when winter will start up here...
Winter started yesterday up here just before 4:oo PM, when the snow began to "stick"...
We had snow on Nov 3rd, but it didn't "stick"...
This past Spring (2011) we had snow unusually late: 4" in the 1st week of May...!!!
This first photo is looking out my window...
These next two photo's were in Alexander Valley (Sonoma County)
Friday, November 4, 2011
Goodbye Summer
Sad to say, but, Summer is gone...I'll miss it...
In late Spring I bought my 1st gas grill (on sale) and since then I've cooked indoors only a handful of times...
Last night I was bundled up and grilled a Tri-Tip that was 2.38 lbs...and it was SO good no additional seasonings and BBQ sauce was needed (even though I had a bottle of special sauce)...
This is along US Hwy 101
In late Spring I bought my 1st gas grill (on sale) and since then I've cooked indoors only a handful of times...
Last night I was bundled up and grilled a Tri-Tip that was 2.38 lbs...and it was SO good no additional seasonings and BBQ sauce was needed (even though I had a bottle of special sauce)...
Looking west from my place
Yesterday was a defining moment in terms of WX (weather)...the snow level was just above me, and I did see some sleet and a handful of genuine snow flakes...certainly not enough to "stick"...
At 1:30 PM today I still have frost in places the sun does not shine on...and I DO have another Tri-Tip to grill...(I buy several when on sale at $3.99 a pound)...
I really don't like cold WX, and I really think snow is a PITA...but, it comes with the territory, up here in the mountains...and although the mighty Sierra Nevada Mtns is well known for copius amounts of snow (ala The Donner Party) the mountains in NW California DO get snow...enough that I'm "snowed in" at least once every winter for various periods...sometimes more than once...our pattern is: freeze, snow, thaw, melt...repeat, repeat, repeat...unlike the high Sierra where once it "sticks" it's there continously until the Spring thaw & meltdown...
Time to put away the flip-flops & shorts...and get out the long john's, parka's, and tire chains...
Dealing with tire chains with a back injury is a total bummer...and I'm already wishing it was Springtime...
Meanwhile "Daylight Hallucination Time" is about to end this weekend...Do we really "save" daylight...??? It's a holdover from "War Time" started many decades ago...but does my garden care...??? Does a sundial care...??? It's just a mass hallucination, and only by mutual agreement of the populace that it has any meaning...do we still need it...???
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
OPEN DISCUSSION TOPIC
Ya wanna say someting not covered by the other blog topics...???
SAY IT HERE...!!!
Just click on COMMENT and type away...
While not as fancy as a real discussion forum, it's a starting place...
Just don't say anything libelous or slanderous...
SAY IT HERE...!!!
Just click on COMMENT and type away...
While not as fancy as a real discussion forum, it's a starting place...
Just don't say anything libelous or slanderous...
Monday, October 17, 2011
Slice Of Life (as we know it)
October - 2011
20 years ago was the disasterous Oakland Hills Fire...Houses stacked up the hillsides, narrow streets, and tall wild grasses and explosive Eucalyptus trees, and hot weather...all converged into one of this nations most infamous urban wildfires...25 people killed, including a firefighter and a cop...this occured the same weekend as one of the KFAT family reunions in the South (SF) Bay...we could see a huge plume of thick dark smoke rise from the East Bay...80% of the homes in the Oakland-Berkeley hills had shake roofs.
Last night KTVU-TV (Oakland, CA) had a restrospective look back on the "Second Look" program (http://www.ktvu.com/) and very few people have seen a firestorm that close up...and many lessons were learned from that incident...
Conditions like this also exist in Sausalito, Orinda, and the Russian River resort area of Sonoma County...and a firestorm like this could break out in these and other places if conditions converge...
22 years ago was the disasterous Loma Prieta Earthquake...As seen live on TV, during the 1989 World Series...we'd been waiting a long time for Oakland and San Francisco to face each other in the World Series...the only time they usually play against each other are the pre-season exhibition games known as the Bay Bridge Series...
It was a hot day and I was at work at a winery in Geyserville (northern Sonoma County), and all of a sudden the ground started violent shaking, there was the sound of a roar, like a freight train, and cloud of dust were stirred up...
Light poles were doing the hula...30,000 gallon stainless steel wine tanks were doing the shimmy...loaded semi trucks dancing up and down...and I was trying to hold on to a safety rail near a control panel as I was bouncing up and down...
Geyserville was in another world for about 15 seconds...and then it settled down...and we were totally stunned. I'm a native of the SF Bay Area and am no stranger to quakes, but this one was a doosey...the Roger Creek Fault runs from the SF Bay to northern Sonoma County, and it thought to be linked with the Hayward & Calavares faults...all 3 are considered very high risk faults...and they're though to be able to interact with the San Andreas Fault...and THIS quake was on a branch of the San Andreas Fault...
We soon found out the epicenter was SOUTH of San Jose...wow...that far away and the effects we felt were making us very concerned for those much closer...this was 125 miles away to our south-by-southeast...
3,550 ft Loma Prieta is about 11 miles dues west of Morgan Hill (on US Hey 101) in the coastal mountains...
63 people died, and the coastal resort town of Santa Cruz was hit VERY hard, wiping out much of the downtown area...the collapse of the Cypress Freeway (part of I-880) squashing cars like pancakes...buildings collapse in SF's Marina District and subsequant fire...the collapse of the upper deck of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge...such a massive scale...
Those watching the World Series saw LIVE on tv the initial shocks...and there was confusion at first but soon the reports atarted coming in of the widespread devastation...
TV stations were on standby generator power, and could only have 2 or 3 lights turned on, on the news set...no telepromters...bulletins handed live on camera the old fashioned way: on paper...the Goodyear blimp that was covering the World Series started shooting live video pictures of some of the devastated areas...
I left work as soon as possible and headed north to my home, and then tried calling my folks in the East Bay to see IF they were OK, but the phone circuits were jammed. I called relatives in Texas to see IF they could get through..later that evening I was able to talk with my folks and they were OK...
I turned my scanner on and was getting an ear full as state, federal, and local agencies rushed to the SF Bay Area...California State DOJ was rushing to secure certain state buildings, the FBI was doing the same for their interests, Cal-OES (Office of Emergency Services) was trying to evaluate incoming info and dispatch resources...fire depeartments task force teams were formed for mutual aid, law enforcement went for mutual aid, Red Cross was doing the same...
Regular citizens were helping to man fire hoses, and famous people like Oakland A's player Dave Stewart was helping rescue people in the collapsed Cypress Freeway...and the whole nation was rivetted to their TV's, watching it live and in color, as news reports came in, with video reports when possible...
ALL tv-stations with news departments went into emergency coverage mode..and I was archiving as much as possible onto VHS video tapes...
At one point I myself went into "newsman mode" and started making notes, gathering fast changing info, fired up my computer to bang out a script, and broke the news on the KZYX-FM 6:oo PM News (they didn't get much news from the outside world, except Pacifica)...
Reflections....
Lots of things happen in October besides Holloween
20 years ago was the disasterous Oakland Hills Fire...Houses stacked up the hillsides, narrow streets, and tall wild grasses and explosive Eucalyptus trees, and hot weather...all converged into one of this nations most infamous urban wildfires...25 people killed, including a firefighter and a cop...this occured the same weekend as one of the KFAT family reunions in the South (SF) Bay...we could see a huge plume of thick dark smoke rise from the East Bay...80% of the homes in the Oakland-Berkeley hills had shake roofs.
Last night KTVU-TV (Oakland, CA) had a restrospective look back on the "Second Look" program (http://www.ktvu.com/) and very few people have seen a firestorm that close up...and many lessons were learned from that incident...
Conditions like this also exist in Sausalito, Orinda, and the Russian River resort area of Sonoma County...and a firestorm like this could break out in these and other places if conditions converge...
22 years ago was the disasterous Loma Prieta Earthquake...As seen live on TV, during the 1989 World Series...we'd been waiting a long time for Oakland and San Francisco to face each other in the World Series...the only time they usually play against each other are the pre-season exhibition games known as the Bay Bridge Series...
It was a hot day and I was at work at a winery in Geyserville (northern Sonoma County), and all of a sudden the ground started violent shaking, there was the sound of a roar, like a freight train, and cloud of dust were stirred up...
Light poles were doing the hula...30,000 gallon stainless steel wine tanks were doing the shimmy...loaded semi trucks dancing up and down...and I was trying to hold on to a safety rail near a control panel as I was bouncing up and down...
Geyserville was in another world for about 15 seconds...and then it settled down...and we were totally stunned. I'm a native of the SF Bay Area and am no stranger to quakes, but this one was a doosey...the Roger Creek Fault runs from the SF Bay to northern Sonoma County, and it thought to be linked with the Hayward & Calavares faults...all 3 are considered very high risk faults...and they're though to be able to interact with the San Andreas Fault...and THIS quake was on a branch of the San Andreas Fault...
We soon found out the epicenter was SOUTH of San Jose...wow...that far away and the effects we felt were making us very concerned for those much closer...this was 125 miles away to our south-by-southeast...
3,550 ft Loma Prieta is about 11 miles dues west of Morgan Hill (on US Hey 101) in the coastal mountains...
63 people died, and the coastal resort town of Santa Cruz was hit VERY hard, wiping out much of the downtown area...the collapse of the Cypress Freeway (part of I-880) squashing cars like pancakes...buildings collapse in SF's Marina District and subsequant fire...the collapse of the upper deck of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge...such a massive scale...
Those watching the World Series saw LIVE on tv the initial shocks...and there was confusion at first but soon the reports atarted coming in of the widespread devastation...
TV stations were on standby generator power, and could only have 2 or 3 lights turned on, on the news set...no telepromters...bulletins handed live on camera the old fashioned way: on paper...the Goodyear blimp that was covering the World Series started shooting live video pictures of some of the devastated areas...
I left work as soon as possible and headed north to my home, and then tried calling my folks in the East Bay to see IF they were OK, but the phone circuits were jammed. I called relatives in Texas to see IF they could get through..later that evening I was able to talk with my folks and they were OK...
I turned my scanner on and was getting an ear full as state, federal, and local agencies rushed to the SF Bay Area...California State DOJ was rushing to secure certain state buildings, the FBI was doing the same for their interests, Cal-OES (Office of Emergency Services) was trying to evaluate incoming info and dispatch resources...fire depeartments task force teams were formed for mutual aid, law enforcement went for mutual aid, Red Cross was doing the same...
Regular citizens were helping to man fire hoses, and famous people like Oakland A's player Dave Stewart was helping rescue people in the collapsed Cypress Freeway...and the whole nation was rivetted to their TV's, watching it live and in color, as news reports came in, with video reports when possible...
ALL tv-stations with news departments went into emergency coverage mode..and I was archiving as much as possible onto VHS video tapes...
At one point I myself went into "newsman mode" and started making notes, gathering fast changing info, fired up my computer to bang out a script, and broke the news on the KZYX-FM 6:oo PM News (they didn't get much news from the outside world, except Pacifica)...
Saturday, October 15, 2011
It's a good day for photographs
Until I can get a photo gallery set up, I thought I'd share this photo, fresh out of the camera...
Mare's Tails (Alto Cirrus) of an approaching weather front...looking due west...thin layer of fog over the Pacific Ocean at the horizon line...
I might post a few other photo's here from time to time, until I can get a real photo gallery up and running...
Mare's Tails (Alto Cirrus) of an approaching weather front...looking due west...thin layer of fog over the Pacific Ocean at the horizon line...
I might post a few other photo's here from time to time, until I can get a real photo gallery up and running...
Uphill Downhome
I scored some used solar electric panels Saturday...
I got four 45 watt polycrystaline type mounted on a 2 rail rack...for $60
This was via the "Trading Time" radio show on KZYX-FM...
I have yet to test them due to rain, but was assured by the LOL (Little Old Lady) that they still put out 75%...
IF so, then it was a good day for me in "bargainville"...
I got four 45 watt polycrystaline type mounted on a 2 rail rack...for $60
This was via the "Trading Time" radio show on KZYX-FM...
I have yet to test them due to rain, but was assured by the LOL (Little Old Lady) that they still put out 75%...
IF so, then it was a good day for me in "bargainville"...
A few days ago this is what the sky looked like...
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Coming Soon
Things to look for:
The current HOMESTEAD Radio Show... when available, (older shows available at the KMUD-FM web site in the Archives section)
The LAST WORD audio clip with various guests...(short pieces and slices of life in general)
A select TUBBY TUNES Radio Show...(high calorie, old and new, rocking "Americana Music" for you, maybe what KFAT-Gilroy would be playing IF it was still on the air)
A great way to keep up with new things that are added is to SUBSCRIBE to the blog, or to at least BOOKMARK the main web page...
(Thank You in advance) ...
Meanwhile...Boogie Onward...
Flogging the Blog
Howdy Friends...
FYI: I'm NOT on the computer every day...I sometimes let a few days lapse between computer sessions...
This is because I attempt to lead a "normal" life...you know, away from a computer...
I'm still making adjustments to this blog page (ala "flogging the blog")...
This entire webby site is somehow created by me...and it's slowly evolving...I may use a computer a lot, but I'm not a "web wizard"...I use Pagebreeze as my primary HTML editor because I can navigate around it fairly intuitivily...I'm just a beginner at this web page stuff...
The good news is that I have a bit of space on my ISP's server for a personal web page...
The bad news is that there's limited space available, which means I can't post ALL my HOMESTEAD Radio Show programs (14 so far) and certainly can't even come close to posting a small selection of TUBBY TUNES Radio Show...
I'll post what I can, when I can...but you'll need a broadband connection to really take advantage of any audio or video I'm able to post...
Meanwhile, please feel free to add a comment here, and to please sign my guestbook...
Speaking of which...I'm spending real money for a premium guestbook service with NO advertisements...I'm trying to keep my web page(s) as nice as possible to look at, without subjecting yer eyeballs to a barage of ads (which seems so common these days)...
And while I talk mostly gooder, I'm clumsy at the keyboard...any and all typo's are entirely my doing with no outside help at all...
FYI: I'm NOT on the computer every day...I sometimes let a few days lapse between computer sessions...
This is because I attempt to lead a "normal" life...you know, away from a computer...
I'm still making adjustments to this blog page (ala "flogging the blog")...
This entire webby site is somehow created by me...and it's slowly evolving...I may use a computer a lot, but I'm not a "web wizard"...I use Pagebreeze as my primary HTML editor because I can navigate around it fairly intuitivily...I'm just a beginner at this web page stuff...
The good news is that I have a bit of space on my ISP's server for a personal web page...
The bad news is that there's limited space available, which means I can't post ALL my HOMESTEAD Radio Show programs (14 so far) and certainly can't even come close to posting a small selection of TUBBY TUNES Radio Show...
I'll post what I can, when I can...but you'll need a broadband connection to really take advantage of any audio or video I'm able to post...
Meanwhile, please feel free to add a comment here, and to please sign my guestbook...
Speaking of which...I'm spending real money for a premium guestbook service with NO advertisements...I'm trying to keep my web page(s) as nice as possible to look at, without subjecting yer eyeballs to a barage of ads (which seems so common these days)...
And while I talk mostly gooder, I'm clumsy at the keyboard...any and all typo's are entirely my doing with no outside help at all...
Friday, October 7, 2011
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