Bill
Schell's "BeachWeb" for May 2012
Things!
Today is Sunday, 27th (I think) - some new & unusual things of
a photo-graphic-nature, not necessarily in any sort of alphabetical nor
time-line order...
we took a walk, this morning, as we sometimes do, around "Miles Grant"
what might be called a "gated-community" but it has no gate.
However, we found (in addition to our "Monbak
Pet"; this morning, 3 of these guys snooping around in someone's
yard, looking for what - maybe earth-worms - we really don't know but his
head was mostly stuck in the grass...??? (link
to video, here)
so - now we know who's eating the mangos that fall on the ground...
- Harumph; at least we know the bunny-rabbits are not causing them to
drop from the tree, prematurely...!
this is what the mango looks like once we had 'interrupted' his afternoon
enjoyment...
However, it looks VERY TASTY, and we are certainly looking forward to
having some FRESH, Home Grown Mangos as soon as we can find some that are
ripe and have NOT been eaten by various and sundry critters who think that
we have grown these mangos JUST FOR THEM!...
Well - now - a Major Milestone in the TriceQ riding business... - I've
now done 500 rides in just barely 3 1/2 years (since I got the TriceQ the
last week of October in 2008)... I've numbered each ride, some are as
little as about 15 miles; the longest is about 75 miles. However,
the 'average' is about 29 miles or so, and today I did 37.4 miles.
It's a FRAUD, you have been (for many many years) lied to and told
that Bunny Rabbits like Carrots. We now have PROOF POSITIVE that
this is NOT TRUE... - (at least in our yard it is not true) If you don't
believe us, then " click
here " for a picture of a Bunny Rabbit (we have MANY), and a bowl of
carrots... This bunny rabbit sat next to this bowl for nearly 40
minutes and never once thought about nibbling. He (maybe it's a
'She' - how would we know?) - nibbled a LOT on our green-grass...
MORE picture(s) of the "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Green Things... - but the
above was taken 'about noonish' on Thursday, 10th of May...
Bigger Picture Here... - and EVEN
BIGGER HEREREREERERE
Pictures ABOVE is of the 'Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Green Things' that are now
growing after about 5 days in the 'new-soil' in our new "Raised Garden Bed".
These are iPhone pictures, taken this morning (Sunday, 06 May, 2012).
This is Mr. Bill resting on his 'laurels' (or whatever). This is after
the better part of two days of labour making what I'm calling (and I
recognize others will call it something else), but my name for it is:
"Raised Garden Bed" (RGB for short). This one is 'sort-of' copied
from our neighbor, who has one a bit smaller (Ours is 8 feet long and the
dirt-patch is about 3 feet wide) It is 'designed' to be roughly
the right height so Ms. May (who has now planted ALL SORTS OF SEEDs in it
(and the 9 bags of 'Stuff' we put in it!)) - anyway - designed so she can
bend at the waist and it's just about the right height for her, it's a bit
short for me, but I can still use it. If you want a MUCH-MUCH-MUCH
BIGGER (than your monitor) PICTURE click here.
The 'Building Inspector' - doing a CLOSE / DETAILED inspection of my
workmanship, materials and design... But NOTE that the
building inspector WOULD NOT SAY ANYTHING until I'd finished the
'construction' and since we put 9 bags of 'whatever' in it (Garden Soil and
Potting Mix) and since it now probably weighs about 900 pounds (and we
couldn't move it if we tried), we have been told, by some 'experts' that we
didn't build-it-correctly... We're not exactly sure what
the Building Inspector Bunny Rabbit didn't / doesn't like... (I
suppose we'll have to await the arrival (in the postal-mail) of the 'report'
(in triplicate). Since he probably wrote it in 'bunny-rabbitese'
I doubt, also, that we'll understand it? However, the
picture (by Ms. May and her Nikon, is pretty good) even if the
"Raised Garden Bed" doesn't have the approval of our building inspector.
He's PROBABLY "miffed" that he can't get UP THERE and dig-around and find
something TASTY for dinner, huh? (for
a BIGGER PICTURE click here)
Working on camera-systems on the Olympic Peninsula is HERE:
AND - you should watch the local (Seattle) PBS station's documentary
(only 1/2 hour) and it's VERY WELL DONE! http://kcts9.org/undamming-elwha
There are six-cameras represented in the above link. I
helped-out other Erdman Video Systems staff to move two of these
camera-systems to new locations (the two on the right-hand-end in the
(above noted) web-page). In the midst of all the
camera-re-location-work we managed to take a ride (in a LARGE CRANE
man-basket) to hammer-drill-into-concrete and bolt-up a moved Solar Panel,
and that ride in the man-basket was a significant highlight of the
trip. The view from the man-basket - suspended at the end
of 280 foot crane-boom was spectacular. Mr. Nick shot a
video-of-that man-basket-ride and that video is at this Facebook
link.
One of the Biggest (expletive deleted) cranes I have ever seen with my own
eyes, and we got a ride in the 'man-basket' suspended from this BF crane to
install some concrete anchors to mount a solar-panel... When they
installed and assembled this crane in this location it took something on the
order of about 20 truck-loads to get this thing (in MANY MANY PIECES) up
this one-lane-mountain-road. I suspect that 'dis-assembling dams is a
BIG project costing LOTs of money!
(you can see the solar-panel, in the picture below (almost dead-center
top-to-bottom and about 1/3 the way from the left edge of the
picture)) - after we mounted it. Interesting note, here, about the
mounting. We never 'aimed' the camera. Just took it off the tree
where it had been mounted, moved it to this new location, drilled some holes
in the concrete and mounted the camera and the view was damned near
perfect.. - VERY weird, unexpected and interesting..)
The guy who's hand you see in the lower-left of the above picture is Chuck
and he had a radio and the guy operating the crane (a VERY VERY SMOOTH
operator, we might note!) was Mr. Andy, and he had another radio.
Together they used their radios and coordinated the positioning of the
"man-basket" we were riding in and our positioning and helped us install the
concrete anchors. They were both super guys and we really enjoyed
working with them.
Here's the re-located camera 'almost' finished doing the install - I had
another couple of hours work, here at this (Lake Mills) camera-site,
after this shot was taken, but it did not change the basic view of the
installed system... Note the hammer-drill in the lower-right of
the picture - it is demolishing the dam 'as we speak' and the demolished
debris is washed over the dam. The guys operating the hammer
have to take two weeks off for every 15 feet of vertical dam
de-construction, to let the 'up-stream-side' of the water / sediments
'catch-up' to them. They were off the weekend of 31 March and 1 April
and so then will start again about tax-time (15 April, 2012).
Here's me(with the borrowed "hard-hat" with the re-located (Lake Mills (the
lake 'behind' the Glines Canyon Dam)) camera almost just right over my head
on the 'up-stream-side' of what still shows in this view as the dam (you can
see three (easily) and a part of the fourth of the dam's flood-gates (now
closed). The previous picture was taken from above and one can
clearly see the hammer-drill knocking-down a significant portion of the
dam. They still have about 100 feet or so (vertically) of the dam to
demolish. In this view almost all-over-every-where-you-see is RIVER
MUCK because where I am standing would have been 30-40 feet under water a
year or so ago.
This panorama was taken by a co-worker ((Mr. Nick) with his Motorola Droid
cell-phone) and he e-mailed to me - it shows the Glines Canyon Dam site and
what it looked-like in late March. It may look significantly different
today, as more work has been done, the water-level has dropped, and the
above-noted web-page does not have "panorama" style digital images.
This is a picture of Mr. Kevin on the top of the ladder (at the Elwha Dam
camera-site (YES there USED TO BE 'a dam' there!)... Since Kevin
weighs even less than I do (and I weigh less than Nick) we frequently would
put Mr. Kevin on the top of the ladder to work on the
camera-system(s)... I would hand tools to Mr. Kevin, while Mr.
Nick (mostly the brains of the operation) would do the 'brainy-things' while
Mr. Kevin and I did most of the 'mechanical 'stuff' '. I
also would contribute 'less-than-brainy' comments as Mr. Kevin and Mr. Nick
worked... that was about the extent of the 'help'... This was a
good separation of labour - especially since in the COLD my brain didn't
function very well.
Mr. Kevin showed-up on Sunday, 25 March (at SeaTac (Seattle))
airport. Mr. Nick and I drove from our rental-house near Port
Angeles to SeaTac to pick-him-up. Then we drove back to Port
Angeles - round trip was ABOUT 7 hours in the (rental - 2-wheel-drive
(YES! we got STUCK ONCE (but ONLY ONCE, and a really friendly / helpful guy
pulled-us-up-the-hill with is farm-tractor!). A LONG
DAMNED WAY to pick-up someone from SeaTac. We didn't REALIZE how long
it would take us and we were 'a bit' late, but not too much...
Once Kevin arrived, we got NEW INSTRUCTIONS (and via the nice people at UPS
a 'kit' of parts) from the Miami office.
So - then with three of us working, we proceeded to update / upgrade 5 of
the 6 cameras (in the RAIN!). Since Kevin showed up (and he's
from Connecticut (and it RAINS there a LOT (but not as much as here))) it
began to rain (significantly) and so there are very very few pictures of
that work (in the RAIN!), since I mostly left the iPhone back at the rental
house because I did not want it to get wet and muddy in the rainy weather...
Several Generalities of working in / on the
Olympic Peninsula:
1.) the weather forecast is ALWAYS for RAIN and temps less than 45 F
(high)... - this turns out to be only partially true - it pours rain for 15
minutes, then it drizzles for two hours then the sun comes out for 40
minutes - then the cycle starts all over again (and it typically gets COLDER
when it's raining).
2.) KNEE-HIGH rubber boots are NOT REQUIRED but they are recommended
3.) I had ankle-high Vasque shoes and some Gore-Tex socks and some Outdoor
Research 'gaiters' and my feet were toasty warm and dry for nearly 10 days.
- The socks and gaiters were pricey, but the guy at REI-Seattle said the
combination would be WAY WAY BETTER than rubber-boots and he was RIGHT ON...
4.) Though some we know were 'pushing-hard' for an 'early-finish' it wasn't
to be; but we had fun, we learned a lot, no one got hurt (bad), and we
did everything we were meant to do - so that's a pretty good record
5.) Though this should be 'seafood heaven' (much like Stuart, where we live)
it was not to be - apparently this is NOT the season (we saw ALLL the
floating docks on dry land in a place called Sekiu where we once ate
dinner)... - and when NOT the season all the seafood is FROZEN (but still
not bad).
6.) it is COLD and RAINY and sometimes WINDY and that makes it hard on
exposed fingers and bodies subject to bursitis problems
7.) one needs a LOT of food to support the WORK and the COLD
8.) having 3 (experienced) people working on any given camera-system-problem
is GREAT - when you all work towards a common-goal, when you all know what
needs to be done and can all do it - it is truly rewarding to sometimes get
the chance to be a part of a great working team...
9.) in a 'remote' area like this (and further areas of the Olympic Peninsula
(it turns out)) having three people with three differernt cell-phones with
three differernt service providers can be a 'god-send'... - we had:
Nick's Motorola Droid phone with Verizon service which is
the same service as the Verizon GSM-cell-modems in all the camera systems.
Verizon offers 4 bars (100%)
Bill's Apple iPhone 4S with A T & T service (which
wasn't much good, most of the time on the Olympic Peninsula) but the iPhone
has 5 'bars' at the '100%' service level - it was NEVER 5 bars...
Kevin had his service with Sprint (which is good in
Connecticut where he comes from, it offers six bars at 100%, and an ITC
smart-phone
There's no question that Nick's Verizon phone was more USEFUL than Kevin's
but it was good to have three smart-phones most of the time...
AND - to credit Verizon's service out there in the 'no-where' - we needed a
bubble-level at one point to verify a camera-system was mounted
correctly. Mr. Nick had such GREAT Verizon
Service, he found a bubble level application on a web-site; downloaded it to
his Motorola Droid phone, enabled it and handed it to Mr. Kevin on the
ladder. Turns out Mr. Kevin has a VERY ACCURATE EYE - he'd
mounted the camera and it was ONLY off by 2.7 degrees, pretty darned close
for 'eyeballing it'....
Several people have asked 'Where did you STAY' - well - here's a picture of
me (in the foreground), but the background is "Maple Grove" a small weekend
& vacation community about 20 minutes WSW of Port Angeles on the Olympic
Peninsula. The Gang at Erdman rented us a house here, and that
is where we stayed... It's VERY PRETTY, and as you can see mountains
in the background. What you do NOT see in this image is the very nice
lake that the community is built-around and you also do not see the house we
actually stayed in. - Sorry.
ALL THIS talk of WORK makes me think about this... I know
SEVERAL 'Tech Support" types and this is
EXACTLY what they do. However, their secret is 'safe
with me' and will NOT divulge their names, nor where
they work. However I will say that at some point I, too, am considered
'Technical Support' (by some). I suspect,
though, that Google has made our live(s) easier in this role. However,
an individual has to have some training,
some experience, some knowledge and some wisdom to ascertain whether or not
what one learns on Google is
really of any 'value' and whether or not one can make a 'value added'
decision based on the Google information.
The Last Week (1 April through 7
April, 2012) we did some driving, hiking, taking pictures, seeing
the sights (all in the RAIN) on the Olympic Peninsula... ... ...
Ms. May had spent the better part of a week in and around Seattle, with her
good friends Lily and John Hasegawa (pottery-friends from Paducah,
Kentucky)... Ms. May was visiting with her friends,
learning about pottery and attending the "NCECA
Conference" in downtown Seattle, and attending some workshops, during the
same basic time that I was working on camera-systems on the Olympic
Peninsula.
But Ms. May joined me and then we (she and I) took-off on a
counter-clockwise journey around the Olympic Peninsula - mostly on a road
called US-101 which goes west, then south then east and, well, it goes in
MANY directions, (mostly in a circle) unlike most other roads that merely go
from point "A" to point "B". - More information on that trip is to follow -
with MANY pictures...
At about 06:30 a.m. on the first of April we got a text-message on Mr.
Bill's iPhone. It was the above picture of
Ms. May's recently Wood Fired Pottery that had been taken-out of the kiln
back in Jupiter Farms, Florida, near where we live.
Needless to say on our return to Florida it was a priority to get to Jupiter
Farms and retrieve her terrific new stuff. More images
and such can be seen at some time in the future on Ms. May's blog-site.
We saw this sign, and just HAD to take a picture... - Apparently this area
of the Olympic Peninsula
is now featured, prominently, in some current TV show about
Vampires. We also have a couple
of pottery-friends who cautioned us to 'be careful of the vampires out
there' (meaning on the
Olympic Peninsula), when may visited with them in Seattle at the annual
NCECA convention.
This was on the side of a quick-stop-food-place at a local
gas-station. Amazing how 'Vampire
Tourism' can change and enhance a region's reputation and economy.
IF you really (REALLY) want to learn something new and interesting? try
this link
Archived
BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s):
Click here for a
list of the archived months
updated: 19:36 p.m. (USA-EDT) on
Thursday, 10 October 2013; by: Mr._Bill on the Apple Macintosh 'Mac
Mini' - revID: 1h
