Bill
Schell's "BeachWeb" for January 2013
Sunday, 20 January, 2013...
garage-studio 'done' - we have a 'tiny' list of 'tiny' things to do yet,
but the bulk of this project is complete... - and thank goodness; we have
other things that need our attention these days...
YES - we won our sailing regatta - me and Two Dentists in the boat, -
what a way to get an 'opinion' on my root-canal-tooth! - but it was a
two-day regatta and we WON!
Trike
Riding:
Today is Wednesday, 3 January... Like some other days this week, I
spent the early hours of the morning (I started before 07:00 a.m.) riding on
the BEAUTIFUL L.O.S.T. (Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail). I think I like
this because of the constantly new & interesting scenery, as well as the
fresh-air, sunshine, outdoors, wildlife, etc. etc. - it's just a generally
terrific way to begin the day... - HOWEVER, lately I've been riding a 40
mile 'route' (not much place OTHER than the LOST dike one can go), but it's
still fun, pleasant and terrific exercise...
this is more 'reflections' - you can see the 'other' one below - but this
one is 'better' (I think? - but WHO KNOWS?)
and another of the 'route' and some Lake Okeechobee scenery... this was
taken while 'south-bound' (into the sun and the compass heading on this one
is 'about 120 degrees)...
Today (Wednesday, 2 January, 2013), I went to the Lake earlier, and rode
my 40 miles again... THERE WERE A LOT OF PEOPLE (and un-leashed DOGS) on the
path, today...
BUT - I took a bunch of pictures, and I thought they might warrant some
viewing...
a WHOLE BUNCH of white (and some dark, also) birds, surveying their domain,
and sitting quietly as I pedaled by...
Here's some trees, and their images reflected in the VERY STILL waters of
the "Rim Canal"... The Rim Canal is not often this still, usually
there's some wind. Unfortunately both yesterday and today - the wind
was like this going north, but when I started back south the wind was a LOT
MORE than I wanted to ride into and it really slowed me down...
Which only points-out RULE #1: for riding the "L.O.S.T.": - regardless of
which direction you choose to ride in, the wind is ALWAYS against you!.
=========================================================================================
ONE thing that happened this morning (Tuesday, the FIRST) was that I went to
my most beloved place to ride my tricycle, the 'L.O.S.T." (Lake
Okeechobee Scenic Trail) - and I rode about 40 miles today (yes my
buns hurt, they think that 40 miles may be too much when they've been
acclimated to 20-25 miles?)...
ANYWAY, I REALLY LIKE riding around the Lake (and Ms. May and I did the
WHOLE LAKE (about 120 miles) in 2 days 'about' this time last year (actually
it was the 29th and 30th of December in 2011 that we rode ALL THE WAY around
the lake!).
That ride, though, was 'about' 1/2 and 1/2 on and off the L.O.S.T.. - The
surface-roads we found 'scary' with the BIG sugar-cane-harvesting trucks and
the BIG orange harvesting trucks, and so-forth. This web-site
has "Some" text and "Some" pictures, and some links: http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/BeachWeb2011/Dec11/Dec11.html
This picture is a 'GPS track-log' of our December 2011 ride ALL the WAY
AROUND the lake - the part I rode, today, was the "northeast" quarter
(roughly noon til 3p.m. if you think about the lake as a clock-face) - on
this image the part I rode today was roughly the upper-right quadrant that
has the blue-dots on it. this is a VERY
HUGE image, here, and a largeER
image here...
SO - I think we'll wait to do this again until something like 80-90% of that
120 miles is on the actual levee / dike (L.O.S.T.) (and therefore we do NOT
have to share the pavement with the BIG TRUCKS!...
Here's a Link-To
a short 'movie' of a very small part of today's 40 mile ride.
Here's a picture of my Heart Rate Monitor - showing 130 beats a minute -
that's a lot for an 'old-guy' like me...
AND - here's another (random) picture that shows the awesome views that the
lake-dike-path has...
AND - LASTLY - a 'self-portrait' - (wish my arm were a bit longer, huh?)
===================================================================================
This is a picture of Ms. May's (almost) finished new LP-gas fired kiln.
Though it 'looks' like it's ready, there are a whole bunch of
'little-itty-bitty' jobs that I have yet to accomplish, but I'm getting
there...
Kiln-News: AS OF 20 January, we are MUCH NEARER to firing than we
have ever been, but there is still some work to be done. Mr. Bill
has his 'list' of 'engineering-things' (as opposed to art-thingies) that
he must do.
ALSO - since this will be the 'first-firing' of a 'new-kiln' - we have
attempted to re-cycle about 10 years worth of clay. The
re-cycling process, is lengthy, tedious, 'interrupt-driven' (some-times
the clay is 'READY' and one must "JUMP (RIGHT THEN!)"), and very
physical...
However, in the 'first-firing' of a new-kiln, one can not be AT ALL SURE
of the results, so we're going to be firing the kiln with artwork inside
the kiln made mostly from re-cycled clay to save some money and obviously
we HOPE that we'll get a lot of useful work out of the first firing, but
we don't know... ... ...
AND - Ms. May has ordered a new thermocouple to determine temperature
inside the kiln while we are firing it. Mr. Bill has a couple of
different instruments to attach to the thermocouple, to read the
temperature. PLUS Ms. May is going to use the 'cones' inside the
kiln. Mr. Bill has also re-alingned all the burners and added
a union to the LP-gas piping and some supporting braces to make all the
pipes more secure. AND we've re-designed and built the
holding-mechanism for the damper in the horizontal flue. -
Still some things to do, yet, but we're getting there...
You can see this blog-site which may be of more 'value added' if you
are looking for Kiln Pictures (and a tiny bit of text?):
http://vikingasia.blogspot.com
AND - if you're at AALLLLLL Interested (and you may not be) - here's a
couple of charts that have to do with electronic 'frequency spectrum' that
are quite interesting. This is a
Wall Chart for the US Spectrum Allocation from 1 to 300 Gig. This
is a handy 8 1/2" x 11" chart of the ARRL / Amateur radio frequency
spectrum for the US Amateur scene.
Archived
BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s):
Click here for a
list of the archived months
updated: 18:55 p.m. (USA-EDT)
Thursday, 10 October 2013; by: Mr._Bill on the Apple Macintosh 'Mac
Mini' - revID: 1e