20 Years of Harry Potter

As of today, all written up at (where else?) the BBC.  All about the books, the movies, and the cultural influence.

Hard to believe, but there it is.

Ticks, This Summer, and You

Stumbled across a worried-mommy article on Slate today, The Year of the Tick.  Despite the suburban northeastern, almost alarmist tone, it's not a bad read.  Some of the links were of interest too, namely one about how to treat your outdoor clothes with permethrin, and another on how remove ticks by the CDC.  That last one's simple and a non-gimicky, authoritative resource on the matter.

It's an ongoing summertime problem for mountain bikers, hikers, campers, etc. – all the sorts of things that go on in this household.  A couple of points from The Resident Biologist are worth mentioning, in addition to the above links:

1. Drink your Monster drinks, or at least take vitamin B tab ahead of hitting the outdoors.  Ticks don't like the taste of blood full of vitamin B, and Monster is full of it, maybe along with a few other things they don't like too.
2. The bumper crop of acorns --> more woods mice --> more ticks problem described in the Slate article isn't so much a "too many mice" problem.  It's more of a "not enough snakes" problem.  Stop putting the genocide on common, harmless snakes and the mouse and tick problem would likely be cleaned out PDQ.

Finally, here's the punch line from the CDC article, if you're too busy to click through:

Then kill it.  Kill it with fire.

A busy week of many small tasks.

Some successes, many things still in progress, but no outright failures.  Of note:

• "Why is there water under the dryer?  Hmmm."  Moisture coming back up the dryer exhaust and condensing on the cold steel of the machine is why.  A fix is in the works, but it would really help if this month-long rain jag would end.  I've seen humidity before, but this is nuts.
• Too much jangle pop.  It starts with early R.E.M. (back when they were good), morphs through Let's Active tunes, and finally brings things back around to The Byrds and Bob Dylan.  Beats most of the stuff on radio today though.
• ARRL Field Day.  Well, more like "air conditioned classroom day" for those of us in coastal Mississippi.  More a matter of safety than anything else.  I put in an appearance, then conversed with other FD refugees on the WARC bands, just seeking a little sanity.
• Retrieved the road bike from The Corner Bicycle Shop in Gulfport yesterday, all shiny and tuned up.  Replaced cleats and test rode, but roads were too wet to really get out and ride.  Maybe tomorrow at lunch.
• Go mountain biking?  Pfft, don't make me laugh.  Maybe with monster mudder tires.  And a snorkel.
• Experimenting with a recent deal of a lightly used QRP radio, a (what else?) Yaesu FT-817nd.  The TCXO and 300 Hz. add-on boards make this thing into a PSK-31 monster, punching way above its weight.  Just had a contact with a guy in the Czech Republic – 5000+ miles on 2.5 Watts.
• Also experimenting with high-zoot NiMH AA batteries for the FT-817nd, Eneloop Pro 2500 mAH's – the black ones, kind of the Darth Vader of the AA battery world.  It's sobering to think that eight of these AA batteries is about the equivalent of 1/10 oz of gasoline – enough to drive my Mustang about 120 feet at 55 mph.  Even the floor guy at Best Buy was all like "holy crap, what's in these things?"
• Perhaps it's even more sobering to think that it's relatively easy to talk – directly – to Europe on that same handful of AA's.  The right amount of power carefully applied in just the right way can do remarkable things.

Well that's all of now.  Any of these could've made for a complete blog post, but it's been a busy week.  Maybe I'll expand on some of them in the near future, or maybe I'll come up with something new.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Is it the solstice already?  Yeah, guess so.  Here's a pic of a unique sundial, from over at APOD:

Holy cats, it must've taken some serious CAD work to get the shadows and light to line up like this.

ps: it's also Hike Naked Day, at least in some parts of Colorado.  Don't forget the sunscreen.

Why I will never succeed in politics.

as explained over at xkcd  permalink

Eclipse Mid-Day, Monday Aug 21, 2017

Here's the expected total eclipse path:

Of course, there'll be plenty to see across most of the CONUS even if you're not in the direct path.  Here's a simulator showing what you can expect to see, given your zip code.  Dig around at that web site, theres a lot of good info there.

Silca Bike Pumps – the news is better

Specifically, 48% better.  After December-before-last's post about the $450(!) bike pump, it looks like Silca has heard the mockery from Fly-Over Country and come out with a more reasonably(?) priced $235 model.

To be fair, this is a big step in the right direction and it really does look like a darned nice pump.  Is it worth it?  Only you can decide.  For me, it's close...er, but I'd still go shopping eBay for a decent used one.

Hey, at least it's serviceable and you can get parts.


ps: bonus post at PM – an introduction to gravel biking.  Not nearly as terrifying as the author makes it out to be, and far, far less terrifying than most traffic riding.