Friday Again?

Gee...just realized I haven't posted anything in a week.

Been pretty busy here, with both Iowa stuff and "Homeowner" stuff.

After spending both Saturday and Sunday on the Iowa giving tours and talking with WWII vets, I figured I'd have Monday to unwind.

WRONG!

The main drain line from our garage, where the laundry is located, out to the street broke, and had to be repaired. The house was built in the early 1940's, and they used fired clay soil pipe, rather than cast iron. The pipes just slip-fit together, and during 70 years of earthquakes and ground movement, they start to leak a bit. Trees, having water seeking roots, look at this as a new found oasis, and come running.

Sure enough, tree roots invaded the drain line, and grew so much they cracked the pipe. Every time we did laundry, water would bubble up through the ground when the washer emptied.

A few years before I met my wife, she had the same problem with the drain from the house to the street, and had most of the pipe repaired, and they added a clean-out tee where the pipe comes out of the house.

Fortunately for us, the guy who lives across the street is a plumber, and he offered to fix the mess if I helped him.

SO.......Monday morning I'm out there swinging a pick and shovel to uncover the pipes. Once we had them dug out, it was easy to see where the root entered, breaking the clay pipe, and exited, breaking the pipe again.

All of the houses in this tract started out as two bedroom, one bath, 950 square foot "starter homes", and they were all built identically, so our plumber friend knew exactly where all the pipes ran, saving us the time of digging in the blind to find them.

The piece of root we pulled out was about 6 feet long, and two inches in diameter, so it had been growing in there for quite some time.

After cutting out the sections of broken pipe with a neat tool that looked a lot like the exhaust pipe cutter I have, he replaced the sections with ABS plastic pipe and rubber couplings.

We then refilled the holes, and now the drain works as it should.

He only asked for $300 to do the work, but we paid him $400 because to us, it was worth the extra money, and he's a genuinely Good Guy.

I shudder to think of what it would have cost us if we just "called a plumber" to fix it!

This coming Saturday and Sunday will be two more days on the Iowa. Saturday we have a group of Naval ROTC people coming, but newly minted and retired, and a few of them want to see the radio and transmitter rooms, and then the same on Sunday, but with some WWII vets who were Radiomen on other ships, including the USS Missouri.

Should be another great day on the Iowa!

Two Days Upcoming on the Iowa.....

I'll be there all day tomorrow to escort the Northrup-Grumman (formerly TRW) Amateur Radio Club around, and then for special visitor we're having Sunday.

He's a retired Radioman from the Missouri, and is taking part in the Iowa's Oral History program where we're attempting to get as many WWII vets on tape as possible.

He made a request to see the Radio and Transmitter Rooms, and we're more than happy to acommodate him.

And I'll bet I pick up more than few tips on the transmitters and couplers!

Top Ten "Miami Vice" Musical Scenes

Still one of my favorite shows.

Enjoy!

Carpet Project Finished

WELL.....we finally finished getting the living room rearranged and back together after tearing it apart for the carpet guys.

I was amazed how fast they got the furniture out of the house, the old carpeting and padding removed, the new carpeting installed, and the furniture back in.

And in the process of reassembling the home theater stuff, and my wife's computer desk, I took all the equipment outside and blew the dust out of it. Then I cleaned all the gear with some "Endust for Electronics", and proceeded to put everything back together, labeling all of the cables.

A bigger ordeal than I thought it would be, but the new carpet looks great, walks even better, and the whole house looks brighter now that we got rid of the old blue carpet.

I add some pix here later.....

Video of the Last Decommissioning of the USS Iowa

Found this through a crew newsletter I get.

It's converted from a VHS tape, so the quality isn't what we're used to today, but it's a fascinating video.

Enjoy!

New Carpet Today

Arrrgh.......

Been busy as a one-armed paper hanger the last few days getting the living room and dining room stripped out so the carpet installers can do their thing today.

They'll remove all the furniture for us, but all the "other" stuff had to be out so they don't break anything "fragile".

First off was taking the Home Theater Center apart and moving all the gear, then the wife's curio cabinet had to be emptied and unscrewed from the wall, the DVD racks had to be emptied and unscrewed from the wall, all the book cases had to be emptied and unscrewed from the walls, and her office/computer work area had to be taken offline, and all the gear removed. This is also my #2 radio operating position, so the 2 Meter/70 centimeter radio and scanner had to be disconnected and moved, along with the UPS units, the weather PC, and the FiOS router. I put the FiOS router in the "Network Closet" here in the radio room, and patched to coax from the Verizon ONT into it, and plugged in just the network cable for this room.

I'm still not sure how the carpet installers are going to handle where the coax/network cables come up through the floor, but the rep who was here the other day said they do it all the time, and it shouldn't be a problem. The "good" thing is that one of the places is behind the wife's "work" desk, and the other is behind the cabinet where the Home Theater stuff is mounted.

1032 local time, and they haven't called to confirm yet.......

They arrived about 1045. It's now 1445, and they're just putting the furniture back in place.

Then I can start reassembling things......

Looks nice, and my wife is very pleased.

"The X-Files" is Coming Back!

Supposed to start filming this summer, and will star David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, reprising their roles in a 6 episode miniseries.

This is probably my all-time favorite TV series. I didn't care too much for the two movies, as they were just not "connected enough" to the TV series for me.

It will be very interesting to follow this, and I can hardly wait for it to air.

One of Old Blue Eyes' Best

Ran across this while looking for something else.

I'm Still Here....Just Been Busy!

We've been working on getting all the HF-capable antennas on the Iowa sorted out, and hand-over-hand tracing coaxial cables around the ship.

We were able to get the autocoupler for the portside transmitting antenna hauled out of the transmitter room and mounted at the base of the whip, and as soon as we can figure out *where* the coax goes to, we'll do some low power testing with one of the original tarnsmitters.

In the picture below you can see the mounting rails for the autocoupler:

And with this shot from below the antenna, you can see the red insulating base, indicating it was a transmitting antenna:

And the starboard side whip has a blue base, indicating it was receive-only:

The cable for the starboard whip runs into a room off the flag bridge, where it was hooked to a receiver that we're told was used by the "spooks" for various signal interception duties.

Unfortunately, the Heliax cable feeding this one has broken from being repeatedly bent back and forth, so that's another "Let Jim fix it" item in the job jar!

The Leader Of The Free World

Gee....wonder who it is....

Meanwhile, Back In The CPO's Mess.......

One of the things we do on the Iowa is offer examinations for both commercial and Amateur radio licenses.

This past Wednesday, I found myself back down in the CPO's Mess area helping three young guys get their Marine Radio Operator's Permit for their jobs at one of the places out here in the L.A. Harbor area.

One of the things that's so interesting about the Iowa is the large amount of "Crew Art" painted in various spaces around the ship. I posted a lot of it a while back when I took the "Curator's Tour", which is a tour available to the public that takes you to a lot of the areas not on the current tour route.

Here's a funny one that I'm sure my Navy friends have seen before:

And in the CPO Lounge Area we have this one:

Along with this one on the adjacent bulkhead:

The deck flooring leading in to the lounge area has this nice tile work:

And on the door leading in is this warning:

In the mess area is this autograph from an original plank owner:

Thank you for your service, Chief!

And finally, from one of the hatches leading in to this area, MANY coats of paint:

Sorry for the crummy cellphone pix, but these were "spur of the moment", and I'm seriously considering taking my camera with me every time I go on board the Iowa.