My Flu Shot Gave Me The Flu!

Well....not a full-bown case of "The Flu", but I definitely had a reaction to it.

Monday afternoon was my quarterly medical check-up (I'm Type II diabetic), and besides the confirmation that I've lost 15 pounds and the blood draws they always do, they asked if I'd had my flu shot this year. Since I hadn't had one yet, and I was there, I said to go ahead and do it.

By Tuesday afternoon my arm was really sore, I had a serious case of the sniffles, and my stomach was more than a bit upset.

Wednesday morning I was really out of it, and spent a good portion of the day either in bed, or in the bathroom.

I'm back to about 99% today, so I either had a definite reaction to the shot, or I was "coming down with something", and it just happened to hit me 24 hours after I had the shot....

I never used to get the flu shots, and there were only a few times I ever got really knocked down sick.

Right after I'd moved in with my wife-to-be, I got really sick.

Since we weren't married yet, and her medical insurance wouldn't cover me until we'd been married something like 30 days, I just toughed it out and was miserable for a couple of months. I told her to remind me to get the shot the next year, and if I squawked about it, to remind me just how sick I was when we got married.

ANYWAY....besides the weight loss, my A1C was DOWN 2 points, so all the frantic activity I did during the 7~8 weeks I worked on the Supra definitely helped. and my Doctor was quite pleased, and told me to keep doing "The Toyota Physical Fitness Plan" I was on.

Not going to get much done today, as we're expecting some heavy rain starting late this afternoon, and running through Friday. I've staked down/tied off the canopy I got to cover the Supra, and cleaned out the garage enough to get the OEM wheels and tires strapped down to a small furniture dolly, and tucked under one of the big shelves.

And threw away/consolidated several large boxes of "junque" parts that were beyond saving.

If I keep this up, I'll be able to get the car in the damn garage where it belongs before the winter rains hit.....

Bob Hoover Slips The Surly Bonds....

I watched him fly many, many times. For a while the yellow P-51 was hangared at the Torrance airport when it was in the Rockwell livery.

His performances was always the highlight of the airshows for me, right next to the Blue Angles and the Thunderbirds.






God bless you, Bob.

You were one of a kind.....

Reposted from Murphy's blog....

Bob Hoover dies at age 94

Rainy Days....

Didn't get any automotive work done this weekend because by the time I got ready to go out on Sunday, it was raining.

And it rained today, too.

Had a bunch of indies work to do. I rebuilt a laptop for a local non-profit group, and got most of the audio interface box I'm building for the Iowa finished.

Our CTO, who served on the Iowa from 83 to 89 (I think) and is a computer guy, built up a Raspberry Pi to act as an audio playback device. We'll use this box to interface to The Coke Machine and route audio up to one of the bridge speakers, where our visitors will hear such things as "Helmsman, 30 degrees to port", along with other bridge commands.

And I found out today from my quarterly Doctor's visit that I've lost 15 pounds from the last time I was there.

Now to keep it off.....

Dogs......

Found on Brigid's blog, and I just had to share it......


“Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made. ”

― Roger A. Caras

I'm Gonna Be A Grandpa!

OK, the DIL has told her family, so now I can tell you.

My wife's youngest son and his lovely wife are expecting. ETA is May 2017.

Any doubts, reservations and/or fears my wife has harbored about pulling up stakes here and moving to Colorado have just gone POOF!

I'm just praying that things hold together long enough that we can make a graceful, stress free exit from The People's Demokratik Republik of Kalifoniastan....

Not Too Much Going On Here....

Not too much going on here other than we got .3" of rain the other night. Just enough to wash most of the road dirt off the Supra, and turn my Jeep into a bloody muddy mess.

Spent yesterday on the Iowa, and volunteered myself for another project, but this time it's a small one.

We have several unused audio inputs to the "Coke Machine", and some of the Grey Radio Guys decided that it would be nice to have them available to use with "external" devices.

These lines are in the "Crypto Room" (FACCON 2), and are just cables hanging on the bulkhead right now. They used to connect to some audio encryption equipment, but that stuff was stripped out of the ship many years ago, and FACCON 2 is now the server room for all the various things on the Iowa that need a server. Somebody had purchased a conduit box, and some cable clamps, along with a mismatched set of XLR audio connectors. They asked me to fab a top plate that would mount the connectors, so I brought the stuff home. When I told them I didn't think the finished project would look very good, the response was "That's OK, nobody will ever see it".

Yeah....well since I'm building it, I'll see it, and it will gall me knowing that I contributed to the hack job hanging on the bulkhead in FACCON 2.

SO.....I stopped at my favorite little hole-in-the-wall electronics parts place on my way home, and picked up a nice cast aluminum box and some nice XLR connectors and mating plugs for them. I'll get the XLR jacks mounted on the front panel, drill some holes for the "cable glands" where the .625" audio cables will come into the box, and fab some mounting brackets out of aluminum angle so we can bolt this thing to the bulkhead. We've got the green light to just drill and tap holes in the bulkhead (it looks to be 3/8" steel plate, possibly thicker, with nothing on the far side), but I think there might be a nicer way to do it. I'll worry about that after the box is built.

I'll post some pix of my progress, which should be pretty quick as the garage is cleaned up and sorted out after The Great Supra Suspension Rebuild.

And as far as the "Coke Machine" goes, the last time our pillage/plunder/salvage crew was up in Bremerton while I was in Vegas, they found a COMPLETE SET of the plug-in cards, and the manual patch cards, for the Coke Machine!

Not only was this stuff was considered to be unobtainium by people that know these things, but also to be ULTRA unobtainium, the rarest sort, so we really lucked out in finding a set of these.

Rather than having to manually patch audio connections by using small wire between the card connectors and a "patch block" I ginned up, we can now just push the buttons on the front panel to set up the circuits we need. I think the Iowa is probably the only museum ship with a fully functional "Coke Machine".

And that, in itself, is pretty cool....

Hillary's New Campaign Theme Music

Couldn't find any music about flying monkeys, so this will have to do.

After all....Halloween is just around the corner.

Busy Day for Radio on the Iowa

Today was the Scout "Jamboree On The Air", or JOTA.

In years past we've had 100 to 150 Scouts come aboard to yak on the radio, and have had up to six stations in operation.

Today we only had TEN Scouts.......

Not sure what's going on, but one of the other guys checked around, and attendance at all the SoCal JOTA events was waaay down this year.

So, we got to spend some extra time with the Scouts, and show them more things than we normally do. I gave them a tour of the receiver and switchboards area, and then fired up one of the Model 28 teletype machines, and ran some test tapes so they could watch it print.

I wound up running the tapes ten times, so each Scout could have their own hard copy to take home, along with their souvenir NI6BB card:

After they were gone, I checked out two new members on our Ham Radio equipment so they can come in and operate on their ow. Out of the 50 members we have on the roster, maybe 5~7 are active and come in regularly, so having two more people who want to come operate will be good.

Sunday I'm getting a haircut and beard trim in the Iowa's barbershop. One of the Old Skool barbershops in San Pedro has their barbers come in several times a year to offer up haircuts in return for a $20 donation to the ship. I had mine cut the last time they were here, and since I ned a haircut again, I'll go down to the ship and make use of the service.

We also have shore power fully functional now, and that happened right around Fleet Week. I was too busy bashing away on the Supra to report it, but it's soooo nice to not have the huge generator hammering away next to the ship. We were able to get almost all of the equipment and labor donated, so what would have been a five MILLION dollar project wound up costing us about $300k.

Thanks to our donors, and well done to all who made it possible!

We also have another acquisition, a 1950's Piasecki "HUP Retriever" helicopter.

We were able to purchase this for under "market value", and after it arrives Sunday morning, it will sit at the ship until it get transported to Torrance airport where a volunteer group will restore it.

There are very few of these left, and from what I've been told, this one is in better condition, and came with more spares, that we originally though. I've heard a couple of people say there's enough stuff to get it airworthy, although I don't think the restoration will go that far.

I'll take some pix of it tomorrow if it's there when I am......

Jeremy Clarkson on the SR-71

I always thought these aircraft looked very sad when I saw them on display.

They belong in the sky.....

Bill's Reaction to Seeing The Donald's "Special Guest Stars"....

Kinda says it all......

Shamelessly swiped from Angel's blog.

Wife In Another Accident

Just got back from the body shop where they took the car.

She was pulled over to the side of the road for a fire truck, and some young kid slammed into her.

He said he saw the fire truck, but not her.

TONS of witnesses, including the crew on the fire truck, the paramedic truck following them, and the ambulance following the paramedic truck.

And the owners of several stores at the intersection saw it, and came out and gave witness statements to the police.

The fire truck and paramedics said the car that hit her was traveling "well over the posted speed limit", and the two store owners said it looked like "he was going 70".

The driver that hit her admitted to the LBPD that he was going "over 45, maybe 50" and it's a 35MPH zone.

The ambulance crew wanted to take to the ER, and like a dummy, she refused. She had some weird kind of neck surgery some years ago before I met her, and that's why she can't shoot a rifle or ride a horse, because those motions could possibly injure her.

She was more concerned about saving the $$$$ for the collar, back board, and ambulance ride (they charge separately for all those things these days) than she was about getting checked out.

She's on the phone with the kid's insurance company right now (some place named "Alliance" who appears to have really crappy customer service), and I just heard her say she's calling her Doctor to get in today.........