What A Difference A Day (or two...) Makes

Don't worry, I won't 'entertain' you by singing.

"Lake Long Beach" has sunk back into the Earth, leaving only very minor inconveniences behind.

The wind had knocked the vent stack for the water heater loose, so I had to get the ladder out of the garage, climb yp there, and put it back together. Our across the street plumber friend had knocked the mountings around when he installed our new water heater last summer, and it was just a matter of time before Mother Nature moved it around some more.

This resulted in two things happening. First, when the wind blew, the open end of the stack resonated like a large organ pipe with a rather disturbing thrumming sound, and second, when the gas burner fired up, it sounded somewhat akin to an F-4 Phantom lighting up in the driveway.

The blowing wind sound really bugged my wife, and the jet engine noise bugged her even more, to the point where she stated saying "Oh My God....IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!".

So up I went to rectify the damage.

And we really ducked a bullet as far as water incursion goes. I had two boxes of "stuff" that got wet. One has a large, heavy Rohn "Non Penetrating Roof Mount" antenna base that was surplus from my wireless service provider days, and the other had some cleaning/waxing supplies in it.

The Rohn box had maybe 1/2" of "water damage" to it, and got securely taped up today, and the other box went into the recycle bin after I moved the items in it to another box.

And the grass is going to grow like crazy over the next few weeks!

Welcome to "Lake Long Beach"!

Just a bit of water in the back yard....

Even though we make sure the dog always has a bowl of fresh water in the backyard, I don't think she needs it today, and wouldn't want to wade out there to get to it...

The brick border is actually TWO bricks high....

If you know how big a DogLoo is, this will give you an idea how deep the water on the patio is...

Or if you don't know how big a DogLoo is, here's a standard size cooler-on-wheels...

View from the porch steps...

Nope, not doing any laundry today...

More Rain On The Way ***UPDATE***

Supposed to start again tonight, and then "Heavy Rain" all day Sunday, Sunday night, and "80%" through Monday night, tapering off through Tuesday.

With the ground as saturated as it is, I predict the return of "Lake Long Beach" in the back yard.

My wife told me there were whitecaps on the water in the L.A. River on her way home from work yesterday.......


Well, the rain started again early this morning, around 0300 when I had to get up and let the dog out.

Something about a cold nose in the arm or face just makes me open my eyes to see what's up.

It was off and on until around 0800 when it started coming down steadily, and it's been doing that for the last 6 hours.

So far we've received slightly over 1.25", and it's coming down at about .6" per hour.

And it's expected to continue like this the rest of the day, and through tonight.

And tomorrow, and tomorrow night, tapering off on Tuesday.

"Lake Long Beach" has returned, and might get into the garage if this keeps up......

Obama Legacy Disposal Team

Courtesy of Stilton over at "Hope and Change Cartoons".

Now that President Trump (God, that feels good to write!) and the adults are back in charge, "Hope and Change Cartoons" won't be published as much.

It was a great run, Mr. Jarlsberg. Thanks for doing it!

And in other news, we got TWO INCHES of rain last night. The back yard is now a lake....

See Through Engine - 4K Slow Motion Visible Combustion

Ran across this on YouTube while looking for something else.

It's really cool to watch the flame propagation from the ignition point through the chamber.

Anybody Ever Leave Las Vegas Headed NORTH On A Sunday??

I know you sure don't want to head out SOUTH, back to L.A. on a Sunday!

The reason I'm asking is that registration for "Supras in Vegas 2017" just opened, and I went ahead and registered.

Since God willin' and the crick don't rise we'll be living in Fort Collins at that time, I'm planning my route from Fort Collins to Vegas.

Since it's 803 miles, I'm not going to do it in one shot! If I were 20 years younger, maybe, but driving through that terrain, at night, alone, is NOT something I relish doing anymore.

So far, I'm planning on overnighting in Green River, Utah, which is almost exactly half way between Fort Collins and Vegas.

I'll leave Fort Collins on Tuesday, and then roll into Vegas on Wednesday. The event starts Thursday, so I'll have Wednesday night to get a good night's sleep.

The event ends Saturday around 1700, and then we always have a "Mark II get together dinner" at one of the hotel/casinos about halfway back to the Excalibur from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

I'll roll out of Vegas Sunday, stop again in Green River, and should get back to Fort Collins on Monday.

Hopefully the traffic headed NORTH out of Vegas won't be nearly as bad as that insane crawl back to L.A. would be on a Sunday afternoon.

I'll have to ask some of the regulars to the event if they've ever gone North on a Sunday.....

"The Republic of Bill"....I think We'll Move There....

An oldie but a very goodie from Mr. Whittle.

Gene Cernan, Last Man to Walk On the Moon, Passes Away at Age 82

God bless you, sir.

May you travel ever fast and higher in your repose.

Full bio here on Wikipedia.

Early Chrysler "FirePower" Hemi Time-Lapse Rebuild

Another great time-lapse rebuild from Hagerty, this time of an early Chrysler "FirePower" HEMI!

I'll bet it really sings with that exhaust system.

Watch it in full screen for best viewing.

Rain and Other Stuff....

We've received over an inch of rain from this last storm system, bringing our season total to slightly over 8".

The NWS is calling for a 50% chance of more tonight, and then nothing until this time next week. Further North, the bay area's been really getting hammered, with more rain this month than our season-to-date total.

And there was another screwy "low speed" chase the other night. Some 30 year old known gang banger shot his sister-in-law, and then melted into the woodwork. The cops had a BOLO out on him, and he popped up in Reseda, up in "The Valley".

He took off with a squad in pursuit, and then proceeded to enter the 405 Southbound, where he slowed down to 5~30MPH for the next two hours, throwing stuff out of his car, and taunting the police the entire time. They finally got a couple of BIG SUV's after him, and did the -tap-and-spin maneuver to stop him, and then let the dogs loose.

I haven't heard anything else, but I think he'll be going bye-bye for a while.

And we got the antenna rotor "fixed" down at K6AA. It turns out it was a non-problem caused by letting the antenna sot at a fixed position for long periods of time.

There's a potentiometer inside the rotor motor unit up on the tower that's used to supply position feedback to the indicating meter in the control head. As the motor rotates, so does the pot, sending a variable voltage to the meter. It's a "wire-wound" pot with a brass "wiper", and when it sits too long in one position, a small amount of corrosion forms between the brass wiper and the NiChrome wire of the winding. Since the applied voltage is only about 6 Volts, it's not enough to "punch through" the corrosion, and the voltage never gets back down to the meter. All we had to do was run the rotor through its full range of travel a few times, the wiper cleaned the wire winding, and the "problem" went away.

We made a note in the station operating manual that to prevent this issue in the future, the rotor should be cycled through its full range weekly, but I'll bet this happens again within six months....

blech......Getting Over a Cold

Been a bit under the weather, so I've been taking it a bit easy.

We got clobbered with another .75" of rain last night. Started about 0300 and woke me up it was raining so hard. No flooding and no mudslide I've heard of, so all is well here.

Have a brunch appointment Tuesday morning at one of my favorite little places, The Think Cafe in San Pedro, and then on to the L.A. Maritime Museum to troubleshoot the antenna rotator....again!

From the descriptions given by the operators at K6AA, the rotator is malfunctioning. It might be a loose wire on the back of the control unit, or the direction indicating potentiometer up in the rotor head may have gone TU. Since none of us are "certified" to climb the tower, and lack the now required insurance, if it is the rotor head, that'll mean hiring the guy we use to come out and swap the rotor head out with one we'll have to order if our troubleshooting leads to that problem.

Here's hoping it's just a loose connection on the back, as between ordering up a rebuilt rotor and paying the guy to swap it out, that's about $600 the club would rather not spend!