Veteran's Day

 Ramirez says it far better than I can.

Thank you all for your service and sacrifice.

 

 

Light Snow Today

 NWS is forecasting up to an inch. Nothing sticking on the streets, but the yard is starting to get patches of white.

No, Beans (and Rev Paul), I haven't got a new snowblower yet. SLW was asking if we actually need to buy another one.  Well, if we could get somebody here to shovel what comes down, and do it RIGHT NOW, it would depend on how much they charged. The snowblower will cost about $1200 out-the-door. It should last at least ten years with the maintenance level I use on power equipment.

Can we find somebody to do the snow removal for $120 per year? Possibly, but she wants the snow removed RIGHT NOW, as she's paranoid about getting a ticket from the city for failing to clear the sidewalks within 24 hours.

Besides, I kinda like big noisy machines.....

Ball of Confusion

Smoke and mirrors, and "Industrial Scale" voter fraud.

And I'm aghast at the breathtaking stupidity and apathy of the "American" people.

This is treason, and people need to hang for it.....

 

Hat Tip to Rev Paul who calmed me down enough to figure out how to embed the video.....

Election Day, 2020

 In anticipation of "festivities" happening regardless of who wins, I went out today to run some errands. Got a two-month supply of my meds, some cash, "extra" coffee and cigarettes, and filled up both cars and all my gas cans.

"Other" preparations of a defensive nature were finished a few weeks ago, and we're fine on that front.

While I was pumping gas, I noticed the guy across the pump island had on a "USAF Veteran" hat, and as I had on my USS Iowa BB-61 hat, we naturally struck up a conversation. He's a local guy, and had served his career working at Cheyenne Mountain doing ELINT stuff. Betwixt and between inside jokes about that sort of thing, he asked me if I was "stocking up" on gas before the coming storm. I told him I was "Channeling My Inner Boy Scout", and he cracked up. We agreed we should be OK up here, but that the Denver/Aurora area would go up in flames of Peaceful Protest if Trump won, or flames of "Joyous Celebration" if the commies won.

I said I'd only seen a few gatherings with signs, all of them in support of "Conservative" issues and candidates. Given the number of Slow Joe and Da Ho signs I see up, I was quite surprised to see them out. 

He said there were some "BLM-Type" people at the courthouse engaging in "Voter Intimidation", and that he almost got into it with them. They (Three very large, very dark-complected men) were standing in front of the ballot drop box, and demanded to know who he voted for before they'd allow him to put his ballots in the box. He said he told them loudly, and in no uncertain terms, that it was none of their business, and to please move. He said they started to come towards him, at which time two security guys and two Sheriff's Deputies came out and defused it, telling the "Peaceful Protesters" to disperse to some distance from the drop box.

I was kinda flabbergasted when he told me that. This isn't L.A. or Chicago, or some other Big City. We're a city of about 170,000 people, and a good sixty-plus miles from the nearest one. We're part of the "Front Range Urban Corridor" , with ~5,000,000 people in it, but to see Big City Shit like that (pardon my French...) here really snapped me back to reality. The Bad Dudes really are everywhere these days, not just in their rat-hole cities anymore.

Time to get moving on our CCW permits.....

 

And from my son, who's a manager at a Major Chain Grocery in Lost Angeleez, we have.....Empty Shelves!

They have ZERO paper towels, and the toilet paper you see is all they have left. He said some other items were short, forget which ones, and they have they store windows boarded up solid, with armed guards in the store after closing.

Be vigilant!

Three Years Ago Today.....

 We started moving in here!

We closed on the 31st, and started moving in boxes of stuff on the first while waiting for the "Pods" our furniture, housewares, clothes, and other stuff were packed into were delivered.

It's been a great three years, watching our grandson grow from a 10 week early preemie to the healthy young kid he is today, and watching the seasons go by.

Learned a LOT about the weather, too, and how to dress for it.

And got the house all into shape from what it was when we bought it. New roof, new windows, a very large tree removal, and a new Southern fence, along with $500 worth of light bulbs, new washer and drier, towels, bedding, and a host of other items needed to fill up this big place.

I learned how to make and tend a decent fire in the fireplace, decent meaning it won't burn down the house or go out in 20 minutes, and got a crash-course education in the maintenance and operation of snowblowing equipment.

We've made some friends in the neighborhood, watched it change significantly, and found some nice places to go for live entertainment.

No, I don't have a Battleship to go play on, but we're no longer in Lost Angeleez, and that means a lot.

RIP, 007. You Will Be Greatly Missed

 I'm sure you've all heard this by now, but Sir Sean Connery left us last night.

God Speed, 007!

Hey, Kids! Collect 'Em ALL!

 Not really. These units should pretty much complete my Heathkit acquisitions. These guys will need some work, but as the expen$ive electrolytic capacitors are on hand, any additional outlay should be quite small. I inventoried my on-hand tubes, and have to cross it against the tube compliment of each radio. The only tubes I know I need are the last-gasp-of-vacuum-tubes "Compactrons". They were made in very large quantities for color TV sets, and are still readily available.

So, I rearranged the operating desk a bit, added an old Ikea riser shelf that I rattle canned a dark brown to kinda-sorta match the desk, and propped the "visiting" rigs in place.

I've wanted to do this since last summer, but finally got a circular tuit. These guys will go down to the workshop in the next few days to begin their journey back to operational status, but I wanted to see how they looked up there.

Future "Guest Rigs" will include my Hallicrafters SX-117/HT-44 pair:

And my Drake R-4B and T-4XB:

I also have a Kenwood TS-950SDX, but it's safely tucked away, so here's a "file photo" courtesy of rigpix:

Snow!

 It started last night around 2300, just little, tiny flakes coming down, and by 0100 when I went lights-out, we had a couple of inches. Not snowing extremely heavy, but just a constant snowfall.

The "snow gauge" shows about 8", with another 4"~8" during the day, and a forecast of an additional 3"~7" overnight. Gonna be a real mess on Monday morning!

And it's piled up and around my "Cease Fire" smoker's ashtray/bucket.....

And the streets are covered.....

One of the neighbor kids came offering to shovel the snow for $5, and he did such a bang-up job I gave him $10. The temps are going back up on Tuesday, so after this melts, I *WILL* be going to get a snowblower.

There was significantly more snow at the higher elevations, over 10" last I heard, and that should help dampen the fires.

It's 1700 now, and 11*, on it's way down to TWO degrees tonight. Gonna be a good night to crank up the fireplace.

Cloudy Day, But No Smoke

 We had a light dusting of snow last night. It was the kind that doesn't come down in flakes, but rather itty-bitty snowballs. The reports from the fire areas indicate they received a couple of inches, which will definitely help.

There's a front coming through tomorrow night, and it's packing some moisture. Last night we had a forecast 50%~80% chance of rain and snow, with possibly an inch of accumulation.

This afternoon the NWS upped the ante quite a bit, calling for an 80%~90% chance of precipitation, but now predicting three to seven inches of accumulation on Sunday.....

Oh, boy.....and I don't have my new snowblower yet! Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda strikes again.

But the USPS delivered all the new electrolytic capacitors for the Heathkit receiver and transmitter, so I'll be able to hang out in the basement and get started on the recommissioning of those two radios.

The set on the left are for the transmitter, and the ones on the right are for the receiver, which I'll do first. When I rebuilt my SB-310 "Shortwave" version of this receiver I think I had about ten hours in it, including replacing the rectifiers in the power supply (3 diodes) and doing a complete alignment on it. This one might take a bit longer as I have some cleaning to do on it, and you never know what you might find when you pull it out of the case and look at the bottom of the chassis.

The four big "Can Capacitors" are new manufacture, made here in the USA in Cedar Rapids, IA, and have higher rated voltages and slightly increased capacitance due to their construction from more modern materials. The smaller capacitors in the bags are also new manufacture, and readily available. The only reason I bought the complete "kits" from the people who make and sell the big cans was just to make it a one-stop transaction.

I'll do a tube inventory of my tube stock and the transmitter, and see what other tubes I need to order besides the 0A2 Voltage Regulator Tube, which I'm 99% sure I don't have. Some of the tubes are common to the receiver, and are used in my Drake and Hallicrafters radios, so I should be well-stocked on those. The 6BZ6 was even used in the radios I worked on while on the Iowa.

I'll rearrange the station desk here in the sunroom so I can use the riser I have to hold another set of radios. It'll be my "Operational Boat Anchor" station, and I'll be able to rotate between the Heathkit, Drake, and Hallicrafters rigs I have.

And Another Smokey "Armageddon" Day

 I agree with Well Seasoned Fool on this.....it's really getting tiresome.

We have two relatively new fires; The CalWood fire South of us by Longmont. and the East Troublesome fire, directly West of there.

The ash fall from this current dump was about the worst it's been. The ash was in bigger pieces, chunky instead of flaky, and a good 1/4" deep on the windshield down by the wipers.

The Cameron Peak fire is the Northernmost one, with the blue line indicating how much is contained. It's around 207,000 acres after the massive 70,000 acre run it did last week. Estimates for lost structures is around 190, and expected to go higher.

The "small" fire South of us is the CalWood fire at about 7,000 acres. This is the one that was blowing smoke across I-25 yesterday.

And the big fire West of that is the East Troublesome fire, currently at well over 125,000 170,000 acres, becoming the second largest fire in Colorado history.

This is pretty much what the CalWood fire looked like coming back from DIA yesterday. Image courtesy of Wildfiretoday.com

Sweet Little Wife was almost crying when she saw it as we drove past.

We're praying for our firefighters, and praying for rain.......

Another Smokey Night.....

 Had to run SLW down to the airport this afternoon, and got to see the two new fires South of us. There's one by Longmont, the Calwood fire, and two more further down by Boldaria, the East Troublesome fire, and the Left Hand Canyon fires. They're further back in the mountains, but are still pumping smoke.

The worst I saw was down by CO-66 on the North edge of Longmont. I could see the smoke drifting across the highway at times, and it was a little unsettling. Coming back from the airport let me see the fires from a different direction, and it looked like mushroom cloud. You could see the wind vortexes swirling the smoke up maybe 10,000' feet high, and it immediately reminded me of the diagrams in my flight manuals from long ago.

The closer fire, the Cameron Peak one, is now over 206,000 acres with 52% containment. The Northeastern lobe of the fire, which affects where the in-laws live is pretty much contained, so the evacuations orders have been lifted, and they can move back in to the homestead. The Southern front of the fires continues to burn, and is rapidly approaching US 34, one of the main roads in and out of Estes Park. US 34 has been washed out and rebuilt several times in the last 15 years or so, and now there's a fire bearing down on it.

The weather forecast is predicting a 30% chance of "Wintry Mix" Thursday night, but there's an 80% forecast of rain and snow for Saturday night. The chances of precipitation improve at higher elevations, so maybe this coming storm can dump enough moisture on it to give the firefighters a break.