The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[MillieDynamite]

I meant the tour you were at!

 

[Duleigh]

It was video recorded, I hope they do release it. It was the main show at the 2024 Norsk Høstfest (pronounced Hoostefest) so the auditorium was full of Garrison Keillors favorite targets - Lutheran Norwegians. Lots of coffee jokes. We even had 3 singalongs - My Country 'tis Of Thee, I Saw Her Standing There, and When Peace, Like A River. Norwegians don't sing loud, but we were all on key.

 

[NotWise]

I'm back from a few days in Rapid City. I forget sometimes how beautiful the area is, and then there's this:

 

[Duleigh]

The weather has been spectacular here in the Dakotas but tomorrow it goes back to being normal. The leaves are changing and the high is expected to be 60 degrees (15.5C) so it's time to head back to the deep south.

 

[MrPixel]

The weather has been spectacular here in the Dakotas but tomorrow it goes back to being normal. The leaves are changing and the high is expected to be 60 degrees (15.5C) so it's time to head back to the deep south.

Really thinking about this for you. Hope everything is where you left it. Your neighbors haven't been so lucky.

 

[Duleigh]

Really thinking about this for you. Hope everything is where you left it. Your neighbors haven't been so lucky.

Over by Tampa, where Campus77 used to live, got hit pretty hard from what I heard. But my little version of Lake Woebegone fared well. Some wind, a few trees came down, power was out for 12 hours and that was it. Mrs. D was there to report any damage to our land. The dogs are fine but it's an even money bet that she might have found a new dog to add to her herd.

 

[NotWise]

I picked the last of the Charentais melons. Two of them were overripe and split before I brought them in, and I kept only 1/2 - 3/4 of those melons. If I grow these melons again I'll have to figure out a better way to judge when they're ripe. I used the method that works for regular cantaloupe, but that wasn't good enough.

The Chanterais produce a large number of small melons per vine. I like that feature, but I might need an option other than Chanterais.

 

[NotWise]

View attachment 2400368

The weather has been spectacular here in the Dakotas but tomorrow it goes back to being normal. The leaves are changing and the high is expected to be 60 degrees (15.5C) so it's time to head back to the deep south.

In the Black Hills, cottonwood (lower elevations) and aspen (higher elevations) were turning yellow. There were also any number of shrubs that were turning red or yellow. Color was probably only about 50%--maybe more in the north and high on Black Elk Peak.

I'd never been on Vanocker Canyon Road, but I drove it because people say the fall colors there are spectacular. There were a few groves that were all lit up, but for the most part it didn't justify the trip. Maybe this weekend will be better, but I won't be there.

Fall colors are supposed to be near their peak when we're in Detroit in mid-October.

 

[Duleigh]

Fall colors in Minot were at their peak yesterday, because today we had 50 MPH winds clean off many of the trees. The leaves in ND don't get much color other than gold. There's red in the valley where folks planted ornamental trees (Japanese maples are the brightest) but cottonwoods dominate the shelterbelts. It's time to head home where the leaves on the Live Oaks won't be changing for about six more months

Eastbound Empire Builder, Amtrak Train #8 nearing Devil's Lake ND

 

[Duleigh]

I stepped off the train in Wynona MN for some fresh air and walked up to the head end and found this. A Siemens Charger ALC-42, A brand new (relatively) locomotive. Behind that is a 30 year old GE Genesis locomotive that's been hauling trains since 1992

 

[MrPixel]

View attachment 2401223
I stepped off the train in Wynona MN for some fresh air and walked up to the head end and found this. A Siemens Charger ALC-42, A brand new (relatively) locomotive. Behind that is a 30 year old GE Genesis locomotive that's been hauling trains since 1992

Shady side, D, shady side. GD&R!

 

[Duleigh]

Shady side, D, shady side. GD&R!

I couldn't get to the other side. Just as I got to this point he blew his whistle letting me know he was going to release the brakes any moment. I had to dash back to the first sleeper and and get on then I walked the length of the train.

 

[MrPixel]

I couldn't get to the other side. Just as I got to this point he blew his whistle letting me know he was going to release the brakes any moment. I had to dash back to the first sleeper and and get on then I walked the length of the train.

Tha's okay. Been in that position plenty of times. Those special "Oh, crap!" moments.

 

[Duleigh]

Tha's okay. Been in that position plenty of times. Those special "Oh, crap!" moments.

I got to do some "Recliner railfanning" As this untouched photo will show, my son's house is a bit close to the BNSF KO Subdivision main line

​

 

[NotWise]

We once rented a condo in Gulfport. MS that was across a parking lot from the main line to/from the port. The trains were loud and frequent. It felt like that photo looks.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Happy Wrensday everyone! (Not my pic, but by a local photographer).

 

[NotWise]

I packed up most of the e-waste I could find in my home office: the old computer and keyboard, four mice, speakers, RAM, WiFi and television cards, a hard drive, cords, fans, etc. Not counting the old 50-inch plasma TV, it fills the box the new computer came in. Now I need to find some recycler to take it. I'd love to find one that would take the TV, but I'll probably have to pay to get rid of that.

Among the miscellaneous cords there was a set of audio patch cables that connected the speaker system I replaced last year. Those cords were ridiculously expensive, so even though I have no need for them, they got put into a bag with other keeper cables.

 

[MrPixel]

Fortunately our local recycling agency takes e-waste, and I have a boatload of it that needs to be pitched. And, yeah, I'll bet you'll have to pay to dispose of that TV. The recyclers here will take CRT TVs and monitors, but at a price - $20, I think. I saw the handwriting some 20 years ago and made very sure to toss the CRT stuff back when it was free and you were encouraged to do so. That I was living in California at the time may have had something to do with it.

Are you talking about those "monster" super-braided cables? I am somewhat familiar with the physics principles that supposedly make them "superior" for audio, but can you really hear the difference? I'm a musician, and I can't. But I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with very-high-end audio. It's currently "on", but only by virtue of a good friend's hand-me-downs. He "upgrades" like every five years. I have a pair of his planar electrostatic speakers in the studio needing a little TLC - they were $25K for the pair 15 years ago. However, I will admit the one time I was able to get them to both work at the same time, the imaging effect was phenomenal if you sat in their sweet spot. "Accurate", my buddy called them.

My current dilemma is disk drives. I'm no dummy, even security-erase formatting still leaves flux traces that can be forensically recovered if somebody was so inclined. The drive must be destroyed to be truly secure. My previous solution has been a 1/2" bit in a drill press to drill at least three holes through the rotating media, but that was a fraught process. I need somebody to shred the drives.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Happy Wrensday everyone! (Not my pic, but by a local photographer).

View attachment 2401507

Oz has the prettiest birds.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Hey, Rusty, any word from HP of late?

 

[Rustyoznail]

Hey, Rusty, any word from HP of late?

Not for a couple of weeks. I'm sending him a bottle or two of Aussie tawny port to help him recover.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Pray tell him he’s missed.

 

[NotWise]

Fortunately our local recycling agency takes e-waste, and I have a boatload of it that needs to be pitched. And, yeah, I'll bet you'll have to pay to dispose of that TV. The recyclers here will take CRT TVs and monitors, but at a price - $20, I think. I saw the handwriting some 20 years ago and made very sure to toss the CRT stuff back when it was free and you were encouraged to do so. That I was living in California at the time may have had something to do with it.

Are you talking about those "monster" super-braided cables? I am somewhat familiar with the physics principles that supposedly make them "superior" for audio, but can you really hear the difference? I'm a musician, and I can't. But I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with very-high-end audio. It's currently "on", but only by virtue of a good friend's hand-me-downs. He "upgrades" like every five years. I have a pair of his planar electrostatic speakers in the studio needing a little TLC - they were $25K for the pair 15 years ago. However, I will admit the one time I was able to get them to both work at the same time, the imaging effect was phenomenal if you sat in their sweet spot. "Accurate", my buddy called them.

My current dilemma is disk drives. I'm no dummy, even security-erase formatting still leaves flux traces that can be forensically recovered if somebody was so inclined. The drive must be destroyed to be truly secure. My previous solution has been a 1/2" bit in a drill press to drill at least three holes through the rotating media, but that was a fraught process. I need somebody to shred the drives.

The cables were just standard stereo patch cables. The three of them together cost about $100 at BestBuy. My only guess is that they have become niche, so the maker can name their price.

I paid $5 each to dispose of my collection of CRTs. It was worth the money, but when I last checked it would have cost me $200 to get rid of the plasma. So it sits until I either run out of patience (which will happen soon) or I find a cheaper alternative.

I disposed of some old hard drives a few years ago. The recycler advertised secure disposal. I wondered how that worked, so I paid a small secure-disposal fee for one of them, and watched. They put it into a machine, noises were made, and it came out on a conveyor belt in pieces about the size of a silver dollar. I'm not concerned about the hard drive I'm getting rid of now. It was the system drive in an entertainment center that resided in the living room. The data drive from that system sits in a dock to my right and contains much of my little music collection.

I've started factoring disposal costs into my electronics purchases.

 

[NotWise]

It turns out that Goodwill has an agreement with a local e-waste recycler, and I just dropped my big, heavy box of everything off at a nearby Goodwill donation center. Also, the e-waste recycler did drop the cost of recycling LCD TVs, so I can dispose of the TV at a more reasonable price. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm surprised the ewaste doesn't take the TV for free. There was an article in a recycling magazine (well, emailed pdf) about how much gold ewaste recyclers recover per week. It's not insignificant.

They like older tech as the plating is thicker.