The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[Rustyoznail]

Oh yes please. Just spent five hours driving home. A large coffee is most welcome.

 

[Duleigh]

Good morning all!
It's been a busy busy week and my writing has been blazing! Getting ready to roll out my books on a second site so you'll be able to find me on Bookapy.com and Draft2Digital.com

More importantly - Coffee's on!

 

[MrPixel]

Thanks for the coffee. Badly needed after a tough night. C wasn't feeling so hot, the dog was being a PITA about wanting attention, and I was flat tired from working on the finish work at our studio. Finally managed to get everybody settled around 0630, and received "permission" to put my head down on the pillow for more than 20 minutes.

Rain is out of here, which means... nothing. Still too wet to mow. It's time for the last mow of the season, which is mostly to mulch leaves. Maybe Tuesday, as tomorrow is a doctor day.

 

[cole4258]

Good morning. It’s sort of a gloomy day here in Texas. But it feels nice outside. Enjoying the day

 

[NotWise]

It's bright and cheery here, not counting the Bronco's result.

 

[Duleigh]

Huge rain here in north Florida, but...


The herd rolls on!!!

 

[MrPixel]

Had a nice romantic lunch at our usual Mex place. It was the mood. Normal mediocre food, but a strong margarita and the relaxation to do a little life planning. Considering our perusing the obit section recently and the shock of losing acquaintances of our age or younger, we're more than happy to appreciate our good health, good circumstances, and the ability to plan our lives 10 and 15 years out. We are blessed, there's no doubt.

So we're good.

 

[dmallord]

while reading your thoughts. Good to see most are well and some still on the mend.

Somewhat stable here though that's not expected to remain so. Takes a lot adjusting to having a caretaker hovering over you.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Lest we forget.

 

[yowser]

Veterans Day

I have posted this bit of poetry before here, but it's been many years and perhaps worth a revisit.

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, Cambridge graduate, British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, died 1915, buried on the Greek island of Skyros.

 

[NotWise]

I made it to the end of my holiday story. It'll take a few more days to finish, but it'll be my first posted story in a year and a half. I'm a little excited about it.

I installed the most recent version of Language Tool for LIbreOffice It's actually called WritingTool now. I was surprised at how few serious errors it found. I've used it for so long now that maybe it has me trained.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I'm hobbling around this morning while waiting to see the doctor. If someone would put the teapot on for me, I'd appreciate it. The sun is up and shining brightly but it is just barely above freezing so I will stay inside today.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Pot is on, and I'm off to bed.

If someone could have some coffee ready in 7.5 hours, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Duleigh]

I spent the day today with some incredible young men and women. They were drone operators from Law Enforcement, Fire/Rescue, and the US Coast Guard. It was the annual Drone Exercise, and we had six stations for each drone team to show off and hopefully improve their skills. They had exercises like locate a lost hiker on the other side of the river, locate a bad guy in a four story tall tower (a cruise ship entry ramp) At my station we had numerous signs with large shapes taped to buckets or laying on the ground. At the start we'd tell them to locate (for example) the green square. Once they have that on their screen then they'd get the next random shape, like a red star. They had 5 shapes to find and were timed. The gang had a riot and their teams names were all call signs from Top Gun.

These guys were incredible. They were flying about 40 feet up to avoid obstacles and using their camera's zoom to find the required shape. The average was about 4 minutes but the team from Nassau County FL smoked everyone else - the winner was from Nassau County and found his five shapes in one minute two seconds.

This is an incredible tool and an amazing skill. These drones can be used to locate lost children, find hot spots in building that have smoke pouring from the windows, spot shooters and game poachers, survey areas damaged in hurricanes, and remap areas for the tax assessor.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Good news is that I didn't tear my ACL. Just injured it so I just need to rest it and ice it up for a few days.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I, well, work have a DJI Phantom 4 pro drone. It's used for surveys, roof and other condition inspections, photos for tourism, inspections after floods...

It's actually pretty boring to fly, not like the old remote control aircraft which would bury itself in the ground if you took your eye of it for a millisecond.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

...
This is an incredible tool and an amazing skill. These drones can be used to locate lost children, find hot spots in building that have smoke pouring from the windows, spot shooters and game poachers, survey areas damaged in hurricanes, and remap areas for the tax assessor.

'Drone shepherd' is predicted to be a big growth area for jobs over the next 20 years. An example of one generation having job titles their parents had never even heard of.

 

[MrPixel]

...not like the old remote control aircraft which would bury itself in the ground if you took your eye of it for a millisecond.

Recalls two Christmases ago when the next-door neighbor's grandson was gifted with a drone. Their get-together was dinner with gift exchange afterwards, and the child simply had to try it out immediately. Outside they go, to the schoolyard we live next to. It's dark, obviously. We weren't part of the festivities, but were out in our backyard amused by the folderal. Five minutes of buzzing, and apparently one of the adults requested a halt to the play because, after all, it's dark, and cold. Apparently, and understandably, no instructions were read. Kid evidently pushed the "home" button... without having set it before liftoff.

And there it goes. Gone. My guess is the GPS "home" was still in China. May as well have been, they looked for it for about a half-hour and gave up.

 

[Duleigh]

the old remote control aircraft which would bury itself in the ground if you took your eye of it for a millisecond

That is why I never got into remote control aircraft as a hobby. Any hobby where you could kiss goodbye to a month's paycheck with a sneeze was nothing I'd ever try. You'd have to be real creative with your destructive talents to do that in Model Railroading.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

And there it goes. Gone. My guess is the GPS "home" was still in China. May as well have been, they looked for it for about a half-hour and gave up.

I had precisely the same thing happen with one of my grandspawn. Oops.

 

[MrPixel]

You'd have to be real creative with your destructive talents to do that in Model Railroading.

Gomez Addams.

I dunno. Our club layout for train shows has a lift gate drawbridge for the less-agile to access the space inside the big loop. We had one member with vision issues who flung open the gate with a train on it. The arcing trajectory of the just-purchased locomotive (not his!) was quite impressive.

 

[Duleigh]

Gomez Addams.

I loved those scenes, and I've been switching to Lionel over the past couple of years (O27 is tough on the pocketbook but easier to see) All I need is half a pound of C4 and an ignition source...

 

[MrPixel]

It was actually a single clip they used over and over. Fun, anyway.

 

[NotWise]

"Deal is a Deal" is in. I probably have the commas in the right places but overlooked something so glaringly obvious that everyone will see it but me.

 

[MillieDynamite]

So, this walking crap is unpredictable. I feel better today but have no appetite. Even so, I forced myself to eat breakfast. Well, dry cereal with very little milk.