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Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 02 Sep 2019, 00:53:10
by Cog
There appears to be a hole in your boat. I do not recommend letting Gilligan help you repair it. ;)

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 02 Sep 2019, 07:05:04
by Newfie
Too late for that, Gilligan did the repair! 8O

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 09 Sep 2019, 08:18:46
by Ibon
This has nothing to do with resource depletion of peak oil. A documentary on the birds of north eastern Colombia. Worth watching to see what still remains pristine in our natural world. Well done also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9& ... DaSvH3eboc

Onlooker, que lindo tu pais!

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 09 Sep 2019, 22:20:11
by onlooker
I did visit Colombia in my early 20's. Yes, Ibon beautiful is inspiring, Speaking of which so is altruism

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/afte ... d-n1050796

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 10 Sep 2019, 12:38:06
by Plantagenet
Prof. Katherine Keyhoe, a climatologist from Texas Tech is visiting the University here in Alaska and gave a wonderfully positive talk about climate change yesterday evening. She is the lead author of the US National Climate Assessment, a federally mandated review of US climate and climate change, available free on-line.

nca2018.globalchange.gov

She also specializes in doing hyper-local climate predictions, and under the "high" future scenario she showed central Alaska might see winter temps go up by 20°F by 2100. Her focus was on resilience, i.e. the idea that we can retreat and fortify and adjust and have a decent life going forward even as climate changes.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 10 Sep 2019, 14:36:24
by Ibon
Plantagenet wrote: under the "high" future scenario she showed central Alaska might see winter temps go up by 20°F by 2100. .


That's great news Plant. Start your cherry, apple, apricot, peach, pear and apple seedlings.

If you add a few more flights to your itinerary contact me and I can send you mango seeds.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 10 Sep 2019, 19:32:43
by Newfie
We got through Dorian with minimal damage. It pushed over an 8’ apple tree. But for some reasons the tree seems to have almost no root structure at all. Never grew apples before but enough other trees to think this very weird. Anyway I’ve got it back up and tied to 4 posts, maybe I’ll save it.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Sun 15 Sep 2019, 17:29:32
by Newfie
When Wife bought bought her garden patch it had this big hole in one corner. Someone had, many years ago, taken out about 60-70 yards of fill. They had sorted out the rocks and topsoil. It’s kind of ugly and because of the slope not much grows there.

So I resurrected the rocks from the sod, built a couple of stone walls, and filled behind them with the old scraped off top soil. The hope is that with some better soil, stabilized, we can grow some veggies down there. It gets good sun and is out of the wind. With that protection maybe we can extend the season a month or so.

Image

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 16 Sep 2019, 01:50:13
by Plantagenet
Ibon wrote:
Plantagenet wrote: under the "high" future scenario she showed central Alaska might see winter temps go up by 20°F by 2100. .


That's great news Plant. Start your cherry, apple, apricot, peach, pear and apple seedlings.

If you add a few more flights to your itinerary contact me and I can send you mango seeds.


Sorry.....even at 20°F warmer mangoes aren't going to grow here.

But I'd be happy to return the favor to you. I'll send you some cacti for your property down there in Panama so you'll be ready for the global heating you're going to see. Given your former status as a "million miler frequent flyer" there's no doubt you deserve them.

Cheers!

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 17 Sep 2019, 02:17:02
by Cog
Weigh in today 199.5. Six months it took to lose 40 lbs. Goal weight is 190 and then to see if I want to go lower.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 17 Sep 2019, 07:08:36
by Newfie
Congrats,

It’s a hard row.

I’m weighing in under 210, not too bad, but not fighting from either.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Sat 21 Sep 2019, 13:59:28
by The_Toecutter
I just got a potential lead on a job installing burglar alarms. I'll know more next week. Should I make money by landing this job, I will finally be able to return to working on my alternative fueled vehicle projects.

This electric velomobile I'm building will use about 1/20th the energy of a Nissan Neaf for like for like operating conditions, be capable of exceeding any U.S. speed limit, operable faster than a normal bicycle under pedal-only mode with the motor disabled, and could be operated for a few pennies for every 100 miles of travel. It can also be picked up by hand and carried into an apartment.

With the right design, "happy motoring" doesn't have to be a resource hog, and the same principles that apply to this velomobile also can apply to a car. I'm sure there would be a market niche for something like this if it was faster than almost any car you could buy as well as being cheaper than any car you could buy, and you'd be able to fit 3 or 4 of them in the space occupied by one midsized car.

Of course, the main impediments to something like this entering the market would be laws restricting e-bikes and/or government regulations on automobiles. But as material sciences improve, there is absolutely no reason something like this couldn't have comparable safety to a modern car in a wreck.

When I finish this prototype(including roll cage structure), I plan to tour the U.S. with it. I'll be able to cross the country on less than $1.00 worth of electricity, and could add some pedal input to it if desired.

The benefit to pedaling your transportation is the ability to eat like a horse and stay slim. I just weighed myself today and am at 139 lbs, and trying to gain weight is difficult to impossible no matter how much I eat. Of course, there is a downside that comes with eating like a horse: crapping like one too. :P

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Sat 28 Sep 2019, 05:25:04
by Newfie
Speaking of food and mixed blessings....I’ve been going through one of my gout/arthritis attacks in my feet for a bit. It’s probably a combination of getting dehydrated while building my stone terrace, feasting in fresh squid for a week, and having my 94yo aunt making us a big feast of bully beef and flipper. But how can you not engage with gusto and then not suffer with too much agony knowing how lucky you are and how inconsequential the pain is in the bigger scope of life?

So I’m drinking like a fish and peeing like an infant trying to get past this. Of course now I’m also on a long road trip so the McPee stops are deeply cutting into my average MPH made good. Will be back in the states about noon. Ug! But only until Oct 17, then we are free again, Grenada bound!

Such is life. :-D

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 30 Sep 2019, 00:07:08
by rockdoc123
.
I’ve been going through one of my gout/arthritis attacks in my feet for a bit


drinking more water is good but you likely have to intervene a bit more aggressively, at least that has been my experience...
I got hit with this bizarre disease (isn't this something people only got back in the 17th century?) awhile ago after surgery for something unrelated. Seems that is somewhat common but not explainable at this point in time. Hydration is certainly important the reason being is it tends to help flush the excess uric acid out of your system. But if your system is producing excess uric acid then there is still a problem.
What actually works is when it hits then colchicine 2 tablets, wait an hour and another tablet then next day 1 tablet in the morning and another tablet at night, do that for a couple of days then down to 1 tablet for a couple of days until it settles down (colchicine is an anti-inflammatory that is used successfully for gout). But over the longer term, you need to take allopurinol which helps the system eliminate excess uric acid. It is possible after taking allopurinol for a period of time that you will sort your system out and you won't have to worry too much about eating shellfish or changing your diet too much. Could just be a momentary screwup in the way your system handles uric acid.
On a bigger scale, it is probably saying something about inflammation in your system. I'm pretty sure that is what happened to me but doubt it is something universal. I now eat two or three cloves of garlic (slice it up as that releases the right stuff) each day. It is a natural anti-inflammatory and seems to be working for me. But I guess your mileage will vary.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 30 Sep 2019, 09:31:37
by Newfie
Yes, it’s some kind of inflammation issue, Drs. are worthless.

Cherries are a known preventative.
Blueberries, especially when mixed with walnuts (research sponsored by the Maine Blueberry Council) are good anti-inflammatory.
2 ibuprophen in the AM normally keep it in check.

Alipurinal, allergic!

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 30 Sep 2019, 15:15:12
by Pops
Gout sucks.
I eat lots of fat and protein just because it's easier to deal with that carbs and have a little bout of gout from time to time.
Gout is from uric acid that crystalizes in the joints and that's just what it feels like, glass shards.
I think drink more water, less alcohol, cut back on meats & fats, add fibre to fill up.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Mon 30 Sep 2019, 17:12:25
by rockdoc123
check out Febuxostat it is prescribed as an alternative to Allopurinol

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 22 Oct 2019, 18:49:57
by Ibon
Our month off went by fast, we are back to Panama tomorrow already. So I was in the lobby of this lodge in Yellowstone National Park the other day and met this lovely lady from Lafayette Louisiana. She was 81 years old and visiting her daughter who works for the park service. She sat down and started chatting. She and her husband are rice farmers and harvest crawdads in Lafayette. They grow one crop of rice a year and then after harvest they wait for the temperature of the water to drop a bit and then flood their rice fields.. Crayfish come out of burrows and breed and when fully developed her husband goes out in their crawdad boat and sets bait for the crayfish which they harvest until well into winter when cold water temperatures make the crawfish return to their burrows. And so the seasons have passed in her life for 80 years since her daddy also grew rice. She mentioned that she is worried for her husband being out there all alone at 82 in his crawdad boat but as she said that is when he is in his glory. She looked me in the eye and said he may well one day die in that boat.

She then mentioned how they drain the swamp when the crawdads burrow to get the season ready for rice planting. And she looked at me closely and said when that damn Trump said he was going to drain the swamp I knew there was trouble brewing. You know what you get when you drain the swamp? SLIME .

She made me smile.

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Tue 22 Oct 2019, 19:03:47
by Newfie
LOL :-D

Re: Happy Talk

Unread postPosted: Wed 23 Oct 2019, 20:08:24
by The_Toecutter
I've managed to snag a low-paying job washing dishes/mopping floors/cleaning crappers at a restaurant early this month. I applied to this job 3 months ago and was told that I was one of hundreds of people who applied to it. The only reason I got it was because my sister works there. It is a job that leaves me underemployed given I have an electrical engineering degree and nearly 10 years of experience as an engineer, but it is what I could get after more than 1,200 applications to various positions, related to my field and not. If the economy were really "booming", it would not have taken someone with my qualifications 1,200+ job applications over 18 months just to end up washing dishes. But here I am...

As crappy as this job is, I'm glad to have it. It means I won't be ending up homeless or having to worry that my disabled mother will be losing her house. I got this job just in time. I didn't go broke, but I was close, and that first check I got, pitiful as it was, made all the difference. It's a good thing I saved my money up when I was well paid at an engineering firm, and had the discipline not to spend it on the things I wanted, tempting as it was to reward myself for my hard work.

Over the next few months I'll be able to buy the components needed to convert that velomobile I built to an electric drive vehicle, and should I not find a better paying job, I'll be able to finish the electric Triumph GT6 over the next year, assuming I keep this job.

I'm going to keep applying to jobs in my field though, as the pay for one of those, should I land one, is normally a LOT better than what I'm making now(barring of course those firms who want to pay McJob wages for engineering work, then when no one takes it, complain to the government they need H1B Visas, but that's another topic altogether, and the reason the Boeing 737 Max planes had faulty software made by $9/hr software engineers that killed hundreds of people while Americans who would have done those jobs for fair pay were ignored).