What I did today -instead- of Rocketry.

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So
Friends, do you suffer from NDWS, Non-Dedicated Workshop Syndrome. Here at the NDWS Foundation of America, we're dedicated to wiping out this tragic condition that afflicts so many hobbyists, with so many hobbies, in so many communities like yours. Just listen to this, tragic, story:

This brave hobbyist could be your friend, your neighbor, or even yourself. So please give generously to the NDWS Foundation of America. Together, we can wipe wipe out NDWS in our lifetime.

And, if you act now, we'll send you this adorable NDWSFA screwdriver, just to say thanks.

Send your tax deductible donation today to
NDWSFA​
Box 350​
Boston, MA 02134​
So if NDWS raises enough money, can I apply for a grant to convert another room in our house to a workshop? Or is this just an awareness raising organization?
 
Awareness and lobbying. They're trying to raise enough money to subsidize the establishment of local maker spaces and subsidize memberships for the needy. Grants to individuals are not expected in the foreseeably future.
 
All set for the neighborhood 17th of May Parade for Norwegian Constitution Day. Our (historically Scandinavian) neighborhood has the third largest parade in the world, after Oslo and Bergen.
 
Stretched the new 50-ft air hose out in the sun and let it set for 2 hours to soften it up as it was coiled up very tight from the manufacturer. I installed two new ends, 1 on the compressor and one on one end of the air hose, one of my neighbors donated them as he works for a big company in the maintenance department, but the fittings he gave me had male ends on them and I need female ends.
 
When we built this house, I wanted a shop. My wife wanted a pool. So, I use the third bay as a very cramped place to do my thing. Pool was a lot less expensive than the shop I had in mind.
Today I went to physical therapy for my knee. Then took the wife to have her hair done. An hour after we got home, we were off again. This time it was a facial. Then I got a haircut. I'm bushed.
 
I took 2 of my wife's trazadone pills she uses to help go to sleep, which I found out is an anti-depressant. All of that family of drugs has given me major problems. This is the 5th or 6th one
I've tried. This time one of the worst nightmares I've had in a long time, and that's one of the side effects of the drug. 🤬
 
I took 2 of my wife's trazadone pills she uses to help go to sleep, which I found out is an anti-depressant. All of that family of drugs has given me major problems. This is the 5th or 6th one
I've tried. This time one of the worst nightmares I've had in a long time, and that's one of the side effects of the drug. 🤬

My sister is taking a sub-clinical* dose of a similar drug for pain management. She complains of vivid dreams. Heck, I think I might pay extra for that!

*not a high enough dose to act as an antidepressant, but enough for other "side" effects
 
I tried a particular anti-depressant a few years back and it turned me almost completely off coffee :( . I have the occasional one still but sometimes I just don't even enjoy that. The effect has stayed with me even though I ceased that one a couple of years back.
 
My sister is taking a sub-clinical* dose of a similar drug for pain management. She complains of vivid dreams. Heck, I think I might pay extra for that!
You'd regret it. The vivid nightmares are utterly horrible, and the vivid nice dreams can leave you bummed out when you wake up and find they weren't real. I've had the latter bummed out feeling last all day, while the nightmares fade in less than an hour.

@hobie1dog, for what it's worth, which is probably nothing, my vivid dreaming problems occurred when I started on an SSRI (trazadone is a serotonin modulator, so not the same thing but also affecting serotonin) but it was a temporary effect. Very unpleasant, but it stopped within a month.

I tried a particular anti-depressant a few years back and it turned me almost completely off coffee :( . I have the occasional one still but sometimes I just don't even enjoy that. The effect has stayed with me even though I ceased that one a couple of years back.
Many years ago, I went to a psychiatrist who recommended Topamax (topiramate) as a mood stabilizer, though its approved use is an an anti seizure drug. He talked up its weight loss side effect, which sounds good since I'm obese. But I looked into it and found that weight loss comes from the drug taking away the pleasure one takes from food; no thank you. I also found that it causes many people to suffer cognitive impairment. Typical of that was people with epilepsy saying that this was the only drug that stopped their seizures, and becoming an idiot was worth it; no thank you. I discussed it with my primary care provider, who was part of the same large medical group (so she knew him, at least a little). She agreed that it didn't sound like a good idea, while her body language and just two or three words came as close to expressing scorn for him as professionalism allows.

On my third visit, he seemed to have forgotten that we'd had that conversation, and gave me the exact same pitch and wrote out a prescription. I threw out the script and found a new shrink.

(A neurologist later got me to try it for a different issue, and I immediately fell into a depression that was very bad by my standards. I now report it under drug allergies on medical intake forms, explaining face to face that isn't exactly an allergy, but I ain't touching the stuff.)
 
"The big one", as I recall, was the very big one, followed by a few respectably big ones for days thereafter. I sniffed the air one morning on the way to the school bus and could tell there had been a big gas ejection. I was in New Jersey.
 
"The big one", as I recall, was the very big one, followed by a few respectably big ones for days thereafter. I sniffed the air one morning on the way to the school bus and could tell there had been a big gas ejection. I was in New Jersey.
Definitely very big--around 24 MT of energy released and 2.8 cubic kilometers of material ejected from the mountain, about half mud and debris flows and half ejected as ash. We didn't get any ashfall in Seattle because of prevailing winds, but Eastern Washington and Idaho got a lot. Coeur d'Alene ID (where my wife grew up) ended up cancelling school for the rest of the year because they couldn't keep school buses running with the ash in the air and kicked up by other cars on the road. On the day of, my wife was out fishing with her family on a local lake. The sky started getting dark around noon. They hightailed it back to the car thinking that nuclear war had broken out, and just barely made it home before the ash started falling.
 
Took down one of the old garage doors and am in the middle of installing the new one. If I get it done by tomorrow night I'll consider it a victory. Unfortunately the local Lowe's doesn't have the rear hanger kit that wasn't supplied (why not??) with the door. I'll have to drive to Paducah, about an hour, to pick one up from Menards. One disadvantage of living in small-town PartsUnknown, Kentucky.
 
"The big one", as I recall, was the very big one, followed by a few respectably big ones for days thereafter. I sniffed the air one morning on the way to the school bus and could tell there had been a big gas ejection. I was in New Jersey.
If it was also a Wednesday, might that have been the result of a Taco Tuesday in Jersey..? :cheers:
 
42 years ago today, Mt. St. Helens blew her top. Some family slides...

Before:
View attachment 519182

An early eruption in March or April 1980. If I'd been there during the Big One, I'd be dead now.
View attachment 519184

The Big One, as seen from Seattle.
View attachment 519183

The crater a year or two later:
View attachment 519181
The scary bit is that wasn't even considered to be a big eruption as such things go. North America generally doesn't see monster eruptions like Penetubo. Mt. St. Helens was plenty bad enough. I found bits of volcanic ash all over my car a couple of days later in the Denver area.
Jim
 
Went to work.

What was unusual was that with the people assigned to my team today, I felt like an anachronism. The world has changed dramatically for the young adults 7 or 8 years behind me, and it shows. There is no respect for the things that traditionally make men feel joyful, powerful, and connected to one another. They speak to me in their fake customer service voices and suddenly my level of acceptance in the team hit an all-time low.

I took my break far away from them. Thankfully we’ve got another guy coming on shift soon who’s cut from a fabric more similar to my own.
 
42 years ago today, Mt. St. Helens blew her top. Some family slides...
I seem to remember it was 10 cubic kilometers of dirt blown into the air, and 140000 acres of trees just blown over like matchsticks. I went on a jaunt down there in '91 after my ski instructor course in Canada. Amazing to see. They had to put silt control dams in the rivers (Toutle river is what I saw) to control downstream silting. I think they are likely just about at capacity now. I seem to remember they were good for 30-40 years of silt.
 
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I seem to remember it was 10 cubic kilometers of dirt blown into the air, and 140000 acres of trees just blown over like matchsticks. I went on a jaunt down there in '91 after my ski instructor course in Canada. Amazing to see. They had to put silt control dams in the rivers to control downstream silting. I think they are likely just about at capacity now. I seem to remember they were good for 30-40 years of silt.
I was running off of Wikipedia, which never lies. :D Two things really struck me about the damage to the trees. First was that 3-5' diameter tree trunks were laid flat away from the mountain like they were combed down, with all of their branches stripped off. The second was a "shadow" on the second line of ridges back from the mountain. The trees above the line were combed flat. The trees below were still green and healthy.
 
I was running off of Wikipedia, which never lies. :D
I definitely remember the 10 cubic kilometers figure bandied about at the time, but it could have been the volume of the cloud of dust in the air. I would tend to trust Wikipedia, and looking at Google Maps your figure of dirt on the ground has a good degree of merit.
 
I was running off of Wikipedia, which never lies. :D Two things really struck me about the damage to the trees. First was that 3-5' diameter tree trunks were laid flat away from the mountain like they were combed down, with all of their branches stripped off. The second was a "shadow" on the second line of ridges back from the mountain. The trees above the line were combed flat. The trees below were still green and healthy.
My Grandfather was called back out of retirement by the Corps of Engineers to oversee part of the Tootle River cleanup (they lived in Rainier OR at the time).. Some of the easiest fishing we ever did was when WDFW told the crews they had saved all the fish they could and that any of them left in the pools (lots of fish) the crews could harvest however they could no license, no limits. We had so much fish my Mom and Grandmother spent the next 3-4 days canning and freezing fish, mostly Salmon and Steelhead, and at least two nice sized Sturgeon.
 
We were at Lowry AFB in Denver when it went. You could see the ash falling like snow. Covered the car.

Today I went out in the desert with a friend of mine to sight in a scope I put on the AR I built for him. A nice Vortex Strike Eagle 5x25. Also sighted in a Sight Mark laser and light combo on his AR pistol with a brace. And then shot some exploding targets I make. Good clean fun. Boom.
 
First day back at that plane after my days off, and this is the sight I am greeted with when I got to my bird in Chicago this morning…
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Changed out a IDG air/oil cooler air shutoff valve on the #3 engine, then replaced a PRV controller on the #4 engine. Fun times in the life of a aircraft mechanic!
 
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