08:52 – Barbara’s been gone 24 hours, and Colin and I are already descending into barbarism, filth, and squalor. Last night, we stalked, pounced, and killed our dinner and ate it raw. That frozen Stouffer’s chicken and brocolli pasta bake never knew what hit it. It was kind of crunchy, though. Next time, we may heat it first. All of Barbara’s training is not lost on us, however. I’m doing a load of laundry as I write this, and later I’ll clean the toilets.
I have all but two of the solutions I need for a new batch of 60 biology kits made up, and most of the bottles filled. I’ll make up three liters each of the 6 molar hydrochloric acid and 6 molar sodium hydroxide solutions today and try to finish bottling everything. Tomorrow I’ll build a dozen or two biology kits and then get to work on what I need to build more chemistry and forensic kits. As expected, kit sales have started to tail off a bit. Some days, we ship six or eight kits and other days none or one. We’re still averaging about three a day, but that’s starting to decline. In October/November, we’ll probably average 1.5/day and then jump back up to around two a day in December.
10:18 – I’m getting a bit concerned about Katie Dugan, who’s my rep at one of our wholesalers, American Educational Products. She’s a delightful young woman, and I talk with her regularly, most recently a day or two before the flooding started. AmEP is in Fort Collins, Colorado, which until this morning I thought was not one of the worst-affected areas. The news reports kept talking about Boulder, but this morning I saw one that mentioned that Fort Collins and its county have more than 350 people unaccounted for, which is the bulk of those unaccounted for. I hope Katie and her new husband are okay.
Phew! We’re saved. The planet’s going to hell at only half the rate we thought:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Global-warming-just-HALF-said-Worlds-climate-scientists-admit-computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Do *not* annoy these bridesmaids and bride:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yy63q5rpu153va7/1236895_516406321777122_2095216595_n.jpg
The one on the far left doesn’t look like she’s serious.
Reminds me of when Barbara and I were first married. She found one of my pistols (loaded, of course) and brought it to me, dangling from her thumb and forefinger like a dead rat. I quickly decided I’d better get her enrolled in a pistol course so that she could learn to handle firearms safely and shoot them properly.
She did pretty well, although she eventually decided she preferred my Ruger .357. The .45 and .44 pistols were just too much for her to handle. I thought that was strange, because the recoil of a .45 ACP or .44 Special is actually easier to handle than a full-bore .357. The former are more like a push rather than the sharp jolt of the .357.
If the grooms had been in black instead of gray I’d figure them for Secret Service. Except the dude with the facial hair. Das ist verboten.
Apparently some kind of festivities in the park behind us last night, with fireworks off the pier again. Two live bands rocking from late afternoon until near midnight, about a hundred yards from our back porch but we can’t see them due to trees and brush between. No idea what this was, other than maybe the rain-checked event that didn’t go off a week or two ago for the 250th anniversary of the town’s land grant signings. Doesn’t bother me, but I imagine my elderly women neighbors weren’t exactly thrilled; these birds hit the sack at 8 or 9, latest. But this will probably be it for noise and activities for this year; Labor Day has come and gone and the leaves are turning faster and nights are in the fotties and dropping; first frost can’t be fah behind and summuh will be ovuh in just a week.
I’ve spent a lot of time in both Boulder and Ft. Collins over the years. I would have assumed that both were far enough away from the mountains proper that they wouldn’t have been affected as they have. Having said that, Bob’s post reminded me that, several years ago, shortly after I was on the CSU campus for a fortnight or so, Ft. Collins was hit by floods that had books floating out of the student bookstore in/on a river of floodwater.
If the grooms had been in black instead of gray I’d figure them for Secret Service. Except the dude with the facial hair. Das ist verboten.
I’ve seen Secret Service with facial hair. There was one wandering the tourist areas at JSC when Dan Quayle came to make a speech. I spotted him in the area, and he later walked up to a female agent and talked with her. He had long hair, but I saw the wire for an earbug coming out of his shirt. The female agent appeared to have an Uzi on a sling under her too-large business jacket, and a pistol on the other side. Saw the outlines when she turned and the jacket tightened up. Her suit, shades and earbug gave her away. As well as standing with a male agent by the entrance the VP used.
When Reagan came for the Challenger memorial, he spoke from the front of the building I had an office in. We were outside the building, waiting for the metal detectors to be opened and saw a lot of the preparations. Dogs were brought in to check out all the trash cans outside, cops everywhere, snipers on top of the main admin building. At one point a Suburban drove up and 2 young and one older gentleman with short hair, khakis, and polos got out and unloaded three large cases and a duffle then went into our building. At one point about an hour later, after Pres. Reagan arrived, a small plane wandered into the area. A police chopper on standby at the JSC pad took off after it. And I looked on our building and saw the three gentlemen, in Army camos. The older one had binoculars, one had what looked like a sniper rifle, and one had a Stinger, all pointed at the plane. The plane reversed course and headed away, with a police chopper escort.
Too funny not to share
I am familiar with that site; it has had me ROFLMAO a few times already.
You’ve seen a lot more of the SS than I ever did; I heard them one night on my pre-banned-freqs scanner, when Ford was Prez. They were about two miles away and also conferring with AF One.
Well my Aggies got outscored by Bama yesterday. But Johnny Football still scored the most points on Bama in 5 years? And JF got his youtube moment for 2013:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2aGKpWwENo
I love Over the Hedge!
http://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2013/09/15
On the rare instances when my wife is gone, I joke about how TV dinners don’t work anymore. Not only does our LED backlit TV not throw out enough heat to cook a TV dinner, but you can’t even balance the TV dinner on top of the TV any more.
Last night, we stalked, pounced, and killed our dinner and ate it raw. That frozen Stouffer’s chicken and brocolli pasta bake never knew what hit it.
BTW, that was funny!
Not only does our LED backlit TV not throw out enough heat to cook a TV dinner, but you can’t even balance the TV dinner on top of the TV any more.
This LED stuff is awesome and getting better all the time. The only problem with the LED stuff is that it is BRIGHT! I have a cataract and a major floater in the right eye and the LED light seems to make it worse. And, yes, I am considering having the floater surgery but I do not like the published 50% failure rate. But I have had the floater for over a year now with zero improvement. It blocks about 1/4 of my vision and stays centered very well.
I bought my daughter a 26″ LED TV recently and the power draw is only 30 watts. That is amazing power management considering that there is a cpu in there and a graphics chip (I guess) along with the screen illumination.
I thought Bob’s favourite and most famous recipe was tuna in oil, with extra oil.