Thursday, March 31, 2016
Paradise water...
Paradise water... The Paradise irrigation water company had their annual shareholder's meeting, which I attended along with a motley collection of geezers and their wives, and a couple of token youngsters (aka people under 50). Unlike the predictably contentious meeting last year, when a water shortage loomed, this years meeting was very cheerful. Porcupine Reservoir is almost certain to fill to the brim this year, barring a giant meteorite strike or catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone. That means that all the farmers are sure to get their full allotment of irrigation water, and that of course means contented farmers.
So we zoomed through all the formalities of reading and accepting last year's minutes, a status report, and opening the floor for questions. There was much good humor, even though there were no free donuts this time. Even the election of three new Board members was done to general good cheer and no contention, with just one candidate for each of the three districts. By the time we got around to the last one, we were all tired of the process and we just re-elected the existing Board member by acclamation – didn't even bother with the nomination :)
The most interesting bit to me was the review of the financial statement. The small scale of this water company amazes me. Their total expenses for the year (which includes assessments for their share of the Porcupine Reservoir itself and the High Line water delivery canal) are well under $100,000 – and they've got over 6 months of expenses in the bank. Things like the accountant's fee ($400) are significant enough, proportionally, to be on their own line on the annual P&L. Such a tiny little enterprise ... and yet there are hundreds of people whose livelihoods are utterly dependent on it. Of course the biggest reason why it's so inexpensive to run this little water company is that it's not a government enterprise – it's basically a formalized cooperative, a non-profit mutual benefit society. As such it has huge incentives for reducing costs, and every shareholder is cognizant of that.
One can only imagine what would happen if the government were to take over. Here in Utah, my guess would be a trebling of expenses. In California, it would easily be much more than that. They spent $3.5 million building a bridge over a creek on a two lane road – some California bureaucrat would look at this water company as an opportunity to build an empire, and soon we'd have office buildings, platoons of administrators, unions everywhere, etc., etc. My guess would be something like 100x the current expenses of Paradise Irrigation.
I love living here!
So we zoomed through all the formalities of reading and accepting last year's minutes, a status report, and opening the floor for questions. There was much good humor, even though there were no free donuts this time. Even the election of three new Board members was done to general good cheer and no contention, with just one candidate for each of the three districts. By the time we got around to the last one, we were all tired of the process and we just re-elected the existing Board member by acclamation – didn't even bother with the nomination :)
The most interesting bit to me was the review of the financial statement. The small scale of this water company amazes me. Their total expenses for the year (which includes assessments for their share of the Porcupine Reservoir itself and the High Line water delivery canal) are well under $100,000 – and they've got over 6 months of expenses in the bank. Things like the accountant's fee ($400) are significant enough, proportionally, to be on their own line on the annual P&L. Such a tiny little enterprise ... and yet there are hundreds of people whose livelihoods are utterly dependent on it. Of course the biggest reason why it's so inexpensive to run this little water company is that it's not a government enterprise – it's basically a formalized cooperative, a non-profit mutual benefit society. As such it has huge incentives for reducing costs, and every shareholder is cognizant of that.
One can only imagine what would happen if the government were to take over. Here in Utah, my guess would be a trebling of expenses. In California, it would easily be much more than that. They spent $3.5 million building a bridge over a creek on a two lane road – some California bureaucrat would look at this water company as an opportunity to build an empire, and soon we'd have office buildings, platoons of administrators, unions everywhere, etc., etc. My guess would be something like 100x the current expenses of Paradise Irrigation.
I love living here!
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Devil-spawn in Paradise...
Devil-spawn in Paradise... After having a nice cup of tea late this morning, I took my cup down to the kitchen sink and washed it out with hot water. Well, I tried to – but there was no hot water! After asking Debbie if she'd noticed the hot water wasn't working (no, she hadn't), I headed down to the basement to see what disaster had befallen our hot water heater. At this point it's the only thing left in our “mechanical room” that hasn't been replaced, so my assumption was it had died.
On my way down the stairs, Debbie hollered down to ask if perchance the water was running in the cattery sink. Why, yes it was. It then turned out that Konani (our newest addition) had previously been suspected of turning on the faucets so he could play in the water. Apparently he turned on the hot water this time – and drained the entire tank of hot water!
I thought of a way to kitten-proof the faucets, by strapping a bungee cord around the handles (first photo below). I pulled out our container of bungees and went to work. Meanwhile, Devil-spawn (aka Konani, second photo below) decided to spill the bungees onto the floor, and as fast as he could distribute them to the far corners of his universe. This caused me to remember all sorts of words and terms that I have exercised only infrequently since leaving the U.S. Navy, lo these many moons ago. I spent 10 seconds kitten-proofing the faucet, and 10 minutes gathering bungees, some of which were in the next zip code. The whole time I was doing this, Devil-spawn was riding on my slipper, chewing and clawing as fast as he could. I think he was trying to fell me. My words, which would have scorched any mortal being, had no discernible effect on him.
Oh, and the hot water heater works just fine.
On my way down the stairs, Debbie hollered down to ask if perchance the water was running in the cattery sink. Why, yes it was. It then turned out that Konani (our newest addition) had previously been suspected of turning on the faucets so he could play in the water. Apparently he turned on the hot water this time – and drained the entire tank of hot water!
I thought of a way to kitten-proof the faucets, by strapping a bungee cord around the handles (first photo below). I pulled out our container of bungees and went to work. Meanwhile, Devil-spawn (aka Konani, second photo below) decided to spill the bungees onto the floor, and as fast as he could distribute them to the far corners of his universe. This caused me to remember all sorts of words and terms that I have exercised only infrequently since leaving the U.S. Navy, lo these many moons ago. I spent 10 seconds kitten-proofing the faucet, and 10 minutes gathering bungees, some of which were in the next zip code. The whole time I was doing this, Devil-spawn was riding on my slipper, chewing and clawing as fast as he could. I think he was trying to fell me. My words, which would have scorched any mortal being, had no discernible effect on him.
Oh, and the hot water heater works just fine.
Paradise ponders...
Paradise ponders... We woke up to a couple more inches of snow this morning. In the photos below, note particularly the size of the pile of snow that fell off the barn's roof (the pile off the house is even bigger!):
I took those just before I went into the barn to start painting the trailer sides. Here's what it looked like before and after I got the first coat of primer on:
That's 90 minutes worth of painting there, because I used a brush. It's going to take a total of 6 steps to paint these, because I have to paint each side with one coat of primer and two top coats. It works best, I've learned, if I flip the pieces in between each coat – but that means I have to wait longer between coats, so that the coat I just did is hard enough to stand up to resting on the rails. I'm going to try priming the second side later this afternoon; we'll see if that was a bright move a bit later :)
I took those just before I went into the barn to start painting the trailer sides. Here's what it looked like before and after I got the first coat of primer on:
That's 90 minutes worth of painting there, because I used a brush. It's going to take a total of 6 steps to paint these, because I have to paint each side with one coat of primer and two top coats. It works best, I've learned, if I flip the pieces in between each coat – but that means I have to wait longer between coats, so that the coat I just did is hard enough to stand up to resting on the rails. I'm going to try priming the second side later this afternoon; we'll see if that was a bright move a bit later :)
The latest North Korean propaganda film...
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
It's still snowing in Paradise...
It's still snowing in Paradise ... and it gives every indication of doing so all night and all day tomorrow. We've got about eight inches on the ground right now, wet, gloppy, heavy stuff. The temperature is well above freezing, so the snow is half-melted before it even hits the ground. I'm guessing it's all gone by the end of the day on Thursday...
Heard on NPR this morning...
Heard on NPR this morning... I got in my truck this morning to drive home from Home Depot. When I flipped on the radio, there was a program in progress. Starting with the first bits I heard, this dialog between an NPR on-the-street reporter (NPR) and a young woman (YW) he approached cold (transcript is from memory, but if it's not perfect it's very close):
NPR: I'm here to see what people on the street think of Bernie Sanders.The. Doom. Approaches.
YW: Ok.
NPR: What do you think is the first, most important issue that Bernie should tackle?
YW: Auto-correct. He should fix auto-correct on smart phones.
NPR: (giggling) Yeah, I'd like that fixed, too. But seriously, what would you want Bernie to do?
YW: I was serious. I can't think of anything more important than that!
NPR: (still giggling) Well, what about, say, terrorism?
YW: (peeved) What, don't you think terrorists have problems with auto-correct?
NPR: (speechless for a moment, then walking away) I'm so ashamed right now.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Bad news in Paradise...
Bad news in Paradise... Our vet phoned this evening to tell us the lab results on the tissue she removed from Koa last Thursday: they got a definitive diagnosis -- it's an osteosarcoma. That's an aggressive bone cancer, malignant and usually metastatic. When it's not in a limb or digit (as with Koa), there is no treatment with even a reasonable chance at a good outcome. This is a fairly rare cancer in cats, rare enough that our vet has never seen it before. She's going to do some research on it, but ... we're not expecting good news. It seems likely we'll be doing palliative care for him, treating his pain and any secondary issues as long as we can. We'll buy him what time we can, but we won't let him suffer.
He's actually looking pretty good at the moment, better than he has for a few weeks now. We've isolated hom, and he's getting lots of attention, a heated bed, and all the kitty junk food he wants...
Progress in Paradise...
The first task came before I mounted the wooden platform (the orange thing) onto the steel frame (the part with the wheels). I'd already assembled and aligned the frame, but I never had aired up the tires or greased all the (numerous) points that need it. There are 8 zerc fittings plus a couple dozen exposed metal points where good old-fashioned grease was needed.
I figured I'd do the easy part first: the zerc fittings. Little did I know how much work that was going to be! I used up all my grease (about a half tube) on the first zerc fitting. I have a pneumatic grease gun, so that took about 15 seconds. Off to Tractor Supply I went to pick up a couple tubes of grease. When I got there, I found them on sale for half price, so I bought eight of them. Good thing I did – I went through four entire tubes before I filled those fittings. There must be huge grease reservoirs inside the wheels. That's a good thing, I guess, but I was sure surprised!
Then came the time to mount the wooden platform onto the frame. That platform weighs around 160 lbs., more than I can maneuver by myself. It started out up on sawhorses, as you've seen on previous posts. I roped it to my hoist and lifted it up, then positioned the frame under it and lowered it back down. The job of getting it exactly in the right place while lowering it the last little bit was made especially challenging by the fact that the control for the hoist was 15 feet over my head, in the loft. I ran up and down the stairs about 20 times before I finally had the thing in position, about 1/2" above the mounting holes. Then all I had to do was lift the frame slightly and slip the bolts into place. That sounds easy when I write it like that, but it was actually quite a challenge: heavy parts that needed to be held to within 1/16" or so of the right place while inserting the bolt with my “free” hand. That part would have been a lot easier with a couple of helpers :)
But I got it done. Yay!
The cart rolls around very nicely. All the sides are built (I forgot to take photos of that event), and tomorrow they're going up on sawhorses to be painted. Then I'm done!
Things you don't expect to hear...
Things you don't expect to hear... I listen to NPR sometimes to get a better understanding of progressive views, so you don't have to. On the way back from an errand this morning (picking up grease from Tractor Supply!), I heard an NPR reporter named Alina Selyukh giving a report about the Apple/FBI brouhaha over the terrorist's phone that the FBI wants to unlock.
So what's unexpected about that? Here's what: her report was cogent, accurate, and very much on point. One example of the unexpected excellence: she spent a bit of time discussing some of the speculation on the nature of the outside (i.e., non-Apple) help that the FBI is getting to unlock that phone. She listed several methods, some of which required physical access to the particular phone (hardware-based methods) and some of which did not (exploits of software vulnerabilities). Alina then talked about how the methods requiring physical access really don't impact our personal security (for our own iPhones) nearly as much as the software vulnerabilities do. That's a distinction that's obvious to a technologist, but not to many people, and Alina did a great job navigating that with easy to understand language. Her whole discussion, in fact, was completely jargon-free.
Kudos, Alina! That was a very nice job. And you've just enticed me to follow you on Twitter – and I have to tell you that's the very first time I've even been tempted to follow someone on NPR.
So what's unexpected about that? Here's what: her report was cogent, accurate, and very much on point. One example of the unexpected excellence: she spent a bit of time discussing some of the speculation on the nature of the outside (i.e., non-Apple) help that the FBI is getting to unlock that phone. She listed several methods, some of which required physical access to the particular phone (hardware-based methods) and some of which did not (exploits of software vulnerabilities). Alina then talked about how the methods requiring physical access really don't impact our personal security (for our own iPhones) nearly as much as the software vulnerabilities do. That's a distinction that's obvious to a technologist, but not to many people, and Alina did a great job navigating that with easy to understand language. Her whole discussion, in fact, was completely jargon-free.
Kudos, Alina! That was a very nice job. And you've just enticed me to follow you on Twitter – and I have to tell you that's the very first time I've even been tempted to follow someone on NPR.
Paradise pictures...
Paradise pictures... This is what it looks like right now. Left-to-right: looking out our back door, out our front door, and the pile of snow on the front porch (which I'm about to go shovel). Sheesh...
Wait, what!?!
Wait, what!?! Reading this article made me feel ... old.
I've worked with (young) people who didn't believe me (until I showed them via Google) when I told them that computer screens used to work by shooting electrons through a vacuum to strike phosphorescent material that glowed. These were cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), familiar to anyone over about 30 years old – but literally museum pieces today. Those CRTs seemed magical to us in the '70s, when they started to replace teletypes as the human interface to computers. At first CRTs were only monochrome (e.g., black & white), then in the '80s full color CRTs started to become common.
Those CRTs were far from perfect. The displays were a little fuzzy, the devices were large, heavy, and power-hungry, and the fidelity near the edges was notably worse than in the center. Still, they let us put text and pictures on a screen, and they were way better than those damned teletypes.
Then the flat liquid crystal displays came along in the '90s. They got better and cheaper very quickly, and in the blink of an eye they totally replaced CRTs. They're smaller, lighter, sip electricity, and (best of all) their fidelity is darned near perfect. The fuzziness is gone ... text is crisp and clear from edge-to-edge. Lines are straight. The screen is flat, not curved. They are so much better than CRTs that nobody cried when CRTs went the way of the dodo.
And then ... these nuts go to a whole bunch of trouble to make a video game played on a modern flat screen look like the very imperfect CRTs. Because nostalgia, or something less charitable.
And here I am remembering how magical it seemed the first time I saw a teletype printing computer output.
I feel old.
I've worked with (young) people who didn't believe me (until I showed them via Google) when I told them that computer screens used to work by shooting electrons through a vacuum to strike phosphorescent material that glowed. These were cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), familiar to anyone over about 30 years old – but literally museum pieces today. Those CRTs seemed magical to us in the '70s, when they started to replace teletypes as the human interface to computers. At first CRTs were only monochrome (e.g., black & white), then in the '80s full color CRTs started to become common.
Those CRTs were far from perfect. The displays were a little fuzzy, the devices were large, heavy, and power-hungry, and the fidelity near the edges was notably worse than in the center. Still, they let us put text and pictures on a screen, and they were way better than those damned teletypes.
Then the flat liquid crystal displays came along in the '90s. They got better and cheaper very quickly, and in the blink of an eye they totally replaced CRTs. They're smaller, lighter, sip electricity, and (best of all) their fidelity is darned near perfect. The fuzziness is gone ... text is crisp and clear from edge-to-edge. Lines are straight. The screen is flat, not curved. They are so much better than CRTs that nobody cried when CRTs went the way of the dodo.
And then ... these nuts go to a whole bunch of trouble to make a video game played on a modern flat screen look like the very imperfect CRTs. Because nostalgia, or something less charitable.
And here I am remembering how magical it seemed the first time I saw a teletype printing computer output.
I feel old.
Mind, blown!
The engineer in me wants to know how they print these things. From the speed and the fact that they're doing it on rare earth magnets, I'm thinking that they somehow reorient the fields inside an existing conventional magnet. The vague descriptions on the Correlated Magnetics site seem to support that notion. But I have no clue how they can do that on the scale they're working with...
Three, going on four...
Three, going on four... Inches of snow on the ground right now, in Paradise. And it's still snowing. Really!
The weather forecast calls for a high of 45°F today, and rain through this evening. You'd think that would take care of most of this white stuff, but it's not quite so easy. The snow has been sliding off the roof of our house all night, and now we've got piles all around the house about 18" high. That will take another week or so to go away, especially on the north side of the house.
Sheesh.
This man is ready for spring!
The weather forecast calls for a high of 45°F today, and rain through this evening. You'd think that would take care of most of this white stuff, but it's not quite so easy. The snow has been sliding off the roof of our house all night, and now we've got piles all around the house about 18" high. That will take another week or so to go away, especially on the north side of the house.
Sheesh.
This man is ready for spring!
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... This time, from P. J. O'Rourke:
Tom's corollary: “I hate it when I’m an idiot!”
One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.“Individual responsibility.” Sounds almost anachronistic, doesn't it?
Tom's corollary: “I hate it when I’m an idiot!”
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Curiosity is looking at...
Morning smile...
ITHACA, NY—In an ambitious attempt to revive a population long considered to be on the brink of extinction, scientists announced Friday they have slowly begun to reintroduce normal, well-adjusted human beings back into society.Read the whole thing!
According to officials at Cornell University, where for the past 18 years conservation researchers have operated an enclosed sanctuary for humans who are levelheaded and make it a habit to think before they speak, the endangered group is being cautiously reintegrated into select locations nationwide in hopes that they can reestablish permanent communities and one day thrive again.
I expect this attempt to fail :)
California leads the way...
California leads the way ... to lower employment and more automation. They've struck a deal to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr statewide. I'm expecting the other usual suspects (Blue America: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, etc.) to follow suit soon. That's great news for states like Utah whose minimum wage is the same as the federal rate (currently $7.25/hr) – kids who want a job but whose skills aren't worth $15 an hour will move from states like California to states like Utah. In other words, motivated workers will vote with their feet. Blue America will lose those good workers and employers will cut jobs or replace unskilled workers with automation – something we're already seeing in those cities that have raised the minimum wage to $15/hr.
I am so glad to be living in fly-over country!
I am so glad to be living in fly-over country!
Paradise Ponders...
Paradise Ponders... I had an extra-long session with the kids I'm tutoring yesterday morning. One of them (Abby) is really digging into programming, mostly because with just a few examples the key ideas are starting to make sense to her. She came back over for a second session instead of going to the local Easter egg hunt with the rest of her family. I gave them a homework problem of a simple bubble-sort (of an array of integers), and she wanted to see what it would take to modify it to work with strings (an array of names). I showed her how to use the Chrome developer tools and I swear I could see that cartoon light bulb going off in her head. We spent about an hour going over a number of questions she asked, including one on sort performance that got us into an overview of Big O notation and what that means for performance characterization. She's picking this stuff up way faster than I did. Debbie was in the kitchen watching us work, and she tells me that Abby looked very excited as we worked. It's fun for me when the kids actually want to learn; so very different than my volunteering experience years ago in the Chula Vista “magnet” high school, where not a single student was interested in anything at all about the class...
The rest of my day yesterday somehow got consumed by some shopping and other running around. I didn't do a darned thing on the trailer – and I thought I would finish the construction yesterday! The weather turned out to be very nice – blue sky, sunshine, and mild temperatures. That is, until Debbie and I decided to take a drive out to Porcupine Reservoir. There we ran into snow flurries – while still under that nice blue sky and in sunshine! The nearest clouds large enough to produce that snow were miles away, so what must have happened is that winds were blowing that snow a long way from the source cloud. It was weird!
We chose Porcupine Reservoir because we hoped there would be fewer weekend visitors there, and that worked out just fine. On the other hand, there wasn't very much wildlife to see. The most interesting thing we (Debbie, actually) spotted was a group of four Sandhill Cranes foraging in a field about a quarter mile off the road. We had a great view of those strange birds. We also got to see some baby goats and lambs in a couple of farmyards. There were a few deer, too, but that was it for wildlife. The reservoir itself was looking very spring-like: all the ice is gone, and the level is up to within about 15' of the top. I don't think we're going to have any water issues this year! I walked across the entire earthen dam and took the photos below on that walk:
Both were taken near the south end of the dam, the first looking west across the drainage and the second looking east across the reservoir. It's a pretty spot...
My friend and neighbor Tim D. has been gone for a few days to the Green River area for some springtime sightseeing with his family. He enlisted us to give his dogs (Lexy and Marley) a little attention during the day (in the mornings and evenings his granddaughter Randi was there to take care of them). This is nothing but fun for us: those are two delightful and cute little dogs, and after being penned up for 4 or 5 hours they are very happy to see us! They had a grand time playing with each other. The photo at right was from one of those visits. Tim and family are back now, so we no longer get to indulge in this dog-sitting :)
The rest of my day yesterday somehow got consumed by some shopping and other running around. I didn't do a darned thing on the trailer – and I thought I would finish the construction yesterday! The weather turned out to be very nice – blue sky, sunshine, and mild temperatures. That is, until Debbie and I decided to take a drive out to Porcupine Reservoir. There we ran into snow flurries – while still under that nice blue sky and in sunshine! The nearest clouds large enough to produce that snow were miles away, so what must have happened is that winds were blowing that snow a long way from the source cloud. It was weird!
We chose Porcupine Reservoir because we hoped there would be fewer weekend visitors there, and that worked out just fine. On the other hand, there wasn't very much wildlife to see. The most interesting thing we (Debbie, actually) spotted was a group of four Sandhill Cranes foraging in a field about a quarter mile off the road. We had a great view of those strange birds. We also got to see some baby goats and lambs in a couple of farmyards. There were a few deer, too, but that was it for wildlife. The reservoir itself was looking very spring-like: all the ice is gone, and the level is up to within about 15' of the top. I don't think we're going to have any water issues this year! I walked across the entire earthen dam and took the photos below on that walk:
Both were taken near the south end of the dam, the first looking west across the drainage and the second looking east across the reservoir. It's a pretty spot...
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