San Juan Vacation - Day 3

This morning we entered the Goosenecks, a series of meanders so tightly wound that we traveled four times further on the water than if we were crows. The cliffs here were 1200 feet high! Bill pointed out an odd structure on the top of a cliff. It was the Gooseneck Overlook which is about four miles off the Highway 261. Using binoculars we could see a structure which looked like a platform extending from the rock. We could also make out two Winnebagos.We saw this structure again after rounding a large meander. Had we been more observant, we could have seen this a loop earlier than when Bill alerted us. We stopped at the overlook on our return.

That night we spent on a beach just short of mile 45, a quarter mile downriver from the foot of the Honaker Trail. This leads to the top of the canyon and ultimately out to Highway 261. Paul and Tiffany climbed to the top of the trail and returned in time for dinner. They said that there were places where inexperience with rock climbing would be serious trouble.

Bill was feeling sticky, sandy and who knows what and couldn't stand himself any longer, and went down to the river for a bath with biodegradable peppermint Castile soap. As Bill stepped out of his swimming shorts, Kara and Jen started whooping it up. Bill gave back as good as he got. Anyone who wasn't paying attention before soon began to. Bill's action broke the psychlogical logjam, and others followed his example. Norm was next, then me.

Just as I was getting ready to step out of my shorts at the rivers' edge, Paul and Tiffany walked by. Bashful person that I am I stopped dead until they were as far away as the peanut gallery on the beach before I could strip down and enter the water. About bathing in the river - it was damned cold,the bottom sloped down at a good pitch, the water was flowing fairly well,and the bottom in places was slippery clay. And there was no privacy at all. It was a trick just to stand up at times.

It was Jen and Nad's turn to cook - barbecued chicken and roast corn on the cob. For this the portable fire pit was used. Driftwood had been gathered on the way. After setting in the kindling and some of the smaller diameter branches, Bill doused it with 'Boy Scout fluid' and we soon had a nice fire.The dinner was quite tasty and was well received, as were they all.

The portable fire pit was really slick. The feet it stood on and the grill holding arms stored in the shallow metal box, with the grill itself serving as the top, which latched to the pit and kept everything inside in place.Its dimensions were about 48"x24"x4" when packed. After use it had to be cleaned out. It couldn't just be dumped on the bank or in the river. Instead,its contents were shoveled into a bucket of river water. What floated had to be bagged and carried out with the other garbage. What sank could be disposed of in the river.

Just as we were all getting ready to bed down for the night, we heard the jet engines again. Looking upriver we again caught a brief glimpse of the source. More argument about what we saw, but the consensus was B-1s, probably from around Las Vegas, using their terrain following radar for navigation.

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Originally written Oct96. Last updated 26Jan01.

Another story

Back in the late '60s an IBM CE related this story to a number of us on a break.

He was fascinated by magnetic repulsion.  You've probably seen the demonstrations where an aluminum slug is placed on a steel rod with a magnetic coil at its base.  Alternating current is applied and the slug floats a distance up the rod even though it has no intrinsic magnetic properties.

He wanted to build a magnetic repulsion cannon based on that demonstration, and began collecting the needed supplies.  He started with big capacitors.  They came from computer mainframe power supplies that were being junked.  He collected a number of them, sixteen perhaps (I think he said he had a farad of capacity), and connected them together in parallel using heavy wire, then attached the lot to a trickle charger.  He said that after a week they were three quarters full.

Other parts of the circuit were a spring loaded six inch long copper knife switch, a couple loops of 1/4" copper tubing, steel rod, slug and necessary supports.  He placed a blocking piece of wood under the switch handle -- the spring would close the switch when the block was removed -- and connected the rest of the circuit.  He set up the rod to point out of his open apartment window being sure to aim it so the slug would not hit anything nearby.

All was ready.  He got down behind his kitchen counter and yanked the string to pull the block from the switch.

Ker-blam!  A green cloud roiled around and over the counter.  He rushed through it to the window and saw everyone around the courtyard pool looking up at his window where the green cloud was coming out.  He looked at the apparatus and found the slug off the rod by an inch or two.  He looked at the switch -- and the blade wasn't there.  It had vaporized in the arc that had started at the initial contact during closing.

H e was puzzled a bit by this and sat down to do some calculations.  They explained it all.  He had unleashed the equivalent of a megawatt of energy in less than a millisecond.  

A high power, high value resistor was placed across the capacitor terminals to discharge them and the apparatus was broken down and discarded.  His dreams of a magnetic cannon disappeared too.

Funny story

I just read a post on the Shemya AFB, AK Facebook page about a teletype machine used for communications there in 1972.  That triggered a memory of a programming assignment I was given around 1970 while working for United Air Lines.  I was to write a program which would read a 5-level Baudet encoded paper tape and create records from the data. This was accomplished in COBOL, against the advice of our resident IBM CE (he didn't think it could be done).  This program was a front-end to a new tape-based system called FAMIS (Flight/Aircraft/Maintenance Irregularity System).  Up to this time the clerk who managed the storage of the FAMIS data manually punched the data into IBM cards and stored them in trays and card cabinets in her work area.

One day, before being given on my task, she appeared at the computer room door with a cart carrying an abundance of card trays.  A serious incident had occurred on a Boeing 727 in flight, and important people wanted to know if a similar if less serious incident had ever happened in the past.  Could the staff help her?  She gave all the necessary selection criteria to reduce the volume of cards to maybe a small handful, things like the card columns containing the data and which specific data she wanted.  When asked how we could identify those cards carrying data on 727s, she said "They're the ones with yellow tops."  She was sent on her way because sorters weren't able to "read" the color stripe on the tops of the cards.  This may have been the impetus for my coding project.

50 years ago

A bit of jumbled personal history here, so please bear with me in my ramblings.

On November 22, 1963,  I left Langley AFB, VA, for a trip to New York City with three other airmen. Around 40 miles outside of Washington, DC, a voice broke into the music we were listening to on the radio saying that our president, John F. Kennedy, had been shot in Dallas.  All of us were shocked.  Moments later the voice said he had been killed.  A discussion ensued over whether we should return to base, some thinking this was the start of an attack, or carry on with our weekend.  The latter idea ultimately won out and we skirted DC and made for New York.  

There we split up.  The others being native New Yorkers headed to their families.  I made a successful attempt to meet up with a high school friend, a girl a year behind me in school.  We went to a museum in Central Park and visited Greenwich Village.  

On Sunday I heard that Monday was going to be a day of national mourning -- a day off for most.  I somehow managed to contact the driver and found out we'd be meeting Monday morning for the drive back to Langley.  Being the great planner I was at the time, I was down to my last quarter by the time I met with my traveling companions after some missteps on my part discerning the correct meeting address. 

As it happened we hit DC just after the funeral and, without planning to, drove down an empty, rainy, dreary Pennsylvania Avenue watching limo after black limo driving from Arlington Cemetery back to the White House.  The rest of the drive was inconsequential.

A month later I was in DC again, this time for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree after the one-month period of national mourning.  It was a relief that the immediate pall of JFK's death was behind us all.  Though quite young, I had admired him for his courage, and somewhat unpopular stances during a turbulent era.  He remains to this day a personal hero.

Food experiment

A few weeks back Fran and I went down to Old Pearl Street (the block north of Louisiana) to attend the Brew Grass Festival. We'd been to other music fests at the site in years past and always had a good time meeting up with friends, sharing a couple brews and enjoying the music.

This year was a bit different. We arrived around 11am as we'd done in the past to find the place not ready for visitors. A stroll to the stage showed the usual assortment of food vendors including one offering Jamaican jerked goat -- interesting, but at $9 a plate a bit out of my range. The beer offerings were mostly from Front Range microbreweries. Sadly, Dry Dock was not represented. Back at the entrance Fran talked with some of the staff and found that it wouldn't be open until 12, the entry fee was $10 a person and there was no discount for using the RTD light rail as was done before. I noticed that the music wouldn't be getting started until 1pm.

Neither of us was eager to wait around for everything to get going. Hunger began to gt our attention, so we ducked into the Duffyroll Cafe, a small eatery there on the corner of Pearl and Louisana. I thought I'd eat a bit light and get a 1/2 sandwich and cup of soup if the soup sounded tasty (I'm not big on creme soups or chicken). I was told they didn't have any hot soup that day, only gazpacho. I'd never had that before and went ahead with my plan. Fran followed suit. While waiting to place my order I was eyeing Duffyrolls for a possible breakfast the next day. I ordered two. Moments later the food was delivered to our table. Each plate had a mini and a standard Duffyroll on it. We asked for a bag for the standard rolls.

To my surprise, the gazpacho was very tasty. I loved it. Fran didn't so much because it had cucumber in it. She did finish it however. The mini Duffyrolls held the promise of a good breakfast the next day.

The food section of the Denver Post the following Wednesday had a recipe for gazpacho. It looked easy enough so I cut it out.

Yesterday I got around to making it as an accompanyment to a grilled tri-tip roast that I'd marinated in a packet of chipolte seasoning from Weber that I added some lime juice to (it was very good). The gazpacho was very much like what I remember being served at Duffyroll even though I cut way back on the cucumber and left that as a separate garnish along with some diced onion. It seems I'm going to be the primary consumer of the soup. Fran ate a little and again complained about the cucumber. Jeff and Tish avoided it entirely. So it goes, I guess. Still, I like it and will be making it in smaller batches in the future.

Thanksgiving in San Francisco

This post has been a long time in preparation, partly due to my difficulty in organizing facts and pictures, also partly due to having lost the text on a couple occasions due to irregularities in the blog system itself. I've figured out how to bet by most of those, but still haven't figured the trick to getting videos hosted on Youtube properly positioned in the post. The videos from the trip can be found here should you be curious. You'll note that some pictures in the post have ben taken from the videos.

We're back home from eight full days at Dee and Kent's house in San Francisco. It's good to be back but we're already missing the mild weather there. It was 28F and windy as we waited for pickup at DIA yesterday -- shockingly cold after the beautiful sunny days in the 50s in the Bay Area.

The stepped-up TSA security checks had me concerned as our departure date approached. Would my diabetic supplies be picked over and challenged? That issue alone caused some lost sleep our last night home. I read just about every page on the TSA site but was still worried. On one page listing prohibited items I found that gel shoe inserts (which I use) are not allowed in carry-on baggage but are in checked baggage. It's basically the same rule for pocket knives. I packed accordingly.

A neighbor graciously consented to drive us to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to burn. Checking our baggage and getting the boarding passes took only 10 minutes in queue and at the kiosk. We went downstairs and spent another 10 minutes in the TSA queue. I announced my diabetic stuff to two agents as was told to just put them through X-ray with my coat and shoes. Instead of having a pat-down or full-body scan we simply walked through a metal detector -- all those hours of research and creative worry for nothing.

We ate a pricey meal, pizza and beer, at Wolfgang Puck's before heading out to the gate to wait for our flight. As I prepared for the pre-meal insulin shot my cell phone must have fallen out of the backpack carrying my supplies and cameras. That loss went unnoticed till we got to Dee's place. I got a call from This that the airport Lost and Found had called saying that it was in their custody. This came after I'd suspended service.

Announcements were coming over the gate PA that there was an Air Traffic Control hold on our flight due to hail(!) and lightning(!!) in the San Francisco area. Dee later told us that she'd had three near-by strikes. We didn't board the plane till an hour after our scheduled departure time. We were surprised to find that we got adjacent seats, albeit in the last row, in spite of being in the last clot of people boarded. (A small lesson learned on both ends of the trip -- Southwest allows printing boarding passes at home within 24 hours of departure, and 12 hours more if you want to pay the price, assuring a better position in the boarding sequence.)

Eileen

We arrived in SFO an hour later than scheduled, expecting to find an irate bunch of people waiting for us, thinking Kent's mom's flight was on time (she was scheduled to be on the ground a half hour before we were). They were all just outside the concourse entrance with smiles on their faces. Kent's mom (Eileen) had also been delayed and had arrived just five minutes before us. Introductions and hugs were exchanged, baggage was gathered and we were off to the City. Dee gave a running commentary as we got closer: this lane here, then that one -- be in the right here on this short ramp to get on the correct street for easiest access to the next street for the most direct route to the house. It seemed so easy in our confusion -- little did we know the confusion they caused later. We sat around chatting a brief time before heading to bed and a sound sleep.

The next day's agenda included church for Fran and a lunch with Sandy B., one of my high school classmates at Chow, on Church near Market. Church services were at the Mission Dolores Basilica. Dee drove Fran to the church and then picked her up (I went along for the ride, trying to learn the streets). Fran and I then rode the Muni (37 bus) down to meet Sandy who was waiting outside Chow. She'd already been inside looking for us and had secured a table. The place was packed, and quite noisy. Still, we had a nice meal and chat.

Sandy volunteered to drive us back to Dee's place to meet her and see the house. Directing her, I made a small error and ended up on Church, which had no left turn signs the first couple blocks north of Market. Reason and a T intersection got us back on track. We found a parking space a half block away from the house (finding one closer would have required supernatural intervention). After meeting Dee, Kent and Eileen she got a tour of the house.

Sandy left after about an hour. Without asking directions! I'm guessing she's been to the city a lot. Shortly thereafter, Dee and I walked to the Corona Heights Park to look around. The view there can only be topped by being on top of Mt. Sutro. A bit more than 180 degrees could be seen stretching from just east of the Golden Gate to just west of Mt. San Bruno. The air was crystal clear -- it was beautiful. Kent and Eileen joined us a bit later as Dee was pointing out significant buildings and landmarks. The Transamerica Tower and Oakland Bay Bridge were easy to spot, as was the Castro District, just down at the foot of the hill. They got a kick out of pointing out the washing machine agitator church and Our Lady of Safeway (actually a Lutheran church) near the 14th/Church/Market intersection (the local Safeway is there). Also Mission Dolores and Most Hold Redeemer, another option for Fran.

The next day we hit Safeway for Thanksgiving meal supplies. Three loaves of Semifreddi's sourdough bread were high on the list. Eileen was getting pie fixin's -- she makes a mean berry pie. And the pumpkin and raisin were also excellent. It's all in the crust, and she makes one of the flakiest I've run into. The meal was to be traditional: turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce.

R-L, Fran, Kent Leon, Eileen, Joan, Dee

Also on Monday Leon and Joan drove up for a visit. It had been many years since either had driven in the city and it got to them in a bit of a pickle in spite of detailed directions Dee had given them. Shortly after exiting the freeway Joan picked up her second ever traffic ticket for an illegal left turn performed directly in view of a police cruiser. Ouch! It took two phone calls ending with Dee directing her street by intersection the route to the house. Pizza was ordered in and we all had a pleasant visit.

Looking down Mason

Tuesday we basically hung out until near dinner. It was our 42nd wedding anniversary and the kids took us all out to dinner at The House of Prime Rib (no need to guess the menu). We started out early taking the Muni, which drove us right by the restaurant, and got off as planned a short distance from the Cable Car Museum, which is part of the operational drive house for the cables themselves. I think it's one of those places you just have to see when in SF. All the operational aspects of the cable cars are explained in displays overlooking the big drive pulleys (sheaves) pulling the cables along. One big surprise was a display listing the cable lengths for the vairous lines running from 9050 feet on the Powell line to a staggering 21,500 feet on the California line. Also of great interest to me was the grip mechanism and the how and wmy turns and cable crossings are managed. Absolutely fascinating.

House of Prime Rib serving cart

Anniversary ice cream

From there we walked over Nob Hill back to Fillmore to the restaurant. As we walked up the hill we heard screams of glee -- a cable car was free-wheeling down the hill well in excess of the cable's 9.5 mph. It's no wonder that track and wheel brakes wear out quickly. At the restaurant, outside of one fish dish at market price, all there was was prime rib, done to your liking in the size you wanted, from City cut (small) to Henry the Eighth (monster). The presentation was part of the fun. A chef pushed a stainless steel cart with a pull open top whose appearance was reminiscent of a dirigible which contained all the roasts, rare to (shudder) well-done. From these he sliced your heart's desire. The food was wonderful, the meat helped along by strengths of horseradish sauce(ooh, the hot!). to top it all off, we were surprised by a dish of ice cream for our anniversary. Many thanks to Dee and Kent for the treat.

On Wednesday The kids drove us all out to Ft. Mason to see the site of their wedding and reception. We unfortunately found it fenced off for renovation. We were unable even to get to the site on the lawn where the ceremony was held. We walked the bay front side of the fort around to the Marina Green. The weather was again outstanding -- clear air with little wind. I should have taken many more still pictures instead of playing with the video camera. Just before dinner we walked down to the Castro District for some oddball items at the drug store and took the Muni back. By this time we were getting pretty familiar with the 37 bus.

Buffet style Thanksgiving

Bird Day rolled around and everyone did something to make the meal: Eileen the pies and the stuffing in a rice cooker, Kent the bird, Dee the green bean dish with an Asian flair, and the sweet potatoes, Fran peeled a potato for the green bean concoction. I did the cranberry sauce and pretty much just stayed out of the way. All the components pretty much finished at the same time and the feast was on. The bird was beautifully done, and moist. The stuffing was most definitely not what Dee calls soggy bread, and delicious being made with sourdough bread. It would be unfair to simply call the green bean dish interesting, it was much more than that with the spices mix used. And the pies were out of this world good -- I'd never had a raisin pie before.

Judi at BJ's

Friday we had a lunch date with Judi G. a very long time friend who lives in the East Bay. We'd reconnected with her at the Boise wedding. It was agreed that we'd take the BART down to the Fremont stations where she'd pick us up. Dee came along for the visit. We ate at BJ's Brewhouse in Newark, a place that Judi and her close friend Chris like. What can I say -- good brews and good food were the order of the day. After lunch we visited Judi's digs for more chatter before heading back home. It was another great visit.

We met up with Kent and Eileen, who had taken CalTrans to Palo Alto for a bit of electronic shopping, at the BART Embarcadero stop. From there we walked to the Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. We were looking for wome kitchy items requested by the Denver arm of the family. We came up empty (what -- no San Francisco tee shirts?), but had a fun time nosing around the shops. Then it was back home for turkey leftovers.

The weather turned on Saturday, raining heavily at first then lightening up and clearing by the afternoon. The entertainment for the day was a black and white cat prowling around near the base of The Tree, unconcerned by the falling water. I thought at first it might be feral until someone spotted a collar. It made appearances the next two days besides.

As the rain let up we took the Muni to Japantown. We've liked visiting the place since taking Aly there a few years ago. For eats we always hit Sapporo-Ya for their noodle soups. You've got to try this place! On the way back we waited at Muni stop in front of the old Fillmore West. Looking at it, who'd think today of the uniquely San Francisco bands which played there in the '60s and '70s.

Trolley on the run

Sunday was breakfast on Eileen at Chow (much quieter than our first visit), church for Fran, and a walk to the Castro for the rest of us. On the way there we saw an old trolley car, European in style, one of several purchased by the Muni to augment its fleet, leaving its stop at 18th and Church. What a fun sight. On Castro we hit the jackpot for the kitchy things we'd failed to find at the Ferry Building. In addition to those items, we'd been asked to bring a bottle of wine back from a particular winery unavailable in Colorado. Dee had done some searching and found a wine shop on the west side of the hill they live on which had some in stock. Guess what -- it was on the 37 bus route.

Adel'sWine Cellar

The store itself looks like it could be a corner grocery so common in the city: store at street level, living space above. This one was beautifully painted. When the owner asked if we needed help Dee told him what we were looking for. He said he hadn't carried that winery since the '90s. "But, it's listed on your web site." He looked at his inventory listing and exclaimed "I've got two cases in my warehouse! I didn't know. With 3500 wines..." We weren't going to get any that day, but maybe when the kids come out for Christmas we'll see a bottle. Kent spotted some unusual stuff of interest and said they'd be coming back in the future.

Monday was departure day, and it started early. Eileen had a 7am flight, we had one at 8:30. We were out of the house a little after 5. Dee woke up with a scratchy throat, then coughed on me in her good bye hug -- I'm still waiting for symptoms because she did miss some work the next couple days. Kent dropped us at the airport on his way to work. TSA security was again a breeze, but this time I got scanned with a millimeter wave machine. Fran again got to walk through a metal detector. We met up with Eileen after security for a bite and some coffee, then walked to her gate just as boarding started. More farewells ensued.

Our flight was uneventful. The air was again crystal clear in the Bay Area -- you could see forever. What was interesting was the snow on the Nevada desert, something I'd never seen before. The pilot had us buckled up and the cabin cleared by the attendants well before landing anticipating a bumpy ride into DIA. It never happened. I could see he was crabbing in due to a brisk crosswind, but it was a gentle touchdown, so unlike the stomping we got in SFO. We called our prearranged ride from the gate and again when we'd picked up our baggage, then waited. It turns out there was a small bit of miscommunication (omission on my part) as to which level we'd be on. Our family always picks up from the departure level, not the arrival level. Another call found our ride just returning from a drive-through of the arrival level. He showed up must minutes later. We treated him to a lunch at Las Hadas, then walked across the parking lot for a beer at Dry Dock.

Once we were back at home I called the airport Lost and Found office and made arrangements to pick up my cell phone the next day. As we drove up, Fran and I talked about how it would work. I figured it would take about 20 minutes to get the phone, from drop-off to pick-up. She would drive a ways down to a particular exit/entrance on the airport access road (Pena Blvd.) and loop back. It took me under five minutes to stand at the Lost and Found window. I had to answer a couple questions, show my id and sign a paper describing the phone, and it was back in my hands. I was back at the pick-up site in under 15 minutes. And I waited and waited. Fran finally showed up and told me she'd driven much further down Pena before coming back. Thankfully the weather was much, much warmer than the day before.

We had a marvelous time on the trip and are looking forward to our driving trip out next summer. We'll then be able to see some of the sights we missed this time around.

Telescope woes

The news that Jupiter was closer to Earth than it had been in some time got me off the couch to haul my small wide-angle telescope out to look at the sight. That was enjoyable enough that the next night I took out my medium-sized (a 4.5" Newtonian) for another look. That's when I found that the drive motor on the equatorial axis didn't drive the axis at all. Bummer!

When Dee passed through on Monday, she helped with the removal of the motor/drive screw assembly. A piece of the plastic case surrounding the shaft had been broken off by, I think, a lock-down screw on the declination axis and was presumed to be the source of the lack of proper function.

That night's observation was interesting with the total lack of lock down ability on the equatorial axis. The slightest nudge would throw Jupiter off the view space.

Yesterday I began to examine the drive motor assembly. I was able to remove the motor box from the worm screw assembly after several failed attempts to find the proper Allen wrench.

I found that the motor worked normally and the worm screw turned freely. During the reattachment of the worm screw to the telescope's axis housing I found it easy to misposition it relative to the worm gear on the equatorial axis. My first mounting attempt had them non-engaged. (This must have been the original problem.) A little finagling got it properly positioned, engaged, and with the motor reattached, everything worked!

Last night the whole unit tracked Jupiter very nicely in the short term -- some work still needs to be done on getting the equatorial axis properly aligned. But for now, close is good enough.