A Crummy Commercial

I was pleased to get some kit inquiries recently, I had several promises of "checks in the mail".  The first one arrived yesterday.  When I went to create a mailing label I was shocked: The price on this 4 oz parcel sent USPS Ground Advantage to the southeast US from the Island was $8.24 !  On October 3rd the rate was $5.58.  8.24 / 5.58 = 1.48 or roughly a 50 percent increase.  How will anyone on Ebay be able to sell a postpaid item for less than $10 ? A Bing search revealed this: The six percent lie: it's more like 48 percent for kit parcels   My kit customer only paid $6 for shipping so that's $2.24 out of my pocket to send this order :( I've raised shipping to $9 per order immediately (1.5 times the old $6 rate).  The new USPS rate is supposed to be temporary but I suspect it will be made permanent in 2027 :( http://wb9kzy.com/shiphand.htm The $90 bribe windfall mentioned yesterday will cover any shipping shortfall in orders that were mailed befor...

An email from Discover informed me of this: $90 bribe rebate from Social Security.  Big dealo - an office visit to the local clinic is $269.  If these are truly refunds they should have been delivered sooner, right ?  I also got $23 cash back from a CC card today, another big whoop.  Does anyone really care enough about $90 to change a vote or go and vote rather than stay home ? Anyway, back to regularly scheduled blogging: I thought these nutrition labels from whole wheat bread were interesting: Brownberry 100% Whole Wheat Bimbo 100% Whole Wheat . I don't think this was 100% whole wheat though I can't get any of these anymore.  Pepperidge Farms honey wheat bread now seems to be available at Mann's - I guess it will continue in the future with the new distributor ? : this is even worse, a full teaspoon of sugar in each slice Basically a fair bit of sugar is added to bread.  2 grams per slice is 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar.  So depending on the loaf, ...

In wins: both the Packers and the Brewers won on Sunday.  First the Packers beat a winless team by 3 points.  The Buccaneers had an undrafted, 2nd string rookie QB and actually played pretty well: The Brewers walked off the hottest team in MLB: : I hope both the Brewers and the Packers can make their way to championships this season ! Also, I (not being that bright) never noticed that the open roof on Miller Park (now American Family Field) resembles the pie shaped wedge of a baseball field: And that the baseball field roof and the Calatrava "wings" kinda recall each other, they both fold and move: Someday I gotta get down there and see them in person. Anyway, a good victory Monday for Wisconsin. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Sorry, I won't bother to watch this sloppy AI video: As an old QA IC test engineer, one thing I know is that the SN7400 had 14 pins (7 on each side of a DIP package), six must have seemed reasonable to the AI and the sloppy human initiator. Brewers win the the first game with the Padres on Saturday: A couple of homers by the Brewers, just enough to win, no style points in MLB. A timer for the playoffs: Usually I use my Morse Dial Timer so I can mute the radio but noticed in the first Brewers Padres playoff game, the commercial breaks have lengthened for the network commercials away from the usual 2:15 to 2:45 ?  2 minutes isn't long enough and 3 minutes is too long.  This built-in Windows 11 timer can be set for hours/minutes/seconds so will try that in game 2.  Here is the online doc for the timer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/how-to-use-alarms-and-timers-in-the-clock-app-in-windows Tony Romo and CBS part ways: Maybe Tony will "pick-up a coupla CBS bu...

OK, this stinks: source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mary-louise-weller-dead-animal-house-mandy-pepperidge-1236720919/ In a coincidence, Leslie Charleson (the Pearl Drops commercial girl) also died when she was 79. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Charleson Finally, Suzanne Somers died at 76: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Somers Paraphrasing something Roger Ebert once said:  "the girls with the great teeth" The boomers are passing, man, it's too soon ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Maybe they would have created this picture, from Pinterest: Muir was an interesting guy.  His family moved from Scotland to Wisconsin when he was a kid.  Muir went to UW Madison where some of his mechanical inventions still exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir I remember reading this somewhere:  "walking is the best exercise": my memory was close enough :)   Muir must have thought so, too.  Since Homo Sapiens originated in Africa you have to figure that the people who left must have been walkers - after all some of them have made it all the way to the tip of South America.  Every culture has a tradition of running / walking.  We are all from walkers - we are made that way ! BTW, it was from this: source:  https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rfburger/5bx-plan.pdf But honestly I'd rather ride :)  it's probably the soreness I feel after any long hike.  But walking makes me throw away all thoughts of:  "making good time"  :)...

I noticed this using Google Street View "driving" around the old Fox Point neighborhood: I-43 is in back of the concrete wall And I thought about this John Denver song: The truck would be on the four lane but his wheels would be whispering not whining with these walls in place ? And remember this poem: Mending Wall By Robert Frost Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulder...