A Crummy Commercial

Senseless Destruction but Fun: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bdp9nk0NZk I never would have thought of this idea.  Now I have (like most experimenters) accidentally connected power backwards.  The center ground pin on a coaxial power connector was the culprit when I popped the big electrolytic in my old Koss amplified computer speakers (I should have used the wall wart !).  What an amazing stink was discovered !  Yuck, hopefully whatever gas is released doesn't cause disease :)  Now I routinely incorporate some kind of reverse polarity protection circuitry into any project. The only willful destruction of electronics that I recall participating in was using a tube tester in the Nicolet Radio Club to "supernova" the filaments of innocent vacuum tubes :)  What a waste - it got old rapidly though. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Several items: First, the Brewers manager, Pat Murphy, is NOT afraid to make a decision.  For the second time recently he changed pitchers in the middle of an at-bat !  Thursday afternoon Murph replaced Robert Gasser during the Mariners game: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8qxh4gqJ34 On August 3rd Murph replaced Brandon Sproat versus the Pirates: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYNhK7-CvFM Murph is definitely serious about the end of the season !   But the Brewers did finally win: BTW, the only other time I remember seeing this was in a Cubs game during the 1980s - I'm sure it happens a lot more but gotta figure that it could be seen as a public insult to the pitcher (reminds me of the schoolyard refrain: "but we didn't get our last ups" - IOW the pitcher didn't get a chance to redeem the at bat). Second:  During the afternoon while checking the laundry on the line I saw this: 2026 is a cicada year here on the island.  The ques...

Bing had this as the background pic for August 19, 2026: The USN stubby carrier plane is a Brewster Buffalo XF2a-1 from 1938 in the full size wind tunnel that would later become NASA Langley.  Unfortunately it was torn down but still, amazing scale ! source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-Scale_Wind_Tunnel The Brewster Buffalo wasn't preferred by the Navy, they liked the Grumman Wildcat F4 and Grumman Hellcat F6 better.  But those wacky Finns liked the Buffalo: https://historynet.com/brewster-buffalo-finland/ When I was a kid I built a Grumman F6F Hellcat model plane.  I can't remember the vendor, probably Revell but maybe Monogram ?  It seems to me that AMT was the goto for car models.  Now that I think of it while the propeller turned there wasn't much else you could do with a model plane, except look at them, maybe dust them (or maybe not ;).  The upstairs room in our house in Fox Point had two built-in dressers with small display shelves above...

I was kind of ambivalent about using bait with the cam.  But then I thought about windfalls.  Usually the deer police most of them but not always.  And I have to figure that a pile of apples probably has at least a few worms.  If I get the deer to eat the apples won't that kill the worms ?  See, you can justify anything :) So I tried baits for a couple of nights.  They found them the first night but left 3.  So I redeployed on Monday night - all were taken.  I think by a single deer, appears to be a fawn ?  Here's my attempt at stitching together the stills: source:  https://youtu.be/gd6jSkp1aWM This reminded me of an episode of The Andy Griffith Show (season 1, episode 32) where Opie is banished from the courthouse after school because Aunt Bea thinks it's a bad influence.  So he goes wandering around, kicking a can down the road.  He encounters a kid eating apples on a pickup truck tailgate and trades him apples for the can....

Since the Brewers took a travel day back from the west coast on Monday, I listened to this Yankee / Red Sox game from 1958, just over 68 years ago (almost as old as me !): http://www.otrannex.com/ http://www.otrannex.com/files/Baseball-New_York_Yankees_v_Boston_Red_Sox-580816.mp3 Here are a few observations: No organ at Fenway then, although maybe it was just hard to hear on the roof where the broadcasters were :) The announcers weren't afraid of a little dead air. Fewer commercials just Atlantic Imperial gasoline and Ballantine beer.  Thankfully no adult diaper commercials ! Weird breaking news from the local station after the anthem, 1460 WOKO in Albany, a guy tried to kill his family and then killed himself, yikes !  A moment of silence at the start for Babe Ruth who played for both clubs.  The Babe died 10 years to the day before this game, August 16, 1948. The Negro American League was still playing, Phil mentioned an upcoming game at Yankee Stadium, Detroit Clowns a...

A few recent pictures, first these from the cam: I've been keeping the cam relatively close to the house.  It dawned on me that the deer know about fruit trees, the volunteer crabapple tree sometimes will have a lot of fruit.  I don't see how they can stand the crabapples though.  I may try setting up the cam near some of the apple trees. The only thing about the crabapple tree is that it's hard to see them with the grass so high - that can be remedied, Chuck ! The Town recently repainted the lines on the road.   In addition they painted the four rectangles around the surveying benchmarks: I am suspicioning that these are meant for the aerial Door County photo property maps, previously mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/06/surveying.html Finally I rode by the nearest DSL installation by the side of the road: And by the DSL stuff was this can which I *think* has the loading coils for the POTS (plain old telephone service).  That silver round thingy ...

I've mentioned Northlake and the Northlake Hotel before many times, for example: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/12/northlake-in-my-mind.html This short video popped up on my Youtube feed: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjV5KmQaGPI It mentions that a recent change was made to the southbound exit from the Tri-state Tollway (294) which accounts for the sealing off of the "jug handle" mentioned in the "Northlake on my mind" blog.  Now the southbound motorist exits 294 south on the county line road (between Cook and Dupage counties).  Here is the tollway map: This new exit is in orange on the map.  It's between the sportsmans club and McMaster-Carr.  There are also new traffic lights but the motorist can then get on Lake street to get to the former Northlake Hotel, now Concord Place.  Unfortunately Google Street View is stuck at 2022 so it doesn't have this new exit viewable yet :( Update: I finally found a video with views from the top of Concord...