Posts

A Saturday Food Memory

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When I was a kid my Mom did almost all of the cooking.  Sometimes they'd grill stuff in the brief time that the Milwaukee area weather would cooperate - and my Dad would do that.  He also made pancakes on Sunday morning which eventually transitioned to waffles.  But on a Saturday night he would make the yellow box option: He would mix and raise the dough in an aluminum bowl that his Mom used.  All that extra aluminum as a kid from the Mirro products in our home - hope that wasn't bad for us !  Then using a little Crisco as the lubricant he'd spread out the raised dough onto a round pan with his hands.  The canned sauce was then applied - he'd also usually add clumps of raw hamburger.  Finally he'd finish by sprinkling the tin of Parmesan cheese over the pizza and bake.  That was my conception of pizza.  One time our family had a pizza revelation.  We went to see my Mom's friend in Pewaukee and had their pizza.  No Crisco on a round ...

Murder in Black and White

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Generally I am off murder shows, even old time radio ones although there are exceptions.  I was listening to this one: https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/crime/casey-crime-photographer/murder-in-black-and-white-1948-03-18 One thing that stood out was the phrase: black light.  Since the 1960s this probably refers more to ultraviolet light for posters but in this case the reference was to infrared, IR.  In the olden days Kodak and others sold special infrared film.  I remember one time I tried it and the leaves on the trees came out white rather than dark as was usually the case with black and white.  Manual focus cameras also often had a red dot on the focus dial.  To take an IR photo you'd focus the camera and then move the focus ring to the red dot since IR focuses in a different plane than visible light. But you could also buy flash bulbs for infrared.    In the Casey show the plot hinges on the fact that a photographer taking an IR flash pho...

Hey Landlord !

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I remember this show: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqHZO0xIco This one has Rob Reiner and Richard Dreyfuss as guest stars.   Maybe I remember it because the Sandy Baron character was named: Chuck ?  Or possibly that one of the tenants was Miko Mayama: Or maybe my Dad just got tired of watching The FBI or Ed Sullivan ?  BTW the music was by Quincy Jones and certainly screamed the 1960s. It was a fun show but even though it was on Sunday nights after Walt Disney and before Bonanza it was dropped after 1 season. The wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey%2C_Landlord There are more full episodes on Youtube and a short interview of the creator, Garry Marshall. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Chun King

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A while back Youtube served up this video: source:  https://youtu.be/mcuEvXeEzFU Stan Freberg was big at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s.  He had a 13 week summer radio show that took Jack Benny's time slot near the end of network radio.  He had many popular comedy records spoofing popular culture of the day including Dragnet.  But I had never seen this roughly 1 hour long "special" (commercial) for Chun King.  It is an entertaining show, anything with Sterling Holloway is worth watching.  BTW the girl in the show, Ginny Tiu, is roughly my age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginny_Tiu So when canned Chinese food went on sale at Mann's I picked up a couple of items.  It wasn't until later that I realized that these items: I bet they put the beef in the top can with an atomizer :) why did I get sliced ?  can't wrap bacon around slices - I gotta start reading before buying :) aren't Chun King, they are La Choy.  Apparently according to this ...

Box Tying Machinery

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For some reason I had a memory pop up of the Burny Brothers Bakery outlet store in Northlake IL, here's a video (with Chicagoland media personality of the 20th century, Fahey Flynn): source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBZxwFgWGHc BTW, when I lived in Northlake the Burny Brothers store wasn't quite as nice as it is on the video.  It was more like a convenience store without too much stock.  But the thing I remember was something like this: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/256334091091 The one at Burny Brothers also had a perforated metal hood around it.  The baked goods at Burny Brothers weren't super fantastic or low priced but they all came in boxes and I thought that machine was really cool because when buying more than one box of goodies the cashier would tie the boxes together. Here's a video of a more recent machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOKgKa3fOEw And another video with a slo-mo of the tying of the knot (this was probably like the one at...

Only a gazillion more feet of snow to shovel

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to get to the road.  There was a lull in the snow after 6 PM on Sunday night so I started shoveling.  There's got to be well over 3 feet of snow drifted near the front door.  Good thing that there probably won't be a ferry or mail today so no need to shovel ?   However the power has stayed on although internet has been up and down. The snow is kinda sparkly: Saved by the dark ! Finally, am I a punk for counting shoveling as exercise ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Recom drop-in replacement for 7805 regulator

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I saw this part mentioned on the GQRP email list (I gotta renew my membership one of these days !): Had never heard of it before, apparently it is quiet enough for radio use.  Not super cheap but reasonable: And it should also plug in for a 78L05 (ground in the middle pinout not necessarily space wise) but not sure on how the Recom compares as far as power goes.  While it only has a 500 mA rating the 7805 needs a big heatsink to handle a full 1 A current, over 7 watts.  This might be a candidate for an emergency USB charger from a 12V source: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/05/charge.html The 9 volt version also looks interesting for use with transistor radios during a power outage.  No power event today but the internet was out for almost 1/2 hour - as long as the temperature stays below freezing the power should be relatively secure - it's that ice on the trees plus wind that causes problems.  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm