A Crummy Commercial

I saw this photo of Don Ameche and Frances Langford recently in connection with an OTR stream of their show featuring the Bickersons skits.  And it triggered a memory from my summer job in college, mentioned previously: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/08/trashcan-full-of-dirt.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/06/getting-hired-at-village.html I remember one fine summer day we are working (sorta) east of Lake Drive in Fox Point - this is the wealthiest part of town.  There were still lots of large elm trees then but unfortunately they were getting cut down.  Basically working on the chipper meant following the tree cutters and then standing around until they started cutting the elm branches.  So we are standing at the side of the road in front of a Tudor style mansion a few hundred feet away.  There is a small group of people standing in front of the house talking to one of the village crew.  The village crew guy driving the chipper that day was a guy we...

Saturday was a strange weather day.  Started out with rain.  Then continued with fog AND wind (unusual).  Finally in the afternoon the sun came out.  So I decided to take a walk in the woods: A widowmaker . held up about 15 feet by two spindly trees . poplar, they grow straight and fast but not strong  . but dead trees results in green shoots, these are ramp greens . the ramps have been out about a week now, they will die back when the trees fully leaf out . I usually just pick the greens but some people will dig up the root bulb, kind of like a wild scallion Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I heard someone say (was it Jean Shepherd ?) that a play-on-words was the lowest form of humor.  Anyway I thought this was funny: source: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Company-Publications/GE-Monogram/60s/General-Electric-The-Monogram-1968-03.pdf I also saw happened to notice the pun to the left of the screen: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Hh48wyuW0 BTW, semi-obligatory ham radio content: WB9JHW (the instructor of the summer Novice class I attended in high school) is a punster - shaggy dog tale teller, I remember the punchlines of two of his stories: 1) You'll de-feet the porpoise 2) charged with transporting gulls across state lines for immortal porpoises The stories themselves were long and not as easily remembered.   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Who knew Garry Shandling was a ham ?  not me ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

An email from Martin: April 25, 2024   Dear Fellow hams and Friends,   It is with a sad heart as I write this letter.   As many of you have heard by now, MFJ is ceasing its on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi on May 17, 2024.  This is also the same for our sister companies:  Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft, Mirage and Vectronics. Times have changed since I started this business 52 years ago.  Our product line grew and grew and prospered.  Covid changed everything in businesses including ours.  It was the hardest hit that we have ever had and we never fully recovered. I turned 80 this year.  I had never really considered retirement but life is so short and my time with my family is so precious. I want to thank all of our employees who have helped build this company with me over the years.  We have many employees who have made MFJ their career for 10, 20, 30, 40 and more years. We are going to continue to sell MFJ products past May ...

I saw the renderings: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/04/24/the-chicago-bears-release-images-of-a-proposed-new-lakefront-stadium/ I wonder if this thing will ever be built ?  But it is cool looking.  The thing that struck me was the giganto picture window to the north.  Aren't the Bears losing lots of seats in that endzone ?  And shouldn't the attention of the fans be on the field rather than looking out a picture window ?  Maybe they are hoping this will mean more night games so all the lights in the skyscrapers will dazzle the TV audience ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm                  

The internet forces Packer fans to consider the unwise choices of the past: Four of the first five picks in the 1989 draft became Hall of Famers.  The second choice went to the Packers who chose Tony Mandarich - he is NOT in Canton.  Maybe the myth of Paul Bunyan affected the Packers ?  Tony Mandarich was certainly larger than life, the man barely fit into his Corvette as I recall.  But those muscles were developed at least in part due to performance enhancing drugs.  My own non-scientific opinion is that muscles are easier to develop than bones and connective tissue - and of course an NFL athlete needs bones, muscles and a way to connect them to have superior performance.     To be fair, Tony Mandarich was considered a no-brainer choice by most of the league.  He just didn't mesh with the team and also had injuries.  Barry Sanders played well (with the Lions) against the Pack.  Derrick Henry and Deion Sanders didn't  play agai...

Tim Hunkin is back apparently with a new series of videos on his arcade machines.  The first one is a lot of fun: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX3RdD2qwdg Of course Tim has been blogged on previously in 2022 and 2023, new videos for each spring, nice ! https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/04/tim-hunkin-new-youtube-videos-for-2022.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/04/third-seaon-of-secret-life-of-components.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/04/potato-chip-bag-speaker.html   https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-quick-home-made-speaker.html I always meant to buy some better magnets to retry the potato chip bag speaker :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Harbor Freight, in the days of the 20th century, actually did sell stuff made in the USA !  Like these diagonal cutters from Channellock: I've used these for at least 30 years, still work fine (I never used them for cutting wire coat hangers :)  Channellock is known for arc-joint pliers but these are actually decent.  I did get careless with the soldering iron that one time though.  They aren't used on a daily basis but certainly on a weekly basis - a lot of component leads have been cut flush with these, also wires stripped. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm    

I was never afraid of the dark as a kid.   In fact I always resented night lights even though necessary.  I remember when we moved to the Fox Point house that one bedroom had a light switch with a neon bulb nightlight built into it.  So this became my room - I hated that neon bulb.  I'd get up, turn on the light at the switch and then turn it off at the lamp.  This would always irritate my parents, but it did turn off the neon bulb. Well that house and neon night light are in times long past.  But now as an official senior citizen I am always getting up in the middle of the night at least once.  Instead of an always on nightlight I bought a LED motion sensor light powered by 4 AA cells from Harbor Freight.  It works quite well, preserves the darkness until I get up and then goes on to lead me to the light switch. As can be seen in the varying color of the plastic it's getting old now, must be well over 20 years.  I had another one but it...

I was watching the opening credits for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery   source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0tGPxvBcdk But then I thought, wait a minute, wasn't a lot of the chase cribbed from A Hard Day's Night ? source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbg8T9r1DiQ And why is George running with one hand in his pocket ?  George, Ringo and later a couple of the pursuers all fall down  -  I blame those slippery leather soled shoes of the 1960s ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm                

At about 50 seconds into this Vic and Sade episode: https://archive.org/details/vicandsadeotr/Vic_and_Sade_40_0701_x_Ruthie_Has_Secrets.mp3 the famous sports announcer, Mel Allen, starts having trouble breathing or ?  Then another announcer (not sure who - with even more of an accent than Mel) steps in to finish the Crisco commercial.  Then about 2:20 into the episode (after the silent interval (non-recorded organ music) Mel has recovered and introduces the episode.  He is also on at the end. Mel Allen  I remember Mel's voice from the TV show, This Week in Baseball, which I used to watch on Saturday afternoons for some reason :)  I didn't know he had been a network announcer on Vic and Sade along with other famous announcers like Ralph Edwards (the Truth or Consequences / This is Your Life guy) or Ed Herlihy (nephew of Fred Allen, voice of Kraft). BTW I like this collection of Vic and Sade episodes because it does include many of the commercials. It is amazing t...

I started listening to this reading of The Hobbit on Youtube: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPeDWpHo4KY&list=PLiprFMdUvCYi9dzAxLbjUHaNswbsORq5O&index=1&pp=iAQB I can really see the attraction of audio books, at least with a story like The Hobbit .  There is just something nice about hearing the words rather than reading them and this is a wonderful reading. One thing that I didn't remember about The Hobbit were the rhyming names of the Dwarves: source: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hobbit/characters/ That reminded me of the denizens of Hoopeston, Illinois mentioned on the Vic and Sade show: source: https://vscharacters.blogspot.com/2012/01/cupid-and-stupid-golfbake.html Hoopeston seemed to have more than a fair share of dizzy twins :) I'd like to think that either Tolkien or Rhymer cribbed the idea from the other but I suspect it was just coincidence that they both liked rhyming (and funny?) names :)   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.co...

Boston Dynamics revealed the new electric Atlas robot: https://spectrum.ieee.org/atlas-humanoid-robot Some of that twisting and rotation is kinda creepy - but it doesn't have the football player look like the now retired hydraulic Atlas: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9EM5_VFlt8 although the sight of hydraulic fluid spewing out like blood in a samurai movie swordfight is also creepy.   But since this electric Atlas is something that will be sold, maybe there still is a chance ? Here are some previous posts on this idea: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/06/dust.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/01/robot-nfl.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/01/maybe-robot-football-idea-isnt-quite.html Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

 I tried to respond to a potential kit customer via email and got this: I am not gonna resend in a few minutes, one strike and you are out, overzealous email spam filters !  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I was watching this video by a Japanese ham on the NEC CQ-P6400 6 meter rig: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwNEa_fqON4 And I put the autotranslate on.  When the operator tries fine tuning the signal Youtube translates the static as applause  :) Or, as an online translator makes it:  hakushu  拍手 On a different video for a similar rig (NEC CQ-P6300) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbW7YZXg6XY a noisier signal got translated this way: I wonder if the AI futurelords will ever understand it when a human underling smiles or laughs at their actions ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

No, 77 total boils for the 2024 maple syrup season.  Each boil started with 4 liters of sap so 308 liters.  That's a little over 81 gallons processed, resulting in over 20 pints of syrup.  The final boil resulted in about 5 oz. of 66% syrup, almost perfect. For next season I might do some tree work to enhance the "sugar bush" - maybe cut down some of the trees around the maples, many of the surrounding trees are diseased beech anyway. Also, want to nail down the distilling process, dial it in for both the input quantity of sap and the output measurement of the distilled water.  At the end of this year I was able to avoid the dreaded flip-offs while still getting syrup close to the ideal of 67%. It is harder than I first thought to measure the sap accurately or maybe more importantly, measure it consistently.  I was considering a graduated pitcher or graduated cylinder but a more accurate/repeatable way might be to use a vinegar jug or Erlenmeyer flask - somethin...

I was reminded of calculators this week (see this previous blog: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/7th-posting-charm.html   I remember sitting next to a guy on a plane once while traveling to the IEEE Cherry Hill (NJ) Test Conference.  It turned out that he worked at HP in Corvalis OR, the calculator part.  I remember telling him about my HP-25 and how it was "nice" - he said that a lot of people applied the word: nice to the HP products  :) Before getting the HP I went through the usual suspects like a 4 function TI calculator and later a TI SR-10 (SR stood for square root ? - no: slide rule).  I also had an aluminum Pickett slide rule but rarely used it.  It was a Dutch-auction time in the 1970s for calculators, if you were willing to wait the prices were sure to come down OR the new models would have more features for the same money. One calculator I didn't purchase was this Rockwell model from Sears (58770): source: https://www.si.edu/object/sears-80...

This is the way to do it, make your whereabouts known, sit tight and get rescued. source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/coast-guard-navy-rescue-3-stranded-men-after-spotting-help-sign-made-with-palm-leaves/ar-BB1ls9ER This is the wrong way: don't listen to the Professor, build a raft, get attacked by sharks, return to same island source: https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/200002634/s01-e01-two-on-a-raft Of course getting rescued within a week would have resulted in only 1 TV episode not the 98 over the three seasons of Gilligan's Island :) Betcha some billionaire is wondering who owns that atoll and whether they could buy it ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I've posted about this style of electronic equipment at least 6 times before, the last: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/03/maybe-6-is-enough.html But then I saw this new to me item: source: https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-9218 And yes, I do like the design of the packaging.  But it dawned on me that folks may associate this aluminum top/Bakelite box style with either old defunct brands (Heathkit or Knight-kit) or new but less favored brands like MFJ. I have also recently become aware of this packaging concept: source: https://www.ebay.com/itm/325078866800 source:  https://paxer.net/voyager/assembly.php This is similar to the aluminum top/Bakelite box kit BUT it has an aluminum top AND bottom with a circuit board in between.  Then a 3D printed bumper is used to cover the open sides.  I think it is really neat and would be handy for a non-calculator kit like maybe a keyer ? BTW, with the calculator kit,  don't "buy it now", watch it and then after a while...