A Crummy Commercial

Literal cold feet - it snowed yesterday, it's windy and the power was off for about an hour at noon, brrr.   So I got out the McGill foot warmer, mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/10/a-kit-i-use-every-day.html Plugged it in and nothing.  I unplugged it and hooked it to the ohmmeter - intermittent depending on the cord position.  I flipped it over and saw this: Both conductors of the cord were broken !  I'm glad it didn't short out - the strain relief wasn't much good. Six screws hold the foot warmer together but I was unable to budge them with a screwdriver, so I had to get out the cordless drill which had no problem getting them out.  When I took the two halves apart the somewhat fine Nichrome wire sprang out of position:   It was wound around plastic posts but very loosely.  Then I cut the AC power cord off, then stripped and soldered the wires back together after tying a somewhat lame strain relief knot.  Finally put a cou...

I went to the Co-op today to pay my bill, then proceeded to Mann's where I was going to get some milk for the corn pudding: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-thanksgiving-fave.html But of course I completely forgot the milk !  I realized this on the way home but there was just enough snow to prevent going back :( I did find this picture of my Mom (left) and Grandmother (right): the old Ansco 126 does it again They're standing between the dining room and kitchen of my Grandparent's home at some seasonal dinner like Christmas or New Year's. So I remembered both of the cooks and saved the calories of the corn pudding - probably just as well I forgot ! BTW, saw a news item that Prairie Farms milk was recalled due to "cleaning agent" contamination, yuck.   https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2025/11/28/prairie-farms-milk-recalled-cleaning-agents/87511632007/ So maybe I dodged a bullet by forgetting the milk since Prairie Farms is the brand that is sold at...

I have been searching for this picture for years:    It was on the same roll as the Walesa pictures: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/walesa-in-chicago.html I must have sent it to the folks, they were living on Washington Island by that time (1989-1990) and I didn't go to see them during the once a day winter ferry months.  So we either called or wrote.  Anyway, the picture vanished.  But I was able to scan in the negative. I think this is a VW Beetle chassis with the plywood body instead of the usual fiberglass kit car or dune buggy.  The tubes between the front wheels are for the left and right torsion rods for the front suspension.  The car is parked in the GTE Automatic Electric north lot on the east side.  The building in the background is an old folks home on the other side of the creek (which is still there): https://www.ascensionliving.org/find-a-community/casa-scalabrini-village    I never found out who owned the car - most o...

I bought both creamed corn and saltines at Mann's recently.  So this Thanksgiving I thought I'd try making my Grandmother's corn pudding recipe: front . back But forgot to get milk !  I'll try it on Sunday if I go to the store.  Anyway when I tried it in the past it always came out not quite right, usually too watery.  Maybe my ingredimunts aren't the same as Catherine Olson used to get at the National Tea supermarket ? I wish I could ask my Mom or my Grandmother, but I can't :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Previous post on DigiKey: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/digikey-gets-weird.html I got another email today at the old email address: the only thing is that unwanted emails to old addresses decreases efficiency So I went to the DigiKey site and changed the email address again.  Then I shot off a "Nastygram" (not really) to orders@digikey.com and got a quick reply: DigiKey didn't really answer my question (why) but apparently the problem has been fixed ?  We'll see.     DigiKey is kinda kooky though, I did business with them for years and years with a 6 digit customer number and then one day they changed it to a 7 digit customer number - that must have been the origin of the two files mentioned.  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I had to refuse delivery on a FEDEX Smartpost item from Ebay: it clearly says Smartpost It turns out that Smartpost is defunct:   That begs the question:  why didn't FEDEX tell their customers that Smartpost doesn't exist anymore, wouldn't that be the smart thing to do instead of accepting a shipment as Smartpost and then changing it to FEDEX Ground before delivery ? https://www.costanalysts.com/fedex-smartpost/ I guess I am just old now and expect people to do what they say they will do. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I remember hearing in high school during Field Day that our radio club advisor, Mr. Gates was a Swiss Miss hot chocolate drinker.  I can't confirm or deny that but I do know that sometimes I'll get an urge for hot chocolate when the November winds are blowing and there's no hot chocolate mix in the house, not even the store brand !  So today I came up with this simple, better than nothing, recipe for hot chocolate mix (taking a recollection of the old pound cake recipe as a guide):  For 1 serving made with 6 oz. of boiling water: 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder 3 tablespoons of dry milk 1 tablespoon of sugar 1 tablespoon of butter (3 pats) Mix the powdered ingredients together in a mug, heat up the water to boiling, pour it in and mix.  Stir like crazy and then finally add the butter pats and keep stirring until melted. Of course marshmallows can be added and vanilla extract too but I didn't have them on hand.  I would take it very easy with mint extract - easy to ...

I thought I'd take a quick bicycle ride, braving the 2nd day of gun+bullet deer season, to the electric co-op to leave my payment in the drop off box.  But after riding 4+ miles to the co-op I realized I had forgotten the little envelope with the payment, idiot ! So I rode back, by this time it was getting close to the Packers-Vikings kickoff so I stopped at the lake home to listen to the first half of the game.   While listening I started looking at some old photos and happened to find these from November 18, 1989, just a little over 36 years ago: Lech Walesa framed by tall people in the crowd Lech Walesa in the blue coat standing next to Gov. Thompson and Mayor Daley with others I don't remember there were banners and there were balloons . a lady in the crowd . this was from earlier when I was at the front by the rope Lech Walesa speaking These are of the plaza in front of the Daley Center in Chicago (aka where the big Picasso sculpture sits).  The reason: a visit ...

I had this box of chocolate cake mix: Over a year out of date so I thought maybe skip using it as cakie.  So I had the idea of using it for pancakes !  To get around the "oldness" I added 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.  I tried 1/2 cup of water with 1/2 cup of cake mix, one egg and 1 tablespoon of olive oil (I always use that).  The resulting batter seemed runny so I added more cake mix to thicken a little.  Cooked it for about 2 min on first side, 1 min on second side, electric burner set a little under 1/2 way. Got 4 large pancakes - certainly edible but not as good as regular whole wheat pancakes.  Subsequent batches made with maybe 1/4 cup of water so no extra mix needed. I used it all up which took a while but that's one point in favor of the approach, making a whole sheet cake for a special occasion is too tempting for me.    This also begs the question:  what about out of date brownie mix ? :) It turns out that this is not an original ...

I tried searching for the word: caspetitious    found here: Did you really mean: capricious (Google) or captious (Bing) ?   Why no, if I had meant something other than caspetitious I would have entered it, right ? This is the only link Google found: https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/O-P-Q/Pohl_ed%20-%20Assignment%20in%20tomorrow.pdf Which happens to be a link to the same story I was reading but the title is different: The Frightened Tree , page 163.   Here is the one I was reading:  Protective Mimicry , page 37, February 1953 issue of Galaxy Magazine : https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1953-02 I have mentioned the Luminist archives before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/08/luministorg.html Here is a link to the Luminist site:   https://www.luminist.org/archives/ Plenty of reading material on Luminist. So what does caspetitious mean ?  There is a word: cespititious: Since it's only 2 letters different let's say Galaxy made ...

All of a sudden this morning Digikey started sending email to my old email address: Why ?  Has Digikey been hacked ?  Have I ?  I changed to my hotmail address in February 2025 because I don't check the "official" Jackson Harbor Press address that much.  Also at that time I was thinking of discontinuing the website which would have killed the email address. Here's the last hotmail message:    I changed the email back to hotmail, hopefully it'll stick. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I saw this on the IEEE Spectrum site: https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-delivery-vehicles-amazon-also Maybe it's just the old guy in me but this sounds like a pretty cool idea.  Nothing is said about consumer sales so to me that means $$$.   One interesting detail is the tires / wheels.  The steel (I assume) wheel has a lot going for it compared to normal spoked bicycle wheels.  The lack of spokes means almost indescructable wheels.  Broke spokes are the bane of my bicycle existance.  A solid wheel would also be more efficient in applying power than stretchy-bendy spokes.   Also those tires look to be automotive, maybe tubeless ?  Automotive tires can last and last compared to ratty old bicycle tires.  The downside of that wheel / tire combo is the weight added.  I imagine that wind loading on that van version would be minimal in an urban setting. It sounds like Amazon isn't counting on drones for all of their future delivery ...

I saw this box (actually 1/2 of a box) on Ebay but was intrigued: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/356752319266 I had no idea that GE had a series of educational projects for kids like this - That led me to a search which found this manual on an interesting site in Spanish: https://www.ccapitalia.net/descarga/docs/1961-general-electric-EF-140.pdf The GE analog computer project in turn reminded me of this: The American Basic Science Club Analog Computer - I got one as a kid - not sure what happened to it.  I *think* I still have the ear phone but not the cardboard box.  I recall seeing it in Boys' Life or one of the other magazines in an ad like this:   I must have seen this ad (in a Sears catalog ?): because I was expecting a meter but I got the one shown in the Boys' Life ad with the ear phone :(  Here is the inflated price: Here is a site by the son of the man behind the American Basic Science Club: https://www.americanbasicscienceclub.com/ Lots of docs up th...

Still thinking about Halloween: we used to do the quizzical arched left eyebrow in Wisconsin, too :) , and what's more Halloween than The Zombies: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4nmxz5bQhk Which led me back to Digger: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/this-shorpy-picture-takes-me-back.html I finally found the picture of my Digger model: Somebody should have done a better job of dusting (also painting).   BTW, that's our female Siamese cat, Chibby-chan looking on. =>   See you in Dragsville ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm