A Crummy Commercial

source:  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wendell-berry-kentucky-born-author-advocated-simpler-life-died-92-rcna595476 I mentioned him before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/07/is-this-cheating.html   Making it Home was my intro to Mr. Berry: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApRLCXCB80E   Now Wendell Berry is gone but Arthur Roundberry lives on in this story. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

It's the end of the tourist season on the island -so I was surprised to find out that a local store owner was interested in buying books.  I got in touch by email and was able to deliver and get immediate payment for a very nice wholesale order of books, nice ! AND coincidentally I got an email question from a customer on whether I accepted credit cards for book purchases and was able to refer the buyer to the local island store, Fair Isle: https://www.fairisleshop.com/ So if anyone is interested in books with electronic payment (no kits) please contact Fair Isle. And if ordering with check or cash by USPS is still OK, please see the Jackson Harbor Press books page: http://wb9kzy.com/books.htm Thank You   and  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

The Magnetic Monster is a 1953 movie:  https://archive.org/details/magnetic-monster The Wiki:      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnetic_Monster I'm not crazy about colorized movies but this one is kookie and fun.  The characters are so serious !  There are many actors everyone has seen before in small roles but in this one they get bumped up to more important roles.  Also, a brief appearance by Strother Martin as an airline pilot !!: what we have here is fictional communication  :) Richard Carlson is the hero, Dr. Jeffrey Stewart.  King Donovan (aka Mr. Imogene Coca) was the assistant, Dr. Dan Forbes.  The producer was Ivan Tors who later became known for many 1960s shows on TV like Flipper , Daktari and Gentle Ben (I watched them all). Richard Carlson also played the writer in three of Frank Capra's science films with Dr. Frank Baxter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_System_Science_Series There was a brief blog mention o...

see those triangular chevron'd areas ?  that's the start of this whole deal Remember the Tony Romo incident in Milwaukee: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/07/tony-tony-tony.html I happened to see another article on the citations: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/former-cowboys-star-tony-romo-hit-with-3-new-citations-after-arrest-in-wisconsin/ar-AA2b8q8N But the thing that caught me eye was this: So the reason why Tony Romo was pulled over was that he crossed the gore.  I'll be honest, I had never heard gore used in this context before.  The only gore I remember from drivers ed were those scare you to death accident movies that we saw ("did you see that one guy ?  were those his brains ?").  Here is what the wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_(road) So basically just don't cross a solid white line to save a little time in Milwaukee, the time savings will go "poof".  Also in Tony Romo's case, it gives CBS an excuse to get out from un...

The Brewers had a day off on Monday, August 24, 2026.  So why not listen to game one from the Braves - Yankees 1957 World Series ? https://dn720003.ca.archive.org/0/items/yankeesclassicradio/1957%2010%2002%20Braves%20at%20Yankees%20World%20Series%20Game%201%20Radio%20Broadcast.mp3 (BTW if you don't like the usage of serious for series then don't read the book, You Know Me Al , by Holden Caufield's favorite author: Ring Lardner - OK, Lardner was his favorite author other than his brother D.B.): https://archive.org/details/youknowmealbushe00larduoft/page/n7/mode/2up . Here is the story that Holden mentions: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ring-lardner/short-fiction/text/there-are-smiles     A few thoughts on the game: Earl Gillespie did the intro !! Earl was a local sportscaster at WITI channel 6 in Milwaukee when I was a kid.  He gives Tony Kubek a shoutout as being from Milwaukee of course.  AND he doesn't say HANK Aaron, he says Henry Aaron !  .322 batti...

source:  https://youtu.be/uD-uyGWdXyE first a doe: but then a spike steps in and does the scarfing up of the pile: finally this doe appears to be saying: "Hey Man, where are my apples ?": WHERE ARE THEY ?: Also there was this, yikes: I still find these pictures fascinating, another day, another pile of apples (but I'll move them next time). Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I heard about two deaths today, first Dolly Parton, I knew something was up when I saw this thumbnail from Dave Letterman: Dave Letterman's thumbnails on Youtube, signposts of death ! As a boy growing up in the 1960s, none of us tuned into The Porter Wagoner Show  to listen to guys with high hair and spangly suits: We tuned in to see Dolly: I imagine the ratings went UP when Dolly joined the show.  We are all mammalians after all :)  And I was 12 years old in 1967.  But she didn't just sing songs and be on TV and in the movies - she created her own music - those songs will live on. Second, a trivial death but a death of something I used every day: The various Nitter instances allowed users to look at twitter without having to sign in or endure the ads or engage in the endless scroll.  It was nice to just check the tweets of accounts you liked and you are done after seeing their new stuff. I don't get why someone would buy twitter, then ditch the name (which was ...

The experiment with alternate bait didn't work out, at least as far as the cam was concerned.  I had set out the fat trimmings from a meat canning session but got no takers.  Later a dead mouse was added, which was taken but the fat remained: So the cam was moved over to another apple pile and voila, both the fat and the apples are gone Monday AM.  Here is the resulting "movie": source:  https://youtu.be/tr8gofIDzFA The actors appear in evening light instead of the ghostly gray of night, here is a female red fox ? (no, it's probably a gray fox): And our now trained apple eater doe, Spotty ?: The gravel by the roadside tree shows evidence of deer hoofs but I think they prefer to be away from the side of the road so I'm doing them a favor with the bait piles ?  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

I have blogged on this idea before in passing but it's worth repeating: when building an electronic project be sure to use a Sharpie on either the inside of the case (or on the circuit board) to record the date. Then, enter that date and as many notes as you can think of about the project into a lab notebook ! If you are like me your memory was never that good, but even if you HAD a good memory, it will probably get worse as time goes by.  With the written date it will be easy to refresh your memory on the project.  And in that notebook, remember 5 Ws and an H: An excerpt from the Kipling poem: Keep Six Honest Serving Men I keep six honest serving-men    (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When     And How and Where and Who. source:  https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_serving.htm In other words, consider yourself a reporter trying to explain the project to someone who is unaware of this project (probably YOU in t...

I checked on the cam Saturday morning and found this: Yikes !  I had tried another bait pile during the night, here's another "movie": source:  https://youtu.be/P3wFOfK64mo A little larger cast of characters, in addition to the doe (previously misidentified as a fawn) from the previous bait pile: A fawn: A fox ?: Masked Marauders: I *think* the Masked Marauders were the tripod tippers !  :)  Cam and tripod seem OK though.  I'm trying something different Saturday night. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

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...