The storm has moved out of the area and is probably finished for us. Here at the house a total of five inches of snow fell in two snowfalls. The first was fairly dry and second was fairly wet. By late yesterday, however, the temperatures were in the low 40º range and the high temperatures the rest of this week are well above freezing. I expect by Tuesday evening what little snow is in the yard will be gone. The runoff goes into the Portneuf River and the to the American Falls reservoir. The water is needed down there, so this is goodness. Here in Pocatello, we get all of our water out of the underground acquifer which, in turn, gets its water from the snow melt in the late spring in the mountains south and west of town. The acquifer depends on a slow melt (a fast melt yields runoff). In the meantime, a mediocre water year continues.
I’ve spent the weekend lazing around the house trying to shake this stupid cold. I haven’t been very successful. I’d rather not use up sick time (I’ll want to use that when Nina has surgery on her Achilles tendon on March 6th), so I’m hoping to be well enough to go to work tomorrow. Lazing around hasn’t been all for naught, however! The Winter Olympics are on TV and I’m enjoying the competition and the games. Nina is also kind of watching the games … she’s been pretty much heads down in dead people (i.e., working on her family history) the whole weekend.
In order to receive an license to operate in the Amateur Radio Services (also known as ham radio), the applicant must pass a test. The test is administered by “volunteer examiners” who have been certified and cleared to administer the test. Before Christmas I sent in my paperwork to be certified as an examiner, and the paperwork finally arrived! Three examiners have to administer the exam, none can be close relatives. However, it’s a way to give back to the amateur radio community! I participated as an examiner in my first exam session on January 29th. Four people took the Technician Class license exam and all four passed.
Before the exam, I talked a little with them about test-taking strategies. Since this is a multiple choice test of 35 questions and there is no penalty for a wrong answer, it’s best to answer every question, even if you have to guess! I also told them that their first answer is usually right and they should be very careful about second guessing their answer! One of the test takers changed two answers … from the right answer to the wrong answer, and further left one question unanswered. The test-taker passed, but barely! Fortunately, once you’re licensed, no one is interested in how you scored on the test.
One of the people I work with in Idaho Falls took her Technician Class test a week go and is anxiously awaiting her call sign. I just checked the database, but her call sign hasn’t been assigned yet. It’s been fun talking with her about the many facets of this wide-ranging hobby.
A significant snow storm finally blew through here last night. Today was my every-other-Friday-off day, so I got the snow blower out and cleaned the driveway and sidewalks of a bit more than three inches of snow. It was fairly light and fairly dry snow, however. It was welcome … with prayers for a whole bunch more to come. We’ll gladly take it here and give the east coast some relief!
The Winter Olympics have started and I’m quite happy about that. I really enjoy the games. I’ve also been quite disappointed in all the criticism I’m seeing on social media about Russia and about NBC. Things are getting just too partisan. Just too critical. Not willing to cut anyone any slack. It’s all quite contrary to the spirit of the Olympics.
A local case in point: The headline in today’s Idaho State Journal reads:Â Man shoots retriever for mating with his dog: Canine’s death leads to fight between neighbors.
A Robin man is facing misdemeanor animal cruelty and battery charges after allegedly shooting a neighbor’s dog and killing it, then getting into a fight with the neighbor after disclosing what he had done.
According to court filings, Rodney Lish told his neighbor in early November that he shot his golden retriever a day earlier after finding it “locked up and mating,†with his son’s dog.
That was just plain wrong. Animal cruelty and battery charges have been filed against Lish and trial is scheduled for March 21st.
And, to top it all off, I’ve caught a cold. I’ve been thinking it would be mild and just go away, but today I’m not so sure any more. It’s kind of threatening to move down into my chest. Argh.
Snow was in the forecast for today. When I left Idaho Falls in my van pool it had started to snow, lightly. Moderate snow was falling when I got to my car in the commuter parking lot at the Pine Ridge mall. It was fairly light and quite fluffy … and blew off the car as I started to drive.
Ready to Blow Snow
We had more snow at the house, but by about 7:30 the snow was finished, the clouds were moving out, and the moon was out (a fairly new moon). That meant it was time to suit up and go run the snowblower. It takes about ten minutes to get suited up and about 45 minutes to run the machine on the driveway and the walks and then finish up with the shovel on the front walk and steps. The Weather Service says there’s still a chance of snow tonight, diminishing overnight. Then it turns downright cold. That last is the reason for blowing the snow tonight. There’s very little wind and it’s 27º outside versus a high of 21º in the afternoon tomorrow. I’ll take the warmer weather. Now for a shower and a (hopefully) good night’s sleep!
The latest issue of Make Magazine had an article about building a “Library Box“. The idea was very intriguing, so I ordered the requisite WIFI device, a TP-Link TL-3020. I went through the process and viola, a Library Box emerged! It was pretty cool, but after playing with it, I decided I wanted something a little different … a Pirate Box. The process of building a Library Box started with flashing the TP-Link router with a new operating system (a version of Linux), installing Pirate Box, then installing Library Box. So, I’m in the process of backing out the Library Box implementation and getting back to Pirate Box.
Nina then asked, “What are you going to do with it?” A very good question! So, here’s an answer that goes beyond, “It just looked like fun to make.”
Our local Amateur Radio Emergency Services organization provides radio support at a number of local events as practice for support we would provide to local civil agencies in case of an emergency. Radio communications become quite important in an emergency as it has a couple of useful characteristics:
1. It always works. It isn’t dependent on any other infrastructure. A radio, battery, and an antenna are all that are required to establish communications with anyone else. The cell phone system, for instance, relies on cell towers with all of that infrastructure (including the limited number of people who can actually use the cell tower at the same time). One limitation of the cell system is that it can become quickly overloaded.
2. It is a one-to-many communications system whereas a phone call us usually one-to-one. With a radio system, everyone on the frequency hears what everyone else hears.
3. There are places where cell phone service simply isn’t available.
One such event our organization supports is the ultra-marathon run in the mountains south and west of Pocatello each year at the beginning of June. This year the race is being expanded to 100 km (previous years the race course was about 54 miles). Only a very small part of the race course has cell phone coverage. The race conditions vary from “perfect” (last year) to a search-and-rescue event (see my blog from May 29, 2010). Radio communications are very critical for this event.
So what does a linux wifi router with Pirate Box add to the party?
The start / finish line for the race is in a canyon southwest of Pocatello with no cell phone service available. About 300 contestants run in the race and their family / friends / support crew all hang out around the start / finish line and are HUNGRY for information about the race! Meanwhile, in the radio shack at the race, we know what’s going on. We know who is on the trail, who has dropped out, who is at an aid station tanking up for the next segment of the race, and we also know who is leading. How do we provide that information to those around the start / finish line?
Just about everyone there will have a cell phone or be around someone with a cell phone. If we put a web page up on the wifi station and periodically updated it with race information, I’m certain that information would be very well received.
We also line up a couple of parades, the 4th of July parade and the Christmas Lights parade. These parades have 75 to 100 entries that line up on 2nd street in three or four rows of floats. The floats get there two or three hours before the start of the parade (judging happens about an hour before the parade). The people riding on the floats start arriving quite a bit later and always want to know where the float is. As the floats arrive, they check in at a central place and we assign them to a particular row. At the same time we could be updating a website with this information to make it easy for people to find their float … “Home Depot is in row 3, fifth float from the front.”
This Pirate Box doesn’t need to be connected to the Internet. It makes its own hotspot. It’s easy to use, easy to update, and potentially can be very helpful.
Would it also be useful in an emergency? I think so. One of the ways in which we provide support in an emergency is to provide radio communications at a shelter. We can then provide health and welfare information back and forth between the shelter and other shelters, and with the civil authorities. A wifi hot spot at the shelter adds an additional method of communications between people at the shelter and the radio people. We can post news and information on the wifi web page. The “chat” feature would enable them to ask questions from their phone, even if cell service wasn’t available. It would also give us in the radio room a way to provide specific information back to people at the shelter.
So, It’s a nice little capability. And, it’s also a lot of fun! We’ll see how it plays out as we come up on race time in June!
It took two trips out to the store to get everything that was supposed to be on my shopping list for the day. Before I left Nina said she needed a mailing tube to send some Japanese washi paper to her sister in South Carolina. She also called me as I was driving up town to add furnace filters to the list along with the reminder to pick up a mailing tube. I got the filters, everything else on the list … except the mailing tube.
When she asked me about the tube when I got home, it was an “Oh, crap!” moment. But, I also needed something to afix a painting from Nina’s sister to an old picture frame. That provided two items on the shopping list, making it worth another trip to town. I stopped at Kinko’s to pick up the mailing tubes. Then came a dilemma: what size? Not knowing for sure, I got a two-foot and a three-foot tube. We can return the one that isn’t needed.
The picture is now in the frame and ready to go on the wall. Pictures will be forthcoming, I’m sure of it.
Nina, however, spent most of the day doing family history research. She’s been seriously trying to link a couple of people together. There are lots of clues, most confusing rather than clarifying the issue. She’s over at her computer mumbling (and sometimes grumbling). Eventually she’ll tease out the answer!
I think I’m coming down with a cold. Dang! I was seriously hoping I could get through the winter without one. That likely won’t be the case. So, it’ll be off to be early tonight to see if I can get ahead of whatever is ailing me. Maybe my nose will stop running!
A winter storm watch on Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening forecasted significant snow in our area. Pocatello got quite a bit of rain, Idaho Falls (this picture was taken out of a window near my office in Idaho Falls) got some snow. I’m hopeful that the mountains got a lot of snow! Another storm is forecast for this weekend. As much as I don’t like winter, we’ll take the snow. We’re definitely in a draught condition.
California has it much worse according to today’s newspaper. Most of our fresh fruit and vegetables come from California, so this portends bad news for our pocketbook later this year. If they don’t come in from California, then the fruit and vegetables will be coming from overseas carrying a serious premium in cost and deficit in freshness.
Supposed Newspaper Ad
This supposed newspaper advertisement showed up in my Facebook news feed the other day. I have no idea where it came from, whether or not it is authentic, or how old it is. However, it sure brought a smile! There’s no area code with the phone number, so I’m pretty sure a lot of people with that 7-digit phone number in various parts of the United States got a lot of telephone calls to see whether or not the cat was still available. I suspect there might have been a few calls to see if the fellow was available! In any regard, I’d like to know “the rest of the story!”
We definitely have a serious lack of snow here in southeastern Idaho. January is usually the snowiest month of the year in this area and we’ve had literally no snow for the entire month. The forecast calls for a 30% chance of snow on Thursday, otherwise just partly-cloudy skies with occasional wind and fog. This is definitely Not Good. We had a normal water year last year and below average the year before. This year we’re at about 60% of normal. We definitely need to get some snow! So, all of you folks out east, start sending some of this stuff our way!
Today was our semi-annual Stake Conference. The general session started at 10 am this morning and we were done at noon. This afternoon has been very pleasant. We had a FaceTime chat with Daryl (who is celebrating a birthday today), his wife Laura and their closing-in-on-one-year-old daughter Lilly. She, of course, dominated the video. She loves to play with the iPad and an app that makes stars and sparkles as she touches the screen. During the whole session she was touching the screen trying to make it sparkle. It didn’t work. I guess we don’t have much sparkle in us!
New Microwave
The old Sharp microwave gave up the ghost the other night so Nina and I went microwave shopping this morning. After looking over the selection several times, Nina finally decided on this Whirlpool model. Home it came and the installation process started.
I only had to go buy one new tool. That in and of itself is a bit of a miracle! Getting the old microwave out of the cabinetry wasn’t difficult. I called the county landfill and (1) they were open, (2) I could bring it right up, and (3) there would be no charge. Some kind of special Saturday deal. So, to the landfill it went! After that we went shopping and I brought the new machine home. It didn’t use the same mounting scheme as the Sharp did, so all of that had to come out. In the process of trying to figure out where the studs were, I dropped a pretty good screwdriver down the wall. My Christmas-gifted Harbor Freight card will come in handy replacing that tool. Eventually, after making a trip to Ace Hardware (and finding they’ve completely reorganized the store, so I had to go searching to find the tools) to get a 3/4″ ceramic tile drill bit, I got the new mounting hardware installed.
It only took us five tries … Nina and me … to lift the new microwave into place and get it to line up with the bolt holes. But, it’s now installed and works great.
AND
For the first time in several years, there’s now a light over the stove. In celebration, Nina is leaving the over-the-stove light on all night tonight. “Just because I can”, she said.
Next is a new refrigerator. That will be a much easier install, I’m sure of it!
Tonight was the Saturday Evening session of our Stake Conference. I played the organ and my feet as well as the organ behaved. The organ in the Stake Center is a rather old eight-rank pipe organ and can be very recalcitrant. Further, the foot pedals are spaced much closer together (the keys on the keyboard are as well) than most modern organs, meaning I have to look at my feet pretty often when I play that organ. In any regard, no sour notes from the organ spoiled the meeting … which otherwise was a delightful, inspiring meeting.
