One of the problems with being dockside during a hot and humid Florida day is that the cabin temperature can climb to a pretty uncomfortable levels. Since we are tethered to the dock, we have the advantage of having enough electricity to run appliances such as air conditioning – something not all that easy when on the hook. Some boats are centrally cooled with a built in forced air marine air conditioning and heating system. With this complexity come more maintain not to mention initial cost.
For Encore, we use the same 7,000 BTU unit to cool the main cabin as we did for one of our previous boats — Tulla(discontinued but almost identical to the Carry-on West Marine unit). One of the inefficiencies of the air-cooled unit that sits over a hatch is that the sun beats down on it and reduces its cooling. Today I rigged up a little awning to keep the sun off of it and to keep the rain from dripping in the hatch. Above is a photo I took today of Encore sporting her new baby awning forward – it still needs some tweaking. (By the way, I’ve removed the Bimini in order to patch and repair and although I like the shade of the boom tent ShadeTree awning that I have, the fiberglass stiffeners and bungee cords can’t handle the wind without breaking, besides it is difficult to both put up and walk along the decks)
Although Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels is not running in the the primaries against other GOP candidates, I certainly hope that whoever is nominated looks to Daniels for advice and executive experience. With an economy stifled by excessive bureaucracy and adversarial to business, we need someone with his experience when it comes to putting America back on the right path. I’ve included a clip from a July 12, 2011 CNBC interview below. He was asked what other governors can as they continue to “swim upstream” in our deeply politically split country.
Joe: I’ll tell you what I see that you did in Indiana that’s bearing all this fruit now and you have a great approval rating but tough sledding at the beginning. I’m trying to draw those same parallels to what we’ve seen with Scott Walker or John Kasich or Rick Scott as they try to do the same thing, but I’m not sure we can say they will rebound. Are we in a different climate? Can they relax and having done the right things and that eventually joblessness will come down and businesses will come and they will stay to recover or do you have a totally different situation in Indiana?
Daniels: Because they are doing the right things they should relax. That’s all that matters. Approval ratings don’t matter. I can’t tell them joblessness will come down despite them doing the right things because we have a national policy that as anti-job than anything you can design. We’re all swimming upstream against very counter productive national decisions.
Joe: That doesn’t make any sense. The president wants to get re-elected. Does he not understand these policies are anti jobs or does have a bigger agenda longer term social agenda?
Daniels: I think the latter statement is probably true. Maybe he doesn’t understand where jobs come from or that his policies are incredibly destructive, piling on barriers, tax, regulations and threats of more. That’s what this administration has been doing since the minute they got there. I mean, look at the depth of this this recession, all of the historical evidence says we should have had a very sharp snap back from a drop that deep … and instead it’s the most pathetic recovery we’ve seen.
A recent article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal highlighted what I already know about my line of work – the printing industry is losing jobs. Most of us working in printing and publishing business continue to struggle to stay a float and are wondering if business will ever come back. Thankfully I’m no longer a principle charged with cutting business overhead and having to eliminate employees – because it would not be a pleasant task.
Printing jobs have continued to dwindle, off 4.5% from a year ago, in part because digital competition has reduced demand for newspapers, magazines and books, said Ron Davis, chief economist for Printing Industries of America, a trade group based in Pittsburgh. The business of printing labels, wrappers and packaging remains strong, he said, and direct-marketing, catalog and brochure work has been resilient.
But the printing companies that have survived tend to be very efficient and need fewer workers
"Business is better but it’s not back where it was," said Ralph Moore, owner of Commercial Printing Co. in Raleigh, N.C., which prints office stationery, newsletters, booklets and other items. He has kept his staff level at 22 and figures he could expand his output as much as about 25% without new workers. Using digital printers, the company now can do some jobs with one person that used to require two or three. Mr. Moore invested about $150,000 earlier this year to install a faster digital printer.
A friend of mine just forwarded an email noting an automatic change to his Netflix subscription. Not that long ago when we switched from our local Blockbuster store to NetFlix our subscription was $7.99/mo. When they changed it to adding a couple more for BluRay I decided to stick with DVDs. Now the change looks to be even bigger … I think they need some competition?
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month
Your price for getting both of these plans will be$15.98a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don’t need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.
In keeping with my previous theme of photography and space, my sailing acquaintance Fred Roswold currently working on his sailboat in South Africa posted his photo the June eclipse of the moon. His did a little Photoshop composite work after taking a series of shots 10-20 minutes apart. Great image Fred.
The settings, for any shutter bugs out there: 200mm, 1/1250sec, f6.3, ISO Speed Rating 400
Most Internet savvy shutterbugs have seen photos or read about Trey Ratcliff, particularly those who are paying attention to High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Trey Ratcliff has published many gorgeous photos and posted this one of the Shuttle Atlantis sitting on the launch pad the night before lift-off. (click image to left and also see below)
“I felt lucky to be one of the last people to get a NASA escort out to the launch pad, on this final night for the Space Shuttle program and the Atlantis. It was truly beautiful evening, and things were peaceful and calm. I felt like I had a personal moment with the mighty rocket… I’ll never forget it.”
Since my wife Brenda rarely reads my blog, I think I’m safe talking about her birthday and gifts that are gadgets. I will probably get chastised by both men and women alike in repeating the similar mistake year after year by giving her something technology oriented for her birthday, I’m doing it one more time. As if that wasn’t enough to get me in the dog house, I’ve opened the arriving package using the excuse that “I want to be sure the item works and that the battery has a full charge?” This year I’ve been debating between a new touchscreen Nook or a replacement camera for her 10 year old point and shoot clunker. After playing with the Nook, I realized that the hardware expense is not the big one … It’s the impulse book buying after one owns an e-reader – the gift that keeps on costing! Besides about the only time Brenda finds free time to read is when we’re on vacation, I’m not sure how much she would use an e-reader?
So I’ve decided to go the camera route and realized that the decision was still not easy. First, more and more point and shoot photos are being taken with improved cellphones and smartphones; perhaps I could replace her Palm Centro? BUT then she told me that she specifically did not want a new phone (or to have to ‘learn’ a new phone?), just as she doesn’t want a new car and would rather have her old Rav4 fixed (see post). I’m thinking it is a good thing that she is comfortable with the old models … probably the reason she still keeps me around?
Option 2 would be to pick up a nice compact Canon camera that has all the great technology such has face recognition, build in flash, a zillon megapixels, etc. Probably not a bad option, but the prices are rises in order to satisfy “my” desire for better quality and more features.
Option 3 would be for half the price of a good quality Canon there are several mini-camcorders which shoots suburb video (actual 1080p HD), which is far better than our old tape based camcorder. They also can still shoot acceptable point and shoot photos which gives even the best smartphone cameras a run for their money. Besides not having a better point and shoot camera to drop in a pocket gives me an excuse to tote along my DSLR for higher quality photos.
This leads me to my EAA friend Steve who often comments on my blog and happens to work for Kodak. He posts videos from his Kodak mini camcorder on his flying blog and I’ve found them to be excellent. Although his model isn’t the one I purchase for a variety of reasons, most of the features are similar. I traded the “microphone in” jack for the shockproof and waterproof ‘wrapper’ of the Playsport model, but kept most of the functions that I felt made the Kodak cameras easy to use.
The latest model in the Playsport line is the Kodak Playsport Zx5 and it has a few features that out of the box I found impressive. First, the small size and excellent audio and video surprised me (provided you have decent light). The autofocus worked well although the manual macro mode is very limiting and zoom feature isn’t all that smooth to use while recording … still, it is nice to have it. The 5 back panel buttons are intuitive and after just a few tries, I had it figured out. The removable SD card was far better than the included Kodak software that connects to the camcorder by USB, in my opinion … but it may be a good thing for those who struggle with connecting devices.
I’m not sure about battery life just yet, but the lack of a replaceable battery could turn some people off, but having a device that is sealed from water and is durable whether you’re swimming, caught in the rain, bouncing around at a sporting event or out sailing (hint, hint) may be a worthwhile trade-off. So far, the $125 (July 2011 search for it) price tag seems a good price for such a handy gadget … besides IF my wife doesn’t want it, it will handily fit in my computer or camera case.(below is a test video shot at 720p being held at arms length and uploaded to YouTube)
Thief gives a CCTV camera a clear view of his face before stealing a dinghy
My sailing friends will appreciate this … my nomination for a Darwin award — such as with this “dingy” or “dinghy” thief. Of course this is unless his case will be decided by the jurors who heard the Casey Anthony case! (check out the email image below that a Canadian viewer sent to Bill O’Reilly … a very good point)
The halfwit tried to conceal his identity by clambering up a pole to nobble the camera.
Cops are hunting the thief and an accomplice after they pinched the craft from a boatyard to cross the River Blyth.
The dinghy was found abandoned on a riverbank.
Inspector Trevor Oakley from Northumbria Police said the men stole the boat to "avoid the long walk round to North Blyth".
It looks like catching them will be plain sailing…
After a couple of days playing with the new social networking service being rolled out by Google call Google+(or G+ or Google Plus), it is my conclusion that it is it is far better than the ungainly Google Wave — which really isn’t what most think of as social networking services. Google+ offers the features that are present (and then some) through the leading social networking sites and integrates a bunch of the Google apps many of us are accustom to as well. The “what’s new stream” updates are easy and offers optional email notifications for selectable updates. One of the better features is a way to group contacts into “circles” making different groupings easy easier to monitor. Users can also include photos, video and location inline as well as interfacing with Google’s photo sharing service currently known as Picasa. Unfortunately this is where the “isn’t this great” ends at the moment for me, because once your connected lists — circles — grow, the longer posts similar to Facebook as well as included inline photos becomes a little more “screen filling” — Twitter updates are only 140 characters, far easier to monitor … especially on a small screened smartphone device. For the sitting at a desk/table, it is not too bad to just read selected circles (fewer connections), but that makes it more likely that you’ll not really be keeping up with those you might want to stay connected with. Now if you’re the type who enjoys a few updates from family and a few close friends, then this may not be a big deal.
Advice: If you are comfortable with the TOS agreement, go ahead and give Google+ a try … but don’t go into it thinking that you’ll be replace Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn anytime soon. If you do decide to try Google+ (currently invite only), add me to your circle.
My neighbor send me a link and an email (below) since we spend a few minutes each week cleaning up the ditch and roadside. The first 25 feet along the back of our property is usually scattered with cans, bottles, litter, etc and needs to be picked up before mowing.
Kids are putting Drain-o, tin foil, and a little water in soda bottles and capping it up – leaving it on lawns. When you go to pick up the trash and the bottle is shaken just a little – in about 30 seconds or less it builds up a gas and explodes with enough force to remove some of your extremities. The liquid that comes out is boiling hot as well.
Don’t pick up any plastic bottles that may be lying in your yards or in the gutter, etc. Pay attention to this. A plastic bottle with a cap. A little Draino. A little water. A small piece of foil. Disturb it by moving it; and BOOM!! No fingers left and other serious effects to your face, eyes, etc.
People are finding these "bombs" in mail boxes and in their yards, just waiting for you to pick it up intending to put it in the trash. But, you’ll never make it!!! It takes about 30 seconds to blow after you move the thing.
At first I thought, “oh, this sounds like an urban legend,” but upon checking Snopes.com there is more to it.(see video from Indiana below regarding this danger. It is not to be taken lightly, although thankfully is still a pretty rare occurrence.)
