Silver Case

Cleaning windows

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

Adventurer Steve Fossett may have faked his own death.

Tantalizing clue,

“The choice of plane was also a baffling one - a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon, which, according to risk assessor Robert Davis said was constructed from a steel and wood frame, but actually covered in fabric, making it easy to dismantle.”

The Civil Air Patrol’s quote  wasn’t as comforting as he probably meant it to be:

“It’s not like we didn’t have our eyes open. We found six other planes while we were looking for him. We’re pretty good at what we do.”

Does that mean up to that point there were already six planes they hadn’t found?  Or in the time they’ve been looking for Fosset, six more planes have crashed?

UPDATE:  And Mistresses!

Their inquiries have revealed that Fossett, married for 38 years to childhood sweetheart Peggy, had at least two mistresses and was living a double life.

Mom and Dad kept complaining about all the ebay treasures I was buying.  I graciously sent them to their house for their temporary amusement before the gear makes the Final Journey to Singapore.

Some of my favorite purchases were vintage physics equipment or old military control panels.

I ran into this jaw-dropping collection today:  a guy in the Netherlands reconstructed a fully-functioning guidance system from a British WW2-era bomber plane.

Now THAT is a treasure.

I’ve been working on and off building a heterodyne (regenerative) shortwave radio receiver. I have a small pile of electronics tools and components in my attic. Luke likes to come up and play. I ask him if he wants to do “wiring” with me.  Basically I let him clip wires and stick capacitors and wires into a prototype breadboard.  He loves to clip my wires with  snippers.  He knows they’re called pliers. And he knows we do “wiring” together.  So now he frequently asks to go to my attic so we can do “pliering”

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Swinging

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

Had a busy weekend with Luke before I’m off for a very brief trip to the US.

Used a new IXUS 860IS camera. It’s essentially like my very dependable, very nice Ixus 700, except a few bells and whistles. Biggest bell? Face Recognition Focusing, which allows shot like this - an in-motion shot where Luke’s face is perfectly focused inside a relatively narrow depth-of-field (check out his toes and my feet, both out of the focal plane). Pretty neat. (and accidental; we only realized why this happened when Woei mentioned the face-focus)

Click on the photo for many more Sunday photographs.

A year(ish) ago I had an extensive health screen.  The results were mostly fine.  My cholesterol was marginally on the high side, but since I’m not obese and don’t smoke, the doctor said it wasn’t a big deal, though lowering it with diet and exercise would be smart.

So I did exercise more and when I changed jobs I dropped 95% of the meat and fish from my diet. It seemed to give me more energy and I lost some incremental weight.

For amusement, I got a retest last week. I was betting with myself how much better the results would be.  Both sides of my brain lost. My cholesterol was terribly worse!  It was so bad, I sought a second test from another doctor I’ve known for several years. I made sure to thoroughly fast before the test etc.  Unforunately, same horrid results.

Quite bad enough that she prescribed  Zocor, a cholesterol reducing drug.  Good grief!!!

After I woke up at 1030 and had my morning latte, Luke and I went to the workshop and played  with the planks of wood and hardware I bought him yesterday.  I just wanted to give him a chance to hammer nails and saw wood with the full-sized rip-saw I bought.

I turned the stupidly-expensive, yet garbage quality, “shelving” planks into a three-sided squat bench/worktable.   Luke hammered in nails with some of Pa’s old ball-peen hammers, ranging from a few ounces to a heavy oak skull-cracker.

After he tired of nailing, we got out my Bosch hammer drill and  drove holes into the worktop.  I put on the auxiliary second handle so he could manage more easily by himself.  He got sick of the 1/4″ drill, migrated to a bigger one, and wasn’t satisfied until he’d run the 1″ spade bit.  He was endlessly curious why the wood was hot after drilling through it.

Matilda was anxiously watching the whole affair. I don’t believe she thought playing New Yankee Workshop with Luke was the greatest idea.  And she jumped when I let Luke drink the last of my brewed black coffee left sitting under the Snap-On. haha

Oh, and a little African one-mand-band kit arrived for Luke from Aunt Megan today.  I’m trying to figure if the Pie Bird will double as a ceramic flute. Thanks Gemini

Assembly Begins

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

I spent a productive afternoon in my workshop putting together the vintage Czech bicycle that I blogged about many months ago. Since I last wrote, I had the frame and fork sandblasted and repainted, with a customized Favorit Logo and my bike’s title ‘VVV DE OLX OLX 206 206 206.”

I originally thought I’d toss out everything but the frame, replacing the components with new stuff. Then I thought, “why bother? it’s just a simple bike.” So the I ripped out the grease and dirt-encrused bottom bracket and spent an hour with a soapy brush, a can of lighter fluid, and a dremel tool wire wheel until I got the stuff all cleaned up and passable. None of the parts are in great condition, but certainly enough to give many many more kilometers of service before they need replaced.

The components are very typical 1980s-era Shimano. Nothing obscure. So I have all the tools necessary to work with it.

I do seem to have lost the cranks. I may have pitched them during a purge. At any rate, it doesn’t matter. I need to do some research on what transmission gearing to set up as a single-speed bike anyway.

The wheels are totally shot, but I have a new set for the bike.

I’m going to chop the handlebars into bullhorns and install a single, front caliper brake (the old-style Favorit calipers should work).

The seat is a hideous hard plastic thing, so I’ll have to replace that with some more period, or at least neater or more comfortable.

Realized today how much I hate those injection-form plastic cases for equipment and how worthless they really are. Thus the Dremel case and the Bosch case both went into the bin.

Good for nothing.

I’ve already spent a lot of time complaining about the horrible Hayes hydraulic disc brakes on my Trek Liquid bike. I replaced them with trouble-free Avid mechanicals.

Except today I noticed that the grip lever had snapped. WTF.

Looks like a job for JB Weld

Found two CDs of landsat imagery I bought from eBay last year. One is for Jefferson county. The other, for Clarion county. Took a look at Corsica last night. The image is quite a bit better than the horrible low-res imagery on Google Earth for Corsica. Am guessing the image is relatively modern — it looks like the Little House has a very reflective roof. I’m guessing it’s some sort of metal roof, which I vaguely recall that the new owners had installed a tin roof on it. Probably other clues of data in the picture. This is about as useful as the zoom gets. Beyond that it’s too pixelated.

Corsica, Pennsylvania

Friends with a dog he met

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

Waiting for an elevator at Tokyu Hands Shibuya on Sunday. The lift lobby was next to the mens’ grooming department. I saw this guide to mens’ facial hairstyles. I don’t even know where to begin.

Look at those magnificent styles

Ron Carter

Originally uploaded by fstop45.

…assuming no mass-murderers or suicide bombers attack the Tokyo Blue Note, I’ll be enjoying a night of Ron Carter, master bassist.

The Truck

Originally uploaded by karavshin.
This afternoon went to Akihabara ‘Electric Town’ in Tokyo, looking for an amateur radio store I’d been to years ago (Rocket Radio — defunct as far as I can tell).

Anyway, there had been some sort of traffic accident, but the police cordon was massive, there were dozens of investigators and detectives, and there was apparently evidence all over the street.

Had no idea what had happened till I checked Google News and found out that a lunatic had gone on a killing rampage an hour before I arrived. (I had spent the morning buying art supplies at Tokyo Hands and Seikaido). He rented a truck (shown here), drove it down a street, plowing into people, before coming to stop, jumping out, and stabbing a lot of other people before being subdued!

Happy Birthday, You’re Three

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

And more photos…

Just returned from Tokyo. Starting off the week with a public holiday.

It would be nicer if I didn’t have to go into the office to catch up, and moreover, if my espresso machine wasn’t broken.  I brought back a kilogram of  Espresso Paladino from Zoka in Akasaka Mitsuke.  This morning I was disgusted to find that my machine wasn’t generating enough (any?) pressure.  The boiler was working and was at 1.2atm, but the grouphead pump isn’t making pressure.  I think the motor is shot.  I took the case off and gave it a few taps my micro-persuader, but that didn’t liberate it.  Looks like I’ll have to try to get it serviced.

The Nuova Simonelli Mac 2000 is a deprecated model.  What will I do if the machine is hard or too expensive to repair?  I’ll buy something else. The ideal would be a Synesso Cyncra.  Of course, that might be idiotically expensive. I’ll have to find out.

On returning from Tokyo, my mail stack had an important package — a collection of Alton Brown Good Eats CDs from my darkNet connection in the high desert of the American Southwest.  Just watched the episode on making apple pies.  Of course he had new-and-improved twists that I am looking forward to try.

Bought Luke a neat toy called Quadrilla.   He loves to play these at toy stores, so I bought him one of the sets. He’s still a bit young to assemble them himself, but he loves to feed them with marbles, and already is recognizing what some of the pipes and holes do.

His by-himself school starts Wednesday.  Ling drops him off for, I think, three hours  three days a week.  Hopefully this helps to kick-start his mandarin, which is still quite wanting.

Oh hell. It’s already 10am. I guess I better get dressed and take care of the day’s work/admin rubbish sooner-than-later.  I told Luke we’d go driving this afternoon.

Kyle Smith eviscerates Barbara Walter’s biography in today’s Asian Wall Street Journal. Had me laughing out loud as I ate my salaryman dinner downstairs of the hotel.

Who is Barbara Walters? She is a journalist who cannot write (”Just before the ax fell, lightning struck and my life changed, never to be the same again”). She is the veteran of a major TV network’s news division who once wedged a piece on her own apartment into a prime-time broadcast. She is a celebrity who is most famous for her orbital relationship with other celebrities. Immensely rich and familiar to all, she has been around forever without anyone quite knowing why. And now she is a memoirist.

Behold history according to Barbara. “President Kennedy was lying in state in the rotunda. My job was to report on both the dignitaries and the long lines of everyday people arriving to pay their last respects. I found an old film clip from that day. I’m wearing a black coat. I have long dark hair.” On Indira Gandhi: “She and I had the same complaints. I also didn’t much like my kitchen.” After a couple of dutiful pages on 1973’s Yom Kippur War in the Mideast, she segues with: “In 1975 morning television was having its own little war.” Accompanying Nixon in China: “We also had big roomy bathtubs, no showers — and unexpected luxuries. One-day laundry service and one-hour pressing.”

“Audition” might have been 50 pages of cute stories about the great, the terrible and Monica Lewinsky, but Ms. Walters apparently felt the need to bulk things up, forcing the book covers ever wider to produce an epic of self-absorption unleavened by self-awareness.

We learn that Ms. Walters periodically went out with lawyer Roy Cohn in the 1960s — she didn’t know he was gay and though she found his role in McCarthyism “despicable,” she once considered marrying him (!) because he “bought a large town house,” one big enough to accommodate her parents and sister as well.

Have been in Tokyo on business all week. Back this weekend.

A whole bunch of us have April birthdays.  Today we celebrated at my house.  Food was good, and more importantly, from a planning aspect, it worked really well.

Mom sent me an 18″ paella pan. So last night I made a fish paella to see how it worked. Answer was it worked really well.  Five of us devoured a whole dish of it.  Additionally I prepared a dry rub for ten racks of baby back ribs.  I used twenty smoked chillies I bought last summer in USA.  We readied the mise en place for baked beans and I vinegared the potatoes for potato salad.

So this morning I woke up at 7am.  I tossed together two pounds of Great Northern Beans into a dutch oven with stocks, spices, and some really smoky anchos.  Those baked at 250F for five hours.  I wrapped up the ribs in indivdual aluminum foil boats with lots of nice braising sauce and crammed all ten in my big oven.  They braised for 2:45 at 250F.

When the guests arrived between 12:15 and 1pm everythign simultanesouly finished, the beans, a fresh paella, the potato salad, and the meat.   I wasn’t even sweating.  Then I was totally done with the kitchen, and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon.  I think we’re only left with a rack of ribs, a pile of potato salad, and of course, a tons of beans.

By-the-way, the paella was nice.  It seems like a really easy way to make a nice vegetarian garbage plate.  It helps that I have a very wide element on my stove, so it gets even heating.

I exiled my old Intel box to the attic.  I renovated it last year, but largely put it aside once I brought Apple into the house.

Tonight I came up to the attic to putter around. One of my chores was to connect the Intel to the home network so that I could move all the Alton Brown episodes I have onto my main filesystem.

Turn on the PC and a massive pop and stink throws.  5a fuse burn out in the cord.  Apparently the power supply has a short in it; it stinks.

I’m thinking the only “renovation” this bastard is receiving is for me to tear out the hard drives, suck them off with a HD enclosure, and toss the thing in the trash. I don’t want clutter, especially clutter that’s an implicit insult.

Have hardly had time for much beside work lately.  Don’t have time for many hobbies.

Sydney 18-28 Mar 08 187

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

…as Luke would say

We been discussing the Slater hoarding gene a while back. So now, which one of us is going to invite Martin Hampton to his house for Possessed 2: The Sequel ?

Was going to win my first poker tournament ever.

Lost via a 7 drawn on the river. This guy had only three outs [7c would have given me an ace high flush]. Yet, he drew one of them. And down I went, finishing second instead of first. fuck me.

ugh