An iPhone app for Florida beach cams

IJust what the Doctor ordered! I discovered a way to view my happy spot with out the illicit application of the pedal steel, strong drink, and a lazy boy recliner.
I found an app which is pretty much explained by the title: "Florida Beach Cams."
If you have ever wondered if people use the pool at the Panama City Best Western on Thanksgiving, you can check!
Or you can watch the sunset at Destin Beach.
I find it quite relaxing, plus I discovered a whole trove of Jimmy Buffet records, which is not such a good thing.

(screenshot from Thanksgiving afternoon)

I'm going to take a few moments and enjoy the beach as I just managed to knock over my vintage tube retro stereo department while attempting to adjust a couple cables and measure the distance from spindle to the center post on the tonearm on my rare and valuable Rek-o-Kut/Fairchild tonearm combination. (Probably should classify that as formerly rare and valuable)
Someone emailed me asking for Rek-O-Kut information and I found a whole trove of stereo connector cables and I just had to tinker.
It would seem that despite weighting a hundred pounds and being made from angle iron and used sickle bar parts, my stereo stand is just a wee bit on the tall side and does not slide on carpet. Nor should you tip it away from the wall when it doesn't slide, nor should you pull on the powerstrip extension corn when it doesn't quite reach.
A vintage record stand, a Minneapolis G900 brochure, two Roy Clark records, and a Jimmy Buffet Album, (greatest hits) died in the crash. However, judging from the gouge in the bookshelf, there may be a few more, I think it hit Montana Slim, and probably also took out the Charlie Pride collection.
The tonearm broke off the gimble thingys, (official term), the Scott 299 tube amp now has a large dent in the face plate. The worthless Dynaco 120 is fine, there is a huge gouge in the bookshelf, but I did not spill my coffee on the carpet.

I just stepped on a very old electrical terminal strip so that must have come out of the Rek-O-Kut.
Well poop.... Yes it the tonearm is no longer connected. Tore the wires out of it and I just dropped the one remaining bearing into the carpet.
Just found my Stanton cartridge on the extra Dual 1019 headshell that I'm supposed to use for 78's. I don't think the cartridge alignment is quite right anymore and the stylus looks bent.
If I wouldn't have drank so much coffee I'd go back to bed...
I just had to mess with stuff...
I just don't see this as going to be a good day and I have to grind feed...

A Thanksgiving day to remember

My cousin fell over dead yesterday. He was in his backyard talking to his neighbor and he collapsed. His father died this summer. You may have seen the post...
Now here is the deal...
I didn't always get along with my cousin but he was family.
He was not quite sixty years of age.
While I sometimes annoyed him and he annoyed me, and he was somewhat of a comic foil to what I see as my clever sophistication, he was my family and I was intensely loyal to him.
When my uncle died I was ready. He was past eighty years of age.
But my cousin was not that old. I still had things to disagree with him.
He had a huge amount of information.
Strangely enough, I am not dealing with it very well.
I'm letting my older brother handle it.
This is not fair to my older brother...
But, my older brother is a nice fellow and won't tell me off.
I've thought about putting everything on Craigslist and getting the heck out of here. However, Muddyvalley tells me I would not be happy buying his property in Florida cause it is too far from the beach...

Riots in Amity Averted by Strategic Street improvements

A mildy annoyed crowed of three people gathered Monday night outside the Blue Goat to make sarcastic remarks about Faux News and the Koch Brothers, but were distracted by a park bench and an antique store.
"I sure do love my life of white privilege," said a local activist who would only be identified by his moniker, Disgruntled Steve.
"What we need in this town is more Bike Racks," he exclaimed. "And the curbs don't stick out far enough into traffic," he added.
"But, what about Ferguson," exclaimed a lady wearing a large wool sweater and ill-fitting leggings.
"Yes! Lets burn THE patrol car," said a bearded fellow who was sipping a $25 micro brew and had been waiting two hours for his micro-pizza, fifteen minutes longer than the other three people inside the establishment.
"We should have more diversity in Amity," said members of the city council. "Oh yes, diversity would bring up property values!" said another member, rubbing her hands together and salivating slightly.
"Not if they riot," said a grumpy man walking by on his way to the liquor store.
"It is Bushes Fault! and the Koch Brother's," exclaimed a fellow who just pulled up with his VW diesel pulling a trailer.
Tensions were high and someone was about to make a sign when Assistant to the Assistant to the Sub Assistant, to the secondary Chief of Police, James Clark, pulled up in the Amity Police cruiser and encouraged the VW driver to pull his trailer past the pedestrian island that takes up half the street.
"You wouldn't want a bicyclist to get hit by one of those pesky farm trucks, now would you! People might not come to wine tastings anymore," said James diplomatically.
At the words wine and bicyclists everyone began to hug each other and had a great time sipping wine and eating artichoke and peach pizza at the Blue Goat.
Meanwhile, at the skateboard ramp in the Amity Park..... well, nothing happened, everyone things have gotten much more "mellow" in Amity in the last week. But, try and buy a bag of Doritos in Amity....

Landfill Farms, Waste Management's clever plan to buy off the local organic crowd

It was just a few years back that some farmers in the neighborhood were shocked to find strange deformities on their animals. There were open lesions, chickens were dying, cows quit milking, calves died. No one could figure out what the problem was. Then one farmer started filling a water tank at our farm and using it to water his animals. Wonder of wonders, they didn't die, In face they did quite well.

There was talk of lawsuits against the owners of the local dump, which had just started a new site directly across the river from the old site, and was making a lot of money accepting out of county garbage.

(Back then, the trucks were red and white, not green, and they didn't talk much about recycling.)

Then, all of a sudden, no one would talk about it... It was sort of like nothing had ever gone wrong. (Aside from a few folks who didn't get the cash, and didn't sign the nondisclosure agreement.)

Shortly afterwards a couple farms sold and the nice fellow whose father had sold his farm to the local landfill with the agreement that as long as there was land owned by the landfill that was being farmed, his descendants would farm it, started farming on our side of the river.

Today, I just heard that my friend, the landfill farmer has been evicted, (but not from him) and that the farm is now going to be part of a partnership between Waste Management and the local organic crowd. The plan is to offer four acre plots to local organic farmers who don't have land.

I find this quite hilarious, people who are so terrified of Genetically Modified seed that they became farmers are now raising delicious crops on land that was once considered as a potential Superfund site. 

Here is a quote from the News Register which is a link to the Waste Management site.

"There is some irony in the vision of an educational farming facility on land adjacent to a landfill that has caused the ire of area farmers and their supporters. Riverbend was smart to reach out to some of its critics to participate in the process, helping to separate efforts of the stewardship committee from the continuing controversy related to proposed expansion of the landfill. One way or another, this land will be around long after the waste stops coming."

It just goes to show you what a little public relations, nondisclosure agreements, a lot of money, and twenty five years can do for your image.

Just to keep this in perspective, the local dump is located on both sides of the Yamhill River, in a flood plain. The old dump may have leached into the local water supply but Western Oregon Waste bought up all the land surrounding the dump and part of the deal was nondisclosure agreements.

The person who started the local farmer's market used to be very opposed to Waste Management's expansion plans but has "seen the light."

You can find her name repeatedly in this "press" release. You can see the "rehabilitation" Waste Management from the green typeface to the change from "sanitary landfill" to recycling company. It is absolutely amazing. The dump is a nasty place which concentrates "regional" garbage in one location. A location in the "heart of wine country," just off of Highway 18 on the way to scenic Oregon Beaches, surrounded by filbert Hazelnut orchards, and now... Organic Farm to School programs. AND these are the folks that are opposed to Fluoride.

I also find it somewhat amusing to be reminded that selling one's soul to the devil often is not as good an idea as it seems at the time. Take this example, My friend lost a good chunk of farmland but can't do anything about it even though they violated the agreement with his father because, 1. He can't fight Waste Management because that have the resources of Mordor, 2. He gets enough money (I think have heard from a former family member) from Waste Management that he can't afford to do anything that may result in the loss of that income. He can't even tell what he knows about the contamination of the old dump due to confidentiality agreement issues. Pretty funny...

Note: The views expressed on this blog are solely for entertainment purposes are recollections on the part of the writer. They may or may not be as accurate as the News Register. But, you can't read the News Register because they have put it behind a pay wall which only makes it more irrelevant than it already was. Old articles in the News Resister can't be accessed through a Google search so for the casual researcher, the News Resister is truly a throwaway newspaper.

Oh Poop!

I It was a s.... Job!

And here's to mud on your eye! Yup, that

Is what happened next! And when I exclaimed, "oh shit!" Was i swearing?

Of course something went wrong!

I had a crappy day! Literally... See the puddle behind the tire? Not vanilla pudding!

I really did go up poop creek!

Please feel free to pun further...

The sun was out and it was a nice day

I needed to make skids for my remaining grain bin so that I can fill it with barley and not have it tip over. My brother suggested an old truck frame of which we have more than two.
It really seemed like a good idea. I roughly calculated that it would take at least $25 per foot to make skids out of 3/8" flat bar and have it formed.
It took me a good solid day to cut and trim two 11 foot chunks of truck frame. (Well, I did take an hour to load some hay and have a nice chat with Mr. MuddyValley.)

After dark I spent some time figuring out what I was owed and who owed me. I did twice as much stacking as last year but only planted a small fraction of the acres I usually plant, I got 25% less hay yield and I lost my main pig feed customer. It would be ok but I spent a lot of money on things like tractor tires and a better rake thinking I would do my usual 500 acres of no-till. I'm not going to starve but I'm feeling just a little annoyed about a number of things that there is no point in discussing.
I do think I would have been better off spending the $25 per foot and just buying the steel. I have real work to do.
Perhaps I'll post a photo...

Lies that we want to believe and the useless internet which doesn't really give you answers

The latest paranoia that has going around FaceBook is the "revelations" by farmer Keith Lewis that farmers drench their fields with "Roundup" to make the wheat get ready faster and more evenly.

In my part of Oregon we grow soft white wheat which goes for pastry and to Japan for noodles and we are very sensitive about GMO or anything that would upset Japan and cause them to stop buying wheat.
I will state absolutely that I have NEVER heard of anyone in my area using glyphosate to make their wheat get ready sooner and more evenly. I did a search for this practice on Google and found some discussion on using Glyphosate for this purpose in areas where wheat is swathed instead of combining standing.
I really don't see the point in doing it as most places in the USA have a long enough growing season that there really is not a problem with wheat ripening evenly.

I quote,"It appears that standard, recommended wheat harvest protocol in the United States is to drench the wheat fields with Roundup several days before the combine harvesters work through the fields as withered, dead wheat plants are less taxing on the farm equipment and allow for an earlier and easier harvest." This takes you to the Greenacres blog which has the story. It will also show up on your facebook page from the usually sources.

In another post I found an amusing comment from Mr. Lewis decrying the future use of "Roundup-Ready" wheat and, oh the horror's, more use of Roundup. This is funny because if the wheat was resistant to Round-up then the only reason to spray it on before harvest would just be to poison people. Which is exactly what us evil Monstanto-loving farmers like to do...

However, I could be wrong. Perhaps someone would comment?  In can see it as perhaps a regional practice, but I never thought it would be used on a regular basis in major wheat growing regions.

I will add that if it is a standard practice than by all means keep doing it! Then I will break down and buy those ten bags of Fife Wheat they my neighbor wants a lot of money for, and I'll start growing hard red wheat myself!

And, who is Keith Lewis, is he really a farmer? Who seeds these stories and how do you make money off them...

I've got my own, I know a certain farmer who pooped in a truck load of pumkins. Keep that in mind when you have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving!  Oh well, at least it wasn't Round-up...

UPDATE: Ralph pointed me to NewAgTalk and sure enough, it has been discussed there. Yes the clever farmers are using Round-up on their wheat so they don't have to swath it to get it to dry down for harvest. It is not an issue of if Glyposate is bad for you are not, it is an issue of whether people think it is. However, it does open up business opportunities...