Y'all

Good morning. Hopefully it's not a race, JRT. But right now you may be winning. At least for two fleeting days.
Yesterday topped out in the middle nineties and right now I am wasting an opportunity to enjoy a 75 degrees morning with a rain forecast later.
Some branches of the remaining tree in the yard are being pushed too low from the weight of their leaves. I need to trim them.

The cat here only complains when she's hungry or wants something, so I can just listen to better opera singing. I plucked Pavarotti from my collection to listen for a bit, but will have to intermix some Brenda Lee and Patsy Cline for relief. - Too many good memories.

Wasted most of the day yesterday watching airplane porn. Had to check out some videos of competition to Cessna, Piper and Cirrus, -now a Chinese company - by some Austrian and other European models.

I enjoy toasted bread, but prefer it warm rather than dried out.
Must admit to greatly missing a French baguette, most imitations one can find here just do not compare.
Making one at home would be a labor of love and heavy investment of time.
The only bread I have attempted to make at home was a NY Times recipe and that needed to set the oven as close to 500 degrees as possible; a practical no-no in the summer.
But it was delicious!

Folks,

We'll see high 90's to 100°F. here today we are assured. The humidity is high.

Fittop:

No likelihood of rain anytime soon. No real relief in sight beyond the ice in the freezer or a cold shower if we have a brown out or power failure. Where is something like that refreshing old "Elephant Hole" of my youth when I might need it now? What fun we boys had swinging far out over the lazy Tar river clinging to that old rope. Then letting go and dropping into that cold relief of that coffee and cream colored water.

Once, on a dare, we got our pal Ronnie to take the plunge during Christmas vacation. Brrrrrr! He did not stay submerged nearly so long as we all did in the summer. People who are dangerously cold really can turn blue.

When I bought that bread maker for my late wife one Christmas, I had no idea I'd be the baker one day. But after she died I found myself cooking and preparing meals for my son and grandkids every day. I soon realized I'd need to expand my ability unless I wanted a mutiny among the troops. So I downloaded the manual for the bread maker machine. In no time I was making pizza dough, bread , rolls, the works. We really liked those hot, buttery rolls. I've never quite managed to learn to make a buttermilk biscuit that would come close to my wife's or grandmother's. I miss those and so many other delightful, tasty items at mealtime. I was blessed with women who were wonderful cooks. I wish I'd paid more attention to how they did it.

No doubt, like you, I was thinking about my dad on Sunday. He had many abilities. My dad was a great cook. He and mom dished up some tasty food before the divorce. They never quarreled when they were cooking. I guess they should have cooked more. Maybe opened a restaurant. They did own a cafe for a time. After they split and I went to live with my maternal grandparents dad went into the Merchant Marine and mom headed for Florida.

Dad retired due to a medical condition many years later with the rank of captain. When he came back home he had no hobbies nothing to do beyond hanging around with a few buddies or "Travel" with coke bottles for small wagers taking on all comers down at a service station. One thing seemed to please him the most. He used to love to cook for me and my highschool girlfriends at his home. As we sat and ate his delicious food he would regale us with tales of the sea. All my girlfriends loved the guy. He always was a "ladies man".

He passed away in the early 1970's. I miss him. We saw a lot of movies together over the years. Our town is in two counties divided by the ACL railroad tracks. I well remember Dad lifting me by one hand and carrying me across those tracks to one of the three downtown movie theaters. We always went to the Westerns, preferably a John Wayne film. Dad liked John Wayne. Then, after the divorce, I mostly saw him on holidays, especially Christmas. It was only when I got to highschool that he had enough rank to get home more often. Then after medical retirement, we really got to know one another for the first time.

Dads

Dad asked his son: "If you're an American when you go into the bathroom, and you're American when you come out. Who are you while you're in there?

European.

Two dads stumble into a bar....

the third dad stops before he hits it too.

Folks,

Another scorcher today before cooling into the mid 80's tomorrow. Somehow that just doesn't sound much like cooling. It is compared to 97°F. We'll enjoy that again today with a heat index rising to 105°F. Still not as hot as our well tanned pal Fittop has endured. I understand that the rumor that Texans in his area actually sit on their barbecue grills to cool off when the ambient temp gets really hot. We in the south may learn a thing or three about global warming this summer.


NEWS FLASH

"IS MICROSOFT KILLING OFF WINDOWS 7?"

Quote: "Windows 10, which arrived not quite three years ago, is running on only 39.3% of all Windows PCs, compared to Windows 7’s 47.3%. "

Here is where you may find the whole article: https://www.computerworld.com/artic...osoft-already-killing-off-windows-7.html

That might throw the proverbial fox among the proverbial chickens if true.

Gents,

Currently temperatures are more moderate 59 F and conditions windy.

Very little else to report, none of it of much interest. Best wished to everyone.

Chaps,

JRT,

Thanks for the windmill pics! Your friend was obviously dedicated to the concept of wind power. Very imaginative!

Can you scrub my email address? I will PM you with new one. Can't get through to Outlook without Microsoft 'troubleshooter' which does not respond to fix that or any other email I use.

As the late Terry Thomas would have said : 'What a shower!'

Jens...same temps here with cold NE blowing but a bright and sunny summer solstice. Out of breeze it feels like high sixties though.

Folks,

Today is another ditto. Current temp 93°F. / 34°C. Humidity is low. Thunder showers expected like we had yesterday. MG has me dreaming of a time when our high temp for thee day will be 59° F. Oh, well, it is cool and dry in here. Having had a good lunch, I am getting drowsy. Yawn.... have you no cats to report, no snow flakes? No one on a bobsled passed you on the road as you were cycling? How about someone on skis? If there was a dogsledder or polar bear spotted, I'd like to have heard about it. Nothing, nothing at all?

Perhaps it was on another such hot and dusty day during our un-Civil War a wounded and delirious general thought of and and saw in his mind relief from that heat ahead? None other than the great southern general Stonewall Jackson had been mortally wounded. His mind came and went for several days. He had been told by his doctor he had little more than two hours to live. That time had passed. His last words often come to my own crowded mind on oppressively hot summer days. They were: “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.”

Dux:

Glad you liked the whirligigs at Vollis Simpson Park. Unique hobby, I'd say. I doubt you ever saw (or wished to) see a real tobacco warehouse either. They are part of my youth and a huge part of the past of our "Old North State".

Got your info and I am deee-lighted to agree to your request. Changes will be made according to your desire.

Y'all

It officially hit one hundred F. today just south of me. I will trade temperatures with you gentlemen in the east side of the Atlantic.
The only hope is the two-hour or so period in the morning when it is still below 82. F.
The hopes of rain disappeared thirty minutes before they were scheduled to arrive.

Thank you for the warning about Windows 7. May just invest on a mini mac. I don't like the M$ games, though it is probably the hackers who raise my ire.

Somehow I had hoped that the volcano eruptions, with all the misery they cause, would at least have the decency of cooling things down overall; just a little bit anyway.

Gents,

It is quite possible to spin a yarn or two regarding the future of various operating systems if we regard the windows box required for running legacy, or even modern games in a slightly different light. In future, you can choose to separate your gaming platform entirely from your other computing related activities.

If we regard Windows as just an OS amongst many OS'; MacOS, iOS, ChromeOS/GoogleOS, Linux, Xbox, Ps, etc. you can have a bare bone box for your Windows games with Steam or the occasional installed-from-a-box game running on that and all your other computing activities like managing holiday snapshots, home banking, browsing etc. you run on a more secure platform than you necessarily need for your old games.

That way, you might think of the end of product life for Windows 7 like a blessing. No more Microsoft updates to pork your installation! Yeay! Of course you run your anti-virus + Malware detection software, and you're behind a router anyway, and if you should be so incredibly unlucky and distracted that you click on a link you should not haver clicked and as a result you get a virus, just reinstall the lot or throw the box away and get another, the whole point is that there is no, absolutely no personal stuff on that box that you can't replace. All your files are on other devices, in the Cloud, or on a NAS (with it's native anti-virus protextion). Just make sure to change the Steam password if the baddies get you.

The added advantage is that you can plug that bare bone Windows box into your big TV screen with an HDMI cable.

So yes, Microsoft could indeed be said to expedite the death of the PC.

As long as users are satisfied being led around to the tune of the companies and opinion makers and do not develop new habits, i.e. stop storing all their stuff on one device or start thinking about proper back-up, they are easy targets for hackers, scare mongers, and big corporations.

..... Incidentally I've just switched to Bitdefender Free. The old anti virus sw did an update where it turned on the nag-switches again, those that I had preciously turned off, the kind of nags reading unpatched software, did I remember to brush my teeth and wash my hands. Bitdefender is wonderfully quiet so far.

Folks,

At 9 AM, our ambient temp is 79°F. / 26 C. The humidity is 100%.... Yuk! Danes would feel right at home in this Sauna. 😓

Fittop:

Enough to make you hot under the collar..... and everywhere else. At least wind chill is one thing we don't need to worry about these days. The heat index has been over 105°F. producing the required heat advisory mid-week. That cooled to 103°F. for the last two days with no heat advisory required. Explain to me the difference. I mean, beyond the 2 degrees. MS wants all of us to be happy using the same OS.... Win 10. The market is indeed fragmented with many choices. They are just wishing for the glory days when they had a monopoly in the OS market, the happy days when they were in court defending that monopoly (was it against Netscape?) They'll find some way sometime to monetize their browser.

I suppose they just noticed the killing Adobe and so many other software companies have been making selling subscriptions. It's coming and if they tried it now I think they would lose even more market share.

I've been having problems with my laptop. The little charging LED changed from white to orange for no known reason. At least there was no blue screen and the light wasn't blinking or the motherboard playing a dirge. I did what I could. I shut down. Removed the power plug and battery for several minutes. Plugging the power cord in without the battery produced a whit light again. Reinstalling the battery brought the orange light back. I booted normally and the orange light remained. I ran HP diagnostics on the battery and charging plug. Nothing wrong. I reinstalled the BIOS and that worked until next morning when the light changed back to orange after about an hour. Something overheating besides Fittop? Ran more diagnostics using Speccy64. Nuttin' honey. By now the light had gone back to white. It has remained white so far saving me a long wait on the HP hotline. Cross yer digits for me.

MG:

There are rumors that something is soon coming that will make the need for AV software unnecessary. I am happy Bitdefender has been on my machine for 8 months. I have the paid subscription version of 2018. I have had no problems with it. Set it and forget it. Check now and then for notices or to see if it is updating properly. I think you'll like Bitdefender Total Security 2018. Also check out the security Guru Steve Gibson's website (GRC) for quite a bit of info free and paid software. He is considered by many the top guy in computer AV software and security. While there you can have your system checked for open ports and vulnerabilities by "Shields UP". With Bitdefender it is unlikely you will have any red lights. I did not. Check out "Spin Rite" and "Squirrel". "Squirrel" was not ready when I got "Bitdefender". I may well get that when my subscription runs out. Steve is one smart guy.

https://www.grc.com/intro.htm

Food for Thought

What if computer viruses were created by antivirus companies....
to get you to buy their product?

Y'all,

Glad to see you mention your "Elephant Hole" where you'd go get some relief from the heat.
There was a city pool walking distance to me where I spent a couple of summers whenever I could get the sum of, yes, one whole dime for the entry fee.
It may have been a quarter...

Remember even going to the evening sessions; but the older young people would go then and we tried to keep a low profile so it was better in the afternoons.

Batter than that was our equivalent of your Elephant Hole. It was the twice a year or so outing with Junior High neighborhood school friends.
They lived closer to the G. Washington bridge than I.
We'd pack a self-made backpack, some sort of lunch and after the first time, a towel and swimsuit or fresh underwear.
We'd hike across the G. Washington bridge and follow the more experienced guys to a park of sorts and a swimming hole where I once chased big frogs.
Seem to remember someone said it was called McFaddens Place.

Yep, the first trip we swam in our briefs, later in less but when we finally discovered some local girls also used the place for swimming, trunks.
Those Jersey girls did seem healthier than the Washington Heights girls with whom we hung around.
Never found out if they could dance and skate as well as ours though.
But they sure looked prettier jumping in the water. Our mutual discovery surprised us as much as we surprised them.
We did also discover an apple tree.
Never seen green apples and remember tying them into a shirt and bringing them home since one of the guys mentioned his Mom made pies out of them.
Think my aunt came and showed my mother how to make one and yes! It was great.
The walk back always seemed a bit further than the walk over.
But walking across that huge bridge one could feel its power and it's shaking from the traffic passing by you.

Later on when our horizons were expanded, the gang or group would take a bus to Paramus NJ where a large pond had been made along with beach and shaded areas and spend a day watching the bathing suits animated by pretty ladies and hang on to a pulley and drop a ways from shore and swim back.
On rainy days we'd play poker at Arthur's apt, where under his parents' eyes we could behave and relax all at the same time.

Folks,

Another scorcher here in Dixie. At least the day and night opera singing has stopped. The cat is no longer calling for male cat company.

Fittop:

I;ve been over that bridge and I admit I never even thought about anyone swimming down there. The current might have been tough but there were no gators hoping to trim your toenails to the knees. Truthfully. I never actually saw an alligator and neither did anyone else within a few miles of the coast or in captivity. But one boy went missing and many folks said it was an alligator. NC is about as far north as gators can go up to now. If it warms a lot they might indeed frequent the subway and sewer system of NYC. Just an urban tale so far.

Shark species tolerant of brackish water have been known to come inland up the tributaries of Jersey. Someone once said that the instant you enter the sea a thousand eyes turn in your direction and know you have entered their domain. Perhaps. My little leg got bumped in shallow water. It felt like sandpaper. I was small and did not stick around to get any smaller.

I bet those swimmers were mermaids in their human form hoping to lure you young men into the water where they could have their wicked way with you. Too bad you did not notice. You might have a set of gills and be swimming around in those dark waters under that bridge to this day.

Y'all,

I should have phrased it better. McFadden's Place was a bit further inland in New Jersey than the Hudson.
The area north of the bridge is beautiful and you can see the Palisades as you walk /drive westbound on the bridge. Think there was an amusement park at the Palisades.
On hot summer evenings you could stand on the bridge and enjoy seeing the lights and feeling the breeze.
Not quite sure how far away from the bridge the pond was.
A walk away from the pedestrian exit of the bridge on the Jersey side. Probably cemented over by now.
The bridge was single-decked then. It was a surprise when I returned and saw it was now doubled-decked.

We did swim in the Hudson once, or tried to. South of the little lighthouse under the bridge in the New York side. The same lighthouse a children story book features that I read to my son as a little boy.
There is a strong current if you get away from the shore. We did not stay in the water long. It was mucky and frankly too many rats, big rats in the rocks- It does not encourage swimming. I have no doubt those rats could trim toenails and other body parts.

But the tennis courts were fun and the gangs had not discovered it at the time.

The little lighthouse was still there the last time I visited. Check Google maps. Yep, the Little Red Lighthouse is still there, and the area seems cleaned up a bit.

Folks,

Cloudy day all day today but much cooler temps. Nice to cut back the A/C for a bit. No one needs to give me oxygen or fan me today. The freezer ice maker has completely caught up. We are, however,warned by those watchful folk with the weather Ouija boards that we will pay for this break with even more intense heat coming soon. Temps today have been in the low to mid 70's F.

Tennis. That was a game I really enjoyed when I was younger. We had many courts to choose from in our town and played nearly every day until I got married. My best tennis buddy got married too just after a stint playing with a big RADAR set down in Biloxi, Mississippi for the USAF. My wife liked tennis and we could have continued playing mixed doubles if his wife would play. Mine was game enough but a bit wobbly with a new baby on board. I played a bit now and then with other friends but one day I took up golf as a business tool. You must play golf a lot to be any good at it. I do not think I ever played enough. I was famous for having the wettest ball or shortest drive. Finally, one day I realized it had been a year since I'd even held racket.

When my son was old enough I picked up a new racket. One that was made of aluminum and did not need to be held in a a wooden rack when not in use. I got my wife a new racket and we played tennis on weekends and afternoons for a while. Unlike golf, tennis was a healthy game. I always got a good workout especially shagging balls for my little son. Thanks , that brought back some good memories. I suppose that if you asked my son if he has a racket today he'd think you meant something about his job.

Gents,

We' are having the most incredible summer! So far 30 days (not all in succession) with temperatures at least one place in the country of at least 77 F. The rest of the weeks seems to contribute to increasing the tally.

Do you sometimes get that feeling, when watching the news, that two seemingly unrelated stories might be sinisterly related after all? This evening I learned first of an advisory board of doctors recommending organ transplants go ahead when a person's heart has stopped beating. Conveniently they did not go into a debate on the ethics of number of and earnestness of any resuscitation attempts. Until now, organ transplants have been dependant on the requirement of the person being brain-dead.

The other story, which I feel could be revealing as to the incitement of the conclusion offered by the advisory board of doctors in the first news story, told of new legislation which now allows electric bicycles capable of reaching speed up to nearly 28 mph to be ridden on bicycle pathways by cyclists no longer required to pass a test for a permit to drive such devices, the eCycle no longer required to display a license plate, and the cyclist no longer required to wear a helmet for head protection!

Clearly this will lead to more accidents on the bicycle pathways as already proven in a Dutch study citing over representation of especially middle-age to elderly cyclists in terminal accidents, with the consequence of providing more near dead material, for the organ transplant doctors to cut in.

Witnessing personally, almost on a daily basis, the complete lack of self-preservation by pedestrians and other cyclists, as well as motorists' difficulties assessing the speed of a bicyclist, I am just agape at the sheer stupidity on display from the legislators.

Folks,

Hot, 90°F. at 4:30PM but with mercifully low humidity. The lows are in the 70's and that usually marks summer's arrival for sure.

I am pleased that you are finally getting the summer you so richly deserve MG, especially having had none last year. A year with no summer? I'd only heard of that happening once before. Back in the 19th century (when Old Dux was a mere lad), 1816 to be exact. That was called "The year with no summer." The Thames completely froze over that year. You could have driven a car on the ice... if automobiles had been invented. And OLD Dux could have walked one end of London to the other, licking all the way, without his popsicle melting a drop even in August.

If a group of men, any men, got together to design the horse, they's come up with a camel. So do not be greatly surprised when a group of men write ludicrous laws that send motorized bikes amongst regular cyclists on the same public paths and roads, clearly expecting no serious problems. I'm surprised the idiots did not think of having one group go one way on the left side of the roads and the others go the opposite direction on the right, switching every other day. That would have resulted in a tangle no one could ever have put right.

However, thinking out of the box, this dangerous problem can easily be overcome with a minimum of simple violence. Simply install portable video cameras on your bikes looking behind you and light machine guns on a swivel covering the same area. That will slow them down for a bit. Soon, your opponents will begin carrying shotguns and pistols. Faced with such bloody mayhem on the peaceful streets and paths of Denmark, the new laws will swiftly be rescinded. Those normal cyclists not unfortunately already dead or in jail will once again have the roads to themselves. 😝

Folks,

The temp is 87°F. at noon today going up. The high will be around 91°F. We have partly sunny skies. Right now,it looks like a weekend and then a week of 90's ahead. It may be hotter or cooler where you are.

I received an odd e-mail today and I haven't opened it. It is supposed to be from our Canadian pal C51. The odd thing is that it came from DropBox. I see no reason why C51 would send me anything like that. I have nothing of interest to a hacker either stored on that account. So, I do not plan to open it because I understand Dropbox is often used to infect PCs and phones with Malware and to steal personal information. Beware such e-mail even if it appears to be from someone you know and trust. Unfortunately, I do not have C51's contact info anymore so Ican't just write and ask him. If any of you older members have that info, I would appreciate your contacting him for me and asking if he sent anything to me recently via DropBox.

Folks,

IThe temp is 82°F. at the moment (10:30 AM). We'll add another 10 degrees of heat to that before the day is over. It appears we must get used to the 90's. Apparently 90 is the new 80.

At least for us HWH vets, those of many years running since SNAFU started this thread.Seeing that much abbreviated front page is sad. Sadder still is coming here and finding just a few posts. The latest post being 3 days ago. Thanks for posting Jens. I know it is summer and we all have less time for the trivial. Still, I am remembering back when a page a day or more was the norm here. That gave one something to work off of in writing the next post. I guess it was more like a conversation than a correspondence. Just another thing for us to get used to.

I spent another 2 hours on the phone with my long time pal Dennis last night. It is taking many conversations to catch up on all the news and events of the many years we had no contact. I am looking forward to seeing Dennis and his large family a week from today to celebrate his 50th (Golden) anniversary. It will not be a formal event. It will be a good old NC pig pickin' that is sure to please everyone save for the pig. Yet it is the pig who is putting everything he has into the celebration. So we should thank him for it.

Yes, LeRoy, most of us will be wearing shoes. No bib overalls will be worn. The event won't be THAT informal. The Ouija board crowd are predicting high temps and possible showers. I'll be prepared with an umbrella. Someone will have to hold that for me. I want to eat with both hands. It IS that informal.

Yes,

You have a point, JRT. No excuse that we've been up to our teakettle trying to buy a new fridge and find a vehicle.
It's a trying mission in high temperature times.

I would have thought an expert like you could find a way to open a Dropbox item? I sure don't know.

Would the new virtual envelope in Firefox help isolate a potential threat? Like the one they say isolates Facebook?
Or is the only answer opening it in a pure new machine or even a virgin Fire tablet that one can dump threats by zeroing it afterwards work?

Did not want to post more boring stuff and any comment I might make on McGonigle's last sentence - referring to other legislators may be frown upon away from the PWEC section since it's the opposite of the intentions of this thread.
I had not checked in there in a long while...But I was tempted.

At any rate, MG may be assured the blindness and selfishness of folks is not limited to Denmark.
For a long time I thought it was original to here.
In fact, we had made up a name for it, it's the "Texas Dumb__-k Dance", usually displaying its steps in cars approaching intersections as if they were flying solo.
Seeing those acts are sometimes funny until you think of innocents that may be caught in the path of careening tons of metal and the cost to taxpayers of bent light poles.

Best wishes for a wonderful time on your upcoming visit.

Gents,

Still the good weather holds and it seems that the high and low pressures governing the regional climate are stationary and stable. We haven't had a June this hot and sunny since 1992 which was the year the national football team won the European Championship and this evening our team is in the octa-finals - if that is the correct word, so here's to hoping for a repeat performance from the current football team. I shan't loose any sleep if they don't win the match though as I am not really a fan of football.

After some cycling trips that had a decisive effect on my appetite and as a consequence some days of healthy eating some of my favourite dishes, heavily flavoured with curry, onions and garlic, and enjoyed over the weekend as I did not have to meet anyone or go to work, I am now back to more regular food and smaller helpings, and perhaps that is why I was watching this evening with ravishing appetite, the British chef Rick Stein visit several wonderful restaurants in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego area. Wouldn't I absolutely love to eat my way through those places! Those food shows have that effect on me. If I wasn't such a bad traveller and if the waistline was no concern, I would love to do the equivalent of a Globe trot, a food trot if you will, around the world. In memoriam to the late Anthony Bourdain, a tv channel is rerunning his excellent sereis; "Parts Unknown". So sad that he felt like life wasn't worth living. RIP.

Roger, I think it is probably wise to leave that Dropbox-file which supposedly is from C51 well alone. Chances are that the link was not sent by C51 but someone who has spoofed his details. It might likely have happened without C51 being at fault since someone (Dropbox) experienced a hacking attack and leaked users' accounts.