Folks,

Another very warm week has begun for us. At 10:30 AM we have a temp of 83°F. going on 91°F. and a drippy 67% humidity. There is a 3mph breeze blowing from the N and a reported visibility of 10m. There are a few scattered clouds about but no rain is expected.

July 3 is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. Here are some of the items of interest that occurred on this date in history:

1863 Battle of Gettysburg: Largest battle ever fought on the American continent, ends in a major victory for the Union during the US Civil War
1871 Jesse James robs bank in Corydon, Iowa ($45,000)
1913 Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett's Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors
1928 John Logie Baird demonstrates the first color television transmission in London
1929 Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories made foam rubber
1939 Ernst Heinkel demonstrates 800 kph (500 mph) rocket plane to Hitler
1939 Lou Gehrig day; Gehrig makes "luckiest man" speech
1940 British Royal Navy sinks French fleet in Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria, to prevent Germany seizing it.
1950 Casey Stengel asks Joe DiMaggio to play 1st base
1953 oldgrognard was born
1963 In New Zealand, a National Airways Corporation Dakota DC-3 crashes in the Kaimai Ranges; all 23 passengers and crew are killed in what is still New Zealand’s worst internal civil aviation accident
1968 41°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in July
1976 Brian Wilson performs with the Beach Boys after 12 years apart
1978 US Supreme Court rules 5-4, FCC had a right to reprimand NY radio station WBAI for broadcasting George Carlin's "Filthy Words"
1985 "Back to the Future" directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd is released
1986 President Reagan presided over relighting of renovated Statue of Liberty
1989 The movie "Batman" set record of quickest $100 million (10 days)
2014 "Guardians of the Galaxy", directed by James Gunn, starring Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana, premieres in Hollywood, Los Angeles

I wonder what is happening today?Perhaps Dux has caught a record dogfish by the seat of his swim trunks (Dux's trunks, not the fishes' and Jens has broken the world record for pedaling the quarter mile (perhaps helped along by the German Shepherd that was chasing him?) We shall see.

The rains today were interspersed with showers, and hail. Hopefully we might get three or four reasonably dry days before another low pressure sweeps in again. Temps won't go much further than 15 - 22 C and nights are quite cold at some 8 C. Some of the day was spent watching cyclist on the telly touring around France. Had difficulty keeping awake at tines. Sunday I did get a bike ride (or was it a boat ride) in. half-way into the excursion I ran into a fairly mild and shower. At other times I was thinking that I had dressed to warmly. The quick changes between summer-ish and downright cold play havoc with what to wear. At least I was ion no doubt that I wanted to test my new cycling shoes and they were very nice.

I'm currently uploading my files to a backup site but the asynchronous nature of the download/upload configuration makes uploads a slow affair. I'm also waiting for my brainy friend with the Unix knowledge to return to me with some valid commands that will flush the OS partition of its memory hogging unnecessary files. Apparently my NAS is so old that the Unix commands are different to less ancient equipment.

Folks,

At 9:30 AM we have 77°F. headed irresistibly toward an expected peak of 88°F. this July Fourth holiday. We suffer a 90% humidity but fortunately, that is in no way abated by any wind coming from any direction. Visibility is believed to be 10m.

Jens:
I have never seen bicycling races completely covered on TV here. The highlights of the Tour de France is usually covered on the news. Perhaps bike races are covered on ESPN. If so, I have not seen that. I hope your weather becomes more springlike soon. I don't expect Scandinavia ever experiences the heat and humidity that we do. Uploading your files seems like quite a chore and putting everything on DVDs is not safe in the long, long run. It also requires a good cataloging program like ADC (Advanced Disk Catalog) to keep everything searchable and organized.

We wish all who celebrate this date a safe and happy day whatever you may be doing. For those for whom this is just another page on their calendar, we also wish the same. I am reminded of the last Independence Day celebration we enjoyed before my late wife passed away. The weather was fine all day. We had a picnic and watched the city fireworks display and we had come back at home. My granddaughter wanted to go to the park and run a while. We nixed that as it was getting late and a storm was predicted. Our grandson wanted to go out and shoot some arrows with his new bow. We nixed that too as supper was about ready.

Although feeling very tired after supper my wife allowed the grandkids to drag her out on the patio to light some sparklers. Naturally, my son and I joined them and I remember it as a very good ending to an already good day. Somewhere off in the distance a neighbor was firing off rockets and exploding firecrackers. From inside the house could be heard a Sousa march being played on TV. Several miles away the sky was lit occasionally as others fired rockets. This was interspersed with a little distant thunder. The predicted rain and clouds had held off until then but it was coming and coming fast. Soon we felt a few drops and by the time we got inside the house it was pouring rain. A good day indeed, Like the paint commercial on TV. "No runs, no drips, no arrows."

Folks,

LOL. Had to laugh at your last sentence" "No runs, no drips, no arrows." Can't believe I don't watch enough TV or at least the right stations, as i have never sen or heard that slogan.
Maybe it's local.

The weather here is similar to yours, except for the late night or early morning shower that manages to wake me way too early. The late night shower that I would normally associate with the tropics is unusual here and it makes me wonder what's going on? it's been too consistent lately to be an anomaly or I'm reading too much into it.

The sun spot cycles are entering a new pattern -according to some - and I wonder if this forecasts the heavy droughts and hot temperatures we experienced starting in 2010. Supposedly it was the other extremes in the sun spot activity. Astronomer I am not, nor a fan of the end of world theories or the last year of the Mayan calendar pessimist.

I no longer have the bag of fireworks I used to keep to take to the lake and set off on this day. It's a good thing since the powder would be unreliable by now. Think I used it up some 15 years ago.
But today I will be cooking steaks, along with that will be corn on the cob, potato salad and even watermelon. Yes, a beer will go fine with that, though a bottle of wine is opened.

I'm on a 9 day vacation in the US desert southwest. Did the Arizona desert around Phoenix and Tucson, and the PIMA air museum. Then onto the high desert of Sedona and Flagstaff on the way to the Grand Canyon. Then a loop of Lake Powell, Bryce, Zion, and Hoover Dam. Then did some of the old Route 66 to Williams, AZ. Road the Grand Canyon railroad back up to the Canyon. Planes of Fame. At Red Rocks today and back to Phoenix to fly home tomorrow.

Weather has been hot and dry. Miserable hot in the desert. Nicer in the high desert, but still dry. Hottest temp was 118 F. The altitude up in the mountains near Bryce were close to 9,000 ft. You could feel the difference in oxygen content when you hiked the trails.

Sorry I gave real measurements and not the new age stuff many of you are using.



ps - I made an addition to JRT's list above.

Happy July Fourth Ye Gents across The Pond.

For more than one hundred years we have held our own contribution to your Independence Day in Rebild Bakker in Jutland to commemorate and reaffirm the strong ties between our two countries as many Scandinavians and thereby also Danes emigrated to the US in the 19th century in particular. Little did they know that temperatures in some parts of your country are prohibitive to westernised lifestyle without air-conditioning, and little did they know that Yellowstone is located on the equivalent of some hundreds or thousands of H-bombs. Perhaps they were even unaware of the tectonic plate movements and the fault line moving up all along the west coast.

Rarely do we experience summers that are as hot and humid as you do in the hotter parts of the States. Our heat record is from August 10th 1975 and the Mercury reached a very timid 36.4 C. The humidity here can sometimes be quite high, 60 - 70 % is quite common. If the humidity is high and the wind down, combined with a (for us) heatwave, Things can get a bit sticky. No chance of that happening again anytime soon, it seems. We may be in for a whole two days of agrreable weather before it seems like I'll be heading back into the indoor pool again.

Folks,

Fittop:

Thank you. That was a Krylon (C) spray paint commercial with Johnny Bench the famous baseball catcher. The slogan was "No runs, no drips, no errors." It was on for quite a long time with variations. Advertising Age indicated it was a very successful campaign.

The 11-year sunspot cycle certainly has an effect on wireless transmissions propagation. Before my first computer took me away from it, I spent a lot of time in my shop squinting in the dark at luminous dials in the wee hours of the morning, tuning in distant broadcasts and HAM transmissions around the globe. During the cycle, one could talk and receive "Skip" from places like Macmurdo that might be impossible at any other time. The radio signal bounced off the ionosphere which was extra ionized by the sunspots, you see.

They have an effect on the earth's magnetic shield as well. Scientists do not yet know all there is to know about the sun. They know it is 93,000,000 miles away and that it is thought to be rather hot. That may be why no Astronauts have gone there. I figured out how to get around that one. Just leave the earth in a trajectory aimed to get them there at night....

Gotcher PM, thanks.

OG:

It sounds like a wonderful vacation. The heat is high but the humidity is low and the nights in the desert can be really chilly. It is a beautiful country. I have some Indian pottery and a piece of petrified wood about 10" long. I've flown over that meteor crater near Winslow, AZ. There are 60 confirmed impact craters in the US, I believe. Enjoy the rest of your trip and keep safe.

MG:

Indeed we do have a history of very good relations with Scandinavia and the kingdom of Denmark. Probably that is because you are such friendly people. Most who migrated here from your area seem to have found their way to Minnesota and that region. Besides the Spanish who explored the area but did not settle early on and then the English who did settle. Later, mostly Germans migrated here from Europe and settled in our NC mountains. At least it seems to me there are a lot of Nordic related folk in Minnesota when last I was there.

That state is a "fur piece" North from here and as I went to school for a lengthy time in Michigan I can promise you the winters are different from here. Hurricanes never threaten them as they do us. They probably have tornadoes though. It is a much longer walk to the beach from Minnesota but the Great Lakes and Canada are nearer by. That last time I was in Minneapolis there was a lot of snow on the ground. As I do not see much of that substance at home I really liked that. The most snow I have ever seen not in movies or on TV was when I was bookended by two blizzards in Chicago. Snow was banked up to the top of parking signs and yet the main roads (especially to O'hare airport) were clear next morning. I couldn't get over it. We have an inch of snow here and everything shuts down, or it used to.

Ooooops ! Big mistake on my part. I thought JRT's list was for the 4th but it was the 3rd. So my addition is wrong. Just plain wrong.

I was born on the 4th.

A Very Happy Birthday, OG!

Thank you Fittop.

I wish I were as erudite as you other posters in this thread.

You all spin some good yarns.

Folks,

It is now 10 AM this July Wednesday. The temp is 80°F., the humidity is 79% and there is a 3 mph breeze from the SE. Visibility is claimed to be 11m. Our skies are cloudy, rain fell last night. We expect a high of 88°F. today.

OG:
A belated Happy Birthday to you. Why are you calling us names? "ERUDITE", us, really? Well, I'd say the others may be but not I. I do thank you on their behalf for the compliment, however.

The Fourth of July 1939 is a most important date for me and I wasn't even born for another five years. This Independence Day would have marked their 78th wedding anniversary of my parents were they still living. Many historic happenings took place here and abroad in the year 1939, however, none surpassed that date in importance for me.

I see in the news that Amelia Earhart may indeed, as some have speculated, have survived the crash landing of her Electra. A newly discovered photograph suggests the legendary aviator, who vanished 80 years ago on a round-the-world flight, survived a crash-landing in the Marshall Islands. The photo apparently shows Amelia and her navigator survived and were captured by the Japanese. The Japanese govt. has denied any record of the two being in their custody. As that fellow on the "Laugh-In" TV Show might have observed, "Verrrrry Interesssting." There is an upcoming special on the History Chanel about all that.

Belated happy birthday OG! You will (hopefully) not have any trouble remembering the date, but very convenient for others to remember your birthday by.

Here's a fun and true fact; my cellphone number's last four digits are: 1776. I may have trouble remembering the first four, but I never forget the last four. When I need to make some conversation, I can bring this fact up, and sadly, very few will guess or know the significance.

As predicted, today has been dry and the clouds that at one time threatened to keep the sun out of sight happily dispersed by evening. It is quite cold though and even with long legged bibs and a warm outer jacket, I was mostly cold on my bike ride today. 15 - 17 C and I almost think that it aint really a fit day out for mhannnnn or beast!

Folks,

In case you haven't guessed, today is Thursday, the 6th of July. At 9:20 this morning our temp is 73°F. with a humidity of 97%. Another 92° day is predicted. We had more rain last night but skies are partly sunny so far today. We have a 5mph wind from the NW and a predictable 10m visibility is reported.

Jens:

I wonder how our founding fathers knew you'd need help remembering your phone number almost 300 years later? Now we know the truth about the reason for their choice of the year 1776 to bid goodbye to Georgie 3. It is a good thing smart phones were invented and you managed to get that particular number. Otherwise, all that planning 88,023 days ago might have been for naught.

Did you notice that Volvo announced it is dropping production of its piston engines? Volvo recently announced it is the only car company so far to go completely electric. Soon every car Mfg. may do the same and, as a result, all the auto races will be completely quiet save for the screams and curses when all those long electric extension cords get tangled up.

If you will send it, I would love a few days of your colder weather but delete the rain, please. If required, I will send you some hot sunshine by E-Mail.

Folks,

I'll say Good morning to you all and mean it, though it appears that I'm already in the doghouse at home.
That brings up possible results of a point raised by JRT's reminder of Volvo's decision.

There were already complaints about the quietness of electric cars being a danger because folks can not hear them coming.
Can you envision the additional problems faced by those concentrating so much on their phones if they already fall into wading pools, run into lamp posts, etc.?

Volvo will have an engineering problem.

A long time ago we solved a bike's similar problem by attaching a playing card to the frame that created enough racket to warn of our approach.
What it essentially did was now forewarn the senior citizens so that we could be struck by their walking sticks on the head rather than our backside.

How Volvo will attach a noisemaker is a matter of conjecture. Modern cars wheels don't let themselves to extraneous attachments.
It can not be outside the car frame because of the additional wind resistance and it would create a possible danger to pedestrians.

The horn as an aid is already handicapped as it can be claimed it's already overused and a possible instigator of assault cases in some quarters.

But I am not worried. Car races will still be loud.
Someone, possible my early-rising neighbor, will lend his know-how in installing very-loud glass pipes to the race sponsors.

Folks,

Fittop:

LOL. And a very good afternoon to you my friend. You bring up an excellent point regarding quiet engines. In addition, mentioning the bicycle will likely get Jens' attention. Yes, those quieter cars may have certain auditory drawbacks. For one thing, they will require city dwellers to learn how to sleep without pervasive automobile noises berating their ears throughout the night. Pedestrians will just have to be more alert when jaywalking.

Wait, I think I see an opportunity here. You mentioned cell phones. We simply need to create an app for the new cell phones that will surely have to come along with RADAR. The app will allow these newly designed phones to warn those afoot of oncoming traffic.Meaning those who are concentrating on their texting rather than the traffic bearing down on them. Those wishing to get in on the ground floor of this fantastic money-making opportunity should send LeRoy a few thousand $3.005 US dollar bills with the serial number 0006 c/o HWH Hall, 007 None Such Avenue, Studley Grange, UK. Those not wishing to risk actual currency can send the same value in nine and 3/4 carat genuine imitation cubic zircon studded umbrellas.

We kids attached playing cards or stiff cardboard to our bike yokes so they touched the wheel spokes to create what we thought was the sound made by motorbikes. I suppose they also had some value to hard of hearing pedestrians as well. Concerned motorists driving quiet electric cars who are just good citizens or find they may be woefully underinsured in the event of serious injury to jaywalkers, could benefit from leaving their car windows down and their radios turned all the way up. They might also wish to have their radio tuned to a 24-hou station playing "Heavy Metal" music or repeat broadcasts of a Chinese New Year celebration.

JRT, Folks,

Seriously, I had not thought about the loud car radios blasting unrecognizable noise that seem to stop next to me at every fifth stoplight.

I once sold, at a very good price, a nicely-kept Celica to a friend that coveted it.
Afterwards I realized he got it for his son, who promptly turned the small trunk into a speaker magazine; the sort that you see driving down every street in South America cities, lyin..oops, I mean extolling the virtues of a politician to one and all through a megaphone with 6,000 ohms of power.
For weeks after my friend came and showed me his son's ouvre I had to withstand dirty looks and comments from the neighbors.

How about infra-red alerts on a smart phone?

Objections may be raised to putting a radar app on a "smart" phone. I seem to remember strict instructions to make sure the radar was OFF if anyone was in front or around an aircraft's radar transmitter since bodily receiving radar beams could lead to shooting blanks and other damaging effects on the receptor's self.

I could resent the head-down inattention of some person fixated on their phone and coming toward me with a radar narrow beam only needed because he or she could not miss the action on his mini screen.

I mean, how often would I have to wash the tinfoil outfit?

Gents,

What, no noise from piston engines in the future you say?? And I hear that autonomous driving cars and driverless vehicles are being touted as the next big thing. I shall have to play the sound files of a BRM 16 cylinder racing engine very loud on the car hi-fi then, to make people aware of my presence. Seriously though, the day I can't drive a car I'll give up automobiles. Being in charge is the thing that is interesting me with regards to driving. If all I wanted was transportation I'd jump into a Zippy, which is my word for the autonomous, ownership-not required box that will get me from a to b. And with regards to electric racing cars and even driverless robo-racers, I'm also compeletly out of interest. It needs to be smelly, noisy and with people in charge of the vehicles, otherwise it's just Robowars. It may be the thing for the 21st Century person, but I'm a 20th Century man.

The headlines proclaiming Volvo to become electric driven needs to be qualified a bit by what Volvo has really said: By 2019, all new models will have an electric or hybrid element to them. They'll abandon diesel engines, but as I understand the plan, there will still be a piston engine involved. This is what I think we know, the rest is now my speculation and conjecture: The piston engine will probably be smaller in capacity than we are used to and the electric/hybrid element used to provide extra mileage or extra horsepower. That way CO2 emissions will be further reduced thus complying with EU, US and Chinese regulation demanding a further lowering of CO2 emissions. Volvo is owned by the Chinese.

According to some people, CO2 is the cause for all evil in the world and at the roots of "Climate Change", whatever that might be. Well, I always enjoy a debate where positions expressed in one Unique Selling Point are broadened from the simple to the complex and more pertaining information is brought forward. CO2 is only deadly in massive concentrations, as in exchange the air in the room with only CO2 and you die. That applies to O2 as well, by the way. Breathe only O2, and you die. CO2 is appreciated by plants and the basis for photosynthesis.Some people claim, that replanting the huge areas of forrest that have been, and are being cut down, would absorb 30% of the current CO2. In terms of greenhouse gasses, Methane is far worse than CO2, and every time we, 7.000.000.000 inhabitants or our livestock fart, Methane is released. Almost nobody put forward these facts in the public debate. It is always the CO2 emitted which is named the culprit.

Rarely anybody mentions the environmental consequences of producing batteries and very complicated cars with lots of exotic materials, and the consequences and costs of scrapping them and reusing and getting rid of waste parts. Perhaps a simple Jeep that you keep for 30 years is more environmentally friendly than the three or more high tech hybrid/electrics you'll have to buy to keep you going for the same amount of years?

I wouldn't be surprised at all, if the masses think they can run their electric or hybrid cars more than a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle because they think of these EV/Hybrids as being "clean". But all they do is require their energy form the socket and where and how is that energy produced? So imagine many more people wanting to own and drive (or be driven) in a vehicle because these vehicles are thought of as environmentally clean. More vehicles, more miles more energy required which leads to a need for more energy to be produced.

This is why I think that the future belongs not to the electric car or hybrid vehicle, but to fuel cells as the means for propulsion. Apollo 13 proved it, if under somewhat uncontrolled circumstances: Mix O2 and H and you get a big bang. Waste product is O2; Water.

In a previous post OG or Fittop raised the question; are we, as a species getting dumber? I would say we base our ideas and beliefs on what we are told and what we know or learn. If we are told that CO2 emissions are the sole biggest cause for Climate change, some choose to believe that.

Giving another example, yet in an entirely different area and and area that finally, yes finally, bears some resemblance to the core matter of this HWH thread, I have just been taken quite by surprise by the fact that Winston Churchill was violently opposed to operation Overlord. I don't think that this position has been given enough consideration. Perhaps the reason why it has not been discussed much is the fact that Overlord succeeded and the Allies won the war, so there rests the case. after all, why would the Allies choose to mount a vastly amphibious invasion force across the Channel opposing the might of the Nazi forces in mainland, Fortress Europe, if that was not militarily the most sensible thing to do?

Well, the Allies were well in swing on the real second front; Italy, having fought their way through heavy opposition and up to Rome, with the promise of an incursion to Europe and the Balkans from the South but suddenly they diverted men and material to the Invasion of France. They had defeated the Italian fascist regime and forced Nazi Germany to send troops to Italy to fight there, so why oh why did they give up on the Italian front and go for a sea landing into France?

Apparently, it was all to appease Stalin. Bloody Joe who demanded a second front in France due to his aspirations to conquer Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Had the Allies pressed on form Italy, the war might have ended sooner. No need for the bloody landings in Normandy, no need for operations such as Market Garden, and the relationship with the Soviets quite possibly damaged to the effect that the Western Allies might have gone with the rest of the Wehrmacht and fought the red Army?

I think that these tales imply that if we accept someone else's argumentation with no healthy scepticism, if we stop asking questions, sometimes "inappropriate" questions, we are fools and will be played for fools. If we seek out new information, new insight, we are on the right track.

Long rambling post over (for now). Weather you agree or disagree, I hope you enjoyed these musings.


Roger; Thank you so much for the sunny weather you sent. It arrived well and shiny and the day was thus applied to what is sometimes referred to as gardening chores but they were not really chores at all. Mowing the lawn and cutting some shrubbery was a nice way to get some additional groups of muscles going, that cutter for the shrubs sure is heavy! I've just zipped and emailed to you, our last night which in the coldest parts at 5 a.m. saw a temperature of 2.8 degrees C! Coldest July morning in two years, no less! I do have my doubts that it will keep cold en route to you as you report such high temps and humidity at 97%. According to my calculations, you are located in what equates to a very big bucket of water my friend!

Hello Chaps,

Been away to Derbyshire for a little while and returned to a brilliant week weather-wise. Some boat fishing yesterday with smooth hound, lesser dogfish, gurnard, even a spider crab but no mackerel yet. The girls won mainly because a ten year old out-fished the men all by herself....and steered the boat back to harbour. I just couldn't bear to look at her Facebook entry...

8 foot Porbeagle passed by under the harbour wall a few hours ago and bathers cleared the shoreline in what looked like record time.

Chaps,

JRT,

How did the 4th July celebs go? I could easily imagine you sweating over the barby making up those disgusting Spam concoctions. Spam! Spam! Spam! - wasn't there a song about that? Monty Python perhaps?

2.8 degrees in July ? That's horrible. That is like the temperatures we see in Michigan and other northern states at the worst part of winter. Aren't your waterways getting iced ? A hard freeze like that must have killed a lot of the vegetation. That will have an impact on the crops and the economy. I had no idea that it got that cold in Europe during the .... oh; Europe ... that is 2.8 degrees in that new age measuring system.

Never mind; carry on.