Author: Low Wattage

If you are in a bookstore and cannot find the volume you seek, you must be in the….. Continue reading “Looking for a Good Read”

One of my favorites,   Number Six is finally free.

They grow like weeds here, starting out as nondescript green shoots but soon they develop these “lizard feet” shaped leaves, Spatulate is a word I think of but maybe palmately lobed is a better description. This one is pushing up between my deck and steps and needs to be taken care of again.

Continue reading “Suffering Sassafras”

A disaffected young man four days away from his 27th birthday detonated a 7,000 lb bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Government building in Oklahoma City.

168 people aged from 3 months to 73 years of age died. Most of the 19 children killed were attending the day care facility in the building.

The perpetrator was captured, tried and executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.

An oxygen tank ruptured aboard the Service Module of the Apollo 13 spacecraft, the third mission intended to land on the moon.

The accident occurred almost exactly 200,000 miles from the earth, and resulted in an almost complete loss of electrical power in the module.

This event produced one of the most misquoted lines of all time, what Jack Swigert actually said in reporting the event was “Houston we’ve had a problem”.

During the next four days the only objective of the mission was “get home safe” and became an exercise in creative use of a very limited set of resources. Just about everything possible was used in some way to ensure the survival of the three crew members.

A recent interview with Jim Lovell the mission commander (now 82 years old) revealed a man as calm and laconic as he was in 1970 when faced with what appeared to be an unpleasant lingering death. Asked if he ever thought they would not make it safely back to earth he replied “No, but we were not waiting around for a miracle to occur, if we had been, we would still be up there”

A recent post by Cyanide Bunny here and the thread that followed reminded me of a Foreign Mime I was involved in a few years ago, I was in Egypt and in a street of leather garment makers. On a whim I decided this would be a good place to buy a pair of leather motorcycle chaps (just like horse riding chaps and worn to protect your legs). I started to try to describe and mime what I wanted but with no success, I went back to my hotel and chose my least loved pair of jeans and with the nail scissors cut them down to a set of chaps, just two legs joined by a waistband, no body and the legs split up the sides so as to be closed with snaps. Taking this pattern back to the vendor I showed him what I wanted, in black leather. After turning the pattern over in his hands for a few minutes he looked up to me with a big smile on his face and said “Ah! Is for your wife, Yes?” “Well no” I said “is for me” “No, no” he replied “You not ladyboy, is for your wife, yes?” Finally I agreed “Is for my wife” “Good, good, tomorrow” he said, when I returned, no chaps were to be seen and I was told with some difficulty that they had been seen hanging in the store and been bought by another American, “for his wife, yes” next day I had my own pair and noticed that another pair were hanging there also, waiting for the next American deviant to purchase. They may be there still, it was only twenty years ago.

Poking about the local marinas after the record snowfalls here last week revealed a couple of catastrophes of significant proportions. Those poorer people who do not have the advantage of owning their own docks, but own expensive (read large) boats usually keep them in “Covered Slips” at local marinas, these shed like structures usually hold boats in the 50 to 60 foot range (read $1-$2 million a pop). The forty inch snowfall last week collapsed at least two of the covered slips containing about sixty such craft. Looks like about $30 million in property value involved here, sort of thing that would spoil your breakfast any day.

Continue reading “Snow Big Deal”

One last one for the Bull (sadly missed)

Oklahoma?

Oklahoma, where the names go swirling down the drain
And the blog elite, can all feel beat
When the comments vanish, it’s a pain,
Oklahoma, ev’ry day the spammers fill the screen
You do nowt but talk, and we all walk
Making MyT something that HAS BEEN

So many have now left the site
And Onesite cannot get it right
And when we say
There’s no chance in hell you’ll try
We’re only sayin’
You’re doing nowt, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma, GOODBYE!

Apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein