Cop Car's Beat

Who called 9-1-1? Not Hunky Husband!

My words concerning Hunky Husband's event (in his words, the deer tried to mate with his car), did not convey the idea of the emergency call that was placed on his behalf very well. The call was made, automatically, by his car's system. Below is an excerpt from a Ford website. Hopefully, it makes plain the use of systems incorporated into the Lincoln cars that HH and I drive. In response to Bogie's comments concerning elderly drivers, I'll note that the average age of Lincoln car drivers is well above that of the general population; so, it is natural that Lincoln might be particularly apt to include such a system in their cars.

Bogie had a valid point, too, that in asking HH's age, the person who answered the emergency call from HH's car, might be helping the emergency responders prioritize their responses. In this case, the second car that hit the deer had worse consequences than did HH's car; but, age of driver may have determined that HH would get first attention.

Post-Crash Response

Post-crash notification technology assists occupants in summoning assistance in an urgent situation through in-vehicle emergency call systems and can give first responders potentially life-saving information.

[Hmmm...the photo that I had posted here of the emergency display showing the latitude and longitude post-crash has been taken down by Lincoln. CC]

Automated Emergency Calls

Vehicles equipped with SYNC^® in-car connectivity, which enables drivers to use cell phones and MP3 players through voice commands, also come with a call-for-help system called SYNC 911 Assist (in the U.S.) or Emergency Assistance (in other markets).

In the event of a severe crash where an airbag is deployed or the fuel pump is shut off, SYNC 911 Assist can make an emergency call using a paired/connected cell phone. This call can be initiated automatically, although a vehicle occupant can opt to cancel the call.

As well as providing the emergency operator with a GPS location, SYNC Enhanced 911 Assist can also provide data such as impact velocity, crash type, whether multiple impacts were sustained, safety belt usage for seating positions with belt reminders, and whether airbags were deployed. Such information could help emergency responders understand the severity of the incident and dispatch the most appropriate response. Enhanced 911 Assist is currently available on vehicles in the U.S. and China that are equipped with SYNC Gen 1.1 or Gen 3, and the offering has recently expanded to include Brazil.

Hunky Husband's exciting day

Back Story: Hunky Husband and I met Elder Brother in Great Bend KS on Thursday. EB had driven down from his home in Colorado the day before. The expectations were that EB would do a bit of solo birding Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, we would all lunch together, then do some group birding Thursday afternoon and (on our way back home to Derby) Friday morning. Friday evening, the whole Wichita-area family was to gather at our home before embarking on eating dinner out. Saturday morning, it was planned that EB, HH, and I would do a last spate of birding down near Arkansas City, Kansas. (Need I remind you that EB is an avid bird watcher, and has been since about 1952?)

Thursday Afternoon: HH and I met EB, as planned, and did some birding during the afternoon. While HH took his afternoon siesta, EB and I went to get EB a snack. We returned to EB's motel room to chat until HH awoke in HH's and my room, next door. We hadn't been settled for long when HH knocked on the door. HH then regaled us with the following tale.

In EB's and my absence, HH had awakened and attempted to contact us by calling my cell phone. Of course, not wishing to carry a charger and/or extra battery with me, I had left home with a freshly-charged battery and my phone turned off. Everyone knows that, when HH and I are on travel, we can be contacted by calling HIS cell phone - which is patched through his car's system. My cell phone was in the same room from which HH was attempting to contact me.

Failing to reach me, HH chose not to leave a message. Somehow, in closing down, he managed to accidentally dial 9-1-1. He was quite shocked when a woman asked him about his "emergency". HH assured her that he was not reporting an emergency and that he had no idea how he had made the contact. The dispatcher, after gathering HH's name and location, told him that by the local law enforcement office's protocol, a police officer would be dispatched to the motel. In a couple of minutes, the officer arrived at the motel and tapped on the door. When HH opened the door, the officer called him "Louis". HH identified himself and chatted with the officer enough to assure the officer that HH was not under duress from a third party. HH was somewhat taken aback and puzzled when the officer assured him that such occurrences (accidental 9-1-1 calls) from people staying at motels was not rare. Huh? Does that make sense to anyone? Not to me.

Thursday Evening: At dinner, HH told EB and me that if EB would make sure I got home, HH would go ahead and drive home that night. We would miss him; but, we understood that HH had other things to do than to put up with brother-sister interchanges and bird watching. An hour later, on bidding HH adieu, I turned on my cell phone (a fortuitous action!)

Oh, Deer!: At about 9:45pm, while EB and I were "arguing" politics (he, being a staunch Libertarian who plans to leave 30% of his estate to that political party, and I being a centrist with no political party affiliation), my cell phone rang. The conversation that ensued between HH and me was a bit disjointed for two reasons: 1) he was pretty shook up and 2) he was also conversing with a sheriff's deputy officer. It seems that HH had hit a deer, that his car was being towed, and that HH was without means of transportation. I told him to give EB and me a few minutes to assess the options and that I would call HH back.

I immediately called the front desk to enquire if there was a car rental agency in town that would still be open for business. "Oh, no! We don't have anything like that." Explaining the situation to her, I asked if she had other suggestions. "Well, we could send a taxi to get him - tomorrow morning!"

I asked EB if he was willing to abort his stay in Great Bend in order for us to check out of our motel rooms, go pick up HH, and go to our home in Derby. He was. The sheriff's deputy officer dropped HH at a nearby Walmart at which place we met him about an hour later. Fortunately, our drive home was uneventful.

Early Saturday: While HH went for his morning run, I made calls to establish where we needed to go in order to 1) unload HH's belongings from his wounded car and 2) pick up the police report on the accident - to provide to the insurance company. In order to access HH's car at the lot in Galva KS (a few miles east of McPherson), to which it had been towed, HH (as the owner) needed to have 1) current proof of insurance, 2) current auto registration, and 3) current driver's license. Ye gads! I said, "But the proof of insurance and the auto registration are in the glove compartment of his car!" She recommended that, in order to avoid our long drive's being for naught, we should obtain another copy of the documents to bring with us. From experience, she knew that one's documents were not always where they were expected to be.

I called the Sedgwick County Tag Office and was told that, indeed, HH could have a copy of his registration printed out at our Derby branch of the Tag Office, by paying one dollar.

Saturday Morning & Afternoon: By the time HH returned from running, EB had arisen and driven out to return to the Great Bend area to complete his birding in that area. HH asked to borrow my car. Nope! I would drive him. He was not happy with that, but I stuck to my guns.

We hit the Tag Office where I waited in the car only a few minutes while HH paid his $1 and obtained the required document. He had told me that our next stop would be the Lincoln dealership in Wichita, his having thoughts of possibly buying a new car. Having obtained the registration printout, he decided to make the insurance office our next stop - at which I waited in the car about 45 minutes. Then, we headed to McPherson/Galva to empty his personal items (and pick up his car tag) from his car and drop by the sheriff's office.

When HH emerged from the sheriff's office, I handed him the car "key", and asked him to drive us home. Once we were on the interstate highway, I started coaching him on the use of my car's augmented cruise control system, sound system, and such. Only after he had spent some miles and minutes swearing and venting in frustration at trying to hit the right controls in the right way to get something to happen with my car did I let him know why I had driven him on his rounds that morning: I didn't want him trying to cope with learning the controls in my car while still trying to figure out how to cope with the aftermath of his accident. I told him, "I didn't think I could live through that." He responded, "You were probably right."

Saturday Evening: The whole clan gathered. Having had only three hours' sleep the previous night (2am-5am), having dealt with being around both HH and EB for a stretch of time (one or the other is OK - both? Oh, my!), and dealing with HH's accident, I had done exactly nothing in preparation. Besides, the plan had been for us to go to a local restaurant (which one, indeterminant) for our evening meal. We decided that it would be less stressful for us to eat in. HH and Dudette volunteered to pick up the food, Wonderful GrandDaughter and Rachie polled the delegates to determine and phone in the food order, WichiDude and EB volunteered to insert four feet (two leaves) into the dining table, I fetched three extra chairs from the breakfast room to accommodate our nine diners, and EB and I spread the table cloths, napkins, and dinner ware around the table. It all worked out beautifully.

Expressing shocked dismay that I had nothing on hand to serve as dessert, other than the cookies in the cookie jar, Dudette and HH made another foray to fetch three kinds of ice cream (mint chocolate chip and cappuccino chocolate chunk from Braums, and vanilla soft serve from Dairy Queen) to cap off the meal. Following dessert, we reassembled the table in its shortest configuration and we four women played Mexican Railroad until it was time for the local area family to depart.

Remainder:  Before dinner, HH regaled the family with tales of his wild encounter with the deer. That is covered in the next posting.

Oh, deer!

Hunky Husband's latest adventure gave him a new appreciation for the descriptive "deer in the headlights look". He said that, in an instant, he saw the deer's eyes staring into the headlights. Then, there was a thud. When he put his foot on the brake pedal, he found that no brakes were left to activate - the automatic collision avoidance system had already applied maximum controlled braking. Finally, the air bag was in his face and he felt the warmth of the bag on his forearms. Then, the car's electronic display showed the latitude, longitude of his position and the audio system came on with a call from Lincoln's monitoring service: "Are you hurt?" "How old are you?" "Where are you?"

He was not injured - at least, not badly enough that he knew about it. All he knew was that he was covered with powder from the air bag. He told the woman that he was 82 (probably only asked to assess his mental alertness following a harrowing event) and that he didn't know where he was. Following discussion about mileage markers, he was able to tell the woman that he had just entered the I-135 Interstate Highway at McPherson, Kansas. (The woman had told him that the latitude and longitude was not sufficient.) She told HH that she would dispatch emergency personnel - who arrived in a very few minutes.

HH was very pleased with the services everyone provided him, with especially kind words for the Sergeant from the McPherson County Sheriff's office. As it happened, the poor deer had fallen into the left-hand lane following its mortal impact by HH's car, and was run over by another automobile. Unfortunately, the second automobile was more badly damaged than was HH's.

A semi-wrecker arrived and loaded HH's car at which time one of the law enforcement people took HH to the Walmart mentioned in the previous posting.

When Elder Brother and I picked up HH to take him home, we could see that HH had barely gotten onto I-135: he probably had not yet reached the speed limit of 75 mph. (I-135 was a distance of about 60-65 miles from the motel in Great Bend.)

When we unloaded HH's car, yesterday, I asked the woman at the towing company to send us the photos that she had sent to our insurance company. (I had taken a camera, but saw no reason to duplicate her efforts.) Those photos are below. As you can see, the car looks drivable. Except for the blown airbag and resetting of the fuel system (which is automatically cut off in a collision), it probably was/is.

BTW: Someone chastised me for having failed to ask HH how he was when he called me following the impact. I knew he was OK because I heard him asked by the sheriff's deputy - and heard his answer that his knee had gotten banged, but not badly enough to need medical services. That knee has been fine, according to HH.

The heat is getting me down

It isn't unusual for this corner of the world to hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It isn't even unusual for it to hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit several days running*. What is unusual is for us to be flirting with 100 degrees for days on end during early-to-mid June. It really ruins the days for those of us who do not take well to heat. My first line of defense is to get outside as soon as it is light. If I can be out on the street for my walk by 6:00am, I can usually finish it before the temperature climbs into the 80s. My routine is, then, to splash water all over myself, turn on the ceiling fan in my den and read the newspaper while drinking lots of water. Following that, I change into my gardening clothes and work in the yard and/or woods for as long as I can tolerate the exertion and heat. Yesterday, that was 20 minutes.

Yesterday was not a great day for this old woman. During my walk, it was as though I were slogging through January molasses - really plodding. The 20 minutes in the yard wasn't very productive. As late as 5:00pm, I still felt like a limp dishrag. I wondered if I should go to the Music Theater production for which we were scheduled. Well, I got dressed and went. By the end of the production (Sister Act), at which we had three generations of the family in attendance (minus Bogie, of course), I was feeling like my old self. This morning, having slept until nearly 6:00am, I cursed myself for getting out so late; but, I did OK. Well...except that my right knee decided to give me a problem. I shouldn't chastise it, however, having abused it by wearing (I'm guessing) two-inch heels last night. (I am bare-footed or sock-footed most of the time, donning slides when I venture out - except - short, flat boots for gardening.)

Saturday, one week ago, our family had planned to attend the Derby BarBQ Festival at which they have bouncy castles and such for the kids. As hot as it was to have been (and was, as it happened), Rachie and I chickened out. The rest of our four generations (again, minus Bogie, much as we would have liked her company, of course) followed suit. We went out for lunch (to a BarBQ restaurant), then repaired to our house to bask in the air conditioning.

You won't find us in the photos from the BBQ Fest, below, stolen from Wichita on the Cheap.

Hunky Husband just returned from his run. It's a few degrees warmer than when I walked and he is really panting! He normally runs 3 miles, but kept it at two miles, this morning.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*    From the National Weather Service, some statistics for 100-degree days at the Wichita airport. Note that our temperatures, here in Derby, closely track those that are reported from the airport.

100 Degree Temperature Stats for Wichita Kansas

Weather.gov > Wichita, Kansas > 100 Degree Temperature Stats for Wichita Kansas

100-Degree Temperature Statistics

Wichita Eisenhower National Airport

(Normals are the Official 30-Year 1981-2010 Period of Record)

Average 100-Degree Days/Year

10.3

 

Average 100-Degree Days/Month
June		0.9
July		4.2
August		4.5
September		0.7

 

Top-10 Annual 100-Degree Days
2011		53
1936		50
1980		46
1978		42
1954		42
1934		40
2012		36
2000		33
1956		31
1990		28

 

• Since July, 1888, when climate records commenced in Wichita, only 7 years failed to reach 100 degrees: 1889, 1891, 1904, 1906, 1908, 1915, and 1927.

Top-10 Consecutive 100-Degree Days
August 7-26, 1936	20
July 3-20, 1980 (see note below)	18
August 19-September 3, 2000	16
June 28-July 10, 1990	13
July 31-August 12, 1934	13
July 10-22, 1934	13
July 15-24, 2011	10
July 27-August 4, 2012	9
July 17-25, 2012	9
July 26-August 3, 2011	9

 

• On July 2^nd, 1980, the high was 98. Had the high reached 100, a new all-time record for consecutive 100+ degree high temperatures would have been set at 27 days, which would have shattered the previous record of 20 set August 7^th-26^th, 1936.

[How well I remember the summer of 1980, (I'm guessing that Bogie and Dudette do, too.) living as I did in a house without air conditioning and driving a car with no air conditioning. To top it off, the air conditioning at work went out and we worked in a glass-walled building. We took to wearing short skirts or walking shorts to work and some of the glass wall panels were removed for the few weeks that it took to get replacement parts for the system. Fortunately, I was only half as old as now I am, so tolerated the heat a bit better. ES]

Earliest 100-Degree Temperature	May 4, 2014 (102)
Average First 100-Degree Day	July 3

 

Latest 100-Degree Temperature	September 28, 1953 (103)
Average Last 100-Degree Day	August 19

for Janet - Airplane plants in the great outdoors in Derby KS

This posting is specifically to provide information to "Janet", a woman who lives, here, in Derby KS. On our neighborhood website, she posted, "I have a big pot of root bound airplane plants, and want to thin them out." I sent her a private message that if she failed to find homes for the extra plants, she might consider planting the plants outside. I've had aircraft plants survive, outside, over the past few years (even though I always considered airplane plants to be tropical).

This is the story of my own airplane plants - for Janet's edification. Unfortunately, our neighborhood website has no capability of including photos in private messages sent to other members.

I found this photo (below) of the bushes that I planted in spring of 2015. Because I am lazy (and caring for outdoor plants is much easier than caring for house-bound ones) and because I have a limited amount of space on our small front porch (on the northwest side of our house that sits at 45-degrees from the cardinal headings) and had three pots of airplane plants, I planted the airplane plants and some of the nephthytis among the newly planted bed of mixed ninebark, spirea, and dogwood bushes. (Janet, if you are not familiar with the protocol, an enlargement of each photo may be viewed by clicking on the posted photo.) The airplane plants are at the base of the pole that is a bit left of center in the photo.

 
The above photo was taken on August 22, 2015. Came late September, it was time for me to re-pot the tropical plants and take them inside for the winter. As it happened, the airplane plants had proliferated so much that I neither cared to have so many pots of them inside nor did I have the energy to do the potting. As I recall, I potted only one or two pots of airplane plants for that winter.

Came spring of 2016, I was totally amazed to see some of the airplane plant roots that had been left in the ground, spring to life. The photo, below, was taken on April 26, 2016.

Again, at the end of summer 2016, I took up a couple of pots of airplane plants - only to find that the roots that I left in the ground came up in spring 2017. Last winter, I didn't want so many indoor plants to trip over. I took a gamble and did not pot a single airplane plant to over-winter indoors.

Below are two photos that I took this evening. The first shows an overview (although I'd trimmed the ninebark bushes last fall, they need another haircut) while the second shows a closeup of the healthy airplane plants. It is my belief that they came up from the same roots that had been shown in the summer 2016 photo.

The white specks on the ground are safflower seeds from the bird feeder that hangs from the pole that is just right-of-center in the above photo.

If Janet decides to try the outdoor venture, I hope she will share her experience with me.

Update on sterile neutrino research

The following excerpts from the Los Alamos National Laboratory website give us an update on the status of sterile neutrino research. [As an aside: Elder Brother spent the last 12-15 years of his career at Los Alamos. He was, however, in the weapons area.]

Los Alamos experiment at Fermilab explores potential ‘dark matter’ link, confirms earlier experiment

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., June 6, 2018—New research results have potentially identified a fourth type of neutrino, a “sterile neutrino” particle. This particle provides challenges for the Standard Model of particle physics, if found to be a valid result in future experiments. The work, conducted by a multi-institutional team at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) near Chicago, confirms results found in the 1990s in the Los Alamos Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND).

….

Neutrinos, traditionally understood to come in three “flavors,” electron, muon and tau, have been measured by the Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE) for some 15 years. The key to the current result is the existence of more electron-flavored neutrinos than expected. Neutrinos normally oscillate between the three types, but the overpopulation of the electron-flavored ones leads to a theory that some of the muon neutrinos became sterile neutrinos for a time during the regular oscillations. The sterile neutrinos could reasonably be assumed to have transitioned into electron neutrinos in their next oscillation phase, thus explaining the higher electron numbers.

“We cannot say definitively that it’s sterile neutrinos, but we can conclusively say something fundamental is going on,” said Richard Van de Water, the Los Alamos co-lead on the project.

This is how you do science

“Over the past 20 to 30 years, neutrino oscillations have been observed from one flavor to another,” he said. “But in the late 1990s the LSND at Los Alamos saw evidence of electron neutrinos in the beam, and if our observations were correct, a much heavier type of neutrino was also in existence. That’s where the idea of sterile neutrinos came about. So the MiniBooNE experiment, designed very differently from LSND, has shown that the results were valid. But this is how we do science—you have an effect, and you build a new experiment to test the original physics effect. This passes muster; it must be something new.”

“I’m careful about saying it’s sterile neutrinos. It could be, but it could be something else. The same effect has now been observed in two experiments, with a small chance that is is a mistake in both experiments. We still see what shouldn’t be there, and it could be even more exciting. Speculating, I like to think of this as the first hint of the dark sector, perhaps interacting through neutrinos, and this could be a way to probe dark matter and dark energy,” Van de Water said.

_________________________________
 Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor LANS makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information.

More information concerning neutrinos may be found at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's All Things Neutrino.

Victory dance & cherries

Sunday, I did a victory dance: I had completed the chore of moving all of the masonry products that had been displaced (to allow replacement of our back porch last August) back under the porch and steps. This cleared the space in which the masonry had been stored for a few rose bushes for Hunky Husband. You may recall that the rose bushes that I had transplanted from our previous house (in 2000) were, not only getting old and tired, but were uprooted several weeks ago in favor of installation of sod.

The first photo shows most of the masonry as it had been temporarily stored...

   ...then, as the vacant spot appears, today. In addition, there was a stack of 18"x8"x2" pavers to the right of this area - across the personnel entry to the garage from this vacant spot. The stack contained about four dozen pavers.

The following two photos show the permanent storage arrangement - and - yes, other than the bricks that match the house (under the stairs), I have used various pieces of the masonry for various projects, over the years. Undoubtedly, I shall find additional uses for some of the pieces.

      It is hot and humid out, this morning; thus, I shortened my walk and the time spent on yard work (emptying the mud, decaying leaves, and water from the sump for the eave trough drainage system, using that water on trees and ice plants, and spreading a bit of mulch). After resting/reading the morning newspaper, I went back outside - to pick cherries. I had hoped they would ripen this weekend when some of the younger folk will be over (I believe in impressing folks into labor!); but, the cherries are ready for picking. Mind you, I only removed about 30% or 40% of the ripened fruit. The birds will take care of the rest. Last year, the birds got them all! (The previous year, neighbor Tonya and her children picked them. Tonya made cobbler.)

The photo, below, shows the North Star Cherry tree after my morning labors.

The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford

The quote was found on Slashdot.com. Rutherford was better known for his model of the atom than for his participation in the "social sciences"; but, I think he was spot on.