Cop Car's Beat

The week in review

Wind - This has been a week of rain & blow - not to the extent that others have had, but enough for us. We received nearly three inches of rain driven by winds from 10-60+ miles/hour. The only damage done was that trash from our across-the-street neighbor's overturned trash bin blew all over our yard, some of it ending up against the house (by the back porch), some up against the dense parts of our woods, and some that I caught early enough to stop it in our front yard; sticks & limbs were taken off of our tree and strewn about the back yard and the edge of our woods, and the aforementioned neighbor's trees (along with those of other neighbors across the street from us) were forced to give up their leaves to the wind, being deposited in our front yard and curb guttering.

The photo, below shows the leaves in the front yard. There aren't as many leaves as we've had deposited most years; but I really can't rake them for fear of uprooting the newly sprouted grass. Note the blue bin at the top, center of the photo. It is the trash bin that had previously been deprived of its trash. Today was recycle & trash pickup day for our street.

The bin is frequently overturned by wind; but, the neighbor rarely catches it since he cannot see it from inside his house. I gathered up the trash (mostly, large plastic bags from lawn dirt, but also some trimmings from his shrubbery), placed it into the bin (leaving the bin parallel to the ground), closed the bin, turned the bin around 180 degrees about the vertical , and placed it snuggly up against the side of the garage to keep the wind from causing more mischief.

Garage Door - Early in the week, as the wind and rain were just getting started, Jeff came by to install our new overhead garage door for Hunky Husband's car's bay. I don't recall whether I had mentioned HH's misfortune of opening the wrong door, one day, then backing into his bay's door. Only his lightning-fast reaction and fine coordination allowed him to stop his car before it became a full-blown "thing".

I seem to have failed to take a photo of the damaged door; but, the casual observer might not even have noticed the slight widening of the space between sections, center span of the door. Even so, the door was damaged beyond repair (doesn't take that much damage). The door allowed normal operation; so, we didn't even need to make a temporary repair. 

The new door is, supposedly, a slightly different design from our old door(s); but, tell me if you can see much difference between the new door (on the right) and my car bay's old door (in the center), by looking at the photo below. A coat of paint and it should fit in nicely. (We had told the sales person who came by on 9/2/2021 that we would live with the new door for a while before deciding if we needed to replace the remaining two doors to match it. I'm thinking "no".)

HH's Ears - Today, HH had his every-three-months checkup with the audiologist. All that was required was for her to clean impacted wax from his "better" ear and turn the gain down on both hearing aids. I would have guessed that the gain would need to be turned down by about 10 dB, which I did not share with Dr Combs; but, she turned them down only 2 dB. He can try them for three months to see if they need turning down more. 

New Grass - I took some photos to show the green fuzz that we now have in most of the previously bare spots. They may be compared to photos in The seeds are sown, that were taken just before and just after planting.

There are still a couple of noticeably bare spots that are next to the fence beyond the little tree. It shows that we're not getting full coverage with our sprinkler heads. That's not surprising since the sprinkler head is a few feet from the fence (there was a planting bed full of trees and shrubs between it and the fence when the sprinkler head was installed) and is adjusted to clear the fence. The photo, below, of the largest bare spot that we had after the invasion of the Army Worms also shows a bare strip toward the camera from the bluebird house. Again, water wasn't getting there. Again, not surprising since all of that patch is beyond the real lawn and in the drainage easement.

Irrigation System - We had some ill luck and then a stroke of good luck. I had asked the lawn service people to service our irrigation system for the winter, this week - pushed forward from our original schedule (of having it done last week) by the pushing forward also of the planting date. (It rained on the originally scheduled date, which I had considered late; but, what can one do when they are hurting for employees?) When I hadn't heard from the lawn service by Wednesday, I called them. Oops! That change in their schedule had not been accomplished. They couldn't get us this week - perhaps next week, they hoped.

This is where the good luck came in. Yesterday, as I was striking out on my morning walk, I noticed that a neighbor who lives a couple of blocks from us was having his irrigation system winterized. I waited for the lawn service guys (not the same company as our lawn service) and the home owner to return from the back yard and asked if they would have time to do our system. (I did ask a "by your leave" of my neighbor, of course.) Fortunately, the answer was "Yes".

I turned around, came home, and unpacked the backflow prevention valve assembly. They arrived as  promised and perhaps 20 minutes later had our system ready for the 24-26 degree (F) weather that we are expecting early next week. Below are photos of the unpacked valve assembly of the eight bags of mulch that I had packed around it. (No photo of the sheets of heavy plastic, old bed sheet, old drapery, and wastepaper basket that had been in the mix of insulation.)

More publicity for sister-in-law

Several weeks ago, in She has done it again!, I announced publication of Hunky Husband's sister Helen's second book on cooking. Later, The St Louis Post-Dispatch writer Daniel Neman interviewed Helen. An excerpt from Neman's resulting newspaper article appears below.

Daniel Neman: Tony's pastry chef does it her way in new cook(ie)book

Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Oct 18, 2021

Published in Variety Menu

 

To the baking world, it’s an unthinkable suggestion bordering on blasphemy: When making certain desserts, it’s just fine to use imitation vanilla extract.

So says Helen S. Fletcher, the author of “Craving Cookies: The Quintessential American Cookie Book.” It may be the best cookie cookbook you will ever see.

Fletcher is the pastry chef at Tony’s, one of the highest-rated fine-dining establishments in St. Louis. For more than 20 years, she owned Truffes in University City, a bakery that catered to restaurants, hotels and caterers, and also did a lot of work with weddings. So she knows about baking, even when it comes to imitation vanilla.

“At work, at Tony’s… I use vanilla that costs $400 a gallon,” she said, demonstrating in one short sentence the difference between professional bakers and hobbyists.

Even small bottles of what she considers the best tasting, most aromatic vanilla, Tahitian vanilla, can cost $35. And she doesn’t want to price anyone out of the joy of baking.

“My whole mantra is: I want people to bake. I want people to enjoy baking. I want people who have never baked to bake,” she said.

And that means using imitation vanilla when the vanilla flavor doesn’t stand on its own, such as in recipes that also use a lot of spice or chocolate. She usually uses professional imitation vanilla herself, but she also recommends McCormick’s.

Fletcher, 81, has had no formal training as a baker. So she has developed her own way of doing things, tips and tricks and hacks that work wonders but that other bakers don’t use.

“Sometimes, when you are trained, you get stuck on the way you are taught or the way the book taught you. Well, I wasn’t trained and I didn’t have the book,” she said.

Her new cookbook, which is self-published, has tricks for baking the way she bakes.

Answer to the small puzzle

The image in A small puzzle was a part of a page scanned from Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, Volume 4; F.E. Compton & Company, Chicago IL, Printed in 1923. Below is a different cropping of that scan, providing the answer. (The article from which it comes is about inventions.)

Below is a scan (both sides) of the receipt given my grandfather when he bought the set of encyclopedias.

As children, my brothers and I browsed through Grandmother's encyclopedias, frequently. For the past 20+ years, they have been at my fingertips when seated in my reading chair. After all, much of what I look up has not changed since 1923. BTW: The purchase of the encyclopedias predated electrification of their house by about 10 years. Grandfather died in 1933 and I believe that Dad wired that house (and the wash house) shortly thereafter.

A little Fall color

Today, the sun has been elusive. One minute we've experienced overcast skies and five minutes later, not a cloud in the sky. Thus, some of the photos that I thought would be sunny, were cloudy, and when the sun reappeared, some of the flora that I wished to photograph were in the deep shade of Fred's house. Oh, well.

The first photo shows the entirety of the rose garden that I had planted for Hunky Husband in March 2019, and re-configured in 2020. Obvious in the photo are the Midas Touch bush in the front and one blossom on the Oklahoma! bush that appears just below the garage window. Other blossoms don't show up in the photo.

In front of the house are three bushes of Mini Lavendar Lace that were planted in April 2009. Those little bushes have been overgrown by the sedum groundcover and overshadowed, in most years, by the Leather Leaf Viburnum that towers over them.

Although some people are sensitive to the sap of any sumac, I have never been; thus, I plant them. When we landscaped our yard, after building this house, I had a Staghorn Sumac planted at the far back of the "good grass" of the back lawn. Eventually, the redbud tree that was in that corner of the yard overshadowed the sumac. It withered and all but died, after which I removed it with my trusty axe. Three years ago, I bought four plants of Staghorn Sumac, planting one just outside our dining room windows and the other three in the planting strip between our driveway and Fred's yard. Each location should help me defeat the sumac bushes/trees in their efforts to populate the world. They were planted for their fall color and, this year, are proving their mettle.

The first two sumac photos show the "tree" outside the dining room windows.

 

 

 

Below are the three sumacs, and their offspring, between our driveway and Fred's yard. The nearest sumac, with the flower cones stuck out to nearly the driveway, is the only female in the bunch.

On November 15, the JoJac tree team (minus the guy who has always led the team when they've come to my house, because he now works in their landscaping department) are to come. Sadly, one of the things I'll be discussing is possible removal of the grand Cottonwood Tree that graced this property for many years before we bought the land. Below is a (possibly) farewell photo of the cottonwood. I love that tree; but, I don't love the fire hazard it now presents to our house, nor do I love the extra work engendered by its bad habit of shedding branches and twigs most months of the year, shedding cotton to blow in the wind like heavy snowfall during a couple of weeks each year, and the growth habit of its roots that brings roots to the surface causing large bumps over which to mow. I spend a lot of time cleaning up after my love.

The Low Boy Pyracantha bush that was gifted to me by co-workers upon my retirement in 2004 required a lot of cleanup trimming & pulling of vines & other plants that had grown up through it, this year; but, it rewards me with its pretty berries. Just in front of the bush are several sprigs of redbud seedlings that I've allowed to grow in the spot from which the clump of redbuds were removed last year.

Lest I forget, here (below) is a photo of an ill-placed mum that was planted in about 2012 as one of several that I planted to give fall color. Unfortunately, the crepe myrtle bushes, while lovely (and of nearly the same pinkish-purple hue), have overgrown this survivor mum.

Below is a photo of a bare spot left by the army worm attack of several weeks ago. If you strain your eyeballs, you may be able to discern the pattern of vertical, green, hair-like sprouts of new grass - planted on 10/16/2021. Except for yesterday, when we were blessed with 0.36" of rain, we have run the sprinkler system for a few minutes, thrice daily. These are the first sprouts I've seen; although, the sprouts were not confined to this one bare spot.

Lastly, is a beauty shot of the way in which I prepared our sprinkler system's backflow prevention valve assembly to withstand moderately freezing weather. As I wrote, recently, two or three times, we've had to have the valve assembly repaired or replaced when the outside air temperatures dipped into the high teens or low twenties for too many hours. I had purchased (and used) electrically-heated tapes in past years; but, the newest installation is a configuration that makes use of such tapes impossible. Over the assembly I arranged: a slight bit of fiberglass insulation strip, a flannel bedsheet, heavy plastic sheet, inverted plastic wastebasket, rubber-backed window drapery (from circa 1968), plastic sheeting, and 8 bags of cedar bark mulch. (Oh! And I had brought the ground level, to mate with the inverted wastebasket, with two bags of top soil.) If, in spite of my efforts, the assembly freezes, I shall probably drown trying to get down to the valve in order to turn off the water, manually, instead of merely freezing in the spraying water.

The meter that is visible to the left of the piled bags of mulch is our smart natural gas meter. The valve assembly is too close to that meter (and to the house and to the downspout for the roof guttering) for it to be easy to work with.

A small puzzle

Have you any idea what the item in the graphic, below, might be? (Answer will be posted, later.)

Coda on Typewriters

Stu sent an email that included an image, below, and a link, each having to do with the Dvorak keyboard layout - a layout that did not even occur to me during composition of previous postings and comments concerning typewriters and keyboards. Thanks, Stu. I remember the Dvorak layout, but I don't recall ever having been faced with that layout on an actual typewriter. If I cared to do so, I could probably find conversion software for my current Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard; but, I am no more interested in making the switch, now, than was I in the 1950s. 👎 I'm happy using QWERTY.

For anyone interested in refreshing their memories, or adding to their knowledge base, I supply a full-keyboard image, below, and a link to another Wikipedia entry - this one in English.

The seeds are sown

BEFORE Seeding

TenderCare's lawn service team was scheduled to core-aerate and slit seed on Monday, 10/11/2021. Unfortunately for that scheduling, we received 2.61" of rain that day, starting at Midnight and ending at about dinner time. TenderCare rescheduled us for Friday, 10/15/2021. Now, understand that there are a couple of things driving us to have wanted to have the seeding done two weeks ago: 1) I had originally scheduled our sprinkler system to be winterized on the 20th, and the grass seed would need thrice daily watering for at least two weeks following sowing, taking us out to having the system winterized no earlier than 11/3/2021 - by which time we will surely have had temperatures that will risk freezing the backflow prevention valve assembly* and 2) Kansas State U Extension Service recommends sowing fescue seed no later than October 15, to provide the new grass the opportunity to mature to a stage less likely to be killed by fluctuations in winter temperatures.

The photo, below, is a paste-up of two photos that I finally thought to take Wednesday, 10/13/2021, showing the bare patches in the back yard that were left by the voracious army worms - after I had completed pulling out the Bermuda grass that was prominent in those areas. BTW: We received an additional 0.53" of rain on Wednesday.

The next photo was taken merely to show our daily invasion by "our" flock of turkeys. They came up from the creek bank just as I had come inside from taking the above photos and was closing the patio door.

Came Thursday, the 14th, I ran an errand, returning home to Hunky Husband's news that he had called TenderCare. He did not recall how he received the word (phone? text? email?) from TenderCare that they had scheduled winterization of our sprinkler system for the following day, regardless of the fact that I had asked them to change our scheduled date from the 20th to sometime the week of the 27th, after which I will need to water the seed/new grass by hand. They told him that they would not turn off the sprinkler system before seeding. That is good. However, HH's memory of what transpired is not always accurate these days, so I wondered what would happen on our re-scheduled seeding day of Friday.

Came Friday, the 15th, at 3:30pm, we had still not seen anyone from TenderCare. I called the office to inquire and was told, "You are on the schedule." We waited. No one showed. Now the office was closed and I had no idea what was happening. I decided that, if their team showed up, today (Saturday - usually a non-working day for TenderCare), I would let them seed. If they hadn't shown up by Monday morning, I would tell them not to seed - we'll do that next spring. Spring isn't the ideal time to seed a cool season grass, here; but, then, neither is it ideal after the 15th.

Thankfully, today, one of the TenderCare lawn service guys showed up, bright and early, to do our lawn. He had missed work, yesterday, and the remaining members of the lawn service team had been overbooked and could not possibly get the scheduled jobs all done. Since we are friends of the owner, I suspect that he chooses to take care of less sure customers, first, and that we were scheduled last. The guy who showed up had help, his bride of 19 years who is a member of TenderCare's landscaping team. As they were dragging two trailers behind the Tendercare pickup truck and one was filled with balled-and-burlaped bushes, I suspect that he would be her helper at their next job.

AFTER seeding

The photo, below, shows most of the bare areas in the back lawn, after core aeration and seeding. I immediately took up all of the flags that we had put out to mark locations of sprinkler heads and other obstructions that the workers should not hit with their equipment, and programmed the sprinkler system to do the thrice daily chore. Keeping my fingers crossed that our weather cooperates for the next three weeks, at least.

________________________________________________________

*To the best of my remembrance, we have had to pay to have the backflow prevention valve assembly repaired or replaced three times in the past 21 years. However, that's not the worst that happens. The worst that happens is that I get soaked with 32 degree F water, getting to the assembly to turn off the water, once the ice in the assembly melts and the water starts gushing forth. I have packed the assembly for resistance to low temperatures (we were at 35 degrees when I went for my walk, this morning, with frost on our roof and on the grass along my route.) Unfortunately, the last time the assembly was replaced, the new assembly's configuration makes it impossible for me to apply electrically heated tape to it. Grrrr....

This made me laugh

From xkcd: Symbols

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

This means that you are free to copy and reuse any of my drawings (noncommercially) as long as you tell people where they're from.

That is, you don't need my permission to post these pictures on your website (and hotlinking with <img> is fine); just include a link back to this page. Or you can make Livejournal icons from them, but -- if possible -- put xkcd.com in the comment field. You can use them freely (with some kind of link) in not-for-profit publications, and I'm also okay with people reprinting occasional comics (with clear attribution) in publications like books, blogs, newsletters, and presentations. If you're not sure whether your use is noncommercial, feel free to email me and ask (if you're not sure, it's probably okay).

____________________________________________________________

NOTES:

1. In the "header" of the xkcd webpage appears this: 

2. In a "footnote" is wryly noted:

3. I'm sorry to say that I no longer recall how my first introduction to xkcd came about. I'm sure it was through the blogroll of a blog friend, but which one??? 🤷‍♀️

4. As to the second item in the listing, partial differential equations, I can only guess that anyone who would attribute their use to a grad student never took an undergraduate physics course in thermodynamics. 🤦‍♀️

5. As to the last item in the listing, Tau is (by definition) twice Pi. (I only care in polar coordinate systems.) 👩‍🦰

6. (I still hit "7") In Notes 3 through 5 I've been showing off the fact that I can use one of the silly keys on my new keyboard. It displays a bunch of emoticons that may be inserted in text. 👀

More on typewriters

Royal Portable Typewriters for English Language Typing

Joared wrote in a comment to Roberta X made me do it of the keyboard layout of her Royal portable typewriter. I encouraged her to send me a photo of the machine and will post it if Joared has the time/energy/inclination to send one (or more). Until then, I am posting (below) a touch-typing guide that I found online, within an owner's manual. The manual is for a Royal Quiet Deluxe from 1952 which model did not include a separate key for "1" as does Joared's machine. (For those too young to know or to have used such a quaint machine, typists typed a lower case "l" in place of a "1" - which isn't too bad when using a font with serifs such as "l". I'm not sure whether Joared's machine includes that key because it is one year newer than the model addressed in the manual, or whether she bought a more expensive machine.

 

Typewriters for German Language Typing

Thanks to Stu for providing links to a couple of interesting German language typing websites. The photo, below, was found at Stu's link to his own website Eunoia, which posting has comments that include mine that predate some of the information in my own postings on typewriters.

Another view of a similar typewriter keyboard is found at Dreamtime (stock photos).

Note the QWERTZ layout as Stu wrote about in his comment. (I note a difference in the "upper case" ß since, in the photo (above) it seems to be a colon rather than a question mark.)

Here in Germany, we have a bigger alphabet,
the standard is QWERTZUIOP and the Y is bottom left.
U Umlaut is to the right of P
To the right of L we have O Umlaut then A Umlaut
SZ which looks like a Beta is below the question mark.

During the Nazi era there were also separate keys for the SS and for the swastika.

BTW: To access "cut copy and paste" German alphabet letters such as the eszett (ss), ß, I used the GYPU website.

IBM Executive Typewriters for English Language Typing

Other than the Smith Corona portable, about which I wrote in the previously linked posting, the only typewriter that I owned was purchased (used) from a shop in Albuquerque NM during the mid-1980s. It, an IBM Executive (photo of a machine similar to mine, above), made really gorgeous copy! The look of the finished page was enhanced by the proportionate spacing of the letters ("i" took one space while "W" took five spaces, as I recall), by the sans serif font (illustrated in the image, below), and by the machine's using a carbon ribbon (photo below the font image) rather than an inked ribbon. 

I really liked that machine; but, when I moved back to Kansas, knowing that it would be difficult to squeeze my household goods into Hunky Husband's already fully-furnished house, I gave the IBM Executive to Elder Brother and his wife who, at the time, lived in Santa Fe NM. He may/probably does still have it.

Roberta X made me do it

I mentioned in the next previous post, More of this and that - early October, that unlike my new computer keyboard which forces use of the left index finger to input a "6/^", I had been accustomed to using my right index finger for that key. I asked what was "standard" touch-typing for that key. In her comment, Roberta X (RX, henceforth), wrote that her '1942 U. S. Navy touch-typing chart shows finger choice for the "6" key (only!) as "optional" for left or right index finger.'

RX rightly reminds me that, over the many years since Elder Brother and I bought our portable typewriter (in 1951 or maybe 1952, I'm not really sure), the upper case numeral keys have changed. On the 1950s keyboard, the upper case "6" (I have to re-input each of the 6s because my fingers aren't paying attention!) was an underline, "_".

Although I was unable to find the graphic that RX referenced, I did succeed in finding two touch-typing charts (images, below) put out by Smith Corona, the company that made EB's and my portable typewriter. I'm pretty sure that a similar chart was included with the typewriter, explaining my habitual use of my right index finger for the "6" key (yes, I hit the 7 key, AGAIN!)

 

Below is an image of a manual portable typewriter quite similar to EB's and my typewriter - down to the case. [Alert: The rest of this paragraph should be viewed as "not necessarily so". Please see ADDITION at the end of the posting. CC] The only real difference I see is that the label on our typewriter was "SCM" followed by the company name in script. I don't recall whether the company name was Smith Corona or Smith Corona Monroe. I can find photos of "SCM" logos online, but I can find no mention of the company's having gone by Smith Corona Monroe, so I suspect the label included the former of the two.

Thanks, RX!

ADDITION of a few hours later: SCM

So much for my memory. It is like scrambled eggs. Perhaps I would have made more headway in my SCM "research" had I not remembered (incorrectly) that the "M" stood for Monroe - one of the Smith brothers. The "M" was for Marchant. I found History of Smith Corona Corp. which provides the following information about SCM.

Smith & Corona became known as Smith-Corona in 1946 and in 1953 was renamed Smith-Corona Inc. During the postwar years, the company worked to meet the challenge of the newest technology, the electric typewriter, which began to dominate the market in 1948. In 1955, Smith-Corona introduced an electric typewriter for the office. The result of a decade of research, the new machine featured a scientifically sloped keyboard fitted to natural finger movements, more controls in the keyboard area than any other electric typewriter, and automatic repeat actions on all keys. Continuing to branch out into other areas, Smith-Corona merged with Marchant Calculators in September 1958; the resulting company, Smith-Corona Marchant Inc. (SCM), became world renowned as an aggressive and diversified corporation.

....

....In 1985 Smith Corona was incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of SCM Corp., and the following year, the London-based conglomerate, Hanson PLC, acquired SMC Corp. ....