Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 minute ago, pH said:

Missing out on a visit to Hawaii - and you say that as if it was a good  thing?

Transiting Honolulu was worse than overflying - at one point* they would drag you outside where you experienced the "tropical air" (which was either a tease or hot, depending) but could not leave - just look out at Honolulu and Diamond Head in the distance, waiting to reembark for the onward journey to LAX.

 

* My first time through in 1984 - when for some reason the 'transit lounge' was outside.

[pH]

5 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 My first time through in 1984 - when for some reason the 'transit lounge' was outside.

Our last time in Hawaii was about 10 years ago, but even then some of the Honolulu airport buildings were “open air” - roofs, but no walls.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, pH said:

Our last time in Hawaii was about 10 years ago, but even then some of the Honolulu airport buildings were “open air” - roofs, but no walls.

It's been a while for me, but I remember terminals on the other islands being open to the air. 

 

Pretty sure that is the case for Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Not what I was told. Perhaps you should discuss it at your diabetic review?

I fortunately do not have diabetes, I was told that by a young member of the MRC who has type 1 diabetes.

[polybear]

6 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... Domestically getting on - bits of floor have appeared and the rubbish bin is in operation ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/07/13/public-covid-awareness-excel-domestics-and-caravan-readiness/

 

Cancelling the ONS Covid Testing Programme (for which A Certain Bear was a volunteer) wasn't their brightest moment.

[Coombe Barton]

12 minutes ago, polybear said:

Cancelling the ONS Covid Testing Programme ... wasn't their brightest moment.

Did they actually have any bright moments?

[polybear]

Bear here......

 

Friend's 60th Birthday Party attended during the afternoon.  Let's see now.....there were....

cheese sarnies and egg sarnies and ham sarnies and picnic eggs and cocktail snaggers and sossie rolls and cheese n' onion rolls and cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza and quiche and frazzles and onion rings and cheesecake and lemon cheesecake and blackberry cheesecake and salted caramel cheesecake and ikky sticky choccy fairy cakes.  There was other stuff too, but I didn't try that...

 

Oh yes, and a MAHOOSIVE Birthday Cake too - professionally done and almost certainly UPF-free cos' it came from Costco.

 

But NO Jelly n' Ice Cream.....😭

 

Oh yes, and Bear's (hopefully) rather nice choo choo was delivered to Bear at the Party (I'd asked Postie Pat to deliver there if there was no answer at Bear Towers).  Tick Awarded......

 

BG

Edited July 13 by polybear

[southern42]

' evening all from red dragon land.

I did some washing this morning as the pinecone pundits said it would stop raining by lunchtime. Did it, indeed?!? It looks promising tomorrow, though.

Several of these 🌤️ on the chart for tomorrow. Hmmm. I hope so! I need to get some seeding grass in the raised bed along the fence pulled up and put into the garden waste bin, among other things.

 

Little "Lola" (Chat viewer's naming), on the right of pic, hatched Tuesday but the webcam has only picked up fog/mist/cloud and rain since Thursday and it is not likely to end until Monday, apparently, and I was so much looking forward to seeing it "grow up". Not often you get this sort of chance.

Image: cropped screenshot of Webcam afartv Live 4K . Currently (13/7/24) misty greyed out.

 

Poop! I was just about to watch Aretha Franklin on the box, only there is a yellow-ball-flying-across-a-net Final going on... I shall have to wait...

 

Time for a mugadecaf, then!

 

Take care. Be good. Make adjustments if need be...

[Flanged Wheel]

When we visited Hawaii last October, both Kauai and Big Island still had open air terminals. Great fun!

[BoD]

Evening all (GMT)

 

Another day volunteering at the NT playing with their model railway.  Really busy too. I was on my own so didn’t get a sit down or break from 10.30 until 4.00 the afternoon.  Still I enjoy it and you meet some interesting people.  One visitor’s first job at sixteen was packing H&M controllers. He got that job because his mother was secretary to Mr Morgan.

 

I did struggle a bit today because my hearing went A.W.O.L.  I am having ears dewaxed on Monday and have been putting olive oil in since last Monday.  Suddenly, for some reason my hearing became really bad this morning. Wax in the Eustachian tubes or soften wax compressed up against ear drums? Who knows, I just hope Monday’s procedure solves it.

 

Talking of women’s football, which some of you did, I understand that the Lionesses’s men’s team have a game too.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land.  Not doing much this evening. I received my vehicle tax reminder a couple of days ago, ouch! at least it's not due until the end of the month. I didn't have time to look at Farcebook yesterday so there's a bit of catching up to do.

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The first one so branded was: "Qantas’ Boeing 747-438 Longreach VH-OJA, City of Canberra".

Thats the HARS one.   Qantas gave it to them rather than scrap it with the rest.

 

The tyres have a set number of landings they can do before replacement (22?) and the tyres on this one all did that last landing when it arrived at HARS.

[jamie92208]

Another thing my brother told not to me about 74 7's was that they had a through hull opening for a periscope in the cockpit ceiling and a special periscope sextant for taking star sights. He actually navigated one from Auckland to Honolulu and got it right.  One enterprising flight engineer rigged up a tube that plugged into the opening and acted as a vacumn cleaner to tidy up the flight deck.  I suspect that the later jumbos don't have the sextant fixture. 

 

Jamie

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

@J. S. Bach of this parish would be pleased to see CONNIE the Constellation.

 

There are a bunch of non-flightworthy ones about. There's a Super Connie parked outside at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  The USAF has one in Dayton and the Smithsonian has one at Udvar-Hazy near DC.

 

[BoD]

10 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

The tyres have a set number of landings they can do before replacement (22?)

Why don’t they just use a tread depth gauge like everyone else.

[pH]

14 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

One enterprising flight engineer rigged up a tube that plugged into the opening and acted as a vacumn cleaner to tidy up the flight deck. 

You would have to make sure the mesh was in place over the nozzle before using that! 

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Despite the weathers best efforts to stop me working outside, I’ve managed to cut all the bits required for the helix, mostly from a single 8ft x 4ft sheet of 9mm plywood, but half of a second sheet was required to complete the 4 rings. The rest of that sheet will be used to make the lead in sections to both the upper and lower levels, with a few more useful spare bits too. 

 

Below is a photo of all the bits required to make-up one ring. They are laid out on the floor, the bits in the centre are the waste from the first sheet. Of course, all the bits need sanding and dressing, ready for dowels, that I’ll use to both line-up all the bits and glue them together. I need to add 2 short straight pieces to make the ring an oval. These pieces were cut after I’d taken the photo. 

 

Mike and Sarah turned up just after 4 o’clock and we enjoyed a pleasant evening and a great meal. Much catching up was done and the evening was rounded off by opening a nice bottle of Malbec. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight everyone 

[pH]

Our bears can apparently work outside car door handles, but not inside ones:
 

https://vancouversun.com/news/black-bear-destroys-car-in-belcarra

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[PhilJ W]

Shooting attempt against Trump.

https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/shots-fired-at-donald-trump-rally-in-butler-pennsylvania-former-president-whisked-away-breaking-news

[Ozexpatriate]

44 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Shooting attempt against Trump.

As of now, CNN is not confirming any shooting - just loud bangs. The former President was protected by his Secret Service security detail but they may either have clobbered him in the process when they got him down or he hit his head on the podium while ducking - he was bleeding from the head.

 

Video shows him grabbing at his ear before he ducks. His ear is where he was bleeding.

 

Lots of analysis/speculation. Live commentary suggests "shooter is down" and "suspect is arrested".

 

It will be more clear later.

 

EDIT:

As of 7:35pm EDT, AP reports the shooter and a rally attendee are dead.

 

Looking at the video suggests a shot barely missed - but could not have missed the audience behind.

 

Edited July 13 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

HARS Super Constellation with John Travolta

Travolta owns (or owned) a 707 in period QANTAS livery. He has apparently donated it to HARS. They are working on it.

[Ozexpatriate]

16 hours ago, polybear said:

Good - I never did understand how it even got that far in the first place:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx8290qn0n5o

It's not over. The criminal case is dismissed - based on the behaviour of the prosecution in withholding evidence.

 

Details here;

CNN: ‘Rust’ movie set shooting trial: Why the involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin was dismissed

 

I would bet there will likely be a civil case on behalf of the family of the director who was killed, against Baldwin as the film producer (rather than as the shooter). His production was demonstrably unsafe and someone in his employ died. No differently than, say, an aircraft manufacturer that hid information that their aircraft were unsafe and resulted in fatalities.

[Ozexpatriate]

The events of the afternoon in Pennsylvania coopted all the broadcast television into the early evening. A clearer picture has emerged and I expect that by the time ERs arise on Sunday morning a more coherent narrative will be presented, though I expect it will be some time before all the *facts* are in - particularly in terms of the "shooter".

 

The injured candidate self-reported a grazing bullet wound to the ear (though a witness suggested it might have been a fragment of a teleprompter). One rally attendee has died (details from eyewitnesses are quite gruesome) and at least two attendees are in critical condition.

 

Most reports suggest the shooter used an AR-15 "style" rifle from outside the security perimeter (on top of a large shed). With the RNC starting on Monday in Milwaukee, some attendees to that event are blaming campaign rhetoric as the 'cause' - no one of course is blaming access to firearms as the proximate reason this travesty was possible (or even inevitable).

 

For a change I am able to watch a local (English) football match. (It is usually on an Apple streaming service, but is on cable tonight). Today was another day of pitiless sunshine and blue skies with high temperatures around 34°C. I did mow the grassy verge. There are also many weeds to pull but it is too hot. We expect similar weather for the next week.

 

It will be interesting to see what the electricity bill looks like. I turn the air-conditioning off when overnight temperatures drop to 22°C. This is often in the wee hours. If I don't do this it just keeps running.

 

I'm still willing to trade some mid-30°Cs weather for grey, damp, 15°C weather. Any takers?