Perfect Bath

OK, here is one from Engineering TV.  Do you desire the perfect bath?  Check this one out.

 http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/01/12/bathomatic-automated-bathtub.aspx

Tornado storm pics

http://bigstormpicture.blogspot.com:80/?vortex  try this blog. real cool storm pics

A Long Haul

Left Florida Friday morning at 0530.  Arrived PL 2315 very tired.  Dire predictions of 5+” snow appeared to be overstated.  We did not encounter snow until north of Fort Wayne.  It was a 73+MPH trip all the way except the last 20 miles.  The intention was to stay all night in Dalton, GA but we had made it by 1400 hrs so we proceeded onward.  Nashville came quickly too.  I was ready to quit for the night at Louisville, KY but SAM wanted to continue on to home which was 5 hr away – tempting.  I called Ann and Julie in their respective cities and the weather did not look too bad so it was a go for the long haul.  It may be the last time I do this as it is affecting me for a couple of days afterwards.

We awoke to the predicted level of snow and went out to plow the driveway.  The snow-blower worked well and the job was finished in record time.  The wind and snow texture was all working in our favor.  Afterwards, we shoveled the driveway clean but it was a losing battle since it was still snowing.  Later this afternoon I did the complete driveway again.

The dinner tonight was good and more than a few Kumquates  were consumed on a salad.  Now I am trying to work off the excesses.  Listening to WBCL at www.wbcl.org.  Good Christen music.

The Beach

We went to the St. Petersburg Beach again today.   The weather was quite warm with a slight breeze.  I received a very light sunburn on my back.  I was exposed for a little more than an hour.  Hopefully, I will return with a light tan.  What a beautiful day.

Later on we toured Gulfport areas looking for slips.  We found that downtown Gulfport was quite quaint.  It is a mixed socio-economic area but looks like the old Florida before the condos and manicured land came in and vacated the mere mortals.

Tonight we are talking on various subjects mostly related to medicine, Jackaranda and Royal Poinciana trees.  Martha has the Royal in her front yard and a Jack just down the street.

Fractals

How do you predict how a whole forest uses CO2?  Use fractal geometry!  How do you find a microscopic cancer cell in the micrometer stage?  Use fractal geometry!  How about a heartbeat  – same thing.  In fact it appears that all of nature follows this rule.  Same with astronomy and the heavens.  It appears as if the genius Mandlebrock found the key to the universe by observation of a segment for it.  This extrapolation appears to be a method to model almost anything in nature.

Florida

We are in St. Petersburg with Martha for a few days and then back to the cold.  A last minute decision was made to formalize a Christmas time discussion regarding going to Florida.  On the 2nd SAM said lets go, so we went, leaving at 0430 on the 3td.  We arrived at 2345 the same night very tired.

Today we went to the beach and may go tomorrow since the temperatures are forcast to be mid 70’s and sunny.  Not sure what we will do after that.

Tonight we ate at Ted Peters Smoked Fish on Pasadena.  The outside casual dining is focused on smoked fish.  I had Mullet.  The top part was great but the belly was way too oily for my taste.  I was counting on Mackerel but the waters were too warm for fish to be in season.

Polar Bear Plunge

We are just back from the Fort Wayne Polar Bear Plunge 2009.  We missed the Hamilton Lake outing yesterday and decided to go watch the Fort Wayne people.  I must say that quite a few did not fully immerse.  One older gentleman about my age just stayed in the water waist deep for about 5 or more minutes.  The ones who did fully immerse were younger in age and just ran in and dove under.  The water was quite full of silt.  Even the least of these did a better job than myself so I have no business judging the situation.  If you have not already wtch the Cold Water Immersion video in my previous blogline.

 On the way back home we drove through Cedar Canyons to see the old house.  It still looks quite modern even though it was built over 35 years ago.  It also has not changed much except the driveway that is now asphalt.  I take this opportunity to add a slide show (very slow) of some of the Christmas Festivities.

[slideshow=7]

DTV Coverage: Fort Wayne, IN

This link will take you to the FCC database of predicted DTV vs Analog TV coverage for the Fort Wayne, IN area http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/markets/maps_report1/Ft_Wayne_IN.pdf.  The rest of the country is covered in this report also and the zipped file size of approximately 300M and can be downloaded from this location  http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/markets/.

We have an interest in this since we are contemplating a termination of the cable TV service.  We do not watch sufficient cable tv to justify the expense.  If we put up an antenna we will be able to receive 5 TV stations from the Fort Wayne area and 1 local low power station.  We intend to keep the Internet cable as it is our entertainment.