Heat:Marriage;Training Camp; Neal DeGrasse Tyson ; Pay Attention, People

You know. Since my retirement a decade ago, my center of thought has changed by a few bubbles, degrees, or altitudes. In other words: some when up and some went down. But none stayed the same. It wasn't until today when Simone Biles stepped back because she wasn't into the task at hand mentally. The girl just went up on the scale of humanity for all the right reasons. 

Ironically, I had just seen Neal Degrasse Tyson, as he reviewed his new book, "Cosmic Queries" last night on James Cordon's show. The point of the book was basically the same thing with Simone Biles events today. Over the years, seeing events like this parallel each other is something that got my attention numerous times. In fact, when something rings my chimes, it's almost natural to wait for the counterpoint to show up fairly quickly like today's Olympic events and the interview with Cordon.

After missing last year's training camp for the Dallas Cowboys in  delightful Oxnard, California's weather, sports guy Mike Doocy had to go out an buy a sweater while training camp was under way. And speaking of Oxnard and Mr. Doocy, Jerry Jones got rather emotional as the Cowboy's Training Camp got underway. Jerry also announced that his granddaughter had married last weekend. 

For the first time this season, we reached 100° and the streak is increasing. Today,was the third day it  hit 101° or more. But as any Texan will tell you, it's not the heat. It's the dew point. A former NBC weatherman, Jym Ganahl, now an ABC weatherman in Columbus, Ohio, had a simple formula for finding the level of comfortability, temperature wise. When you add the dew point and the humidity together and the total equals 110, you begin to sweat just standing still. Jym, may have used 115° but he wasn't in Texas either, but it works universal none-the-same.

Back to Neal Degrasse Tyson, He basically said that we are going the return route to a cave man because people just don't care about their fellow human kind. Must put this book on my read list. I see on Google that 96% of those that have read it agree.Cordon is an amazing interviewer and Tyson is an amazing mind and the book gets the 96% rating.

As I think about the fact that come this Saturday, we are at the two week mark for the iconic end to our hottest part of our summer. From there on, the daily highs begins to drop. As my mom would have said, "come on September". Without my car now, my traditional markers of how the seasonal change was making its progress into the Metroplex. Seeing it from the rail line or the bus window is alright as I have already been looking for new markers that will suit public transportation. Still, giving up my car was by no means a wrong decision. I have enjoyed being chauffeured around without much worry. With no fixed itinerary now, even if I should miss a train or a stop, it's no big deal. Once I get the first official color report from the UP of Michigan, I'll be able to calculate the daily move south. Thereby being able to pinpoint color change here in North Texas as color moves south about 10-miles per day. Don't you see? All things work together for man's benefit. All we have to do is pay attention and  use some common sense (apparently not everyone has enough of that stuff).

 

A Brazillian Berimbau 

                                                         Being played by a true Brazillian

Move Over Orange County, Dallas has an OC, too!

There are three times in my life that I have vivid memories of where I was when a major historic even took place. First and foremost was November 22, 1963 in Dallas. I was in my senior high school history class 1200 miles away from here when the radio transmissions began to come over the PA system without introduction. Second, was the landing on the moon.I was crossing the Ohio River on Interstate 71/75 on my way north toward the Michigan/Ohio line. Third was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Opening my mail box at my apartment here in Dallas, my maintenance man, Dave, was sitting in his truck listening to the report on the radio here in Dallas. I stood outside his truck as we both were silent listening to the boradcast. There was time before I left for work that morning to return to my apartment and watch the second tower fall on TV.

Times change and time moves on. The older I get, the more I come to realize (I'm a science nut) that we are most likely living in parallel worlds and what we think we are (something really special) is in reality, at best, a hologram. In fact, there is growing evidence (and science needs evidence to acknowledge something as true) that we are a holographic universe. Now, before you think me weird, I do believe in the Apostle Creed. Counterpoint? Not at all. There is so much we don't understand about religion and if you follow the bible as a historic book, it even tells us that there are things that we will never understand because we are not ready to have that level of understanding.

Okay, so this is headed toward my trip yesterday to OC.  Here in Dallas, we call it Oak Cliff. Some locals call it the Bishop Arts District and others call it 10 blocks of the most active retail traffic in the United States. But, a whole lot of people call it home. It is an amazing area of beautiful homes, cliffs and scenic views. It is also the the end stop from Dealey Plaza at the Texas theater for Lee Harvey Oswald and officer J.D.Tippit at Jefferson near Zang.

Since it was again in the 80s for early February, it was also the first time that I have worn shorts in 2017, although I could have worn them a couple of previous times. There will be plenty enough times to wear them in really hot Texas summer weather when it hits sooner than we all think it will. But, I do admit that it was much more comfortable with shorts and a t-shirt as I walked both sides of the Jefferson and Bishop crossings. And, I also keep forgetting that the Dallas Streetcar now will take me there with a little walking, too. So, I hope to explore the fab architecture that I like so much later on in the summer or fall.

As I stood outside the Texas theater, I was still left with a rippling emotion that while life goes on and history marks only time, something that day came together in a way that I cannot fully explain. I've been to Dealey Plaza and watched the tourist walk out into the center of Elm Street and stand where the mysterious "X" always reappears, or to look up at that 6th floor window that somehow isn't the real thing but still conveys the event. Or that quiet and ghostly feeling you get standing at Lee Harvey's grave when you should not have that feeling at all.

Hopefully, this summer, I will make it to Laurel Land quietly and peacefully to bring together a moment in history that for me has always felt somewhat incomplete. Perhaps because of how it all began, with a radio signal being rebroadcast through a schools PA system. It's something that I cannot explain, but know where it is coming from in this boy that grew up with a radio station in the family and how those signals have always meant more to me than I could ever explain. That radio station is well documented on wikipedia, but by it being in the family, it is a magnetic charge that draws me to things like a compus.

The Sign

The Ticket Window

Now Playing theatre marquee

When I used to fly  with our pilot on the company plane, that radio signal was like a beacon  to me and I was never lost although it was in a sense a navigational beacon transponder. Looking out the window from thousands of feet above the earth, I knew where I was. That ability is still with me today and days like yesterday gave me a more completeness to the history that I have lived through. All three of these historic events have come to me over a radio signal. JFK. John Glenn's moon landing. 911 on the radio of my maintenance guy, Dave, on a radio in his truck. Don't even try to tell me that a force of nature--quantum physics, no less- is at work and I have tapped into it somehow and feel deep emotional ties. Weird? Even I have to say at this point. Somewhat!

Upcoming ----yet today----
There will be an additional post of pictures for the Acrocats. For my youngest brother-- yes, the car had California plates! I bet it's been in Truckee, too!

Mail Truck, a Pumper and a Zephyr

This is a story about a U.S. Mail truck. The same kind you see going up and down neighborhood streets, or parked behind the local post office branch in your town or neighborhood. Nothing unusual about that. The other is a full size red fire truck. The same kind you see at your local fire station and a historic Zephyr east bound (6) and west bound (5) from California to Lake Michigan. and the Windy City.

About a month ago, when all the nesting hawks, ospreys, owls and eagles had fledged their nest, most of the web cams were turned off for the balance of the year. The experts say that it only takes 30 days of doing something routinely before it becomes a habit. And, yes, after the birds were gone from the nest, it was more difficult to find a good web cam to watch. The resorts are rather dumb. The airports pan to much and don't focus on the action stuff. The scenic sites are no where near as good as a good IMAX movie so those are out. Then, I'm thinking, my  like for watching trains is still active. Why not look for live web cams of trains coming and going. It didn't take long before I had found  a link to some pretty neat train cams. Freight trains are good because they are made up of all kinds of cars. Then, there are coal trains that are hopper car after hopper car after hopper car for more than a mile. At least watching a container train you get variety. Twenty-footers, forty footers, red ones, blues ones, green ones, white ones, rusty ones and once  in a while a slip deck that is all open on the bottom except where the container sits on rockers.Those are unusual and can be rather interesting.

But, the best part was that an Amtrak came through twice a day. It runs from  Emeryville, California to Chicago. It's known east bound as the California Zephyr No. 6 and its known west bound as the California Zephyr No. 5. The little thing to remember here is that I have actually ridden this train. It was a delight years ago and I have a deep yearning to do it again. However, there is not an arrive time but there is a departure time. The reason for that is that Amtrak shares the Union Pacific  tracks through the mountains to Denver and shares the tracks with Burlington Northern Santa Fe from Denver to Chicago. And where that happens, one must remember that freight revenue over passengers is always Trump (nothing to do with the elections, thank goodness). However, being a good student of transportation, it didn't take long to get the system down to where you could be more accurate than the station boards.
 The west bound is always able to make up 7 minutes, so if the station boards say that the train is running 32 minutes late, he will actually only be twenty-five minutes late. You also learn that it takes on that section of track 1 hour to go from point A to point B. So when you do the calculations--which my train friends call "railroading", you can actually plan, go put away the dishes  or start dinner or load the dishwasher and not miss  seeing the cool blue and gray engines pulling  the 9 cars, sometimes, even twelve or thirteen. The eighth car is always the dining car. One of the coolest cars on the train. Amtrak does carry certified chefs on board that actually prepare the meals. The week before Labor Day, he was pulling 12 cars. Even had a  club car one day and a scenic vista car one day. He also had an old private Pullman car, which is the way to travel for sure. Those cars are fantastic and private. They are of the vintage of presidential campaign cars where you see the bunting on the back deck and the candidate waving to the crowds! A rather romantic version of a time gone by and most unfortunate it only survives sporadically. At one time, you could have the railroad pull your car anywhere for a dollar a mile. Still cheaper today than a private jet, flight crew, but certainly more  laid back and enjoyable than a jet.  That's for sure.

So, in this little town seen via web cam, there are two gas stations on a very wide and well planned out street corner just up from the rail station. The stations face the cross streets with their "C" store operations  and their pumps in this beehive California town.  The town is up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains  and is a typical vacation spot for camping, skiing, boating, hiking, back-packing, hotel and restaurant fans along with daily local activities.

So, a couple of days ago, this mail truck pulled into the one station that is more for the townies than the other one. The other:  a name brand station and people off the interstate. Travelers can use their brand credit cards there. But, generally, the business is pretty equal but weighted to the local station 3:2. It's  judged by the number of fill ups ordered up by the station more than anything else. I was a bit shocked to see a mail truck getting gas at a local gas station but when you think about where this is, it probably make more sense than maintaining a tank and dispensing facility at the post office. Plus, maybe you don't want that around the trucks or what ever.

Two days after seeing the first mail truck come in to get gas, a second mail truck came in to the station across the street. Being struck as funny, I said out loud, "Oh, look at that, an equal opportunity gas pumper!"  Two days later, the mail truck was in at the local station again.

Today, while getting gas at my Kroger gas station, I was pulling in to my regular side that had no one at either pumps, but the middle and far right pumps were full. So, not being a total jerk, I pulled up allowing someone to come in behind me normally instead of having to jockey around to get to the empty pump. As I was getting out of the car, this big red fire truck pulled in and was going around the station. Not to worry. He must be doing an inspection or something I though, until he pulled up right behind me. In my many decades of filling up my car, I have never had a fire truck pull up behind me, get out of the truck and do the same routine that I'm doing. The fireman walked up to the door of his truck after beginning his fill up. I said to the fireman, that," I had seen on a web cam that I watch trains on, a mail truck get gas at one station and then go across the street the next time to the other station and get gas and I had called him an equal opportunity gas pumper. When I saw you pull in it reminded me of that! I had to chuckle." He acknowledged the humor.

Upon leaving the station the thought occurred to me that no one is going to believe me that I had just gassed up at Kroger's next to a full size fire pumper. So I went back to get a shot. As I was driving on to the lake to see if the pelicans had arrived ( and they had)  another thought occurred to me that they shop at Kroger's and like anyone else, get fuel points too.  I wondered if they do, indeed, get full points for diesel. So, long story shot, I have seen another equal opportunity pumper for real and this one really was a pumper.

Equal Opportunity Fuel Points!

The Pelicans have returned and greeted by the turtles

100 cars of this is rather boring. Seeing 8 engines pull a mile long train over the mountains wasn't.

24/09/2016:edited for clarity

SolarImpulse

Andre Borschberg

A full wing width view of SolarImpulse.This is the second engine on the left wing

The temporary hanger for the SolarImpulse airplane.

Bertrand Piccard

The fact that the experimental aircraft, powered by solar cells on its wings and tail, has flown from San Francisco (Moffet Field,Mountain View,California) to Phoenix and then set a long distance record for a solar-powered aircraft by flying from Phoenix to Dallas is amazing of and within itself.

Even more amazing is that the technology developed and displayed by this amazing flying machine isn't totally about an airplane. It's about the multi-uses the technology makes available from houses to all kinds of energy-efficient sources to power motors,drives,machines and things that have not even been conceived.

It takes visionaries to lead the way and pioneers to carry out those visions.Two such men that I only knew by what I had read about until Friday jelled when I stood only a couple of feet from Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard. Piccard had piloted the craft from Moffett to Sky Harbor,Phoenix and Andre Borschberg had set the new long-distance record by flying the longest leg of over  800 miles from Sky Harbor to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport early Thursday morning.

They were not the first-two pioneers that I have know. In 1976, Karl Thomas was unsuccessful in piloting a hot air balloon from Maine to Europe, dropping into the North Atlantic and being picked up by a Russian trawler a few days later. Karl was not only a visionary and pioneer, he was ex centric and fully brilliant.

So, to stand in the presence of two great men with visions and pioneering spirit was once again an amazing moment. Good Luck to the entire project of Solarimpulse and the staff that makes the machine as an organization work.