30 April 07 - 22:12Why isn't the vacuum working?

Last night Marla whipped out the vacuum and started vacuuming.  R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r  H-m-m-m-m-m-m  R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r  Here and there she is cleaning the carpet.

Then she moves to another room.  More vacuuming noises.  Suddenly I hear, "Honey, take a look at the vacuum and see if you can tell me why it isn't working right."

So I take a look.  It smells like rubber so I wiggle the belt.  The belt if fine.  I remove the filter and notice that the filter chamber is packed full of dirt and doggy hair.  Now that seems strange.  Normally the filter gets dusty, but it doesn't fill with hair.  Hmmmmmm.

The vacuum is one of those tornado, bagless machines so I look into the plastic tornado chamber.  I am thinking maybe the silver thingy dingy that lives in there has come loose.  I am wrong, instead I find it is completely missing. 

Apparently it was thrown away with the dirt the last time the vacuum was used.  I was never so happy in my life to know that it probably wasn't me that threw it out!! 

The replacement part is on its way.  For the rest of us?  Remember never to throw out vacuum cleaner parts with the vacuum cleaner contents.  By the way, this was a 16 inch long piece of chrome plated pipe with a funnel squig-u-lator on the end of it.

How did she do that?

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

28 April 07 - 09:09Wow, A "Type M" Planet ! !

Here you see a picture provided by the European Southern Observatory.  It is an artists conception of a planet found orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581.  The planet is in what scientists call the "Goldilocks Zone" which means that it is capable of having liquid water and could harbor life.

The planet is larger than earth, so gravity would be greater, and the star it orbits is a red dwarf, so it's energy output is lower.  Somehow these folks at the ESO have figured that the planet could be what we are looking for.

Gliese 581, is the 581th entry in the Gliese Catalogue, which lists all known stars within 25 parsecs (81.5 light years) of the Sun. It was originally compiled by Gliese and published in 1969, and later updated by Gliese and Jahreiss in 1991.

Those billianaires out there that want to buy a ride should know that Gleise 581 is located 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ("the Scales").  it would take a lot of earth time to get there, but the trip would seem shorter if they keep the speed close to that of light.

If you were planning on using your telescope to see this, forget it.  The ESO telescope is 3.6 meters in diameter.  That's around 12 feet.  This is a lot larger than the usual telescope you can expect Santa to bring for Christmas.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

27 April 07 - 00:59Wicked - The Book and now . . . The musical ! !

A couple of years ago (or more) I was looking at books on the bookshelf in the grocery store and noticed a book called "Wicked."  I immediately thought of the "Wizard of Oz" and picked up the book.  The blurb on the back intrigued me, but I put it back.

The story of the Wicked Witch of the West, or so it seemed, would be told in the book.  Next time to the store I read the book cover again, it had to come across as the biography of the witch, but how good could it be?  I had read every Oz book in the library when I was a youngster and have seen "The Wizard of Oz" probably two dozen times.  Would I like it?

Well, I got the book and started reading it.  I couldn't put it down.  It was very well done.  Not at all a child's book, but very well written and actually it seemed to possess quite a bit of depth and held my interest.  Initially I kept wanting it to fit into the familiar story, but a short ways into the book I didn't care.  Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) had such an unusual and enchanting childhood and young womanhood that I turned page after page wanting to know what became of her life and those about her.

On Tuesday night the lovely Marla and I went to the musical version of "Wicked."   I love musicals and I wondered how they could cram all of the material into from the book into a musical and still tell the story.  Well, they did it two ways.  First, it lasted three hours, and second, they kept things moving with lightning fast scene changes and rapid sequencing of the condensed storyline.

I  have never heard of Victoria Matlock before, but she was Elphaba.  She has a simply wonderful voice.  I want to see and hear more of her.  The single track "Defying Gravity" was truly an experience.  I intend to download it as soon as I reinstall Napster.

This was a great experience.  If "Wicked" comes your way, go see it.  If you hear that Victoria Matlock is singing nearby, take the day off and go listen.  It will be well worth your time.

P. S.  The musical has a 'sweeter" ending than the book.  If you read the book, you will love the musical.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

26 April 07 - 12:12Opportunity Knocks

Late one fall, a cattle buyer was taking delivery on a huge order of cattle.  Because of the complexities of the sale, he took his secretary with him to help with the tallying and paperwork.  By the time they got the cattle weighed, loaded, and the trucks on the road, there were a few snowflakes in the air.

The cattle buyer and his secretary stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat and by the time they finished eating, a full fledged blizzard was underway.  They started for home, but only went a few miles before they came to a road block where the Highway Patrol was turning traffic around because of the storm.

They went back to the only motel in town to get a couple of rooms but there was only one room left and it only had one bed.  They talked it over and decided they didn't have any choice but to share the room.  Later that evening, they went to bed and the secretary said, "I'm a little cold... Would you mind getting me an extra blanket?"

The cattle buyer thought a moment and replied, "You know what? Since we're sleeping in the same bed tonight, maybe we ought to act like we're married."

With a twinkle in her eye, the secretary said, "That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea."

"O.K. then," replied the cattle buyer, "Get up and get your own damned blanket."

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

25 April 07 - 08:08Imus may make some additional news

Headline "Imus Hires a Legal Heavyweight." I hope this heats up. I think that the "Reverand" Al Sharpton is one of the slipperiest people I have heard in my recent memory. I was recently listening to FOX News, specifically a Sean Hannity piece in which he verbally dueled with "Reverand" Sharpton. I thought both of them got a bit anxious, but it is apparent that Al Sharpton is a publicity hound. He is right in there with Jesse Jackson, also a "reverand."

Now for the important stuff. I do not listen to Don Imus. It is my understanding that his listeners are a group that are more like cult followers than ordinary listeners. It also appears after reading about him that this is not too far off his general line of banter. Again, I would not use this type of description, probably because I never would think of it or a situation where it fits, but I don't think it was reason to fire Mr. Imus.

That said, I may be wrong on this one, but when Al Sharpton is involved there is always the possibility that there is less than a balanced viewpoint of what is happening. Al Sharpton knows his audience and he plays to it, just as Don Imus plays to his audience. There is probably very little overlap in the two.

Anyways, it should be interesting to watch. My angle actually has nothing to do with either participant that I have mentioned so far. I just don't like corporate America. I think they are short sighted and lack guts. I would love to see them squirm. I think the MBA programs in the United States have ruined our global competitive advantage. We are turning out clockwork weenies.

Go go go. Lets see what happens to the MBA clockwork weenie crowd this time.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

24 April 07 - 11:12Day and night you are the one

This is a pretty cool site.  It is called time and date.com. Sandra sent me a link to the sunearth part of it a while back. 

The picture here is from the "Day and Night World Map."  The map visually shows where the sun is "right damn now" and what parts of the earth are in daylight and which parts are in darkness.Sandra sends me a lot of these links. Sandra knows that I like this sort of thing and is nice enough to send them along when she sees them.  There is more to this site than just this cool visual map.  There are all sorts of time and date related things.

Check it out.  There is the calendar for any year page, time between dates calculator, time zone converter, moon phase calculater and other interesting time things.

Thanks Sandra.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

23 April 07 - 10:11To build a Pyramid - How the French would do It

Some weeks ago I ran across a news link saying that the construction method of the great pyramid had been solved.  I know there are many theories as to how it was built, but this one has a bit of a twist.

To see some of the ways others have suggested that the pyramids were built I looked here.  A quick bit about Pyramids.  This page covers a lot of the more reasonable theories for how the pyramids were built.  There are also the outer space alien theories, lever-machines that could have traversed the face of the pyramid, and, of cource, the hydraulic elevator theory you can see here. One way to build a pyramid. Personally it seems like a no brainer, why take the ramp if you can take the elevator.  However, you decide on the veracity of the hydraulic elevator theory.

Today I picked up a copy of the May/june issue of Archeology magazine.  There it is on the cover, an article about the same fellow I had read about in the news link, Jean-Pierre Houdin.  The reason for the news link was all of the self serving publicity that Dassault Systemes has lavished on the theory since they seem to have participated in the building of a 3D model of Jean-Pierre's theory.  There are some really cool animations of the theory available at their animation and information site, but you will need to install a plug-in to use it.  I have used the plug-in with my XP computer without difficulty, there is not one available for Linux.

It will be interesting to see what happens later when archeoligists try to look for the internal ramps.  As you can see, there is an abundance of theories.  According to to the article in Archaeology Jean-Pierre Houdin and Rainer Stadlemann have submitted an application to use non-destructive methods to support the theory that Jean-Pierre has spent so many years figuring out.

I am personally hoping that they will find the ramp, clean it up a bit, and turn it into an air-conditioned passage to the top of the pyramid.  Whether or not the ramps were an internal ramp system that was used or an external ramp system that was filled in as construction was completed, it will be interesting to see what evidence this latest bit of noodling over the pyramids will turn up during NDT.

Later.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

21 April 07 - 22:58Who's Not all There - and O. J.

I have read with great sadness what has happened this week in Virginia. Now it is time for the Monday morning quarterbacks to ask "what can we do to make sure this never happens again" or equally unanswerable questions.  One thing that stands out is the position of the school is difficult in the case of students like these.

The problem runs two ways when we ask the question, how could we have identified this before it happened.  

Here is the simple truth.  If this type of student is not unique when compared to others, then there is no way to seperate the student from the group.  If this type of student is something that occurs frequently, but usually does no harm, we cannot seperate the student from the group because the category of student is usually harmless.

Even NASA has recently had issues with an astronaut (surely you haven't forgottenthis quickly) and astronauts are selected for the job because they are exceptional people.  It's a tough call.

This makes me remember Dave.  Dave was a student who attended my college in the early 1970's.  Dave had been signed up, tested, tuition paid, and was living in the dormitory about two doors down from me.

Dave was ill equipped for college life.  He talked funny, could not take care of himself on his own, and had a tendency to stand for long periods of time in a catatonic state, often in the hallway of the dorm.  His inadequacies were obvious.

As young adults what did we do?  We did either nothing, or we made sport of him.  What did he do?  He eventually dropped out and went home.  Could he have snapped and killed us all?  I wouldn't have thought so, but I don't know.  If wierd is the criteria, however, he was it.

I knew another young man when I went to school.  I don't remember his name.  I remember he did a lot of drugs and I watched him almost jump out a third floor window thinking he could fly.  I heard once that he was arrested running naked down an alley after burglerizing a pharmacy.  Never did kill anyone that I know of.  But he was crazy.

I had a friend from high school, he was talented, smart, friendly (I like him), gay, and more artistic than athletic.  Once out of school he was a bit of an under achiever, never bothered anybody, and worked in the restaurant industry. I always thought of him as socially aware and adapted. Early in his adult life he took his own life.  Hanging if I remember.  Never thought he was crazy a day in my life.  Didn't take anyone with him when he went.

I have met several other people in my life that I would say are definately marching to a different drummer, and they have threatened, warned, ranted, raved, and implied harm to themselves and others.  Some of these are Vietnam vets who definately were effected by their experience in the conflict, but they are still alive and have not yet harmed anyone.

O. J. Simpson has killed his wife and another man and we all know it. He had even written a book that may one day be published telling the details of his deed.  He walks the streets, legally let off the hook by our legal system which was unable to prove him guilty to a jury of his peers.

I could go on.  Which are the ones that will take us with them?  I don't see a way to tell.  Should we start taking them off the streets?  If we as a society have no way of legally taking O. J. off the streets, how can we start to presume we can take potential killers off of our streets?

Ah, yes, how could this have been prevented.  What were the signs?  And which of those signs don't apply to others.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

19 April 07 - 22:22Trouble in Tombstone

This is a joke.  If any sheep out there are offended, I apologize in advance.

A New York lawyer was transferred to a wild west frontier town during late 1800's. After several weeks there he noticed that the town was inhabited solely by men.

One day the former New Yorker asked one of the local cowboys, "What do you do when you get the urge for a woman?"

The cowboy replied, "See them thar'sheep up on thet hill. We just go git us one."

"That is disgusting and barbaric!!" replied the lawyer.

Well, after about 3 months the lawyer was thinking differently.  He couldn't stand it any longer. He decided though, if he was going date a sheep, he would show these yokels how to do it right. He picked out the prettiest sheep of the bunch, bathed her, put a pink ribbon on her, served her hay on a china plate, and dressed her in a lovely silk dress.

At this point the city lawyer decided to take his new found love out for a drink and headed into the local saloon with the sheep under his arm.

The piano fell silent, people dropped drinks, and all the cowboys turned, and stared in shocked disbelief.

The lawyer nervously looked around the room and said, "You're looking at me as if I'm some sort of freak for doing what you've been doing all along. I'm just doing it with more class."

"That ain't the problem," replied one cowboy. "That's the sheriff's gal you're with."

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

19 April 07 - 20:48Additional Evidence of the Lisbon Mill

The real key to locating the mill location was a comment made by my brother when he referred me to a garage in the area where I knew the mill had been.  He made the statement that the garage had "a basement that was part of the old mill."  I had planned on looking at the garage from the outside (the owners are not at home) to fix it's location.  It wasn't until I looked around and noticed that what I thought at first was an old sidewalk was, infact, the foundation of something round.

It is almost a certainty that this is the foundation of the round grain bin.  On another trip I might measure it, but for now I took several pictures from different sides of the garage.  It appears that the garage is right in the center of the foundation and it makes sense that the floor of the garage could be the floor of the grain bin and there may well have been a pit used by the grain elevating equipment (maybe cups in an internal leg).

Another thing that I found when I was poking around was part of the foundation of the mill race where the mill's two turbines lay rusting when I saw the ruins as a boy.  There were two parallel walls with the metal turbines between them.  Only one wall is visible today. If I remember correctly race area was filled in when Van lozier bought this parcel of land and leveled it out for his "retirement estate."  This would have been in the late 1960's, perhaps the early 1970's.

This along with a blob of brick filled concrete were all I saw.  I am still researching this and am hoping to get some historical data from the time that the mill was remodeled about 10 years prior to its demise.  I love history, and this is a little bit of history that I remember snooping out when I was a boy.

Later.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

18 April 07 - 08:15A new Anti-porkiness Campaign

Marla is working up a plan for all of us to go to Weightwatchers.  I know that I need to loose a few and am looking forward to it. 

Here I have a before and after picture of what losing a bit of weight and then a new wardrobe can do.  Also, a shave, new hairstyle, (and personality change) were a plus for this gal.

Oh, dear, I suppose I am hurting the feelings of porky folk out there, but hey, they have a porkiness gene that causes them to be large.  Come to think of it, I probably do too.  I just have a smaller pair of porkiness genes than the ultra-porky.

Anyway, if weightwatchers can do this for the woman in red, I'm in.  I won't wear dresses, but I will lose weight.

Well, it's getting late.  I only have time for a small sandwich and then off to bed.

Later!

Lincoln - default - four Comments - Leave yours - § ¶

17 April 07 - 10:11Earth Currents - my old lab topic

Guess when the "mini-ice age" was...  That's right, between 1645 and 1705.  Now, let's play the statistical analysis game.  This is the game that global warming zealots play where they compare the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the average annual temperature.  You see they look at it this way.

• Man is bad.
• Man is ruining the earth.
• Let's find evidence.
• Average temperatures are going up.
• Greenhouse gases could cause that.
• We can prove that man effects atmospheric CO2 levels.
• Man makes carbon dioxide go up.
• Temperature goes up.
• It is man's fault.
• Q. E. D.

Woe is us.  Woe is us.  We are all gonna die unless Al Gore can save us.

When I was going to college we were required to have a "Senior Project."  Mine was to correlate earth currents with sunspots. What are earth currents?  Earth currents are electron flows or potential differences between two different locations in the ground.  It's simple to measure them.  You only need a couple of grounding rods, some wire, and an accurate ammeter.  you stab the grounding rods in the ground and wire them to a meter and then read it.  So far, so easy.

With the sunspot readings I took I was looking for correlation between the number of sunspots and a particular time lag following the number of spots.  More spots, more current, at a particular time delay.  Or perhaps it might be the first derivative, change in sunspots and whatever works.  Take different time buckets or different buckets of readings and eventually you may find a match.  By the way, the rods don't have to be nearly as far apart as I have shown.

The similarity between what I did and what is going on now is research that shows there is a relationship between sunspots, sunspot cycle maximums, and climate.  Guess what, man does not cause sunspots.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov (I give up on pronouncing this) of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg, Russia, has predicted that Earth will experience a new "Little Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity.

He predicts a solar spot decline in the years 2035 to 2045.  If you look at the graph you can see that the last time this happened, we had a mini ice age.  Perhaps we should be saving our CO2 for the upcoming event in big gas bags and fart the gas out just in time to counteract this event.

By the way.  This scientist is reminding us that the "Little Ice Age" left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to the glaciers.  Look at the graph of solar spot activity, something which has been measured for centuries.  In fact scientists counted sunspots before the thermometer was invented.

Even without the thermometer we know that low count means low temperature (frozen canals, remember).  If it happens, he is right;  by the way, it's also high count, high temperature.

You can't always believe what you read.  Maybe you should read up on this before you hop on the "Human Caused Global Warming Bandwagen."  Water is a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.  I think its time to quit irrigating the deserts, time to eliminate reservoirs, baths, showers, sweating and, oh yes, the oceans.  Those damn things have got to go away.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Lincoln - default - two Comments - Leave yours - § ¶

16 April 07 - 20:20Priest and Rabbi Joke (It's a joke son!!)

I always have liked jokes that start out with a priest and a rabbi.  Sometimes they throw a Baptist minister in the mix as well, but overall, I know a joke starting this way will turn out well.  This is from Jerry.

Again, THIS IS A JOKE.  You Democrats and fizzleheads out there get it?  A JOKE!!!

A Priest and a Rabbi Joke

A Priest and a Rabbi were sitting next to each other on an airplane.

After a while, the Priest turned to the Rabbi and asked, "Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?"

The Rabbi responded, "Yes, that is still one of our beliefs."

The Priest then asked, "Have you ever eaten pork?"

To which the Rabbi replied, "Yes, on one occasion I did succumb to temptation and tasted a ham sandwich."

The Priest nodded in understanding and went on with his reading.

A while later, the Rabbi spoke up and asked the Priest, "Is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?"

The Priest replied, "Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith."

The Rabbi then asked him, "Have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?"

The Priest replied, "Yes, Rabbi, on one occasion I was weak and broke with my faith."

The Rabbi nodded understandingly and remained silent, thinking for about five minutes.

Finally, the Rabbi said, "Beats a ham sandwich, doesn't it?"

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

15 April 07 - 22:46A Blonde goes to Heaven

For those of you who do not get humor of this nature (such as women basketball players) I want to explain that this is a joke of the category "Blonde joke." It is based on the "Ditzy Blonde" principal which is a placeholder for those who are not necessarily dumb, but seem to "not get it."

If you don't understand this, please go read Sesame Street or something more to your sense of reality. I consider this to be rather funny. It is a joke, i am telling you in advance!! Also, there are people like this out there and we all love them because they are fun.

Also, this is not a slam on religion. IT IS A JOKE!

Blondes and Easter

Three blondes (natural) died and found themselves standing before St. Peter.

He told them that before they could enter the Kingdom, they had to tell him what Easter was.

The first blonde said, "Easter is a holiday where they have a big feast and we give thanks and eat turkey.

"St. Peter said, "Blondes," and he banished her to hell.

The second blonde said, "Easter is when we celebrate Jesus'birth and exchange gifts.

" St. Peter said, "Booboo," and he banished her to hell.

The third blonde said, she knew what Easter is, and St. Peter said, "So, tell me."

She said, "Easter is a Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. Jesus was having Passover feast with His disciples when he was betrayed by Judas, and the Romans arrested him.

The Romans hung Him on the cross and eventually He died. Then they buried Him in a tomb behind a very large boulder.

St. Peter said, Verrrrry good."

Then the blonde continued, "Now every year the Jews roll away the boulder, and Jesus comes out.

If he sees his shadow, we have six more weeks of basketball."

St Peter fainted .................

Lincoln - default - one Comment - Leave yours - § ¶

15 April 07 - 11:44Scientists for the Non-Scientific

Note to self. Don't ever hire Steven Aftergood, scientist.

Apparently there are not enough valid scientific issues out there for Steven. He is the leader of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. His recent scientific endeavor is to criticized NASA for not disclosing settlements to families of NASA astronauts involved in the recent Columbia breakup over Texas.

'It`s not NASA`s money. It`s public money,' sez Aftergood, whose name seems to be a misnomer. Perhaps when he was taking science courses he missed a bunch of the civics classes.

Just so you know, Mark Dombroff, a former Justice Department official who handled air disasters in the 80s indicates that "The settlements sound very reasonable."

I have no gripe with NASA, I think they did the right thing in every way once the disaster had occured. I really have a gripe with groups of people who call themselves scientists wasting their time as well as "the people's" time and money digging up information that is useless and probably, in this case, resurfaces sadness for the families involved.

The Project on Government Secrecy does not sound like a scientific endeavor. These people are not truely scientists if this is their research. I am old fashioned. I think scientists should be uncovering the layers of secrecy that shroud nature for the good of mankind. This is bizarre. At least they could jump on the "Man is Causing Global Warming" bandwagon and get in with the mob.

They do have a very professional website, but it looks as though they spend all their time whining about stuff and poking at the government. Perhaps they think that is the way to effect change. I need to find out more about this group, the "Federation of American Scientists." FAS Website

Maybe it has just been a bad first impression. I do see that they offer a discount to Scientific American.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

14 April 07 - 13:30The Mall of America

This has got to be one of the seven wonders of Minnesota. I remember hearing of this mall years ago and I finally have seen it.

Due to different airline schedules leaving Minnesota a couple of weeks ago I had an hour to spare. since "The Mall of America" was right across from the airport it seemed like the logical thing to check out. So my friend Tom took me their to have a look and see.

MALL OF AMERICA is a pretty presumptuous name. Austentatious would be a better description. I quickly found out that the mall lives up to its name. Not only is it big and huge, it has a large amusement park in the middle of it. Not a merry-go-round or a couple of kiddy trains, it has an enormous amusement park in the center of it all.

To prove to "my honey" that I was there I had this picture taken. That's me!! Part of the amusement park is behind me. What a place. Next time I am going to ride that roller coaster you see behind me.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

13 April 07 - 19:25More information locating the Lisbon Mill

Until I get more information it looks like the "Mill Location" for the Lisbon Mill that we came up with last time is about right.  In the picture labeled Panorama from the Cuts" I have a second picture of the Mill which was published in the "2005 Lisbon History" book. 

From this camera location I can see a barn (I think this barn was located across the open lot (that is to the northwest) from Reinke's house when I was in high school.  I have also labeled the dam, what I think is the old Lozier Funeral Home building (LFH), the bridge, and the mill itself.  I also can easily see telegraph lines and the snowfence that was near the railroad cuts.  The location of the fence should be marked today with mounding where dirt would have blown in over the years, especially in the 1930's. 

It is easy to see that the mill does not align with the rest of the buildings in town as the town is on a grid that aligns with the compass and the Mill aligns with the raceway in which the water drops to provide power at the water's edge.  I would suspect the raceway is under the side of the Mill facing the camera and that this side of the building actually juts over the water.  That was typical in old mills with turbine wheels.  The up and down shafts from the turbines would have driven a series of pulleys and gears which would have provided power to the machinery by means of what was called a "live shaft."

In the picture titled "Second Camera Location" I have labeled the location I think was the camera location with a black "X" and the location I think was the barn location with a white "?" question mark.  The previously placed white line through the mill and grain bin point directly to the camera.  Looking at the old photo we can see that everything "lines up." 

  As a final check I used the topographic modeling and "tilt" feature in Google Earth to recreate the view from the suspected camera location.  I retouched the result a little bit to put some trees on the near side of the river and tilted the horizon to match the old photograph.  Lastly I went in and labeled the items to match the two views.

I really think they match fairly well.  For now I believe we have roughly marked the location of the mill that once stood in Lisbon.  In another blog I might show you pictures of the remaining bits of the mill foundation.

I have more information coming, but I think we are on target so far.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

13 April 07 - 03:22What is Proper? Or is it gold digging?

Taisuke Matsuo apparently suffered a heart attack and died in a restroom on an American Airlines flight from Tokyo to Chicago.  Since he was dead he did not disembark with the other passengers and failed to notify the airline crew of his death when it occured.  Naturally his body was discovered later when the plane was being cleaned.  What else?

Well, our happy ridiculous lawyer friends think that American Airlines should have found the dead guy (Taisake Matsuo) more quickly, perhaps on the usual check of the restrooms for the recently departed.

I don't know about you, but I fail to see anything but gold digging or legal extortion of the airline here.  The indignant "how could they have lost a passenger" line just doesn't cut it.

The airlines and other assorted air travel related agencies such as Transportation Security Administration frisk us and count us and match us with passports.  They only allow passengers and trusted employees in the airports and are very careful to make sure we are comfortable and well taken care of.  At what interval should they be required to sweep the airports and airliners for passengers who inadvertantly died?

There should be a "ludicrous switch" to rid us all of the higher prices we pay for lawyers who are allowed to advise clients that it is all right to shake down an airline for reasons like this.  The guy died, sorry, it was not the fault of American Airlines that he locked himself in a bathroom and died. Jeesh.

What should be the socially acceptable amount of time to have a dead guy sitting on the can without anyone noticing?  Is there a politically correct amount of time we should allot?

Get over it.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

12 April 07 - 00:27More on the Lisbon Mill

If you are still interested in the Lisbon Mill I have some more evidence and deductions that I have made over the past few days.


First, I have managed to find some landmarks that I THiNK might match up. One landmark is the foundation of the round bin.  The others are my speculated location of the railroad bridge to the mill, which somewhat locates the camera location as well as the ridge line in the picture which is the edge of the river valley.


I believe the postcard picture (shown here) has a bit of the edge of the railroad bridge showing along the left edge of the photo.  In studying the aerial photograph on Google and after traveling to the location I think the bridge was located near the yellow dot in the aerial photo to the right putting the left edge of the photo along the lower yellow line.
  The center of the picture more or less lines up with the large (probably original) mill building and the right edge is equally distant to the right where the hill line occurs.  This "high spot" contains a radio tower today.


Although not totally certain, the landmarks are compelling and do seem to match what I have seen and what I remember as a youngster seeing of the mill ruins.


It appears that the mill had its up times and its down times during its existance and a newspaper article in the Lisbon Free Press from April 1, 1904 speaks of a change in ownership and upgrades which included equipment and the addition of a a 28 X 36 foot elavator 40 feet tall.

I also found reference in the Minnesota Historical Society to railroad documents describe as bein in location 134.F.20.2F box 22 file 9344. These files contain engineering documents regarding a project described as "Lisbon, N.D., Bemmel Bros. Flour Mill spur, 1908-1912."


It is this spur that I believe ran along the roadline in the aerial photograph.  I have contacted the Historical Society to see if I can aquire copies of (at least part of) the contents of this file.  This should really nail down the location if there are surveys and other maps included.


Anyway, the new elavator addition is plainly visible in the photo.  I am curious when the round bin was added as that would have come later.  The composite photo on the left shows my thinking in lining up the features and the whited out area shows about where I think the mill was.

I will add additional information in the days to come and I will keep you posted as to the contents of the file in the Minnesota archive.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

11 April 07 - 18:19Hi, Mom

I get zillions of requests for pictures of my Mom.  Here is a picture I snapped with my phone when I was in North Dakota last week.

In this photo she was sitting directly across the table from me just prior to me leaving Lisbon, ND to travel home to Texas.  My Mother was very, very, nice and has allowed me to have her old car.  It will be the third 1995 Park Avenue I have owned.  I love that particular make and model of car.  They are (in my opinion) a very good combination of interior room, weight, and power.

Say "hi, Mom!" as you look at the picture!

Later.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

11 April 07 - 10:10My day was "fair to partly cloudy"

I had a good day most of the day today. It was a long tiring day filled with frustrating communications problems that I can only wait until tomorrow to resolve, a new employee that has a computer he cannot load programs on (partly because of Vista), a lot of traveling, and a broken computer.

That is the downside, but there were plenty of high points. Even at that I don't want to dwell on the highlights or the lowlights of the day. It is the nostalgia of the day I want to focus on.Here is a picture of a caboose. Those of you under 20 years old may not even know what it is. These things disappeared by the 1980's. This caboose would have been new in decade I was born, the 1950's.

It is a piece of railroad equipment that was more or less a mobile office and observation post at the rear of every freight train in the United States (and elsewhere I am sure). The railroad in my home town was, the Northern Pacific, so this is what the cabooses I remember looked like. The little observation device at the top (cupola) was used to sit in and look along the train for trouble, usually "hotboxes" (a hotbox was a hot or burning bearing box, nothing more).

Train crews in that day consisted of at least a conductor, an engineer, a fireman, and a brakeman. In very early years there were multiple brakemen and they actually ran around on top of trains turning brake wheels at the command of the engineer through whistle signals.

As I drove through Minnesota today I became aware of an abandoned railroad grade beside the highway. I was reminded of how the railroads in our country declined over the years and (for a while) looked like they would disappear like the railroad to Ormsby, Minnesota and its neighbors. For mile after mile I could see the roadbed on and off. There were cuts through small hills and built up areas through the low places. Remains of trestles could also be seen here and there.

As I looked I could almost see the men, the horses, and the difficult contraptions and tools that built the original railroads in our country. These men are now dead, as is their railroad. For years to come there will be reminders, but eventually it the roadbed will be nearly gone.

It is an eerie feeling I get from this. like the feeling I get when I see pictures of the small towns in the farm belt with people long forgotten, yet their work in the way of buildings, railroads, and other creations of man reminds me that we are all only visiting this place we call life.

Later!

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

10 April 07 - 22:51To hell in a handbasket

Al Gore is telling us that the earth is going to hell in a handbasket. Literally. The earth is getting hotter and we are causing it. He is so convincing that even the Supreme Court of the United States considers his recent movie evidence. It is an "Inconvenient Truth!!"  Truth is given as very black and white here.

I remember "Killer Bees" steadily moving northward and I heard that the end of honey as we knew it was on the way. Didn't happen.

Then I read that coffee is bad for me, wait, then it helps my sex life, wait, now it doesn't help me wake up it only gets rid of my withdrawal symptoms that were occuring overnight.

Then there was the time that everyone "old enough to be drafted" at age 18 was old enough to drink, now they aren't.

When I was in high school the experts predicted that speed limits would soar higher and higher, but in 1974 the speed limit dropped to 55 to save fuel and stayed there for years, now speed limits are barely back to the levels they were in the 1960's when I was in high school.

A few years ago breast enhancement prosthesis were dangerous!! We heard that, women were getting sick and even disabled from silicone implants that were causing all manner of problems, now we find out that, oops, that is not really true.

The sky is always falling, the world is always going to hell in a handbasket.

Today I am grappling with the concept of global warming. I have read that the cycles of civilization follow climate cycles. I have read about the "mini ice age" and historical accounts of the Nile freezing and even the Euphrates freezing on the down side of climate cycles. Between these years when times were cold there were, your guessed it, warm times.I have heard that sunspot supercycles are related to climate cycles. I have heard that water is the most powerful greenhouse gas.

I understand that very small changes in concentration of certain things can have great effects and I also understand that some concentrations conditions in such a small way that we only talk about the order of magnitude of the change to make sense of the huge changes required to allow for change in effect.

I also know that the greatest difficulty in doing statistical analysis is to actually determine cause and effect. Just because there is a correlation between two measurements doesn't mean that one is causing the other to occur.

I understand that the climate is warming.

Perhaps we are going to hell in a handbasket, but I had expected we would have all turned into gelatenous blogs of melanoma by now due to the hole in the ozone layer. However, we now have very expensive coolants to prevent that. Have they made the switch in China and India yet?

But wait, global warming can also cause depletion in the ozone so we still are not out of the woods yet, and even then, scientists predict we won't see any statistically relevant changes until 2025.Oh me, oh my. The sky seems to be falling literally this time.

Oh, yeah, remember the population explosion that we talked about in the 60's and 70's. Wouldn't fewer people help a lot of this stuff?

I don't even want to go there.

Lincoln - default - two Comments - Leave yours - § ¶

07 April 07 - 13:30More about the Lisbon Mill

Here's some more information on the Lisbon Mill.  It's life spanned from 1882 to 1922 and it derived most of its power from a water drop created by the dam you see in the upper left portion of the aerial photo.  The dam can be identified by the white water on the downstream side.  The flour products made were called "Cheer-Up" products.  The mill was always a "roller mill" which was a new technology at the time it was built.  Originally it was powered by one "wheel" and later a second was added.  The mill also used supplemental steam power and the smokestack for the steam boiler can be seen in the photo.

Here is what I found when I was in Lisbon last week.  My brother Charles pointed out that a garage near the dam had a "basement" that was supposed to be part of the old mill.  When I drove over that way to take a look I found the garage surrounded by the foundation of what was obviously the grain bin you see in the picture.

The mill pictures shown here are from an old postcard of a time period of around 100 years ago.  It seems that at the turn of the last century this was the "text message" of the day.  People picked up picture post cards from where they were visiting and sent them home or to friends to tell them what they were up to.  This particular postcard had a message on the back, but did not have a stamp or a postmark which makes me think it was mailed in an envelope.  I believe the picture was taken from the extreme left side of the area shown from about the same location as the picture shown previously.

I'll show you a picture or two of the evidence that allowed me to be so sure of the bin location in a later blog.  It still isn't totally clear what all was on the site, but I a reasonably sure there was a warehouse area and that the grain came in by rail.  Perhaps the flour was shipped the same way.

When I walked through the area as a youngster there was evidence of a bridge location.  I have some ideas where that may have been.

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

06 April 07 - 12:12That Vista Look

For fun I wondered what it would take to get a bit of the look and feel of Vista.  It seems our hacker buddies have been busy making software that give sort of a fake Vista look and it is fun to play with desktops.  So play I have done!

You can see in the pictures the glowing "Start Button" that is part of the "Vista Transformation Pack" I installed.  I also got a bunch of redesigned icons which further the look as well as a black taskbar along the bottom.

The coolest thing, however, is the thing called "Sidebar."  You can get this sidebar yourself from the Desktop Sidebar website http://www.desktopsidebar.com/ .  Once installed you can get a cool looking clock, localized weather channel, and a news stream.  There are other things to play with at the website, so look around when you get there.

One of the coolest things you can do is set up this blog as a news feed.  The blog does have an RSS feed available at http://www.blog.rlarmstrong.com/rss.xml which allows the blog to be live on your sidebar, should you care to install it.  The portion of the sidebar shown in the picture is only my top two panels.  Altogether I have the clock ans weather, a slideshow, computer performance stats, stock ticker, news, and a quicklaunch area.  You can also have a search tool, video, and so on, but you only need to use what you want.

Maybe I can go into more detail later, but I do like the sidebar.  You can customize it yourself or download skins made by others.

Enjoy!

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

05 April 07 - 21:59Down by the Old Mill

At the left you can see an old photo showing the flour mill that used to be located in Lisbon, North Dakota.  That is where I grew up.  It has long fascinated me how when cities like this "sprouted" there was a wealth of local industry.  This small town of 2200 people in southeastern North Dakota had the mill you see here, a brickyard, a foundry, a creamery (dairy products factory), goldmine, and all manner of stores, hotels, and businesses.

Although there are still 2200 people in Lisbon, the businesses are not thriving like they once did and many are barely holding on. I believe that the automobile killed the industry and business diversity in small towns such as this, but we have developed many things to ensure that these towns don't have a resurgence anytime soon.

Try and imagine opening a mill or a creamery in a town like this today.  Working with our government "partners" in today's world would make these types of ventures a daunting task to get started.  There is absolutely no incentive for a government worker to go out on a limb and most will bury you in paperwork just to prove they have been diligent if something goes awry.

Back to the mill.  This business has been a fascination of mine.  This thing was water powered (mostly) and was built in 1882 at about the same time the town was founded.  I remember seeing the "ruins" of the mill race and turbines near the water's edge when I was in grade school.  I know the ruins were partially buried in the early 1970's, but now I would like to find this location againAlthough the mill would have been in the center of things when the town was starting, the location is an older residential area today.

Somewhere in this part of town was the location of the mill.  I know it has been described as on the south side of the river, east of the dam.  This is the area that I planned to look when I went on a quick stop in Lisbon last weekend.  I found some things.  For me it is fun to find these things.  It is as close as I will get to being an archeologist, which was one of my childhood dreams.

Take a look at the picture.  I can see a large multistory structure, a round bin, and another structure attached to the main structure at a right angle.  More pictures will help us find the location.  We can see those later.

My guess is that the mill picture at the beginning of this piece was taken from somewhere off to the right of the aerial view.  North is at the top of the arial view and that means the mill side you see is essentially what I think is the east side looking west.  I also have heard the mill was not aligned squarely with the compass, but I am not sure of that.

Later!

Lincoln - default - Leave a Comment - § ¶

03 April 07 - 00:02Lazy Boy

While visiting my mother I noted her La-Z-boy recliner was stuck in a half operating position.  We discussed it and she said it didn't really bother her that much, but I informed her it couldn't be that complicated to fix so we turned it over.

As we turned it over I commented that there must be a spring loaded ratchet someplace and that would be our clue to fixing the mechanism.

I looked under the chair and saw a couple of ratchet thingies, one was obviously the one I wanted.  It was holding the platform part of the chair that sits on the floor in a locked position.  I could see that there were about 5 positions and a rather heavy spring involved with the mechanism.  Another look and I could see where the mechanism was hooked up to the shaft which was connected to the lever on the side of the chair.

Yes, yes, there were some loose wire things and a ferrule and set screw that appeared to be disconnected.  I figured I could just reach in and SPROING!!!

Youch!

It is amazing how hardwood can whack your hand.  Anyway, that was the problem.  Two band-aids and a bit of adjusting later and I had it fixed.  The hand will probably be better by the end of next week.

Later.

Lincoln - default - two Comments - Leave yours - § ¶