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Cables, Coffee, Cycles, and Cocktails


Tarheel

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On the other hand, chief wahoo was over the top.  As much as i and maybe we think it was iconic and amusing, even cool, it isnt hard to imagine what certain groups would think.

Animals?  Yeah, nice red herring (oops lol).  Apples and oranges arguments only serve to obscure real dialogue.  As for divide and conquer, that issue runs way deeper and also runs more than one way.  For those who want that, keep up the good work, excellent show nice job.

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On 7/22/2021 at 8:37 PM, dtel said:

This was over 40 years ago, I have no idea what it is called today ?

 

All we did was cut plates into whatever the blueprints called for and fit them into place. The fitting into place was the hard part, it's not easy to pull and bend a thick plate to the shape neeed. The rake on the front is the hardest with the most severe curves, your not allowed to heat anything up to bend it, it just has to be pulled intp shape with many big 12 ton come-alongs as they are called. I mostly worked on 180' supply boats (picture) and for a while we worked to build the New York, Statin island ferry's.

 

 

th.jpg

 

 

Clearly, management had not hired the most obvious choice for the job:  Bender Bending Rodriguez.  Bending is his middle name.  Oh wait, he wasn't built until 3000, so he was Not Available.  Seriously, that sounds like interesting work.  12 ton come-alongs are bigger than anything I've ever seen.  Half-ton or one-ton would be the customary sizes at my jobs.  I've heard stories of those small ones slipping loose and causing injuries.  If a 12-tonner came loose and flung its hook, that could be the end of someone's job, or his life.  Those are some major forces at work.  Everyone needs to be focussed on their job, every day, or terrible things could happen.

 

How thick were the hull plates?  In my welding courses at Hydro, we were told of some ship hull plates being welded together with up to 120 passes of the arc welder.  It would be easy for boredom or distraction to sneak in halfway through the job.  If stress and boredom were competing for your attention every day, that would be really fatiguing.  I'm not surprised that you were eventually glad to leave.  However, with experience like that, building your out-building ("shed" doesn't do it justice) must have seemed like child's play, but hopefully still fun.

 

If you still lived in New York, it would be cool to be able to tell your relatives that you helped build the Staten Island Ferry that they could see and ride on.  British Columbia has the biggest ferry fleet in North America, since it's a big province, with lots of rivers and lakes, plus the coast, of course.  Some crossings take only a few minutes, while some ferries in the North make overnight trips.  A few years ago one of them, the Queen of the North, making an 18-hour trip, hit an island while travelling at cruising speed at night.  The helmsman didn't turn left when he should have, and the ship went to the bottom in 1300-foot-deep water.  Luckily, there was a Native settlement not far away, and the Natives saw the disaster and mobilized every boat available.  Luckily, the ship took more than an hour to sink.  In the end, two people died, but all the other passengers and crew were saved.  There was a big investigation, but nobody on the bridge would talk, so nobody knows exactly why they failed to follow the proper course.

 

To get to the point (finally!), although we have capable shipyards in the province, our biggest ferries have been built in Poland or Germany the last few times. Apparently, those shipyards can build ships for 40% less than Canadian shipyards.  After they're completed, it takes a couple of months for them to make their way over here.  The biggest of the fleet, the Coastal Series, can hold 310 cars, 1600 passengers and crew, and I think around 50 tractor-trailers, which is how we get nearly everything here on the Island, from food to furniture.

 

You can see the fleet here.  The ships come in all sizes, from little ones that carry a dozen cars, to the big ones that hold hundreds of cars.

 

https://www.bcferries.com/on-the-ferry/our-fleet

 

 

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Found one of the holy grails of my lockdown to present search for good bourbon.

My ideas have been changed on that subject a little by the www and an old thread here last year.

 

So I set my monos for about 11:30 on their dials, set the pc's Realtek chip for 50% with better than dvd bitrate and hz : Put on YES- Fragile and got a second shot of my rare "medicinal" stuff. Haven't seen this small batch since 2019. Goes down smoothly.

 

Happy Weekend folks!

 

PXL-20210724-013743725.jpg

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4 hours ago, oldtimer said:

On the other hand, chief wahoo was over the top.  As much as i and maybe we think it was iconic and amusing, even cool, it isnt hard to imagine what certain groups would think.

Animals?  Yeah, nice red herring (oops lol).  Apples and oranges arguments only serve to obscure real dialogue.  As for divide and conquer, that issue runs way deeper and also runs more than one way.  For those who want that, keep up the good work, excellent show nice job.

 

While Natives who live in the Far North in most circumpolar countries are called Eskimos, in Canada that's considered a derogatory term used by those who live a bit south of the Arctic Circle (the "Indians") to insult the Inuit (That's the plural.  An individual is an Inuk.).  It means something like "eaters of raw fish", and is apparently pretty insulting.  In the end, there was a formal agreement between the northern First Nations and the Far North First Nations (the Inuit) to stop using the term.  Meanwhile, the clueless Euro-Canadians use the term for a sports team.  After years of protests, common sense and respect finally sank in, and now the team is called the Elks, and since there are plenty of actual elk in northern Alberta, that is an appropriate name for an Alberta team.

 

In the Far North, there are radio and TV broadcasts in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit, while further south, there are broadcasts in various First Nations languages.  Here in southern BC, we can get the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, APTN, which has some interesting shows, many of which are in English.  Caution!  May Contain Nuts! is a half-hour comedy show, which has some funny stuff.  A running sketch is Space Trek, which is about a crew of First Nations characters exploring space.

 

Here's a graphic to indicate safe social distance, by reference to a familiar object.  There were a few others, like a hockey stick (about 1.5 sticks), and an elk, to indicate 2 metres, but I didn't see them today.  The top language is Inuktitut spelled phonetically for English readers and speakers, while the language below that is the same message in actual Inuktitut characters.

 

inuk-physical-distancing.jpg

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3 hours ago, Islander said:

12 ton come-alongs are bigger than anything I've ever seen.

Wish I could say that, it took 2 people to drag one, you really had to weld down strong pad eyes to pull off of.  Usuially we would coil the extra chain over each end so if something came loose the chain would somewhat catch or slow down the ends, worked well. The cone-along that size is probably a few hundred pounds. they make them up to 25 tons i beleve and weigh over 500 pounds. Sometimes we would have to use a few of them to pull metal to shape, better have some good welds, most of the time the fitter would weld them, we didn't trust the tacker, they were out the way when it got a load on it.

 

3 hours ago, Islander said:

If you still lived in New York, it would be cool to be able to tell your relatives that you helped build the Staten Island Ferry that they could see and ride on.

I never lived there but it would have been nice to ride on it. I never road on any of the boats I worked on, spent enough time on them already.

3 hours ago, Islander said:

I'm not surprised that you were eventually glad to leave.

I was glad to leave all the time, just had to wait for the right time.

3 hours ago, Islander said:

However, with experience like that, building your out-building ("shed" doesn't do it justice) must have seemed like child's play, but hopefully still fun.

It was nothing to putting together the shed, except i am no longer 25 years old, that was the big problem. I had great help putting together the frame, Michael Colter came down from Indy for a week and that helped alot. I would have had to rig up something to hold a 16' channel in place and many other things but with him here we could just each get one end and slowly get it into place. I can't lie, it did kick our butts, but were both the same age, or very close. 

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4 minutes ago, dtel said:

 

It was nothing to putting together the shed, except i am no longer 25 years old, that was the big problem. I had great help putting together the frame, Michael Colter came down from Indy for a week and that helped alot. I would have had to rig up something to hold a 16' channel in place and many other things but with him here we could just each get one end and slowly get it into place. I can't lie, it did kick our butts, but were both the same age, or very close. 

 

Yeah, it was great to be 25.  I can't believe my current age.  50 years of being an adult should mean that we've got it all figured out, but not really.  It's good to hear about Colter.  I've never met him, but he was a real regular on here.  I hope all is well with him.

 

Some things are at the limit of what typical-sized humans can deal with.  We get a lot of cruise ships stopping here on the way from California or Seattle, heading up to Alaska.  In a normal year, we'd get 275 visits, which brings many millions of dollars into our local economy.  That's great, but the ships need to keep the lights and A/C on, so they leave the engine (or engines) running to power the ship's generators.  As many as three of these huge ships can be docked here at the same time, so we get localized air pollution.  The cure for that is shore power.  The ship hooks up after it ties up, and then the big engine is shut down.  The thing is, to carry all that current, the connectors and the cables are huge.  I've seen TV ads promoting the idea.  The connector is supported by a small crane, but the electricians looked to be pretty much at the limits of their strength when they wrestled the big connector into place.

 

The ads were from Vancouver, which already has shore power.  It costs a few million dollars for the local hardware, but sometimes the local grid has to be upgraded as well.  However, the city charges the ship owners for the power it uses, so the city recoups some of the cost. Fitting the ship with the hardware to receive shore power costs over $1 million per ship, but a number of them have been modified already, so that's good.  The air stays clean, and the deep rumbling of the engines no longer bothers the people who live across the street from the docks.  Step by step, we'll get 'er done, lol.

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Mornin' all

I'm still alive.

My computer is puked. Keyboard went down. I suspect the Pepsi Syndrome...    The whole keyboard went down slowly. Borrowing wife's machine.... when she's not binge watching her shows.

 

We've had good rains. Not what you're seeing on the news from Tucson. They got smacked the night before last. Pushing hard to keep up with the weeds. Misplaced the whip sickle and was afraid I wasn't gonna find it before the weeds ate it... and not being able to find it until they died.

after a couple of really dry years, we're approaching average precip for the year... and it seems wet. Mozzies are starting to show

 

 

Been hunting tomato [horn] worms... Why can't you ever find them before the plant is stripped and the worm is the size of your index finger? And then, you still have to look hard at the naked plant to find them...   and then  there the are budworms... they are rearing their ugly little green heads...

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Youngest sent me a pic from Phoenix of hail on her back porch yesterday.  Hahaha  Said it was raining like crazy.  Blech. 

 

Bad news follows good.  Cleveland is renaming from the Indians to the Guardians next year.  Dude!  You have the rock and roll hall of fame and you're not changing the name to the Rockers? (or hell, even the Rollers...)

 

She also sent me a text the night before about the Cleveland name change.  She heard it Wednesday and flipped out.  Funny that they chose the name over some way they named the bridges in Cleveland.  Reds in Cincy and the Guardians in Cleveland?  Talk about an uproar?  EVERY one wanted the Rockers with the Rock Hall right down the street except a few of the big money boys and city administration it seems.  Sooooo, fans are boycotting the games and won't budge.  Gonna get interesting but they'll cave and go.  People wonder why I can't stand Cleveland anything!  Browns or Guardians.  Heck I can't even type it  let alone support it.  They're gonna have to show me something and that's NEVER happened.  My .02 anyway.

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11 hours ago, geezin' said:

With all due respect all that does is shift the pollution's location....i.e. not in my back yard. But thanks for the money.

 

That would be true if the powerplants ran on fossil fuels, but in this province around 90% of the electric power is generated by hydro, which is pollution-free.  We have a lot of mountains and rivers.  About another 5% is generated by other renewables, like wind and solar power.  BC generates enough power this way to meet all our needs, and still have enough to sell some to California when they need it.  The target is to have the province run on 100% renewable energy sources, and that looks to be achievable in the fairly near future.

 

These facts may seem to be barely believable, but keep in mind that although the province has all kinds of renewable energy sources, the population of the whole province is only 5 million people, so the total energy needs of the province are about that of a large city, but still only about half that of a city the size of New York, with its population of 10 million.

 

https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc/operations/generation.html

 

https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc/operations/our-facilities/vancouver-island.html

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23 hours ago, oldtimer said:

 You have the rock and roll hall of fame and you're not changing the name to the Rockers? (or hell, even the Rollers...)

Yes, Rockers, Rollers or Rock n' Rollers- perfect!

And throw in Little Richard as team mascot- hell ya!!

image.png.4c9788e41a76d02826a46fc36d198903.png

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4 hours ago, dtel said:

I know, you suck. :lol:

OK it's not your fault it's so pretty up there, great looking area.

 

Thanks.  It is pretty nice.  The tourist ad slogan is Super Natural British Columbia.  When I lived in Toronto, I was driving so much that I had to fill up my van twice a week.  In Victoria, I live right downtown, and almost everything I need is within 5 or 6 blocks of my front door.  I mostly use the van to go to Costco once every month or two, which is only 15 minutes away, or to drive out-of-province visitors around during most summers.  As a result, now I only need to fill the tank about every 4 or 5 weeks.

 

Toronto can be really sticky hot in the summer, so A/C is practically a necessity, while here, having the ocean on 3 sides of the South Island means that it rarely gets really hot or really cold.  The situation in the Interior of the province is quite different.  So, A/C is really rare here on the Island, even in classy hotels.  So my fuel usage is way down, my heating budget is down, my A/C budget is gone, and I'm even using super-efficient speakers, which I didn't have when I lived in TO.  We try not to tell everyone about this place, because the low population is a good part of the "secret".  The unofficial tourist slogan is Come.  Enjoy Yourself.  Then Go Home.

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12 minutes ago, Islander said:

 It is pretty nice

Pretty nice, they should make you pay extra taxes if you think it's only pretty nice. It's more than pretty nice, I don't blame them, visit and then leave and go home. It is what has ruined  some places, everyone  moves in and it gets crowded and they then complain about it being crowded.   

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