Sometimes I surprise myself

I just remembered this and want to write it down before I forget it - again.

I was at a meeting or conference one time a long time ago. Just as we were getting started, someone walked into the room and announced, "There's red car with license number ABC-123 outside with its headlights on." And, in a completely uncharacteristic bit of quick thinking and outspokenness, I piped up, "Don't worry, they'll go out after a while." I was pleasantly surprised at how many people thought that was funny.

I made that joke up on the spot. At least, I don't remember ever hearing it before. But maybe it's like The Dick Van Dyke Show episode when Laura writes what she thinks is a wonderful children's story only to realize later that it's a story her mother used to read to her when she was a child. But I don't think that was the case with this joke. I really believe I came up with it myself. But even more amazing was that I felt confident enough to say it out loud! That was very unlike me but it made me happy. I wonder if I'd have been as happy if no one laughed?

[Update: I like blogging. Writing this blog post not only let me get this story down so I'd remember it but as I thought about it, it brought more of the story to mind. I now remember where I was when this happened and it might make an interesting post of its own. I was taking a class in assembly language programming for the Hewlett-Packard 21MX series minicomputer. They were primitive compared to today's computers but they were quite advanced for their day.]

I'm a lumberjack...

...and I'm OK. I'd sleep all night if our dog would let me. There are people who dispute that I work all day. And don't even think about the rest of the song!

This was a case of my not being able to find a pruning saw I often use to cut up branches that fall down. I looked and looked but I couldn't find it and figured it was finally time to figure out how to use the chain saw my father-in-law had left (Ralph died over ten years ago). It's an electric one (a Poulan EL-14) and I was less afraid of it than I am of the gasoline ones. But I still wasn't sure about it. I didn't know if I'd need to tighten the chain and I wasn't sure how to oil the chain. It turned out to be much easier than I thought. It has a manual oiler that can take regular 10W30 motor oil and you just push the top of the cap to get a little oil on the blade when you need it.

It took me a few tries to get the hang of it and I think the blade was a little dull after ten years or more of no use. But after about five minutes, I was sawing through branches about five or six inches in diameter. We're getting ready for another burning session in a week or two and I wanted to be better prepared this time.

So, in the end, I'm glad I wasn't able to find my pruning saw. But where did I put that thing?

On my ride into work today

It was a bit chilly this morning when I got ready to ride my scooter into work. I had already taken our dog Charlie for his walk and it didn't seem too bad to me. My wife, of course, worries about me and I'm glad she does but I assured her it wasn't too cold.

Then I got to the cranberry bogs along my route and saw this. The cranberry plants have already started to bud and frost can damage them. I don't know too much about how spraying water and having it freeze on the plants is better than regular frost but these farmers know what they are doing and wouldn't do this (and spend all the money for water for the sprinklers) if it didn't help.

Another interesting aspect to this is that at one point, one of our products was being considered by our local growers to help in this situation. We make a line of products that measure various properties like temperature, relative humidity, air pressure etc. Our instrument can be programmed to look at a number of properties and decide if frost is imminent and close a relay (or send an email) when the conditions are right. The relay could then turn on the sprinklers. It turns out that the farmers needed more control than we could offer. So, they still have to get up early on a cold morning and start the sprinklers. Just in case.

An inadvertent April Fool's Day joke

From the NIST website about WWV controlled clocks

Happy April Fool's Day. I hope the jokes played on you today are gentle and truly funny and don't cause you harm. At least not too much harm. My wife got my daughter and me this morning with a story about the Easter Egg Hunt being this morning instead of on Easter Sunday. Then my daughter immediately, upon being reminded of the day, ran over to my mother-in-law's place to tell her a "story". Our son would be getting up later but we knew he'd be getting up in time to go to church. But, he surprised us by getting up early. When he looked up at the clock, though, he realized he'd gotten up an hour earlier than he wanted to.

It turns out, the April Fool's Day joke played on him wasn't planned. It was caused by the 2007 change made to the rules for when we lose or gain an hour for Daylight Saving Time. The clock we bought him before 2007 is one of those that receive the radio signal from the WWV station in Fort Collins, Colorado. That information is used to keep the time on the clock corrected to the atomic clocks at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). You can read more about those types of clock here.

Unfortunately, this particular clock doesn't use all of the information that NIST includes in the WWV signal that indicates whether Daylight Saving Time is in effect or not. The clock has its own internal program to decide when to change the time. So, this morning was the old pre-2007 time for changing the clocks and the clock finally caught up to the official Daylight Saving Time and our son found out that 7 AM really was 7 AM. April Fool!

We've known about this since 2007, of course, and usually changed the clock ourselves - twice. Once on the official time and again (the opposite way) when the clock changed itself. But then my son just decided to "remember" that his clock was wrong for a few weeks each year. Well, I think we'll change that before the next time change. We'll either get him a new clock or see if we can keep this one from automatically changing the hour.

[Update - Boy, was this post written poorly. It's still not very well written but at least it's a bit better after this update.]

Possibly funny saying

I saw a sign in a hardware store with these words. I hope you think this is funny.

Women don't spit.
Women don't burp.
Women don't fart.
If they didn't bitch once in a while,
they'd explode.

If women find this offensive, let me know. I will remove it.

A revolutionary idea

P. C. Vey for The New York Times

Well, now that I think about it, I guess it's not really revolutionary. I need to stop making my titles so dramatic.

As I was walking our dog the other day, someone beeped at me (or Charlie dog, I'm not sure which) and it scared the crap out of me. I think the car driver was just trying to be friendly but it didn't come across like that. I assume that if the driver was mad at me or I was doing something wrong, the beep would have been longer or there would have been multiple beeps. But that's the point I want to make - it is hard to tell the intention of a car beep.

My idea for the car makers is to have a separate horn for friendly greetings. I thought about the idea of a volume control on the regular horn but it would be too easy to turn it down and forget about it. Then, in a real emergency, it wouldn't be heard as it should. So, my proposal is for a separate control for the new Greeting Horn that is in a different place from the Emergency Horn so, again in an emergency, you don't have to think about where the Emergency Horn is located.

If any car company engineers or designers are reading this (I had that dream once), this is a free idea. No copyright or patent in play. Use this and make your customers happy.

By the way, the image showing here is a delightful drawing by P. C. Vey used to illustrate a short article on The New York Times website titled "In Response to Car Horns, Readers Sound Off". Doesn't that look like it sounds when someone beeps at close range?

[Update: In case Wayne happens to read this - I wasn't talking about your friendly beep this morning (Thursday, March 29). Somehow, you were able to beep the horn lightly a few times and I knew it was a "hello". Plus, I recognized your car. Sorry I didn't look up just then. I've got to keep my eye on Charlie or he'll pick up something and eat it. The incident I was talking about happened out on the main road a few days before.]

Isn't it ironic?

I've had fewer posts this month than I normally do (although last month only had five posts) yet according to the Blogger statistics page, this month my blog has had it's highest number of visits ever. And even last month, with its five posts, had the third most visits. Maybe the less I write the better. Or maybe the posts this month have been more interesting or better written. Wouldn't it be nice if my writing was actually improving from my experience here? That would make me very happy. I want to be a better writer. I want to get better at expressing myself. I want to be able to crystallize my thoughts into words that can be recorded and to be easily understood by others.

The title of this post is a play on the title of one of my favorite old standard songs, "Isn't it Romantic?" It was written by Richard Rogers (music) and Lorenz Hart (lyrics) in the early 1930's. I love old standards. They are usually interesting melodies with a flexible rhythm (it's easy to change them into different styles) and the chord choice is almost always pretty complex making them interesting for study. My favorite composers of The Great American Songbook are the Gershwin brothers and Rogers and Hart but there are so many others, too. My wife and I have a special place in our hearts for Meredith Willson for his song "Till There Was You" from The Music Man. We call it our song because it says so much about our love coming after such a long time looking for each other.