You’re on the ground floor of a motel, on your way to your room on the second floor, and you’ve found the elevators:
Which one of those six button-like objects will summon the elevator for a trip up to your room?
Quickly, press one of them!
Category: Oddities
Who’d’a thunk it?
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Goose Parade
Canada Geese seem primed to travel in a straight line, whether in the air, on water, along a rail trail, or even on a sidewalk:
Canada Goose parade – A They proceed around corners in an orderly manner:
Canada Goose parade – B But they completely ignore crosswalk markings:
Canada Goose parade – C We think two goose families joined forces for this outing: four large geese and seven goslings by our count.
The sidewalks sport a rich assortment of goose poop, so the geese obviously enjoy their hikes.
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Another Power Outage
We woke just after midnight to a completely dark and silent house, I padded around shutting of half a dozen UPS units under various desks and benches, and we eventually got back to sleep:
Rt 376 midnight crash – 2021-07-20 – status According to our clocks, power actually returned about four hours later.
Our grocery ride the next morning went past the crash site:
Rt 376 midnight crash – 2021-07-20 – A Tracks in the grass leading up to the smashed mailbox on our right suggest the driver didn’t quite make the very slight curve leading to the straight section.
It was garbage collection day and the debris field covered the entire front lawn:
Rt 376 midnight crash – 2021-07-20 – B Both poles have rectangular reflectors, but the one on the smashed pole (on the left) shows the pole is maybe four feet shorter than it used to be.
We have no idea how a can of white paint got involved in the proceedings:
Rt 376 midnight crash – 2021-07-20 – C [Update: Now we know where the paint came from.]
Quite some years ago, an errant driver demolished the front corner of that house and, more recently, the whole building burned out, so there may be a jinx on the site.
Other than that, we had an uneventful ride …
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Just One More …
Spotted behind a mall undergoing renovation:
Overloaded dumpster Perhaps they were loading it from the end and didn’t notice the instructions:
Overloaded dumpster – detail Protip: Always get the biggest dumpster available!
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The Value of Closeout Pictures
With the Bafang BBS02 and all its gimcrackery on the Terry Symmetry buttoned up and ready to go, I took a few closeout pictures for future reference.
The motor has a sheaf of wires sticking out of the bottom crying out for a protective covering:
Bafang BBS02 – wire bundle cover Although cameras tell only the truth they’re allowed to see and can be made to lie by omission, sometimes their latent truth was completely invisible to eyewitnesses in real time.
I only noticed the mis-routed shift cable when I looked through the last set of pictures.
It should pass through the plastic channel under the metal tab holding the cable guide to the bottom bracket shell:
Bafang BBS02 – wire bundle vs shift cable Normally, aiming the cable into the channel is no big deal. In this case, I had to undo the shift cable, remove the left crank, loosen the motor and rotate it out of the way, nudge the cable with a small screwdriver, then reinstall in reverse order.
Dang, that was close …
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Power Outage
A gusty thunderstorm knocked out power across Dutchess County, including half the service to our house. Being glad the refrigerator and freezer were on the live phase, I shut off the affected breakers on the dead phase, as well as all the 240 V breakers, and, with the living room darkened, we skipped our evening storytime.
By the next morning, a quick lamp test showed the recloser out on the pole had worked its magic, so I flipped all the breakers back on. The living room remained dark, prompting an investigation of the fuse box feeding the original house wiring:
Blown 20 A glass fuse Yup, another blown fuse.
Given what happens while wind and falling branches knock power lines askew, anything is possible. I have no idea where the fault current went, but replacing the fuse brought the living room back to normal.
None of the various UPS / lamps / phones seem damaged; I admit not peering inside the outlets to check for arc damage.
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Vacuum Tube Lights: Urethane Coated Plate Cap
With a generous dollop of JB Plastic Bonder left over from a set of Bafang brake sensor magnets, I tried coating the ersatz plate cap of a triode tube:
Triode – urethane coated plate cap That’s the result after leaving it hanging upside-down while it cured to push all the drips to the top.
For comparison, the uncoated cap back in the day:
Triode – plate cap plug Seeing as how the urethane is an adhesive, not a coating, I’d say it looks about as bad as expected.
As with all 3D printed things, one must embrace imperfections and striations, rather than endlessly strive for perfection.
Now, if I had a resin printer …
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 