@douglasvb@mastodon.social
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douglasvb

@douglasvb@mastodon.social

I mostly post about #DinkeyCreek, the #Sierra, #Monterey, #beavers, #forests, and #meadows. Quite fond of #motorcycles, #scuba diving, #nudibranchs, #hiking, 4x4ing/rock crawling, seeing new places, #AmateurRadio, retro technology, #trains, and cats.

Temporarily embarrassed Oregonian living somewhere much too dry.

All opinions are my own.

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douglasvb, to random
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Time for a post of Oliver. He likes doing rawr arms when he's sitting on a specific table and his mom walks by. He won't do it to me.

douglasvb, to animals
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Oliver was a big jerk and decided it was his time to shine at 330am. For about an hour he was running around the house to various different windows and batting at the blinds. There was a neighborhood kitty outside that he had to make sure knew that this is HIS house and there's no more room for stray cats here. Never mind that Oliver was a stray who showed up and came inside after being invited by our two since passed elderly kitties.

πŸ™„πŸ™„πŸ™„

douglasvb, to LEGO
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I toned down the layout this year. Only two loop backs (balloon tracks) and one figure 8 crossover. And only one run around track at one of the yards. There are several industrial spurs though so I can run it more or less like a prototypical short line. I've got two engines and nine cars.

Maybe later I'll get feisty and build a helix to climb the two steps to break the Lego train free of the living room πŸš‚πŸš‚πŸš‚

douglasvb, to animals
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Oliver is not so sure about his festive shirt.

douglasvb, to transit
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Are there such things as secure-ish bike trailers? Or power assist trailers? Or are there that can handle hauling some significant cargo?

I'm wondering if it would be practical to replace my ailing car with an eBike and trailer. Use cases are 1) commute around town, 2) shopping around town, 3) haul two peoples' worth of gear around town (and then store it safely while locked to a pretty hefty public bike rack), 4) occasional use as a mounain bike on 4x4 trails.

douglasvb, to california
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Around and yesterday. This side of the is incredibly dynamic!

Outside of Bishop a guy wearing glasses and a hat is in the foreground with huge mountains in the background
Hot springs in a canyon
Interesting rocks outside Bishop

douglasvb, to random
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Oliver is thinking about #caturday #catsofinstagram

douglasvb, to random
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I saw that it's #InternationalMountainDay so here's some of my favorite mountains. The #SierraNevada is a special place.

douglasvb, to california
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Nice day out at today. We even saw the local freight head north! I think it might have been switching some cars at the power plant on its way north from Salinas before it crossed the slough.

At Moss Landing they're demolishing the old power plant units that used to feed into the twin huge smoke stacks. I wonder if they'll remove those stacks as part of that work.

Elkhorn slough tidal flats with big power lines visible in the distance.
A local mixed freight train with two engines and about 20 cars heading across Elkhorn slough.
Elkhorn slough in the distance with brown fields of wild grasses in the foreground.

douglasvb, to california
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I heard it was #OceanWednesday so here's some #PacificOcean - connected water for your Wednesday.

#Monterey #California harbor with both the tourist pier and the commercial pier on the right.

douglasvb, to animals
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His job is nap.

#catsofmastodon

douglasvb, to california
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One of the wildlife cameras at got bit by a bear! It's still working but we might have to do some sealing to keep it waterproof.

Hopefully I'll get some video of the bear sampling the camera next week.

douglasvb, to random
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Aha finally a few vehicles I'm interested in and at a decent price! Might be going to Tracey tomorrow to test drive sometime in the morning. Then I might test drive something else locally.

douglasvb, to random
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in sure is pretty.. Hopefully the state parks folks can get the trail fixed soon so people can get to the better viewpoint.

McWay Falls
McWay Falls
McWay Falls With two people in the foreground

douglasvb, to random
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ai6yr, to random
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Whee! Apparently some possibility of a (mild) atmospheric river hitting Northern California in the next few days.

Map of west coast showing AR1 maximum forecast for Northern California and part of the Central Coast of California

douglasvb,
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@ai6yr the forecast for my parents up in the mountains is ~2" of moisture including maybe 5" of snow. This will be an interesting late season storm.

eheisman, to random
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spouse complains about the alarm clock and our coffee maker slowly drifting apart.

me: "I once read this article in a early 2000s Mac magazine about how this thing called Bluetooth was going to synchronize all these things"

spouse: "it exists, it's called a smart home, and we choose not to have one"

me: "... yeah, but it was, like, without the targeted advertising"

douglasvb,
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@ai6yr @eheisman

Grid time is all good until it isn't.

https://medium.com/@bramus/grid-time-or-why-are-clocks-in-europe-lagging-behind-by-5-minutes-dbc2dd028bfa

And GPS time is all good until it isn't

https://www.militaryaerospace.com/communications/article/14306054/new-ruggedized-timing-technology-addresses-the-challenges-of-gps-synchronized-defense-equipment

https://www.spirent.com/blogs/defcon-25

And the atomic clock signal is all good until it isn't

https://blog.meinbergglobal.com/2016/06/28/messing-radio-time-signal/

And NTP servers are great until they're not

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTP_server_misuse_and_abuse

In conclusion: https://youtu.be/yl-Ms_ek-kE

douglasvb, to random
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Here are a few more photos of northern #Greenland where I was for work last week. It was cold the whole time and dark most of the time. But by the time we left they were getting a couple of hours of daylight every day.

I'll post some more in a thread.

An old Nike missile battery launch door
An old quonset hut
an abandoned guard tower

douglasvb,
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Northern is really beautiful

An abandoned Nike missile site
A musk ox crossing the road
Musk oxen under a Twilight sky

douglasvb,
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Some more northern photos

Looking through a broken window
A Toyota hilux in the snow
Looking through a tunnel between two buildings

douglasvb, to random
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βœ… the big tent is ready for another year of car camping

douglasvb,
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@Lizette603_23 it takes about an hour to fully setup including staking it out, inflating the mattresses, and getting all of our stuff inside. It's about the same to tear down.

I'm thinking about building a quick setup camper for our truck for when we want to be moving around daily. It will be less of a mental barrier to going when it's not a big production every day to put a tent up and take it down πŸ˜…

douglasvb,
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@Lizette603_23 but you really can't argue with the amount of space this tent provides. It is supposed to sleep four plus it's got that garage area which is great to get out of the sun or when it's raining.

The square footage is about 2/3 of what my parents have in their 5th wheel although there is no full kitchen or bathroom in this tent 🀣

Well... Not yet anyway.

ai6yr, to gardening
@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org avatar

Interesting, saw someone selling rooted grape cuttings at the farmer's market at $30 each. (I have so many in pots in my backyard which I cannot give away, LOL).

douglasvb,
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@ai6yr @kc2ihx @bud_t when we lived in Metro Denver, my dentist was in Boulder right off of Pearl Street. The vibe there is really great most of the time but so expensive.

It was also really interesting watching this one group of "homeless" kids begging and being generally annoying. Occasionally I'd see them decamp and head to chauffeured black Escalades that would come pick them up. The best I could figure was they were trust fund kids pretending to be homeless for the experience.

douglasvb, to RaspberryPi
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sigh I really need to come up with a reliable and inexpensive way to power cycle some equipment remotely.

My is up and running but the two software defined radios aren't responding even after rebooting the computer. The computer was involuntarily power cycled twice yesterday when the power went out and when the backup generator transferred the house back to the grid after grid power was restored.

Or maybe the SDRs need to be reseated in their USB ports? πŸ€”

douglasvb,
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@ai6yr @kc2ihx

This is the package I'm using: https://github.com/mvp/uhubctl

I sent this command first (I have a RaspberryPi 4B): uhubctl -l 1-1 -a 0

Then I sent this: uhubctl -l 1-1 -a 1

Then I rebooted.

AND NOW THE SWR ADS-B RECEIVERS ARE WORKING AGAIN!!!!

πŸ˜„

(I need to pin this comment for later...)

ai6yr, to diy
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No TV interviews or podcasts anytime soon, I don't think, so out comes the Wahl clippers. #haircut #diy

douglasvb,
@douglasvb@mastodon.social avatar

@ai6yr yikes those chemicals are no good. Lots of cancer among stylists who have dealt with them throughout their careers according to several stylists I know.

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