They're Mocking Him

My wife has rescued two mice this afternoon from the cat's bed -- almost like they are mocking his mousing abilities.

Last Night's Attempt

It was finally dark enough...but I had rolled Big Bertha out the front door of the garage, not the rear door, where the rolling warehouse ladder is.  And to be honest, I was a bit too scared on the stepladder in the dark to stay there.  I am more than a little afraid of falling off of it in the dark.

In addition, the field of view on the right-angle finderscope that I found in my parts collection was so narrow that I was unable to get it on Saturn so that I could try and get the telescope on it.  This particular finderscope is an older University Optics 8x50mm that was on Big Bertha when I bought it at auction, and it does not have illuminated crosshairs.  Worse, it looks like the diagonal and eyepiece may have come from some other finderscope -- it is a very clumsy focuser, and it probably makes more sense to buy a new one.  And no, it isn't possible to swap the eyepiece from one finderscope to the other.

Very Cool Gadget My Wife Received After Her Shoulder Surgery

Or perhaps, very cold gadget.  It is the Donjoy Iceman.  Picture a beer cooler with a pump that circulates ice water through something that wraps around your shoulder, wrist, arm, leg, whatever is inflamed.  Unlike a conventional ice pack, it will continue to cool the body parts for hours on end, until the ice in the cooler finally melts.

Also, unlike an ice pack, because it is circulating water, there is no danger of freezing your skin -- the thermometer shows you the temperature, and it never gets to freezing.

My wife uses it for her shoulder after the surgery, but ice packs have become a regular part of my life because I have a hard time just working an eight hour day, and typing causes tendonitis.  This is a very neat gadget, and even though it is technically a medical device, the price isn't particularly unreasonable.

Bizarre Spam

I understand some of the spam that I get.  I mean, everyone wants to lose weight, grow certain body parts to absurd levels, feel younger and healthier, and make $5700 a month from home working part-time.  But how did I get on the list for spam from "Professional Carwashing & Detailing e-News"?

Quick Guess Time: Will 1/2" Wide Be Enough?

The hexagonal tube mounting rings will consist of two layers of 1/8" thick 6061 aluminum.  I can either make them 1" wide or 1/2" wide.  From experiments with making these 1/2" wide, my guess is that two rings that are effectively 1/4" thick and 1/2" wide are probably sufficient to hold a 60 pound tube without flexing.  Two such rings would weigh 1.60 pounds; if they were 1" wide instead, they would weigh 3.20 pounds.  Obviously, reducing weight is still a critical issue for me.

I am going to have my local metal retailer cut these, but once I have bent them, there's no easy way for me to cut 1" wide down to 1/2" wide.  Any guesses as to whether 1/2" wide will be stiff enough?

College of Western Idaho Announces Raises

The college where I teach is giving us raises; while not spectacular, it means that within a year or so, if I have three classes a term (the max that aduncts are allowed), I can gross almost $18,000 a year.  That's obviously not enough to live on, but if I could just get bond interest rates to 6%, I could afford to quit my day job.  And do I want to do that!

Baby Boomers Have High Suicide Rates

The June 3, 2013 Washington Post has this depressing article about how Baby Boomers have unusually high suicide rates relative to previous generations.  Some of the points really aren't surprising:

“There was a sense of rebelliousness, of ‘I don’t want to live the way my parents did or their parents did,’ ” said Patrick Arbore, director and founder of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention at San Francisco’s Institute on Aging. “There was a lot of movement to different parts of the country. With that came a lot of freedom, but there also came a loss of connections. It was not uncommon to see people married three or four times.”

But also:

“There was an illusion of choice — where people thought they’d be able to re-create themselves again and again,” he said. “These people feel a greater sense of disappointment because their expectations of leading glorious lives didn’t come to fruition.”

Instead, compared with their parents’ generation, boomers have higher rates of obesity, prescription and illicit drug abuse, alcoholism, divorce, depression and mental disorders. As they age, many add to that list chronic illness, disabilities and the strains of caring for their parents and for adult children who still depend on them financially. 

What a shock: a generation that was raised in extraordinary affluence, and that had never really had to go through tough times (except when their pot supplier was arrested), can't handle the rough aspects of growing old.