Sadly, public figures that evoke the word Hero were once again difficult to find this week with all the east coast cold and impending stock market meltdown. That being said, this guy stood out and was the clear winner of Hero Of The Week award:
in their practice ring and waiting area outside the main arena. While the whole event center was something of a heady experience for a bunch if two bit 4H'ers on $1000 horses, the idea that they sprung for 'the good stuff' for horses to stomp around on seemed extravagant at the time. Now of course it is a great deal cheaper and at least for horse venues makes a lot of sense as it cuts down considerably on the cost of maintenance and dust in a competitive environment where the cleanliness of animals that love to roll in the dirt is a factor in the points awarded.
That being said this is exactly the kind of innovation that eco-consciousness should be getting behind. I compare this recycling effort to the rather stupid looking venture that converts plastic bags to park benches by Giant:
Talk about a rather silly PR campaign. Logically I have a hard time believing that such conversions are economically sustainable, and is just feel good BS. How to 'solve' the grocery bag problem? I am thinking making a biodegradable bag is the real answer. I would be willing to be charged for biodegradable bags to make that a reality. Instead, municipalities are mandating 'punishment' type taxes on the use of normal bags, pushing consumers to the unhygienic 'reusable shopping bags'. That is a tragedy, and just another dose of silly feel good nonsense foisted on us by tree hugging idiots.
The official snapshot of the day has a rather lonely picture of the Bamster tirelessly working on a speech:
I am thinking there really is trouble in Camelot...
Here's a idle question - What's with the guy riding a horse to the right there? I mean Obama is not exactly known for his love of horses, riding, western wear, etc. I did a little searching and found this from Wikipedia:
An original cast resides in the Oval Office, a gift of Miss Virginia Hatfield and Mrs. Louis Hatfield Stickney during the Carter Administration.
A metaphor perhaps? You know, do nothing administration, borrowing a gift from another failed administration, illustrating a guy hanging on to an out of control animal? Yeah, that is a little sad...
Update 01/20/14:
Well I was right about the Broncos / Patriots game, and half right about the other one - like that has ever happened (ahem - check the name of the blog again). Yes, the San Fran / Seattle game turned on some outlandishly bad calls. It was the official's game all the way. I must admit that I did not watch past the end of the third quarter as I had an early start this morning. I did get the feeling that San Fran got the word at half time that they were not the NFL's chosen people, and their second half play reflected that. In keeping with NFL's 'new' WWF format, they decided to make the Superbowl a match up between the affable good guys - Peyton and friends, and the evil bad guys - well pretty much the whole Seahawk team, personified in the Richard Sherman interview above. I guess the natural hype of the Super Bowl, potential wardrobe malfunctions, and twerks just weren't enough. I for one am done with football this year. Somebody let me know who wins on the second. No, on second thought don't. I couldn't care less.
I will admit, I have been following the payoffs - no make that playoffs - a lot closer this year than I have in the past. I am not quite sure why that is. I guess a great deal of that has to do with how dismally the Redskins (Potato Heads) did this year. In any case, I do intend on watching the Super Bowl today. What? You say that doesn't happen until February 2nd? I am aware that a football game will be played on that day, I just don't consider it the Super Bowl. You see the Colts and Patriots game is the last real game of the season. While San Fran and Seattle can be entertaining, they are essentially lucky teams, something Potato Head fans like myself know a great deal about. Thus, their survival to this point is dependent more on luck and opportunistic officiating than the intricate chess game of move / counter move that will be present in the first playoff game today.
Oh, I am sure that the other game will be interesting, but mark my words, the result of their play will ultimately depend on who the officials have determined will win. Let's pretend for a minute that I am right about this. If you were the entertainment industry that is today's NFL, who would you want to win that particular contest? On one hand you have a Seattle, a city that has grown into a place that is certifiably nuts about football. If you have any doubts about that just look at the "12th Man" flag flying from the Space Needle. On the other hand, you have San Fran, a city personified by limp wrist-ed liberalism as demonstrated by the continued re-election of hopefully forever former Speaker Blinky. Like the decline of their economic power base in Silicon Valley, San Fran's football interest is mainly belied by their understandable attraction to their tat'ed pretty boy quarterback. Looking at the match-up from a profit perspective, i'd say it's in the NFL's best interest for San Fran to end up in the Super Bowl and give that organization a much needed, albeit temporary, boost in their fan base. A bad call here or there, and tat boi is going to the Super Bowl. I won't call it "the show", as that name is enshrined properly to the real competitive sport of baseball.
Either way, today is the day to watch football. That thing that is happening on the 2nd? That will be all all about marketing, money, and wardrobe malfunctions. Today is the last real entertainment until spring training gets rolling. Yep, it's going to be a long winter. Me, i'll be cooking some steaks and warming up some of these:
There were a great many choices for Hero of the week this week, just as Denny (if he wasn't distracted my all that nice white powder) had a lot of choices for AOTW also. In any case, my Hero of the Week award goes to this guy (and his many friends):
I believe his name is something like Buddy Simonaz but I don't speak Spanish and it's hard to make out on the audio for a non-Spanish speaking listener. In any case, his town had been taken over by the local Cartel and they were extorting money from the residents. The Mexican government and soldiers were apparently powerless to stop them. He and his neighbors banded together, brought their illegal arms out into the open, and formed a vigilante police force to oust the Cartel from their town. They set up checkpoints, and threw the local drug lords out of the town. If you want to be inspired by what a few good men can do, they are a shining example. So congratulations Buddy (and your many friends) - you guys are my Hero of the Week!
So the movement I previously talked about finally came in. I unboxed it and found that it was exactly what I expected. As is unfailingly common with my projects, I immediately hit a roadblock. It seems that when I previously gave up on this project, I failed to preserve both the back panel of the clock or the clock hands. Oddly enough, the screws that hold the movement in the clock body were still available.
Knowing that I can get hands from a local clock shop, and that the back of the clock is not really that important as I can make another one, I wasted no time screwing the new movement into the body. A couple of things were immediately evident. First, the striker would need to be adjusted so that it would hit the spring to make the hourly 'bong'. While this is no major effort, I was loath to do any adjustments until I verified that the new movement would function. Thus, the second part of the effort - getting the new movement to run in the old clock body.
Now I was assured by the seller that this movement was working flawlessly so I had confidence that actual functioning could be achieved. That being said, when I attached the supplied pendulum and gave the movement a few turns I was disappointed when I got a few ticks, then nothing. After running through my rather limited store of choice curses, I unscrewed the movement and proceeded with some rather futile efforts to determine why the damn thing wasn't working. After playing with it in my hand for a while, I decided that I would need to put it back in the clock, then attempt to level the clock so the 'beat' was correct.
Getting the beat correct is something of an art. For me it consisted of getting out a level, and shimming up the clock until the it was perfectly level in all respects. Once this was achieved, I got a little longer run time (almost 30 seconds) but still no success. The next thing I attempted to to do was to adjust the tension, which either makes the clock run faster or slower. I tried to get it to run slower, and predictably, it would stop ticking after a few more seconds. Aha! I was onto something! I adjusted the tension all the way in the other direction and the clock would run for just over 60 seconds before stopping.
That got me to thinking. the tension adjustment basically expands or restricts the swing of the pendulum. I was currently using the weight shipped with the movement from the supplier. That weight wasn't necessarily the weight that the supplier used for testing the movement and had a long loop where the weight attached to the swing mechanism. This effectively increased the moment arm of the swing. I still had the old weight, which had an adjustable loop, so I thought if I used that one and shortened the loop, that might just work.
The rest as they say, is history. The clock ran all night and is still ticking away. Here's a picture with the old and new movement:
There is something comforting and calming about a ticking clock. Both the cat and the dog settled down in the living room where I had the clock running and laid down facing the clock. I think it put the dog asleep, while the cat was trying to figure out how to play with it. For myself, once I stopped listening for it to stop working, it faded into the background noise of the house. Whenever I listen for it though, it is there. I think the memories that the ticktock sound evokes is something imprinted on my earliest memories. With a ticking clock, I see my grandparents home on their farm, taste my grandmother's fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, and see my grandfather joke about eating them for breakfast. Through that small sound, I can once again can go back there. Well worth the effort I think.
Update 01/19/14:
So it is back to not working. I adjusted the ding and the dong so they actually worked, placed the broken hour hand in and set the minute had as best I could. After watching it run for an hour or so, determined that it was running fast. I went to adjust the tension, using the front time adjustment and things went to hell. The gear on the back adjustment broke off, meaning the only way to adjust it was with the weight and manipulating the adjustment gear from the back. In the process of trying all that, it stopped running for more than 4 minutes at a time. At this point I am willing to pass it along to a real clock guy for repair and adjustment.
One place I will not be taking it is the clock place in Vienna. We stopped by there Friday to try to pick up some hands. Now I have admitted to not knowing that much about clocks, but I am not an idiot. Here's how the exchange went:
Shop Owner: How can I help you Me: I've got a Seth Thomas Amatitine clock Shop Owner: That's Adamdine - go on Me: It's got a 4 1/2 movement, which I replaced.. Shop Owner: With a different or same movement? Just tell me what you want... Me: I'm looking for hands for for it Shop Owner: I can't help you. <snidely>
Then he goes in the back, gets a box of hands, and says that when I bring in the clock, I can sit in the corner (with or without a dunce cap) and try to find a pair of hands that will fit the clock. Now granted, I wasn't dressed nice, and in fact had little mud spatters on my shirt from slipping a bit from doing a the aptly named "Billy Goat Trail" rock scramble, but that was no reason to be rude or condescending. That guy will not get my business again or recommendation. I'd rather ship the whole thing off to the other regions of Mongolia for repair.
Who is really the world's most interesting man? I guess that depends on your definition. For me, it's someone who lives their life without pretense, yet somehow achieves happiness. It's not a destination, it's a journey.
So a few candidates popped up for me this week. First off is this guy:
I saw this montage about his - er - unusual approach to life and thought, yep, there's a guy that has it figured out. Of course, he is a bit of a flaming liberal, but still, he does manage to not take himself too seriously or be painted in a box, and that is something to admire...
Sadly, this guy died yesterday, but 'The Professor' from Gilligan's Isle - Russell Johnson, was one the greats. He was a WW2 ace, got shot down, broke both his ankles, and got the Purple Heart, then went on to star with two (yes Ginger and Mary Anne both were) of America's sweethearts. He made being a nerd cool.
Going back to 70's TV stars, this guy
who also passed this week, is not in the same category. But, everyone who watched TV in the 70's knows his character's name, so there is something he achieved that few do. That is more than most of us can say.
I think in the end, attempting to be the 'world's most interesting man' is a worthy goal, as it really means going out there, following your muse and reaching beyond your comfort level. That is a singularly hard thing to do, but a worthy endeavor none the less.
