Tom & Nan Dot Com

Tape-a-Talk is a great app for Ham Radio operations.

I installed Tape a Talk on my Droid Razr Maxx “stupid” phone a few months ago and just found a great use for it. When I’m working HF mobile I record the contacts. I then dictate the contact time and frequency onto the recording and can log the contact on my paper log book and my HRD log book at a later date. Now I don’t miss logging contacts. Someday I’ll start sending QSL cards out.

There has been a lot of buzz on the Internet over the past couple of days about a kids rule book that was found by a young Citrus Heights, California Wal-Mart employee named Raymond Flores.  The book contains 158 rules, handwritten by a child that has to be around 7 or 8 years old.  Rule number 158 was not actually entered, there’s just a number for the rule.

There is a lot of buzz because he is trying to return the book to it’s rightful owner. I think we have a lot to learn from this smart little kid. In my opinion these rules go to the heart of what our mom’s and dad’s taught us when we were little. In my opinion they can be applied to life of kids and grown-ups alike.  I’m know guilty of breaking some them and I’ll bet most people are.

I transcribed the rules that Mr. Flores read in a video on his Facebook page.  I know there are three spelling errors and I’m sure there are others.  Since I do not know where other spelling errors are I’ve corrected the ones I know about. Here my transcript of all of the rules:

1. No talking back

2. No Pushing

3. No Screaming

4. Be Safe

5. Listen

6. No being gross

7. Help others

8. Care with others

9. No being bad

10. Have fun at all times

11. No lying

12. No whining

13. Be positive

14. Be a good Communicator

15. Be responsible

16. Be respectful

17. Say sorry

18. Say please

19. Say thank you

20. Have good manners

21. No yelling

22. Be nice to books

23. Use good language

24. No teasing

25. Don’t make fun of others

26. When sleeping, don’t wake others

27. Do what the parents ask you to do

28. Be unique

29. Be yourself

30. Don’t copy others

31. Don’t cheat on tests

32. Study for tests

33. Exercise

34. Do things equally with each other

35. Do things yourself

36. Do your homework

37. No stealing

38. No making unwanted noise

39. No saying ew when someone farts

40. Say excuse me

41. Don’t color on people

42. Don’t color on peoples paper

43. No spitting

44. No squeezing others

45. Try to compliment

46. Don’t say no

47. Don’t cry

48. No pulling hair

49. No turning your back

50. No punching

51. No getting into others faces

52. No going under the bed only if necessary

53. keep your gum in your mouth

54. No ruining bedding

55. No coloring in rule book

56. No jumping on bed

57. No ignoring others

58. No hiding from others

59. No being loud

60. Put your shoes by the front door when you take them off

61. Wear anything you want to

62. Keep dogs away from cats

63. Don’t call each other names

64. clean up your messes

65. no eating other peoples food

66. go to bed at bedtime

67. Do your homework

68. Don’t have a party without parents

69. If there is one bathroom go to the bathroom fast

70. Keep the environment clean

71. don’t  go running in the street or the parking lot

72. Don’t play with knives

73. Have a parent guide you when cooking

74. Sit on your chair correctly

75. Drink water a lot

76. Don’t touch hot things unless with a parent

77. Try to get good grades on tests

78. Share

79. Try to bee good big sister/brother

80. Stop at stop signs and stop lights

81. Wear a seatbelt

82. Pay attention in class

83. Don’t steal

84. Wake up when you need to

85. Don’t get into other people’s business

86. No running when it is slippery

87. Always be polite

88. No ditching

89. Go when you have to go

90. Never leave a friend behind

91. Don’t go running / walking on a basketball court if someone is playing basketball

92. Ask permission

93. Don’t promise if you’re going to break it

94. Keep hands to yourself

95. Don’t talk with your mouth full

96. Don’t pick other people up

97. Don’t eat right before going to the dentist

98. Don’t bite the dentist

99. Don’t drive into road work

100. Don’t suck your fingers

101. Do your chores

102. Don’t text and drive at the same time

103. No toys at the table

104. Eat the food you get served with

105. Tie your shoes or you will fall

106. no elbows on the table

107. Chew with your mouth closed

108. Don’t eat when your mouth is numb

109. No bribing

110. Help new students

111. Go through detector in stores

112. Try to make things fair

113. Don’t talk to strangers

114. Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to

115. Don’t go on top of other people in pools

116. Keep your friends secrets

117. If there is no space between one person you want to sit by don’t cry or whine because there is no room

118. Don’t keep plsaying please if someone says no

119. Don’t eat your boogers from picking your nose

120. Don’t sleep with your toys

121. Don’t keep other people awake after bed time

122. Pay for everything you want to buy at the store

123. Blow your nose not pick your nose

124. Don’t run in the house

125. No pulling hair

126. Recycle

127. No littering

128. Don’t be bossy

129. Don’t play with your toys at night time

130. Don’t talk people’s ears off

131. Read / listen instructions

132. Go to bed early if you have dance in the morning

133. Don’t stuff your mouth

134. Let the dentist work in your mouth

135. Let the doctor work on your body

136. Warn others about danger

137. No cheating on other people

138. Tell the teacher if you’re leaving

139. If you wet your bed wear a pull-up

140. Don’t watch TV after bed time

141. Don’t chew gum at school

142. Don’t chew gum if you wear braces

143. No toys at school

144. Act in a mature way with self control an respect others

145. Don’t ignore friends and parents

146. Don’t get into people’s way if they’re playing with a hula hoop

147. Don’t bounce on hula hoops

148. Don’t skip detention

149. Don’t skip school unless you’re sick

150. Keep your sleeves to yourself

151. Keep your feet and shoes to yourself

152. Keep your hair to yourself

153. Ask if they’re ok

154. Protect this rule book

155. Protect each other

156. No touching other people’s body parts

157. No poking

158

This is the final part of a 3 part series on digitizing vinyl.

Digitizing Vinyl: Part 1 (and Part 1-A)

Digitizing Vinyl: Part 2

So now we have a directory containing 10 MP3 files, 2 Audacity project files and 2 directories containing the Audacity raw data:

The MusicInbound directory is on my desktop.  I use it to save music I’ve imported from CD with iTunes and when I digitize vinyl.  This particular directory is Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like A Wheel” album, one of 12 albums I bought out of the 50 cent bin at Homer’s in Omaha last month.

In this final part of the series we’ll be tagging the MP3 files, adding an image of the album cover and adding info about the album to each track in the notes section of the mp3 tags.

Picking up where we left off in Part 2:

Step 24.

Open up MP3TAG and Windows Explorer (NOT Internet Explorer) and browse to your directory containing your MP3 files.

Step 25.

Drag all of the MP3 files over to MP3TAG.

Step 26.

Select all files by hitting CTRL+A.

Step 27.

Enter the Artist, Album, Year and Genre.

Step 28.

Select Track01 and enter the Title and “01” for the track number.  I do this in 2 digits so the tracks play in the correct order when I play them on my iPod or on WinAmp on my computer.

– Repeat step 28 for each song on the album.

Step 29.

Now you need your Album Art.  I download images of album covers at www.albumartexchange.com. Just click on the gallery and do a search for the album art you’re looking for. I usually use 600×600 images…

In this case we’re looking for Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like A Wheel” album

Just click on the cover you want and you’ll see it in the size you want. Just right-click on the album art and save as whatever you want to call it somewhere on your computer so you know where you can find it. I generally save it where the mp3 files it goes with are.

Step 30.

Close the browser and go back into MP3TAG and select all files by hitting CTRL+A (again).

Step 31.

Right-click where the cover goes in MP3TAG and select Add Cover…

Step 32.

Select the file you saved in Step 29 and click the Open button.

Your screen should have all of the files selected and the album cover image should show up in the box in MP3TAG.

Step 33.

This step renames the files so that they can easily be identified on your hard disk.  On the toolbar at the top of the window you’ll notice near the menu a series of short-cut buttons. There’s on that allows you to use the MP3 tags to name the file.  Make sure all of your files are still selected (CTRL+A) and select the button to rename the files based on the tags:   

 

A window will pop up allowing you to set the pattern for the filename:

If you use the pattern like I have in the “Format string” box, the first song of the record I’m working on gets renamed to:

“Linda Ronstadt – Heart Like A Wheel – 01 – You’re No Good.mp3”

When you hit the ok button the entire set of files representing the entire album will be renamed and the previous screen will come back showing the files with their new names.

Step 34.

Move the files to wherever you normally store your music.  I keep mine on an archive drive. Each album gets its own directory.  You can now load the music onto your iPod, iPad, Cell phone or wherever else you use to listen to it.

Important Note: Sharing this music once you’ve converted it is still illegal under Copyright law…  DON’T do it!

As I write this there is an area of low pressure about 500 miles NE of the Leeward Islands with a 20% chance of becoming a “subtropical” cyclone in the next 48 hours. That said, today is the last day of the 2011 hurricane season in the Atlantic basin. How did we fare this year?

In August, Dr. Gray issued an update to his seasonal forecast.  In it he called for 9 hurricanes with 5 of them being major hurricanes.  He called for 16 named storms, down one from his June 2011 forecast of 17 named storms. Meanwhile, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) also updated their outlook for the season too.  In it they called for 14 – 19 named storms, 7 –10 hurricanes, and 3 – 5 major hurricanes.

How many named storms did we actually get?

Storm Name	Dates	Max Wind (MPH)
TS Arlene	20 June – 1 July	65
TS Bret	17 – 22 July	65
TS Cindy	20 – 22 July	70
DS Don	27 – 30 July	50
TS Emily	1 – 7 August	50
TS Franklin	12 – 13 August	45
TS Gert	13 – 16 August	65
TS Harvey	19 – 22 August	60
MH Irene	20 – 28 August	120
TS Jose	28 – 29 August	45
MH Katia	29 August – 10 September	135
TS Lee	2 – 5 September	60
H Maria	6 – 16 September	80
H Nate (1)	7 – 11 September	70
MH Ophelia	21 September – 3 October	140
H Philipe	24 September – 9 October	90
H Rina	23 – 28 October	110
TS Sean	7 – 11 November	65 (2)

Note 1. Hurricane Nate was upgraded during post-storm analysis to hurricane status. I haven’t seen the maximum observed wind on Nate so I’ve left the 70mph number as is.

Note 2. The strongest report I can find on maximum sustained winds in TS Sean were 65mph. NHC has not yet issued their final summary on the season, so I’ll update this post if 65mph was NOT the maximum wind for this storm.

Scorecard

I count 18 named storms though I’ve seen attempts by others in other places to count Tropical Depression 10 as a named storm.  My scorecard for the early forecasts:

	CPC	Dr. Gray	Actual
Number Named	14 – 19	16	18
Hurricanes	7 – 10	9	6
Maj Hurricanes	3 – 5	5	3

While we had more than the average number of named storms, our number of actual hurricanes was about average.  The increased number of named storms can be attributed to better sensing technology, modeling capabilities, and forecasting abilities. Four of the named storms had winds of 50 miles per hour (or less) many of which might not have been caught 20 or 30 years ago.

As far as storms go, my philosophy is that it’s better to be prepared and not have a storm rather than not be prepared and actually getting one.  I like to attempt to try to forecast where they will go before the National Hurricane Center starts issuing forecasts on them… I did that last year and again this year.  My best forecast was for Irene.  I predicted it would “Rake the east coast” with a landfall in North Carolina approximately a week before it did… was my best attempt at forecasting a hurricane ever.

What’s Ahead?

Storm names for 2012 from the National Hurricane Center:

Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony
Valerie
William

Our next hurricane season begins in just 185 days… Are you ready? If not follow the old scout motto of “Be Prepared” so make a plan and be ready!

It seems that spring has sprung here on the panhandle.  By the time we get to mid-March, the weather usually turns warmer.  We usually see frost in the morning until early March, but we’ve only seen dew in the morning lately… I guess Mr. Groundhog may have been right.  It won’t be long until we set the clocks forward and once we do that it’ll almost feel like summer around here.

Well it’s been a little over a month since our last post and it’s been pretty busy around here.  We’ve changed out and finished the garage door and changed out all of the drywall on that end of the garage.  We’ve cased the new windows (3 years since I put them in) with casings and window sills and molding too. The walls in the room don’t have holes anymore and the HUGE crack in the ceiling in the living room is gone too.  The last thing of consequence is I got a new electrical permit and I started working on the power upgrade in the house… the inside box is nice and tidy now… will post a pic of that when it’s finished.

Nan’s sister Linda and her family moved down from New York.  They’re staying with us for a short time until we can help them get a place… We’ve almost gotten all of the details worked out, and they will be moving into their own place in a week and a half.

On top of all of this, I’m back in school… Like a dummy I decided to try and take TWO graduate courses this term… With all or the other stuff going on I should have waited one more term… Remind me to only take one class per term from now on… these classes are kicking my butt.

I haven’t had ANY time to fix my amateur radio antenna;  My 2 meter J-Pole antenna broke a couple of weeks ago,  I have some soldering to do.  All of the HF wire antennas are down for now as well… I took them down before Tropical Depression IDA moved through here last week… It was NOT a hurricane OR a Tropical Storm when it came through here… we got 34 knot winds and that’s it.

One of my friends from my AF days and his wife had a baby this morning (Nov 15th at 3:05AM).  News I have is mother and baby are fine.  Why do babies come in the wee hours… Daniel and Chris were both born before first light.  Looking forward to going over to see the new arrival in a couple of days.

Some other news, Chris got a haircut just before Halloween.  He and Natalie went to a masquerade party dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

The only other thing new is I’ve joined the Facebook revolution.  I’ve been a member for a little over a week and I’ve made contact with friends and family that I haven’t seen in years.  The Internet is an amazing tool… but it can be used against us if we’re not careful.  I can’t believe how far back and how long it’s been since I’ve talked to some of the people I’ve already made contact with.

Here are a couple of pics I’ve shot in the past week or so…

Well this was a setback!  We’re trying to improve the house a bit.  The bottom of our steel garage door was severely rusted. It is 40 years old and I decided to replace it.  We bought a 165 mph door to put on as a replacement.  The 165 mph door requires some extra bracing around the door opening requiring me to remove the old bracing.  When I pulled the 1x4s down I found some old termite damage.  Tracing the damage up the wall studs into the header and the top plate of the wall.  We removed everything that had damage, including the top plate. a six hour job has turned into at least a 2 day job.  We’ve completed demolition and started putting the replacement lumber in place.  Here are some pics of what we’ve got so far.

Termite Damage: Main garage Header	Termite Damage: Header Splice
Termite Damage: Some removed boards	Termite Damage: Part of main header
Termite Damage: Opening looking north	Termite Damage: A really secure garage

So that’s how things were last night when we were finished.  I will post some images of the reconstruction in the next couple of days.

I think I found a basic theme that is easy to use and not distracting from the information we post so, you see the page in the form I hope to keep it unless I find something that strikes my fancy…

I recently discovered that the links on the page I made for the trip we took to Alaska were not working… so I just went through and fixed them…  I also modified the page a bit so you might want to look it over too. Click over to the Alaska Trip Recap.

Feel free to drop any comments here…

Went to Grayton Beach, FL last month to catch a friend’s beach wedding.While I was there I shot this picture of the Red bar which is a pretty popular hangout.

Red  Bar, Grayton Beach, Florida

Ok… What’s Tom talking about now?

Well… I was browsing the net and came across the tale of Neil and Nancy Sirman and their “Amazing Geriatric Adventures aboard the terrific sailing vessel  Active Light”.

They set sail on a voyage to circumnavigate the world.  Along the way the spent a year in Mexico, about 14 months in Phuket, Thailand and were present on the day of the tsunami in December of 2004.  From reading every page on their site, it looks to me like they had a lot of fun and from their writings met a lot of people along the way.  They were away from home for just shy of 8 full years.

You can read about it if you like.  Their page telling their story is still up at http://www.worldvoyage.com.