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Super Advertising

Posted by Tom on February 4, 2008
Posted in: Curent Events.

This summary is for the first half of the game only, I presume that the second half was similar. I don’t know, I didn’t watch. I saw a football game once.

(The following list came from Jan )

● 5:15 (CST), New England came out of the tunnel – 5 commercials followed
● Star Spangled Banner sung – 7 commercials followed
● Coin toss – 2 commercials followed
● Teams come onto the field; no action – 1 commercial
● Kick off; with 14:55 left first qtr. – 1 commercial
● Player down with 10:47 left first qtr. – 3 commercials
● Field goal with 6:12 left first qtr. – 4 commercials
● Kick off; New York to New England – 3 commercials
● End of first quarter – 5 commercials
● NE touchdown with 14:57 left 2nd qtr. – 4 commercials
● Kick off to NY – 4 commercials
● Interception with 11:53 left 2nd qtr. – 5 commercials
● Giants stop NE with 10:00 left – 5 commercials
● With 8:36 left 2nd qtr. – 3 commercials
● With 6:59 left 2nd qtr. – 3 commercials
● With 5:00 left 2nd qtr. – 1 commercial
● With 2:30 left 2nd qtr. – 5 commercials
● Giants punt to NE with 1:50 left – 3 commercials
● Time out Giants with 1:35 left – 2 commercials
● Time out NE with 0:59 left – 1 commercial
● HALF TIME

They said there were 64 commercials in all; each must have played at least once during the first half with some playing twice. Of course, I did not keep track until the teams started out of the tunnel… can you imagine how many played before that in the pre-game show???

If you want to see all the commercials, you can go here.

Thanks Jan

So, what is claimed to be the biggest sports broadcast of the the year consists of more commercials than game time. This does not compute!

Changes

Posted by Tom on January 30, 2008
Posted in: Around the House.

This has been a day for changes here. First, after dithering for a while, I finally had our DSL service upgraded. I was an early adopter of DSL from our local phone company and have been running that 384Kb SDSL connection ever since. Recently the ISP made 1.5Mb ADSL service available though initially they would not allow upgrades.  Now they have opened that up and I called today to make the change. It took only 5 hours from phone call to working upgrade. I love our local phone cooperative!

The second change is an experiment with not requiring registration for comments. I’ll still moderate the first comment and do other anti-spam things. If the blog gets too much spam then I’ll go back to requiring registration. I hope this will encourage some friends and family ,who haven’t done so previously, to post comments.

How Cold Was It?

Posted by Tom on January 24, 2008
Posted in: Around the House.

ColdIt is cold (again) here in Iowa. Minus 16°F this morning with wind chill of -30°F. Can you say Brrrrr? I bet you can.

There was an item on the local TV last night that said of 108 school districts reporting to the Dept of Education this week, none have had one full week of classes in nearly 2.5 months without an early dismissal, late start or days missed.

This is turning into one of the worst winters for cabin fever in my memory. Not only is it cold but we still have ice left from a storm in early December. Forecast is for more snow tomorrow and freezing rain Sunday night.

Believe me, when warm weather finally gets here I’ll be dancing naked in the back yard.

Fascinating!

Posted by Tom on January 20, 2008
Posted in: Astronomy, Radio.

Early this morning (01/20/08) I took part in a fascinating radio test, the HAARP – LWA Moon Bounce Experiment It was an attempt to detect high frequency (~7MHz) radio waves reflected from the Moon using regular amateur radio receivers and antennas.

I was quite skeptical of the possibility but still got myself out of bed at 0630z (0030 am CST) to see for myself. The experiment was to last for two hours, one hour on 6.7925MHz and the next hour on 7.4075MHz. Fellow hams will notice that these frequencies are just below and above the 40 meter amateur band, an extremely low frequency for Moon bounce.

The tests consisted of 2 seconds of transmission followed by 3 seconds of silence with this pattern repeated for one hour on each frequency. Since the round-trip travel time for the signal to reach the Moon and return is about 2-1/2 seconds, the echo should occur in the silent period. You can read the other details of the experiment at the link above.

The bottom line: Even with my modest antenna (a multi-band vertical) I was able to hear the signal returning. Not strong, but easily audible. I was really surprised when I first heard the echoes. Even with the transmitter putting out 3.6 megawatts of RF power, I felt it was an amazing feat.

I’ve submitted my report to the people at HAARP and I’m pleased to have made even a tiny contribution to the experiment.

WordPress Update

Posted by Tom on January 15, 2008
Posted in: Uncategorized.

I’ve just had this blog updated to the latest version of WordPress. I think I have all of the customizations back in place. If anyone notices anything that doesn’t match the pre-01/15/08 version, please post a comment here with info about it. Be sure to refresh your cache (CTRL-F5) to see the current state.

Cruise Photos

Posted by Tom on December 19, 2007
Posted in: Travel.

I just put photos from our cruise up on my static web site. There are seven pages with 5 pictures each plus descriptions. Comments are welcome here.

Wind StarThis is a picture that my good friend Mike Apsey captured from the web-cam at the Panama Canal Miraflores locks while the Wind Star was passing through.

Thanks Mike!

At Sea – 4

Posted by Tom on December 13, 2007
Posted in: Travel.

The trip is winding down.  Two more days at sea, sailing up to Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica.  We will dock there on 12/15 and go to San Juan by bus.  We fly out from there on the 16th.

This has been a great vacation, more relaxing than previous cruises we have been on.  The small size of the ship has made it easier to get to know people on board and I have enjoyed the days at sea where there isn’t anything to plan and no early rising to go on a shore excursion.  I’m not sure that Jan is keen on the idea, but I think I would like one of the 14 day trans-Atlantic crossings.

This may be the last blog post until we get home.  We are down to our last 40 minutes of internet time which should be enough for tonight and tomorrow.  I can’t see buying more though I am glad I bought what I did.  It’s been fun being able to post from the ship and keep in touch with my friends.  If I have a couple minutes left tomorrow I’ll post a final report but don’t worry if I don’t.

I will try to add more pictures, probably as a separate web page, once we get home.

Panama Canal

Posted by Tom on December 12, 2007
Posted in: Travel.

We got up very early this morning as we were to arrive at the Gatun Locks on the east end of the canal at 6:30am.  It was extremely humid and hard to keep lenses and glasses from fogging up.  It seemed that every passenger on the ship was up to watch us enter the first locks.  This was the main reason for the trip for nearly everyone, including me.

The canal was impressive, and to think it was built around 100 years ago!  There have been improvements and modifications but the basic infrastructure has not changed all that much. All that work without modern earth-moving equipment must have been backbreaking.

We got through the Gatun Locks in less than an hour and then we were out on Gatun Lake for several hours.  Got to the locks on the Pacific side just after lunch.  We had been told it would be later than that but later I learned the average passage time is around 7 hours.  Unfortunately, the tall masts on The Wind Star mean we can only go under the Bridge of America in Balboa at low tide.  Hence we are docked until around 11PM before we can continue into the Pacific.

The weather was hot and sunny all day until we passed through the last lock and then we had a cloubburst with rain so hard the decks had 1/2 inch of water running on them.  Now (3:45pm) it’s overcast and still raining.  Another on-deck barbecue was planned for tonight.  Don’t know if it will happen but I’m sure all will be fine.

Two more days until we reach Costa Rica.

Panama

Posted by Tom on December 11, 2007
Posted in: Travel.

Spent today at the San Blas Islands, Panama.  A group of over 360 islands, only about 60 inhabited, all by indegenous people.  We went ashore at one island which was all thatched huts with narrow paths between.  Quite a difference from the previous ports of call.  Lots of native crafts for sale and many interesting sights.

We will be going through the Panama Canal tomorrow (12/12)  I’m really looking forward to the passage.  I’ve learned that there are web cams that allow you to watch ships in the locks.  I can’t give exact times but I think we will be going through the eastern locks around 6:30 am (EST) and the western locks around 6 or 7 pm.  The url is here  Look for a large white sailing vessel with 4 masts named Wind Star.

Anyone who can capture an image – I’d appreciate getting a copy.

At Sea – 3

Posted by Tom on December 9, 2007
Posted in: Travel.

Today another day at sea – actually we will be at sea for two days before we get to San Blas Island, Panama. The water is fairly rough and we are regularly having waves crash over our cabin’s portholes. The ship does have stabilizers so it’s not too uncomfortable walking on deck or in the cabin but it is necessary to be careful and keep one hand on something when not sitting down.

We had a bit of excitement this morning when the captain announced we were responding to a distress call from a vessel off the coast of Columbia. Turned out to be a freighter with engine problems that only kept from being swept ashore by it’s anchor. Eventually our captain was able to relay communications so a (commercial) tow vessel would come out to help them.

When snorleling the other day I got a small amount of sea water into my nose and now it is feeling very uncomfortable. Otherwise today we have been been sitting on deck enjoying the sun and sea breezes. I could get used to this life.