I woke up at 6am this morning like usual, even though my alarm was not set. I checked CNN on my phone and saw that the government shutdown had actually happened while I was sleeping.
Basically for me the shutdown is a vacation with no guarantee of a paycheck. Although there is a decent chance that Congress will approve back pay for the furloughed government employees. But even civil servants need to pile up a solid emergency fund in case they lose their job (even if only temporary). Back pay is never guaranteed.
I’m not a gambler, but I wouldn’t be completely surprised if I lost a week or two worth of my salary over this mess. That’s not the end of the world for myself and my family, but thousands of other federal employees might get into some trouble if that happens.
I checked my NASA email account right away for the official furlough notice but it was not there yet. Once the notice arrives I’m supposed to acknowledge it by forwarding it to my supervisor.
I have a huge to-do list that never seems to ever get any smaller so I got the list out and created a sub-list which is my furlough to-do list. This new sub-list now has 35 items on it. Probably twice as much as I’ll be able to get done during the furlough. But we have no idea how long this thing is gonna last.
Not everything on my furlough list is work-and-no-play though. There are things like “go see a movie” and “go canoeing” and stuff like that. I plan to fill my furlough time with both work and play activities.
After creating my to-do list, I made myself a banana and strawberry smoothie and enjoyed it on my front porch in my adirondack chair. During a normal NASA work day, I would never have time for this sort of thing. Mornings are usually pretty rushed.
First official order of business: fix clogged toilet
I went ahead and cleaned and disinfected all three toilets while I was at it.
I threw in a load of laundry while I was in the area. One of our bathrooms is through the laundry room and I noticed that the washer and dryer were both unoccupied so what the heck. My wife will be so surprised when she gets home from work and notices that some laundry magically got done!
My NASA supervisor then called my cell and asked me to check for the official furlough notice. It still wasn’t there in my NASA inbox, so I called my supervisor back at home and she forwarded me a copy to my home email address. It’s likely that some NASA server was shut down this morning before all the thousands of official furlough notices were delivered. Oh well.
Back to my to-do list. I had a one hour DVD that I needed to watch. It’s an old VHS tape that I transferred to DVD a while ago and I needed to watch it on a regular DVD player to make sure it was acceptable.
Then I did a second load of laundry. Yay, me!
Then after a quick trip to my in-law’s house to borrow an air finish nailer and a quick trip to Lowes and a quick stop for lunch at Burger King, I spent the next several hours measuring/cutting/installing baseboard trim in the house.
We’ve lived here for just over two years and I got distracted before all the trim got installed. Today I worked in the kids hallway, both kids rooms, and also in the front office.
Then I took a shower and ate dinner and went to church choir rehearsal. And now I’m writing this blog post. That’s pretty much day one of my unplanned furlough slash vacation.
My to-do list still has 35 items on it. I crossed several off today and did some tasks that were never on the list and I also added several new items to the list throughout the day. Typical.
After 18 years of catapulting adventures, Bob and Doug have decided to retire from chuckin. The ACME Catapult, Bambulance, and all equipment and spare parts are for sale. It was a tough year long decision, but its time to let fresh blood carry on and even set new records.
Please note: this is an extreme hobby, but one that can pay for itself if you promote the machine and are willing to travel a little. They have done many “For Hire” events in addition to several TV appearances. What sets this machine apart is its awesome strength. It can easily hurl objects up to 200 pounds and can set, fire and reset every 15 minutes all day long.
They are selling the entire package; all spare parts, including over 80 springs, two throwing arms, two complete hydraulic power units, hyd. hoses, extra cables, numerous bags and slings, ladders, tool boxes, and tools, etc.
Please call Bob 309-202-0676 or Doug 309-712-2278 for more information.
[The ACME Catapult is the tandem axle monster pumpkin catapult machine that was seen on national television throwing lawn equipment high into the air on ABC’s “My Kind of Town” and also hurling large appliances on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”. You may have also seen it tossing pumpkins on the TLC Special “Punkin Chunkin”, which was filmed at the 2002 World Championship Punkin Chunkin competition in Delaware. The ACME Catapult team started in 1996 with a much smaller catapult designed to throw pumpkins at a local Pumpkin Festival Contest. Since then the catapult has grown into a tandem axle monster capable of hurling refrigerators and lawn tractors high into the air, or throwing a ten-pound pumpkin 2000 feet!]
We have two very nice long wetsuits for sale. They are both very close to brand new. Both have been worn SCUBA diving only a couple of times and both have been carefully stored indoors for a number of years.
Click on any photo to see that photo in full size.
The IST Proline wetsuit is a size small. It is black with blue accents. It is a very nice quality and very nice looking wetsuit. It is neoprine and has really nice rubber kneepads built in. The tag does not say, but it feels close to the same or maybe just a bit thinner than the other wetsuit below, which says it is 3.0 mm on the tag. You can see in the photos that there is no wear on it at all. I will sell this nearly new wetsuit for $100 which is quite a discount from the original price.
The second wetsuit is a size 10-12. It is very close to the same size as the size small IST wetsuit above. It is black and blue and flourescent yellow. This is a bright nice looking wetsuit. It is a 3.0 mm wetsuit also neoprine. You can see in the photos that there is very little or no wear on it at all. I will sell this one for $80 since it is not a name brand like the IST Proline above.
10) Do not start a new diet before your vacation
This one is actually pretty obvious. I don’t know what I was even thinking. It’s pretty much impossible to eat healthy while on vacation.
9) It’s possible to discharge an iPhone 3GS faster than it can charge if you play podcasts while also using the GPS receiver
This actually surprised me. I specifically bought a car charger for my iPhone so I could try out some GPS navigation software on our trip. I figured as long as I had the iPhone plugged into the power cord, I wouldn’t have to worry about draining it on the long trip. I was wrong. With the GPS program running and the iPod app playing podcasts that I had downloaded earlier from my PC, the iPhone drained faster than it charged. I did not appreciate this situation.
8 ) A pop-up summertime thunderstorm can ruin a nice sunny beach day
We had only been on the beach for a total of about 15 minutes. Just enough time to get sunblock on all the kids and let them go out and play in the surf for a few minutes. Then we heard the thunder. There was a pretty bad storm that suddenly had formed and was heading right for us. It was a beautiful sunny day one minute and we were running from a lightning storm the next. We tried to find other things to do. We hung out in a souvenir shop for a while. Then we sat in our cars at a park for a while and ate our picnic lunch. The storms kept building right over the beach. We eventually gave up and went home.
7) It’s completely possible, although possibly quite expensive, to wash a pickup by driving it completely into a lake
If you back your pickup truck down the boat ramp just to wash out the bed … then you might be a redneck! I just hope this poor guy is able to laugh at this later! (This is no joke. We witnessed this with our own eyes, by the way.)
6) Always check the trail online from town before driving up into the mountains where there is no chance of any cell phone signals (or grab a trail map from the welcome center)
We drove to a small waterfall in the Smokey Mountains of southwest North Carolina first thing one morning and were planning on visiting larger waterfalls later in the day. This first small waterfall was only maybe 50 yards from the road pull off. But while walking to the waterfall, we went past a forest service sign that had details about climbing and rappelling. The trail split and one trail went directly to the waterfall and the other went on up the mountainside. After experiencing the waterfall, I thought it would be fun for me to check out the other trail and see if I could get to the climbing and rappelling rock and take some photos while the rest of the family had a snack back at the car. After walking uphill for about 2/3rds of a mile, I finally gave up with no climbing wall in sight. Had to turn around and go back. My little hike up the mountain was recorded on my GPS, but there was no cell connectivity so I had no Google map overlay to look at. After we got back into town, I brought up the Google map overlay onto my GPS hike. See the screen shot below. It turns out I was only about half way to the climbing face when I gave up and turned around.
(http://mobile.accuterra.com/)
5) North Carolina experiences the same temperatures as Florida, only with slightly less humidity
It was pretty hot and pretty humid in central North Carolina while we were there. We’re talking the middle of July. But every time I brought up the current conditions for North Carolina and compared them to the current conditions in Central Florida, the temperature was always the same within a couple of degrees and the humidity was always worse in Florida. I probably checked about 4 times during the week that we were there and the results were always the same. So I guess it actually did feel just a little bit nicer up in North Carolina compared to back home. After all, it’s a slightly drier heat up there! 🙂
4) It is utterly impossible to lock your keys in the ignition of a Nissan Xterra SUV
We bought a 2004 Nissan Xterra recently and drove it on our vacation. One time at a gas station I was trying to write down the mileage and the car was turned off and the keys were in my pocket, which is where they belong when they are not in the ignition. Well, the odometer doesn’t work unless the key is on, so I had to turn the key on to write down the odometer reading. When I was done I needed to go in to use the restroom, so without thinking I locked the door with the power lock button and shut the door. Just as I was shutting the door, I realized the key was in the ignition still. Turns out that the car doesn’t let you lock the doors when the key is in the ignition, or maybe when the key is turned on. So even though I tried, I was not able to lock my keys in the car. Now, if it wasn’t in the ignition that would have been a different story, but my keys are usually in my pocket or in the ignition. I tend not to leave them laying anywhere else, knock on wood.
3) After a long hike through a narrow trail in the woods, if you stare at a large flat sign you will experience this really freaky peripheral vision motion after effect illusion of the sign melting away from you
After walking back down the mountain trail about 2/3rds of a mile from looking for the climbing and rappelling wall, I stopped at the bottom to read the forest service signs again, because there were details about the climbing wall there. According to my GPS records, I had walked downhill on this woodsy trail at about 2.5 miles per hour for approximately 14 minutes without stopping. Well, when I stopped and looked at this big billboard of a sign, I experienced something very weird and interesting. My eyes and brain were totally still in “moving through the woodsy trail” mode and so when I stopped to look at this big stationary wall of a sign, it looked like the sign was melting away from me. At least in my peripheral vision, the sign seemed to be moving away from me. It was pretty freaky and it took about a minute before I could see normally without getting a bit dizzy. Scientists call this illusion the motion after effect or waterfall illusion.
2) Waterfalls are really cool … but not real fun if you forget your water shoes
We saw some pretty cool waterfalls on our vacation. One of them, Looking Glass Falls, is 60 feet tall and at the bottom there was a big pool where tourists can swim and play. It’s common sense that you would bring water shoes or at least flip flops or sandals if you’re gonna visit a place like this. After all, everyone knows that the floor of these creeks and waterfalls is covered with sharp jagged rocks, right? Well, this Florida boy found out the hard way. I was wearing my good tennis shoes and did not have anything else in the car to wear. I wasn’t gonna ruin my good tennis shoes, so I chose to walk around barefoot in the water. Not a great idea. The rocks are slippery in addition to being sharp. Pretty uncomfortable to walk on. I actually slipped once and messed up my big toe, but I won’t go into the details. A week later my big toe is still recovering from my poor planning, though. And the bottoms of my feet are probably all cut up too.
1) Dry cereal is completely okay with everyone in the family for dinner after arriving home after a long drive
After a very long drive home and returning to a house that is pretty much devoid of real food. The boys were perfectly content and happy to sit and eat dry cereal for their dinner. They were just happy to be home again. 🙂
We witnessed this while at a public park in North Carolina today. There was a boat ramp nearby and I saw this man drive right up and back his pickup truck right down the ramp and into the water with no boat trailer. The rear wheels were totally submerged and the front wheels were probably just a little bit in the water. We found out later that the guy was trying to rinse out the bed of his truck. Well, needless to say, he got stuck there. After maybe 10 minutes, someone drove up and backed their SUV up to his truck in an apparent attempt to help him get his truck out. I got distracted for a minute and when I looked back, the man’s half submerged truck was completely gone. Yes, it was no longer there. It had somehow rolled completely into the lake and was totally submerged. A couple of hours, two fire trucks, four police cars, two tow trucks, and one fire rescue unit later, I was able to record the following video of the rescue crew pulling the submerged truck out of the lake. Enjoy. I just hope the guy who owns the pickup will be able to laugh about this experience later. 🙂
Thanks for visiting, Kurt & Sam Leucht Titusville, FL
(http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2009/08/tomtom_83913_tt-for-iphone-incar-landscape-uk.jpg)
(http://media.trb.com/media/alternatethumbnails/story/2010-08/55334161-03051444.jpg)
(http://saloncars.com/catalog/images/08NissanXterra.jpg)
(http://www.comesatradehub.com/images/products/8912164569.jpg)
