Random Thoughts

[1995hoo]

Correct.  "Tap cold" uses water straight from the cold water line only.  "Cold" mixes in some hot water in order to maintain a certain temperature range.  How cold is "tap cold" will vary from house to house and from season to season, but "cold" will be a fairly constant range.

Thanks. That explanation makes sense. It also makes more sense than our previous washer's instruction manual saying that "Cold" might be too cold during the winter and that you should mix in some hot water in that scenario. I never figured out quite how I was to have done that, given that the machine locked when in use and automatically drained if you stopped it and opened the lid (this was a child-safety feature).

[kphoger]

I never figured out quite how I was to have done that

Toss in a bucket-full of hot water at the beginning?

[SEWIGuy]

Correct.  "Tap cold" uses water straight from the cold water line only.  "Cold" mixes in some hot water in order to maintain a certain temperature range.  How cold is "tap cold" will vary from house to house and from season to season, but "cold" will be a fairly constant range.

Thanks. That explanation makes sense. It also makes more sense than our previous washer's instruction manual saying that "Cold" might be too cold during the winter and that you should mix in some hot water in that scenario. I never figured out quite how I was to have done that, given that the machine locked when in use and automatically drained if you stopped it and opened the lid (this was a child-safety feature).

I have lived in the upper midwest my entire life, and at no point in my life did I wonder if the "Cold" was too cold. My laundry seems fine.

[1995hoo]

Correct.  "Tap cold" uses water straight from the cold water line only.  "Cold" mixes in some hot water in order to maintain a certain temperature range.  How cold is "tap cold" will vary from house to house and from season to season, but "cold" will be a fairly constant range.

Thanks. That explanation makes sense. It also makes more sense than our previous washer's instruction manual saying that "Cold" might be too cold during the winter and that you should mix in some hot water in that scenario. I never figured out quite how I was to have done that, given that the machine locked when in use and automatically drained if you stopped it and opened the lid (this was a child-safety feature).

I have lived in the upper midwest my entire life, and at no point in my life did I wonder if the "Cold" was too cold. My laundry seems fine.

I never would have thought about it had the owner's manual not said that. Didn't matter, ultimately, because I used the cold setting anyway. On our current machine, which we bought in February, I use "Cold" during the winter but I've been using "Tap Cold" during the warmer months.

[Scott5114]

I was washing my hands and I noted how the cold tap water isn't particularly cold with the hot weather we're having.

That was something I noticed last year, during my first summer in Las Vegas, which was the hottest on record. For most of July and August, the two tap water options were hot and warm. (And running the water long enough to clear the lines didn't really seem to affect it much, so I'm guessing it was coming off the mains that warm.)

It will be interesting to see, once we hit the really bad part of summer (we haven't gotten much above 110 yet), if that happens again where I live now, which is a few hundred feet higher in elevation than where I was last year. This part of the valley is high enough that it's usually about 3°F cooler than the Strip, and 6° cooler than Nellis.

[kphoger]

The phenomenon is very noticeable to me, someone who regularly drinks tap water without ice.

[GaryV]

If you get your water from a well, especially a local well, the water temperature will be about the same all year long. It was great to get a cold drink of water from the tap at my in-law's farm.

If your water comes from a surface source, it will fluctuate with the temperature of that source and be warmer in the summer. How much warmer depends on how deep the inlet pipe is. And to some extent, how far your water comes from a snowpack in places like CA.

There can also be variations based on distribution (how far across a desert your water is pumped) and storage (how long water is in a water tower).

[1995hoo]

The phenomenon is very noticeable to me, someone who regularly drinks tap water without ice.

I do that for most of the year. When the weather is especially hot like it has been this week, I instead dump the contents of an 800 ml bottle of water we keep in the refrigerator into the insulated mug I keep in my home office all day. I then refill the bottle. We don't go through a lot of ice on the whole and eventually I usually wind up dumping what the ice maker has produced when it starts clumping together too much or it gets too much of that stale odor that develops over time.

[kphoger]

Our freezer doesn't have an ice maker.  We keep two ice cube trays in the freezer instead.  Recently, my wife and I were getting irritated that our boys had been using the last ice cube in the tray, then just putting the empty tray in the dish drainer instead of refilling it.  She and I don't use much ice, so we decided to stop refilling them for them:  if they want ice cubes, then maybe they'll learn to actually make ice cubes.  It finally came to a head yesterday, when my wife put the last of the remaining ice cubes into her travel mug before supper and then went ahead and refilled both trays (the one she'd emptied and the one that had been sitting in the dish drainer for days)—but neither tray of ice cubes had actually frozen yet by the time we all had snacks and drinks with our Wednesday after-church TV time.

[Big John]

U thought I was in the cold takes thread.

[kkt]

But ice cubes are such a complicated recipe!    

[kphoger]

But ice cubes are such a complicated recipe!   

You have to get the ratio just right.  Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen.

[Big John]

But ice cubes are such a complicated recipe!   

You have to get the ratio just right.  Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen.

and are temperature dependent.

[kphoger]

and are temperature dependent.

Oh, for sure.  If you don't get them cold enough, then they won't set properly.

[kernals12]

I think the low density of American cities is the result of us having a greater tolerance for traveling long distances than other cultures. Look at neighborhoods designed around streetcars and you'll see lots of homes on 4,000-7,000 square foot lots. Or look at old photos from your town's center and you'll see wide streets. I'm sure that Englishmen in the 18th century ridiculed their counterparts in the colonies for having to walk half an hour just to go to the general store.

[Max Rockatansky]

Sometimes I wonder if my wife really understands that some of the things I got out and do by myself aren't exactly the "safest things" to be doing alone.  An example of this was a couple weeks ago when I took the Forester up Chowchilla Mountain Road.  Said road is barely maintained and fairly infamous for stranding vehicles during the wetter months of the year. 

I explained all the above in advance to my wife.  I also made sure to tell her (in person and via text) when I was starting my ascent drive and when I anticipated being back out on a normal highway.  The thing that gets me is that there isn't a lot of acknowledgment of the things I'm saying, so I don't know if she takes it in or not.  For stuff like Chowchilla Mountain, I generally make sure I bring tools and enough supplies if I find myself having to hike out on foot. 

Of course, everything on Chowchilla Mountain went fine like it most often does and I texted my wife when I got back to CA 49.  When I got home, I washed the Forester and took all my tools out of the back.  When she got home, I wasn't asked about how things went but rather why there was still dirt in the door sill. 

I'm pondering over trying to where find someone that in my day-to-day life that actually understands the information such as the above?  If this was Arizona I would know several people from OHV circles, I don't know anyone like that here in Central California. 

[D-Dey65]

Somewhere within an external hard drive or an old Kodak CD-ROM, I have a photo of an intersection control beacon at the intersection of Brittle Road and a mining road in northern Hernando County, but unfortunately, I have no idea where this picture is. That little blinker light is gone now, and the mining road has been abandoned.

During my search however, I did find a group of images where the former Brooksville and Inverness Railroad crosses Snow Hill Road north of Lake Lindsey, Florida. I almost lost that too, but I found it again.

[kkt]

Sometimes I wonder if my wife really understands that some of the things I got out and do by myself aren't exactly the "safest things" to be doing alone.  An example of this was a couple weeks ago when I took the Forester up Chowchilla Mountain Road.  Said road is barely maintained and fairly infamous for stranding vehicles during the wetter months of the year. 

I explained all the above in advance to my wife.  I also made sure to tell her (in person and via text) when I was starting my ascent drive and when I anticipated being back out on a normal highway.  The thing that gets me is that there isn't a lot of acknowledgment of the things I'm saying, so I don't know if she takes it in or not.  For stuff like Chowchilla Mountain, I generally make sure I bring tools and enough supplies if I find myself having to hike out on foot. 

Of course, everything on Chowchilla Mountain went fine like it most often does and I texted my wife when I got back to CA 49.  When I got home, I washed the Forester and took all my tools out of the back.  When she got home, I wasn't asked about how things went but rather why there was still dirt in the door sill. 

I'm pondering over trying to where find someone that in my day-to-day life that actually understands the information such as the above?  If this was Arizona I would know several people from OHV circles, I don't know anyone like that here in Central California. 

Have you had a conversation about how long she should wait before letting the sheriff's office know what road you'd planned on taking?  Maybe she has no idea what you're looking for - permission to do a potentially dangerous drive, that maybe she isn't totally comfortable with, maybe conflicted about whether to object or not.

[kphoger]

I'm pondering over trying to where find someone that in my day-to-day life that actually understands the information such as the above?  If this was Arizona I would know several people from OHV circles, I don't know anyone like that here in Central California. 

It's not a bad idea to find a close friend, who understands better, that you can touch base with instead.  When my good friend down in Mexico drives farther than about fifty miles away, he lets me know when he's leaving and what for, and I can follow his GPS track on the computer.  And I'm certain I follow it more closely than even his wife (if she's behind at home).  The first time he drove from Coahuila to Veracruz without her, I kept her updated via text message from here in the States.

They don't have to be from California.  They just have to care about you enough to be accountable, and know how to communicate with your wife if they need to.

[Max Rockatansky]

Sometimes I wonder if my wife really understands that some of the things I got out and do by myself aren't exactly the "safest things" to be doing alone.  An example of this was a couple weeks ago when I took the Forester up Chowchilla Mountain Road.  Said road is barely maintained and fairly infamous for stranding vehicles during the wetter months of the year. 

I explained all the above in advance to my wife.  I also made sure to tell her (in person and via text) when I was starting my ascent drive and when I anticipated being back out on a normal highway.  The thing that gets me is that there isn't a lot of acknowledgment of the things I'm saying, so I don't know if she takes it in or not.  For stuff like Chowchilla Mountain, I generally make sure I bring tools and enough supplies if I find myself having to hike out on foot. 

Of course, everything on Chowchilla Mountain went fine like it most often does and I texted my wife when I got back to CA 49.  When I got home, I washed the Forester and took all my tools out of the back.  When she got home, I wasn't asked about how things went but rather why there was still dirt in the door sill. 

I'm pondering over trying to where find someone that in my day-to-day life that actually understands the information such as the above?  If this was Arizona I would know several people from OHV circles, I don't know anyone like that here in Central California. 

Have you had a conversation about how long she should wait before letting the sheriff's office know what road you'd planned on taking?  Maybe she has no idea what you're looking for - permission to do a potentially dangerous drive, that maybe she isn't totally comfortable with, maybe conflicted about whether to object or not.

Yes, I've had those conversations many times over the years.  I think this far into our marriage she knows that I'm going to go do stuff like drive a Chowchilla Mountain Road or go a one track hike on occasion. 

Then again, sometimes I wonder if she just thinks I'm being hyperbolic about the questionable nature of what I'm describing.  When I've done something more relatable sometimes I get a different reaction.  As an example, when I was going out to cycle (she is a cyclist) about 30 miles of Forest Service roads on my mountain bike she objected over the lack of safety.  Also, when we were on the Big Island last year the one lane portion of Hawaii County Route 160 got her concerned. 

I'm pondering over trying to where find someone that in my day-to-day life that actually understands the information such as the above?  If this was Arizona I would know several people from OHV circles, I don't know anyone like that here in Central California. 

It's not a bad idea to find a close friend, who understands better, that you can touch base with instead.  When my good friend down in Mexico drives farther than about fifty miles away, he lets me know when he's leaving and what for, and I can follow his GPS track on the computer.  And I'm certain I follow it more closely than even his wife (if she's behind at home).  The first time he drove from Coahuila to Veracruz without her, I kept her updated via text message from here in the States.

They don't have to be from California.  They just have to care about you enough to be accountable, and know how to communicate with your wife if they need to.

Two of my employees seem to grasp what I'm telling them.  I did tell one of them about Chowchilla Mountain and they seemed to have an idea of what I was serious about my concerns on it.  Ironically one of my wife's friends is an OHV enthusiast and follows our page.  I thought about looping her and the boyfriend (a Jeep guy) into some of this stuff also.  For awhile we also had an offline road chat on Facebook Messenger where I was able to check in with some of the folks here I know reasonably well. 

[thspfc]

I live closer to the equator than the north pole, and work closer to the north pole than the equator. Minneapolis/St. Paul is by far the largest population center in the world that sits on either of the 45th parallels, with the only other one of note being Turin, Italy at half the size of MSP (and the line is much further away from the densest areas of Turin than those of MSP).

To get a likely overestimate - if we assume 25% of MSP's population lives and works on opposite sides of the parallel, and 10% of Turin's does, that's 940,000 people. If we double that to include the rest of the world, that's 1.88 million or 0.02% of global population.

[Max Rockatansky]

Why would a flame broiled burger be ready for adventure?  How does one even measure such a thing?

[Max Rockatansky]

Circling back to what I was talking about regarding unreliable contacts, this came up on my Facebook feed:

https://www.facebook.com/100064829792698/posts/pfbid0224XVqWNGhatH5DfkHbBueGgwZYZd7GRmyGd3Mhix4Bh9q1Kdbba5VFUnLccVFGwPl/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I can't help but wonder if this guy told people exactly where he went.  I can envision a scenario where they didn't understand and don't know what to tell authorities.

[1995hoo]

We don't have a thread for "Minor things that amuse you," so I'll put this one here. Last night I was watching the US soccer team's game against Costa Rica. At multiple points, the on-screen graphics referred to a US player they listed as "M. Arfsten." The "M." stands for "Max," but I couldn't help reading it as "Marfsten" and I was mildly amused at the thought of the now-banned forum member Marf playing international soccer.