The Tuesday Lunch Bunch

Another shot of the regular crew....

as always, a scary looking bunch of tech types....

They'll want their money back....

I have a friend who loves to send me internet jokes, even if I've seen them 1000 times before. I don't mind since at least we're keeping in touch.

Well on this day when I'm stuck at home still not feeling well and the weather miserable, a get a joke from him that I didn't find particularly funny. What made me laugh out loud was the 'targeted' ads Google inserted.



I think they'll want their money back....

Let it snow...

Snow is good for something... sometimes we forget.

Kids, Don't Do This at Home!

No, that is not the incandescent glow of 2050^oF glass and an unapproved method of gathering molten glass. If it were we'd be seeing quite a different picture of the poor gaffer about to burst into flames. Instead it is the incandescent glow of... well, a 100 watt incandescent light bulb.

Yes the melter is *still* out of service.

Here is the guilty party:

so when a prior element popped it left a piece of itself behind. The intense heat of the melter actually melted the nichrome into the refractory where it formed a material so hard they could make weapons out of it. Part of this stray nichrome-ceramic compound would bubble out of the shelf and short out the replacement element, starting the process all over again.

Our goal of the day was to remove the affected portion of the element shelf and replace it with a new one.

Once the shelf dries we'll put in the replacement element:

---

Here's the last candy dish I made a month ago, the last piece to come out before the melter melted.

It has the size I'm looking for but I still need work on the foot. In a closeup the bubble that became the foot got misshapen and off-center. It doesn't matter as poor cross ventilation got the poor thing caught in a cold draft right near the end, and the bottom is all cracked.

What was interesting on this piece is I went almost all tool-less on the final shaping, getting the open end nice and hot so it flowed out all on its own without ever having to hit it with the jacks. Pity about the foot and the crack as it made such a nice dish....

DQ Grand Reopening

After going a year without a Dairy Queen, the store at its new location, 310 W. Aaron Drive, opened with great fan-fare.

Even some celebrities showed up:

From L to R is Mike the Mailman, Don Boller, and myself.

Welcome back , DQ!

The Day After Groundhog Day

Super Sunday, or around here this year, the Day After Groundhog Day, was a super Sunday indeed. It was School Spirit Day for both of the kids' schools at the Bryce Jordan Center where we got discounted tickets to see the PSU Lady Lions take on the Wisconsin Badgers. It was a welcome respite from the losing fight chipping away at the 2 inches or so of ice the slush storm left us on Friday. (6 more weeks of this? I'll get you, Phil!)

Prior to the start of the game a remote control blimp emblazoned with McLanahan's logos and advertising their Penn State Room circled about the Jordan center. Later on, at half-time, it was circling the arena and then hovering over whatever section was supposedly shouting the loudest for the blimp. It would then drop coupons for something or other onto the crowd.... I don't want to comment publically on what the visual looked like!

A blimp spitting cupons out its back end was almost the highlight of the game as the Lady Lions let this one slip right from the start. Lackluster play, missed opportunities, and a boatload of missed free throws! There is just not enough vituperative to describe it.

The real highlight of the game came with about 4 minutes of play left in the second half. We were comtemplating getting a jump on the crowd when the Nittany Lion showed up:

That was the highlight of the game along with the freebie 4 mugs that had blinking LED lights around the base. (We'll ignore the almost $30 for 3 cheeseburgers and a hot dog for now.) It was a nice family afternoon out even if the game turned into a stark reminder of how much the program has sunk.

At least the Super Bowl lived up to its billing this year, instead of the Super Hype of years past, where one team gets blown out so early you keep watching just for the commercials. (Which stank.) This one will go down as one of the best games ever played. I love defensive struggles that get settled in the final minute of the game. Enough's already been written about this game so you don't need any of my commentary.

Then it was back to trying to get all that damned ice out of the driveway. Which brings me back to the day known as the Day After Groundhog Day. If this keeps up I'm going to drive to Punxsutawney and dig up that groundhog....

Rain, No Game

Damn....

After finally hitting stride with regular visits to the hot shop, Satan acts up again....

Danged thing popped an element last week leaving a crucible full of half melted batch. The replacement elements fared no better. Nothing like replacing a broken part with a defective part.

Needless to say it'll be another week or two before the replacement replacements are installed, we're back up to 2050^oF, and we have 200 lbs. of molten glass ready for blowing instead of a giant ugly paperweight. I'm already starting to shake with withdrawal symptoms.

Cold Hikes and Mid-winter Blahs

I'm not much of a fan of January. Nope, not at all. The Days are still short and around these parts we don't get a whole lot of sunshine. So this past Sunday we had plenty of sun. with the temperatures hovering between 10- 13° F it was a good day for a short hike in the woods. I decided to hit up a piece of SGL- 176 behind Toftrees. Of course it didn't hurt there was a cache there that I hadn't yet found!

This section of the gamelands is part of the PSU waste-water spray irrigation system. With it being this cold the active spray fields will be busy making some impressive natural ice sculptures. They did not disappoint!

While I was enjoying the solitude on this crisp winter afternoon I came across a family also on a nice hike. I was glad to see I wasn't the only nut out there.

When I got to the cache site I saw lots of footprints in the snow, leading me like breadcrumbs to the cache container. Funny how easily I found it this time. Now I was wondering if the family I passed on the way in were crazy geo-cachers! It seems we had quite a few in town. The day before was the second annual Central PA Mid-winter Blahs event cache.

We crammed 123 people who had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon into the back 2 rooms at Prospectors. Last year we had 60 folks show up.

This year's event more than doubled last year and everyone had a great time. We also helped boost business on a slow Saturday for a local business.

George + Moe2 deserve a big round of thanks for their door prize donations. The staff at Prospectors did a great job with the huge crowd. And the cashers themselves deserve a big hand for being such great sports for turning out in droves and having a great time. I can't wait for next year!

The Tuesday Lunch Bunch

Forgot to post this last week! I warned them this would show up on my blog. Pretty scary group hanging out at the BJC on a Tuesday afternoon.

Stone Valley Vista

It has been almost a year since the happy gang got together on a cold January morning (15F) to go deep in the woods to find a cache named Dobby's Home. So while enjoying a nice Saturday evening dinner my phone rings and out of the silence it is Billy Blades, aka Moe2 of 2 Guys Named Moe, asking if I wanted to join them to locate Stone Valley Vista, a cache at the top of Stone Mountain where one will enjoy one of the nicest views on Standing Stone Trail.

So who could say no?

So off I go on a trek with the Moes, to locate more tupperware, or at least in this case an ammo box, in the woods.

When we got to the designated parking coordinates our GPS units, while correctly pointing in the direction of the cache, were in reality going to take us the wrong way along the wrong trail. Moe1 would have you believe her GPSr knew the correct way but in reality her unit had frozen and would always point "that way", whatever "that way" happened to be.

So there I was with all of 157 finds to my experience, with the great and experienced Moes, who were "arrow following" along the wrong trail. After stopping at the trail head I realized we were going the wrong way (despite the arrows on the GPS units) and turned the Moes around. So instead of mindlessly following the arrow on our equally mindless for 1.3 miles we began a long and interesting 2 mile hike up Standing Stone Trail. The trail got quite exciting at times,as I think they imported extra boulders along the way just for us!

When we get some ways behind the Greenwood Furnace church the side of the trail quickly drops off the mountain:

Billy "Goat" Blades can't wait to tempt fate:

A bit up the trail we spot a pipe coming out of the ground along the side of the trail:

Further up we spot this concrete pad, under which we think the pipe make an abrupt turn down the slope:

It wasn't until the way down we saw down at the bottom of the mountain there was a small dam on the creek and what looked to be a pump house. I wonder where this water was pumped to? And how did they keep it from freezing in the winter? I'll post an update when I get more information.

Anyway at least now our GPS units are pointing in the correct direction and the distance counter drop under one mile. Feeling confident at the .7 mile mark the trail makes a 180 degree turn and we walk back .1 mile or so before the trail again turns in the correct direction. At this point begins what is probably a very rocky climb for about .25 miles. The rocks have slowed down the Moes

and here is where I make my break for the cache....

Of course I stop along the way to wait for the Moes to catch up and sneak a peak at the view to come:

Despite waiting for them I manage to pull awayand get to the cache site well ahead of the Moes. Now I have to ask myself, do I be nice or do I pull a Dobby ? So I decide to be nice and pull a snack out of my bag and enjoy a nice meal while waiting for them to show up. The true "Billy Goat" easily traverses the rocky shoals:

and before you know it the cache is ours:

Great view from up here:

I logged the cache on site my my smart phone:

When you think you're alone in the woods, along comes another hiker:

who Moe1 convinces to take our picture:

Now I am not shorter then the Moes! I happened to be standing in a hole and Moe1 is doing her best to keep me there so I don't pop up to my true height. I guess we were having too much fun as the PSU student continued upon the trail and at a rather high rate of speed.

Billy tried to take a picture with his camera phone thru his binoculars:

No wonder the student left real fast. I would too.

So with one last look before we left

we departed the summit and headed back down to the car. Which we hoped didn't get towed away or worse.

On the way down we spotted some trees that began life under difficult circumstances, started out heading the wrong way, but somehow righted themselves and continued on life's journey.

Last October I had a DNF at another cache, Stone Blue Stream, so we head off to find that one. First we stop for something to eat at a new place, Couch's, along 305 just outside McAlevy's Fort. A welcome rest stop with good food, and 2008 dog licenses available to boot! Couch's looks like it fills a big need in the area and we managed to get in just as the Sunday after church crowd was letting out. After our pit stop we easily locate Stone Blue Stream thanks to our true Billy Goat's ability to cross raging torrents. With another cache in the found column we head for home to rest up after our latest adventures in the woods.

Caching with the Moes is always great fun. Yeah we rib on each other a lot but its part of teh unique fun we experience searching for tupperware. While my kids like to do the quich cache and dash and we enjoy quality family time together, they just don't like to do the deep woods caches. Enter the best caching friends one can have, 2 Guys Named Moe, to settle ones deep woods fix ;)

Christmas Lights

It figures that the year my outdoor display turns on me that my street has the honor of being part of the CATA Bus Holiday Light Tour. It seems every day there was some part of the display giving me grief. I like to think that is is my display that attracted the holiday bus this year and having it randomly go half-dead was vexing, to say the least..

Here's a shot of the train display:

It took approximately 1865 watts of power to attract the bus and this is for a modest display. The sold out buses brought about 160 people a night for 7 nights so I guess I invested about a watt/person. I hate to think how much power gets consumed by those large displays.

But now for the grumbling and grief this year's attempt created:

In the background of the last picture you won't see the display I intended which is a blue spot-lit backdrop of my bushes. It came out more white than blue due to the lousy blue-colored GE spotlights I used.

I will say this. I will never use the blue GE spot lights again. I've gone thru about 6 or 7 bulbs over the last 2 holiday seasons. Mostly the blue paint peels right off the lamp! This happens usually in the first few hours of operation. Instead of a nice blue backdrop I get a mostly white- washed out blue. Ugh.

Not only does the paint fleck right off but they have a miserable operation life. Two of them blew out within the first hour of operation, one even burned out as I was installing it! None of the red or green GE spotlights have been as much of a problem. Lowes has been pretty good about replacing them but the PIA factor makes it not worth it. As an experiment I replaced one blue GE with a blue spotlight from Philips. Right out of the box I could see the coloration of the glass was of a much higher quality. This one has gone the entire display season with nary a problem. I'm forced to conclude that blue GE spot lights are just plain junk. Maybe they hold up better out of the weather but then they should not be marketed as outdoor quality.

Let's not even talk about the fixtures. Hopefully the ones I switched to this year will last longer. The high-brightness bulbs on the train are also nearing end-of-life. I cleaned out the entire stock of replacement bulbs at Target to keep the train running on time this year.

I continue to be impressed by the brightness, color, and clarity of the LED lights I am slowly switching in to the display. While the LEDs themselves are holding up well with good light output I am still concerned about the quality of the sockets and wires, especially for outdoor displays. I think the old corrosion problems are still there and the sockets will rot out long before the bulbs fail. Given the price premium we have to pay I hope I break even. LED lights have been on the market long enough for the price to start dropping but so far the manufacturers are holding the line.

It is time for the volume discounts to kick in rather than trying to make lots of $$ riding the green trend. Oops I forgot-- this is America. I could drop my power consumption quite dramatically by replacing the remaining strings will all-LED. I'm also in search of good quality outdoor-capable LED or CFL colored spotlights. A high-brightness blue LED spotlight would solve a lot of problems!

Searching for Tupperware.....

This is my short explanation for geocaching:

"I use a billion dollar government sponsored satellite system to hunt for Tupperware in the woods..."

I find it a fun and unique hobby that has taken me to some very interesting places with the sometimes secondary goal of locating the camouflaged aforementioned Tupperware. As part of the Christmas holiday break I embarked on a special father-son weekend that had as one of its stated goals the thrill of the hunt for the elusive Tupperware. We had been planning this weekend since Thanksgiving and needed the weather to cooperate. Luckily Mother Nature did indeed send us some good weather but not before burying all our potential cache finds under some snow and ice....

We began on Friday afternoon and after what seemed to Jason to be hours of driving the GPS unit bonged we were close to our first stated goal, a cache named 'We Wish you Well', well disguised inside a wishing well in a small park just outside of Danville, PA. After rooting around a bit at ground zero our search was rewarded with a unique cache container that was not the usual Tupperware. Being a bit warm out we just had to stick around a while to play in this nice newly constructed park.

I think someone had a good time in the park. Next it was on to the Buckhorn to locate "Boppin' at Buckhorn", an annoying micro-cache near an abandoned section of the Columbia Mall that eluded us a year ago on Father-Son cache weekend 2006. I'm not a fan of these type of caches but can't stand the thought of having one get away from us. Now last year I searched and searched and searched but came up dry. Jason slept in the warm car while a cold biting wind zapped my energy on that cold and gray day. This time we walked right up to it. Instant find. Go figure...

After this successful hunt we headed off the the Wendy's in the mall for lunch. This was the first eating establishment on Jason's restaurant itinerary. We then completed two more caches before deciding it would get too dark when we arrived at our final destination. We skipped the additional 3 caches on our list and pressed on.

We arrived at "the big house", as Jr. calls it, just as it was getting dark. Despite the doom and gloom forecast if ice and snow blocking the way in we were able to pull up without a problem. We were greeting inside by a live Christmas tree, something that hasn't adorned the house since 1995. It was nice to see and it put a nice touch on the weekend.

While I set about unpacking our bags Jason decided to reconstruct a roller coaster with his new iCoaster set

We lounged about a bit and then headed off to Jason's second requested restaurant, Henry's Ghost Steak House in Henryville, PA. Henry's is the latest incantation for this one building nestled on a sharp curve on PA 715. A few of the on-line reviews I read were good so I agreed with his choice and we headed out.

Being our first time here, no matter which incantation, we had no idea what to expect. The interior was pleasantly decorated even if it did feel like a crazy mashup of the 1970's and 1990's. There was a distinct wet ash odor coming from the fireplace that temporarily assaulted my senses but that soon passed. The food did live up to its reviews and Jason enjoyed his kids meal but our young and inexperienced server couldn't get his order right no matter how many times I tried to explain it to her. What part of 'he gets french-fries and a dessert as part of that' could she not understand? It says so in big print in the kids menu.

We never did get his free dessert and I ended up paying for the free fries but it was getting late and I was tired and decided it wasn't worth the fuss over a measly16 bits. We'll give the Ghost another opportunity on a later date. Despite all that you can see from the smile the Ghost was good.

Saturday was a slow day that featured our only home cooked meals, breakfast (requested menu was pancakes and bacon) and lunch (grilled cheese). Reminder to self- bring a decent frying pan next time.

After spending the afternoon visiting some friends I hadn't seen in quite a while it was time for phase 3 of the weekend, the BB gun shoot:

Jason is a great shot. After seeing A Christmas Story for the umpteenth time he loves to quote "but kid, you'll shoot your eye out...". Don't worry... he is wearing his safety glasses!

After shooting Black Bart and the rest of his Dastardly Gang it was time for restaurant three on this ever more expensive itinerary, the Dansbury Depot. This is one of Jason's favorite spots and I like heading here myself. The food is always good and I never had a problem with the service. They also have Boylan Soda, made from real cane sugar, so I always have to get a bottle when I come here.

There is just something about an old train station....

Sunday AM featured restaurant 4, Billy's Pocono Diner. We met up with some friends who can be scary looking that early in the morning:

After Billy's it was time to reactive the geocaching phase of the big weekend. First stop was God's Glorious View in Mt. Pocono. I couldn't believe we found this one which as I fear was buried under the snow and ice pack. We got real lucky here! The view did live up to expectations. I only managed 2 snaps. This one is looking towards Camelback ski area

and this one which I believe is overlooking the new Mt. Airy Resort and Casino.

After some fit and start navigation we were off to successfully find Tomato Soup. To avoid a stream crossing in the cold we approached from a back way in and discovered more snow and ice.

This marked our completing the entire Soup for Lunch cache series we started during our 2006 adventure. We thought we'd check out the nearby Big Pines Forest cache but the trail was much too icy, with a steep slope straight into the creek, for us to chance.

On our way back to teh car we spotted this tree growing out of a rock, reminding us of nature's power and how life always finds a way to survive.

We wrapped up by finding two more caches and one DNF, an annoying micro in the woods nobody has found since August of 2006. We headed back to the big house, packed up, and ran out the door to head home before the big snowstorm struck. We made it back to Danville stop at McDonald's, our final restaurant on the itinerary. We picked this one because of the awesome play-place.

Our geocache weekend adventure yielded a meager 8 finds and 1 dnf. For some folks 8 finds in a morning isn't even breaking a sweat. All told I must've dropped over $125 on food and gas for the weekend. But it is not about the numbers.....

The time we spent together was priceless and for good measure had some geocaching and visiting old friends thrown into the mix. I can't wait for next year.