Really trivial stuff that amuses you...

[Torsten]

Turns out it's been there at least a few years and I just hadn't noticed it earlier - or forgotten about it.

But why is it still there in 2020? I'm speculating: It may be because of the store's proximity to a road junction where in the past people would often be waiting for a ride to a another small community. I suspect cell phones were a rare item in that group. I'd sometimes see people there late at night, and can imagine them wandering to the store and asking to use the phone to call for a ride. That would be irritating if it was a regular occurrence. There's now a free bus service between the communities, and I haven't noticed anyone waiting there since it started. I wonder if the phone gets any use these days. I'm now curious to when it will disappear as all the others have.

[Trebuchet]

The Four Fingers of DEATH!

Ok, that's a YouTube video of a guy in 2016 reviewing a 1982 military ration. I suspect it's older than he is.

And I'm a LOT older than he is, my military "career" having lasted from 1971 to 1972. MRE's hadn't been invented yet; but in Basic Training we sometimes got MCI's, which replaced, but were still known as, C-Rations. They weren't all that bad.
The best thing about them was they came with cigarettes. We non-smokers could trade those with the addicts for darn near anything!

[Gillianren]

Though I can't help wondering if it's why my dad started smoking; apparently, lots of people in the military did because, hey, free cigarettes.

[Trebuchet]

Though I can't help wondering if it's why my dad started smoking; apparently, lots of people in the military did because, hey, free cigarettes.

But not very many of them. I think it was a little pack of four in the c-ration accessory kit.

[Trebuchet]

Forty years ago at this time I was in the shower in a Travelodge motel in Wenatchee, WA. My wife heard a noise and looked out because she was concerned someone might have run into our car. They hadn't. She had heard the eruption of Mt St. Helens.
We were on a little overnight trip in our Mazda RX-7, which had just turned 10,000 miles the day before. We had gone north from our home in Everett, crossed the North Cascades Highway, then gone down Hwy 97 to Wenatchee for the night.
Leaving Wenatchee, we went south across Blewett Pass to Interstate 90 then East to go visit my parents in Tacoma and celebrate Mom's birthday. We were listening to music on cassette and unaware of events. We did notice it got dusty as we neared I-90 and I complained about farmers plowing on Sunday, and noted that it looked as though Ellensburg was having quite a thunderstorm.
It wasn't until we made a rest stop on top of Snoqualmie Pass that we learned what was happening.

[schlaugh]

Forty years ago at this time I was in the shower in a Travelodge motel in Wenatchee, WA. My wife heard a noise and looked out because she was concerned someone might have run into our car. They hadn't. She had heard the eruption of Mt St. Helens.
We were on a little overnight trip in our Mazda RX-7, which had just turned 10,000 miles the day before. We had gone north from our home in Everett, crossed the North Cascades Highway, then gone down Hwy 97 to Wenatchee for the night.
Leaving Wenatchee, we went south across Blewett Pass to Interstate 90 then East to go visit my parents in Tacoma and celebrate Mom's birthday. We were listening to music on cassette and unaware of events. We did notice it got dusty as we neared I-90 and I complained about farmers plowing on Sunday, and noted that it looked as though Ellensburg was having quite a thunderstorm.
It wasn't until we made a rest stop on top of Snoqualmie Pass that we learned what was happening.

Google Maps says you were 122 miles away. And Wikipedia has a filtered audio wav file of the eruption captured from 140 miles.

[Swift]

The Four Fingers of DEATH!

Ok, that's a YouTube video of a guy in 2016 reviewing a 1982 military ration. I suspect it's older than he is.

And I'm a LOT older than he is, my military "career" having lasted from 1971 to 1972. MRE's hadn't been invented yet; but in Basic Training we sometimes got MCI's, which replaced, but were still known as, C-Rations. They weren't all that bad.
The best thing about them was they came with cigarettes. We non-smokers could trade those with the addicts for darn near anything!

I've watched this guy's videos. I don't find the old rations interesting (sort of like watching someone trying to poison themselves), but I do like the ones where he tries rations from around the world. Both the foods and the technologies are interesting.

[Swift]

Forty years ago at this time I was in the shower in a Travelodge motel in Wenatchee, WA. My wife heard a noise and looked out because she was concerned someone might have run into our car. They hadn't. She had heard the eruption of Mt St. Helens.

I was in my first year of grad school in Rhode Island, so I wasn't too concerned about any direct impacts. I do remember that some time after I got a sample of the ash, and being a solid-state chemist, I did an x-ray diffraction analysis of it. I don't recall what I found. I also don't know what I did with the sample; wish I still had it.

I've visited the Mt. St. Helens park twice since the explosion; once in about 1992, and again in 2010. It was very interesting to see the changes over the years.

[Van Rijn]

I had forgotten it happened that long ago. I was far away going to a university, just watching on TV. I remember getting annoyed at all the attention that old man got, people basically acting like he was a hero for staying and dying at his home. I have some sympathy for him, I think his wife had died not long before and he probably didn’t care that much anyway, but I didn’t see it as heroic. His home ceased to exist from that. I was more impressed with a geologist that died at a monitoring station and had helped convince authorities to better restrict access, likely saving many lives.

I looked up this video and playlist on YouTube:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fArB5J...fRoBCh&index=1

[Van Rijn]

I've watched this guy's videos. I don't find the old rations interesting (sort of like watching someone trying to poison themselves), but I do like the ones where he tries rations from around the world. Both the foods and the technologies are interesting.

Yes, I would probably buy some of those current international MREs if they weren’t so expensive. They sound interesting, and I would like some long lasting emergency food on hand. (Incidentally, don’t even think about buying commercial MREs at the moment, all sold out.)

[Van Rijn]

That’s it - did a search and the old man’s name was Harry R. Truman, no relation to the late president. He had a home and recreational lodging for people to stay, but basically had retired when his wife died. Reporters kept talking to him, and he vowed to stay at the mountain although there was pressure to get everyone out of the area (some locals had been getting angry about the restrictions, like people today with stay at home orders).

Anyway, I remember a ridiculous amount of attention given to Truman, even a song was written about the guy, but I didn’t see anything special about getting himself and a lot of pet cats killed.

[Extravoice]

Yes, I would probably buy some of those current international MREs if they weren’t so expensive. They sound interesting, and I would like some long lasting emergency food on hand. (Incidentally, don’t even think about buying commercial MREs at the moment, all sold out.)

I keep an emergency kit, mostly intended for hurricanes, that includes enough food - mostly in the form of MREs - for about a week. I used to update everything in Sept (Sept 11 made a good reminder), but switched to March (6 months out from Sept) because purchasing supplies in the height of hurricane season was sometimes problematic.

Well, we all know what happened this March.
Now, I have a few cases of MREs that are a bit older than I’d prefer. I’m sure they are still quite edible, though.


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[KaiYeves]

I had forgotten it happened that long ago. I was far away going to a university, just watching on TV. I remember getting annoyed at all the attention that old man got, people basically acting like he was a hero for staying and dying at his home. I have some sympathy for him, I think his wife had died not long before and he probably didn’t care that much anyway, but I didn’t see it as heroic. His home ceased to exist from that. I was more impressed with a geologist that died at a monitoring station and had helped convince authorities to better restrict access, likely saving many lives.

I looked up this video and playlist on YouTube:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fArB5J...fRoBCh&index=1

Harry Truman (no, not that one) was the old man, David Johnston was the scientist. I played a character based on Johnston in a recent role-playing game on another forum.

I’ve been fascinated by the eruption of St. Helens for a long time and I’d love to visit someday.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Every once and a while today I get this feeling today is Sunday or I forget today for most people in Canada is holiday.

[schlaugh]

Every once and a while today I get this feeling today is Sunday or I forget today for most people in Canada is holiday.

Heck, with this stay at home mess I’m telling time by the expiration date on the milk jug.

[Trebuchet]

Harry Truman (no, not that one) was the old man, David Johnston was the scientist. I played a character based on Johnston in a recent role-playing game on another forum.

I’ve been fascinated by the eruption of St. Helens for a long time and I’d love to visit someday.

I have far more admiration for Johnston than for Truman. Who got all his kitties killed.

It's kind of weird that the MSH sites aren't open this year because of the virus. We'll have to go when things open back up. We've been several times previously.

[Gillianren]

I read the oral history of the eruption a couple of years ago, and from the sound of it, he would have been more likely to evacuate if everyone hadn't been making such a big deal of how he was staying. People who knew him, and there still are plenty of those, say he was feeling pretty pushed into a corner by the end of it, like he couldn't leave without compromising his principles even though he was realizing that, yes, leaving was the smarter idea. I would agree, too, that there are definitely parallels between the handling of the eruption and the handling of the pandemic.

[Torsten]

I'm amused in a way, though it's hardly trivial, that the Mt. St Helens eruption even influenced my career. In late February or early March of 1980 I was in that part of Washington on a field trip for a class in tree genetics and improvement. One of the corporations that owns a lot of land around the mountain hosted us, and we toured some of their research stations and plantations. When the explosion happened a few months later I couldn't help but think that I'd just been there - "how weird is that?" I wondered whether those sites had been affected.

A valuable lesson learned in the years following the eruption, and advanced by ecologist Jerry Franklin, is the importance of biological legacies in the recovery of disturbed ecosystems. These ideas became a staple component of site prescriptions I wrote over the years. Also amusing to me is that by chance I met Franklin at a conference in Denver 17 years ago.

[Gillianren]

Irene woke up when I was about half-awake this morning, came and stood in our doorway, realized we were still asleep, and was so upset she went back to sleep right there. Meanwhile, Simon--who likes sleeping in random not-his-room places around the house--turned the TV on at some point in the living room. Possibly after I went to bed; I don't know. But I definitely heard it earlier.

[Hornblower]

Tonight I decided to watch a movie by means of rental on Amazon Prime, after having previously done so several weeks ago. When I clicked on the appropriate icon to proceed, much to my surprise the movie started playing when I had expected to need to log in and place the order. After the end of the movie some sort of error message came up, saying that there was no active rental in progress and something was wrong with an attempt at making payment arrangements. It said to go to customer service and gave me an error number to give them. I closed that window, and lo and behold, there was the normal message saying I could watch it again for the next 46 hours. I went to the bank website to check the credit card account, and it showed that the Amazon rental charge had gone through correctly. Clearly I was not a freeloader on this one. Apparently there is some software bug that was of no consequence.

[publiusr]

Forty years ago at this time...My wife heard the eruption of Mt St. Helens....we went south across Blewett Pass

That explains everything

“we made a rest stop on top of Snoqualmie Pass”.

TWIN PEAKS should have ended similarly—Cascades and all.

[Extravoice]

We have a battery powered kitchen wall clock that suddenly decided to run fast.

I’ve never seen this happen before. Maybe it wants 2020 to end quickly, too.

I’ll try a new battery. It can suffer through this year in realtime like the rest of us.


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[Trebuchet]

I've seen battery clocks run fast when the battery is low myself, I think.

[ozduck]

Our Prime Minister was doing a Press Conference today to to spruik a new scheme offering grants for extensions and building work on private houses to get employment going again. They went to a new subdivision for a backdrop. As the PM starts his spiel the homeowner walks out of his front door and irately tells everyone to get off my lawn as he had just reseeded it. So the entire group had to shuffle a few steps onto the street. (The Scomo bit is just his nickname - for Scott Morrison)

https://www.facebook.com/news.com.au...3179489116014/

[Hornblower]

Yesterday I was amused to find a tiny cable adapter I had ordered online from Staples for home delivery in a shipping box about 12 inches wide.

I assumed it was something else until I picked it up and found it light as a feather. The adapter is for connecting a miniature headphone plug to a Lightning plug for an iPhone or iPad. The little white box alongside it is Apple's original container, which is very sturdy and would have fit easily into a small padded envelope.

[ozduck]

I assume that they would ship a new laptop in a wooden tractor case? They appear to have surrendered in the 'War on Waste'.

[Swift]

I assume that they would ship a new laptop in a wooden tractor case? They appear to have surrendered in the 'War on Waste'.

No, I'd assume the opposite, that the laptop would be shipped with no padding in an envelope and it would be smashed when it arrived.

I recently had a delivery of a a drug I take. It is dispensed as a nasal spray and it comes in a glass bottle with a plunger style sprayer on top. The little cardboard boxes the bottles come in were just put into an large shipping envelope and when I received it, the bottles had come out of their little boxes and were just rattling around inside the envelope with no padding. It is amazing none of them broke.

[ozduck]

You are quite right of course - the more valuable or fragile the object then the less care will be taken. It almost seems to be related to Parkinsons Law of Trivia.

https://effectiviology.com/bikeshedd...of-triviality/

[Trebuchet]

I am currently cleaning the oven. It's a back-breaking chore; I had to press TWO buttons!

[PetersCreek]

I am currently cleaning the oven. It's a back-breaking chore; I had to press TWO buttons!

Um...yer pressin' 'em wrong. Use a finger.