A panorama of sunflowers, created with Irfanview and The Gimp.

A larger version is available on my zooomr page, click the image to go there.

Cactus Flower

This cactus flower popped up when I wasn't looking. I've spent a couple of hours trying to identify it, but I find I cannot. Do YOU know what it is?



Some sort of Mammillaria I think, maybe a elongata or a sphacelata, I don't know.

This and That

First, the latest sunflower picture.

How many sunflowers can you find?



Now, some model railroad stuff.

I believe this is a Dyna Models haberdashery or shoe store. Many of the glue joints have let go. It was assembled with Ambroid glue, you can see where it caused the paint or wood to change color. Or something. My grandfather built this in the 50s. The top of one of the end walls is missing. That is one reason the roof is so crooked.



In my attempt to rehabilitate it, I took off the surely-patented Dyna plastic roof and cleaned off MOST of the Walther's Goo, using lacquer thinner and and brass wire brush. It took a long time, and was not entirely successful. This is about halfway through the job.



This is pretty much what it is going to look like, finished. It's now a bicycle shop! Imagine that!
I think the roof is not really crooked, I think (I HOPE) that it just isn't seated completely.



A close up, showing how little I did. I guess grandpa painted it after assembling it. Boy, that Ambroid glue really soaked into the wood and affected the paint! I am hoping that when I hit it with some Dullcote, that sheen from the glue will disappear.



The whole top side of this wall was broken off and disappeared, so I had to replace it. I also got new plastic windows to replace the missing metal ones. The replacement siding is not clapboard, but scribed, but you can't REALLY tell the difference!



Looking through the window we see the poster hanging on the wall, and the door that really needs more frame around it! Poster and all signs are from the telephone book.



Through the other window. That Schwinn sign looked better when not so enlarged!
I intend to get some bicycles to display in the window and inside.



Things I should have done differently:

• Should have disassembled EVERYTHING!
• Should have squared-up the walls a bit more carefully
• Should have replaced warped floor (from being mounted in wet plaster)
• Should have then painted everything properly.

Woulda coulda shoulda!

I decided on a business and made a sign for the container office. That white window glazing is not so effective, I'm thinking. I'm going to get some heavy equipment, like a bulldozer, to display outside the office. The model was inspired by this one, which looks so much nicer, plus it's only half as long. Mine still needs an air conditioner.



This HO scale farmhouse was built by my grandfather, back in the 50s. I believe it was a Revell kit. Looks a bit worse for wear!



That's about it for now!

Tomato

I felt bad after visiting the Tomato Librarian's blog, because I had no tomatoe pictures up, so I took a couple today.

Six bushes in a raised bed. Well, SORT of a raised bed!



Then I took a picture of the tomato hanging thereon. While editing the image, I found there were TWO tomatoes! Sneaky little booger!



And a deformed sunflower. This poor plant was eaten partially through by rats or snails or cats or something, fell over, but kept on growing anyway! And now it is flowering!



Well, that is all from the land of plants!

Later!

Flower Times

A couple of sunflower pics, just for you.

Look, up in the sky! It's...SUPER SUNFLOWER!



And that is not even the "Original" size!

Here's another.

Hey, you looking at ME??



Also, "Large", but not "Original".

One more. I caught this bird pecking at the sunflower leaf. What is up with THAT?



That one IS the "Orignal" size.

I was going to note the sunflower variaties I planted, as there has been some inquiry, but I seem to have thrown the seed packages away. Alas!

I Got Links!

Just for a change, I thought I would post some links I saw on Reddit, because I'm sure YOU don't spend hours checking it.

Why Black Nerds Are Unpopular. I think first you have to get over wanting to BE popular. I'm still working on it.

Human Mirror prank. Cool. I wonder if I would have even noticed?

Essential Life Lesson #1: Over is Right, Under is Wrong. Settles the toilet tissue question once and for all. With illustrations.

And now, back to the garden!

A hummingbird in the garden, getting drink of water.



More pics on my zooomr page, but this is the best one.

Big Feet

I think those darn roofers stomped their big roofer feet on my work desk, because I found several more broken things.



I think the mo'sickle will be without a sidecar in the future, but the rest of the stuff is easily repairable.

Oh, well, my fault for not cleaning off the desk. At least I took the Cutty Sark into the house for the duration!

Later!

In The Yard

I uploaded a passel of pictures (garden) to the zooomr page, all 700k each, so go there if you want to see the BIG PICTURE!

A Pretty Fair Day

Before I get started, Foodopolis has new posts, this one (as of this post) is about The Mad Greek restaurant in Baker, California.

Yesterday we went to the Del Mar Fair, now apparently known as the San Diego County Fair (italics mine). Also, apparently they have a theme every year. This year is something about sports. Whatever.

We headed over to see if the archery demonstration was still on, but it was not. The archery booth wanted five bucks to shoot seven arrows. We declined. We then headed over to see the sunflowers and the horses. We watched a fellow shoeing a horse, some amateur roping. Some lady was a bit freaked because a Shetland pony was out in the sun with no water, even after it was explained to her, by the horse people, that the horsie was only out for an hour, then went back into a stall, with water.

We stopped by the SANDARC booth, having spotted a dipole, but no one was there. M. mentioned that maybe it was Field Day. Turns out, it was! Missed it again! They otter have a Field Day station at the fair, it would be good exposure to the public, I would think.

We next found our way to the woodcrafts exhibit, which had many weird and wonderful things, although I'm not sure why anyone would build a half-scale kayak. Saw this model of the H.M.S. Bounty.



Not sure how one shoots a cannon through a deadeye, but what do I know?

Next we went up to the collections. There were several interesting ones, but this item caught my eye.



It is reminiscent of a Tamiya military model kit box.

Eventually we wandered over to the gardening area, saw a pack of vicious koi.



A lady was feeding them fish food, so that the visitors would not. The little suckers would jump right up on the rock! There are five more pictures of the koi, just click over to my zooomr pages(by clicking an image) and wander about. And remember, even YOU can look at any big version of a picture I didn't use here.

This water feature is one I want to remember, in case I ever get my own house.



Simple, but charming and peaceful.

Next, we was resting in the succulent area, after looking at the bonsai and tray landscapes.



Surely you will want to click over to zoomr and view the Notes I made on the image!

Some fellow said the fair was busting attendance records, but it didn't seem too crowed to me.

Lastly, we parked off-site, as the parking fee is ridiculous, plus, we like to ride the double-decker bus if we luck out. And we did.



The weather was nice and not too warm, but I DID wear long sleeves and the geek sun hat. No pics of THAT!

Later!

Testing Animated GIF 2

Same pic at Googledocs

Flower Time

Way up high, in the sky, the sun flowers are reaching, ever reaching.



And I'm laying on the ground, getting twigs down my neck!

A wittle purple sweet pea!



The line of of sunflowers grows!



More purple sweet peas! Why only violet?



A bug on the sunflower the bloomed first.



Slightly out of order, the sunflower that bloomed first!




Later!

Radio Radio

The boss left this nifty old radio behind this summer. It's a Zenith All Transistor Royal 8. I don't know what the eight stands for. Eight transistors? That's a real leather case!



And that's real shiny metal there, too! It's a heavy little sucker!
And it has BOTH kinds, AM AND FM! And AFC!



And here are the guts. Feel free to count the transistors. This is so discrete!



So the deal is, I needed a six volt power supply for this baby. I found an appropriate wall wart, but it had the wrong connector. This guy take a little miniature phone plug. I found the adapters for a universal wall wart, but not THIS adapter, nor the universal wall wart, either!

So I'm standing around at lunch, watching some wimmen dump stuff in a dumpster. I see a cable. I pull it out. It has a universal wall wart attached! W00t! But, it doesn't have the correct adapter.

So, I'm at home. I'm warming up the soldering iron. I'm drawing the power jack schematic, gonna switch it out with an audio jack that I DO have the adapter for. I'm looking for the hank of small solder in a drawer. I find an adapter. An adapter for a universal wall wart. The CORRECT adapter. SCORE!

I plug the adapter in. The polarity is not indicated on the case of the radio. Of course. I've got a 50/50 chance of getting it right. I've possibly got a 50/50 chance of blowing a transistor or a capacitor. I plug it into the radio, I hear a noise from the speaker. Nothing else. I reverse the adapter, I plug it in. I've got RADIO!

The volume control is a little scratchy, but she works fine otherwise.

Sounds good, looks good!

Later!

Gardening

The first poppy has bloomed.



The first sunflower to show a hint of bloom, although a bunch of them have flowers growing.



Some of the sunflowers are taller than me! They must be the giant ones!

A lot of the marigolds have finally bloomed, too. I figure the sweet peas will show some flowers in a couple of week.

Later!

Teeth Day

I went to the dentist today, with GREAT trepidation. Ten minutes later, I was gone. He reached in with some tweezers and pulled out the piece of bone. A piece SO SMALL, a little bigger than a pinhead, that I couldn't even SEE it, till he pointed it out. I thought it would be AT LEAST a quarter inch long, with a giant hook on the end.

So I went back to work.

Here is today's mystery pic, possibly the first in a series. Or, the last.



This is about twice as large as "life size". Or maybe even thrice. Look at the measuring device!

I know what it is, can YOU guess?

I acquired it back in the 70s, when I replaced it with a new one. If you can name the brand name of what it came from, I'm thinking you are doing pretty good!

Later!

Teeth Redux

Best shot I can get of the inside of my mouf.



Still can't see it. But I can feel it!!

Later!

Of Teeth & A Bird

I've a chunk of tooth or bone or SOMETHING coming out of my gum where the wisdom tooth was pulled a couple of months ago. It has sharp edge that is worrying the heck out of the side my tongue, and the tip of my tongue is worrying itself on IT, in turn. I tried to take a picture of it, but cannot seem to get the right angle.

And you probably didn't want to see it, anyway.

But I did!

Dentist appointment next Wednesday.

-----------------------

This probably belongs on the bicycle blog, BUT... riding home today I saw a bird. Looked sort of like quail, and my first thought was: Turkey! But no. I'm thinking it was maybe a pheasant. I didn't notice the characteristic long tail feathers, but it DID have a red patch around the eyes. Of course, didn't have the camera with me!

Falling Down

Two more sunflowers, the last two, I think, in the front yard, have been uprooted.

It's GOT to be a cat.

Meanwhile, in the back yard...

I started most of the sunflowers in peat pots. I didn't "plant" the pots properly, so many of the sunflowers are falling over.



A fairly useless photo showing the base of the plant, but not illuminating the peat pot!



That's not really soil, it's about two inches of little leaves. Very loose! Next year--USE SOIL!

I tied it to the stake with twice. I have a BIG ball of twine!



The green line...



The fairly lame compost bin is in the background. I REALLY should get rid of that white junk in the fence, it looks AWFUL!

Later!

Shocking

The latest update on the power switch deal is--The sainted Mr. M. is trying to get the manufacturer to give him a new switch to install. Well, I'm thinking, they are NOT going to let a customer install his own switches. In fact, they want to send out a whole new panel. So we are waiting on that.

Truly A Tuesday

That is to say, it's Garbage Day!

Finally scraped the paint on the vehicle, through a series of misjudgments. I am throughly p.o.ed at myself.



Not a mark on the concrete pylon!

I REALLY need to get my act together!

Here is a rose from our garden. I'm told it is a "Peace" rose.



It struck ME as interesting that the boxes for frozen pizza have the same background, just colored differently.



Just one big pizza Photoshop, I guess!

I dropped into Radio Shack and purchased a couple of Modular Jacks for the outrageous sum of nearly 20 bucks so as to construct a LAN network cable testing device as per this article.

Later!

Flower Time

Mystery plant! Never noticed it blooming before, in twenty years of living here!

Tentatively identified as Arum maculatum. Also called Lords and Ladies.



One of these is with flash, one is without. I can't remember which is which!



What's all that gunk around the base of the spadix? Pollen?

Later!