This is just a post of shout outs and appreciation for all the wonderful times we’ve shared.

Thank you…….

To Elyse, the coolest librarian ever, Pablo KJ4PAP, Kyle and Brennan [no call yet, we need to fix this], Peter, Merritt, Kenn Marshall, Dean W2WDW….

KI4LJM, for reminding me to never give up

Ron W1XBS, for helping me just be myself, now drifting off with the skywaves…

Miguel, Ryan, Frank, and all the others who shared my crazy idea of throwing a freaking hamfest and activation of the TCFW link

Sean Dream, Marishka, and Erica, for being generally amazing artistic badasses

Sergio, who truly shares my insane passion for radio broadcasting

Shane, for being such an inspiration, and Leo, for smiling puppeh support

Josh, who shares my same goofy sense of humor

Jorge, drawing lines in the digital sands

The Radiate family, for all the great times.

Mikey, the RF magician. Seriously….

And to everyone else… You know who you are 😉

These boxes made me mad and very sore today. 16,000 pounds and none of them fit through the doors.

But this box never manages to make me mad. It’s full of pixel kitteh. And look, I managed to get a picture of Joe DiMeowgio! He’d been visiting but I hadn’t caught him there yet.

The dude in the pyramid tent is Ramses The Great and he seems to really like my virtual yard here.

This is from the Neko Atsume game, which is just ridiculously silly and cute.

Another event using it, another time I’m reminded of how happy I’ll be when this lighting board gets replaced. Programming the lights for a show requires using a hair pin to move the broken faders, and knocking on the desk near it fires lights at random.

You know why I love real trolleys more than fake ones?

The real ones don’t randomly depart without signaling into your lane.

Please watch your driving, you smegma loaf.

We need our baylink train.

Anyone in the Palm Beach area or nearby interested in becoming a ham? Come on, join us, it’s fun!

As posted to the HelloRadio list:

Announcement!

Attached you will find the February Ham Radio Class/exam sessions scheduled for 2016 at the American Red Cross in WPB, Fla.

This is a weekend class with the exam on Sunday morning.
The class is free, the exam is $15.00 and the ARRL study manuals are $30.00 and are available at the ARRL.
If you know of someone who would like to earn their Ham Radio license,
feel free to forward, copy, post the attachments and help to mentor a
new Ham into the hobby of Amateur Radio.

Albert Moreschi AG4BV
ARRL Instructor/VE
aug77@att.net
561 714-6673
American Red Cross Disaster Services

Click the preview below for the PDF.

It may be the Suzo-Happ Ultimate Pushbutton but it still has its limits

In other news, Miami-Dade and Broward counties are currently being terrorized by a large group of ATV and dirt bike riders.

Fun times. I’ll probably be able to get photos of all the rare cats in Neko Atsume before I can get home tonight. Thanks, douchecasseroles.

On a side note, Neko Atsume is the most meta thing ever. It is a true slice of modern life and Internet culture– we buy imaginary things in it and take pictures of cats.

Step 1: Loop a really cheezy reggaeton beat.
Step 2: choose one —
* If you’re featuring Pitbull: you’re already set
* If not: Run your vocals through the worst possible granular synthesis then time compress it, causing audible glitches from the sampling intervals and generally making it sound like you’ve got a dude rapping into a digital toilet

You’re a superstar!

No, I’m not looking up examples of this for you. You’ve heard them already. Do you really want to hear more? Probably not.

Here’s a several hundred pound portion of pure 1990s ridiculousness. It’s a Ryko Voyager II car wash. Something is badly wrong with the wheel scrubber on the left side (right of this picture) but it’s in otherwise great shape. The nylon filament brushes are kinda out of favor but they can be easily changed out.

It’s probably really lightly used though. It’s in the middle of nowhere.

The current model, Softgloss Maxx, I’ve seen some of those go to the scrap heap after three years of use. That’s just not a great thing to do to someone who’s invested a couple hundred grand in a wash.

So that, if you’re wondering, is why you still see so many of these older Ryko car washes being moved around, rebuilt, and kept in service everywhere.

If you use a Softgloss maxx and look up in the gantry, there may be a pair of nozzles on a weird gimbal structure that lets the machine rinse under a hatchback car or SUV’s air deflector. This was actually my idea and I gave it to their hopefully former director of R&D so he would shut up and leave me alone one day. Good times…

What ever happened to them making actually good systems? Well, I get the feeling that dude was in a good part responsible, he was very fond of the idea of making the machines wear out over time and even the idea of software as a service to the wash PLCs. You keep paying for a service or you’re stuck with a bay full of stationary plastic.

Back in the 90s, though, stuff was still built to last.

Such is, sadly, the modern American way. Le siiiigh

Found while trying to squeeze a little more life out of this poor tortured old fostex…

This is where the airflow to cool the hard drive has gone for years. The clear plastic covering half the holes is there to avoid shorting out the spindle motor.

With the drive cooling improved a bit it’s stopped freezing, at least…

On a side note, congratulations to Icom for finally deciding to go to lithium ion batteries on their handheld commercial radios. I came to really appreciate that when a kid with mental difficulties hammered me over the head with one a few times. I’m so done with this