The Coffee House

Gary A. · Jun 21, 2016

Buenas Dias Coffee Hosers. The heat wave seems to have broken. We turned off the A/C last night. We'll see how things cook up today. Wildfires everywhere out in the West. After four years of drought there is plenty of dry/dead fuel, the uber low humidity of the heat wave, topped with some wind creates a pretty volatile situation ... Merely thinking of a match will probably start a fire.

In yesterday's LA Times, a very interesting article on California and the summer solstice. The Sun will set in Bard, located in California's southeast corner @ 7:49 p.m. and in the most northwestly corner of California, sits Cresent City which had a sunset time of 8:55 p.m. No other state in the CONUS has such a wide divergence in its sunset times. The article mentioned that Los Angeles lays east of the capitals of six states. Bard situated in the Mojave Desert, is in one of the driest and hottest places on Earth while 820 miles away, Cresent City is on the foggy Pacific coast averaging 67" of rain a year and is surrounded by one of the world's greatest Redwood forests. Bard had a high of 118F on Monday while 67F was the high in Cresent City.

PS- For you Michigan fans, Ontonagon has the latest sunset in the lower 48 states. Ontonagon will have a snake dance and bonfire in honor of the summer solstice.

limr · Jun 21, 2016

JonA_CT said:
With developing and scanning film running right around $14 a roll, it wouldn't take long to get the investment back.

It will absolutely pay for itself soon enough, especially for black and white.

Gary A. · Jun 21, 2016

@ Jon: Get a dedicated film scanner, while they are much more expensive than a flatbed, they also do a much much better job. In Gary's opinion, the smallest size for a flatbed to deliver a reasonable result is 120mm. The problem is once you get hooked on film, you'll want to go large ... then larger ... And you'll need two scanners.

Or you can scan here ... Eat my BBQ and I'll embarrass you the entire time.

robbins.photo · Jun 21, 2016

jcdeboever said:
My balls are hot

And the stunning visuals continue.. lol

Gary A. · Jun 21, 2016

It was so hot yesterday, that when Gary opened his freezer for a Hot Pocket, it was already done.

minicoop1985 · Jun 21, 2016

It's been gorgeous here. No batwings or itchy sweaty balls.

jcdeboever · Jun 21, 2016

It's so hot that I saw a dog chasing a cat, and they were both walking.

Thank you Johnny Carson, circa 1977.

Gary A. · Jun 21, 2016

Rim-Shot!

snowbear · Jun 21, 2016

In the shop getting tires balanced and rotated, oil changed as well. Outside is thunderstorm with hail. Truck windshield replaced an hour ago, and we have an appointment with the used car folks tonight.

limr · Jun 21, 2016

snowbear said:
In the shop getting tires balanced and rotated, oil changed as well. Outside is thunderstorm with hail. Truck windshield replaced an hour ago, and we have an appointment with the used car folks tonight.

I have an appointment for Friday for Lucille. When I got back from Kansas City, I realized that my front tires are stripped to hell - one down to the fabric and the other down to the metal cord. Buzz got totally freaked out and insisted that we put my snows on the front until Friday. At that point, I'll have 2 new tires mounted and I might need an alignment. It's also inspection time.

It might be Lucille's last inspection :blueface:

She's very close to 200K, she's developing new rattles every day, the CD player only works half the time (I haven't used it in years but used it again during my 15-hour trek to North Carolina), the front left speaker is totally dead, and the front right one cuts in and out (sometimes scaring the hell out of my as the volume suddenly doubles). I'm kind of tired of crank windows and of asking any passengers to please manually lock the door. I've taken good care of her so mechanically, she is sound, but the normal wear and tear on an 11-year-old car with almost 200K is going to mean that maintenance costs are only going to go up.

So yeah, Lucille is definitely in her dotage, and yeah, it's probably time for a new car. But oh, how I have loved that car!! And while I'm excited for whatever I'll have next, I am going to cry like a fool when I have to say goodbye to her :crushed:

Designer · Jun 21, 2016

I once drove a car to the salvage lot because I was just plain tired of some of the things not working, and I wasn't going to spend thousands to get them all fixed.

The AC was kaput.

Lots of dash lights out - pull the entire dash to replace a few bulbs!

Marker lights broken - for which they wanted an arm and a leg for the replacement parts.

Over 200K miles, but it was still running.

The salvage yard sold it as a running car. I didn't care, I didn't have to fool with it anymore.

medic2230 · Jun 21, 2016

Traded my last truck in in perfect running condition with 209,000 miles on it and 12 years old. They gave me right at $5000 for it. It sold before I could get to the tag office to transfer the tag and was already registered in the new owners name.

medic2230 · Jun 21, 2016

Found a sale today on fabric. New teardrop camper is going to be looking sweet in some vintage looking upholstery fabric when I build it. Got over $1200 worth of fabric and other crap for $163. Would have been less but little man needed some buttons, a pillow, a sew on thingamabob and a kids book on crocheting. Told him I don't do that and he informed me his Nana does. Well then.

Pics of the haul.