Drummond's Days

Cleaning up my office, I found a Dec 2002 copy of Astronomy magazine. I am an amateur astronomer - built my own telescope years ago - so I pick up the magazine now and then.

The 8" Meade LX90 telescope was featured for $1495.
The 8" LX200GPS was $1999.

So I decide to check out Meade today and find that comparable telescopes now cost $1799 and $2599. Not only that, Meade moved its manufacturing facility from California to Mexico last year.

http://www.meade.com/factorytour/index.html

Higher prices, cheaper labour, and less quality. And lets not forget - unemployed Americans who used to work for Meade.

Shame on Meade. I will not be buying their products.

I wonder if the Volt will live up to all the hype. 230 mpg. I really doubt that. Apparently that number is based on plugging it in all the time, and driving short distances. Mileage should be based on a long trip of at least 200 miles.

The big reason I am a fan of cars like this is the fact they are so quiet. I live near a highway, and would appreciate less noise. Noisy motorcycles should be banned.

Hopefully we'll see a change in vehicle technology, instead of just talk and the status quo. Nothing has really changed much in the past 30 years with vehicles except a small increase in fuel economy.

Was 85 degrees today. Too hot for me, so I retreat to my air conditioned refuge to fiddle with the computer. Got a new 22 inch monitor, but would rather have my old 19" LG CRT, but the old beast was acting up after 9 years of service. These flat screens are not as good as the old tubes....you cannot reduce the resolution to something sensible like 1024*768 without getting a blurry screen. So you have to make due with the ridiculous 1920*1080 res and tiny fonts. I have adjusted windows to enlarge the Windows fonts, but a lot of web pages produce almost illegibly small letters. Gotta use the scroll wheel and Ctrl key to enlarge......

Health care debate illustrates how immature the US is when it comes to dealing with a big problem that is undermining our competitiveness and the health of the citizenry. 47 million have no health care, which is appaling for a developed country. No other "advanced" countries have such a situation. Reason - for profit health care, which makes trillions for HMOs. Campaigns of fear and disinformation have scared huge numbers of people, who want the status quo. So why doesn't the US look at countries like France and Denmark which have excellent public/private systems? Can't do that, this is America. We need a profit driven, made in AMERICA plan. Hell we can't accept that someone else is doing it better and cheaper. We can't have non-profit health care which will be cheaper. That is un-American! L

The outcome will be little or nothing achieved. Obama's reform plans will be a failure. Just as big $$$$ HMOs and the politicians in their pockets killed Bill Clinton's attempts in the 1990s, they will kill any reform this time too. There is too much money at stake.

I'm recovering from surgery. Cartilage in my knee was damaged due to a fall, had the knee scoped Wednesday, and I'm on the mend. Soon I'll be as good as new. Doctor said there is no arthritis in the knee. Great.

Soon I'll be back in the gym, shedding pounds. Need to lose about 20 pounds. Going to the Caribbean in Dec, so I want to look good on the beach.

40th anniversary of moon landing this week. Sad to see how little we've done since. Space station is a huge waste of cash, achieving nothing substantial. Shuttle is about to be retired, and there is no replacement. We'll rely on Russian rockets.

If I'm lucky, I'll live another 30 years, and I doubt that we'll be back to the Moon in my lifetime. This talk of going to Mars is foolishness when you look at our current situation. Mars...maybe in the 22nd century.

China will be first on the moon in this century.

 

A big bough from an old oak tree fell down in my front yard early this week. Fell on the wires but amazingly they didn't break. Super thick communications and internet/cable saved them. The telephone company came and trimmed the tree. The old oak was infested with carpenter ants, and they had weakened the tree to the point of failure. I think this tree is at least 200-300 years old, as it is 4 ft in diameter. It was cut down yesterday. I plan to count the rings when I get a chance.

Its sad to see such an old and majestic tree being destroyed. As I watched the chain saws hack it down, I thought to myself that I am responsible for the death of this old and majestic life form. I felt a bit guilty and sad. To be fair, the tree sustained major damage long ago, likely in a hurricane, as the trunk has a big split in it. This is how the ants likely got into the tree. Sentimentality aside, it had to go. It posed a danger to the road and the wires.

Imagine what the world was like when this tree was a sapling. No railway, just horse and buggy.  Clean air, lots of wild animals and Indians about. Flintlocks. The US was a very young nation, or maybe it was still a colony. Slavery was permitted. Hard to say if someone planted it. The road nearby has been used for centuries, since the 1760s anyway, and people lived around here since then.

There are 4 other oaks in my yard. I would say the one in the back yard is about 100-130 yrs old. The others are 100 or so.

They should be around long after I'm gone, one would think.....