Buc-ee's

Folks in Texas are well aware of Buc-ee's but people east of the Sabine River have never seen one.....until recently. Buc-ee's opened their first store outside of Texas on I-10 east of Mobile, Al at the exit that you take to go to the beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. In short, Buc-ee's is the WalMart of interstate rest stops. It is a truck stop without the trucks and therefore ideal for families travelling for vacation. They have 120 gas pumps and rest rooms so clean and large that you could hold a party in them. You can buy all the snacks and road food you desire as well as getting hot BBQ, sandwiches, candy and coffee.

If you are on the road and see a sign with a huge beaver, be sure to stop and take a break.

Migration of the Snow Birds

My wife and I decided to visit our oldest grandson in the Red Neck Riviera to decompress from the holidays. The coast of Alabama is quiet in the winter season. And the people of Alabama are always friendly and helpful so going out to shop and eat is a pleasure. While they don't have the summer crowds, the annual migration of the snow birds is well underway.

Snow birds, for those who are not familiar with the species, are a type of Northern Humanus Yankeeus. They come south to avoid the worst of the winter weather. The migrants are typically the elder of the species as the young enjoy the winter weather and may use the cold and long dark nights as an excuse to mate. The snow bird is typically an early feeder and will frequently leave eating establishments before 7:00 PM leaving the feeding area open for the local species. One can determine the home territory of any particular bird by the unique tagging that can be seen on their method of transport. You can see such strange markings as Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The Snow Bird provides a welcome change to the invasive flocks of Summer Beach Aficionados that arrive after May Day.

Arcin' and Sparkin'

The best show at Boston's Museum of Science is the electrical show. They have the worlds largest air insulated Van de Graaff generator and they do several free shows a day. The room is always full. The highlight of the show is when the presenter enters the Faraday Cage and lets the lightening bolts zap him.

More USS Constitution

Here are some more photos of "Old Ironsides" in drydock.

USS Constitution

The USS Constitution is currently in dry dock and tours are limited. All of her guns have been removed to lighten the deck load and her masts have been taken down. You cannot go below decks due to construction. I saw this barricade and sign just outside of the dry dock. Don't go swimming here or you might get shot.

Montmorency Falls, Quebec

Montmorency Falls is the highest waterfall in Quebec. It is 100 feet higher than Niagra. It is about 12 clicks outside Quebec City. If you emgibben the second photo, you can see a string of climbers on the cliff face to the right of the falls.

Cathedral Ledge

Cathedral Ledge is a massive granite outcropping in North Conway, NH. Access to the top is easy. There is a road that leads to a parking lot and then it's a short walk to the cliff face. It's a popular rock climbing venue and there was one climber there on the day we visited. The funny thing is that he must of run into a bees nest because while he was hanging on his belay he started swatting at things and yelling. It would have been a bad situation had he been free climbing.

Mount Washington Cog Railway

The Mount Washington Cog Railway is one of the few cog railways in the world. It will take you to the top of Mount Washington, which is the highest peak in the Presidential Range at an elevation 6288 feet.They used to use coal fired steam engines but several years ago they succumbed to financial and environmental pressure and switched to bio diesel engines. They make their own bio diesel from waste cooking oil. The trip is faster and cleaner but somehow has lost some of the romance. The first picture is of "Old Peppersass", one of the original engines. It is built on an angle but would be level when on the slope. The others are non related steam farm equipment that they keep around for eye candy.

You see how pretty the weather is down in the valley. On top of the mountain the visibility was less than 50 feet.

You Had Me at Bacon

Posting has been light because I've been on a family vacation. My wife and I took the three grandsons to the White Mountains in NH, Quebec City, Canada and Boston, Mass. I'll be posting a few things from the trip.

These are the first. Zeb's General Store in North Conway has a selection of bacon flavored products.

Doesn't it make you drool?

Red Dog at the Museum of Science

Grandpa took me and the boys to the Boston Museum of Science. While we were there we went to the electrical show. They have the worlds largest air insulated Van de Graaff generator and every hour they turn it on and send lightening bolts arcing through the air. At one point, they had a cute girl get into a Faraday Cage and then they shot lightening bolts at her. But she was perfectly safe. 

Slide Rules

We took our grandsons to visit the MIT Museum on our recent vacation. It seems the museum had a display of slide rules and I took the opportunity to teach the boys about an instrument that was now obsolete.

Slide rules make use of logarithms. When working with logarithms, the log of the product of two numbers is equal to the sum of the logs of each number. When Napier invented logarithms in the 1600s this rule was used to simplify arithmetic because the multiplication of large numbers could now be reduced to simple addition. I don't think they teach logarithms any more. Slide rules are just logarithmic scales inscribed on a ruler. You multiply and divide by adding or subtracting lengths on the ruler.

As an engineering student, my slide rule was my constant companion. Indeed, it was one way to identify who was an engineering student. Mine served me well through graduate school in 1974. At that time, calculators were making their way onto the market but they were very, very expensive. For a while, there was a controversy about allowing students to use calculators as it may give them an advantage over poorer students who could not afford one. That didn't last long as soon calculators became cheap.

Lots of stuff was designed and built using slide rules. The scale forced you to think about the accuracy of your calculation as the scale would get cramped in numbers above 5 and you couldn't carry too many decimal places. The term "slide rule accuracy" was a common benchmark. Today, an engineer can calculate out to 6 decimal places but it doesn't mean that his answer is any better than the guy with the slide rule. It also forced you to use scientific notation in order to keep track of the decimal place. A common multiple guess test trick was to provide answers differing only by a factor of 10 to see how well you managed the decimal point.

Slide rules are no longer manufactured. K&E, who made most of them, retired their dies and donated them to the MIT Museum. Knowing how to use them is a useful skill.

Riding the Tube

On the Senate subway to the Capital Building.......

Soup Line

I told the boys they will need practice in standing in soup lines, given our current administration. Luckily, the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC has a place for them to get practical experience.

Dead Guys

If life can throw you a curve, death can do the same. On a recent vacation to Italy I visited the tombs of some famous artists and scientist and learned a little about how they ended up where they ended up.

Santa Croce in Florence is the largest Franciscan church in the world and the final resting place of some famous folks. For example, Michelangelo. Here's his tomb. But he didn't want to be buried in Florence. He wanted to be buried in Rome where he did all his work. However, the city fathers decided that because his family hailed from the area that he needed to be at home. It probably also provided a nice tourist attraction.

Here is Gallileo's tomb. Now, the Church had some "issues" with him as you might recall and he wasn't considered worthy of being buried in sacred ground. However, the Franciscans hid his body until such time as the Church changed their mind and then placed him in the tomb you see today.

Dante is next, except he's not there. He is really buried in Ravenna. The city fathers tried to get Ravenna to give him up but they refused. (There must be good money in dead guy tourism) Therefore, the tomb is empty.

Santa Croce seems to be the place where all famous Italians are honored. There are also memorial plaques for Enrico Fermi and Marconi, even though their bodies are no where near the church.

ANother famous guy buried at Santa Croce is Machiavelli. His tomb was undergoing some work and was covered by scaffolding. But he's really there.

Finally we have Rafael. He is buried in Rome in the Pantheon.

Look, Ma, I'm Driving!

Grandson at the controls of the USS Albacore.

and driving a DUKW at Boston Ducks.