The aftermath:
More work here tomorrow.
Update: Took longer than anticipated, but the station is back on the air with generator power as of 8:15 am, Thursday (11/1). Commercial power restoration is not expected until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest.
Update: Commercial power restored on Thursday, 11/8 for a total outage of 10 days. One good thing about incidents like this, I now have a fresh set of contacts for all the important people connected to servicing this site.
Last night, I went to bed and all was well with the world. This morning, I woke up and, Hey Now! It would seem there is trouble brewing out in the ocean. The weather people are talking of some superstorm, a combination of a category two hurricane and a winter blizzard with a tsunami and a bit of dust bowl thrown in for good measure. Okay, I made up the dust bowl part.
Here is the five-day forecast:
It looks like the Mid-Atlantic coast is in for a direct hit, but the probabilities include coastal NY, NJ, and CT. Thus, storm preparation has begun. Today’s list is as follows:
Perhaps this storm will be one of those over-hyped non-events. Only time will tell, however. If it continues on its present course, then personal preparation will consist of:
Better to be prepared than to sit in wet clothes wishing it wasn’t so. More updates to follow.
Saturday, 8 am Update:
During Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, it was the rainfall that did the most damage. Looking at the current rainfall predictions, it appears the worst of it will be to the south by a good bit:
These things can change as the storm progresses, continuing with preparations.
Update, Sunday afternoon, 3pm:
The storm is still progressing more or less along the forecast track. Further to the south and in coastal areas, there is a strong possibility of flooding. Around this area and north, it looks like it will be a mostly wind event, with only 3-4 inches of rain predicted. Preparations are being finalized, I have added the chain saw to the truck inventory.
Political content warning: This post will contain statements that may include political points of view and/or be contrary to the narrative currently espoused by the corporate media outlets.
This election season, all the stops have been pulled out. Massive amounts of money have flowed into the accounts of political candidates for nearly every office though out the land. Over and over again, we hear political advertisements about this, that or the other candidate doing something unethical or just plain wrong. Is it true? Is it a lie? Does it matter? What effect does this have on the general population? If psychological studies are correct, hearing the same statement repeated several times, people will tend to believe it, even if they are not paying attention. As George W. Bush once said while he was President of the United States:
“See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
This is the same mechanism used to brainwash people into religious cults.
Are we merely electing people because they have enough money to pay for the advertising required? Are they qualified to figure out how to fix and get the economy going again, or are they simply rich enough to buy the election?
At what point do we look at our own employment and our roles at various media outlets and wonder what connection it has with the current political and economic conditions in the US? For myself, I almost never listen to the radio stations that I do work for, other than to evaluate technical quality. As far as the programming content, I honestly could not tell you whether station X plays polka or top forty. However, even with that limited listening and knowledge, it is impossible not to miss the political propaganda on the airwaves.
What role has the current media model played in the election of corrupt (or at least inept) public officials? What role is the current media model playing in the partisan, divide and conquer, keeping the masses distracted while they finish the looting scheme? When do we become concerned that, even in a small supporting role, we are enabling the brainwashing of the general public?
We all have our own financial responsibilities, and that is true. However, perhaps it is time to step back and look at the big picture. There are many parallels in the history of humanity between the current situation in the US and other, long-gone governments like Rome, The Ottoman Empire, The Weimar Republic, and the former USSR. It’s time to ask, where are we going and what is going to happen when we get there?
This is a trip down memory lane. Someone has taken the time to preserve and document Radio Shack, its founding, history, and all of the catalogs printed from 1939 to 2005. The website archive is Radio Shack Catalogs.
I remember reading these very catalogs cover to cover when they came out in the mid-1970s. At that time, this stuff looked expensive, and in relative dollar terms compared to today, it was. We had one of these computers in our “Math Lab” in 9th grade:
In fact, when I found one of these computers stashed away in the corner of a transmitter site, I had a flashback of Mr. B scowling as yet another student made a mistake plotting x/y coordinates on the backboard.
Ahhh, memories. Enjoy!
