OK, one more of Charley;



Your Friend in Texas

I am smitten Mr K, Charley looks cute, cuddly and full of fun. Is Charley a boy or girl and how old is he/she?

OK, just one more;



Your Friend in Texas

Sue77 wrote:

I am smitten Mr K, Charley looks cute, cuddly and full of fun. Is Charley a boy or girl and how old is he/she?

And the answer is...? Charley also looks like a deep thinker. How is he/she adapting to the new home and people?

That's one seriously cute pup. Nice pictures, that first photo is calender quality. I'm rather taken with the intense blue of the bluebonnets. Is that representative of their real life shade?

Cute puppy, Mr. K.

Hi Everybody;

Thanks, Charley is a male Standard Poodle, and he will be 7 weeks old Wednesday the 17th.

The Bluebonnets look just like that, and in a large field it looks like there is no green showing, they are beautiful, in late March, April, and May.

These images are just from a Texas Bluebonnet Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/texasbluebonnetsightings/photos_stream
The red flowers are called Indian Paint Brushes, and sometimes there is a whole field of Red.

OK, We Texans love Longhorn Cattle, and Bluebonnets.

History of the Texas Bluebonnet:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/flowers/bluebonnet/bluebonnetstory.html

Your Friend in Texas

Charly looks like he's enjoying his new life . I'm a bit jealous of all that blooming colour, spring only just taking hold here with a handful of Dafodills everything else still a bit brown and grey.

Hi Cowdy;

Charley is growing, he looks bigger and feels heavier, in just the last 4 days. We took Charley to get a "New Puppy Check-up" and the Vet said he had bad knees, we will watch for any problems, but it is more of a problem for dogs that do a lot more running and jumping than we expect him to do. This may have something to do with the low price that the breeder was charging for her puppies. We are having trouble getting her to answer her phone, My Wife talked to her yesterday, but she was at work, and she said she would call back after, no call-back, and when my Wife called back, her phone was "Unavailable". I hope we can get the promised AKC Registration Papers when they are done in a month or two. Not that big a deal, but it would be nice to get this all squared away.

For all my Flower Buddies:

I took this yesterday, and it had just started opening.

For all people everywhere;
The Bombing in Boston is causing a lot of excitement in the News. Same for the Ricin mailings. We all must stay Vigilant for the Real-Life Trolls. Giskard's attitude about Trolls is something we all need just a little of.
Constant Vigilance, Constant Vigilance!

Your Friend in Texas

I've known a few people who have dogs with joint problems and they give them a caplet of cod liver oil once a day

Our Tess is a Labrador, so racially prone to hip issues. Her Hip score was quite good as a pup so shouldn't have problems (fingers crossed). She does tend to grumble for a day or two after a lot of exercise (now she's a middle aged pup, but she's not the only one). Like when we go to visit my parents and she spends half her time running around their garden with my sisters dog. Also being a lab she loves the idea of addition to her food intake even if it is cod liver oil.

Hi Mr K really hope you and yours havn't been affected by the explosion in West.

Ditto. I just woke up to the news.

Mr. K, are your daughter and her boy friend alright?

Nakia

Hi Everybody;

Yes Katie is fine, they had no problems in Waco. The town where the explosion was is West, Texas, it is about 20 miles north of Waco, and I haven't got around to asking her if she heard it. We will be going to Waco to a concert that Katie is in. The concert last week was a small group, the Baylor Opera department, and this week it is a bigger concert put on by more music programs. I will ask her if she heard the explosion in West. Her Boyfriend is going to school in New Orleans, Louisiana. But there where several people that where fighting the fire, and the explosion was very powerful, and it may take a few days to find everybody, and the closest people may have been incinerated, and never be identified, or located.

Here is a reasonably accurate news video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6anyQIDKNY&feature=player_detailpage

Here is a phone video of the explosion, lots of bad language, and wind noise, so you may want to turn down the sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTVUA-jJ11I&feature=player_detailpage

And yes, a lot of people talk that way in Texas.

Ammonium nitrate is the fertilizer that this company makes, it is one of the most important, and common fertilizers in the World, and it is used all over.

Back in 1947, in Texas City there was a very large disaster involving this same fertilizer, but it was on 2 ships in dock at the Texas City Port. As a Chemical Plant worker, I studied a lot of Refinerie and Chemical plant accidents, and ammonium nitrate is probably the worst chemical that can explode. Read the Wiki page linked below, it is an interesting read, and far worse than the explosion in West.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster

Now don't let this get you down, we all like and need the products that get made in big Chemical Plants all over the World, and most of the time it is safe. I was safer at work than I was driving the one mile to get to work. But sometimes there is a problem, and out of all of the problems a few actually cause any noticeable damage, and a few of them are very bad. We all would be unable to eat enough if it was not for ammonium nitrate, and it is shipped in large quantities all over the World. Just before we made it to 1 Billion people, there was not enough food to feed everybody, and about that same time the process to make ammonium nitrate was developed, and we have been feeding more and more people, and with better food. We have to take a small amount of risk every day, this one is just a little scary to the uninitiated.

Your Friend in Texas

Thank you for the update, Mr. K, any disaster that may involve someone we know always feels more serious so we are glad to hear you and your loved ones are alright. It is sad for those who lost people and our sympathy goes out to them but being human we are relived to know all is well with you.

Well put Nakia. I too am glad you're all okay.

Yes Nakia;

It is always sad and for people like me, that have worked in chemical plants, and have gone through a lot of Safety Training, find this kind of accident very disappointing.

Ammonium nitrate is one of the chemicals that if it is on fire, it is time to set-up hose monitors (devices that will point a stream of water without having to be held by a Firefighter), and back out of the area. Ether they did nor realize this, or they did not think it was all that bad of a fire, but from the phone video, it looks to me an out of control fire before the explosion. In watching the News, I have not heard any report of evacuations before the explosion.

The Volunteer Fire Department should have known that the plant was working with ammonium nitrate, and have made a plain for how to deal with it, and of course, the plant workers should have been talking, and giving a lot of advice to the Firefighters. Advice like: Set your houses, and back out, and Immediately start evacuations in the whole town. If someone, anybody that has anything to do with ammonium nitrate, must know the history of this chemical, and what to expect in a fire.

At every Chemical Plant in the US, and just about every where else in the World, there are a lot of good Safety Rules, Practices, and Procedures that all Chemical workers, and transporters, know, and have a lot of training in, but sometimes that is not enough. The people fighting this fire had enough time to do a effective evacuation, and if they did not have the right equipment, they had links to other fire departments, and other chemical plants in a safety and disaster organization. Chemical Plants are part of at least one Emergency Management organization that covers more than just one company, even in a place way out in the country, like West.

The placement of this plant in the middle of a small town probably has more to do with the history of the plant, and it's relationship with the town. I would expect that if the company rebuilds, that it will be 2 or 3 miles away from town.

Back in December of 1984 in Bhopal, India there was a Union Carbide plant disaster that killed around 8,000 people. The Bhopal Disaster is considered the worst Chemical Plant Disaster in history. After studying this accident at the time, and later, it was not Union Carbide's fault. In India it is a government requirement to do business in India, to have the local company owned by Indians at about 51%. As a part of the Indian Culture, Safety is not a high priority, and the Union Carbide part of the organization, tried all they could to enforce good safety rules and practices. But because the plant management was controlled by the Indian company, the safety equipment was not maintained, and the land outside the fence was allowed to become a shanty town.
Link to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Link to Union Carbide site for this disaster:
http://www.bhopal.com/faq.htm#faq8

Interesting reading, if you want to know more about this accident.

Your Friend in Texas

Thank you for the information, Mr. K. Let's move on to something more pleasant such as the concert. How was it?

Really interesting info Mr K, not surprised you'd have local perspective on the incident, but that you also have industry and technical insite is a bonus. Sorry supposed to be veering onto more pleasant subjects, so as Nakia said how was the concert?

Hi Cowdy;

Glad you asked, but I have neglected this Blog thing, and I do want to tell you about the Concert, but it is past my bed time. So check back tomorrow, I plain on getting this up-dated. I also joined a new Website... more later.

Your Friend in Texas

Hi Everybody;

Life has gotten a little busy, and I have not posted much in this Blog Thingy.

I joined a new site, well new to me; http://www.darkcreations.org It is a big Modding site, with a lot of activity. I will keep this Blog going, and not start one anywhere else, but I will be active at Dark Creations.

Charley is growing, and doing fine, he is running around and sleeping a lot, not at the same time, but a lot.

In the 1st post of this tread, I added a Link to an interesting You Tube, 8 Hours of Rain and Thunder, you can see the 1st post at the top of every page. Just in-case you need to take a nap. Now if anybody knows how to download the sound from this You Tube, so I can have it as a sound file, that would be great. I would love to play it for sleep time, for me, and my Dogs.

The Concert we went to last weekend, was performed by the the Baylor School of Music, the whole school of music, and a Choral group not part of Baylor. They preformed Beethoven's 9th Symphony, I had known about this work and listened to recordings in school, but this was the 1st time to hear it in person. It was very moving, and more interesting than you would think. A live performance of music like this is way better than just a recording any day.

Beethoven's 9th, is a symphony of 4 movements or, parts, as some of you know. For me the 1st was not familiar to me at all, but parts of the other 3 movements where very familiar, the 4th movement has all the Voices singing with the Orchestra, with 4 soloists singing at the edge of the stage. I was sitting in the 3rd row, and the Soprano Soloist was about 10 feet away, and she was wonderful, and very loud. As she sang a loud part of her solo, with the Choirs packed in the back of the large stag, and the full Orchestra all playing and singing as loud as they could, I could hear her voice reflecting of the back wall of the Hall. Led Zeppelin doesn't have anything on her, and she did not have any amplification other than what she had developed over years of training as an Opera Singer, Raw Human Power.

Katie was singing in the back, and I could see her through a gap in the Orchestra the whole time, she looked like she was really into the music, as she always does.

For the 1st 3 movements, the Chorus, and Vocal Soloists are not on stage, so at the end of the 3rd movement, there was a longer than normal pause, it was a break to let the 200 or so, Chorus and the Soloists get on stage. Before the Symphony started, the audience was told about this break, and asked to stay in their seats, but at the break, a lot of people at the back of the auditorium, started talking and some got up, like it was an intermission. The Department of Music Dean was trying to say something about the Explosion in West, Texas, and he got a little perturbed at the people making noise, and he had to ask them to be quite several times, and he finally raised his voice. That was kind of entertaining. But they all quieted down, and the speech by him, and a student went on, as the Vocal people came on-stage.

We stayed over-nite, and we took Charley with us, but we did not want to take Charley to the Hotel, so he stayed in Katie's apartment. Katie played an Opera on her record player, for Charley to listen to while he was in his crate, while we where at the concert, and later for sleeping. Katie's Turntable looks like an old Record Player, but it is a new one, it has a USB plug, and it can play a record over and over, so that is what she did. Charley listened to the Opera, and as far as we could tell, he liked it, and did not whimper, or cry all night.

OK, just in-case you where curious, lots of young people that are serious about music, have a turntable hooked up to their sound system. I have been told that the sound is better, and if you have old records, it is better than a CD, for the sound quality. Katie can use her USB Turntable to record to her computer as a sound file, and upload it to her phone, as portable music. But when she is in her apartment, she plays her old Opera LP Records on her turntable. She had several old LPs of Opera music before she knew she could find a usable Turntable. Some Opera recordings are apparently only available on Records, not in any digital format, unless you use a USB turntable and record to a file. Odd mix of old and new technology.

Your Friend in Texas

I've heard of Dark Creations via postings by AndalayBay on the Beth forums but never visited it till a few minutes ago. It and TES Alliance seem to be the strongest 'independent' modding sites at the moment.

Vinyl would appear to be having something of a resurgence. I don't possess any myself but certainly am sceptical of the supposed superiority of digital over analogue. Apart from anything else, analogue (including tv broadcasts etc) is merely degraded by damage or interference whereas with digital it's gone for good. 'Snow' or hissing is tolerable, unidentifiable pixilated blobs or 'reading disc' messages are not.

There's nothing quite like the feel of a vinyl LP in your hands. I've kept mine, can't bear to part with them and we have a 'record player' we use every now and then.

Glad you had a good time Mr. K and Charley sounds to be doing well.

Thanks Wet & Sue;

Vinyl LPs, I used to have some, and I knew several people that had thousands, but I don't have a turntable hooked up to my sound system any more.

Analog Computing was the up-and-coming way to do computing in the late '50s, and early '60s. but with the equipment they had back then, it was easier to develop digital computing, but Analog could do things a Digital system will have far more difficulty "calculating" things like Vision, and separating and selecting a mix of conflicting signals.

NASA used Analog Computers through the Apollo Program, if I remember right.

I think for some uses, Analog would be better than Digital, things like true Consciousness, or Artificial Intelligence. That is how our Wetware works in us, and all Animals.

OK, now I got to check on some VAing over at Dark Creations.

Your Friend in Texas