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28 October 2009

off the grid / lions & tigers & opossums & bears O My! / Jewish candles for the dead

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http://www.wmua.org/audio/wmua.m3u
High Quality Stream (MP3 128k)
WMUA-FM
University of Massachusetts at Amherst


Tuesday 22:00-24:00
Nick Russo
"Nothing to Say & Saying It"
experimental music

http://131.229.129.164:8000/listen.m3u
WOZQ-FM
Smith College (all-women)
Northampton Massachusetts USA

Tuesday 23:00
In Bed with Sequin and Feather

* * *

We've moved a bit too far west to get good reception of some of my favorite college radio stations, so I'm getting their web streams, and you can, too.

A few minutes ago -- about 02:00 -- I went outside and an oppossum scurried around in the yard from the bushes to beneath a car.

Monday morning the Generac propane-fueled emergency electric generator was finally installed and tested. Now every Monday morning it will automatically power up and go through a 15-minute self-test. If everything's fine, it goes back to sleep for a week. If something's wrong, we have four or five business days to call the electrician and get it fixed.

Last winter an Epic Ice Storm knocked out everybody's electricity for 8 days. The electrician says there've been LOTS of inquiries about the amazing Generac. You want propane because propane is easy and safe to store. Gasoline-fueled generators are a big safety headache. It takes a lot of gasoline to get your house through three or four days without electricity, to keep the fridge and the electric well pump running, and some lights.

We also use a wood stove now. We have moved sideways along the Fossil Fuel Infrastructure to rural and farm Propane, and backwards a century to logs. Lots of Yartzeit candles around on the first floor -- they make the best and safest emergency candles, you can leave them burning all night without burning down the house, if you don't mind Hebrew prayers for the dead all over the living room. They're available at every supermarket.

God Bless the inventor of 4-wheel drive. Who was that? Willys and the World War II Jeep? Who invented 4-wheel drive?

The Map has now been tested on two sets of visitors who've never been around here before. The first made it fine, but the others got lost, so we have clarified some landmarks and glitzed it up with William Morris and Sinbad and The Old Man of the Sea. If you follow the new map carefully you will probably not be surrounded by wolves or cannibals.

It's bow-hunting season, wear a safety-orange hat and do not act like a moose or a deer. We still haven't posted our NO HUNTING signs.

If you come visit, I am not recommending you stop at the Castaways, it's just an important landmark to find the Whately Inn and the country shortcut to Williamsburg. Locals call it The Whately Ballet.

The truck-stop diner a mile north of the Castaways has top-notch food, free wi-fi, is lots of fun 24/7, and also will rent you a shower with a towel for $1.

The Whately Inn is one of the finest restaurants I've ever eaten at, and will whomp you in the face with the very best ye Olde New Englande Countrie Inne experience.

Saturday is Halloween! Place your bets! How many Trick Or Treater kids will walk a mile or more through the woods, dodging coyotes and bears, for our candy?

[ ] 0
[ ] 1
[ ] 2
[ ] > 2

They must REALLY love candy!

3 comments:

Paul P said...

I have no idea who invented the 4 wheel drive.

Vleeptron Dude said...

hey hey Paul Paul --

Wow, it was much earlier than I thought, I thought 4x4 was a Jeep thing from World War 2.

Check this out (but there's more, the wiki goes on and on and on ...)

======
Wikipedia
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The true inventor of four-wheel drive is not really known; the history of such was not well recorded. In 1893, before the establishment of a modern automotive industry in Britain, English engineer Bramah Joseph Diplock patented a four wheel drive system for a traction engine, including four-wheel steering and three differentials, which was subsequently built. The development also incorporated Bramah's Pedrail wheel system in what was one of the first four-wheel drive automobiles to display an intentional ability to travel on challenging road surfaces. It stemmed from Bramagh's previous idea of developing an engine that would reduce the amount of damage to public roads.

Ferdinand Porsche designed and built a four-wheel driven Electric vehicle for the k. u. k. Hofwagenfabrik Ludwig Lohner & Co. at Vienna in 1899, presented to the public during the 1900 World Exhibition at Paris. The vehicle was powered by an electric hub motor at each wheel. Although clumsily heavy, the vehicle proved a powerful sprinter and record-breaker in the hands of its owner E.W. Hart. Due to its unusual status the so-called Lohner-Porsche is not widely credited as the first four-wheel driven automobile.

The first four-wheel drive car, as well as hill-climb racer, with internal combustion engine, the Spyker 60 H.P., was presented in 1903 by Dutch brothers Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker of Amsterdam. The two-seat sports car, which was also the first ever car equipped with a six-cylinder engine, is now an exhibit in the Louwman Collection (the former Nationaal Automobiel Museum) at Raamsdonksveer in The Netherlands.

Designs for four-wheel drive in the U.S., came from the Twyford Company of Brookville, Pennsylvania in 1905, six were made there around 1906; one still exists and is displayed annually.[6] The second U.S. four-wheel drive vehicle was built in 1908 by (what became) the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company (FWD) of Wisconsin (not to be confused with the term "FWD" as an acronym for front-wheel drive). FWD would later produce over 20,000 of its four-wheel drive Model B trucks for the British and American armies during World War I. Thousands of the Jeffery Quad (1913-1919) were similarly used ...

Vleeptron Dude said...

And I gotta brag ... I drove a huge green International Harvester Travelall -- sort of like a station wagon on steroids -- all the way around Mexico, it took us EVERYWHERE and ANYWHERE!

The only problem with it was ... I didn't know at the time the Travelall was Mexico's favorite hearse. In new towns, a serious-looking businessman in a dark suit would try to buy it from me. (You couldn't buy it in Mexico or import it from the USA.)

So I spent months driving all over Mexico in a big green hearse. No wonder people stared at me oddly ...

But man I am telling you that sucker would go ANYWHERE! And gas in Mexico at that time was practically FREE!