The goslings are fledging.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 09:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Getting big. It must be a different family unit, since there are four of them.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 09:22 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Back in the 1980's, the first car alarms started showing up, and the very earliest ones were set up so that if they got triggered, they'd keep making noise until the owner showed up with a key. I worked for a while in an office building right next to the Alewife parking garage in Cambridge, and we could hear those going off all the time.

I remember reading a column in the Globe about one of those cars, in midwinter, parked on a city street. Its owner was on a trip, and the alarm went off and ran for hours. Finally, some anonymous neighbor (as described in the column) went out with a diagonal cutter, crawled under the car, and started cutting wires until the sound stopped.

As described, a few days later the owner came back from his trip, and called a tow truck to take the car to be repaired.

The ones requiring keys didn't last very long on the market, because cars with them tended to get vandalized. So the new plan was that it would run for 30 or 60 seconds, or even longer, and then shut itself off. That was a lot more satisfactory.

Some of them make their own noise, and some of them honk the car horn. Each is annoying in its own way.

What brings me to thinking about this is that there's a car in our parking lot with the car-horn type alarm, and it's gone off about six times today. This particular one runs about five minutes before giving up, and I'm beginning to entertain fantasies about vandalism.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 12:00 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 The poster is reminded that such thoughts are double-plus-ungood.

Posted by: The NSA at June 08, 2013 12:50 PM (F7DdT)

2 Car alarms do have their moments, though.  Like in 2007, when the Blue Angels appeared at the Duckford AirFest.  When the Diamond Formation went over Pond Complex, they set off every single car alarm.  Which made me laugh, hard, because mine was turned off. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 08, 2013 02:47 PM (lpH3d)

3 Brick's comment I think covers the details, haha.

Yeah, they're annoying.  I've also never heard of them actually working properly.

Posted by: sqa at June 08, 2013 02:58 PM (ehYGU)

4 I've long suspected that the "person" we know as Brickmuppet was really just a false identity created by some intelligence agency.  No real person could have that much bad luck and still maintain their sense of humor and sanity...

Posted by: Siergen at June 08, 2013 03:02 PM (Ao4Kw)

5 The one I hate most is the one that plays a medley of different alarm sounds, because that one seems to go off all the time at the slightest (or no) provocation.  It's especially annoying.

I've said that if I ever see someone ACTUALLY stealing a car equipped with one of these, I'd applaud.

Also, Portland's airport has a parking lot right under the approach path, so cars with overly sensitive alarms will be set off continuously.  Often the owners return home to dead batteries.

Posted by: Mauser at June 08, 2013 09:14 PM (cZPoz)

6 There was a story from one of the southern Houston areas a few years ago, where an apartment dweller heart his car alarm and looked off his second story balcony to realize his rims were being jacked. He put a stop to it immediately, although the perp escaped.

Why make the news?  This is Texas. He opened fire with a rifle from the balcony; the guy couldn't get out fast enough.

Posted by: ubu at June 08, 2013 09:23 PM (GfCSm)

7 He's lucky he wasn't arrested for that. (On the other hand, Texas...)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 08, 2013 09:34 PM (+rSRq)

8 HPD is unusually forgiving if you have no record.  And there was a strong element of a "deliberate miss" to the encounter, given the range.

Not to mention the "castle doctrine" is very strong here.

Posted by: ubu at June 08, 2013 09:40 PM (GfCSm)

9 Texas is unique to my knowledge in allowing the use of lethal force to stop theft after a verbal warning.  I wouldn't depend on their courts allowing this forever, e.g. such a provision in Oklahoma law has been judicially nullified, as has my home state of Missouri's crystal clear Castle Doctrine, but for now, "Don't Mess With Texas."

Posted by: hga at June 09, 2013 05:59 AM (NWOOu)

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Do they put afterburners on UPS trucks these days?

I ordered a new sound module from NewEgg and it's supposed to be delivered today. It was 3-day UPS delivery and I've been watching the UPS track for the package. Yesterday at 3PM it was in Des Moines, and at 6PM it was in Spokane. Now there are some time zones involved. Des Moines is Central Time and Spokane is Pacific, so it was actually 5 hours.

I don't believe it. No way that could be driven that fast. And I don't believe that they used a jet. (UPS uses a hub-and-spoke system for their jets, and neither Des Moines nor Spokane are hubs.)

I think Des Moines was late getting their reading in. The track shows my package in Louisville on Wednesday afternoon at 2 PM. So it took a full day from Louisville to Des Moines but only 5 hours to Spokane? Not likely.

Anyway, I get my new toy today. (It shows "Out for delivery".) Yay!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 07:34 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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For most of the time that I've owned this phone, I've had intermittent outages in my network connection, which usually required a reboot to fix. Finally it went out completely for a week and a half, and last Saturday the nice lady at the Verizon store (who, by the way, was about 7 months pregnant) replaced the SIM.

I haven't lost coverage since. 100%, 24/7. I don't remember it ever going this long before, and now I think that the SIM was the problem all along. So it's a pleasant surprise, and I'm almost out of the habit of checking the phone every hour or two.

I just took some more frame grabs, but I'm not sure I'll post the resulting anims. (Well, maybe one of them.) One is Nanami firing an energy blast in Dog Days 2. One is Eclair training on bird-back from Dog Days. And suddently I remembered a scene from Mouretsu Pirates which would make a good one: Haramaki's "What does this button do?" moment. I might post that one, just for grins.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 06:37 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Here's hoping we can get some chibi anims too.

Posted by: Jaked at May 30, 2013 09:11 PM (Hkdzd)

2 What does that button do?   You don't press the Red Button on a COMBAT VESSEL.  Bad things happen.

Posted by: sqa at May 31, 2013 03:26 AM (ehYGU)

3 I'm a born lever-puller.

Posted by: Mauser at May 31, 2013 03:53 AM (cZPoz)

4 The Army, Navy, and Air Force all have (or used to have) nuclear weapons. The Marine Corps has never had nukes of our own.

We used to joke that the reason was quite simple: there's never been a LCpl that could resist pressing a shiny red button.

Posted by: Boviate at June 01, 2013 06:54 PM (GByt2)

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Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 09:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So my brother took me over to the Verizon store, and the nice lady messed with my phone for a few minutes. And then she told me she'd seen it happen before, and what I needed was a new SIM.

Doing that took a few minutes more, and now my phone works again. Which is a relief.

Remember the ad that said, "I've fallen and I can't get up!' Little old lady. It came in for a lot of snide humor (i.e. "I've fallen and I can't reach my beer!") but when you're feeble and live alone, it's a very real fear. This phone was my answer to that, and for a week and a half it didn't work. I was feeling a bit insecure. Now it's back again.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 11:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I just went out for a walk and spotted this in a street gutter, right in front of the school next door:

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 01:05 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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They lost one. I wonder what got it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 02:56 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Crow, turtle, dog, or snake come to mind.  Snake is least likely, since MomGoose would probably beat the crap out it.

When I was a child, we had a hen that only saved two of her chicks from some threat that took the other chicks one night.  We deduced that when the hen jumped up to run away from where they were sleeping, she had clamped her wings to her sides an managed to carry a couple of chicks with her.

You'd be surprised what a turtle can pull under.

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at May 11, 2013 04:23 PM (66bg3)

2

I've seen raccoons around here, and that's my bet.

A couple of days ago one of the neighborhood cats was looking very interested, but one of the adult geese chased it away. I doubt the cat was responsible.

As far as snakes go, the only ones we have around here are garter snakes, so far as I know, and for them grasshoppers are more their speed.

There are no rattlesnakes on this side of the Cascades.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 11, 2013 05:52 PM (+rSRq)

3 I grew up in Tennessee and the chicken-eating snakes around there were the so-called chicken snakes.    (From a quick Google search and looking at the images, I'd say they were black rat snakes.  You guys in the west don't appear to have them.)

We pulled one out of our barn that was around 6 feet long.  That particular snake had attempted to eat a hen that had made a nest near where that snake was living between the stalls (which is why we were looking for it).  It hadn't been able to dis-articulate its jaws enough to swallow the hen, but it managed to open its mouth sufficiently to make it up to where the wing connects to the breast (going headfirst, of course).

I've seen a crow snatch a baby rabbit from the ground, so I'd think that a gosling would be small enough to nab.

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at May 12, 2013 08:51 PM (66bg3)

4

I don't think we have any snake that big here in the Willamette valley.

There are crows around here, but they're thoroughly cowed by the ducks and geese. Sometimes when I toss bread out, the ducks and geese come in readily and start gobbling it. Crows sometimes fly down and land, but they stay outside the area where my bread is. They won't come in and compete directly; they hope to dance in and seize a piece and then fly away. Sometimes they do; mostly they don't. The crows act like they're afraid of the ducks, not to mention the geese.

I can't see any of them trying to do that with a gosling, given how afraid they seem to be of the geese.

My vote is for something furry. There are opossums all over the place around here, and I mentioned that I've seen a raccoon. I wouldn't be surprised if there were skunks around here, too.

And at least once I've seen a coyote here in the yard. (The poor thing was badly hurt, probably hit by a car.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 13, 2013 08:01 AM (+rSRq)

5 I've seen eagles, skunks, and racoons in plenty just a couple miles south of you.  Just the other week I saw a pair of coyotes hanging out near the Fanno creek trail, which goes through your area.  A few years back we had multiple sightings of a mountain lion (or maybe it was a bobcat) in my neighborhood.  Any of those critters would happily make a meal of a gosling.  And of course I'm sure there are plenty of cats or stray dogs that would happily snatch a gosling if the parents let it stray far enough away.

Posted by: David at May 14, 2013 10:26 AM (qw+UI)

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We've had a lot of ducklings around here but this is the first time I've seen goslings.

UPDATE:

By the way, the beavers have been at work again. The water level in the creek is up at least three feet. I don't know where they've been working (though I have my suspicions) but I think the creek looks better this way, and the water fowl certainly like it more.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 12:42 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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