What is happening

[Allen]

Originally Posted by vyon

Thanks for the logical explanation, Allen. The problem is now fixed. I didn't have access to a compressor, but thought of a camera lens cleaner that I owned years ago which consisted of a very soft brush attached to a rubber puffer and decided to see if the local camera shop had one. It didn't, but a nearby computer and white ware shop had something very similar which had the puffer and brush separately and that worked just fine. I didn't even have to risk pulling the keys off to get under them. A bonus was a gold card (pensioner) discount of $6.51 on something that only cost $20.00 in the first place! so zzz & ??? work just fine.

Computer shop A which told me I needed a new computer and computer shop B which tried to sell me a keyboard will not see me again.

Dust & stuff off your body is insidious. It will get into almost anything..... well, actually, everything. I don't care how good of a housekeeper you are (or think you are...LOL) the very skin of your body sloughs off as it dies and gets into things beyond belief..... more on that in a moment. Even if there is no monumental buildup in the area immediately under the keys, the nearly microscopic particles will seep down along the shaft that the physical keys are attached to and build up where you need it least; the contact that is actuated by the pressing of the key. Modern typists are used to electronic keyboards and the very gentle touch they take. As the crud builds up, it insulates the contacts hidden in the internals of the keyboard. That's why sometimes a hard strike on a key will make it work when your regular typing didn't. I learned to type on a manual typewriter, so today, over 50 years later, I still "pound" the keys by comparison to younger people. So I notice less interference from that buildup than most.

Regular vacuuming of your electronics is not recommended by the manufacturers because of the chance of static discharge caused by the cleaner's motor and moving parts. But if you make sure the electronics are completely shut down, including not forgetting to shut off the wireless keyboard and mouse, and even unplugging the item (television, COMPUTER, DVD player, and so on) will negate almost 100% of the chance of static discharge damage.

Moderate air pressure up to about 20 or 30 psi will do a much better job of dislodging the crud, which will then be easier to vacuum out/up. Same applies about static, as well as the chance of moisture carried along with the air pressure; moisture is condensed by the compression of the air, and more is formed when that pressure is suddenly released.

[Allen]

Now a little more about dead skin,

Years ago, Kirby vacuum cleaner salesmen would do in-home demonstrations. They had an attachment that connected to the vacuum instead of the bag. It had a plastic window and held a piece of filter paper, much like today's coffee filters. They would vacuum your mattress to show what came off your body while you slept and ended up in your mattress, even after vacuuming with a "lesser quality" vacuum. If the salesman had a strong enough stomach, he would light the filter paper and its contents from your mattress. Trust me, the stench is quite sickening, unbelievably so.

[Zelandeth]

Here's the view out of my bedroom window for the next fortnight...

[mawra]

Zelandeth, that is a very nice view. It looks very warm. Much better than here. We were suppose to get snow. Luckily no snow, but it is cold enough for it.

[Dragon Fan]

We got your snow here in Pennsylvania, 4 storms in 3 weeks. This last installment laid down 15 inches of the white stuff on the 2nd day of spring. I have had enough spring already, Come on Summer !

[Zelandeth]

Originally Posted by mawra

Zelandeth, that is a very nice view. It looks very warm. Much better than here. We were suppose to get snow. Luckily no snow, but it is cold enough for it.

It's downright surreal is what it is! It feels like I'm in a movie...weather wise, today it's been 78F, and with a gentle breeze, really quite pleasant.

[Hans]

Whoa, VERY nice, Zelandeth!
I'm off to Florence, Italy in the near future and hope it'll be a littel warmer there than at home

[P'ter]

I may be absent for a few days. Home internet has packed up and I'm awaiting a new router.

[Brenda]

Zelandeth, I am jealous!


I haven't been in here much in a while but I wanted to tell everyone that I finally got another National Park job! I didn't get one the last two years after having done three summers in a row, so this is very exciting! I'm going to be working at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan, starting... a month from today!!!

[Allen]

Originally Posted by Brenda

I haven't been in here much in a while but I wanted to tell everyone that I finally got another National Park job! I didn't get one the last two years after having done three summers in a row, so this is very exciting! I'm going to be working at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan, starting... a month from today!!!

Guess this means that I won't be coming to visit you over at Montauk this season..... LOL. Good luck with this one! I'm sure the folks down here will miss you.

[Hans]

Good news, Brenda. And good luck at the new station!

[Zelandeth]

Originally Posted by Brenda

Zelandeth, I am jealous!


I haven't been in here much in a while but I wanted to tell everyone that I finally got another National Park job! I didn't get one the last two years after having done three summers in a row, so this is very exciting! I'm going to be working at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan, starting... a month from today!!!

Nice!

We've got family (folks we're visiting here actually!) in East Lansing who we visit every couple of years, who also have a trailer up by Bear Lake - so I know that area pretty well.

...reckon I'm still finding sand from my last visit to those dunes.

[vyon]

Got family staying here too - my oldest son came to Wellington to renew his Hungarian passport and phoned me yesterday. We went to Armageddon together today, and he's flying back to Auckland tomorrow.

[granath]

It's whiter than Christmas outside. Easter's early this year, but even so, this is getting tiresome.

[Allen]

I know what you mean. We went to Quincy, Illinois to spend Easter with the oldest son & family, and had to deal with 6 inches of snowfall, all of it Sunday! I told everybody that Illinois wasn't getting spring this year.

[Dragon Fan]

Got another 7 inches yesterday, But it warmed up overnight and about all melted off already. Very strange weather, even for Pennsylvania where it is said, If Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes, it will change.

[granath]

There's a reason why so many Finns decided to settle in the Great Lakes area, on both sides of the border, about 150 to 100 years ago. The similarity of climate explains a lot.

[mawra]

Incase anyone see that there were tornados in Lynchburg Va tonight, they were not near me.

One did hit across the street from the McDonalds Kibby use to work at.
19000 without power not sure about injuries yet.

[Hans]

Read the facebook message that said you were safe. Of course it wasn't even televised here in Europe as our news never reaches your state But glad you are safe! My family in South-Dakota don't have tornadoes but are still shoulder deep in snow! And it's mid April!

[mawra]

Weathers been crazy here.

[Dragon Fan]

It's Pennsylvania, Yep, Snowing again. anybody see spring anywhere, send it this way! I think it's lost !

[mawra]

It's down in the 40s here, which is cold for April.

[granath]

Glad you're safe, mawra.

[P'ter]

Our weather is as mad! After snow at Easter and a series of cold damp days with the cloud base at ground level; we're about to get a "plume" of hot African air sending temperatures into the mid 20s C.

[Allen]

We spent Easter in Quincy, Illinois with out oldest son & youngest grandchild, then my wife went with a cousin to see her (wife's) sister in Anderson, Indiana. The whole time we were in Quincy it was cold & wet. In fact, we had about 4 or 5 inches of snow on Easter Sunday. She told me it was cold on and off while she was in Anderson.

Here it played the warm up then turn cold, along with rain cycle game. A week ago on Sunday it snowed here enough to cover the ground for the day. It was warm by Thursday, Friday when I left to go to Anderson for her it started turning cold and cold rain showers chased me all the way across 3 states. The only good news is that the accompanying high winds were pushing me, so I got fantastically high fuel mileage (for my 2004 Ford station wagon) on the trip over.

By Saturday when we went antiquing in Noblesville (about 25 miles away) I went from using the heater and defrosters to air conditioning to heater in the space of about 6 hours.

The trip back home Sunday was cold and windy; I was bucking headwinds all the way. Gone was the 28.5 miles per gallon. The best I got was about 23.4 mpg. (Sorry, I don't do metric conversions to be like the rest of the world.)

Saturday night I saw on Facebook that a tornado had touched down about 5 miles north of our house. No damage or power outages here that I've found, luckily.

But it looks like Nature is saying "Spring? No, no! No spring for you! Come back one month!"

Of course, I'm also a firm believer in the old saying, "If you talk about something, if it's good it goes away and if it's bad it happens."

[Dragon Fan]

Meanwhile Back here in ole Pa. it is Guess What, Yep Snowing again, Had a white out for about 10 min. on the way home from work. VERY windy and -1c..... I need a Vacation !

[Allen]

Ten days?

TEN DAYS?

Really?

TEN DAYS!

[Dragon Fan]

Shh ! I think Spring has snuck in. No white stuff ! The pile the plow piles up at the end of the road is almost gone as well. Mostly just a pile of dirt and cinders. Once it melts completely they will come around with the Road sweeper and truck to pick it all up and reuse the cinders next Winter.

[Allen]

Yesterday I typed out a long reply, then, thinking of Facebook, hit enter and moved on to another site. Later on I realized it's never worked that way here. DAMN, damndamn.

[Allen]

I'm wondering if everyone is all right. On April 27 I posted that it had been 10 days since anyone posted. Since then, one post from Dragon Fan and I have each posted once. Now we're at May 11 and silence. Is there anybody out there?

I found out I'm suffering from iron deficiency anemia. My red blood cell count is half what it should be. 2 very nasty tests this Monday to try to find out why. To say I'm not worried would be to lie.

[granath]

I'm still here... Haven't had much to post about recently.

Now the weather's wonderful, sunny with a light breeze and 20 C/68 F. For Mother's Day on Sunday they're forecasting 25 C/77 F. Three days of that in a row officially counts as a heatwave here.

Allen, I hope the reason for your anemia turns out to be something innocuous. Good luck with the tests.

[mara]

I haven't posted in a while. Not much happening here, worth telling.

[Zelandeth]

Still here...just been relatively uneventful lately, only things to report have really been the usual madness with my automotive fleet (which I have managed to reduce to three at long last - one and a half of which are actually working!).

Oh, and starting to get the network infrastructure in this house into order. It has been horribly bodgery every since we moved in, so we've finally got wired networking routed throughout the building now along with a proper wireless access point rather than relying on the useless WiFi built into our router...which it turns out was the cause of about 75% of my headaches.

Now if only I could get the cars to all work as well...

[Dragon Fan]

I come from a large family, 10 Sisters. 4 brothers, When our Mother started to falter, she made us all promise to keep getting together every Friday evening for a family dinner. Some have moved away during their lives, but all that remain within an hour or so still get together, Recently, one of my older sisters moved back to our small town from Memphis, Tennessee and took a place in the rotation of cooking and bringing the meal to the Family Homestead, Which is now my home. She was not feeling very well, but still managed to make a large pot of Chili, Since she was not feeling up to a large crowd, She had my late Brothers wife pick up the pot of Chili and bring it here for the rest of the family. Well, she had fallen asleep with the chili on the Stove and did not realize that it was burnt very badly and stuck to the bottom of the pot. When we returned her pot the next morning, she asked if there was any leftover, as she was feeling better and would like a bowl, I gave her a foil wrapped package and told her what had become of the Chili, ( we heard animals gagging in the woods where we had dumped it. Just kidding.) She opened the foil and had some Pizza for lunch and asked with a straight face, It's not Chilly in here is it.? I sometimes wonder if our Mother knew things like this would happen and not be surprised that 27 people waiting for dinner, and not a one cared a hoot that the chili was burnt, we laughed and ate the salad and bread, .................Until the Pizza delivery came. I am very glad my sister is feeling better. Just more stories for the Dinner table.

[SpaceCowboy]

I've been having computer problems that were finally solved by a new DELL all in one. My regular computer comes and goes with Windoze starting or not starting depending on its mood. And my backup went completely out after an update and nothing I could do would fix it. I'm going to see if my files especially my music, books, and pictures can be extracted from the hard drive from my regular computer and then it and the backup will be disassembled and the cases properly disposed of.

Other then that things are good here.

[Hans]

Still here, too. But in monitoring mode

[kc]

I'm still here but haven't posted in a while.

[granath]

We're officially in a heatwave. First time I remember celebrating Mother's Day in 25 C.

[vyon]

Meanwhile our heat wave is officially over. It should not be 20c (68f) in Wellington in May. Now it's 14c (57f) which is still warmer than normal for the middle of the night, and raining. It's supposed to get cold by the end of the week.

[granath]

Now we're hitting 29 C, very unusual for this time of year. Last summer, we didn't have any days this warm.