THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Monday, April 30, 2018

reunion in Pittsburgh and vicinity 

We graduated in 1972 or about that but we've been getting together since about 1998 or so.

This year we met up in Pittsburgh. We played a lot of cards (sheepshead) and went to a baseball game and to various museums and so forth from April 24 to April 29.

The image is from a trip to Altoona. The picture was taken at horseshoe bend. The train in the upper right went all the way around the lake ending up at only a foot or two above the lake elevation. From left, Glen Kruser, Gerry Berg, myself and Dave Kroes.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 3:25 PM

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Famous Movie - I don't understand why people liked it 

I was giving blood platelets and plasma again today. 

The movie I chose to watch was the 2002 movie "Signs" which got pretty good reviews from critics and somewhat less good reviews from viewers (74% and 67% positive respectively on the rotten tomatoes website). 

The movie was a commercial success with an US plus international box office of over $400 million and, since there were almost no special effects, it was relatively inexpensive to make (about $80 million).

The plot didn't make sense. Aliens come and, for inexplicable reasons, do crop circles. The aliens, who have mastered intergalactic travel and can move at super speeds in the corn field, are defeated by baseball bats and water and can't escape being locked in a pantry.  In the final scene, a kid who is injected with alien poison is cured with an epinephrine injection.



It did mostly keep my attention through the plasma and platelets donation process.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 3:12 PM

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Hooray for USPS 

A few months ago, at about 1100pm on a Saturday night, I put $60 in a pre-addressed envelop (from a charity) and put it on the cat tree near our front door. 

I was planning to take the $60 to someone on Sunday morning (it was a payment I got in cash on Saturday night for a pizza delivery). However George, decided to take outgoing mail to the mailbox at about 2am on Sunday morning and put the envelop in the mailbox. 

Today, we received a letter from the USPS with a $58.80 postal money order. The letter wasn't post paid and thus non deliverable. They did note that the envelop had a pre printed origination address (ours) with our names on it. 

So they took the $60, took out a $1.20 fee and returned postal order to me.

click on images to enlarge - they show the incoming mail to me

Cool.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:19 PM

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Ann's First Uber Trip 

Ann was coming home today near to the point that the 42 bus would stop running.

She used Uber for the first time.

The driver didn't speak English well.

Also, his GPS device didn't seem to work right. But since she has gone home from that particular metro rail station, she guided the driver the old fashioned way.

Finally, the reason the GPS didn't seem to work right was because Ann hadn't placed the destination in the right field in her application.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 9:24 PM

Sunday, April 08, 2018

The Snowstorm that wasn't 

By April 4 and 5, it looked like our area might have a whopping snowstorm. The weather underground site was forecasting 8-12" for April 7 (I captured the forecast with a screenshot).

I don't know how this site forecasts but the numerical models used by virtually all forecasters were bullish on snow.  

I took the GFS (US) and the ECMWF (Europe) model outputs from Dr. Spencer's (a satellite oriented climatologist) site where he had taken screenshots.


The GFS predicted about a 6" event inside the beltway increasing to about 9" outside the beltway.


The ECMWF, predicted a 16" event with our area more or less in the bullseye of the storm (click on the image for an enlargement).


Well, by the time April 7 was over, no snow at all was reported at any of the three area airports.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 7:05 PM

Late March to early April - Beth's Visit and Passover 

Beth visited us, arriving a few days before Passover and leaving the day after Passover.

We certainly had a good time.

 
Irwin and Cheryl Visited.

 
We had guests for the first sedar.

I used the Free State Gas station on Georgia Avenue near University Blvd (image from the FreeState Petroleum Corporation website) and got almost 20 cents off per gallon by using cash (that's not really so exciting but I've always wanted to do that and whenever I have driven by in the past either I have had a full tank or I was in the wrong lane).

Beth got two free bus rides when the fare cards she had either didn't work or didn't have enough for the fare.

 
Beth got to catch up with a number of people that she likes to chat with.

Vampy got washed and dried (Beth thought he needed it - a link to the Stuffed animal blog is  here).

 

We had some visitors who had a good time playing with Katrina, aka, Trina (our cat).


The image of the four of us was taken by our neighbor Matt on April 5. The cherry blossom tree is above us. A pear blossom tree is to the right. 

posted by Martin Weiss  # 3:42 PM

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