THE WEISS CHRONICLES

A Sophisticated Bar Mitzvah Lunch

I was on duty yesterday at our synagogue.

There was a bar mitzvah luncheon. No chicken fingers or hot dogs for this family. They had an appetizer of tuna sesame and a main dish of asian salmon.

I looked and the kids were actually eating the main course (not so much the appetizer, however).

The reason they did this was partly explained by the fact that they had ice cream (dairy) for dessert.

images from the internet

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:01 PM

Monday, May 13, 2019

Record Precip in 365 days - Upper pump activated

Some people keep interesting records. The folk at the Reagan Airport weather station say they've had over 71" of rain (including the water content of snow) in the past 365 days (fwiw, both BWI and Dulles Airport had more than Reagan Airport and parts of Maryland a bit west and north of us had over 90" during this period). This broke the mark set over a century ago from summer 1885 to summer 1886 (statistics from the article here created by the capital weather gang- of course there was no airports then so the measurement site was elsewhere)

Recently, we've had our sump pump getting a lot of action.

As in the image, we have a twin pump where the primary pump is at a lower position and a supplementary pump at a higher position. The supplementary pump (which can pump about 1000 gallons per hour) goes on when the primary (2000 gallons per hour) can't pump the water out fast enough.

In the past week the supplementary pump has been activated twice. We know this because when the supplementary pump comes on it gives us an alarm.

I don't want to feel depressed about this. The image below the pump (from the cherry blossom watch web site collection) shows a plaza where the rain produced a pink mat of cherry blossoms.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:53 PM

Thursday, May 09, 2019

from the old to the new at Goodyear

One of my tires got a pin leak. I took the car to my local Goodyear station. They had changed the format. Previously there was a waiting room with a TV*, a coffee machine (free coffee) and chairs. Now, it has none of these.

So Goodyear is paying less in rent (and not having to buy coffee).

They also have a new service where you may buy the tire on line and they come to your vehicle and replace it there.

Of course, the notepad they had at this location didn't work and someone was already using the desktop so I had to wait longer than in the 'old days'. They did give me a $25 discount, however.

* One of my favorite "White Privilege Stories" occurred here.

Three black ladies and I (all presumably awaiting completion of tire service) were watching Dr Phil. The theme was "Kids out of Control". Dr Phil was interviewing a 14 year old who was, per her own words, a prostitute doing about a dozen tricks a week and earning several hundred dollars each week which she was proud to say she shared with her family

At a commercial break, one of the ladies said (approximately), "If that was my daughter she wouldn't be allowed out of the house except for church or school".

A second lady said something involving spanking.

The third lady said something having all the neighborhood visit and verbally condemn her.

After a few minutes I said, "I wonder if she reported her income to the IRS". The three ladies looked at me like I was from planet "White Guys Live Here" and I smiled back to show I was 'joking'. I think they got it but I'm not sure they did (and I was actually curious on that point also).

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:44 AM

Monday, May 06, 2019

Seven Eleven as Darth Vader

I had been getting coffee for 79 cents at 7-11 as part of a sign up deal (and every 8th cup was free).

Today I went to 7-11 and the coffee was $1.39 (it was still only $1 for two bananas).

Of course with the 8th cup free, it actually comes to more like $1.23 a cup which is still pretty good. Even so, I thought immediately of the scene from SW E5 The Empire Strikes Back where Darth double crosses Lando (actually that didn't work out so well since Lando then joined the anti Empire forces)

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:13 PM

Sunday, May 05, 2019

Another Re Union

Ann and I went to the Solomon Island Navy Rec Center today.

There was a reunion of people who served in the NORA and NMORA. These were the Naval Oceanography Reserve Activity and the Naval Meteological and Oceanographic Reserve Activity (unit 166). The cake is from that event.

I served from the mid 80s to the early 90s then with a different unit until the mid 90s.

I think at least a hundred people served in this but our reunion was fewer than 20. Part of this was the difficulty locating people.

Since about 2010 or so, the oceanographers, etc. have been entrained into the Naval Intelligence Command (NIC) although there is still an Oceanographer of the Navy and a chief Ocean Navigation Officer of the Navy. Those two are also part of the NIC (the NIC is reorganized every two years or so and has a more complicated name and acronym).

After this event we had planned to go to Annapolis and walk around a bit and get a beer but the weather was nasty with driving rain and temperature in the low 60s F so we drove home instead.

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:01 PM