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THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news. You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Tornado Watches and Winter Storm Watch in Same day

Yesterday (Nov 29) parts of northern Texas (near Dallas) had tornado watches (and temperature in the 80s). They also had a winter storm watch for ice and snow. Luckily no tornado damage transpired and the snow and ice was minimal. Today's (Dallas and vicinity) daytime temperatures are in the 30s and 20s.

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:54 PM

Another fellow with 53 years of experience

Back on Nov 20, I met with a fellow with almost 53 years of work with FHWA and its predecessor agency. Today, I had an ear/nose/throat exam from a fellow with 53 years in the ENT biz. Of course things have changed; some of his gadgets are different from the past, the medicines are different and they had me go through an audiology exam. The latter showed that my current problem (stopped up ear) is worse in the right ear. It also showed that my hearing at high frequencies (2000-8000 cycles per second) is pretty bad (both ears). This means I can't hear women as well as I hear men.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:55 PM

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Socks Could Escape the Dryer - Really

We had the dryer cleaned out today. A lot of stuff was inside near the blower including a lot of the usual stuff found in the dryer filter as well as two hand towels and a pair of underpants.

Quite a yucky collection, however, it does show that socks could indeed escape the dryer (not a fun way to do it since they would go right in the trash).

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:48 PM

Friday, November 24, 2006

They have Buffy the Vampire Slayer in India

We had a number of guests for Thanksgiving and the weekend. Some overnight guests (Karen and Dina Adams) some for one meal Oucha Singh and Julian Silk. Oucha is an Md hoping to get a residency. She was born in Knoxville, TN where she lived until she was 8. She then moved to India (her dad works for the World Health Org) and just moved back to the USA. During the course of dinner (subject seems to come a lot in our house) she indicated that she watched BtVS in India (they also got Seinfeld, Friends and a few others).

Kara and Dina were visiting Kara's mom (Sina's grandma) for a few days.

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:23 PM

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Heater Repair guy came in 45 minutes but....

When I got home today (about 345pm because we were dismissed early), I noticed the house seemed cold. Actually, the digital thermometer had it at 55F. I called, the company that inspected the heater on Sept 29. They sent someone out and he got here by 430pm and had a new part installed by 500pm (an igniter). Because of the inspection plan we are on, the part cost $95 instead of $230 and the service was free. I felt pretty good about it all.

But that wasn't the end of the story. At 505 pm the heater shut off again. I called again, the same guy came out by 530. A different part broke (transformer). It took until about 630 for it to be fixed. The service guy felt pretty bad about it and didn't charge us for the new transformer. G says this implies that he thinks he might have broken it when he installed the igniter.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:12 PM

M Remembered a story I read in the 60s. It was for work.

One of the folks from across the hall visited my office today. He is assisting in a outside Commission that is studying the highway program. A high level commissioner had a thought that it would be nice to have a national conveyer belt system (I think he was thinking of using it for freight).

I remember the sci fi story "The Roads Must Roll" by Robert Heinlein which is essentially about a future when the USA has a comprehensive conveyer belt system (for passenger and maybe freight). I found the wikipedia reference while the guy was in my office. The story was published in 1940.

I don't post that much about work but this was too cool. I'm willing to bet no more than half a dozen people in the 4000 who work at this building would have known of the story and of those some wouldn't have the exact name.

posted by Martin Weiss # 6:16 PM

Monday, November 20, 2006

Free Ride Home

I had a meeting in the Turner-Fairbanks Highway Research Center (in North Arlington, VA) today. After the meeting I visited with John O'Fallon with whom I shared an office back in the 1970s (for about a year or so). He has almost 53 years of service in FHWA (currently the longest tenure of any active person in the agency). He lives only a few blocks away from us and gave us me a ride home. We left his office about 600pm and got to my house about 635pm (I normally leave the office at about 515pm and get home about 625pm).

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:11 PM

Friday, November 17, 2006

No house plants in the new building

My agency (and some others) will be moving to a new building next year (it means a longer commute - probably another 10-15 minutes each direction). This week an announcement was made that personal house plants will not be allowed. This seems harsh but actually it makes sense because over the years I've noticed that the soil in some house plants tends to get infected with insects which then become a nuisance many feet from the plant.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:40 AM

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

16 game winner gets Cy Young Award

Yesterday, Brandon Webb who pitched for the last place Arizona Diamondbacks won the Cy Young award in the NL. He had only 16 wins, which was tied for the most wins in the NL (with 4 other pitchers). He may have won partly because he started the season 8-0 (he finished 16-8). This is the lowest number of wins by a Cy Young award starting pitcher except in seasons shortened by stikes.

It is also the 5th victory by an Arizona pitcher since 1999 (Randy Johnson won the award in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002).

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:33 AM

Sunday, November 12, 2006

A bad day to be a Mashgiha

Ann had a call last night asking her to help open one of the kosher food stores (they need a person to guard the kosher level during opening and operation and closing). I took her to the store at the appointed time (800am). Nobody from the store owner side was there. A couple of workers came by and gave Ann the key but she couldn't get in without the security code. After a while she got a call with the code but when she used it something was wrong and although the door opened, the burgler alarm sounded. About 900 am somebody from management came by as well as someone from the police. It was cold and rainy (I had the car there but Ann and the workers were in the rain a lot).

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:05 AM

Another Vermont Excursion

Nov 9-10, M was in Vermont, unlike the trip in August this was for business but M did get to visit the Harpoon Brewery again (about 10 miles south of White River Junction). The meeting was in the historic Cooledge Hotel. There is a Transportation Museum in the downtown but it wasn't in a very good state of repair (it was being reorganized). Some of the Vermonters seem to have an anti-New Hampshire bias. They complained that NH wasn't spending enough money on public transit and had several other comments that I couldn't make sense of.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:02 AM

Monday, November 06, 2006

New Cell phone arrives

It didn't take long for the new phone to arrive. I guess they really, really, like selling the phones.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:00 AM

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Another Cell Phone is Drowned

Yesterday, I dropped my cell phone in the toilet. It still works but only intermittently so it will have to be replaced. My wife had done this a few months ago. I hate to wear those nerdy cell phone belts but yet it might come to this.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:40 AM

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