Coping: What Rain Gauges Tell Us About Sports

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Minor disaster here at the Ranch Monday:  Our Rain gauge broke.

Could I have fixed it?  Ummm… I suppose so, but it was getting sun-damaged and I felt like living large a bit, so I went shopping.

Here is the data as collected by Old Man Labs research:

NCAA Penn State Nittany Lions Rain Gauge: $11.27

NFL Dallas Cowboys Rain Gauge, 12.5″: $24.73

MLB Detroit Tigers Rain Gauge: $12.39

NCAA Texas Tech Red Raiders Rain Gauge: $21.58

NCAA Kentucky Wildcats Rain Gauge: $23.49

MLB Minnesota Twins Rain Gauge: $12.99

NCAA Kansas Jayhawks Rain Gauge: $15.72

MLB Oakland Athletics Rain Gauge: $4.22

With far too much coffee onboard this morning, I can’t help but wonder about the data set.

Particularly interesting is that the last item – the Oakland A’s rain gauge is an add-on item – which means the price is low if you spend yourself into the poorhouse loading up on other items.

But how did the A’s get to be an add-on?  Was it because there was a drought or because now the California Drought is over?

Damned if I can figure it out.

A further peek into the psychology of America by noting that each time has a different price.

Are the Kentucky Wildcats really worth twice (and then some) of Penn State?

Time to fire up the Bunsen burner here at Old Man Labs.  A B-52 is sounding pretty good, about now….

Jeez…living in a country where sports teams have anything to do with rainfall in the back yard – Is (sic) we programmed, or what?

Focal Point of Curved Monitors

Anyone done the math on the Samsung (and I guess others) who have come out with curved UHD TVs?

I have a 49” 4K TV – experimenting with replacing all four of the discrete monitors on the desk, but it would sure be cool if someone made a 50” 4K wrap-around for the desktop.  With a focal point about 2 or 3-feet out.

That would yield an incredibly immersive computing experience, but at the same time it would work for more distant viewing in small spaces.

Saw one of the curved displays on display at WallyWorld and looked like the focal point was something like 6-8 feet out (or more) which markets well but misses the “super-sized” desk frontier.

OK, OK…VR glasses might be an answer, but the screen rez. sucks on those so far.  Give me 4K and a wrap-around any time…

Geezers like me would step up big-time. Bad eyes and damn near unlimited screen real estate.

Gastronomica:  Chinese to Please

Had our friends up the street over for dinner Saturday.  Ure’s truly cooked.

Menu?  Chinese:

Nibbles:  Home-cooked Hoisin BBQ Pork

Soup:  Home-cooked Wonton Soup with homemade wontons. (28 of ‘em, thanks for asking).

Main Courses:

Homemade Oyster sauce Broccoli Beef

Homemade sweet and sour chicken

Homemade shrimp and pork fried rice

Homemade chicken sesame chow mein

Dessert: Lychees with vanilla ice cream

Beverages: Hot Sake or champagne

OMG was it good!

Prep time?  Oh, that’s the catch.  I was in the kitchen from 11 AM to 4:00 PM when the company arrived.

Everyone oo’ed and ah’ed…and it was fine.

A bit of Mao “criticism/self-criticism?”  Next time drive up to Tyler if that’s what it takes to get fresh bean sprouts.  The canned bean sprouts suck and ruined the flavor I was going for.

Next time…  Meanwhile I ordered 5-pounds of GMO-free Mung bean seeds and a sprouter from Amazon.

Daughter who’s the award-winning chef complimented me on the workout, but I was disappointed that everyone was too full for the ginger scallops that were ready to fire.

They didn’t go to waste (waist maybe…): Ended up as sautéed Tarragon Scallops with champagne for lunch Sunday.

Monday, it was back to the Oatmeal diet.  Damn.

My Body, the Chemistry Set

All this talk about food brings me to the important topic of managing body chemistry (and cooking).

Been seeing some low-level discussion on the ‘net lately about how different heritage foods seem to impact longevity.

People in Ukraine, for example, who eat lots of yogurt daily (or more) seem to live a great deal longer than averages.

And people in Mexico down to South America and into Asia seem to have fewer coronary issues.  Is it all related to diet?

Of course, having your doc tell you to “eat spicy food” a couple of times a week to keep the blood strong is not going to pad the corporation’s wallets, so we don’t read stuff like that.

And instead of cooking with things like Saffron, we use the Life Extension Optimized Saffron w/ Satiereal, 60 veggie capsules.  Not free, but along with our other goodies, seems to help.

See the Life Extension article and Saffron and alpha-carotene here. With our eyes, it’s a no-brainer.

Where is this going?  Oh – yeah…the other point…

Well, I got to thinking about tastes and desserts while I was cooking Saturday and this one thing kept bugging me:

We all know spicy goods (cayenne pepper, for example) is good for you. 

So why don’t we end meals with hot, spicy foods?

Almost every dessert I’ve had whether flan in Mexico or the Nordic pastries, ice creams…all that sugary stuff:  Nothing with a good “Emeril” type KICK to it.

Prediction:  Someone else is going to figure this out and come out with “hot desserts” one of these days.

Remember where you heard it first.

Ham Radio / Nerdy-Stuff

Oh boy:  Son George Ure, II was up on Mount Washington near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington’s Cascade Range again this weekend. 

This time with KG7THF helping out piling up ham radio contacts on the 2-meter and 440 ham bands.

You may be able to find the video of the horizon view from the peak on his site over here.

Meantime a tree fell on my legendary 746-foot long wire antenna I put up last year for the lower ham bands.

See the downed wire?  Dang-me.

So, Monday was spent with antenna modeling software. trying to figure out whether to splice and rebuild or simply shorten the overall length or whether I needed to reconnect at the break and maintain the uber-long length.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing that looks at good as the 186/560 foot length for DX on 75 meters:

 

See those major lobes?  That brings my signal down toward the horizon to the northeast (Europe) and southwest Pacific/Hawaii.

So looks like a chainsaw and a propane torch and some ladder work is ahead when the rain quits…

Looking Ahead:

Peoplenomics.com Tomorrow:  Why the News Business is Dying an Unreported Death.  Or, what mess networks are teaching us about News.

Thursday:  The Millennials Missing Manual:  Chapter 3: [keyword: Invent!]

Want some leftover fried rice?

Write when you get rich,

George@ure.net

14 thoughts on “Coping: What Rain Gauges Tell Us About Sports”

  1. Funny how ure headline tied into our experience on Sunday. Hubby and I spent most of the day inside due to the rain, and later settled in to watch “the game”. Towards the end of “the game” our small town in Bosque Co. Tx came under a tornado warning. Emergency sirens going off, cell phones alerting, and emergency messages! Got our sh%t together plus the three cats and headed into master bath shower! As it turns out the tornado did some serious damage ONE block over from us! Don’t ever want to hear that sound again! Now we get to the part where your title this morning relates! While checking on the mother in law, she mentioned we had 2″. As we were talking I thought I would check ours and it was upright but empty! Right away she said the tornado sucked it out! Ure one of the smartest guys I know, could that have happened? It registered an inch from another storm later that night. Whatcha think? BTW neighbors on both sides of us had debris that landed in their yards. Nothing in ours, and all lawn chairs still in place, and I think our rain gauge cost about 5 bucks! lol

  3. Since you mention cayenne…….. this is a good time to mention NIGHTSHADES.

    Yes, cayenne is adored by the natural health community for numerous benefits — especially cardiac benefits. Supposedly has even helped in potentially deadly cardiac events.

    However, there is a portion of the population that cannot metabolize the poison in nightshades — solanine. Anyone that has arthritic-like symptoms might want to try an elimination diet that removes ALL nightshades from their diet for 4-6 weeks, and then do a cluster of ‘nightshade
    challenge’ meals to see if nightshades might be causing some or all of their symptoms. A century ago the American diet had a low amount of nightshades unless you ate a lot of potatoes. NOW — almost EVERY MEAL will have at least one of the following: potatoes, tomatoes (or tomato sauce), and peppers (hot or sweet). Another common nightshade vegetable is
    eggplant. There are several lesser used food items to look out for – get a list.

    If you have a problem eliminating/neutralizing the nightshade poison, you will know with the six week avoidance diet followed by eating copiously of them for a day or two, whether you have a problem. It will be PAINFULLY obvious — literally.

    • Yep, I have that problem. It is hard to give up my favorite addiction, potatoes, but they make me ache. Same with eggplant. Peppers turn my guts inside out. Tomatoes are supposed to be the worst, yet they don’t do that much to me.

      It’s imperative to work out your unique biochemistry and related diet. It makes all the difference in functioning.

  4. It’s not that the Wildcat rain gauge is worth twice the others. It’s that UK fans will pay that much. They tend to be pretty fanatical. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t see at least one car with Kentucky Wildcat memorabilia on it somewhere.

    James Johnson, ex-nuke

    • I should have added that I live 140 miles from Univ of K but 45 miles from Univ of Louisville, their big rival. Even in Cardinal country there a lot of Wildcat fans.

      James Johnson, ex-nuke

  7. OMG you forgot one of the most important rain gauges…
    I have never been a fan of the Sea hawks until the game I was watching last year.. they played hard.. hit hard.. but after the play the sea hawks team player didn’t just run off…
    He offered the guy he knocked to the ground a hand up..
    Yup I know shocking huh who would have thought good sportsmanship was still around in this day and age..
    it didn’t just happen the one time with just the one player but several of the players all offering the opposing team player a quick hand up off the field.. they would make the play.. then offer the opposite team player a hand up I was shocked then drawn to the game..
    I am now a sea hawks fan forever..Of course the opposite team player didn’t always take him up on the hand up but it is the gesture that counts..

    http://www.nflshop.com/catalog/product/Seattle_Seahawks_Rain_Gauge

  8. This will hold you, tracks history as well. Manual rain gauges require dumping and cleaning. Recently we had a 24 hour rain that filled my old 5 inch rain gauge to the top. It was actually 5.86 total.

    https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-00899-Deluxe-Wireless-Gauge/dp/B004V1XJW0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484684817&sr=8-1&keywords=electronic+rain+gauge

    Until you start lusting after this.

    https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-Weather-Station-Connect-Monitoring/dp/B00NI57C14/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1484684817&sr=8-7&keywords=electronic+rain+gauge

    These connect to the internet, so your weather is available anywhere in the world. After about two months, the predictions get very accurate as well. Your neighbors will thank you. Just another service to the community.

    https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=ILOJAVIL2

    • living in a small rural community there is always the local coffee shop.. the little old men would go in and drink coffee and talk about how much rain they would get after a storm.. My friends and I would sit and listen to this so.. we poked a tiny hole in my fathers rain gauge he wouldn’t ever see more than a half inch.. and then we would go around to the other guys homes and vary the amount in each gauge.. one we would put twice as much one we would dump etc.. then sit down there and listen to these little old men argue about the rain.. LOL My kids did that to me to once.. by poking a hole in my coffee cup.. I thought I needed a bib it was just small enough I couldn’t see it and would drop one drop here and there LOL

  10. I have two rain gauges, one is a plastic model that works fine. The other is a three gallon plastic bucket. I use a ruler to measure the amount of water in the bucket after it has rained. Works about the best.

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