Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Something Shiny

Taking the New Truck Plunge

Ford F-150 Pickup Truck

We didn’t plan to drive a new truck home today, but that’s what happened. We had been toying with the prospect of upgrading to a new vehicle for a while now and contacted a friend who is a salesman at the local dealer. We gave him some specifications about what we wanted and he came up with a list of possible matches a few days later. At first, we had trouble getting on the same wavelength with our “druthers,” but we met with him today at the dealership and found a truck that we could flex our initial wishlist to come to an agreement. Both Damsel and I test drove the truck and we liked it a lot.

Our buddy made us a really good offer for a trade in of our SUV, so we decided to go forward with the deal. We still have the SUV for tonight, but tomorrow morning we will be cleaning it out and taking it to the dealer.

A couple of years ago, this dealer posted a billboard that convinced us that we would come here for a new truck deal. It was the famous (to us) “Thanks, Ford, for NOT taking the bail out from the government.” Click on the image to enlarge.

31 Jul 2014 by Arizona Something Shiny Travel

Coin Box

Coin Box

I’m not a coin collector per se, but over the years, I have tossed some coins into a box that I keep in the safe. I halfheartedly saved the quarters with the states on them, but only amassed a few of them, many being duplicates. I also saved JFK half-dollars when I found them and put a lot of “Suzi Bucks” (Susan B. Anthony one-dollar coins) in the box, most of which came out of postage stamp vending machines as change.

On the foreign coins side of the box, I have a variety of coinage from places we have visited or have come to possess mysteriously. There is a 500 peso Mexican piece, a bunch of Italian coins brought back from Rome, some interesting French-Polynesian coins from a long-ago visit to Tahiti and a cold-war relic zehn pfennig (ten pennies) coin from the Bundesrepublik of West Germany.

I have no use for them other than as money in the US coins case. For the foreign coins, I may pass them along to the grandchildren for their amusement. Click on the image to enlarge.

07 Jun 2014 by Money and Business Something Shiny

NIST Time Widget

Quite by accident, I found this widget at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) website, time.gov. I was looking for the NIST time applet, but siince I have Java® disabled, I was unable to view the time. Then, I noticed a link on that page to their Flash® NIST Widget.

Once I clicked on the link to the widget, I saw another link to a page that published details about embedding the widget on your own website. That page had the HTML embed code along with details on how to customize the widget for your own preferences of how to display the time, background color and time zone. I set this one to ?setcolor=#EAEDF2&setzone=-07&set24=true which represent the parameters for our light blue background color, the UTC minus seven timezone (Arizona) and to display the time in 24 hour format.

Since I already have my own Flash® time and date widget in the sidebar on the main page, I doubt that I will be embedding this one. Note that my widget is driven by the time YOUR computer is set to and the NIST widget gets the time from the NIST Time and Frequency Division (with a minor network delay).

18 Dec 2013 by Cyberspace Something Shiny

Lugnutz

Lugnutz

On the way back from the valley a few days ago, Damsel snapped this photo of the front wheel of an eighteen wheeler. The operator had replaced the lug nuts with this exotic array of spiked cones that reminded me of the Ben Hur Chariot Race where the evil Massala had extended axles on his chariot designed to rip out the spokes of competing chariots. Click on the image to enlarge.

01 Sep 2013 by Photography Something Shiny Travel

Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike

When McDonalds remodeled their restaurant near the Hassayampa River, they installed a new bronze artwork entitled “Lucky Strike” to depict the old mining days and our town’s heritage. I snapped this photo today on our way to the Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club for some target practice. Click on the image to enlarge.

05 Oct 2012 by Arizona Culture Retirement Something Shiny

The UV Flashlights Are Here

scorpion-light.jpgWhen I checked the PO Box today, I discovered that the Scorpion UV flashlights had arrived. We drove home and I opened up the package to find these little, but powerful, units.

The light is powered by three AAA batteries. There are 32 UV LEDs that produce a very bright reflection when directed toward items that fluoresce in UV light. I found a few things in the office that lit up nicely under the UV light.

Image: one of the new UV Flashlights. Click to enlarge.

We’re anxious for nightfall so we can take the UV lights outside and see if there are any fluorescent critters around, or, maybe some fluorescent minerals around the area. It will be interesting to see what glows in the dark.

08 Sep 2011 by Retirement Something Shiny Technobabble

Flashlight Update

lights.jpg

After we ordered the Smith & Wesson tactical flashlights (right), Cheaper than Dirt offered their “Guard Dog” 240 lumen tacticals (left) for $19.95. Of course, we had to order them as well. Click on the image to enlarge.

And, after Crotalus suggested UV illumination for lighting up scorpions after dark, we ordered a couple of Scorpion Master 32 LED Ultraviolet Flashlights.

I do believe that we will eventually get a couple of the tactical SureFire flashlights as well. We will outfit ourselves as necessary for our personal defense.

03 Sep 2011 by Retirement Something Shiny Technobabble

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