Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Happy Birthday Alex!

Happy eighth birthday to our great-grandson Alex! Born on this date in 2014, Alex is the eldest of our four great grandkids. He is a good kid with a great personality and is very smart.

We sent a “Birthday Box” to his Sonoma County residence in California. In the box are many goodies and interesting things for a kid that age. The box weighed in at 28 pounds and measured 19x17x14 inches — a good sized shipping carton filled with very cool stuff for an 8 year old kid.

So, here’s wishing Alex a wonderful birthday and blessings for the coming year. Happy Birthday again, li’l dude!

19 Sep 2022 by Family

Kingman Express — Engine 3759

I took several images of Engine 3759 in Locomotive Park, across US Route 66 from the Kingman (Arizona) Powerhouse in December of 2009. I later combined two of the images to produce the anaglyph image above (clickable).

From Locomotive Wiki:

Santa Fe No. 3759 is a 4-8-4 “Northern” type steam locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1928 for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF).

This locomotive hauled passenger trains on the AT&SF. It was retired in the late 1950s when diesels replaced steam.

In February 1955, 3759 was brought out of retirement at the request of the Railway Club of Southern California for a special excursion run, dubbed “Farewell to Steam.” This special ran on February 6th, a round trip between Los Angeles Union Station and Barstow, CA with stops in Pasadena and San Bernardino and was the last Santa Fe revenue steam train to leave Los Angeles and to traverse Cajon Pass.

Santa Fe donated the locomotive to the city of Kingman in 1957. As of today, 3759 remains on static display at Locomotive Park in Kingman, AZ.

New Blog Category

Introducing the new Anaglyph Imagery category. It has been a long time interest of mine to view and later, produce, anaglyphic stereo imagery that requires red/cyan color filtered glasses to view.

If you don’t have a pair of red/cyan or red/blue 3D glasses, you can view the 2D image of Engine 3759 here. If you need a pair of 3D glasses, I recommend Rainbow Symphony. They only sell paper glasses in quantities of 50 and up unless you buy plastic glasses which you can get in a 2-pack. I see 3D glasses available on Amazon, but I don’t recommend them since I could not find origin sellers other than from China.

18 Sep 2022 by Bob's 3D Stuff Classics Nostalgia Notions

Dermatology — An Ongoing Thing

Virtually, every year since I have turned 50 years of age, I have had to visit one dermatologist or another to deal with epidermis problems. Even prior to that, I had minor things like cysts and moles that the doctors dealt with back then.

Since coming to Arizona and even a couple of years before that, Dermatologists have treated me by removing skin lesions such as basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma. A lifetime of sun-exposure in the deserts of the west have come back to haunt me. Damsel says that skin remembers the UV exposure long after we forget about it.

Today, I had yet another appointment with the dermatologist who removed a lesion from my upper right chest a month ago. He had some interesting news for me; the dermopathology report indicated that the latest biopsy was, indeed, a keratoacanthoma which is a more aggressive form of skin cancer than those before this. The follow-up treatment in this case is like the other follow-ups in that the doctor freezes the tissue with liquid nitrogen directly on the lesion site and the area around it. This method, according to the treating physician, will usually prevent a recurrence 88 to 92 percent of the time.

I did some research on-line about keratoacanthoma which answered a couple of questions one might have:

Who Gets keratoacanthoma?

Keratoacanthoma is most common in fair-skinned older males with a history of chronic sun exposure. Most patients are over 60 years of age and it is twice as common in males than in females.

What causes Keratoacanthoma?

  • Exposure to ultraviolet light
  • Chemical carcinogens (e.g. cigarette smoking, industrial workers exposed to tar, pitch, and mineral oils)
  • Cutaneous trauma (e.g. surgery, radiation)
  • Human papillomavirus infection.

What is the outcome for keratoacanthoma?

Keratoacanthoma is regarded as benign and thus has an excellent prognosis following surgical excision.

I’m guessing UV caused my problem, although I was a smoker many years ago. I like the odds given for a full recovery.

15 Sep 2022 by Medix Retirement

We Still Remember —
Patriot Day, 2022

Twenty-one years ago on the eleventh day of September, 2001, four commercial airliners hijacked by nineteen Islamic terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into a field near Shanksville, PA. Nobody in America, who was aware of what had happened, will ever forget where they were and what they were doing at that time.

We did what we could to keep the memory alive of the events on that terrible day. We participated in on-line memorials for those fallen and developed an animated sidebar widget that eventually got over 94 million hits on websites all over the world.

From Never Forget — Epilog:

The Never Forget animated graphic first appeared in August of 2005 and ran for thirteen years until August 2018. The estimated final count aggregated by the hit counter over the years was 94,945,312 hits. The average statistics for the entire lifetime amounted to approximately 20,000 hits per day, 833 hits per hour and 14 hits per minute. It’s hard to know the exact numbers since I never kept much of a record, but the peak hit rate might have been upwards of 1400 hits per hour at the time the counter passed 50 million hits.

We retired the graphic due to several factors, not the least of which was that many browsers discontinued support for Flash© animations. We are still proud that the animation received such widespread recognition.

We will continue to remember the events of 9-11-2001 and remain vigilant against the forces of evil. Join us as we pray for The United States of America to regain her stature among nations and for the safety of our countrymen from enemies both Foreign and Domestic.

11 Sep 2022 by Islamic Terrorism Never Forget Patriotism

Eclipse Excursion Planning

There will be an annular eclipse of the sun on October 14, 2023. We have begun the planning for a trip in order to be where we can see the ring of fire. The path forecast favors places like Monument Valley, UT and Albuquerque, NM, both of which are just a few hours from home. We will be taking the Class A Motorhome to see this eclipse, just as we did the last time on August 21, 2017.

Damsel and I are both familiar with camping in both Goulding’s RV Campground in Monument Valley and American RV Resort in Albuquerque, so we were quickly able to choose the latter, given it’s convenient location to I-40 and the amenities there with which we’re familiar. So American RV it is — on condition we can get reservations there on the dates of the event.

In the image above, we were getting set up in Casper, WY for the August 21, 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. Damsel is by the open side door with Tom and Amber (our friends) in the foreground. Cabela and Beethoven, our Min Pins look on as we go through our antics. Looking at these old pictures gives us the wanderlust to get this next event planned as well as getting our shakedown cruise going.

I refurbished the old countdown timer that we used to count the time left until the August 2017 eclipse to now count the time until the eclipse starts in Albuquerque in 2023. See the sidebar for Eclipse Countdown.

08 Sep 2022 by Astronomy Notions Retirement Wanderlust

Labor Day Weekend 2022

Our weekend is going to be about feasting, as usual. And, with the extra Holiday, we’ll be doing three meals! In the (clickable) image above, we show a beef tenderloin steak and salad from a previous holiday that is likely to be served on the holiday, but can change on a whim – hold on a second . . . OK, speaking of whims, I’ve just been notified that there will be a substitute side dish with the steak, to wit: Lobster and Bacon Mock* and Cheese. Sounds delicious.

* Instead of Macaroni it uses Chopped Cauliflower

The meals for Saturday and Sunday will be in keeping with our quest to find new and interesting recipes as well as bringing back some of our old favorites. We’re going on three years now of adhering to the low-carb and low-sodium diets, so all of our recipes, new and old, conform to those guidelines (mostly – we’re not above cheating now and then). Regardless of the constraints, Damsel finds some pretty tasty recipes for preparing what should be taboo dishes while conforming to the diet rules. Think “pizza-topped chicken.”

Many in our country equate the Labor Day Holiday with end-of-summer and that was true for us when we lived in PRK* but after migrating to Arizona, summer keeps on going for a while after the first weekend of September. We love the climate here and look forward to real seasons as opposed to the coastal area where we lived before where the seasons were cool, cooler, overcast and smoke.

* Peoples Republic of Kalifornistan

We wish all of you who celebrate the holiday to have a good one and to those who are on duty or otherwise unable to enjoy the festivities, God speed.

UPDATE 09/05/2022: This is the actual meal we enjoyed today – Grilled Filet Mignon Steaks and Lobster/Bacon Mock and Cheese. Click on the image to enlarge.

02 Sep 2022 by Food & Dining Holidays

Delivery Instructions Signage

Because our courtyard gate latch is a bit wonky, we prefer that packages be delivered to the rear of the house by the patio. Now, most carriers allow you to specify delivery instructions, but some of the drivers don’t get the message and try to open the courtyard gate which is a bit difficult. A lot of the time, they just dump the package out front outside of the courtyard. We saw this as a minor security risk, so today we installed the sign in a location that can be seen from the driveway and courtyard walkway.

The sign is installed on the electrical box where the house’s circuit breakers are located. The box is made of steel, so I needed a good drill bit for drilling four holes to accommodate #6 sheet metal screws. I also needed a center punch to locate the holes. We gave away most of my old tool collection to family when we left Kalifornistan, so I had to buy the tools again. Although this is not my first time to do “handyman” chores around the Arizona house, this was the first time that I had to get special tools.

So I went to the hardware store and bought some #6 sheet metal screws, a couple of 7/64 drill bits (they did not have a number 36 drill unless I bought a set) and a center punch to indent the locations for the drills. I previously got the sign from Amazon, so we were now ready to do the installation. It all went as planned and you can see the resulting installation in the (clickable) image above.

This is sort of a mundane post, but since we got the new WordPress theme customized, we are motivated to blog more regularly on topics like this that might be neither exciting nor controversial. Of course, we will continue to post about major occasions and events.

26 Aug 2022 by Arizona Home & Garden Notions

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