AsktheBuilder.com News - August 21, 2022

Issue #1196 (I think...)

Dear ,

This issue is dedicated to my sweet mother. If we hadn't had to send her back to Heaven several years ago, I'd have gotten up early and cut a piece of birthday cake for her. I'd insist she'd eat it in bed. Are you sitting down? She'd be celebrating her 100th birthday today.

Here's a photo of her when she was just shy of her 23rd birthday. She wed my Dad in the middle of July, 1945. Mom was a buxom blonde and ended up being the bread-winner. My dad suffered from severe PTSD from his service as a medic and POW in the great WW II. You can read all about him here.

Chapter Two in my Adventures & Advice - Volume 1 book is dedicated to Mom. My youngest daughter asked me to write this book. It's turned into a labor of love and I hope to finish all four volumes by early next year. 

Unfortunately you can't purchase this book as it was a gift to my children, a few very very close life-long friends, and any other Carter descendants.

I'm just about finished with Volume 2.

Here's an excerpt from Mom's chapter I thought captures her spirit:

"Mom attended college while Dad was in the war. She got her degree from the University of Cincinnati and then enrolled in their Pharmacy College. Her sorority pin shows her graduating from Pharmacy College in 1946.

Your grandmother was one of the first women pharmacists in Cincinnati, if not the state of Ohio. It would be fascinating to research the graduation photos of all the pharmacy classes to see the first women who broke through that glass barrier. Way to go, Mom!

Mom’s life took an immediate turn for the worse when she realized your grandfather came back from his war experience a broken man. He suffered devastating post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). Your Aunt Lynn recently told me stories of episodes of extreme depression that caused him to be hospitalized several times.

Dad worked for a short time at the huge Cincinnati Milling Machine plant that had a monstrous campus in Oakley just north of where the railroad tracks cross Madison Avenue at the east edge of the Oakley business district. Mom finally had to use her pharmacy degree to support the family when Dad’s depression became so bad that he couldn’t hold a job.

I recall as a child helping Mom work at a pharmacy just around the corner from St. Ursula Academy on McMillan street. I used to have to empty the trash down a chute in a back hall that fed into the building’s incinerator. I remember at the time thinking the chute led to Hell itself. This was pretty daunting for a six or seven-year-old kid!"

Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you and thank you so much for giving me a long leash growing up.

Klein Thermal Imager TI 220

Fun Quiz

Mikayla

Days ago I was in the shower getting all clean and spiffy for a date with Mikayla. She's a perky young woman with raven-black hair in her late 20s.

Settle down! She's my barber for goodness sake and I had a scheduled appointment to get my hair cut.

Do you have the odd habit I do? I puzzle things out while in the shower and think of the craziest topics.

As I was shampooing my hair I pondered, "Mikayla told me that hair grows about 1/8th inch per week. That means in eight weeks it should be 1 inch longer than when I last got a haircut.

Hmmmmm.... she gives me a buzz cut on the back of my head just behind my ears. When I get out of her barber's chair, that hair is maybe 1/8-inch long."

But as I was shampooing my hair and rubbing my scalp behind my ears there was NO WAY that hair was 1-inch long. Maybe it was 3/8-inch long at the most. But all the other hair on my head had grown at the faster rate.

And it gets worse! Once I shared my hair-growth musing with Mikayla, she replied, "You know, I've never thought about that, but now I'm going to look at all my other customers. I can tell you this, though. The hair just below the necks of most of my customers grows SO FAST that they should probably come in every two weeks to have me shave it with my straight razor."

So there you have it. Mother Nature, at least for some of us, has engineered - for some reason - that our hair grows at different rates at different locations. 

This factoid may help you in a future game of Trivial Pursuit, so don't kick it to the curb up inside your head so fast.

That's enough for a summer Sunday. But wait!!

Mt. Washington Auto Road Videos

Yesterday I woke up at 4:30 AM to drive to the summit of Mt. Washington. I had requested to be just below the summit within the Mt. Washington State Park boundaries. This allowed me to do a Parks on the Air (POTA) radio activation while I waited for the 3.5 hours for the bike race to end.

I ended up with 70+ radio contacts which set a new record for any other radio operator who's done a POTA activation up there. You only need 10 contacts for a successful activation.

Because of this early zero-dark-thirty rub-the-sleep-from-my-eyes time, you can imagine I went to bed a little early. I was volunteering my amateur radio skills for the annual Hillclimb bicycle race. Hundreds of folks pedaled the 7.2 miles up the Rock Pile. The top athletes do it usually in less than an hour.

But since I was up there just below the summit at 8 AM and the race doesn't start until 8:30 AM, it would take about two hours before most of the cyclists made it past my checkpoint. This gave me time to do the fun POTA activation. It was what we call a twofer because I actually activated both Mt. Washington State Park and the White Mountains National Forest.

It was a rare stunning clear bluebird day with light wind. That said it was in the 40s F when I was setting up my antenna but with the light wind and brilliant sun, I didn't need a jacket on! 

Go here to see STUNNING videos and photos i shot yesterday. 

Watching one of the videos I shot, you'll get to EXPERIENCE what it's like DRIVING UP the auto road above the tree line with NO GUARDRAILS.

I was so beat yesterday afternoon once I got home all I could do was create the link above, modify some of the text above,  and pass out.

Old Man Winter is coming. Just look at the summit WX on Monday if you want to see what I COULD HAVE BEEN FACING yesterday.

Tim Carter

Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com

Livermore Falls POTA story - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S.Over the past two weeks I've touched on the psyops that are being used on you about all things electric powered - especially cars and light trucks.

The ads and articles you read trying to convince you to go electric are brimming with half-truths. You do know a half-truth is a whole lie, right? It's called a lie by omission in the legal universe.

I suggest you watch this VERY SHORT video, How Much Energy Will the World Need, to get up to speed about energy.

In just six minutes you'll sadly discover your Overlords are playing you like a cheap fiddle. Get ready, you're about to discover the WHOLE TRUTH.

After you watch it, I think you'll stop thinking about unicorns with rainbow tears prancing around your yard.