More Robot Outreach - Late Summer 2024

School starts up next week.  Where did the summer go?  Between vacations, an off season competition and just the rate at which time slips away, we just did our last two robotics team outreach visits.  A few random images:

Probably the earliest we've ever had a recruit turn up.  The kid in the baseball cap will be in our Robot School farm system for 7th and 8th graders starting next month.  We let him drive a little at a demo.  Heck, it was his uncle's business.

And of course there is always at least one person with eyes closed making a goofy face.

At another demo.  Robot being operated in a very narrow space.  We could still fire the shooter but had to dial the power back a lot.

The "game pieces" this year were a real pain.  Soft orange foam rings.  After every sustained use there was what we call "Cheeto Dust" all over the floor from the surface being abraded off by the fly wheels.  Good guests clean up after themselves.

This issue is the main reason we got our own Milwaukee Tool portable vacuum.  It runs on the same battery packs we use for drills and such.  The clean up crew of course is the coaches.  The students are the engineers now.  We are the janitors.

British Columbia - Acute Contrasts

Of course BC is a big place, so I'm only talking about part of it.  We spent our "off the map" time in the mountainous central part of the province, around Kelowna.  And there were contrasts aplenty.  Huge picturesque lakes....with dry parched hills all around.  

Very beautiful country, and lots to do recreationally.  Skiing, biking, hiking, and in our case various water related activities.  It's a recreational paradise and very hip 'n trendy.  The median home price is $900,000.  At that price level it does not matter if it is US or Canadian.

So yes, a place of contrasts.  

The tent city of homeless people has grown since my last visit.  As even more new condos rise above them.  A place on the top floor of one of these is over 2 mill.  At highest price range you get the lake view.  Half a step down the economic pinnacle you'd have to look out and see the tents.

I'll admit to occasionally being peeved when our Northern Neighbors scold the US for its problems.  But I was gentle in my questioning the locals here.  "How do you resolve this situation personally?"  "Does the obvious inequity bother you?".  There is a general sense of wishing more could be done, a cheerful perspective on how many "tiny houses" they were building Somewhere Else, but no actual answers.  I wondered.... who are these people?....both the ones on high and the ones pushing pilfered shopping carts - that painful symbol of economic impotence - around down in the dirt.

About 300 yards from this spot is the craft brewery district.  Great pizza.  Good beer (too much trendy IPAs for my taste).  The tent people wander past a custom Cheesemaker, an Ethical Butcher, and I believe a nearby warehouse is being converted into an indoor water park.  Better than the muddy ditch you see in the foreground.

Canadians appear to be very invested in US politics.  But my best efforts notwithstanding,  I was able to understand very little of theirs.  So I'm not sure what to make of this:

Maybe this sums up Canadian social mores as well as anything.  A swank looking boutique on the main street....

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PS.  For the reader wondering about the Capybaras, there is a Kangaroo Ranch near the Kelona airport.  You can go interact with assorted critters.  This is better than the alternative but plausible explanation which is that drinking a few cans of that Scrumpy will have you seeing giant rodents no matter where you live.

Eve's Revenge

Seen at a surplus store.  Evidently a real product, but alas, nobody named Eve actually associated with the company.

And no, there is no connection to last Friday's post on Rattlesnake Junction.

Rattlesnake Canyon

The current expedition includes tweens, teens and a desert environment.  So of course there needed to be a side trip to a kitchy entertainment complex.  Welcome to Rattlesnake Canyon.  No actual rattlesnakes included.

The Old Prospector theme is not entirely inapt, there were historic mines in nearby hills.  Now?  Mini golf, ice cream, rides, that sort of thing.

And Bumper Boats.  Assorted younger members of the extended family were waved over by a beloved and trusted Aunt...

That'll teach 'em!

And also....

With most of the rides I was more interested in examining the mechanical parts.  Wonder how many psi on those hydraulics?  What gear ratio does it take to run that helicopter ride?  And so forth.

There was also an arcade.  I've not been in such a place for years.  No doubt inspired by the just released Alien movie I found this.  Not sure what happens when it's Game Over Man.

A nearby pinball machine has a bit of a history lesson in it:

And a bit more detail including more creepy aliens.

I wonder how many people playing this even recognize the band named Foo Fighters.  And of that small number, how many know that the term actually goes back to the final days of World War Two where pilots reporting strange lights and aircraft dubbed them F****** Foo Fighters! 

Some of these of course were the various German jet and rocket powered fighters that were secretly developed late in the war.  From the Foo Fighters arose the mythos of UFOs.

Marvelously, the squadron most associated with the story of WWII Foo Fighters was deactivated post war, then reactivated as a classified unit operating out of Groom Lake, testing and later operating the top secret F-117 Stealth Fighter!

 

Off the Map Again

 Traveling.  First stop, alas, was putting Hank into the kennel, aka Dog Jail.

Various transportation modes then ensued.  And with feet back on the ground....

Capybaras.  World's largest rodents.  Hank would not be happy about these abominations of nature.

It is prudent to read labels with care.

How far off the map am I this time?

Reunion

Some events in life are by their very nature recurring.  They pass without much comment.  Others you must be fortunate to experience but could happen several times.  Grandchildren are an obvious one.  But there is at least one event that is inevitable, if of course you live long enough.

Your 50th high school class reunion.

I went to the five year reunion.  It was interesting.  Everyone looks their absolute best at about age 23.  In particular, and please bear in mind that I was then single, the girls, by then of course women, were quite presentable

Since then the reunions have been at times and places that were logistically difficult, and that is the case once again.  I'd be willing to invest an afternoon/evening in the project, but having to drive a fair distance, attend an event at an (ugh) Country Club and then stay overnight in an expensive hotel....nah.

My brother took a pass on his 50th last year.  So while we were laboring in the hot sun on the Homesteading Project it was something we discussed.  I tend to get philosophical in such matters and wondered if it would be best to attend as who you were, who you are, or who you'd like to be.  This sets aside the question of whether you "are" who you think you are or who they think you are.  I concluded that the ideal would be to attend in an entirely different persona.  Drop vague hints about your life but give few details.  Wear a fez and perhaps an eye patch.  Deflect all questions on either.

The next day while walking the dog he dragged me straight into a patch of brush and I got a minor corneal abrasion that required me to wear an eye patch for two days.  I had been given a Sign.

So, rather than devote roughly a day of my remaining span of time to satisfying mild curiosity my RSVP will consist of this letter. 

Well.  A decade here, a decade there...pretty soon we're talkin' half a century.  The time and place of the upcoming reunion being logistically challenging,  I shan't be in attendance.  Besides, Tatiana says it sounds rather boring; but she did suggest it might be possible to hire an actress to stand in for her. "Maybe somebody who could play the part of an Indiana farm girl or some such".  

I'm at one of our home bases now but have had a chance to travel widely.  Herr Kauls would be pleased that I've become sufficiently fluent in German to occasionally be mistaken for Dutch.  I've also picked up snippets of French, Italian and enough Arabic that one of my sons and I worked out a routine for getting through souks unbothered by convincing the merchants we were from a former Soviet Republic called Tegwaristan.  I've traveled by jet, ferry boat, on foot and once memorably as a hobo riding the rails.

In the course of a single unusual year I found a way to be employed as an Emergency Room doctor, a Carny, a robotics instructor and on an archaeological dig.  On expeditions of the latter sort I've found everything from intact roman shoes to live World War I artillery shells.

I've had a book published, two screen plays rejected, and am almost certainly the only alumnus of our revered Alma Mater to be invited to speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

It has been a fun if occasionally implausible life.  By the way, the details above are actually 84% true, which is probably a better percentage than what is traded in casual banter at surreal gatherings of people who knew each other most of a life time ago.....

Please keep me on the list for future gatherings.  'Tats' says she'll go to the 100th, and as she is scandalously younger than I she's probably good for it.  I will also plan on attending, if for no other reason than to hoist a valedictory flagon of whatever Faustian Concoction has been keeping me alive long enough to become the Last Member of the Class of 1974.

There was a return envelope with the announcement of the reunion.  No postage of course.  I'll festoon it with as many weird stamps as I can round up and put as a return address the Pilersuisiq store in Arsuk, Greenland.

CCC Camp Globe

 A sign along a lonesome dirt road.

I've been interested in Camp Globe for several years.  Ever since I ran across a copy of the camp newspaper in the archives at UW Eau Claire.  It is such an interesting name.  And the front page of the newsletter shows this:

I really liked the big globes on top of the gate posts.  CCC camps often had interesting features of this sort at their entries.

It says on the sign, this camp was in operation from 1933 to 1942, although if true the last few years it would have only been home to a few caretakers.  In 1937 there was a general scaling back of the CCC system and the local paper says Globe was closed at that time.  I'll have to look at a few more of these signs but suspect the dates given are "generic" for the CCC program in a general - or shall we say global - sense.

In its heyday it had about 200 "CCC boys" mostly doing forestry work and fire fighting.  It had a telephone system, a hospital, fire lookout towers.  It had the usual sports and educational programs.  There were dances where an evidently organized system of transportation brought in local "gals" and an orchestra.  The Globe Trotter covered camp life in detail.  You can read most of the paper's run at the link down below.

A few photos of the camp have survived:

There's not much recent on the internet about Camp Globe.  One short article I read indicated that there was nothing left of the place.  Based on my exploration of other CCC camps I found that implausible.  So when I was in the area I stopped by.  Leaving my car on the Camp Globe Road I strolled a short distance down a small turn off road that was home to a few frogs and many mosquitoes.  And I found this:

A pair of big stone pylons.  One is tipping drunkenly towards the other.  Here's a better view of the upright one:

So, have I found the entry posts to Camp Globe?  If you use a little imagination and cover these in wood cladding the proportions look right.  And up on the top there are these big metal rods, just the thing to anchor down those fancy globes....

But even allowing for the partial collapse of the northernmost pillar, these are way closer together than the newspaper image would suggest.  And whatever road went through them is taking off at a 90 degree angle from the path I walked in on.

But I think I'm right in this ID.  Newspapermen and artists have always taken liberties, and its hard to see any other function for things that look like this.

Ghosts in the woods.

Here's the run of Globe Trotter newspapers.  The survival of so many CCC newspapers is likely because they were mailed to the Library of Congress.  Included in this set of images is an envelope that proves this.  

I'll probably go back for a visit in the fall to see what is still actually surviving.  CCC Camp Globe is logically on Camp Globe Road near the intersection with Horse Creek Lane.  It is about five miles north of Fairchild Wisconsin.  If you want more precise directions there is, and I did not know it at the time, a geocache on the site: Camp Globe.  I shall look it up next time I am there.  Probably it is near the "gate posts".

And HERE are a few more pictures of Camp Globe.