Not the ongoing snow/sleet/rain/cold event, but the Big Freeze of 1899:
“On this day in 1899, Tulia, Texas [south of Happy, “the town without a frown” in the Panhandle], reported the coldest temperature ever recorded in the state–minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit. This was part of the ‘Big Freeze,’ an infamous norther that killed 40,000 cattle across the state overnight.”
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Posted in Library, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged 1899, Big Freeze, Texas, Texas State Historical Association, Tulia
I’ve finally had it with my dying audio card, which is unfortunately integrated into the mother board and so can’t be simply replaced. It’s keeping me from using Skype to talk intelligibly to my 90-year-old cousin in Dallas, and also from watching PJTV without annoying stutters.
So I’m shopping for a replacement for my 5-year-old Dell Dimension 3000. So far I like the HP p6300z at about $360 delivered vs the Dell Studio Desktop at about $478. Main difference is the Dell has an Intel chip and the HP has an AMD.
But I’m also addicted to Dells, having never owned anything else. The cheaper HP is a lure, however. I was worried about whether my Outlook Express would make the transition to Windows 7 but that now seems likely with a Belkin Easy Transfer cable. I also have a copy of Word 2002, my old standby, so I’m not worried about accessing my files and continuing to write the books few people ever read. Simply must think it over and decide.
UPDATE: I bought a Dell, but an Inspiron 546 MT with Win XP on it and a Win 7 upgrade disk for $521 delivered. Also has a low-end AMD chip. Just could not bear to start over again with browser/email and etcetera. Figuring out how to transfer it all should will be hard enough.
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Posted in Library, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering, Scribbles
Tagged Dell, desktops, Hewlett Packard, Outlook Express, Windows 7, Word 2002
Sunk on purpose by Navy Skyhawks in 1968, she lies somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific off Baja, CA. But while she lived, as related in Little Ship Big War, The Saga of DE343, she was a microcosm of World War II and its civilian and professional sailors.
Even down to her irascible captain who fled her, unceremoniously, in the midst of the nightmarish Okinawa campaign in which she fought off sixteen kamikaze attacks. All deftly explained by one of her officers turned author Cmdr Edward P. Stafford. Well worth the read.
One truly amazing thing about the book is that it was originally published in 1984. You’d never know it by the prose. Nothing seems dated. Amazon is selling used copies of the 2000 edition, but mine looks new.
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Tagged Cmdr Edward P. Stafford, Destroyer Escort, USS Abercrombie, World War II
It’s not just because of the name’s congruence with a certain brand of female hygiene product. The real joke is that it hasn’t got the features of a 10-year-old, ebook reader bought on eBay for $60. Which doesn’t surprise me. Apple has always been about style and buzz, not about features.
When Mrs. C. got her iPhone, she gave me her old iPod shuffle. It’s nice. I filled it to the max with Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and old swing tunes. But it’s neither as convenient (needs a computer to recharge) nor as easy-to-use (has no display to tell you what’s playing) as my old iRiver MP3 player which I bought used for $20. Haw.
UPDATE: Well, I see the new shuffle tells you, in a voice, what the tune is and who’s playing it. But it still needs a computer to recharge.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Mrs. Charm, Scribbles
Tagged eBay, Indie Author, iPad, IPOD, iRiver
Deck view of an LSMR, from this hobbyist’s page. New stuff to me, these special ships carrying rockets to support troop landings, encountered in Little Ship Big War, The Saga of DE343, by Edward Peary Stafford.
Good book it is, with much day-to-day detail of life aboard a destroyer escort in the last months of World War II. I had no idea, for instance, that the infamous kamikazes did not just dive down on a ship, but also came in low, on the water, to collide with the front, back or side of a ship At Okinawa, there were twin-engine suicide bombers, suicide boats, even suicide swimmers with bombs. Japanese jihadis!
DE343, the USS Abercrombie, was named for a Devastator pilot shot down at Midway. His namesake ship saw a lot less action, but when it did it was hair-raising. Stafford also wrote The Big E, a newly republished 1964 bestseller which I may read next.
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Tagged DE343, Edward Peary Stafford, Little Ship Big War, LSMRs, World War II
Private version of the Texan (distinguishable from the Harvards sold to UK, NZ and Canada by its lack of an exhaust pipe extension from the cowling) the ubiquitous pilot trainer of World War 2.
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Tagged AT-6 Harvard, AT-6 Texan, flying trainer, World War II
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 