Bogieblog

Ntion of Patriots Flag Ride 2019

Once again it was time my HOG Chapter to receive and pass on the Nation of Patriots flag. On May 18, 2019 it left Wisconsin for its tour thru the USA, and on Sept 7, 2019 it will be back home.

This is the entire planned route (from the Nation of Patriots website)

On Friday, we received the flag from Seacoast H-D at our supporting dealer in Concord. We had a great guest when Chapter members got to the dealership, prior to receipt. One of the flag bearers from the first Patriot flag tour was in NH on business, and heard the flag was passing thru, so came to witness. He had a flight out on Friday afternoon, so he couldn't stay for the pass off, but it was great to have him there.

The flag bearer from Seacoast (next to bike) and our Chapter's flag bearer (Blake)

Wisconsin Tony (white shirt) greeting the flag bearer from Seacoast

The official passing of the flag

Group photo of Seacoast and Heritage. The gal kneeling in front is from Seacoast and she brought a very nice camera set up. I gave her my email address and requested a copy of the group picture so I could put it in the quarterly newsletter.

When I was getting ready to leave, I said my goodbys to the group from Seacoast and told the photographer that when she sent me pictures, I would reciprocate by sending her pictures. One of those pictures was of her by her bike.

Someone joked that having a picture of her would be a novelty, and I responded that I rarely had my picture taken too. She asked if I had rode there, and I responded that I had. I didn't think anything of it, but when she sent me links to the pictures, I got a nice surprise

Yesterday we held a fundraising breakfast (100% going to the NoP) and then took a nice meandering ride to take the flag to the dealership in Lebanon, NH.

The Chapter prior to leaving the dealership.

We stopped at a convenience store in Danbury, NH and met up with some of the Twin Mountain group

They led us the rest of the way to their dealership where Blake handed off duties to their flag bearer

Within the entire package that gets passed on, there is a cell phone that tracks where the flag is. Checking the flag location at the Nation of Patriots website, it is still in Lebanon, but should be heading out toward New York some time this morning.

We are happy to be a part of this fundraising for veterans and this is one of the few Chapter events that I make sure I attend every year.

As an aside, since it was cool outside, I never thought about sunscreen. I was outside from the time I left at 8:30 until I got home at 3:15. My face got a wicked sunburn that I will be feeling for a while (no blisters, but still painful).

Fall is Approaching

Proof is in the flowers.

The tree hydrangea in the shade garden is a late summer bloomer. This view is from the house side

This is the view from the fence at the swamp. Notice how you can tell where the deep shade is - right where the blooms stop

The Autumn Fire sedum that I placed in the new roadside garden is starting to blush. Actually this is a picture from last Sunday, the blush has advanced since then.

The maples haven't started turning, although I wouldn't doubt that the swamp maples will start their change very soon. In recognition of the changing seasons, last weekend I tackled a job that I was dreading, fixing my primary snow blower.

Last year, at the end of February, my Sno-Tek blower quit throwing snow. The engine is fine, and the auger would turn, just very slowly. I ended up doing a lot more shoveling that day than I had planned. With storms coming on a regular basis, I bought a simpler Craftsman snowblower to finish out the season. the Craftsman don't throw snow as far (by about 1/2) and direction and angle of the chute are managed purely by hand (the sno-tek is controlled by cables). The Craftsman is fine as a backup, but the Sno-tek far outclasses it and I needed to get it fixed.

I was pretty sure that it was a matter of a stretched attachment belt not being able to turn the auger strongly. Sunday I decided to attempt fixing it. This was a bit daunting to me since you have to entirely separate the front of the machine (or in the manual's technical speak, the "attachment") from the engine and controls portion of the machine. I didn't really figure taking it apart would be a problem (I excel at demolition), just getting it back together again would be my issue. Here it is apart

The offending belt

The new belt installed

Totally back together

3 hours it took me to do probably a 30 minute job, but it is done. Well, I think it is. Although I added oil (I had drained it a couple of weeks ago), I did not add gas or attempt to start it or run the auger. It was hot and muggy, and the engine depends on cold air and snow to cool, so I wanted to wait for a cooler day. Hopefully it is all set, but the verdict is still pending.

Stressed Cats

Yesterday I went and picked up a ton of pellets that I had on layaway. Most went into the garage, but I placed 15 bags on top of the ton I have in the basement. During that time, I placed the youngsters in the cat cage since I cannot keep them out of the basement and I didn't want either of them accidentally slipping thru the door, and thus into the great outside world.

While I was sitting down for lunch, I realized that I hadn't opened the cage back up. 15 minutes after opening the cage door, they were still wicked stressed out from their incarceration - LOL

 

 

Electronic Updates

I've had an old Lynksys wireless router that I got somewhere around 2007 (actually, 2008). I remember agonizing whether to go with the old g or the new n band that was the latest protocol. When I bought the new desktop (has it already been 1.5 months?), I got 10% off when I got the CC credit card and used it to pay (hey, and the computer was already on sale for about 20% off). Then a couple of weeks ago there was a surprise in my email; they gave me a 10% reward in credits. Woohoo, I knew what I was going to buy with it. I mean seriously, new modem, new computer, and a router that had to be restarted on a regular basis because it lost itself (always at the least opportune time of course), what's not to like about that?

Fortunately there is a CC within a couple of miles from work, so I hit that up instead of having to make the trek to Concord. I could have gotten a fairly basic router for about what my reward was, but decided to throw in a few of my own $ and get something with a few more bells and whistles. I ended up with a Netgear Nighthawk AC2300 (aka R7000P), the cost of which I paid less than half after using the rewards. Of course I did my research before I went so made sure it wasn't an older version at R7000D. This is an entry level gaming / streaming router and since I don't do either is more than I need, but should be up to snuff longer than a basic version.

Yesterday afternoon, although only in the 70's, it was so humid that working outside (beyond the 1 ton of pellets I picked up and stacked in the garage) was a struggle even to breathe, so I decided to set up the router. On opening the box, I found there were no instructions - just a piece of paper describing what should be in the box. I had looked up to see what issues there were with setting up, so took a snip of the access address that would allow me to set up via a web browser even without Comcast being in the mix.

Although it took a bit of time, the set up went fairly smoothly and I was able to use the "genie" software to get everything working smoothly. The first thing I did was to change the default password on both bands (2.5G and 5G band). I got my phone, laptop, printer, work laptop and work phone working with it to.

Let me tell you, I thought things had gotten fast with the new computer and modem set up, but the router adds a whole 'nother level for everything. I haven't tried out the range, but expect it to be about what the old one was (to about 10 feet perimeter of the outside walls of my house.

Besides the lack of instructions, the only other issue I have with the new router is that it is HUGE. It doesn't fit on top of my computer, or within the cubby in the desk. Well, it fits, just not gracefully - but at least it well be well ventilated and not overheat :). Oh, and it has lots of bright white lights (the old router had 3 dim blue lights).

For comparison on size, I place the old Linksys router on top (looking at the picture I realized that one of the 3 antennae had been rotated back when I hooked up the docking station for my work computer (the yellow wire to the left) so I have since fixed that. At least I know that if Spot jumps up there, she won't break it, it will just move out of the way.

After looking it up, I know I'm not imagining the speed boost. For a visual comparison of the old N versus the new AC versions (and hey, if I had gotten a g router back in 2008, look where it would have been).

Naturally, as explained below (from the the same source as the chart), theoretical speeds and actual speed are different than the chart, but still the new protocol is much faster.

You may have noticed there has been a six year gap between 802.11n and 802.11ac. This is an eternity in technology terms and the big benefit 802.11ac brings from its time in development is speed.

WiFi is always promoted using ‘theoretical’ speeds and by this standard 802.11ac is capable of 1300 megabits per second (Mbps) which is the equivalent of 162.5 megabytes per second (MBps). This is 3x faster than the typical 450Mbps speed attributed to 802.11n.

The problem is these speeds are garbage. In the real world no-one ever gets close to theoretical speeds and the fastest 802.11ac real world speeds recorded in testing are around 720Mbps (90MBps). By contrast 802.11n tops out at about 240Mbps (30MBps) so the 3x estimate is still true, just much lower

The article goes on to explain that although range for the new protocol may not be much, if any better, it is the beamforming tech that really makes a difference. The technology actively pinpoints where the wireless device is and pinpoints the beam to maximize efficiency. As an aside, at my last place of employment, we built beamformers, so now I know what they do.

All this means the performance of 802.11ac is maintained far better at long range than 802.11n. Peak performance may be tripled, but at range 5-10x the speed benefits are not unusual and this is where 802.11ac comes into its own. Some numbers for example:

• 802.11ac at one metre: 90MBps, 10 metres: 70MBps and at 20 metres behind two solid walls: 50MBps

• 802.11n at one metre: 30MBps, 10 metres: 20MBps and at 20 metres behind two solid walls: 5-10MBps

 

The article goes on to rate the Nighthawk as the best performing router of the 4 that they mention.

My setup should be good to go for another 10 years or so.

Painting and Parging

I've put some pellets on lay-away to pick up next month. This year I'm in the unique position of having no pellets stacked in the garage. So, I figured I should get some more painting done, after all, I did start paintin in June 2018. I just wanted to make sure I got the back wall covered, then around the corner for 4 feet so I can pick up a ton of pellets this weekend (yeah, nothing like a little planning). Painting cinder block walls is a pain as the first coat needs to be painted with a heavy brush in order to fill the rough surface. Them the second coat can be rolled. As a reminder, last June I had painted to behind that pallet on the right which is currently holding the snow tires for the truck.

Well, of course once I start, I want to get further along, but first I must parge the side wall. Parging sounds like it is something an anorexic or bulimic person would do doesn't it? However, it is a way of repairing concrete walls, either block or poured.

The side wall to my garage is breaking down in an area and needs to be repaired before it gets to the point of having a mason come in and totally replace blocks. Apparently the bike, even though I let it cool off outside before bringing it in, throws enough heat to dry out the block, which led to break down of the material. Why do I think it is the bike's fault? Just look at this picture, with any kind of imagination at all, and knowing the shape of my bike, you can see the outline.

On the left side there is a definite outline of the fairing and windshield. Then it dips down at the seat and back up for the backrest. Then dips down again and there is another peak at the passenger backrest. There is a bit of overlap, making it a bit weird looking in some spots, because of course I don't manage to park the bike in the same spot every time, In fact, I would bet the reason the section at my backrest seems large is because sometimes the fairing is that far back. And of course the baking radiates out, so the damage extends past the actual outline.

Here is a close up of what an individual cinder block looks like in that area

It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that one should not be able to see the individual grains of sand/gravel that is used to make the blocks. Parging is somewhat like spreading sheet rock mud, except using mortar. The mortar has to be mixed up in small batches as once it is mixed, you have 15-20 minutes to work with it before it becomes hardened concrete in the bucket. The bare wall also has to be kept moist while applying the mortar to help the material bond. So here is the result, although I ran out of mortar, so the left side isn't quite finished.

The bike was outside while I was doing this, and of course it started pouring so it got a bath :)

Last night I went ahead and did some caulking of the ceiling sheet rock (which is only 1/3 painted from last year) so hopefully I can get at least one coat on it before picking up pellets. Oh, and the mudding and painting are definitely the overuse that gave me such issues with my right shoulder blade - that never completely healed. It started complaining yesterday and is still doing so, but I'll just have to power thru it.