Mid Winter breakup (Bay Ice)

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 14th, 2010 in Local | Comments Off

These are pictures of what the shoreline north of Point Lookout looked like today  (1-13-2010).   Looks more like what one would expect in the spring.  NOTE:  And the weather has NOT been warm!!!  Yes,  the top one is looking out on Lake Huron,,   Open Water!   The bottom one is looking toward the Gravelly Shoal Light,  seen off in the distance.  The are large format photo’s,  click on the picture for the full sized view.

Mii starting to wonder about Wii

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 12th, 2010 in Technology and Music | 2 comments

My wife sort of wanted a Nintendo Wii for Christmas.   It didn’t work out for her,  but she finally convinced me to purchase one a little after Christmas.   It arrived today and I set it up and got it online in an hour or so.

First Impressions:  Neither of us are very impressed by the unit.   I understood that the graphic’s were nothing to write home about,  but the game control,  is the big ticket item that has us both under impressed with the unit.   Given, this is our first day with it and we’ve only played the sports games that came with the unit,  and those that came with a bundled product called “Wii Play”,  but unless we purchase something a little more involving and detailed, (any title suggestion?)  I can’t see it holding our interest for very long.

The other side of the Wii unit,  the one that most interested my wife,  was the Balance board and the Wii Fit software.   I’ll get that unit hooked up tomorrow and possible write another post about it then.

Bottom line,   4 hours into a being a Wii user,  from an adult point of view,  and can’t see what all the hype is about.

Loreena McKennitt at the Calgary Folk Music Festival

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 10th, 2010 in Technology and Music | 1 comment

  I’m currently listening to a live online recording of Loreena McKennitt at the  Calgary Folk Music Festival compliments of CBC.ca found that this addresss,

http://cmpgnr.com/r.html?c=1573884&r=1572536&t=1779188109&l=1&d=91466762&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ecbc%2eca%2fradio2%2fcod%2fconcerts%2f20090725mcken&g=0&f=-1

It took me a quite a few tries to get a connection,  but it’s well work the time it took.  The following is the Quinlin Road writeup of the broadcast.

The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) presents Loreena’s  performance at The Calgary Folk Music Festival from July 2009 as part of their “Concerts On Demand”.

The Calgary appearance concluded a series of Canadian festivals which followed a summer tour of the Mediterranean, which was commemorated by her fall release A Mediterranean Odyssey.

If you’re a fan as am I,  and the link above doesn’t want to work,   you can try going to Loreena’s website,  (Link above) “Quinlan Road”.  There may be a way to get to it from there,  plus there are other of Ms. McKennitt’s works available for you there.

Another LINK that might get you there.

Note to GM about the “VOLT”

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 7th, 2010 in News and weather, Technology and Music | 2 comments

To General Motors:

I’ve just finished reading a bit about the new “Volt” product line.  Please note that it is approximately 24 miles to the nearest Walmart Super Store from my home.   It’s 95 miles to the home of my nearest relative.   My current passenger car is a Chevy HHR that get’s 33 mpg.   I can drive back and forth to my nearest relative’s house 3 times on a small tank of gasoline and I can drive back and forth to get groceries 10.8 times.  The HHR cost me around $12,000 new!   The Volt on the other hand purportly uses no gasoline,  (NOTE I DIDN”T SAY NO FUEL),  to go the first 40 miles.  Translation;  To get groceries, I would have to start with a fully charged battery,  then rely on gasoline to get home.  (So far, I’m unclear on what kind of gas mileage the Volt gets when running on gas).   To visit relatives,  80 miles on battery (assuming I can vampire some electicity from them for the trip home) ,  and 90 miles on gasoline.

Complicate this with the fact that I’ll need to fork out near $40,000 for the Volt,  pay for the electricity and gasoline that it uses,  plus worry about replacing the very expensive batteries every couple of years.  And,  (this is just a guess now),  I’m guessing the Volt won’t pull my 17 ft fishing boat,  much less the 25 footer,   meaning I’ll have to continue maintaining and feeding gasoline to my old Silverado (which pulls the 12,000 lb boat very nicely thank you).

I’ve reread your website and caught the “and overnight charging will cost about a dollar” statement.   I just wish you would talk more about the gasoline costs to run the generator and battery maintenace costs. 

Bottom Line:   I guess what I’m trying to say it,  I won’t be planning on purchasing a Volt.   (Even if I could afford one!)

P.S.  And don’t electic motors produce OZONE?   Ozone=one of the components blamed for the Global Warming fiasco. (it was -2- degrees here the other night).

Point Lookout, Mini-report

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 5th, 2010 in Local, News and weather | Comments Off

It’s been COLD the last few days and it has changed the view from the mouth of the Au Gres River.   Snowmobiles are regularly running up and down the river,  and there are a few ice shanties (on the river).   From the mouth,  no open water can be seen.   From Point Lookout,  no open water can be seen.   I’m guessing that somewhere north on Lake Huron,  open water -might- be found.  It’s winter,  but so far,  snow has been at a minimum, maybe 2 inches on the ground.