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Extra crispy stoat

negative weasel

Oof! Went to an airshow yesterday. Damaged my ankle, pulled a muscle in my back and burned myself to a fine, crispy fire-engine scarlet.

It was awesome!

Comments


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: June 29, 2008, 9:27 am

Any military hardware at this airshow? If yes, any photos?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 9:40 am

Tons o’ stuff. Your guys were there — the Red Arrows. Quonset Point was once one of our major Navy flight training bases. The shows page is here. They’re running a second day of it today, but I don’t have it in me.

As for pictures, I took hundreds. Going through them now. Nothing all that great — I didn’t really have a proper lens and I’m not as good a photog as Uncle B (who loves him some air shows). But I’ll post the best of it to Flickr when I’m done.


Comment from XBradTC
Time: June 29, 2008, 11:18 am

Just what were you doing to acquire such grevious injuries? I’ve been to an airshow or two and most of it consisted of walking around.
Sunburn, sure. Dehydration, almost a given. Ringing ears, sometimes. But I can’t think of what you may have been doing without thinking you may have been naughty to some extent.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 11:36 am

My camera bag is a backpack, which I foolishly slung over one shoulder — hence the sore back. The ankle injury is old. I don’t know what I did, but my achilles tendon is teh ouch. I’ve been limping around on it for months, and it comes and goes but never gets all better. Yes, I know I should see somebody about it. I’ve made a few half-hearted passes, but…meh.

And the sunburn. Well. I’m so white, it hurts to look at me in the sun. And I never properly prepare for these things.


Comment from Machinist
Time: June 29, 2008, 1:10 pm

You’re going to wait until you are at the mercy of the National Health Service?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 3:00 pm

No, no…the moment I get a nibble on the house, I’m going to fly all around Rhode Island waving my Blue Cross card under doctors’ noses.

Sadly, I probably have plenty of time.


Comment from porknbean
Time: June 29, 2008, 5:00 pm

Sorry for your ouchies, weasel. My ‘mother hat’ is way tired today so I got nothing.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 29, 2008, 6:08 pm

Liberal and repeated application of alcohol both inside and out is my recommendation! Guaranteed good for ouchies, and even the occasional boo-boo.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 6:11 pm

Workin’ good, McGoo!

Funny, my foot feels better for having been stressed yesterday (barring the first hour of the morning, when I was howling with every step). I wonder if keeping off of it has made it worse?


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 29, 2008, 6:31 pm

Alcohol: secret painkiller of the Ancients.

Um, Weaz, us older folks have discovered that quite often something hurts because its stiff with lack of use. Then if you use it, you exchange the pain of dis-use for the ache of pleasant (over)activity. Personally, I prefer the latter.

You can’t pick your age, so pick your poison.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 7:03 pm

I’m coming ’round to that opinion, McGoo. I still haven’t adjusted to being…not-twenty. I had about three joints go balky on my after I moved Uncle B in October. The foot is the only one that stubbornly refuses to heal.

I’ve just bought a new, fancy-schmancy portable GPS unit, so I suspect some hiking is back on the schedule. I just hope I don’t get myself a few miles out in the woods and get a bad case of the owies.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 29, 2008, 7:16 pm

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but … well … age happens.

Hiking and GPS! Now that would be fun. You can get lost the high-tech way. I picked up a Magellan at Wally-World on sale a month or two ago. It’s neat. I got the lat and long of the present McGoo residence from it and plugged it into Google Earth. It imaged …right here, exactly, just as it should have.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 7:38 pm

Oohhhh, I’m a big time mapping/GPS freak. My old Garmin Legend, after four years of faithful performance and serious abuse, is just now shitting the bed. The unit works fine; the LCD is going.

For over a year, I’ve been trying to talk myself into the Garmin 60CS, a famously good color unit. But there are things I don’t like about the interface. And when I go to buy maps for Badgerland, they make you fork over $300 for ALL of Europe. Ummm…no thanks.

But Garmin has recently come out with one that solves all those problems. I like the interface, and I can buy the South of England alone on an SD chip.

When I get it and have a chance to play with it, I’ll no doubt blog that.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 29, 2008, 7:51 pm

Yes, the Weasel and I are quite tooled-up wid de GPS. Her Ladyship gave me a Legend a few years ago and I have another Garmin in the car – very useful when you’re on your own and can’t read the maps.

Though they do lead you astray at times. I had a dinner engagement at a country pub almost literally ‘in the middle of nowhere’ a week ago. I primed Digital Dorothy to get me there and, wow!, did she chose a strange route. At times, the lanes were so narrow that I seriously wondered if I’d get my car through them. Then I came face to face with the horse…

Can’t match her Ladyship’s aircraft adventures, damnit. The health Nazis have closed two of my favourite local airshows.

Mind you, we did have swans and cygnets at Badger House, yesterday and they’re pretty heavy metal.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 29, 2008, 8:12 pm

Yep – I would love a Garmin (they seem to be the defacto standard) but can’t justify the price – since to-date I have never actually needed a GPS unit. The one I got on sale was less than $90.

But it surely is fun to fiddle with except when I’m driving. Seems whenever I’m driving and piddling with my GPS people just start honking and braking and screeching tires (thats tyres to you, B) all around me. And you wouldn’t believe the vulgarities people are shouting. I bet they’re just jealous – the swine.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 8:25 pm

Garmin has a cheapie line, too. There are other brands, but it comes down to Garmin and Magellan, and they’re both probably as good as each other.

Early on, I learned to exercise some GPS discipline, as I nearly offed myself once or twice screeching to a halt as I approached some landmark. I have firm rules now about driving past and coming back. On the whole, I’d rather not be dead.

I LOVE maps. And the real fun for me (not counting the hiking itself, and the blessed, blessed not getting dangerously lost) is coming home and uploading my tracks on a good topo map.

I went WHERE?!?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 8:41 pm

Incidentally, the Colorado is their newest model and so the price is still way up there — but I didn’t pay anywhere NEAR list.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 29, 2008, 8:46 pm

They’re dangerous mojo to fiddle with on the road, for sure. Then again, a seriously lost badger can be a hazard to shipping, too. I had to do some seriously new territory in an alien part of London recently and without Digital Dorothy it’d have been… interesting.

Mind you, my version was cheap, cheap, cheap. I don’t need one often, but when I do she’s a great help and worth every penny.

Funnily enough, I’d have said Magellan may be bigger here than Garmin – and neither of them as big as Tom Tom. But what I like about Garmin (aside of their gear) is the fabulous customer service! Her Ladyship had told me about Garmin’s reputation in the USA, but that rarely translates to good service here. In this case it does. I have never dealt with a more professional outfit.

What’s deeply funny with mine is that it comes set-up to tell you how far away you are, when you switch it on, both from Garmin’s US HQ and their plant in Taiwan, or wherever the hell it is. That’s a nice touch 🙂

I resisted the ‘Take me home’ button!


Comment from TattooedIntellectual
Time: June 29, 2008, 9:57 pm

Vinegar is good for sunburns but it only really works if you apply after you come in and before you shower. No! Rubbing! the Sunburn! Only patting. Plenty of aloe and plenty of liquids (not so much of the alco variety).


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 10:02 pm

Far too late for that, TI. I turned that corner about two showers and three vodkas ago.


Comment from TattooedIntellectual
Time: June 29, 2008, 10:03 pm

Yeah, I figured the airshow had been Sat and it was way late, but if ever needed in the future. Don’t I have lovely timing 😉


Comment from TattooedIntellectual
Time: June 29, 2008, 10:06 pm

And as long as you mix some juice w/ the vodka it counts.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 29, 2008, 10:09 pm

No, but I drank a (literal) gallon of iced tea before I started in on the vodka. Or…I don’t know. One of those big American glass beer pitchers. Is that a gallon, or what?


Comment from TattooedIntellectual
Time: June 29, 2008, 10:29 pm

Dunno, don’t drink beer, but as long as you don’t have a headache you should be okay. You will need lots of water of the next bit tho.

If you’ve got a topical analgesic that’ll help with the pain at clothing contact points.

I went from Aus to a week in HI and thought I’d be okay, but didn’t stop to think about what my back would look like after 4 hrs of snorkeling. Youch! No bras for a bit there.


Comment from XBradTC
Time: June 29, 2008, 11:22 pm

Great. All this talk about GPS. Now I have to go write a post about how GPS almost killed me clear back in 93.


Comment from scubafreak
Time: June 29, 2008, 11:53 pm

A pitcher is about 2/3rds of a gallon, I think.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 30, 2008, 7:18 am

The worst burn of my life I got snorkeling in Florida, TI. We were in the shallows, so I just floated on top of the water watching the world swim by…for hours and hours and hours. Oh, Jesus, that was awful. My lower back went a dark tomato red that night, and I had a violent headache and nausea for hours afterwards. Funny, I was nine and I had these things called parents with me that were supposed to spot bad shit like that coming and warn me out of the way.

I don’t look too bad today. My arms and legs are okay, and my face is only slightly raccoon-like (thank you, aviator-frame sunglasses, for the white eye sockets!).


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 30, 2008, 7:38 am

Look at it this way, Weaz: your cow orkers will immediately know that you didn’t just sit at home on your butt, mindlessly, watching TV and guzzling beer and pizza like they did! You got out and exercised and accomplished sumpin!


Comment from Pupster
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:17 am

I bought a Garmin floor model at a going out of business big box store. One of the remaining clerks had his eye on it and his disappointment at my purchase was palatable.

Anyway, I take it outside and plug it in the Jeep, and…nothing. Blank screen. No lights, no bells, no whistles. Deader than dead. It had worked just 5 minutes before inside the store. I called Garmin and explained my dilemma, and as soon as they found out it was a floor model, the rep basically said ‘best of luck to ya’. Thanks pal.

I went back inside to plead my case to the manager, who if the signs on the door were true, would be out of a job in a few days, but I was intercepted by the clerk who had wanted that box real bad. He showed me how to remove the cover around the screen, behind which there is a small re-set-re-boot button. Fixed. Thanks dude.

Now the unit has 3 year old maps, and Garmin wants $280 for the ‘new’ ones. Uh…no.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:25 am

Pups, that is truly the only time I have ever heard a negative anecdote about Garmin’s customer service (and I hang out with GPS geeks). They’re famous for sending you a brand new unit when you send in an old one for repair. That includes gear that was bought used, so why they’d turn up their noses at a floor model, I do not know.

The maps can be a ripoff, though. I’ll give you that. Particularly for the pre-loaded in-car nav units.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:29 am

I wonder how long before all paper mapmakers will start putting Lat. and Long. reference coords. on their road maps? I just checked a few state ones (MO and AR) that were laying around and there were NO L&L references on ’em. It’d be cheaper than buying a map dataset.


Comment from Pupster
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:35 am

Well…he was nice about it, but instead of walking me through a checklist, he suggested I go back in and try to get my money back. *shrugs shoulders*

It all worked out. Mrs. Pupster’s cell phone has GPS that’s almost as nice as my Garmin. Pretty amazing really.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:47 am

What really frustrates me is the online map services like Mapquest used to give you coords along with street addresses, back before handheld GPS units existed outside the military, and now that GPS is common, they don’t. There are ways you can tease them into revealing Lat and Long, but it’s not provided by default any more. Jesus!

Here’s a handy site: geocoder. Give it a street address, it gives you coords in three formats (degree, degree-minutes, degree-minutes-seconds).

FedEx made the mistake of giving me a tracking number. Fools! My toy is on the truck and I’m EATING UP their bandwidth until they deliver it.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: June 30, 2008, 8:53 am

Ya gotta love FedX tracking, though. Next thing they’ll ad is something like:

“Package on truck. Oops! It fell back off. No – now it’s on again. OK. Driver is pausing to pick his underwear and shoot the shit with the night supervisor. OK – He’s on his way, now.”


Comment from Muslihoon
Time: June 30, 2008, 9:52 am

Apropos to nothing, this might interest the Brits here:
http://hubpages.com/hub/ration-pack-testing


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 30, 2008, 10:18 am

Ohhhhhhhh…this thing is SLICK!


Comment from Lokki
Time: June 30, 2008, 10:48 am

I have little Tom-Tom GPS, and I really like the thing…. I’ve used it in San Francisco, Austin, and (God, help us every one) Nebraska; not to mention finding some of the more obscure-but-worth-finding-locations (like Kincaids Burgers) in the greater metropolitan area.

I don’t get all this map-buying though. It comes loaded with the U.S. and Canada, and you can update the maps weekly, for free.

No map coordinates(that I’ve noticed anyhow) but it has a walking pathing as well as a driving pathing one. It also has tons of “points of interest” built it – not just every gas station, but every post office, and every park. Further you can download more such as return points for all the major rental companies; all the Starbucks in the country (although it makes the map hard to read), and all the Dunkin’ Donuts locations too.

One thing that’s fun is the variety of voices and languages it works in. So, while I prefer Erin – a nice Irish lass, I’ve also downloaded Kiyoshi who gives instructions in firm authoritative Japanese. “Yon hiyaku yardo auto Hidari magate!” However, Mrs. Lokki prefers that her chauffeur handle such details as how to get to any particular location – thus leave her free to criticize him on various and sundry points.


Comment from Princess Bernie
Time: June 30, 2008, 11:11 am

Any of you GPS owners also geocachers? It’s fun if you don’t fall down and hurt yourself.

I’m a map geek, too. In fact part of my yob is mapping stuff in ArcMap. Geospatial data analysis. The term is very geeky and sounds important, anyway. It’s also a good artistic outlet for someone with no skill in drawing with a pencil or painting with a brush. I really suck at that.

But give me data to map or fabric to make into quilts and I’m in creativity nirvana.


Comment from Lokki
Time: June 30, 2008, 11:26 am

I think that I actually got the link to ‘Strange Maps’ here, but it’s always worth reposting for all of you map geeks.

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 30, 2008, 11:31 am

Yep, Princess B, I geocache (this model has geocaching built right in, incidentally. It takes the raw .gpx files, cache pages and all, directly into the unit). I haven’t blogged about it because one could follow my geocaching activities and pretty easily track my ass down in person. That would perhaps cause me to use restraint — not pissing people off and stuff — which would be no fun.

My main caching partner, when I don’t go it alone, hurt herself grievously badly a couple of years ago. No big deal terrain; she just hit wrong and broke her leg in three places. She’s got, like, eighteen screws and a plate in her shin now. After which, I think she racked up another thousand or so finds.


Comment from Princess Bernie
Time: June 30, 2008, 11:45 am

I agree on the geocaching non-discussion. I haven’t had much occassion to do it since last fall. MWG isn’t into it and I don’t do that alone. Will do a little this weekend with my son.

rayra, over at GCP can tell you all about his spiral fracture and helicopter rescue while geocaching. Nina over at GCP is a big cacher, also.

My gps unit isn’t the fanciest unit and one day when i have the $$$, I’ll upgrade. But it works for my level of expertise anyway.


Comment from LemurKing
Time: June 30, 2008, 12:37 pm

P. Bernie and Lokki – thank you VERY much. First I had zero-zip-nada idea on what geocaching was. Sounded like a feline disease that humans get. Second, the map website you referenced… if that isn’t one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Farfreakingout. Thanks.

The map on that site showing who owns the land (govmint vs. sheeple) certainly explains why it is so much easier to go somewhere and do something in the NW without any hassle, whereas going point A to point B to camp in the midwest requires reservations or knowing someone (that is, if you have kids).


Comment from Princess Bernie
Time: June 30, 2008, 1:34 pm

geocaching – treasure hunting. Fun, fun, fun.

Nothing like the rush when you find your first one.

http://www.geocaching.com worth the membership fee


Comment from Jill
Time: June 30, 2008, 1:56 pm

I tried geocaching once, but it gave me motion sickness.
I was constantly looking down at the GPS and looking back up again. Of course, rapidly unloading a grocery cart will make me woozy also. As do video games.

I’m strange, yes.


Comment from Jill
Time: June 30, 2008, 3:01 pm

Swease, WORST sunburn I have ever had was gotten at an airshow. I spent 3 hours on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base. My legs got the worst of it – we were seated. By the end of the day, they were maroon. Peeled three times. I’ll never forget it.


Comment from TattooedIntellectual
Time: June 30, 2008, 7:20 pm

Dude, Lokki, ragging on Nebraska, not so cool. Some of us have to live here (at least until Aug and then I’m headed for BFE Minnesota). Figure I’ll add some y’alls to those rounded vowels and just fuck everybody up.

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