Good morning!!!!

[WinterDeere]

...from a close, but not direct hit.

Exactly! And statistically, this is more probable, as many more households are "close" to each strike, in which only one household takes the direct hit.

People would like to make fun of our old nuclear bomb drills in school, when we'd climb under our desks, saying it's a completely futile exercise. These people don't understand that you're many times more likely to be "near enough" any such event to experience things like windows blowing out or roof tiles falling onto occupants, than to ever be the one building unlucky enough to experience a direct hit. The same logic applies to lightening strikes, in which a surge supressor might save you from many damaging events happening near your home, if not the rare direct hit.

...preferably on the outside wall of the house.

Good point! Even in the industrial electronics where I work, surge arrestors often look like someone placed a grenade inside the housing and set it off, after they've done their job. These things are all made from fire-resistant or self-extinguishing materials, but the walls to which they're attached or the carpet upon which they're set, may not be.

One thing I wonder is how many damaged or totally-defeated surge surpressor systems are out there today, in the consumer world? What fraction of us are running on equipment that's too damaged to do it's job anymore, without even realizing it? Some have indicators to (possibly) tell you when the internal components have been badly degraded by past events, but I suspect most do not, and those that do may not indicate all failure types.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

1.3" of rain overnight.

All this EMP and filter talk is reminding me of college courses, yuck.... lol

 

[rswyan]

48F, overcast, and wet @ 11:30 - that should be the high for the day. Showers this morning transitioning to a steady rain this afternoon. Rain should be ending tonight.

Clinton Station reports the low this morning was 45F with 0.97" of rain in the past 24 hours, which, looking at the gauge here, sounds about right.

Ten Day now showing 7 days with close to no chance of rain and temps in the mid to upper 50's ...

Had some stew last night for an appetizer but Woman brought home Chinese for the main course which hit the spot. Between the two of us we finished off the second loaf of pumpkin bread.

Some banking on the agenda for today, then schedule or pay some bills.

See if I can connect with the driller/well rehab guys out of Mansfield. Unfortunately I have not heard anything further from them ... even after returning the guys call.

After that will likely head down into the basement with the water tempering valve and the big bag of copper fittings from Menards. Probably figure out the plumbing configuration/location for that and maybe start sweating things together.

Also on the list:

More cleaning/prep on the walls.

Possibly get one piece of foam board glued up and on the wall.

Caulk the flue pipe for the wood burner so we can start getting rid of old papers.

Maybe cut some vertical studs for the new wall.

Beyond that just see what else comes up.

Hope everyone is having a decent Thursday ...

 

[sodamo]

70°F and .25 inches rain

One of those overcast, on again, off again days yesterday. I found my affinity for trimming rain soddened branches ranked right along mowing wet grass, hence that task remains.

I did get some minor clean up done, very minor, as my motivation seemed to match the weather.

H&F at friends this afternoon. Sophie did a homemade coleslaw and I’m on the hook for brownies.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great tractor day

 

[Thomas]

Your noise and toes are going to like warmth of that bucket load m7040.

 

[Thomas]

Wow! Bitter COLD here this morning. What happened? This is not the South Texas I know and love.

View attachment 4319862

Sweatshirt weather...39F here now.

 

[Thomas]

39F light misty rain,overnight shall fall heavy at times gusty winds also ending around dawn.

Good day at work afternoon weather decided my plans little puttering just enough to earn my dinner...whew.

Plans for the evening...share bowl ice cream watch little YT pillow time out the door 3:30am tomorrow.

Enjoy your evening all.

 

[wngsprd]

white oak canyon, or the west side? Did a horse ride from skyland years ago.

From Stony Man down the Skyland-Big Meadows Horse Trail to Whiteoak Canyon waterfalls and up to the Skyland Stable Trail and AT back to parking. Looked like fresh horse manure on the Stable Trail. Looks like horseback riding closes after today, unless you bring your own.

 

[ponytug]

Exactly! And statistically, this is more probable, as many more households are "close" to each strike, in which only one household takes the direct hit.

People would like to make fun of our old nuclear bomb drills in school, when we'd climb under our desks, saying it's a completely futile exercise. These people don't understand that you're many times more likely to be "near enough" any such event to experience things like windows blowing out or roof tiles falling onto occupants, than to ever be the one building unlucky enough to experience a direct hit. The same logic applies to lightening strikes, in which a surge supressor might save you from many damaging events happening near your home, if not the rare direct hit.


Good point! Even in the industrial electronics where I work, surge arrestors often look like someone placed a grenade inside the housing and set it off, after they've done their job. These things are all made from fire-resistant or self-extinguishing materials, but the walls to which they're attached or the carpet upon which they're set, may not be.

One thing I wonder is how many damaged or totally-defeated surge surpressor systems are out there today, in the consumer world? What fraction of us are running on equipment that's too damaged to do it's job anymore, without even realizing it? Some have indicators to (possibly) tell you when the internal components have been badly degraded by past events, but I suspect most do not, and those that do may not indicate all failure types.

We'll, I haven't had that many of my surge protectors fail, so I can't really comment on how many dead ones might be out there, but I figure after a decade or so of use, it is worth it to me to replace them. Like you, I have seen the remains of major hits, and I'd agree with the grenade going off description.

The family used to have a cottage on a "lightning alley" because the power line ran along the road, which was on top of a ridge, so most thunderstorms hit it. Not much was left plugged in. But over time, electric ranges, dryers, coffee pots and a bizillion bulbs got smoked. One learned to proactively power the house down and light candles.

But I think it always depends. I was in a derecho event at one point that spawned a ridiculous number of tornados and thunderstorms, during which a lightning bolt hit a tree at one end of the house/barn/outbuilding area (U-shaped layout), and blew a 25' long piece of bark and wood from one end of the U to the middle, but we didn't lose a bulb. Scared the living daylights out of all of us because it was so loud. We were out of power for more than a week (9 days?), which was interesting trying to keep a normal routine going with a large PTO generator on a six cylinder diesel. Nobody got hurt, and it was an adventure for for those who weren't on ops duty.

All the best,

Peter

P.S. I do disassemble my retired strips just to see how they are. For the ones that I have bought, the build quality bears almost no relationship with acquisition price.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Buppies, where are you? Prayers for you both.

Near 30 degrees here in Houghton MI this am and we are packing to head to camp. Will post from camp if possible with just 1 bar there. Hope everyone's last of the week goes well.

I'm feeling ripped off down here in Texas at 43F !!! I'm cold, had to wear a lined wind breaker today.
50 degrees lower than I'm used to.

The problem with staying busy is that I rarely take the time to fully clean up the present mess before making another. After a month or two of that, I’ve got a serious accumulation of messes to wade through. The only reward for this behavior is thinking that I don’t have a trophy shop, I have a working one.
The huge downside is that I almost always have to deal with my last mess before starting another one. Or at least push it out of the way.

I have the same scenario.