70,000 Beats Per Minute


One of Donna’s retirement gifts was a Gift Certificate to a local store called Birds & Butterflies. And one of things she bought with her GC was a hummingbird feeder. We have filled it a couple of times and had yet to see a hummingbird. About a week ago we were sitting on the porch when one flew up, took a sniff of the feeder, seemingly shook it head, turned around and flew off. I took the hint and changed out the sugar-water nectar (it had been awhile anyway.)

The very next day it was back and since then has become a frequent visitor. One time after it had been coming around a few days, it seemed to notice us on the porch. It flew up and over about half way between the feeder and the screen, then zipped up a foot or so, so it was eye level with us. It hovered it front of Donna for a second or two, then zipped horizontally to hover in front of me for a second or two, then it took off back into the trees.

Earlier this week the hummingbird did something that stunned us. It flew out from the trees, stopped to hover at right about the same spot it did when it was “eyeballing” us, swiveled it head 90° and sucked a small flying bug right out of mid air. Who knew? We both thought all they ate was flower nectar and pollen and such.

Forgive the crappy picture, but we were sitting on the back screened porch near dusk and the cell phone camera focus is slightly freaked out by the screen between us and the bird. Tonight for the first time we had two hummingbirds come to the feeder. Not at the same time though, hummingbirds are pretty territorial. As a matter of fact, we first noticed that there were two because we saw one chasing bird the other around.

Sometime early this week the Purple Whale passed the 70,000 mile mark.

Zero Crappy Pallets


Remember last Friday’s photo of all those broken damaged pallets? Yesterday morning Waste Management showed up and collected the second of the two dumpsters full of the damaged pallets. Yesterday afternoon the usual used pallet truck showed up and collected the rest of the damaged ones that were still on the ground in the back parking lot.

I say back parking lot only because in the 70’s when the building was originally put up the original inhabitants actually used it as such, but ASCO has never let us use it as a parking area. From the three different companies that drop off bar stock and tubing, to pallet delivery and removal trucks, to the metal recycling trucks and not to forget the garbage dumpster people, there is just too much truck traffic back here, that even if they did allow parking, I wouldn’t risk it.

Notice Anything?

After the usual Sunday breakfast bike ride, I spent the rest of the morning re staining the deck. I got half way done before stopping for lunch. With afternoon thunderstorms predicted I opted to quit there and finish up another day, and as you cane see, those predictions did come true. The trouble now is that a high chance of rain is predicted for the rest of the week, so I don’t know when the the other half will get done. Maybe next Sunday morning will have to be a repeat of this one.

Note the subtle product placement in the lower left of the picture.

55,000 Crappy Pallets


Like any manufacturing facility, the Valve Store brings in a lot of stuff to accomplish its mission and most of the large quantities of an item come on pallets of wood and occasionally plastic. Sometimes these pallets get damaged in some way shape or form and are no longer usable to ship our product back out the door.

That chain link fencing with the maroon slats behind that big ol’ pile is where on one side the broken ones are supposed to go and on the other the fresh new pallets get stored until needed. Almost always the broken ones just get get unceremoniously dumped next to, not in, the fenced area to await recycling. I haven’t seen the guy who comes to pick up the junk ones recently, so the pile has grown quite large. Because we are getting a visit from the President of ASCO next week, who is a stickler for neatness, somebody needs to clean up this mess just like I had to do for my desk.

Well, today Waste Management dropped off a 40-yard dumpster which the minions of shipping filled up in short order. It made a dent in the pile, but a couple hours later a truck showed up to drop off a second dumpster (and cart off the full one.) Those same people filled up the second one right after lunch. When I left at the end of today that second full dumpster was still sitting there. And scattered around outside the dumpster there looked like at least another dumpster full.

Yesterday when I pulled into the garage after work the CTBNL’s odometer read 50,002.