Fractional Distillation using a Reflux Column and Doubler

All in a compact little package, no less!

Chevrolet Rampside (Corvair) Pickup

Dad and I spent an enjoyable Saturday walking the grounds of the Badger Steam and Gas Engine Club Show.  He and I used to go back when I was a youngster in the 1970s, and it has steadily grown into this thing that now encompasses over 80 acres! To the club's credit, they run a good show, with vintage tractors pulling people wagons to and from the parking area and around the entire show.  I guess you could call them Tractor Trollies for lack of a better term.

I took tons of photos, wanting to try out a couple "new" Nikon lenses I'd purchased over the last year.  There's also a 10-acre flea market that I wanted to peruse, just in case I found something I couldn't live without.

I took these photos for Roberta since I knew she has a soft spot for the oddity that is the Chevrolet Rampside 95 pickup truck.  This one's seen better days, but it appears to be (mostly) all there.

Here's the rampside gate, which is independent of the rear tailgate:

Pretty neat!  One of my first automobiles was a 1963 Corvair Monza Coupe, and while it was lively, it was by no means a barn-burner.  I'd imagine this particular truck with a full payload would out-accelerate a VW Transporter, but not by very much.  I was just glad to see one still intact and on the road, myself...

Why we must remember...

I visited somebody special this Memorial Day Weekend.

Nice headstone, isn't it?  He was a Baraboo resident like myself - but there's more. 

Staff Sergeant Daniel D. Busch earned his Silver Star and Purple heart posthumously, by way of Mogadishu, Somalia.  If that doesn't ring a bell, Google "Black Hawk Down".

You and your ultimate sacrifice are not forgotten, SSG Busch. I might be Air Force, but your memory will stay alive for this Memorial Day and many, many more.  

What's in my pocket right now?

A Kershaw. More specifically, a Kershaw Storm II serrated folder, as designed by the fertile mind of knifemonger Ken Onion. I bought 5 of these when Cabela's was selling them for $19.95 each. I figured if I ruined one, I could always bring the spare(s) into action. I'm still on Number 1, though.


When not packing the Kershaw, it's a Benchmade Eclipse Serrated that rides along with me. The Benchmade is also one heck of a pocketknife, but it appears Benchmade ain't making them anymore - as is the case when one finds something that really works well and takes a shine to it...

Everything old is new again...

Hardly does one week go by when I don't either hear or read about the FedGov's plan to deny We The People of the right to buy illumination created by running electrical current through a filament of some sorts.

No, says they, one must shed light by exciting mercury vapor in twisted little tubes that emulate real-by-Gawd light bulbs. We're determined to save you from the evils of incandescent light!

You want to have instantaneous light out on the back patio deck or the unheated garage in North Frostbite Falls during wintertime? Tough noogies - wait for those CFLs to warm up, which I'll tell you right now, takes absolutely friggin' FOREVER.

I got news for the mental midgets who first took my high-flow shower head, then my industrial grade single-flush Ferguson commode - PISS OFF!

I've already converted about 75% of all the lights in this house to CFLs of one form or another over the last several years, usually when the incandescent bulbs in those fixtures gave up the ghost. Did I realize a savings by way of the wattmeter spinning away outside? Yup, definitely. But that ain't the whole story.

I've had to replace several of the CFL bulbs that just didn't cut it. Either they died a premature death, or couldn't hack the environment they were placed in.

The front and back porch are back to incandescent, as are the accent lanterns on either side of the garage door. The lights on the garage door opener are back to incandescent. Two of the biggest lights in that same unheated garage are back to incandescent.

Every friggin' dimmable light fixture in the house is back to incandescent. I bought several of the "dimmable" CFL bulbs, and guess what - they don't. They "dim" to about 50% power, and then either cut out or oscillate in brightness while emitting a high pitched television flyback transformer whine. Sorry, Philips/GE/Sylvania, your engineers have more work to do in that application.

As a matter of fact, the "dimmable" small 14-watt CFL in my computer desk lamp just plain refused to cooperate, so I decided enough was enough and headed over to the local Menards to find a solution.

I found one. Actually, several, and they aren't going to make the CFL proponents very happy, I'm afraid. Menards is now selling retro-style Edison incandescent light bulbs, with long serpentine filaments and envelopes that look hand-blown, for a whopping $8.00 each. Of course, they're made in China, but damned if they don't just reach out and grab you. I know, I grabbed two of them, just in case the FedGov made it a limited time offer.


Now, I really hope it's all bluffoonery regarding this impending incandescent ban, but I'm convinced I'll head back to Menards this weekend and grab a couple more. I mean, just look at how that filament glows!


For 60 watts, it doesn't really run too hot. I'm sure the efficiency sucks, but I usually run my desk lamp dimmed down pretty low anyway, almost to the same filament color as the vacuum tube amplifier running on the desk. (Which feeds the computer's sound output into two huge floor towers on either side, something I will also not give up to the more-efficient transistors now all the rage)

I like it. Next stop, the nightstand light, also dimmable. Put that in your pipe, FedGov. Oh, and thanks, Menards, you've restored my faith in baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet!

A dog named (wait for this...) Turbo!

The story is that he was sitting out in a field near an office complex, looking dehydrated, emaciated, and infected all at once. She Who Would Rescue The World calls me on the cell phone, telling me she has a "problem" and needs to see me at work over lunch. The "problem" was a tiny little furball, lethargic and looking as if today were going to be his last. She saw him out of the corner of her eye as she was driving to lunch. Honest to Gawd, I think she honestly scans for such things...

So I give in. Which I always friggin' do. I knock off a couple hours early, go grab the little doober from the house, and head straight to the family pet doc.

I walk out of there $65.00 lighter, knowing that the 15-ounce furball is seriously dehydrated, has worms, a massive respiratory infection, is a boy, and should perk up after getting de-wormed and as he sucks down the antibiotics and prescription (!) canned food.

Within just a couple treatments of the antibiotics, he comes to life. This is him after just one day of feeding and antibiotics:


He's gained an absolutely amazing amount of strength and ambition since the above photo, so much so that we call him "Turbo" because he does everything in top gear. Even making room in the litter box for deposits results in mass quantities of Tidy Cat being flung halfway across the interim nursery. That's fine, his disposition and zest for all things both cat and human are refreshing, although his introduction to the two big dogs in the house is on a rocky start. Since the photo above he's gained more weight, and has no qualms about attacking me from halfway across the room. Tonight, it's "rush the old man from across the bed, then veer off for another attack from a different angle" night:

Here's to you, Turbo. Hope you and the dogs get along, because I'd hate to have to give you up now that we've become acquainted...

Old meets New

I finally fixed the gremlins found lurking inside my antique Hickok Model 665 oscilloscope (O-silly-scope?) and returned it to service. For now, it sits in a place of honor to the right of my 2009-vintage IBM IntelliStation Z-Pro 9228, which takes the vacuum tube switching technology of the Hickok and multiplies it several millions of times.

True to form, this particular IBM workstation is water-cooled, to keep the dual Xeon 5160 (aka, Woodcrest) 3.0Ghz dual-core processors happy while playing Fallout New Vegas or running SolidWorks, Adobe CS5, etc. There are 10Gb of FB-DIMM memory onboard, a monster MSI TwinFrozr Radeon HD6870 1Gb video card to feed the monitor, a Western Digital Caviar Black 1Tb hard drive keeping the files in order (hence the Masscool blower keeping the HD temps down), and a Koolance Exos 2 running blue coolant through the gold-plated waterblocks attached to both Xeon CPUs. The operating system of choice to run this 64-bit beast is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, which is pretty much a seamless transition from its 32-bit sibling, save for my Canon LiDE 30 scanner drivers.

The Hickok oscilloscope will soon be attached to the output of the computer's sound card, to give a visual representation of whatever music or Windows Media Center TV/DVD I happen to be enjoying at the given time. That, or I'll attach it to the output of the MGE Pulsar EX30 UPS to show the perfect 60-cycle power feed...