August 2015 – Page 2 – Bus Driver Jim

My Insides

I went to our local Teton Valley Hospital a while back to get my back pain checked out. They did a CT scan, charged $1,893.39, never showed me the results, and said I was fine. I told the hospital I needed to see the images and they arrived today on a CD. Two of them… Let’s see, that means each one cost $946.70. How in the hell can they justify charging that much money for two pictures?

Not to mention the fact that a doctor never sat down with me to discuss what I’m now seeing. Is there anyone out there that can read CT?

Palisades Dam

This dam on the Snake River is along the route when I get out of town through Swan Valley. It provides irrigation, flood control, recreation and power to the area and the reservoir is huge (16,000 acres). It always struck me as looking kind of lame, just a bunch of small rocks holding everything back, but there’s a lot more to it obviously.

Smoked

Wildfires are blazing across the West and filling our valley with smoke. I’ve been here many years now so I just embrace it, breath deeply, and remember how stupid I used to be. The farmers are cutting their hay all around us and they don’t care, but it does add a soft texture to the photos I took today.

These are also the last photos taken with my Canon SX280. Dust particles have made their way into the lens and Canon has already replaced this camera once due to the same condition. It goes with the territory and I won’t ask them again.

So, I ran to the bank this morning, cashed out my two travel cards, and bought a new Sony point and shoot which will arrive tomorrow. There’s only two weeks left before I go back to work and I guess I’m done traveling, maybe… But, I’m not done taking pictures!

SlideShow

Home Sunday

I had a good time down at Lava Hot Springs, only lost a few brain cells, met a drinking buddy named Justin (I think that was his name :-) and it’s a beautiful day to be home.

Click the photo below to see a shot of Jason, and a couple more…

A funny thing happened at the end of the evening that night. My new friends dragged me over to the hot springs for one last soak. We split up and I ended up in the 110° pool. Shortly after, some guy was tapping me on the shoulder from above asking me if I had been drinking. It was an authoritarian request like maybe an off-duty cop working for the place would make. I got up and started walking to the exit steps to confront him and stumbled a bit and the guy said something like “AhHa!” I was ready to leave anyway and I appreciated the prompting and I was almost out the gate when the guy appeared out of the night and cut the plastic entry band off my wrist. Woah, I’d just been 86’d from the hot springs! How cool…

Sun Screen

The smell of many fragrances of sunscreen blasted into my face as I sat by the side of the road next to the motel where I was waiting for my room. People with plastic flotation devices were heading towards the river so I followed them and took pictures from the bridge. Click the picture below to see them, posted from my new netbook…

First Switch

This is a test of my ability to take a photo this morning, transfer it to my new Acer netbook, adjust the color with Pixlr, rename it with Advanced Renamer, resize it with FastStone and upload it to Flickr with the Uploader.

The test is obviously successful, as you can see below, if not somewhat convoluted. I’m using the same tools as my desktop with the exception of Pixlr and the Flickr Uploader. I need to port my primary graphics editor over and see if I can find the old Flickr Uploader, as their new one sucks.

Anyway, this is the first post to my blog using my new Aspire Switch netbook entirely. Mission accomplished and she’s almost ready to hit the road.

Update: My graphics app Photo Brush is installed and I found the old uploader!

Aspire Switch

I accidentally blew my little Acer Win 98 netbook apart the other day, a tech experiment gone bad… Unfortunately, that was my main tool for maintaining the blog while I’m on the road. I need image editing capabilities along with renaming, resizing and uploading tools and my Android tablets just didn’t cut it. So, I bought a new Acer.

It came in last night and I spent the evening upgrading Windows 8 to Windows 10. I’m still tweaking it today, adding my tools and diving deep into Microsoft’s new OS. I put a review up on Amazon if your interested and you can see the product here.

Really Now

Piper’s favorite place in the house to sleep is on my bed. She even spends most of the night with me and I don’t mind at all, it’s a big bed and she shares it well. This morning though she may have gone over the line.

That’s my pillow she’s laying on. The place where my head hangs out for several hours every night. She’s been out hunting all morning and who knows what kind of mouse guts remain on her pretty fur.

Sheesh, have I mentioned I really love that cat?

Cool Thing

I spotted this cool thing in downtown Billings Friday night. I don’t even know what they call it but leave it to Montana to be original.

Here’s a couple more:

Simple Math

When I was in college I majored in computers and minored in math. I still incorporate some of that math knowledge in programming but truthfully, not much. There is one little mathematical concept I use all the time though so I thought I would share it.

A ratio is a relationship between two values and a proportion can be used to solve problems involving ratios. You don’t need to know the names of the values (extremes, product and means), just a simple little formula, multiply B times C and divide by A.

For example, my odometer is not accurate due to the size of the tires which are larger than the original ones mounted on my truck 27 years ago. Now I have a GPS that has a built-in trip odometer that tells me what my real mileage is. So, I set both to zero and compare them later.

The trucks odometer says I’ve gone 195 miles, but the GPS says the true amount is 182. So, since I change my oil religiously at 3,000 miles, how many more miles can I really drive before a change?

Think of it this way: A is to B as C is to X.

The answer is 214 miles…

Hey, I’ve been waking up my programming chops and I just came up with this:

You can launch the app by clicking ↑

8723

I love being healthy, tan, physically fit and smart. I also get to take the summers off from my bus driving gig and travel around wherever I want. As the religious folks like to say, I’m blessed.

Unfortunately, I have moments when my do-lapper-dinger doesn’t swing well on my rocking ball (my grandfather’s expression). I turned on my computer this morning and I found a yellow sticky note that I had created last night, prominently staring at me from the base of my keyboard, and I have no idea what it means!

This is not a number I’m familiar with. It’s not a pin number of any sort, too short for a password, and I can’t remember what I was doing when I turned the computer off last night. Perhaps it’s a premonition number?

I’m taking off on a road trip here shortly so stay tuned for some new photos and I’ll certainly let you know if I encounter this number!

btw: My grandfather also used to call rubber bands rubbers. My teenage self always got a kick out of that, as you can imagine.

Ren Fair

Steph was back in Wahington state last week visiting her wild and wacky family. They’re all wrapped up in the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Fair which they actively participate in every year, even building structures, so she just added the event to her pictures of family. The result is a photoset I heartily recommend you watch.

btw: The Faerie Killer tried to take out my girl Tori! Click the photo for more…