July 2011 – Page 3 – Bus Driver Jim

Ugly Case Mod

I bought a big quiet fan to blow hard on my processor, and keep it cool this summer.

All I had to do was cut a square hole in the case cover that slides off the box, directly over the CPU. So, I borrowed my sisters big fancy drill kit, drove to town and got safety glasses at Ace, and proceeded to cut a really ugly hole.

Then I realized I needed to cut four straight lines, a square. So, I drove back to Ace and got these circular cutting things with another thing that lets me use it with a power drill.

It worked good until it fell apart and I couldn’t get the remnants of the old blade off the drill adapter. They had fused together by the heat. (Threw that thing away…)

I should have taken a picture of the hole at this point, it was comical. I somehow salvaged the project using my Dremel to smooth the edges (somewhat). I drilled three holes (hey, good enough), secured the fan, took it back into my office and plugged it in.

It works. It’s quiet and my computer is running noticeably cooler. Yea!

So, I’m going to include a photo link to the end result, here. I’m somewhat embarrassed, but I’m at that age where I don’t have much ego left. So, for the comic relief of it, (remember, it works great!) here’s The Worlds Ugliest Case Mod.

Somewhere in Utah my buddy Brian, who assembled this box, is laughing his ass off…

And one final word: Everybody has their skill level, mine is writing code and being the guru. If I can tackle a project like this, and survive, I’m pleased. I vow to never do it again, but it worked.

I don’t think that Hardware Home and Garden is dropping by my office anytime soon…

Saturday Site Work

I’ve come to the conclusion that this blog needs my single window technique implemented. Currently, when you click on a link or an image, it opens in the same window (or tab) as the blog page.

When you click on the back button to return here, my blog has to reload itself. Using the single window, a new window/tab will open just once, and subsequent images or links will reuse that window/tab. The blog page is left open in it’s own tab, and doesn’t have to reload.

To see this in action, click a photo in the post below (Friday: 7/8/11). A new window/tab will open the photo in the Viewer. Leave that window/tab open and come back here and click on another photo. Your browser will switch to the new window and display the photo.

Think of that new window/tab as your work area for this blog. All links will open in there without opening multiple tabs. It’s a pretty slick technique.

I’ll start working down through all my posts and implementing this. It’s a lot of work for me today, but it will be worth it…

Update 10:00am: Done!

Friday In July

I don’t know if anybody is noticing, but I’m adding new ways to display images and associated text, to this blog. And, if I can’t think of a topic for the post, I’ll just slap the date in. Here’s my newest technique: thumbnail floats left, text right, fixed size block.

The trick is to keep the commentary within the height of the thumbnail. Works great!

When I saw this car parked next to my bus in the Broulim’s parking lot, I thought of my auto-tech son, Riley. I was really curious who the driver might be. Turned out to be a Mexican girl, with a young son. I picked up single mom vibes. Probably left the guy after this automotive disaster.

I love mirror techniques. I was sitting down the road from a new customer off 4000, and took this shot. The ride turned out funny as the address was 844 and there was an 896, an 822, with a 113 in the middle. I knocked on the door of 113 and an old guy yelled out “Cancel”. Sigh…

This is a nice little property at the beginning of the bike trail from Driggs to Victor. There was a gate with a No Trespassing sign, so I couldn’t go further, but it had a real sense of peace about it.

There are a lot of ghost subdivisions in Teton Valley. Great expectations meet economic downturn. This little oasis is at the entrance to one of them. No houses, just this…

Victor Vintage Barn

There are hundreds of old barns in Teton County and I’ll probably put a bunch of old barn photos up, as the blog progresses.

This barn belongs to a sweet 91 year old lady that I transport 3 times a week. I’m not sure about the history of the barn, but she is a matriarch of the valley, so I’m assuming it’s been in her family for a few generations.

As we splashed through the multiple creeks flowing over Hwy 33, she said something that I’m beginning to hear a lot lately. “I’ve never seen this happen before.” Wow, this women has spent 91 years here, and this is a new event!

As a side note, last week I was bringing a young girl to Victor for dance lessons, along with my seniors. I heard the girl talking to my little old lady, and when the girl got off the bus she said “Bye Grandma”. Turns out, she’s a great-granddaughter!

Family runs very deep in this valley.

Cedron Road

This is the main road out of Victor, to Bates, at the foot of the Big Hole mountains, which continues north and back into Driggs. There’s some really nice farmland just west of town, presented here:

Also shot a couple of videos of the local creek trying to get melting snow down to the Teton River. The infrastructure is straining:

Click ↑ for Video

Water On Road

I make my living (as meager as it is) driving Hwy 33 across the beautiful Teton Valley. I’ve been doing this for five years and I’ve been blinded by blizzards, tossed into the other lane by wind, and forced to a stop by cattle drives.

But I’ve never seen this. Record snow up on the mountains, and a slow warming spring, is bringing the water down late this year. It’s getting worse every day and Steph had to call the county because her employers Hardwood Floor company was in danger. The Fire Department responded and sand-bagged a diversion to save the building. Kudos!

I took a few shots today, while driving between Driggs and Victor:

SlideShow (Water On Road)

Rileys First Fourth

I sure am proud of this young man. At the age of 24 he’s put together quite a nice life. During a time when the economy is teetering, jobs and money are scarce, and politics in this country are stupid, my son decides to buy a house and get married.

The house is great, I’ve been there. He’s an auto body tech and the shop on his property is so big it swallows the vintage Corvette sitting in the corner.

Today he’s having family, friends and co-workers over for his first 4th of July bash, and he sent me some quick pictures. Might as well share them:

SlideShow (Riley’s First Fourth)

Victor, ID Parade 11

Steph and I got up early for the Balloon Races but they shut them down this morning due to wind. Probably a good thing because this blog would have fallen off the internet from too much content.

We mosied down to Victor for the parade, around 9am. This is my sixth parade here, and it was a dandy. They kept the kids out of the street while chasing candy, and the crowd maintained it’s line. Two years ago the crowd kept layering inward on both sides and the wide, two line parade route, was down to one narrow lane.

I snapped a couple of pictures (196 actually) and I thought about trimming them down, but I realized they form a nice start to finish view of the event, so they’re all here. Open the SlideShow, click full screen (lower right corner), and kick back.

I also grabbed a couple of videos. The one with the dancing girls is run by Steph’s bosses daughter, Teasha Tolbert, so I opted for video instead of photos.

…and we had killer barbeque from the Knotty Pine :-)

Videos:

Teasha’s Elite Dance Studio:

Click ↑ for Video

Tall Uncle Sam:

Click ↑ for Video

Photos:

SlideShow (Victor, ID Parade 2011)

Celebrate America

Celebrate America was an amazing event here in Teton Valley! I got to Huntsman Springs early, toured the grounds and then camped on Catherine’s deck until Steph and Sis showed up. The condo is owned by my sister Lorelle, rented by her daughter Catherine and is right up against the area used for event parking. It was fun to watch a constant stream of people arriving, filling up this huge parking lot.

Anyway, had a great time, made several trips over to the events, got some good content.

We bailed early on Beck, as a means of escaping back to our house before the place burst at it’s seams. As we hit the main highway, I was blown away. All the people who don’t care about Beck were parked along the road waiting for the best fireworks show in the state. Hundreds of cars! I’ve never seen anything like it here.

Population wise, Teton Valley is small. Just a guess, but with the music festival and this event, the number of people in town was many times our population.

Steph and I finished our evening watching the fireworks from the comfort of our front porch and then dragged our tired asses into bed.

There’s some great stuff here: accidentally happening on Glenn Beck as I was shooting cars, a couple candid videos of Beck, and some cool shots of the crowd.

Photos:

Ronda, Steph's boss, with Kassie and Kendra

Catherine and Dave choosing our Glenn Beck spot

SlideShow (Celebrate America)

Videos:

Adding some raw videos here. I’m just going to upload them in the cameras .mov mode and let Flickr turn them into Flash. Consider them a candid, un-edited view, of the days events.

Prelude To The 4th

Man what a crazy day around here. Thousands of Concert Heads in town for the Targhee Music Festival, and every thing else going on this weekend. Big buses are all over the place, moving people up and down the hill.

Folks are saying it looks like Woodstock up there. From the people I saw this morning at our local store parking lot, I believe it. They all have this perfected scruffy look.

I pulled up to the Community Center to drop my last rides of the day off, and hundreds of people rushed my bus thinking I was a concert shuttle.

Here’s a couple of shots taken from the bus. There’s a Classic Car show here, so there’s some cool cars around, and somebody got air-lifted out of here.

Tomorrow brings forth many new categories, adventures, and photos…