Friday, August 7, 2009

Weather Station ordeal short-lived

The really nice weather seems to be continuing. Even the slight threat of some shower activity, mostly at night, can’t slow down this perhaps best week/weekend of the season so far.

I had thought about going out yesterday and vacuuming up my grass clippings, but Gator Wife and I got caught up in a whole bunch of other things. The lawn can wait until the weekend, and while I'm doing the grass sucking, I can give it a trim which should put it into next weekend before I’ll have to do it again.

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself the last couple of days because my weather station had conked out. GW and I found one almost exactly like it at an outdoor store located in Scarborough. It was the same make as the one that died and now it’s already part of the Gator homestead.

I had a chance to get an upgrade, for twice the price, of course, which would interface with my computer system. I kept asking myself why I would need that and ultimately my needs and wants didn’t quite get together.

I think I had mentioned I thought it was the sensor/sending unit that had died. It was. As soon as I put batteries, the same ones I took out of the dead unit, into the new one, it came to life. My station, GW’s station, and even my old station all are now giving me the readings. There is one difference as the new unit’s rain gauge has its own transmitter and is no longer wired to the base station.

So the saga of the weather station came to a very quick end. It’s amazing just how much one gets to sort of depend on something like that. It’s like leaving home without a watch. One can go hours, even days, without looking at the watch. Leave it home and the wrist gets scrutinized about every five minutes.

Our four Congress people, Repub. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins along with Dem. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Michael Michaud, are apparently not going to hold “public forums” to get constituent views on various items before Congress during the Congressional Recess. Democrat leaders are suggesting that such forums not be held.

Mob Rule is what they say the forums are. They are organized by Republicans, according to the Democrats, to prevent the elected officials from passing along the Congressional party lines on health reform, cash for clunkers, stimulus, and other items. There are numerous videos on "YouTube" showing what has happened so far in some such forums. It isn't pretty.

There was an interesting article on Foxnews the other day that sort of took the Democrats to task for not listening to constituents, saying millions of Americans are crying to be heard as they are against the plans.

The Maine GOP, meanwhile, in an e-mail has told Maine’s Republicans that it is in fact the Democrats who are organizing demonstrations to fight against the ordinary citizens trying to get the truth about the proposed new laws. They cite several sources to back up their claim.

I hope the Maine delegation has a change of mind and does meet with their constituents. I realize they probably won’t like what they hear and will ignore the people’s urging anyway, but they do work for us and they should be willing to hold those forums. People have a way of remembering such sleights in election years.

I can’t leave today without mentioning baseball. After all, THE series is on now between the Red Sox and Yankees. After the Yankees ended Boston's season domination of them last night and after the Tampa Bay Rays sweep of the Sox, the evidence is growing that Boston is in dire need of pitching. I haven't seen the stories yet this morning, but I wonder if Red Sox Manager Terry Francona called last night's start by John Smoltz "a quality start."

And finally, my favorite sport got underway yesterday. The Florida Gators held their first training session of the year getting ready to defend their college football National Championship and have all the guns to repeat. I’m sure you know why I like the Gators. “Gator in Maine.” Get it?

GiM

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