Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

The last few days we've had this flying, fluffy stuff called "clouds" in the sky which makes for very pretty sunsets.

We went to see the Superbloodmoon rise in the East tonight. It was overcast and a bit foggy, so no moon for us, but there were lots of others doing the same thing in Santa Teresa County Park with clear skies in the wrong direction ... We also had a very nice sunset a little bit earlier.

I rarely take political positions in public, in particular not on this blog, and I do so for good reasons... This one is different, and an issue I deeply care about. Apologies to my regular readers. On Tuesday evening , the Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Trustees will vote on whether to extend the charter for the Charter School of Morgan Hill (CSMH) for another 5 years. CSMH has now been operating for almost 15 years. All 3 of our children are -- or were -- students at CSMH and have been happy and successful at the school. While the relationship between the District and the school has often been a little bit rocky, this time the district staff is going too far by asking the Board of Trustees to extend the charter only with onerous and questionable conditions attached. I took a close look at the report prepared by District staff outlining their concerns regarding the CSMH charter extension petition. While the report raises some valid issues, none of them rise to a level...

Northbound Caltrain 217 this morning at the Bernal Rd overcrossing.

South Station has some neat light effects. The Barking Crab is a Boston seafood institution located in a tent at the water front, and they are very specific about alcohol consumption ... The lobster roll was excellent. Boston skyline on the way back to South Station.

The hotel is behind me. The office is behind the trees of this garden on top of a parking garage.

Sunday evening I had a Wormtown Hoppy IPA at Za. At Meadhall on Monday evening, Naked Elf was unfortunately out, so I ended up with a Golden Monkey Triple, followed by a Smuttynose Finest Kind IPA. All good choices.

The plane just arrived. We are all set for on-time departure to Boston.

The Physics Show is a regular (and popular) staple at Foothill College. We got tickets and today we learned about electricity, magnetic fields, Faraday, atoms, electric charges, conductivity, temperature, and pressure. The show was very well done, most of the experiments worked, but -- not surprisingly -- the presenters had a bit of trouble when they were trying to demonstrate electric charge on this relatively humid day. Hey look, you can make electric arcs yellow by coating the copper rods with salt. The definite crowd pleasers were the air-pressure driven T-Shirt cannon ... ... and shattering a cinder block with a sledge hammer ... on top of a human ... who is sandwiched between two nail boards. Lots of very educational fun designed to make children (and adults) curious to learn more about Physics. It worked for us. Shows with new content typically debut in January. Get there early (>30 minutes before show time) to get in line and score front row seats. There are still tickets a...

Tonight I disassembled the push button control panels for the former Hallelujah Industrial Area and recovered a whole bunch of cabling, LEDs, and push-buttons. Since the club is moving to soft panels on fascia mounted tablets, I can install the NCE Switch-its in locations that are more accessible than under the upper level. And yes, near the chemical tanks that's a glass of one of Murf's fantastic wines. Thanks for bringing it down and sharing!

Very cool evening sky tonight. The straight lines are not on the lens of my camera ...

The drought has not been gentle to the tires on Pascal's bicyle this year. Today we pulled a total 31 thorns from the mantles of both tires, many of which had penetrated the inner tube. This was the first time we had to replace the tube on both wheels at the same time. All of that because he crossed a small grass section near the Los Paseos sports field. Most of the time the thorns are not a problem, they are soft and bend easily. However, it's so dry now that the thorns are very stiff, and act like pins. 5 thorns ...

Los Paseos Park at Dusk

While puttering around the house today, I had a little bit of time and continued working on extending the run-around in Talheim . The sub-roadbed in this area has already been modified a couple times, making additional changes difficult. I decided to just lay a fitted piece of hardboard under the track to carry it across the gap. A wooden brace is glued in place to support the hardboard. To fit the hardboard I cut a page from today's paper into a template to fit the all the nooks and crannies of the existing benchwork and structures. Once the hardboard was cut based on the template, I sanded down the edges and glued it in place. You can never have too many clamps.   Once the glue dried, I put back the track, and Kevin got to test whether it all still worked.

Looks like our apple tree will have more than the usual 1.5 apples this year. Unless we'll have a repeat from last year.

As I was pulling up in the parking lot at work today, I saw this nice geyser near the Stevens Creek pump station. Looks like some valve at the water main broke. Quite a bit of run-off was pooling at the bottom of the hill.