{"id":68361,"date":"2023-04-03T07:17:38","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/?p=68361"},"modified":"2023-04-04T07:25:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T14:25:55","slug":"monday-has-arrived-and-no-rain-in-the-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/?p=68361","title":{"rendered":"Monday Has Arrived And No Rain In The Forecast!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Memories:\u00a0 Listening To The World!\u00a0 <\/strong>For whatever reason, my interests were always in electronics, even at an early age.\u00a0 I had my radio operator’s license when I was first in Junior High School in 1957.\u00a0 Our neighbor down the street, Marion Gillick, asked me if I wanted her old Zenith Trans-Oceanic console radio, and I, of course, said YES!!!\u00a0 It was bought new in 1938; people then did not have TV, so radio was their evening entertainment.<\/p>\n

For one hundred dollars, you could listen to the world.\u00a0 Today on eBay, these go for $1,500 or more.\u00a0 One thousand percent markup in eighty years!\u00a0 Take a close look at the prices in the 1938 newspaper advertisement below!<\/p>\n

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I got my wagon and, with help, hauled this gigantic radio four doors down to my “ham shack,” where I had my tools and spare parts.\u00a0 Mom gave me some furniture polish, and I added the elbow grease.\u00a0 The cabinet was magnificent.\u00a0 \u00a0The inside, not so much.<\/p>\n

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I attempted to plug it in, but the cord was “rotten” and ready to catch fire.\u00a0 I removed the radio from the cabinet and replaced the power cord.\u00a0 I then polished up the inside of the console, which was four feet tall and made out of excellent wood.<\/p>\n

After inspecting the radio, I had to change the electrolytic capacitors as they were leaking.\u00a0 I changed tubes, but many were from the 1930s and hard to find.\u00a0 The main speaker was “blown,” meaning the paper cone\u00a0 was torn, so I carefully repaired it with fingernail polish (an old ham radio trick to fix speakers).<\/p>\n

Finally, came the moment; I turned it on!\u00a0 Snap, crackle, pop went the volume control, but there was music!\u00a0 I turned it off and cleaned the controls with volume control cleaning fluid.\u00a0 \u00a0Feeling pretty optimistic about now, I made a Windom antenna (copper wire 67′ in length and a down wire tapped in at about 13 feet)\u00a0 and strung it up between my ham-shack at the back of the garage to the neighbor’s telephone pole.\u00a0 Soon it was connected to my first “short wave radio!”<\/p>\n

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I spend hours and hours late at night combing the 5.6 to 18 megacycle shortwave frequencies and listening to foreign broadcast signals.\u00a0 My favorite was the Russians because they spoke perfect English and told us how their latest “Five-Year Plan” was going, ha ha ha.<\/p>\n

I even sent our QSL Cards to the stations and, after weeks, got return cards which I kept for many, many years.\u00a0 My mother would be waiting at the door anytime I got a new card; she studied them.<\/p>\n

A QSL card is a written confirmation of either a two-way radiocommunication between two amateur radio or citizens band stations; a one-way reception of a signal from an AM radio, FM radio, television, or shortwave broadcasting station; or the reception of a two-way radiocommunication by a third party listener.\u00a0 A typical QSL card is the same size and made from the same material as a standard postcard; most are sent through the mail.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to believe that today, 65 years later, I can punch a few numbers on my phone and listen to the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I woke up at 7:00 am, late for me, and tippy-toed into the office to not wake Mary.\u00a0 At 7:30 am, she stuck her head in and said, “It’s PT day!”\u00a0 \u00a0Oops, my bad!\u00a0 We got ready to go quickly! Off like a rocket, we hurried to Tustin.<\/p>\n

PT was about an hour long, and afterward, we stopped at Ralph’s to pick up goodies for Saturday’s egg coloring activity.\u00a0 From there, we went home, had breakfast, and walked the garden; things looked good!\u00a0 Another month and we will be picking!\u00a0 I remembered yesterday when Scout came out to help!<\/p>\n

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Scout is so helpful!\u00a0 You got to love him!<\/p><\/div>\n

Time to decorate for Easter, so up the stairs we went, and down came three large boxes of goodies.\u00a0 We spent the afternoon going through everything and putting them in their places.\u00a0 There were loads of memories in these boxes.<\/p>\n

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My bunny decorates for Easter.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s pretty amazing because some of these decorations were in newspapers dating back to 1995, almost 28 years!\u00a0 We have combined mine and Mary’s, and it’s getting to where we can’t tell which one is whose, the way it should be.<\/p>\n

Why couldn’t the rabbit fly home for Easter?\u00a0 He didn’t have the hare fare.<\/p>\n

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Boxes come down, and decorations go up!<\/p><\/div>\n

We went to Michaels and bought two new candles for the mantle, which are Easter colors!\u00a0 We shopped for a while, but there was nothing ready to jump off the shelf and hop in our basket.<\/p>\n

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New candles for the mantle.<\/p><\/div>\n

Mary was anxious to cook up her pickings from the garden.\u00a0 She parboiled the beans and painstakingly shelled the fava beans.\u00a0 Meanwhile, I soaked the steaks in A-1 and Worchester Sauce in preparation for dinner.<\/p>\n

People have been eating fava beans for over 10,000 years!<\/p>\n

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Preparing Fava Beans is a lot of work, but they sure taste good!<\/p><\/div>\n

Mary decided to steam them this evening.\u00a0 They were al dente in about five minutes; just perfect!<\/p>\n

Did You Know?<\/strong> Literally translated as ‘to the tooth’, al dente is an Italian term used to describe the ideal consistency of pasta, rice, and vegetables when cooked. Al dente is firm when bitten without being hard or chalky. Italians call pasta that has been cooked until soft ‘stracotto’ (overcooked).<\/div>\n
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Mary picked peas and beans from the garden!<\/p><\/div>\n

The steaks went five minutes on a side with medium-high heat, and we had perfectly cooked medium-rare pinkish inside.\u00a0 Why didn’t I add mushrooms?\u00a0 Next time!<\/p>\n

I bet my butcher that he couldn’t reach the meat on the top shelf. He said he wasn’t going to bet with me. He told me the steaks were too high.<\/p>\n

What do you get when you cross a cow and a porcupine? A steak with a built-in toothpick!<\/p>\n

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I did the steaks, and they were perfect.<\/p><\/div>\n

We watched two Bourne movies while we were eating dinner and cleaning up.\u00a0 They were full of action but somewhat unbelievable.<\/p>\n

I noticed a full moon, so I popped outside and caught a snap of our home, the American Flag, and the man in the moon.\u00a0 \u00a0I love the outside under-the-eve LED lights because I can change them at will via my phone\u2014any of 64,000,000 colors, including twinkles, runner, sound modulated, and ten other schemes.<\/p>\n

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Our house is purple for Easter, Old Glory is flying high, and a Full Moon is out tonight!<\/p><\/div>\n

By 10:00 pm, we were safely in bed counting sheep.\u00a0 Dr. Scout, The Wonder Dog, was snoring up a storm as I turned off the lights.\u00a0 Today was a good day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memories:\u00a0 Listening To The World!\u00a0 For whatever reason, my interests were always in electronics, even at an early age.\u00a0 I had my radio operator’s license when I was first in Junior High School in 1957.\u00a0 Our neighbor down the street, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[229,234,233,230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-memories","category-vegetable-garden","category-working-around-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68361"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68396,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68361\/revisions\/68396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}