Witnessing The March Of Technology

My first laser printer - the HP LaserJet IIP *

I remember in the early 1990s going to a business computer store and purchasing my first laser printer.  It was an HP LaserJet IIP.  By today's standards is wasn't anything special but in 1990 it was incredible.  It replaced an old dot matrix printer I'd had since the early 1980s.  It only printed in black and white but it was such an improvement over the dot matrix printer.  I don't remember the exact price but I think it was over $900 before taxes.

Earlier this week I was walking through Sam's Club looking at the printers.  All priced under $300.  All printing in color, as well as scanning and copying,  One was less than $100.  Things had changed a lot since that first LaserJet of mine.  Then I came to the end of the aisle ...

There, sitting on the end of the aisle, was a Makerbot 3D printer.  I've known about 3D printing for quite a while but I didn't realize you could buy one at Sam's Club.  It was price at $1,299.  Not much more than what I paid for my first LaserJet IIP '2D' printer.  Seeing it there on the shelf really drove home just how things are changing and progressing.  What a wonderful technological future awaits us.

P.S. TGAW, a blogger I follow, has played around with 3D printing including winning the White House 3D Printed Ornament Design Challenge last month.  You should pay her blog a visit and read about her 3D printing projects.

* Photo is a derivative of a photo uploaded to Photobucket (Majorbloodknock)

The Illinois Central Swing Bridge - Best In Black & White

I took my first walk since the Steamboat Trace hike today.  I decided to keep it local and short, crossing the pedestrian bridge into Iowa and going north on the Iowa Riverfront Trail.  My goal was an old train swing bridge  crossing the Missouri River and a nearby geocache which would result in a 5.22 mile round trip walk.

The weather was nice for a walk but it was a bit hot and there wan't any shade along this bike/hike trail.  I reached the geocache first and located R.R. over the Mo. with little difficulty.

After signing the cache log and dropping of the geocoin I'd picked up on the Steamboat trace I headed for the swing bridge.  I was expected to run into a fence and/or No Trespass signs but to my surprise you could walk right up to the bridge.  The bridge is in two parts.  The Nebraska side is fixed and extends just over half way across the river.  The other part is pivoted so that it is parallel to the Iowa side of the river.

Nebraska side of the swing bridge.

I started taking pictures but ran into problems because the bridge was so big it was hard to take it all in.  I tried to make a mosaic but the final result was not satisfactory.  I decide to take closeups of the mechanisms instead.  As I was processing the raw images I found myself converting most of the pictures to black & white. Black & white brings something out of old structures and give them depth and interest.

Bridge Gear.

I could have climbed up the bridge if I'd wanted to.  There was a metal frame someone had leaned against the stone bridge pedestal that could have been used as a makeshift ladder.  As I contemplated this I realized it would be easier to climb up than climb down so I kept my feet planted firmly on the sandy beach under the bridge.

The wheels of the bridge go round and round ...

I'll have to come back, possibly on the Nebraska side to see if I can get more pictures of this fascinating  100+ year old bridge.   The rest of the pictures can be found here.

I Must Be Rough On My Toys

My snowshoes survived three outings. When I was taking them off after my last trip to Boyer Chute I noticed that part of the right shoe, the front decking of the shoe, had broken. On closer examination I saw that the decking on my left shoe, in the exact same place, was cracked half way through.

Fortunately an e-mail to the manufacturer confirmed they were still in warranty so I went to Scheels today to get them exchanged. Of course, after the tons of snow we've had this year, Scheels is completely out of snowshoes. So I'm now on the "call me when you get them in" list which sounds like a long wait. Fortunately the damage isn't crippling and I can still use them.

Speaking of toys, I received a package in the mail today. It was a replacement for a loyal companion of mine. Here is a picture of the old and the new:

The new GPS is a Garmin Oregon 400t (the 't' indicates the unit has topological maps loaded). Touch screen, tiny compared to my old one, color display, USB instead of the ancient serial port, and much, much more. I haven't had a chance to get outside with it yet but I suspect it will be a bit better than my old Magellan Meridian Platinum. For one thing, when I scanned this picture (I put the units face down on the scanner) the old one was still looking for satellites, as indicated by the hour glass, something it has never been able to do inside away from the window. The new one had a lock in no time.

My only concern is the new one seems less rugged than my old. The ol' Magellan, with it's rubberized body, survived a few drops in its day. I'll have to be a little more careful with the new one.

I hope to have a chance to play around with it later this week. I can't wait!

P.S. Props to GeekHiker for foreshadowing.

Hiking Nebraska: Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday I finally got back on the trail. It had been a while - three months - since my last hike and it felt good to get out. My first Nebraska hike would be a couple of trails in the Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge. I chose this hiking areas as it had longer trails than most parks in the area. I chose Tuesday because it was going to be in the low 80s and not too humid. It turned out to be a perfect hiking day with a cool breeze from the south.

The refuge is mostly meadow with wooded areas along the Missouri River and Boyer Chute. The trail leaves the main parking area of the refuge on a paved path, crosses a bridge over the chute, and continues as a gravel and then mowed grass, path east across the meadow.

I followed the Grasses Loop, a four mile loop, through the prairie land. As I walked on the trail, grasshoppers jumped out of the way. Many of the grasshoppers didn't quite grasp the concept of fleeing as they jumped straight at me. I was pelted by insects as I walked along. It felt kind of weird.

The air was filled with the sound of insects and birds. I spooked some pheasant (or maybe quayle) and wild turkey as I walked through the tall grass. The trail eventually reaches a tree line that runs along the Missouri River and turned north. I came across a mulberry tree and picked some berries. It was a little late in the season and the berries were small and not as juicy as I've had in the past. My grandparents had some mulberry trees on their farm. I remember going out and eating them until my hands were stained purpley-black from the juice.

Along part of the trail there were trees on both sides of the trail. A deer jumped over the trail and headed into the trees before I could get my camera out. A rabbit was not to far behind. With the pheasant, wild turkey, meadowlarks, rabbits, deer, and grasshoppers, I saw more wildlife on this trail than on any of the my California hikes. I hope this wasn't a fluke. I like to see animals on the trail.

At around the half way point of the grasses loop, I headed for a nearby virtual geocache. I reached down to check my GPS and it was gone. I backtracked and found it on the ground under the mulberry tree. Gave me a little scare, though I have been looking for an excuse to buy a new one. Not this time. I arrived at the cache site and claimed "Boyer Chute NWR #2" located not far from the western shore of the river.

The loop briefly follows the Missouri River before heading back west. There were a couple spurs that were not shown on the trailhead maps. Not sure where they go - a reason to come back some day. A visit in the fall when the leaves change may be required.

I arrived back near the trailhead and walked the Oriole Loop, a short half mile loop through a forested area, before heading back to the car. Part of this loop passed so close to the chute that the trail was totally washed out forcing me to detour a little.

The Grasses-Oriole loop combination was 4.84 miles with roughly 112 feet of vertical. That's not much vertical and frankly the trail is as flat as they come.

I was not satisfied with this length so I drove down to the southern edge of the refuge and did another hike along the chute to the point where the chute merges with the Missouri River. This trail seemed a little less traveled and felt more rustic even though it was well maintained. There were more flowers along this trail where splashes of yellow and purple liven it up the scenery. The only bad thing about this trail was some garbage on the trail - namely a slightly used feminine hygiene product (X-Þ GROSS).

The south chute trail, along with a short spur to the edge of the chute, added about 1.52 miles and another virtual cache "Boyer Chute NWR #1". So, combined, my hike at Boyer Chute totaled 6.36 miles. Some pictures can be found here.

It was almost noon and I was getting hungry so I headed to the nearest town, Fort Calhoun (population 850+) where I ended up at the Rustic Inn. At one time the place had a western theme with stuffed Cowboy and Indian figures greeting you at the door, long horns over the entrance, and various rusty western stuff adorning the walls. The glittery, UFO shaped, mirror ball hanging from the ceiling ditracted from the western theme. The place was a typical small mid-western town restaurant. The service and food was fast. My cheeseburger and fries were basic and no frills, which is fine since I'm a no-frills type of guy. The soda was served in the can with a glass of ice. Nothing froo-froo here. I felt right at home here.

After my satisfying lunch I found three other geocaches in the area: "Eye Ain't Got No View" (located next to a cemetery), "L&C The Rock" (A memorial to Lewis & Clark), and "A Wetland Drive" (Muggles saw me and aked me if I was checking water quality. I mumbled a little white lie of agreement and waited for them to leave before I re-hid the cache).

After three caches, I'd had enough and headed home. This was a good first hike. The landscape is quite different here than in California. It's different but interesting never the less. I can't wait to see where I go next.

The New Weather Station ... Bigger Than My Head

Now that we've moved back to the Midwest, the weather is a much more important topic. In Oxnard, there was very little variation in the weather and when it did change, it rarely resulted in a change in our activities. In Nebraska, watching the weather is a critical necessity when planning any outdoor activity.

While I have been interested in weather for awhile, mostly because it involves data, the Wife has a much deeper knowledge about the weather than I. I have been known, to her chagrin, to refer to the Wife as the Weather Wench. I'm sure this is a result of her growing up in the Midwest. My nine years out of the country and almost 21 years in California has dulled my weather sense.

To correct for that, and at the urging of the Wife, I bought a weather station. I got a pretty good deal on E-Bay. It arrived yesterday. I was planning to wait a while before putting it up but, as I sat on the couch watching junk on TV this afternoon, I realized that I might as well install it. (The Wife predicted that I couldn't resist putting it up and she was right.) It was either this or cleaning the house. The dirt won't go anywhere but the weather ... it's a changin'!

The Wife had called me last night and when I told here that the station had arrived, she asked how big the outdoor sensor was. I was having trouble describing it and she asked: "Is it bigger than your head?" Well, actually ... it is bigger than my head. As a matter of fact it was much larger than I expected. I went to Home Depot and bought some pipe and mounted it to our back fence. I ended up going to Lowes because I came up one pipe short - D'Oh. I decided to punish my carelessness by going through the Dairy Queen drive through and buying a large ice cream cone.

The weather station is a Davis Instruments Vantage Pro 2. The outdoor sensor measures temperature, humidity, wind direction & speed, and rain fall. The unit shows all that plus barometric pressure, dew point, heat index, wind chill, rain rate, and more. A data lovers dream. It has a small solar panel to keep the batteries charged and talks to the console using frequency hopping spread spectrum. What more could a gadget lover want.

The unit can be connected to a computer but the software costs over $180 which seems a little steep. Since I'm too cheap to buy the software, I won't be posting weather data on Homer's Travels anytime soon. (Sorry to disappoint.)