July 31, 2008  Living In These North Woods
 
I mentioned the new Walmart Superstore in my last post. This is big news in the area. Back then I only had a brief time to checkout the grocery section of that store...it being the opening day, the store was over crowded with people trying to figure out the store layout.
 
Wednesday is my usual grocery shopping day, partly because the local sales flyers come in the late Tuesday's mail. I had a number of other goods I needed... a steering wheel cover for the big tractor, a bunch of shoebox-sized plastic containers to contain a variety of cables and electronic items in my office closet, shoe laces for my favorite shoes and stuff like that. I also stumbled across some DVD-RW blanks to try out on my new Samsung DVD recorder/dubber system
 
But I'd decided to try the Walmart Superstore for grocery shopping. I was kind of familiar with these stores since there are three of them in the area of Texas I visit every winter.
 
Now, I'm pretty savvy when it comes to prices for groceries and basic goods, having shopped up here for 30 plus years. But the local prices for food goods have skyrocketed because of the equally skyrocketing fuel prices and goosed by the local grocery stores trying to capitalize on the summer tourist trade. I don't have so much as to give a snip for these stores...Walmart offers the same food products, more diversity and at a far lower price (-20%)! More people have found employment at his new facility than would be displaced at the other two stores.
 
And I don't mind, because the local government decided this would be a good "big city" move for the area. I don't like big cities, but I've become disillusioned since there seems to be no laws preventing morons and despoilers from buying property in this former pristine place. When I first moved up here we had a Paul Bunyan's smorgasbog and a few restaurants uptown. Now we have a McDonalds, Pizza Hut, 2 Subways, a Quiznos, 2 Chinese eat in/take outs, an Arby's, a Dairy Queen, a Monicals Pizza and several dozen independent joints.
 
I'm happy about the Super Walmart....after all, this area has reeked of overdevelopment for years.
 
But my place in Texas is comprised of 5 and 10 acre lots, countrified but within 20 minutes of a Walmart Superstore where I can purchase the scrambled egg patties and sausage patties that make a wonderful breakfast when sandwiched in a fresh-baked biscuit.
 
Kinda like you can have your biscuit and eat it too!
 
Until later.....DKHT

July 17, 2008  Random Thoughts
 
The new Walmart Super Store opened up in Minocqua yesterday. I stopped in to see what it was like, while hoping that they carried the frozen scrambled egg patties and frozen sausage patties that I fell in love with down in Texas. A few seconds in the microwave, a Pillsbury Grand Homestyle biscuit and a little Miracle Whip and cheese and viola, you have a breakfast sandwich that would put McDonald's out of business! Alas, the grocery department didn't have them. Indeed, the entire department was only half the size of the two mega Walmarts in Wichita Falls. But, the prices on many food products were very reasonable and significantly beat the local Save More and Trigs grocery stores. The local store prices have soared in the past two years as fuel costs have been reflected in delivery costs, all of which are passed on to the consumer. Local gas prices have climbed to $4.26 per gallon.
 
I live in an area that has a predominant tourist based industry and economy. We locals find ourselves wailing and gnashing our teeth when the summer tourist season begins and the prices for basic necessities skyrockets...the old state motto of "Keep Wisconsin Green, Bring Money" and one of the highest tax rates and lowest per capita income rates in the country make it difficult for those of us who actually live and work here.
 
Of course, there are a few benefits to life in the Northwoods:

 
A major rainstorm front moved through this area while I was penning this blog. My satellite TV signal went out for over a half hour, so I knew the storm was moving in from the south. And it rained, and rained and rained. That's a good thing here, since we've seen nearly six years of drought. I'd predicted this rain yesterday when I got home from grocery shopping. I got out of GeoTruk and I was overwhelmed by flies, and everybody knows the old adage that flies bite when rain is due. I'd kinda like to know scientifically why this combination happens, but for now I'll stick with the fact that the adage is true.
 
This rainstorm was one of the strongest and long-lasting that I've seen in quite awhile. I noticed that my hummer feeder on the back porch was empty, so I brought it in and refilled it (I'm cooking a gallon of hummer juice per week). As I hung up the feeder, three hummers came in.... Each one had ruffled wet feathers from the rain. I was only inches away when they landed on the feeder perches, and getting go-juice refills were more important than their potential safety. Or maybe they realized I was old and slow and they were young and trigger-fast. Regardless, they are bright enough to watch the feeder and know when I refill an empty feeder.
 
I have a compost pile circled by 4 ft tall chicken wire. Only vegetable matter and non-meat scraps wind up there. According to the recommendations of the Wisconsin DNR, egg shells are allowable compost.
 
Evidently, local raccoons have not read the DNR guidelines. They love to lick the insides of eggshells, and since I use a lot of eggs, they storm my meager compost heap nightly. I have no malice for these masked burglers. Years ago my great uncle brought me an orphaned raccoon, no larger than my palm. I named him Charlie and he became my constant companion. But I learned early on that raccoons are full of mischief and always hungry.
 
I had reason to contact the Bank of New York/Mellon corporation that oversees my Pepsico stock account which had evolved from my Quaker Oats employee stock account established back on the 70's.. BYN Mellon has the most insidious automated phone answering system that I have ever encountered. It takes 45 minutes to answer a simple question that a real live person could answer in less than a minute This is technology run amok. Far too many companies are using gawd-awful telephone answering systems to keep you from information you have the right to access. Whoever designs these auto-answering systems should be taken out back and shot. Twice. Maybe more than twice.
 

 
Until later.....DKHT

July 4, 2008  Happy Birthday America!
 
Another 4th of July is upon us. While we celebrate our heritage, our country and our freedoms as we question GW Bush's efforts to monitor our phone, cell phone, email and other forms of electronic communication, at least we can celebrate the freedoms we used to have and look forward to a change from government idiocy with the coming election of a new President. At least we are able to celebrate 224 years of dignity and freedom (I've subtracted the 8 years of GW's regime as Chief Imbecile).
 
Not long ago I was Googling some friends names who I haven't seen in 37 years. I found one old buddy...we were friends in H.S., working on the plays and musicals together, as well as working together on the local Trout Valley Annual Horse Show and at the equally now defunct Fox Trails Ski Resort. My friend, Bob D, got me involved in both extracurricular endeavors, and the pay for energetic young men was pretty good. But, the work was hard and demanding on both jobs.
 
Fox Trails had a dual identity....In winter the 9 ski trails, lodge, barn, compressor building, rope tows and rental shop barely made a profit, despite the fact that is was popular with kids from Chicago who could take the CNW train to Cary and be picked up by the company station wagon. It attracted investors like Tom Smothers. In summer, interest changed to the exclusive country club section, with the main villa and balconies overlooking the two huge swimming pools. During the bulk of the summer Bob and I cleaned pool filters and kept the grounds clean, collecting away the trash deposited daily by the regal guests and other such chores. But, the big event each summer was the giant fireworks display put on for the members.
 
Each year the company would order a rather large amount of professional fireworks from a nearby fireworks company. There would be plenty of aerial charges in 3 and 4 inch diameters and several ground displays. Extra heavy cardboard mortar tubes were included for the aerials, but somebody had the foresight to obtain steel pipe mortars for our use. There was always a lot of preparation prior to the fireworks event, and we got to work as soon as the fireworks arrived.
 
Bob D and I had never set off these big professional/commercial explosives prior to that first year, and there were some challenges. For example, we had one hastily scrawled page that would become our fireworks bible to guide us in identifying just what each shell would do. The easiest was the flash-boom shells...the kind that launch just like every other but suddenly illuminate the sky with a blinding white light and simultaneous explosion that you can feel in your belly. These were always shaped like softballs with a tail, but had to be carefully loaded so they were always right side up in the mortar. The other aerials were shaped more like the large cans that tomato juice comes in.
 
All the fireworks were wrapped in brown paper and sealed from unwrapping with a manufacturers' label. The paper tails were actually paper tubes filled with gunpowder, attached to the firework at the bottom where the gunpowder launching charge was located. On the other end of the fast-burning gunpowder fuse was a short time-delay fuse. A paper band usually tied the first part of the fuse to the shell so that the shell could be lowered into the mortar by the fuse. The fuse length closely matched the depth of the mortar so that the delay fuse end would hang over the side of the mortar.
 
The other aerials were shaped more like the large cans that tomato juice comes in, again, wrapped in brown paper. Near the generic label would be anywhere from one to several paint slashes, the paint color indicating the color of the display. Multiple colors would have multiple slashes, and compound shells would have an additional encoding.
 
We'd interpret the displays and then begin the choreography for the show. We'd create a list of what we had, then begin selecting the order that we wanted to present the displays. Next, we built simple racks on an old hay wagon and began placing the charges in order on these racks. The hay wagon would remain in the huge mechanical garage, safe from weather and sparks.
 
Meanwhile, we turned our attention to the launch pad. It was an flat cleared spot on the bluff just outside of the fenced main pool area. We dug six or so holes for the mortar tubes, leaving the tubes upside down (in case of rain) and left them un-backfilled until the day of the 4th so we could adjust the angles for wind and weather. We'd bring up bales of straw that we piled up on the audience side of the mortars and then hosed them down to prevent any accidental ignition from launching a charge into the paying guests. The area had a series of water filled 5 gallon buckets, 2 per mortar tube, in case any small fires may be caused...of course the permits had been obtained and the local fire department alerted. Finally we assembled our four foot long bamboo poles with road flares securely taped to one end. These would allow Bob and I to light the fuses without getting to close to the mortar tubes' business end.
 
And so it went for four years running, a series of flash-booms to open the show in the waning evening sky, followed by a brilliantly choreographed mastery of the pyrotechnic sciences. The grand finale consisted of a barrage of mixed flash-booms, complicated aerials and ground displays, presented in an awesome patriotic display that had men and children applauding hysterically while women weeped, being overwhelmed by the spectacle they'd just observed.
 
But... That's not the end to my Great 4th of July memories, because there was a fifth year......
 
That year found Bob D serving in our Army, and I was working in an electronics plant that dealt with aerial recon imagery and heads up aircraft fighter targeting systems, earning slightly better money that went toward my college education, but gave me some of the best experience in my lifetime. With the coming 4th holiday, I received a call from another old HS pal, one year younger than Bob D and myself. This was Bob B, who had taken on the summer duties of the missing Bob D. Bob B's voice trembled as he hemmed and hawed a bit, then finally blurted out that he really hoped I would give him a hand on the fireworks display at Fox Trails. Good friend that I am, I told him I'd give him a hand.
 
Unfortunately, the first thing I discovered was that the Fox Trails fireworks order had blown up in an explosion of one of the bunkers at the local fireworks factory. The order had been replaced by a Chinese fireworks manufacturer. When Fox Trails accepted delivery, nobody noticed the damage to the paper wrappings on virtually all the brown paper wrappings. I noticed water stains on the paper and began to get concerned about the integrity of these fireworks. Also, the paint slashes did not conform to the code I'd gotten used to. I tried not to show my concerns to Bob B, since he was already like a nervous cat on a hot stove.
 
Bob B and I set up the shells, mortars, ground displays, straw bales and water buckets just as Bob D and I had done years previous. I added about 60 TNT firecrackers that we wired to the branches of a stout oak tree, their fuses wrapped with nichrome wire and the entire works hooked to a Variac I had....one flip of a switch and the tree would erupt in a series of explosions as if a machine gun had opened fire. This was an attention getter that the crowd had never seen before, and I figured Bob B's legacy would be enhanced. I should't have been concerned.
 
As the crowd of respected members and guest settled in with their cocktails, I detonated the oak tree. After a startled moment the crowd began to applaud. I lit off the first if several flash-booms. In the past, Bob D and I would alternate lighting off charges so that we could maintain a consistent pattern to the launches. But as I went back to reload my tube, I noticed Bob B, crawling on his belly, arm/bamboo/flare extended as far as he could, slowly inching toward his mortar tube. When the charge launched, Bob B took flight stepping in two buckets of water and knocking over several straw bales in his haste to distance himself from the mortar. He caused so much commotion that the crowd was busy watching him and paid little attention to the display. At this rate, the crowd would have gone home before 50 percent of the show was over.
 
I reloaded my tube, launched one , then another of mine as I grabbed Bob B and tried to shake the fear out of him. He told me he was OK and I watched as he tried a second tube. He lit this one standing up, or, more specifically, crouching over. But, in his nervousness, his flare ignited the gunpowder part of the fuse, which launched the shell immediately, and in his haste to flee the area he stepped in two moreh water buckets and went tumbling over more of the straw bales, pole and flare again flying off into the dry oak leaves and had to be put out with buckets of water. His antics assured his legacy as the crowd erupted in laughter and applause. I suspected they thought this was part of the act.
 
I had been observing our Chinese shells on launch and had noticed a few disturbing things. First, there was an excessive amount of glowing paper when a charge was launched. That caused us to take more time to put out small ground fires. Next was when the firework actually exploded. Fireworks are designed to explode to detonate while they are going up, it's called a bouquet...these were detonating on their way down. If you make a fist an hold your arm up, then quickly spread your fingers, that's how a firework should act. But these shells were detonating on their way down. The internal fuses were too long and the fireworks were exploding closer and closer to the ground.
 
By this time I was launching all the mortars, Bob B was reloading, after checking that there were no burning embers in the mortar casing. Yet we were putting out ground fires every launch. The audience didn't realize what was going on, other than the fact that it was taking us longer between launches. The situation got so bad that some shells went over their apogee and detonated on their way down, sending their missles toward the ground instead of skyward. Fortunately, I had developed a second nature for knowing when a display should detonate, and if the time was overdue, I just yelled 'DIVE', and we'd both seek shelter behind the wetted straw bales.
 
These low exploding shells seemed to seek Bob and I out. You don't get a real understanding of how large these displays are until you find out how far they can chase you! The phosphorous missles went wildly, but too low to endanger the audience. Bob and I were always in the line of fire. I felt invincible back then...it all happened over 40 years ago. but just a few weeks later I had a leftover and defective TNT rip up my right hand. I'd survived the commercial explosives only to be done in by over-the-counter standard fireworks. It took me years to recover. Later, we discovered that both the commercial fireworks and the commonly available TNT's had suffered water damage prior to our acquisition, and that changed the nature and timing of the fuses and powder.
 
Regardless of the situation, we provided a grand show with only a minimum of bruises and bumps on our part. Nowadays, you need special licensing to procure and launch the 1.03G class commercial fireworks, and rightly so. Insurance rates for these displays may make them a thing of the past, except where offshore barges can provide some safety. And electronic ignition is now the norm. But it was really exhilarating to hit that fuse with the flare and hear the WHOOMPH as the charge went off, the acrid smoke of black powder in your nostrils and the thrill of dodging phosphorus missles.
 
Until later.....DKHT