Saturday, June 07, 2008

Weather or Weather Not

It's NOT right now, oh the ACTUAL weather is nice, calm to 5mph, broken clouds, warm...about 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees F) BUT my weather station is down. Real down. Like I took the pole with the sensors down to find out why it was reporting 138 kph winds all night and no temperature readings at all. The pole is 40 feet tall and is a handful to take down and bring back up. I've devised a METHOD that will make it easier on me but Kelly might find it a bit daunting, we'll see. I've tied a strong rope to the mast about 20 feet up from the ground and led it over to the house were a bar that goes over the window will serve as a pulley. Kelly can pull down with the help of gravity to aid me in my quest to raise the bloody thing. I've charged the batteries and remove the corrosion from the sensor cable (RJ45 telephone cable) where it plugged into the transmitter. Similarly I've now charged the batteries for the data collection/display and we should shortly be ready to test. I want to move the transmitter piece down the pole so I can reach it so I don't have to raise and lower the damned pole each time I need to charge the @##$#! batteries. Seems sensible. Here's a few of my reporting sites for your perusal:
http://www.kell12.members.sonic.net/lignieres_weather.jpg picture of the street and sky,
http://www.kell12.members.sonic.net/myweather.jpg Weather chart w/ small pic.
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Meanwhile my trusty mate Kelly is hanging cloth on the walls in the entry, matching patterns, measuring, snipping and shoving the ends into the wood strips I afixed to the walls yesterday and the day before. It is work she willingly does and she's quite talented at it, the results are stunning. The olde girl (the HOUSE!) is looking very good these days, work has picked up with warmer weather and progress is being made. Kelly looks good too.
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I've dropped 16 lbs so far on this trip, I'm at a not-so-lithe 206 lbs as of this morning, hoping for more (less) as the summer begins. I refuse to diet, I just eat less and do more as the method I've chosen. Diets just don't seem to work with me as I don't respond fast enough and then lose the initiative, this way it just drifts ever lower and week by week my pants are getting looser.
Goodbye for now,
Lute
">Link My AWEKAS Reporting Site click on dot in middle of France, check out the video cams too! ...click on Weather Maps and then WEBCAM, just put cursor on top of camera icons . Good fun everywhere, lots to see!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Grass

First before I piss off every one of my fine British friends let me say that I like lawn, it looks nice when cut low and tight around flower beds and garden walks, and spacious acres all flat and outlined with trees and flowers is certainly spectacular. I also admire the effort required to create these green patches, as well as the hard work necessary to maintain them in pristine-like condition. That said, I am simple uninterested in the latter effort and would not EVER under take the former. Why? I am too busy. The Brits, as a group, are certainly busy too...but MOST of someones BUSY, female or male (mostly the latter) is dealing with the meadows they have purchased and turning them into lawns. These lawns fight back if you hadn't noticed, they grow with every rain and ray of rare sunshine here in the Berry. This place is more like Ireland than any French travel noveletta would speak of. It rains here an average per month of OVER 3 inches. A meter per annum, about what a good lawn here would grow in a month left to it's own devices. Then one has to cut it back down after any extended absence or find someone who WILL. I won't be doing this chore for you, too busy doing Other Things, namely painting, moving stones, building furniture, cooking, repairing chairs, chasing away stray cats (another blog coming on THAT!) and other misvelleneous chores assigned by the boss, her name is Kelly.
She is my wife. The observation is not lost on me that every single one of our British friends and compatriots have this same issue common to them, too much lawn to let alone for anytime to do anything else of meaningful gain. One fine lady from the north of the British Isles and who will rename completely nameless in this blog has a fine place a short distance out of Lignieres. A cute-as-pie French cottage she has completely decorated in an arty and beautiful way plunked right down at the top of what appears to be a meadow just about everytime I see the place. Why? Because the dear person is HERE, in this area about a month or six weeks per year. The lawn not so slowly becomes first scraggly, then taller like alfalfa then into a full blown meadow when left uncut for various periods of time. She struggles with this as she cannot deal with it's height herself and so must get help periodically. The meadow must be struck down to allow for the parties and people she loves to have around her. A deal has been struck between another Brit with the same damned problem (MORE!) as she has but HE is here full time thus only spends 75% of his time mowing, weeding, planting, trimming, edging and cutting on his OWN spacious lawn-meadow so he can spend the rest of his SPARE time dealing with HERS! This is MADNESS! For the Love Of God, spare these poor souls there love affrair with GRASSES, so they can take care of their houses and ruins so as to improve their lot. Gad Zooks! I'd scrape out a path thru the meadow, down to the corner trees, over past the fruit trees and back, not straight, all curvy and pastoral-like, put down Loire River stone over anti-weed cloth and call it good. Clear an area of 10X10 for a bench and some chairs and I'd be set. Enough! The GRASS is Not Greener on the other side of the fence...it's LONG and MEADOW-Like...they must be gone somewhere, maybe on a golfing vacation, they LIKE greens! It's certain they're Brits.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Cars and The French







Cars, nice cars...are the norm here with French manufacturers Citroen, Renault, Peugeot 90% of what we see on the road. Large SUV types are rarer but not unseen during a typical drive. What IS rare are the scenes of smoking, steaming cars with hoods up that seem to infect every French story or article. This is an exageration of the facts as these cars are now modern, safe, well engineered and entirely driveable anywhere in this huge country. Many of the cars are deisels, the attraction once was that deisel fuel was cheaper and maintenance was less frequent as well. Nowadays the price of deisel fuel is equal, or in certain stations, HIGHER than gasoline.
The day before yesterday we bought another tank, it is a memorable occassion as once completed your wallet is much lighter than it was before you started pumping. With prices at 1.45 Euros per liter that is 3.784 X 1.45 = 5.49 Euros per gallon and with our dandy USD to Euro exchange rate of 1.55USD to ONE Euro it is currently $8.50 per gallon. A fill up of our Toyota Avensis is 12 gallons or $102.05. Enough to keep you home! Most cars here are what we in the US would call SMALL, and several are smallER than anything you can buy in the US. There are many models of each major manufacturer's cars. The prices are about the same taking into account the exchange rate. Used cars can be found in most towns with the major new car dealers having the larger lots. Used prices here appear to me to be quite a bit cheaper than we would experience in California. I would say most French people here are quite loyal to their own car industry in that they buy French cars by the droves and they buy them OFTEN. The prepoderance of autos seen are new or only a few years old, no smoking olde rusted hulks here!
Most cars seem to get 35-45 mpg as a matter of course seemingly without size restriction.

The system of auto inspection keeps the junkers and ill-repaired cars off the roads as a car that cannot be fixed MUST be scrapped. Annual, Bi-Annual inspections are mandantory for all motor vehicles. The cost of the inspection is about 65 Euros. The inspection is done at a special facility marked as Control Technique. They inspect using a series of very modern test equipment and are fastidious as only the French can be. Brakes, engine, tires, transmission, lights, turnsignals etc are tested and reported. If there is a problem it is documented and you are given a short period of time to repair the offending item and then the car is reinspected. Once passing the inspection you are issued a sticker which goes on the windshield for examination by whomever is interested, and they WILL look. The Toyata is scheduled to be inspected by the 8th of June, so tomorrow (the 7th) we'll take her to St. Amand to the Control Technique for her bi-annual. She has new front shoes (tires), fine Michelin speed rated jobbies that hit us to the tune of 222Euros for a pair...they had died in about 18,000 miles! Why? Hell if I know, except the roads hereabouts are twisty lanes and she's a front wheel drive beast. Anyhow we got a pair and with the exchange rate (1.55 to 1) that was a mere 344 USD for a PAIR of tires!
Yes we do see olde cars, at fairs and exhibitions which are very popular and some of the cars are truely rare, some are merely odd. Simca's, Renault dauphines, old Pougeots, military trucks and jeeps from WW2 all make up a melange of wonderful voitures (cars).

It is surprising how many old cars one sees at these meets, all driveable, all well maintained by outward appearances. Many cars need remourques (trailers) it seems, to haul off yard waste, downed building materials, rocks, stones and of course lawn mowers and garden tractors, but THAT's another subject for another blog entry.