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A Golden Age that Never Was
Was there ever a golden age of flying? We see images and stories of 1950’s and 1960’s passengers dressed up, sitting around in lounges and being served gourmet dinners. But flying then was expensive and the apparent luxury was mitigated by the half or more of the people in the airplane that were smoking. Good…
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When I Grow Up I Want to be a Welder
When forced to ‘tell us something about yourself’ in meetings or social situations, I would respond with something like “I’m a physicist by education, a machinist by trade, I’ve made a living doing IT for the last few decades, and when I grow up, I want to be a welder.” Maybe it’s time I grew…
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Tracking Home Energy Use
A decade and a half ago I got a bit tired of hearing how ‘unplug your wall warts’ will somehow save the planet, so I spent a half a day measuring wall warts, lights, computers, electric clothes dryers and other household odds & ends. Hint: Wall warts are not the problem. I’m interested in energy…
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The Sad Saga of Northern Pacific 2156
In 1909 the Northern Pacific railroad obtained several Baldwin ‘Q-3’ 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives for use on passenger lines west of the Twin Cities. Four of the series survive today. Two of them (2153 and 2156) are owned by the Minnesota Transportation Museum and stored at the Jackson Street Roundhouse in St Paul Minnesota. Neither is…
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I Finally Bought an EV
We needed a car – one of ours died. Our goal was to find an around town car with low operating & maintenance costs. preferably lightly used and domestically manufactured. A used Chevy Bolt fit the bill. Many have had replaced and re-warrantied battery packs; they have decent range and are reasonably priced. At $0.16…
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Pothole Prairie
There is a stretch of the Northern prairie that was originally covered with small ponds, wetlands & lakes left over from the retreating Wisconsin Glacier – I.E. potholes. I guess that makes this a ‘pothole prairie‘. The glacial remnants cover southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and parts of Manitoba, Montana, North & South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.…
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Michael Janke 