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Got a toothache?

 

OIL of CLOVES:

 

NOTE:

I found a really neat OLD remedy during the course of a 2-week toothache:

OIL of CLOVES

I vaguely remember-ed it from some-where, and got some from my friendly Healthfood Store.

WORKED LIKE A MILLION BUCKS!!!

OK... for about 3 hours of so... but the tooth felt like an exposed nerve... and the Oil really

SHUT IT DOWN!!!

They recommended using a cotton swab or toothpick... I tried the latter, and didn't like it. I simply put about a drop on my finger, and rubbed it in on one side of the tooth-especially along the gum line. I then got another drop and did the same thing on the other side. Absolute relief for three to four hours-even if you drink water or cola. About 1/2 the time, if I ate something I had to reapply it.

SOME CAUTIONS:

Use it SPARINGLY-it's very strong!!!

Don't worry about putting more on, or reapplying. in this kind of minuscule quantities, it's OK.

Do worry about put-ting too much on at once... it'll burn your lip and tongue. I managed to burn mine several times at first, but I don't mean it LITERALLY-rather, it just feels like it briefly.

It will make you sali-vate... SPIT IT OUT-DO NOT SWALLOW!! It isn't a poison-but it'll burn your throat if you do manage to get it down there. (The voice of expe-rience again.)

I hope I am not sounding overcau-tious. It is easy to apply, and it is simply a spice that deadens-briefly- nerves.

ETT 99 10 14

 

 


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Chris pitches to live batting after 14 months of rehab! This was the Berry Varsity in a couple of Intersquad games. In two different games, there was 1 hit, and one walk for the equivalent of 4 innings. Bottom line: only the one hit, and the next batter then hit into a double play. (Remember: to pitch at all, you first have to warm up... meaning that there were already 20 or 30 pitches each game, before he took the mound.) The coach was pleased, and so are we. Chris felt pretty good too. He faced several of the team's best hitters, and kept them off base. So... if all continues to go well, he should see plenty of innings this coming Spring Season (starting FEB 4th!!!)

Rusty graduated with the Spring class at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in June of 2002. He finally graduated officially  the 3rd week in AUG 2002, when he actually received his diploma. This was true of approximately 25% of the 3500 or so people graduating with him. (They don't hold "Summer" ceremonies-so if you're within 12 hours, you get to walk through the ceremony with the Spring class.) He is an English major, with a focus in Technical Communications and a minor in Journalism. His last year at UT, he worked two jobs, keeping the website for Rocky Top Books; and The Daily Beacon writing job. See his 'bio' in my Family page. He has returned home while while job-hunting. You can see Rusty's website complete with resume' portfolio at:

http://www6.brinkster.com/rtanton/

FLASH!!! Rusty is employed!!! Instead of website design which we expected, he decided what he wanted to do was write (this is the son with the Major in English and Minor in Journalism. He starts TUES JAN 28th, 2003; working as a staff writer for Neighbor Newspapers. He will be filling in at the Dekalb Neighbor for a week or two (they lost 2 writers last week) and then will move to The Northside Neighbor based in Sandy Springs. He should be doing 3 of his own, and 3 assignments once he gets to Northside. What he'll do for Dekalb, we'll just have to wait and see.

I have sent my R-390 to China!!! I traded it for a Chinese (Army) Type 77 HF Receiver. Note I mean my R-390-NON-A... NOT my Chuck Rippel-rebuilt R-390-A. What an interesting adventure this has been.

I had seen emails soliciting R-390s for a couple of years... and finally decided to take the plunge with my R-390. It was only possible because the R-390 is a modular-plug-in receiver. If you take enough of 'em out, you can just get it through the weight restriction of 44 lbs / 20 kg. There is a girth restriction of 72 inches. That means that the height, plus the width plus the depth of the box must not exceed 72 inches (~183 cm). That leaves ~ an inch (2.5cm) all around the R-390. Not very much!!! ...and oh yes: Chinese regulations state NO WOOD.

But the packing store guy is a friend, and though he groaned a lot, he really came through for me! He first built a double-walled cardboard box around the unit. Then he built double-thick top and bottom pieces that left about 5 inches (~13 cm). Taping the top and bottom pieces made for a very secure package-or rather, a package as secure as it could be with these restraints. It was easy to pick up-considering its weight.

So now, on to the post office. I had several packages, and had to make more than one trip from the car. Hoisting the big box onto the postal counter, and telling them it was for the Peoples' Republic of China got some *** very *** raised eyebrows!!! I had been told there were two important points about the Customs form: 1) the total value had to be no more than 90 yuan (~$85); and, 2) the description of the item(s) My friend suggested was: "old radio for collector". I followed this... but added: "(1955)". I didn't want some potential thief anywhere throughout the passage to think it might have been an Atwater-Kent!!!

CHOICES: I could have-in exchange for the R-390-either a "NOS (New-Old-Stock)/ NIB (New-In-Box) w/ spares" Type 222 tube receiver; or a similarly NOS/NIB Type 77 solid-state receiver. My friend has both for trades. I gave this a lot of thought. I had photos of both receivers (see below). I was leaning towards the Type 77. If there were any tubes in the Type 222 that didn't have European/American pin-for-pin equivalents, and something failed, once the "spares" were gone, you were just plain out-of-luck. On the other hand, you can manage to replace *** any *** transistor. The final decision was made by my friend in China. I asked him which he thought was the better receiver, and he said that-although it was uglier-the Type 77 was much better. Well... that did it for me.

So... my R-390 is on its way to China... and my Type 77 HF Receiver is on its way to me. I expect it sometime between the 1st and the 15th of August 2002. Below are thumbnails of both the Type 222, and the Type 77...and a hand drawing my friend did for me to interpret the Chinese characters on the front panel (the numbers are standard Arabic.)

First the Type 222 (that I didn't get):

         

Now the Type 77:

         

NOTE: The R-390 got to my friend in China without a hitch. I am working on getting a couple of 120VAC/220VAC autotransformers paralled to power the unit, since AC power is easier than providing both +12VDC and - 6VDC. See the receiver's webpage from time-to-time for photos and progress reports.

 IBM Deskstar drive destroys WIN 2000 Pro OS

 

The Problem...

Back in September 2001, I experienced a complete system failure on this PC. According to my software tools, the partition on 2 physical and 3 virtual were gone. I tried all my tricks; then resorted to a Data Recovery tool from dtidata at: http://www.dtidata.com . This resulted in about a 75-85% recovery, including our EXCEL Income Tax files for the past 10 years! And, no, they weren't backed up. (I used to use tape drives to back up regularly... but since the advent of all the big drives, it just hasn't seemed feasible. (It is on a CD-now.)

1st Recovery...

Anyway, I couldn't find the problem at first, and-after recovering that ~75% and quickly burning a CD with the taxes, and the old outlook.pst- I quickly tried to contact the several ebay purchases and free parts/schematics I had obligations for. Got several of 'em. Didn't print them however. BIG MISTAKE. Both drives checked good using WIN 2000 Pro's tools (primarily the old 'reliable': CHKDISK.) I bought a new ASUS motherboard, thinking that it was a chip-level failure.

Round 2...

So much for "the old reliable"!!! Shortly (2-3 days) after contacting the majority of my 'ebays' and friends, the real culprit reared its head, and did it again-only this time the recovery was limited to things on the 2nd physical drive. The 1st one had been the problem all along-so all the emails I had done-including those in this interim period-and anything else on virtual drives C and D were lost forever. All that physical drive (the almost new [JUNE 2000] IBM Deskstar was gone, period, and would only click-not read.)

The net of all this was about 50-60% recovery-with some things lost forever. By then, I had been gone from email and such for about a week... which stretched into three weeks (!!!) while I tried everything I knew to try and get WIN 2000 Pro to work with that new motherboard. Time passes... and passes... and passes...

The bottom line...

After a lengthy call to ASUS (they denied anything was wrong-but could not tell me a thing to do to correct it) I finally took the whole unit to my motherboard dealer, and it promptly allowed WIN 98 to install. Ergo, the built-in RAID on the replacement ASUS was the cause of 3 weeks of agony-trying various PIO & UDMA parameters in an effort to get WIN 2000 Pro to install. I swapped the ASUS for an ABIT, and the system was up and running within the hour. It wasn't cheap, but the new system is really neat: a 1.4 GHz AMD K7 Thunderbird; 768 MB of 133 MHz RAM; ~ 106 GB of ATA-100 HDD; NVIDIA GeForce 2 GTS w/32MB video RAM; and a PC Power & Cooling 350W PS.

There is a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times!" Well... things got a little too interesting with all this!

A delightful P.S.

Although I knew the warranty was 5 years, I didn't have my receipt for the Deskstar. Because of that, I poked around about checking to see if there was ANYTHING to be done-warranty-wise. I finally checked the other day. Just typed WWW.IBM.COM and then 3 or 4 stages to warranties or something like that. They asked ONLY for my model number and serial number-both right there on the hard drive's label. There was some information to enter (obvious stuff like my name and address-and what checks I had performed in determining the drive was bad) but nothing about date purchased, or from whom. In no time at all an RMA number was supplied, and packing instructions and an address were provided. (No 'peanuts' and no bubblewrap-only high-density foam.) A new drive will take approximately 2 weeks after they receive the drive.

I cannot say enough good things about the way IBM warranties their Hard drives!!!

 What's a Grid Dip Meter (or: GDO)???

What's a Grid Dip Meter? Check my GDO Collection page for photos and short write-ups of what I believe is one of the better collections anywhere of this useful electronic instrument!

 

In 2001, I finally went up to K4ODL's mountain-top QTH. He lives on 20 wooded acres near Jasper, GA, at an altitude of ~ 2000ft! There has been so much work to improve his house and the surrounding area, that Randy hasn't had as much time for antennas as he would like. Also, living on a mountain-top has its disadvantages. Many of the trees up there are bent from the high winds he is often exposed to. Many wire antennas regularly come down from limbs and trees falling on them! I took a few photos, and they may be seen at:

I got a call recently about my Argonaut II that I had sold to a friend several years ago. I don't sell much, preferring to pick carefully, and hang onto-and use-my equipment. This particular deal was one I have always regretted... so when I got the call that he had decided to part with it, I was thrilled. I loved that rig a lot, and it has always been-to me-the best QRP rig period. I think the K2 has a better receiver, but otherwise, the Argonaut II remains my favorite-or a partner with my K2. Whatever... 1st/2nd place/etc. I am really looking forward to putting it back on the air!

I'm not REAL sure just where I heard of Carlos Mayer's Printing in Argentina; but I went to his website, and went through his samples; and decided he was THE guy to do the color-photo QSL I have had in mind for years! I cannot recommend Carlos highly enough-but I don't have to: his QSL samples are like a travelogue of Argentina. Go look at them, and if 1st class QSLs are what you are looking for, you'll know he can do them for you.

I then Express-Mail'ed the two negatives (yes: USPS has International Express mail-uses the very same Express mail form, and costs about $20 for 2-3 day delivery) and the next thing you know, he emailed the low-rez sample I'm displaying here. I took both pictures years ago-and they remain two of the best macros I ever took. Note the bee's red tongue! Click on the QSL thumbnail for a full-size-but still low resolution-version.

I have the honour of being invited for membership in the Argentine CW Activity Group: GACW. They are a very active group of mostly Argentine hams interested in furthering the CW mode and doing DX-Peditions to the many Argentine possessions and territories. Their webpage may be found at GACW. A very nice bunch of guys too. My membership NR is 482.

Take a look at a terrific ELECTRONICS website someone told me about-it's really interesting:

 



 

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