Rising

(top) I just love Dave Sandford’s photos of waves on Lake Erie…see more photos and his story HERE. (row two) A profile of all the great lakes. Erie is by far the shallowest. (row three) A really cool illustration of what’s going on with the water. (row four) A map of our location and a Great Lakes water flow map. Who knew? (row five) A nice simple wind set-up illustration. (row six) No, it’s not a graph of my heart rate while at a CAVS game, it’s actually 100 years of water levels on Lake Erie. Download a version you can even read. (row seven) High water levels or not, these people can still enjoy our fresh water lake. (row eight) This guy just caught a Perch! And if he knows what he’s doing in the kitchen, tonight’s dinner could look like this.  (row nine) Ducks over the lake. (bottom) A satellite view of the lakes. Ontario at the lower right. Huron at the middle right. And Erie in the middle. There I am waving to you at the base of that gigantic map pin. 

 

As I look out my window (yes, I have an THE most amazing view of Lake Erie), and watch another rain storm pass by, it got me to thinking about this year’s water levels in Lake Erie, and the surrounding great lakes.  What causes the levels to rise, how does the water flow, and will we have relief when the sun starts to burn through the clouds (hurry).  So, I did some digging and found some answers and trivia you can use at your next backyard cookout.  Enjoy, and special thanks to Laura Johnson, author of Rock the Lake (rockthelake.com) and The US Army Corp of Engineers for these great up to date links and info.

  1. Is Lake Erie higher than normal this year?Yep. Click this link  This means boaters are struggling to climb up from their docks as the waves are destroying property as it erodes beaches and bluffs.  The shoreline and marinas are dealing with ice and high-water damage.  So far, the lake is still 7 inches short of the record high set in 1986 (surprisingly it’s now about the same as last year). In mid-February, water levels jumped quickly, so they were nearly a foot higher than they were in early spring 2017, said Scudder Mackey, chief of the Coastal Management office for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.  Lake Erie is as high as many people can remember.  “This year it went through the roof,” said Rob Quinn, who lives on Kelleys Island four months a year and has seen his boat lifts torn right off the dock. “There are weird things happening because the water level is so high.”
  2. Do the winds effect water levels?The high-water level further intensifies a natural effect called a seiche (pronounced SAYSH) – a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors and seas.  Locally we experience a change in water level across the lake because of wind or atmospheric pressure. Winds across Lake Erie can mean a 10-foot differencebetween Toledo and Buffalo.
  3. What determines water levels?  All the Great Lakes have high water levels right now. Lake levels generally depend on the amount of precipitation in each watershed and the amount of evaporation of water off the lake – especially in the fall, when cold, dry air sucks moisture out of the warmer lakes. Get this great tracking link 
  4. Why do levels change?Water levels change very quickly on Lake Erie because it’s so small and shallow, Mackey said.  “You could have a major precipitation event and the next day you’ll see a change in the water level.”  Lake Erie levels are also affected by the amount of precipitation in the upper Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan and Huron.  About 92 percent of the water in Lake Erie comes from the upper lakes, through the Detroit River, into Lake Erie. Lake Erie then flows into the Niagara River, into Lake Ontario.
  5. Why are lake levels high?There was an increase in rain and snow the last two years in the upper lakes, Mackey said. There were also more frequent, stronger storms on Lake Erie, especially this past June.
  6. Have lake levels broken records?  Not this year.  Lake Ontario broke records last year, but for Erie, the highest water was in 1986. That was 7 inches higher than now, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. There was high water across the Great Lakes in 1973 and 1974 and in 1997 and 1998, Mackey said. In 1999, the water level dropped dramatically, about 3 feet. It stayed relatively steady until about 2007, when It gradually began to build.
  7. Can the government control water levels? There is no human regulation of water levels in Lake Erie, unlike in Lakes Superior and Ontario, at either end of the system, Mackey said. Ontario set records and suffered massive flooding last year.  Lake levels tend to be cyclical.
  8. What’s happening to land?  Clay bluffs in Lake and Ashtabula counties are especially susceptible to erosion and can quickly lose large slumps of land into the lake. Cuyahoga County has bedrock bluffs, which tend to be stronger.  Property owners have lost docks, stairs to their beach and structures meant to combat erosion, Mackey said. Though whole houses have fallen off cliffs in the past, he hasn’t seen that this year.
  9. How are people reacting?  Boaters may think the high-water levels are great, since they don’t have to worry about hitting rocks in shallow areas or having to deal with marinas being dredged, Mackey said.  But there are some issues for boaters.  On Facebook, Jeff Walker said boats cannot get under the Route 6 bridge in Vermilion and so, can’t leave the dock. John Ready said the east breakwall in the Cuyahoga River is barely visible, creating a hazard for inexperienced boaters.
  10. Is this effecting property owners?  Property owners have experienced major damage, though.  So far this spring, property on the east side of Kelleys Island lost 8-10 feet of land, said Ned Williams.  Quinn added 30 feet of concrete to his dock, so he can reach the end. “I’m just one guy. The whole shoreline is that way,” he said. “A lot of concrete trucks have been coming to Kelleys for construction projects.”
  11. What can property owners do?Many property owners installed sea walls, rivetments, groins, concrete modules and other kinds of shoreline protection the last time the lake was high, 30-40 years ago, Mackey said. Those projects are coming to the end of their useful life. “People will put almost anything in the water to try to protect their property,” Mackey said. “We want to make sure the materials that are used don’t pose a public health or safety hazard and don’t degrade Lake Erie. You don’t want broken up concrete with rebar sticking out.”
  12. What’s the forecast?  Lake Erie folks should see some relief. The Army corps of Engineers forecasts that lake levels will drop 3 inches by July 15.

 

Some things to do right now:
Watch & listen to the Eurythmics – Here Comes the Rain Again
Watch & listen to Singin In the Rain
And…
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Lake Erie

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Memorial Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just let it be.

(top) Paul on the left, his mother Mary and brother Michael.  (row 2 l) Paul and his dog Martha;  (row 2 r) Paul taking a selfie…in the mirror.  (row 3) Paul in leather (row 4) Paul in bathrobe on the fence with the kids in Wales. Photo by Linda McCartney. (row 5) Cool stage photo. (row 6 l) Another cool stage photo. (row 6 r) Teenage Paul.  (bottom) Sir Paul with his fashion designer daughter Stella. 

 

Ever find yourself singing out loud in the car?  I’ve done it more times than I can remember, especially when I’m by myself. (Jackie and the girls let me know when it’s time to stop) USUALLY AFTER THE FIRST NOTE!!!.  The other day I was singing one of my favorite Beatles songs – Let It Be.  It’s one of those songs you just never get tired of.  I did some trivia digging and found some fun stuff about the original, the recording session and the interpretations of the song by other artists. Here’s a link to this great classic celebrating 50 years of entertaining us.  Enjoy!

Push the sound up and listen to Let It Be remastered in 2009 HERE.
Did you know that Aretha Franklin recorded and released Let It Be before the Beatles?? I didn’t either. Listen to the 2019 remastered recording HERE. It’s really amazing!

 

  1. Paul McCartney wrote this song, inspired by his mother, Mary, who died when he was 14. Many people thought “Mother Mary” was a biblical reference when they heard it.
  2. According to McCartney, this is a very positive song, owing to its inspiration. One night when he was paranoid and anxious, he had a dream where he saw his mother, who had been dead for ten years or so – she came to him in his time of trouble, speaking words of wisdom that brought him much peace when he needed it. It was this sweet dream that got him to begin writing the song.
  3. He told the story to James Corden when he appeared on his Carpool Karaoke segment. “She was reassuring me, saying, ‘It’s going to be OK, just let it be.’ I felt so great. She gave me the positive words. I woke up and thought, ‘What was that? She said ‘Let It Be.’ That’s good.’ So I wrote the song ‘Let It Be’ out of positivity.
  4. Since Let It Be was The Beatles last album, it made an appropriate statement about leaving problems behind and moving on in life. The album was supposed to convey an entirely different message. It was going to be called “Get Back,” and they were going to record it in front of an audience on live TV, with another TV special showing them practicing the songs in the studio. It was going to be The Beatles getting back to their roots and playing unadorned live music instead of struggling in the studio like they did for The White Album.
  5. When they started putting the album together, it became clear the project wouldn’t work and George Harrison left the sessions. When he returned, they abandoned the live idea and decided to use the TV footage as their last movie. While the movie was being edited, The Beatles recorded and released Abbey Road, then broke up. Eventually, Phil Spector was given the tapes and asked to produce the album, which was released months after The Beatles broke up. By then, it was clear “Let It Be” would be a better name than “Get Back.”
  6. Many have been moved by the song on a deeply personal level, including Corden, who broke down when they sang it together. “I remember my granddad, who was a musician, sitting me down and telling me, ‘I’m going to play you the best song you’ve ever heard,’ and he played me that,” he said. “If my granddad was here right now he’d get an absolute kick out of this.” McCartney replied, “He is.”
  7. John Lennon hated this song because of it’s apparent Christian overtones. He made the comment before recording it, “And now we’d like to do Hark The Angels Come.” Lennon saw to it that “Maggie Mae,” a song about a Liverpool prostitute, followed it on the album.
  8. You’ll hear different guitar parts on different versions on this song, as there were several overdubs of the solo. On April 30, 1969, George Harrison overdubbed a new guitar solo over the best take from the January 31, 1969 session. Harrison overdubbed another one on January 4, 1970, but there’s a possibility that it was actually McCartney on that overdub. The first overdub solo was used for the original single release, and the second overdub solo was used for the original album release. The Let It Be… Naked version is the one from the movie.
  9. The Beatles weren’t the first to release this song – Aretha Franklin was. The Queen of Soul recorded it in December 1969, and it was released on her album This Girl’s In Love With You in January 1970, two months before The Beatles released their version (she also covered The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” on that album).
  10. Aretha recorded it with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who were a group of musicians that owned their own studio in Alabama, but would travel to New York to record with Aretha. David Hood, who was their bass player, told us that Paul McCartney sent demos of the song to Atlantic Records (Franklin’s label) and to the Muscle Shoals musicians. Said Hood, “I kick myself for not grabbing that demo. Because I think they probably dropped it in the garbage. Our version was different. We changed it a little bit from his demo, where their version is different from that demo and from Aretha’s version, as well. Just slightly, but little things.”
  11. In April 1987, this was released as a charity single in aid of the The Sun newspaper’s Zeebrugge ferry disaster fund. Featuring Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler, Kate Bush, Boy George and many others, it was called “Ferry Aid” and spent 3 weeks at #1 in the UK.
  12. Sesame Street used this with the title changed to “Letter B.” The lyrics were changed to list words that begin with B.
  13. This was the first Beatles song released in The Soviet Union. The single made it there in 1972.
  14. The album had the largest initial sales in US record history up to that time: 3.7 million advance orders.
  15. This song was played at Linda McCartney’s funeral.
  16. On July 18, 2008, Paul McCartney joined Billy Joel onstage at Shea Stadium in New York and played this as the final song of the final concert at Shea. As a member of The Beatles, McCartney played the first stadium rock concert when they performed at Shea on August 15, 1965.
  17. According to Ian Macdonald’s book Revolution in the Head, McCartney wrote “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” on the same day.
  18. John Legend and Alicia keys performed this song on the tribute special The Beatles: The Night That Changed America, which aired in 2014 exactly 50 years after the group made their famous appearance on Ed Sullivan Show. Legend introduced it as “a song that has comforted generations with its beauty and its message.”

For more trivia, visit:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065976/trivia

 


 

Mother’s Day

 

 

 

 


 

Click

Under the cat evil eying the mouse photo is Douglas Engelbart and his 1964 mouse invention. The computer mouse has come a long way, baby. So, if you’re using a mouse a lot like I do you need a mouse pad to keep from scraping the finish off your table. Under the red mouse are a few of the thousands of options for mouse pads out there. While kittens and puppies are cute and really popular, I prefer food. Especially that cool hamburger pad in the lower right that someone made…keeps your mouse hand warm in the winter, too.

 

Click. Click. Click. It’s something we hardly think about as we meander all over our computer screens.  Documents come to life, edits take seconds to complete, and zillions of websites are just a “click” away.  While I was reviewing all of your wonderful PIA (Pain In The @%$) Jobs (thank you by the way), I marveled at just how easy and efficient my mouse was performing (Wireless – I like my desk clean!). I then, of course, went to my favorite Google search and captured some great information about the history, creation and variations of “mice”, and of course was amazed at all the info found on Wikipedia. This week marks a milestone in the development and evolution of the mouse – especially the creation of the “roller ball” (oh, so pre-2000 – ha!) and just how lucky we are to have solutions coming out of R&D. (bravo to all the R&D gang out there – we love you for your courage and ability to reach).  Special thanks to all the developers and innovations, and our friends at Wikipedia for the history.  Enjoy! (and be sure to “Click” me an email if you found this post of interest skowalski@khtheat.com  – always love to hear from my peeps!

 

 

  1. A computer mouse is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface.
  2. The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. Mice originally used a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion, but modern mice often have optical sensors that have no moving parts. In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as selection of a menu item on a display.
  3. The earliest known publication of the term mouse as referring to a computer pointing device is in Bill English’s July 1965 publication, “Computer-Aided Display Control” likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a mouse, a rodent, with the cord resembling its tail.
  4. The trackball, a related pointing device, was invented in 1946 by Ralph Benjamin as part of a post-World War II-era fire-control radar plotting system called Comprehensive Display System (CDS). Benjamin was then working for the British Royal Navy Scientific Service. Benjamin’s project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a joystick. Benjamin felt that a more elegant input device was needed and invented what they called a “roller ball” for this purpose.  The device was patented in 1947, but only a prototype using a metal ball rolling on two rubber-coated wheels was ever built, and the device was kept as a military secret.
  5. Another early trackball was built by British electrical engineer Kenyon Taylor in collaboration with Tom Cranston and Fred Longstaff. Taylor was part of the original Ferranti Canada, working on the Royal Canadian Navy’s DATAR (Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving) system in 1952.  When the ball was rolled, the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires, producing pulses of output with each movement of the ball. By counting the pulses, the physical movement of the ball could be determined. A digital computer calculated the tracks and sent the resulting data to other ships in a task force using pulse-code modulation radio signals.
  6. Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) has been credited as the inventor of the computer mouse.
  7. In 1964, Bill English joined ARC, where he helped Engelbart build the first mouse prototype. They christened the device “the mouse” as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device which looked like a tail, and in turn resembled the common mouse. As noted above, this “mouse” was first mentioned in print in a July 1965 report, on which English was the lead author.  On 9 December 1968, Engelbart publicly demonstrated the mouse at what would come to be known as The Mother of All Demos. Engelbart never received any royalties for it, as his employer SRI held the patent, which expired before the mouse became widely used in personal computers.
  8. On October 2, 1968, a mouse device named Rollkugel (German for “rolling ball”) was described as an optional device for its SIG-100 terminal was developed by the German company Telefunken.  As the name suggests and unlike Engelbart’s mouse, the Telefunken model already had a ball. It was based on an earlier trackball-like device (also named Rollkugel) that was embedded into radar flight control desks. This trackball had been developed by a team led by Rainer Mallebrein at Telefunken Konstanz for the German Bundesanstalt für Flugsicherung (Federal Air Traffic Control).
  9. When the development for the Telefunken main frame TR 440 [de] began in 1965, Mallebrein and his team came up with the idea of “reversing” the existing Rollkugel into a moveable mouse-like device, so that customers did not have to be bothered with mounting holes for the earlier trackball device.
  10. The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use in 1973 and is regarded as the first modern computer to utilize a mouse.
  11. By 1982, the Xerox 8010 was probably the best-known computer with a mouse. The Sun-1 also came with a mouse, and the forthcoming Apple Lisa was rumored to use one, but the peripheral remained obscure; Jack Hawley of The Mouse House reported that one buyer for a large organization believed at first that his company sold lab mice. Hawley, who manufactured mice for Xerox, stated that “Practically, I have the market all to myself right now”; a Hawley mouse cost $415.
  12. That same year, Microsoft made the decision to make the MS-DOS program Microsoft Word mouse-compatible and developed the first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft’s mouse shipped in 1983, thus beginning the Microsoft Hardware division of the company.  However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the appearance of the Macintosh 128K (which included an updated version of the Lisa Mouse) in 1984 and of the Amiga 1000 and the Atari ST in 1985.
  13. The ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers. These are located 90 degrees apart. One roller detects the forward–backward motion of the mouse and other the left–right motion. Opposite the two rollers is a third one that is spring-loaded to push the ball against the other two rollers. Each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has slotted edges; the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement. Each wheel’s disc has a pair of light beams, located so that a given beam becomes interrupted or again starts to pass light freely when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes.
  14. Simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating. This incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation, as the two optical sensors produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase. The mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable, directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the Xerox mice, and via a data-formatting IC in modern mice.
  15. Optical mice rely entirely on one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and an imaging array of photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, eschewing the internal moving parts a mechanical mouse uses in addition to its optics. A laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent (laser) light.
  16. The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces, whereas the modern LED optical mouse works on most opaque diffuse surfaces; it is usually unable to detect movement on specular surfaces like polished stone. With battery powered, wireless optical mice, they flash the LED intermittently to save power, and only glow steadily when movement is detected.
  17. Often called “air mice” since they do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning fork or other accelerometer (US Patent 4787051[48]) to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The most common models (manufactured by Logitech and Gyration) work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue or “gorilla arm”.
  18. In 2000, Logitech introduced a “tactile mouse” that contained a small actuator to make the mouse vibrate. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary.
  19. When holding a typical mouse, ulna and radius bones on the arm are crossed. Some designs attempt to place the palm more vertically, so the bones take more natural parallel position.  Some limit wrist movement, encouraging arm movement instead, that may be less precise but more optimal from the health point of view. A mouse may be angled from the thumb downward to the opposite side – this is known to reduce wrist pronation.  However, such optimizations make the mouse right or left hand specific, making more problematic to change the tired hand. Time magazine has criticized manufacturers for offering few or no left-handed ergonomic mice: “Oftentimes I felt like I was dealing with someone who’d never actually met a left-handed person before.” (I can relate!!)
  20. Gaming mice are specifically designed for use in computer games. mice. It is also common for gaming mice, especially those designed for use in real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, or in multiplayer online battle arena games such as Dota 2 to have a relatively high sensitivity, measured in dots per inch (DPI).  Some advanced mice from gaming manufacturers also allow users to customize the weight of the mouse by adding or subtracting weights to allow for easier control.
  21. Cordless or wireless mice transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi).
  22. The mousepad, the most common mouse accessory, appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice, because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk surfaces usually provide. So-called “hard mousepads” for gamers or optical/laser mice also exist.

  1. The world’s most expensive mouse is the Gold Bullion mouse – only $36,835 each …. (“I’ll take two please”
    Or get this knock-off on Amazon for $27.60.

 

Don’t like to read? 
Here’s a history of the mouse in video form.

 

A fun Commercial from the 1990’s introducing a computer store.
A friend of mine was the art director on this LDI Computer Superstore spot. 

writer: Chris Hunter art director: Dan Fauver  ad agency: Wyse

 

Coloring Contest!
Color this picture (or have your seven-year-old color it for you). The best coloring job as determined by the KHT staff will win a fabulous KHT t-shirt!

 

The 10-Second Game!
Solve this puzzle in ten seconds to win. Ready! Set! GO!!!!
The winner will receive the satisfaction of knowing they can keep-up with a second-grader. Happy puzzling!