New Fear Unlocked

A wasp or hornet (I’m not good at identifying them, but it wasn’t a honey bee nor bumble bee, it was smooth, shiny, black & yellow & stingy) was clinging to the shorts. WHY it had crawled between shorts and underwear in the first place, I cannot begin to fathom. But in the cool, pre-dawn basement, it was nearly motionless.

Took the shorts over to the patio door, opened it, flicked ’em outside.

But this has now unlocked a new fear – of being stung in the balls.

How far into autumn/winter will it be before the risk of stingy fuckers hiding in my underwear basket has returned to effectively zero?

RTTY-like Birdie Every 25kHz Across Entire HF Spectrum And Beyond

Found a birdie this morning. Started as what looked like a RTTY “stuck diddle” in the FT8 waterfall on 10m. So I switched to fldigi to go RTTY eavesdropping to see what’s out there. Every 5 turns of the big knob, I’d find another one. So I did some further investigating.

Well, it’s insane. From the lowest freq to the highest freq I can receive with my Yaesu FTdx3000, it’s there at extremely regular intervals.

Is Everybody A Best Friend?

Think of your best friend. Are you confident they also consider you their best friend? (I suspect this is quite common, but maybe not the largest group.)
Do you think there’s someone who considers you their best friend, but they are not yours?
Do you think your best friend has some other friend that’s their best? (This and the previous one are not mutually exclusive.)
Do you know you’re not anyone’s best friend? If so, are you fine with it, or does it bother you?

But Also Do Some Ham Radio As Long As I’m Out

vert_angle_deg=-9.7 / horiz_angle_deg=1.4

Lost in the woods, I had already tried 146.52 from a couple of the hill tops. A local would be a better way to go, if possible. But honestly, knowing that the MMSN was still going to be out there for another six hours was all the reassurance I needed to stave off panic.

Sexism In The Age Of Cholera… or is it Covid?

Anytime I’m going to be within 10 feet of people other than my wife, I wear a 3m 8210 N95 mask. It has two real straps that go around my head, holding it tightly to my face all the way around. Does it mess up my hair? Sure. I don’t fucking care. I need to not get Covid-19, so STFU.