Delco Park Bridge

You will find this bridge over Little Beaver Creek, pictured below, at the northeast edge of Delco Park in Kettering, a remnant of our region's railroad heritage.  This was part of the Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern (CL&N) Railway which came up from the south to Hempstead Station in Kettering where the route split in two, its northwest tracks heading to downtown Dayton and this northern track running parallel to Woodman Drive to the old Dayton and Southeastern Railroad at Lebanon Junction (behind the Root Beer Stande).  More regional railroad history can be found at this link.

https://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/page/page/3445627.htm

Some Good News

Just started a couple of weeks ago and hosted by John Krasinski (you know, the guy from The Office), Some Good News are 15-minute-ish YouTube episodes that highlight some of the most uplifting recent stories.  It looks like new shows drop on Monday or very late Sunday night, but it's too early to tell for sure.  If you need a boost, click this link to get you there.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOe_y6KKvS3PdIfb9q9pGug

Double D's and B Burger

We became fans of The Great Food Truck Race TV show when Dayton locals Drew Ballard, the head chef at Carver's, Jess Sarra and Travis Day appeared in season 10 last summer (finishing third!) with a food truck named Rolling Indulgence.  Ever since they unveiled their real truck last fall, we have been wanting to go and now that they are parked every day in the Carver's parking lot (while the restaurant is closed due to COVID-19), we got our opportunity, and they did not disappoint.  Below is their Double D's and B Burger, consisting of two patties, cheese, bacon, tomato, pickles, rolling sauce and topped with fries and is one of the best burgers I've ever had.  Come hungry is a must!

https://rollingindulgence.com

5G Networks

The marketing of 5G networking is more than a bit confusing because we're not talking about one offering, we're talking three: millimeter, mid-band, and low-band.  Millimeter-wave uses very high frequencies, above 24GHz, and that's the one that needs lots of short-range boxes installed and will be mostly for outdoor purposes.  Mid-band uses frequencies in the 2.4 GHz to 4.2 GHz range and is the one that your smartphone, when compatible, will get a real nice speed increase.  Low-band won't deliver any discernable speed benefits but should perform better inside buildings due to its use of lower frequencies.

So the first question to ask when someone spouts on 5G is "which one are you talking about?".

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/09/what-is-5g-heres-what-verizon-att-sprint-and-t-mobile-offer.html

Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine is part of archive.org, a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, etc., and has accumulated hundreds of billions of snapshots of web site pages over the last twenty-plus years.  It provides a historical look back at how things have changed over time, for example as shown below, the home page for whitehouse.gov back in 1999.  Just enter a URL and select a date when a capture occurred.  They might seem silly today, but remember that high-speed Internet service was not the norm not that long ago.

https://archive.org/web/

Triangles

I put together this little app to demonstrate to students what writing software is all about and make it flashy at the same time.  The code draws a triangle, waits a number of milliseconds (1/1000's of a second), changes the color a little bit, rotates it counterclockwise by two degrees and draws the new triangle on top.  The arrow keys can be used to make it spin faster or slower, and to change the rate the colors change.  Due to technical restrictions with Google Sites (the web hosting environment), you will have to click inside the input box on the left before the arrows will work.

https://triangles.paulishing.com

Jeep Hood And Tailgate Struts

I don’t tackle many car repair projects, but when the engine hood and tailgate structs no longer would stay up, I looked on YouTube to see if replacing them was a big deal or not.  I found the video at the link below that demonstrated how simple it was, so other than needing to purchase a Torx bit set, I only needed a slotted screwdriver.  With the help of my wife holding things up while I removed the old structs and installed the new ones, we were done in about 10 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jRwVvoinY

Agave Margarita

There are as many margarita recipes as Carter has liver pills, but this one, with a 3-2-3 ratio of tequila, agave nectar, and fresh-squeezed lime juice is really over-the-top sweet and sour and might be more than a sensitive stomach (or teeth) can take.  My suggestion for an alternative is a 5-3-1-6 ratio of tequila, Grand Marnier, agave nectar, and margarita mix, with half a lime's worth of fresh juice.  But heck, I suggest experimenting with your own ideas and enjoy them while basking in the spring sunshine.

https://www.monin.com/us/fresh-agave-margarita.html

GasBuddy

I've used the free (I love free) GasBuddy app for several years to look around for the best gas price, but when I checked a few days ago I was amazed to find a gallon for $1.16, a price last seen in the 1990s.  Costco is almost always the least expensive, but in normal times they are usually 25-30 cents less and worth the wait in line.

https://www.gasbuddy.com

Amazon Hub Counter

Whether you’re concerned about porch pirates, on the road traveling or want to make sure a birthday gift is a real surprise, Amazon has added another delivery option in partnership with existing brick-and-mortar stores.  Use the link below to find nearby locations to ship your order and then visit that store to pick it up.  My search turned up three stores within a mile of our house, making it an easy trip.

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=18730480011