Altivo

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all."

--Emily Dickinson

"

Please vote! I know it can be a nuisance and you may not care much about politics, but this is about more than just political ideas. The very core of our lifestyle and existence in the U.S. is at stake this time. I don't imagine that anyone who reads what I write here occasionally would be a Trump supporter at this point, but I can believe that some of you might just not bother to vote. Please turn out. It is crucial, and most states seem to have made it ever so much easier in recent years, what with vote by mail and early voting. We choose early voting here because there are never any long lines and you can usually be in and out and done in just a few minutes.

A woman's right to control her own body is at stake this time. So is the relatively recent recognition of the rights of same sex couples to enter legally recognized marriage. Also the rights of perfectly legal immigrants to our country. Some politicians leading the negative side now are even hinting that they would prefer to take away the right of women to vote or hold office. We can't go back into those dark ages, and if we let that happen it will take years and years to escape the new walls they would impose to keep freedom out of our lives.

Michigan State University is my alma mater (B.A. 1971) where I spent many years as an undergraduate, then as a grad student, and finally as an employee. Sadly, the news that a pointless mass shooting there has killed at least three and injured many more is little surprise in our current political and social climate. The epidemic of gun violence that has increasingly infected the US over the past half-century is so obvious, and yet our politicians and a substantial minority of voters and the population insist it isn't happening and doesn't exist.

The authors of the second amendment to our Constitution, when they talked about firearms, only knew single shot weapons with limited accuracy. I am sure they could never have imagined machine guns, semi-automatic rifles, or even the six shooter of the wild old West.

We must take action to stop this insanity. The only way to do so is by electing officials who will take sound action against it. Don't tell me this is impossible. Yes, crimes that involve firearms still happen in countries where guns are strictly controlled, but not with anything like the frequency we see here in the US.

Guns must be licensed just as vehicles are, with restrictions and required training. Strict enforcement must keep such weapons out of the hands of prior offenders. It appears in this particular instance that the shooter (who is reported to have killed himself after committing his crime) had a prior offense that was reduced to a "misdemeanor" and thus did not keep him from once again obtaining a firearm and abusing it. This is absolutely inexcusable.

Sign petitions and vote responsibly. Do not support politicians who refuse to impose restrictions on weaponry. I say this especially to younger people who are eligible to vote but often decline to take an interest in politics. You must do so. Take action now to protect the future not only for yourself, but for your peers and your future children. Firearms should NEVER enter any educational property, for instance. And penalties for violation must be severe and enforced.

Morons like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Greg Abbot, or Ron DeSantis need to be turned out of office immediately. The NRA should be stripped of its non-profit educational status too. Hollywood and television must stop depicting gun violence as entertainment and do so NOW.

(click to enlarge)

Please vote. This is a critical election for the survival of US democracy. The names far down the ballot matter. Know what they stand for and don't skip over them.

Now that I can talk about it without tearing up.

About three weeks ago we said a permanent goodbye to our dog, Laddie. We could only estimate his age, since we got him from a shelter. They guessed he was five then, which would make him eleven or twelve now. Picked up as a stray in Ohio, along a country road, no tag or chip. Click image to enlarge...




He was a great dog and we both became very attached to him, as did he to us. When the day came that he no longer wanted to eat, though, we knew things had gone bad. Our vet found on ultrasound that he had tumors in his spleen and liver. He was already losing control of his hind legs at times, and we had seen that before and knew it wouldn't be better. It was decided to spare him the discomfort and embarrassment that would have followed for a while until he starved or suffered an internal rupture.

It was too soon. I had hoped he would be with us longer, but that wasn't to be. We moped around gloomily for nearly two weeks before admitting that we just had to adopt another dog. That story is for the next entry.

If there really is a Rainbow Bridge, as I told the vet, Gary and I will be smothered in dogs when we get there. The two of us together have had nine of them over the last 40 years. I had three of my own before that. I can still feel Laddie's soft fur when I think of him.

Order placed August 25, 2021. Yesterday I (finally) took delivery on my little truck.

2022 Maverick Portrait

2022 Maverick Profile

We are pretty pleased with it. (Especially since I got back over 80% of what I paid for the temporary wheels last September when I traded that car in.) The hybrid is great. For the trip home from the dealership (~12 miles) plus a trip into Marengo to the insurance agent to change my insurance over (~8 miles round trip,) the trip meter shows it got 38.4 miles per gallon and ran about a third of that time on the electric motor alone. I drive like a grandma, which probably helps. But at the gas prices we've had lately, this is really good news. Also, despite some reviewers who complained it was noisy, we found it was very smooth and quiet. So quiet that neither of us could tell when it switched between electric and ICE power, which it must have done several times. No, "it doesn't sound like a truck." And despite that appearing in several reviews, I'm quite delighted with that. Easy to drive, very much like my old Escape carryall. Steering seemed a bit stiff, but after I got the steering wheel position and seat adjusted a bit, that feeling went away.

The ride is a bit stiffer than our recent passenger cars have been, but it IS a truck after all. I have driven a pick-up truck only once before this, for a short round trip when friends gave us some gates they no longer needed to use on our pasture fences. Gilbert lent us his truck for that, and since it had a manual transmission I was the driver. Gary F. doesn't like dealing with a clutch and shifter, and I'm used to it.

There are a lot of features to learn, and kinks to get used to. I'm only 100 pages into the owner's manual of 560 pages length, so it'll take a while. But I've got the basics down, and sales rep Anthony helped me get the FordPass app on my phone linked to the car's internals. It uses two different bluetooth linkages. Another thing to explore and learn.

Two silly but best things so far: the little "cubby hole" in the dash next to the 8 inch "infotainment" touch screen is just the right size for the little beany baby dog that looks like my old and still missed pet, Simon; and the back-up alarm which is required on all trucks now is just plain cute (sounds like one of those wind-up monkey toys that bang two tiny cymbals together over and over.)

Was it worth the excessively long wait? In my case, yes, but I'm sure glad it's over.

About six months ago, I bought a used Ford Fusion to fill the gap until the Maverick truck I ordered actually arrives. It was a necessary decision, since my 2007 Escape was crumbling to rust before my eyes and probably unsafe to drive any more. I chose the least expensive used car on the dealer's lot, figuring I'd only have it for a few months and could trade it in when the Maverick arrived.

The Fusion has been all right. It has a lot of features I never use, but that doesn't matter. It gets decent gas mileage, starts instantly even in sub-zero weather, rides smooth and quiet.

However, it's not a car for me. I'm six feet tall, and it is so low to the ground and has so little head room that I still bang my head getting in and out of it at least one out of three times. I've figured out how to do it, but it's an awkward move and difficult to judge. I noticed this problem immediately, but chose to overlook it. I figured I would get used to it. I haven't.

The other issue is the automatic transmission. Every car I've ever owned before had a manual transmission. Not because of any driving preference of my own, but because I knew how to drive one and it was cheaper and got slightly better fuel economy given my conservative approach to speed. I figured I'd better get used to the automatic, since the Maverick is a hybrid and only comes with an automatic trans. In fact, the Maverick doesn't even have a shift lever, just a rotary knob that gives an electronic signal to the power train.

Fortunately, I haven't had too much trouble adapting to the automatic. The Fusion in fact has a simulated manual gear shifting system, but I haven't even tried that. I stopped reaching for the nonexistent clutch pedal pretty quickly. It took me longer to repress the urge to downshift when stopping for a traffic light or stop sign. However, that is pretty much gone too. I had avoided driving my husband's Subaru Outback because it has an automatic transmission, but now I feel comfortable doing that and in fact did so a couple of times when he asked me to. (And no, I did not feel like imitating Crocodile Dundee, though the thought did cross my mind. For those who don't know, he did Subaru Outback commercials a few years back.)

Yesterday we took the Subaru in for regular maintenance and when we pulled into the Ford dealer for that, there was a new 2022 Maverick sitting right by the entrance to the lot. Same color as I have ordered, even. Believe it or not, this was the first actual 2022 Mav that we have seen "in the flesh" as it were. The "velocity blue" color is brilliant in the sunlight. Beyond admiring the outside, though, there were few comparisons we could make. The specimen in question was not a hybrid, and was the Lariat trim level (top of the line with all the luxury additions) where mine will be a hybrid XL which is the Plain Jane version. Still, it was nice to find proof that Mavericks really are being produced and do exist in the real world and not just on paper.

Begin nerdy topic, skip if uninterested. :D

While my bread dough is rising this morning, I took time to pursue a little research I have been meaning to do for quite a while. I wanted to know who, if anyone, had held my ham radio call sign before I grabbed it in 2012.

A little history for that: I first became interested in amateur radio at about age 12, introduced by my Uncle Wes whose station was K8HFM. Getting an actual license was intimidating, though. You had to pass a test to prove you could understand Morse code at least at a slow speed, plus answer a bunch of technical and regulatory questions. Even the easiest beginner license, the Novice level at that time, put me off for years. It wasn't until 1983 (at the advanced age of 33) that I finally made an appointment and took the test. It wasn't really all that difficult, and I passed. When my license arrived in the mail several weeks later, I had been assigned the station call KA9NZI. In the interim, I had actually built a small transceiver from a HeathKit prepackaged set of parts, and I quickly strung up a kinky wire antenna from the picture moldings in my Chicago apartment. Miraculously, it all worked and I managed enough shaky Morse to make an actual contact.

I'll spare you the years of history that followed, other than to say I got better at Morse, and studied enough to pass the next exam level for a General class license in about 1986 or thereabouts. There was a time (back in the 1950s and 60s) when Novice class licenses were assigned call letters beginning with "WN" and when upgrading to General, they were allowed to drop out the "N" but by the 80s, that was no longer in effect. First time licensees received WA call signs then for General class, or KA call signs for Novice. The Technician class (with access only to VHF or higher frequencies) was in the middle there and I'm not sure what they were getting in the 80s. Anyway, if you had started as a Novice with a KA sign, you could just keep it and use it with the additional privileges of the General class; or you could let the FCC give you a completely unrelated WA (or WB after they ran out of WA call signs.) This created some chaos and occasional accusations on the air from old timers with 5 character W or K call signs, who seemed to think if you used a KA call you should not be on the General class frequency bands. Some were even suspicious of WA or WB call signs, and I remember hearing one codger refer to "WB" as meaning "Wet Bottom." This eventually helped to prompt the FCC to change its rules again in several respects.

The end result was both a lot of confusion and a complete breakdown of the class distinctions once made by call sign prefix. The prefix N came into use around then. The AA through AL prefixes, which along with N had been "owned" by the US but not used, also appeared on the air, usually held by Advanced class licensees. Then the exam and privilege structures were revised, and the Novice and Advanced licenses were dropped. Those who held them could still use them within the privileges originally granted, but no new exams or licenses for those levels were issued. The original call signs in the forms W#xxx or K#xxx had almost all been used up by then. While it was once FCC practice to reassign calls after the associated license expired or was surrendered, the record keeping was considered too costly and that practice was dropped.

Another result was that all new call signs were six characters long, Wx#xxx or Kx#xxx. This was pretty unpopular because the longer call sign increases the likelihood of an error in transcribing Morse code, and takes longer to send. (Only a fraction of a second more, but still this was made a big issue.) Ultimately, the FCC was convinced to allow any ham holding a General class license or higher to request any valid call sign that was not currently in use. The cost of record keeping was reimbursed as an administrative fee paid by the applicant.

All this leads up to my indecisiveness that lasted 20 years, over whether I should drop the "A" out of my own call to make it K9NZI. I was pretty sure I had once checked and found that W9NZI and K9NZI were already assigned and active anyway. It wasn't until I was renewing my automobile license plate in 2012 that I committed to changing calls, since I had the call sign on my plates as well. Wonder of wonders, K9NZI was available then and I applied for it. You could list more than one choice in order of preference, in case someone beat you to the first selection, so I added my Uncle Wes' former call K8HFM as a second choice since he was by then a "silent key" as hams refer to those who are deceased. I received K9NZI and changed my license plates to match.

For another decade, I occasionally wondered who had previously been K9NZI and what happened to them. Today I finally found a relatively easy way to research that, thanks to the Internet Archive. Some of you know of the "Wayback Machine," which archives extinct web site contents, but that is just part of the many historical functions the Internet Archive provides. And one of their services has put amateur radio call sign directories on line in a readable and viewable format. The indexing is all but non-existent, but at least you can choose a year and a call sign district, of which the US has ten, and scroll through a PDF of those call sign listings if the year is available. Every single year is not there, but most of the gaps are earlier than about 1950. So I started browsing.

W9NZI was held by the same fellow from some time in the 1950s at least until near the end of the century. He originally lived in the Chicago area but moved around quite a bit and in the end was in Dunedin, Florida (presumably retired then.) But to my surprise, I could find no trace of K9NZI until it was attached to my name in 2012. Poking around in the books from the 50s up through the 90s made it clear that call signs after K9Mxx were not ever assigned by the FCC to new licensees. Just when they would have reached that point was when they changed to start giving out WA9xxx calls instead. So apparently, in the century and more of amateur radio history in the US, I have held not just one, but two unique call signs. I think I'll keep K9NZI, thanks.

I tried once to upgrade to the top level Extra class license, but missed the required number of correct answers on the rather obtuse and extensive examination by one question and I haven't tried again. The extra privileges earned by Extra class licensing are pretty limited and just as exotic as the exam questions are. One of those is the privilege of requesting a four character call sign, but obviously the number of four character combinations, the second or third of which must be a numeral and the other three alphabetic, is pretty small. The competition is fierce when one of those becomes available for reassignment.

All this is kind of silly anyway. But I found it amusing looking through those old directories to find out who else held call signs ending in "9NZI" over the years. I've always been weird, and there's one more way in which I am unique.

And today (see previous post) Ford sent another e-mail message saying they are pushing back production of my truck from the week of April 25 to the next week, beginning May 2.

They only have to do this two more times to end up with a nine month delay from ordering to production, and ten months to delivery. It is pretty obvious that Ford Motor Company should hire some new market analysts and production planners.