Garden Science Project

Seen that "upside down" tomato plant thing at the store and decided to do my own version. Used 2 five gallon buckets, one blue, one black. Know for a fact that tomato plant like the warmer soil so did a little experiment on my own. Used 4 of the same tomatoes from the same flat to make the results even.

Planted one in the bottom of each bucket and one in the top. Have watered and fertilized them at the same time and the same amount.

As you can see the results are somewhat skewed at the time.

Both of the plants in the bottom of the bucket are stunted on growth side of things. The one in the black bucket top has the most growth, but both the bottom one in each bucket both have a 2" green tomato on them.

Road Rage - Illinois Version II

First Pic is a Road Kill semi that mistakenly

read the road construction speed limit as 25

rather than 45. Added 15 min to the GPS

arrivial time.

Pic #2 here is "Scooter" . He was on a what I think was a 125 cycle doing 70 down the left hand lane from Ft. Campbell to all the way to the Georgia border. He spent 80% of his time in the left hand lane doing 70 MPH. Bike would not do anything over that.

Pic #3 is just some random dumbass that was crusing in the left hand lane that I passed on the right because he was doing 68 MPH.

Pic #4 is a pack of pokeys I got behind, as you can see the time stamp at 9:22 am. Notice the SUV in the lead on the LEFT who was going 70.0001 MPH who thought he deserved to drive in the left hand lane.

Pic #5 shows more or less the same cars 22 min later all following the same person.

Solar Pool Heat

Bought this on Ebay about 2 years ago. It's 2 panels 2' x 20' I mounted back to back on top of the pool fence. Have then titled about 45 degrees to the south. Panels are made of black PVC tubing that has multiple tubes running end to end. The water enters in the top, runs down the length of the panel and back again. Hooks up between the filter outfeed and pool inlet. This one came with a diverter valve that limits the flow thru the panels. Idea flow is 12 - 15 gpm.

Pool temperature, on a bright sunny day, raises about 1 degree an hour. The pool is 20' x 40' so it holds about 20,000 gallons of water. Before I installed this about the same sunny conditions, it would raise only a half degree and hour. Nice thing that I have also tried that if the pool temps get too high, you can run the filter and panels at night and it will act as a radiator and cool the pool off a few degrees.

For the first year I just had them laying out on the deck but decided last year that they were worth keeping. Have hard piped them up for easy removal during winter months.

May Showers bring....

Flooding.

Road Rage - Illinois version

On a recent trip I discovered this sign has absolutely no meaning what so ever to some drivers.

The stretch of road I experienced this on was Highway 24 from Paducah Ky. to the Georgia border. 260 miles of pure living hell for me because of a few drivers NOT following this simple sign.

It took me a little while to figure out just exactly what was causing the repeated bottlenecks along this stretch of highway. After following a pack of 20 vehicles for 40 miles, I finally found out.

It's lefty's.

Not left handed people mind you, but the motorist that think it is their god given right to travel down a busy highway and permanently stay in the left hand lane regardless of their speed.

Don't know why these people do this either the fear of being called slower or lacking the ability to change lanes, but my cruise control was off more than it was on.

So as a PSA and important driving safety tip, I have thought up a couple of tips that motorists can use to find out if they need to change from the left hand of the highway to the right.

First, traveling .001 to 1 mph ABOVE the posted speed limit does not automatically qualify you to reside in the left hand lane. Move to the right.

Second, if you glace up at your rear view mirror and the traffic behind you looks like the drive thru of Starbucks on free coffee day, you probally need to change lanes. Move to the right.

Third, if the traffic passing you out your passenger side window is equivelent to the traffic in the oppisite direction, you probally need to change lanes. Move to the right.

Lastly, If a black Chevy Avalanche with Illinois plates passes you in the right hand lane doing 89 mph, the driver giving you the double bird, and you can't read lips but it looks like every other word he is saying begins with a "F", you probably REALLY need to change lanes.

PLEASE move to the right.