message from bob mcree

bobmcree

10 kW
Joined
May 25, 2006
Messages
618
greetings my friends,

my satellite internet connection has been unreliable for a couple of weeks due to an antenna alignment problem, so i have fallen behind in answering my email but i should be able to catch up in the next day or two now that it is fixed.

some of you also know i have a severe back injury for which i take a lot of narcotics, but i am still able to work at my bench only a few hours a day. i have fallen behind in controller repairs because my back has been worse than i expected it would be, but we have adjusted my pain meds and i am hoping i will be able to spend more time at the bench this week and get caught up. i will also try to get caught up on requests for the bms. i will address the bms issues in the thread discussing it. thanks again to everyone for your patience.
 
Great to see you agai Bob 8)

Doc
 
thanks guys, the phone lines here will only support 14.4kb so dialup is useless. my strong advice to anyone who needs satellite internet is stay clear of wild blue. their customer support is terrible. they used to have better speed, but hughes net now has the same 1.5Mb/s rates and better service at lower prices. if i did not have a big investment in a wildblue antenna and hardware i would quit wild blue in a second and switch to hughes. wildblue partnered with google a couple of months ago and right away everything went bad.

as for the back, my advice is do not fall off the roof of a bus and land on your ass ;) if you do, don't let them chop a chunk off your hip and patch it into your back. the back still hurts and now the hip does too....

but life goes on and with the help of my friends we will all keep it going. $5 gas is only months away and ebikes will take off in the US at last. anybody who does not think peak oil is real has not been paying attention.
 
Transit Surfing. :twisted:

GDCD409.jpg
 
i had taken a break from my engineering job to drive a tour bus full of young mostly european tourists across the us, stopping at parks and river rafting, then on to new orleans where i cooked up 50 lbs of shrimp for my 35 passengers. when i was on the roof of the converted transit bus tying off tables and luggage the next morning, a rope snapped and i flew off. I crushed T12 and blew out the discs on both sides. They patched in a chunk of my hip bone and it helped some, but then about 5 yrs later i fell off my horse while racing and was dragged a hundred yards with a foot stuck in the stirrup, and broke everything loose again. They can't fix it, so i rely on high doses of narcotics to get by. Once in awhile the meds or the pain catch up with me and i get a bit grouchy, as some may have noticed. I am now retired on full disability, and supplementing that with my ebike business.

the tour bus company is still in business, the Green Tortoise is a wonderful way to travel and see the country if you dont mind sleeping on a big bus with 30-40 other people with the seats replaced with foam padding, cooking out along the way, stopping at hot springs and points of interest, and having an awesome experience. i used to have a lot of trouble especially with the german women, trying to get them to wear bathing suits in the places where nudity was not cool. i remember one statuesque blonde who i reminded that we were in mexico and nudity was not acceptable. she carried her backpack out to the beach, took off her clothes, then took her swimsuit out of the pack and put it on ;)
 
Sorry to hear about your pain, Bob. I don't quite know what you are feeling, but a year ago my back just suddenly decided to 'retire' after decades of abuse without the impetus of any acute injury. So Aleve is now my best friend. At least you get to have fun with the side effects of real narcotics ;)

As far as satellite internet, over the last few years, I have done a lot of research into it, and it seems that the best service you can get is 'lousy' and it works downwards from that point. My cable broadband went down for two days last month, and the 42K provided by borrowing someone's dialup account felt like someone driving a nail into my forehead.... I can't imagine what 14K must feel like.

So, I went out and signed up for Verizon Wireless Broadband Internet for backup. I don't know if they have it in your area, but they do have SOME coverage in 'north central oregon'

$60.00 a month for 700K to 1.4Mbs... That is 'portable' if you travel. I can even stay connected driving down the road, as long as I'm in an area with coverage.
If you want to look into it:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=planFirst&action=viewPlanDetail&sortOption=priceSort&catId=409&lid=//global//plans//wireless+internet+plan
 
Welcome back and like they all said before me, take it easy on yourself. :mrgreen:

Ah, who are we kidding, life is too short, go have a blast!
 
bobmcree said:
the tour bus company is still in business, the Green Tortoise is a wonderful way to travel and see the country if you dont mind sleeping on a big bus with 30-40 other people

Hi Bob,

Sorry about your troubles.

I think that's the bus my daughter took across the USA. She enjoyed it so much she went straight back for another trip.

Nick
 
http://www.nuvasive.com/

I know they did some great work on a ufc fighter's disc, so I would think they would be able to fix bone. Maybe something to at least look into. Hope you can start feeling better soon.
 
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