Mac OS Sierra 10.12.2

[pm-r]

Patrick, we're good, I hope! No harm intended, just trying to be a bit funny. I think I'll stick to be a sour old grump, I do that better.

Thanks Jake, and a lot of what you say is true, and I likewise was involved with cars and machinery and fixing and maintenance stuff years ago, now, even with my little 2006 Suzuki Aerio Premium 5-door hatchback Four-wheel drive I couldn't even find the "spark plugs" or whatever they call those expensive modules.

But after 25+years of Mac'ng, various Apple Tech courses and even had a small local Mac fixit/support company, things have changed a lot, and now at 75 as a retired senior I think I'm entitled to be a bit of an old curmudgeon and I just like things to work as well as they can, but I always think things can be improved.





- Patrick
======

 

[RadDave]

@ Dennis and others who may be interested in the app I showed previously, i.e. Battery Health - a new version has been released (both available in the App Store) which appears to not provide 'individual remaining times' for various activities, but an 'overall' remaining time if selected in the Preferences menu and when the computer is on battery - below is a combo pic showing the status of my 'new' MBPro battery plugged into AC (left) and the calculated battery remaining time (arrow) when off AC (right). Dave
.

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks Jake, and a lot of what you say is true, and I likewise was involved with cars and machinery and fixing and maintenance stuff years ago, now, even with my little 2006 Suzuki Aerio Premium 5-door hatchback Four-wheel drive I couldn't even find the "spark plugs" or whatever they call those expensive modules.

But after 25+years of Mac'ng, various Apple Tech courses and even had a small local Mac fixit/support company, things have changed a lot, and now at 75 as a retired senior I think I'm entitled to be a bit of an old curmudgeon and I just like things to work as well as they can, but I always think things can be improved.





- Patrick
======

Patrick, I'm also an amateur radio operator (a ham), and "back in the good old days" I had a transmitter I built, using resistors, capacitors, inductors, tubes, knobs, dials, and a ton of solder. Loved it, knew all about it, made it "sing" for me. The thrill was in getting it to do things beyond the original design. Now I have a small unit, sealed, all computerized, nothing to do but tune it in, and I don't like it at all. It sits mostly idle because the "fun" of making things work better has been replaced by the "fun" of just using it. And that is not the 'fun' I signed up for many years ago. So it sits, gathering dust. Someday I'll get rid of it entirely and just let my license expire. The new guys coming into the hobby aren't feeling the same as I do because they use the units as appliances and don't know any better, so they get their fun in different ways.

The same phenomenon is happening in computing in general. My MBP doesn't have much I can change to make it work better, faster, whatever, because it's all glued up. I think the software is going to be all "glued up" in the near future, too. The good news is that the "appliance" may work better overall, but I won't be able to make it work how -I- want it to work.

But, like you, I'm in my 70's and maybe I'll just go the curmudgeon route...got room on that couch?

 

[pm-r]

But, like you, I'm in my 70's and maybe I'll just go the curmudgeon route...got room on that couch?

Always room for another old curmudgeon Jake, and we need all we can get to keep these new young'ens on their toes and smartened up. These darn young upcoming whippersnappers need to get learned more better!!!



PS: You sound just like my high school buddy who I still chat with who built many a radio from scratch. He was an electronics genius, but never qualified for his HAM license because of his slow morse code, but another retired military chap still tries to keep active with his HAM and radio stuff, but also mentioned that a lot of the "fun" of it all has disappeared.

PS: OT and I think I asked before but have forgotten, what type of planes are those you have for your avatar?






- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

It is a pair of A-6 Intruders. Here is a bigger picture of one tanking from another. We were basically carrier-based bombers, with a tanking and electronic warfare mission on the side, as it were:

 

[pm-r]

It is a pair of A-6 Intruders.

Thanks Jake.

They were quite the all-round heavy duty workhorse it seems.

I think they might have flown out of the Whidbey Island base across the Strait from us years ago and I believe were blamed for being rather loud.

Now I believe they have been replaced by the Prowlers and maybe the more appropriately named later Growlers and their rumblings of God knows how many thousands pounds of jet exhaust thrust or whatever.

And that's about 50 or less miles away from where we live, but the weather conditions have to be just right to hear them.






- Patrick
======

 

[MacInWin]

Yep, I was stationed at NAS Whidbey Island in the A-6s in the late '60's and late '70's. When the wind was from a certain direction, our approach path under instrument conditions got VERY close to the Canadian border. We had to be very careful not to violate that or we would get nasty notes from the Canadian Defense Force! The A-6 bombers have all been retired, and the mission taken over by F/A-18's. The Prowlers (EA-6B) took over the electronic warfare mission. Whidbey Is. now supports the EA-6B and I think the P-8 antisubmarine patrol guys (Large jets, not on carriers).

I'm planning to visit Whidbey Island next year to see how it's changed since I last was there in the early '80's. I don't think 33 years will make much difference, right?

 

[pm-r]

I'm planning to visit Whidbey Island next year to see how it's changed since I last was there in the early '80's. I don't think 33 years will make much difference, right?

Yeah right, I grew up on James Island which was an explosives plant until the late '70s that you would have been very close to flying over, and like most Islands, everything was set to Island Time and was slow to change.

I doubt it has changed much.

But that's a long way to go from Winchester, VA to see the old place isn't it or are you still flying but maybe with your own plane now?







- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

Nay, I shall be transported by commercial airlines (yet to be determined) to SeaTac, from whence I shall drive to Oak Harbor. My wife and I are going on a cruise to Alaska (it's on her bucket list) so we thought we'd see Whidbey again either on the way to Vancouver for the cruise, or after. Details are still a "work in progress" but it's planned for sometime in the Fall of 2017.

When I got done with Navy flying, I quit flying altogether. I was a bombardier/navigator and the airlines didn't seem to need many of them, so I shifted over to IT technology management and did my second career in that field. Don't really miss small aircraft flying, it's a young man's sport.

 

[pm-r]

My wife and I are going on a cruise to Alaska

If you happen to do a stopover in Victoria as many of the Alaska cruise ships do, drop me a line and maybe I could pick you up and let you walk around the Butchart Gardens tourist destination where I worked as equipment manager for forty years!!





- Patrick
========

 

[Thumpernator]

It is a pair of A-6 Intruders. Here is a bigger picture of one tanking from another. We were basically carrier-based bombers, with a tanking and electronic warfare mission on the side, as it were:
View attachment 25500

So you're Jake from "Flight of the Intruders."

 

[MacInWin]

She informs me we are planning to have tea at the Empress and tour the Butchart gardens, so I may well take you up on that offer, Patrick! She is a tea merchant (wholesale only, these days, she sold off the retail business), and tearooms are her passion. I find them relaxing and enjoyable overall. And when we visit UK every couple of years we have friends who are passionate gardeners who take us on garden tours in their area. It's nice to see such color. American gardens tend to be all shades of green in the Summer, not the riot of color you see in a proper English garden.

 

[MacInWin]

So you're Jake from "Flight of the Intruders."

Well, I do know Steve Coonts, and he was in a sister squadron to the one I was in. What he did was take everyone's first name and last name and story (yes, most of them in the first book are true) and mixed it up so that nobody's first name and last name and story are together. That was, I think, to protect the guilty . So the lead character was named Jake Grafton. I know Grafton but I'm not him, and the episodes associated with Jake Grafton in the book were neither mine nor the real Grafton's. But, yeah, I'm in there and I'm not telling.

 

[lclev]

I will be cruising to Alaska this coming July with my husband, daughter, her husband and two granddaughters. We are taking a 9 day cruise. This will be my first cruise but my second trip to Alaska. When I was 17, my dad took my mom, me and my three brothers to Alaska in a mobile home. That whole trip was an adventure to say the least. We were gone for two months.

Lisa

 

[pm-r]

She informs me we are planning to have tea at the Empress and tour the Butchart gardens, so I may well take you up on that offer, Patrick!

MacInWin,
Maybe send me a PM and I can provide you some contact details if you like.

Yes the Victoria BC Empress Hotel is famous for it's Afternoon Teas, and rather expensive, and Butchart's provides their own in the old Butchart home at a bit more reasonable price. But it's too much for my and my wife's appetites and you probably won't want to need supper.






- Patrick
==========

 

[RadDave]

I will be cruising to Alaska this coming July with my husband, daughter, her husband and two granddaughters. We are taking a 9 day cruise. This will be my first cruise but my second trip to Alaska. When I was 17, my dad took my mom, me and my three brothers to Alaska in a mobile home. That whole trip was an adventure to say the least. We were gone for two months.

Hi Lisa - hope that you have a great time! We did a 2-week trip there (one on land & one on a large Princess ship) in the early 1990s, and also in the summer - pics all from the web. First, a week on land flying into Fairbanks - trips to Nome & Kotzebue, the latter above the Arctic Circle; then Denali National Park - ending w/ a train ride from Denali to Anchorage (first map below w/ view of Denali; of course a small portion since the park is about half the size of Rhode Island).

Second week on a Princess ship (map shows some of the sites seen as listed) - pic of Glacier Bay (ate some ice from the glacier); also took a helicopter ride from Juneau and landed on the Mendenhall Glacier - felt like a prehistoric man crossing Beringia!); then onto Ketchikan & Vancouver, for a plane back home - great time! Dave

 

[harryb2448]

Lisa make sure you have packed the long johns and maybe a husky or two to keep warm!

 

[RadDave]

Lisa make sure you have packed the long johns and maybe a husky or two to keep warm!

Harry - not that bad in the summer (we went at the end of July - early August) - below the average temps in Kotzebue & Juneau that time of the year - as I recall, I brought a light and a moderate jacket, along w/ some light gloves and a stocking hat (easy to pack) - the coldest part was actually at sea sitting on the deck of the ship. Dave
.

 

[harryb2448]

Yes I did the Inside Passage Cruise about fifteen years ago and I dont call 60ºF summer anywhere lol!

That equates to 15ºC and today being a summer day Down Under is expected to be 38ºC. Now that is summer!

 

[RadDave]

Yes I did the Inside Passage Cruise about fifteen years ago and I dont call 60ºF summer anywhere lol!

That equates to 15ºC and today being a summer day Down Under is expected to be 38ºC. Now that is summer!

Yep - in North Carolina (and I'm in the Piedmont and not on the coast), summer temps usually are in the 80s F, which can be uncomfortable if the humidity is also high (terrible on the Carolina Coast that time of the year and the reason we visit the ocean here in the spring or the fall) - but in the summer, we have often gone north for more pleasant weather (or to the mountains locally, another great option) - many times to Canada and that Alaska trip in July-August was a great escape - Dave