Panera men's room, Tippecanoe Mall in Lafayette, Ind.

So what do we do with the poop?

Feels like temperature vs heat index

I noticed the other day that my home weather station reports the "feels like" temperature and the heat index and the numbers are usually different.
A lot of TV weather people seem to have quit reporting the heat index and give the feels like temperature instead.
So what's the difference?
The heat index is calculated using the actual temperature and the humidity.
The feels like temperature adds wind velocity to the equation.
So now you know.

A chest pain-inducing bill

I got the bill for my 12-hour hospital stay last month when I thought I might be having a cardiac event. Turned out it was dehydration.

I shudder to think what it would have cost if I'd opted for an ambulance ride.

Happy 103rd birthday, Mom

My mother would have been 103 years old today. She made it to 85.

Battery wars

I bought this battery from Batteries Plus Bulbs in Lafayette eight or nine days ago.

I installed it in our John Deere LA125 and the engine started right up. But when I tried to start it a few days later, it appeared the battery was dead.

I put it on the charger for several hours yesterday. When I turned the key, the headlights came on, but when I tried to start it, the starter made a little err noise and then went dead.

I called the Lebanon John Deer dealership and the service manager said it sounds like I got a bad battery. He invited me to bring it in for testing, so that's where I'm going this morning. I also have the battery receipt in case my next step is to return it.

++++++++

Battery tested OK. Gotta take the mower in and it's going to be expensive.

Lacking life skills

I managed to coax one more mowing from our John Deere LA 125 yesterday morning after putting the failing battery on a charger for a couple of hours.
Then I bought a replacement battery online and rode up to Batteries Plus in Lafayette to pick it up.
I found myself in line behind a 50-ish businessman wearing an expensive dress shirt with French cuffs and gold cufflinks. He looked like an executive type, but the image collapsed when I saw why he was there.
He'd brought in his First Alert smoke detector because he couldn't figure out how to replace the battery.
Really? It's the same model we had in Arkansas and it's a breeze to replace the 9-volt battery. Even standing on a ladder with the unit on the ceiling.
The counterman managed to keep a straight face throughout the transaction.
I wonder what else he has other people do for him.

Historical t-shirt

Going through my t-shirt archives over the weekend, I found this relic of an Indianapolis BMW motorcycle dealership from the late 1980s and early 1990s. The shop was owned by Greg Polzin and was next door to a Dairy Queen on east 56th Street, just west of Keystone Avenue.

Bike report

The folks at AMA Road Service determined that my BMW dealer, Falcone Powersports, provides free pickup and delivery, so I had them collect my K1200GT Thursday morning.

I called Saturday morning and got good news and, of course, bad news.

The good news is that my battery was replaced under warranty.

The bad news is that my fork seals are shot and will cost $450 to replace. I told them to proceed. The other bad news is that my tires are down to the wear bars. The good news on the tire front is that I have a partially used set of tires for that bike that still have plenty of miles left. They came off the bike in July, 2015 and have been in storage ever since. When I get the GT back, I'll take it to my almost-next-door Gold Wing shop and have the old tires mounted.

Here's a photo of the Falcone trailer hauling my bike to Indy.

Whisper quiet

If you have a spare $600 to blow on a vacuum cleaner, I heartily recommend the Miele Blizzard CX1 Turbo Team Bagless Canister Vacuum.

It's German made and whisper quiet, yet very powerful. Some users say it outclasses their expensive Dyson models.

I got mine from Amazon and now I actually look forward to vacuuming the house.