At the 5th Avenue Main Entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, there are impressive memorials created by folks in the community to remember those who were lost due to COVID-19 and recognize those still suffering from Long COVID.
The installation is called Naming the Lost, and it will be up through May 29, 2024. I am including photos below, but it is far more impressive to see in person. The work that these people put into this is a testament to their love and grief. It also points to the disproportionate effect of the virus on our densely populated urban environment–in terms of infection rates, mortality, messaging, and disruption.
I decided to ride Amtrak back home after visiting my folks, because I dislike the indignity of traveling by air in the United States. I’ve had more than my fair share of “random bag checks,” and I disagree with the security theater at TSA checkpoints that does more to insult than protect.
While a train obviously takes longer than an airplane flight, it provides the individual with a dignified travel experience. You walk from the station to the tracks, board your train, and off you go.
I opted for a roomette aboard Amtrak’s Silver Meteor so that I could sleep more easily on the overnight train ride. The scheduled trip time was about 14 hours, but the actual trip time was closer to 17. For one-way travel, the cost was only a little more than a plane ticket.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience. Perhaps because the experience was new, I had trouble staying asleep. When I ride again, I might take a sleep aid like Melatonin to help with my sleep. Also, as others have remarked online, there were delays. My train’s delays meant that I missed the dinner service, and since the train was designated only with dinner and breakfast service, there was no lunch service despite arriving 3 hours late in NYC the next day. Thankfully, I had learned from other train travelers and came prepared with extra water and snacks to tide me over. However, I might pack an MRE for a meal next time to have something more substantial to eat if needed.
Below are some photos of my trip aboard the Silver Meteor and my roomette. I tried to capture the roomette’s features and amenities as well as demonstrate how much/little leg room there is if you are traveling with another person. Also, this train has a toilet in the roomette–something you would need to negotiate its use if traveling with someone else. Finally, I have some photos of the dining car and the early morning breakfast that I enjoyed (as the dining options are limited, the earlier you go to a meal, the more likely the option you want will still be available).
The Museum of Aviation is HUGE! There are four buildings (some with multiple floors) full of planes, drones, helicopters, support vehicles, equipment, and exhibits. There is a VR experience and other interactive exhibits. The four buildings are surrounded by additional aircraft that you can walk around (I walked 1.6 miles while I was there). Admission is free (but donations are accepted).
The museum is staffed by experienced volunteers/retired servicemen who are friendly and glad to talk and answer questions. They are also doing restoration work in the exhibit areas.
I was chuffed by the whole experience!
If you are an aircraft enthusiast, you owe it to yourself to visit here.
Below, I’m posting some of the hundreds of photos that I took there.
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle on Pedestal Outside
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle Wheels Down and Service Compartments Open In Main Building
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle Cockpit
Pratt & Whitney F-15 Engine
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon (Thunderbirds)
Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk
Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Its Weapons and Equipment
Rockwell B-1 Lancer
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
Lockheed U-2
Republic F-105 Thunderchief
Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Convair F-106 Delta Dart
McDonnell F-101 Voodoo
McDonnell RF-101
North American F-100 Super Sabre
Republic F-84 Thunderjet
North American F-86 Sabre
Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV
Sikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green Giant
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
North American P-51 Mustang
Boeing B-29 Superfortress
Curtiss JN Jenny with Snoopy (Maybe his Sopwith Camel was being serviced!)
Long before AT&T was having massive data breaches, they were burying cables and putting up these signs in the back country to warn would-be diggers from slicing through buried copper or fiber optic cables.
As I wrote about yesterday, my Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 maintains lower temperatures when it has improved air flow under its body where the twin cooling fan intakes are. Without raising the laptop, the laptop’s support feet only give it about 3 mm of space underneath it, which chokes the intake fans. Since getting the laptop late last year, I’ve used a variety of at-hand objects–books and small boxes most often–to prop up the back of the laptop when I was stressing the laptop with a heavy workload.
I wanted a permanent solution, but the portable options available in retail are either bulky adjustable metal or plastic platforms or folding 4-point stands. The former takes up a lot of room and those with fans don’t always translate to lower temps, and the latter might not provide the support needed on the ThinkPad P1’s lengthy support foot at the rear of the laptop. So, I turned to LEGO to create a customized stand that gives the ThinkPad the support it needs while also being compact and easily carried in my backpack.
What I made to solve this problem mostly used LEGO Technic elements with some brick elements (plates to provide support underneath its joints and the bright yellow smooth plates on top to orient the stand and provide a stop against the ThinkPad’s support foot).
The ThinkPad’s support foot fits perfectly in the center of the stand without the studs toward the front or the flat plate in the back touching the laptop’s body.
Essentially, the stand is built like a sandwich: the bread is the Technic bricks with holes on either side, and the filling is the Technic liftarms (straight and L-shaped). I used 3-stud wide pins to hold the sandwich together. The red pins are only used to provide stability to the support legs when they are deployed for use.
On the back of the stand, the red pegs can be partially pulled out and the feet folded.
The LEGO stand completely covers the support foot at the rear of the laptop (seen at the top of the photo above). When folded, it easily slips into the backpack that I use to carry this ThinkPad.
LEGO is a versatile, rapid prototyping medium for building art, expressing ideas, and in this case, creating something practical to solve a specific problem.
If you have some LEGO bricks laying around idle, you might stop and think about what problem they might be able to solve for you!
