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Weather (wind) outage

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The cable for my La Crosse WS-2316 anemometer failed catastrophically (it was severed) 5 days ago, and alas, I didn’t notice it until CWOP showed no valid weather data for the last 5 days. I guess they don’t accept anything if you don’t have wind data.

Anyway, after a trip to the roof, and some soldering, I replaced the former 4 strand, untwisted phone cable with same shielded cat5e, al la this.

So far, seems to work great. And I took some extra time to wrap the areas of the cable that make contact with anything else with electrical tape. Hopefully this will keep the same thing from happening again. If not, I’ll have to extend my conduit down. =/

The biggest issue was figuring out you have to tell the station to start looking for wind data again (press and hold the “Pressure” button for about 5 seconds, and it will resync with the outdoor piece).

I had been meaning to do this mod for some time, but I guess nature forced my hand. Anyway, weather data is flowing again.

Victorinox (Swiss Army) Garrison Elegance

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For our fifth anniversary, my wife and I bought each other ((In reality, she bought both from work (a jewelry store), and had them engraved, but, it’s the thought)) Victorinox (Swiss Army) Garrison Elegance watches, or as they’re generally known, the $125 REI Swiss Army watch. The Men’s watch features a 1.25″ face, and the women’s a 1″ face ((in all honesty, I first liked this watch when I was looking at the women’s size, since I don’t like bulky watches)). The movement is quartz, but it’s made in Switzerland. From what I’ve heard, REI and Victorinox worked together to design a watch with this build quality, and price point. Given the cost to my wife’s shop, REI can’t be making a very big profit on these watches (neither could Victorinox for that matter).

The back is screw on, which leads to a tighter water seal, but the crown (the nob that you use to adjust the date/time) is not screw down, so the claim of 100m (330ft) is probably not realistic. The band is a silicon rubber, and the biggest problem with it is sweat. In the sun, my arm tends to sweat a bit, and causes the watch to be a bit gross. I might try out the nylon band option at some point, see how that fares, but nylon is going to tend to snag more. The hands, and dots above each number glow in the dark, and overall, the glow is not obnoxious.

The real advantage to this watch is that as the name implies, it serves very well as a casual every day watch, as well as a dressier watch. No, it’s no Rolex, but at 1/20th the price of the lowest cost Rolex’s, it’s certainly more affordable ((Mind you, Rolex’s are all mechanical rather than quartz movements)). Another awesome “feature” is the affordability of parts. The crystal (quartz as well) is only $10 to replace. The band is about $10, and the whole movement is only $25 (obviously none of this includes labor). This watch should certainly last me 10+ years assuming I don’t lose it in a lake.

It’s been 10+ years since I’ve regularly worn a watch, and this one certainly doesn’t make me feel like I’m wearing a bulbous weight on my arm.

Both watches have performed very well, and I would gladly buy them again. If you’re looking for an inexpensive, analog, dress/everyday watch, this might be a good one to consider. I only wish that REI stocked them more reliably (they almost always have the women’s, but not the men’s).

[xrr rating=5/5]

Scansnap S1300

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Few months back, I got a chance to borrow a ScanSnap S1500M from work, as well as an S1100 from a coworker. I did some basic scanning at home, and found that I really enjoyed being able to quickly scan receipts and other documents for easy archiving digitally. After a bit of pre-purchase buyers remorse, I bit the bullet and purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 off Amazon, and since then, I haven’t looked back.

The difference between the S1300 and S1500 is rather dramatic when it comes to pages per minute (or maybe it should be inches per minute), as well as size. The S1500 SEEMS about 2-3x as fast when scanning ((According to Fujitsu’s site, the S1500 does 20PPM, where the S1300 is 8PPM)), and it seems to show that speed in physical size (it’s about 2-3x as big as the S1300). The S1500 also uses CCFL lights for illuminating the document being scanned, which means it uses much more power than the S1300 which uses a series of LEDs (the S1300 can, in fact, be powered over USB), in case I wanted to travel somewhere and help someone else digitize their documents, or if I ever manage to get back into genealogy, may be nice to travel and scan paper records.

While I haven’t got as nearly paperless as I’d like (nor have I had a chance to digitize everything in the file cabinet), I have been using it routinely as new documents make their way into my home that I feel like I should keep. The scanner software isn’t great, but it does allow easy scanning with the button on the scanner, and saves directly to my dropbox account “inbox” where I can go and rename the file and digitally file it away.

The process works extremely well, and the scanner scans pretty darn fast when you consider having to manually scan a document one side at a time (oh yeah, hopefully it was obvious the Scansnap scans double-sided).

All and all, a great purchase. They can be had on Amazon for a decent price, and if you sign up for an Amazon Visa card at the same time (like I did), you get $50 off! =)

[xrr rating=4.75/5]

UPDATE: Fujitsu, today (6/22/2012), announced the S1300i which is largely the same device, only 50% faster (12PPM vs. 8PPM). All the other “bells and whistles” about scanning to Dropbox, or Google Docs/Drive, are things updated in software, which is free to any Scansnap owner.