Morning coffee

[djfordmanjack]

and that's one 1957 built home less in Tx....

Thats what the propane torch is for 

[CobraJoe]

Wow Joe ! great car, efforts and pics !
May I ask, what is the pretty old industrial brick building in the background ? looking very nice !

The old Mars Bargainland on Riverside Avenue; they went belly up in 1990:





...it is now elderly housing.

[djfordmanjack]

thx for the info Joe! But it looks like a very industrial building, not necessarily a shopping mall. Do you know if it was something like a machinery factory or even from the steam powered era ? It looks to be from the 1920s at least or could be 50 yrs older than that.
imho, there is something very attractive about industrial architecture from that period, especially brick buildings.
At one point I was working for a gear factory, and the building was from 1896/8 or so. the company was the first to introduce fully enclosed bevel geared driveshaft driven bicycles, so women's skirts would not get caught in the drive chains. I love vintage factory buildings.

[djfordmanjack]

HA ! 

The Whitman Mills are a historic mill complex on the banks of the Acushnet River north of central New Bedford, Massachusetts. .......This particular grouping, including two large mills, an office, and several outbuildings, was built between 1896 and 1917, with most of those original buildings still standing. The mills operated until 1932, when the Whitman Company went bankrupt. The complex was nearly demolished in the 1950s, but has since been subdivided and occupied by a succession of smaller businesses.[2]

[Ford Blue blood]

     Yes.    The dripping faucet trick does work.  The problem is that the dripping has to be started before the pipes freeze.
             

It did work!  She went over to the house yesterday and all the drips were still hanging around.  All is good for now. 

TX turning into CA?  I see 25% of the electric generation is wind and half of them are down!  CA has rolling black outs because the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing, TX because it gets cold?

[RICH MUISE]

Not sure what's up with that. Yeah, we have wind turbines all over. Some of the fields take a 1/2 hour to drive past. Works good for the ranchers. They get the extra $ without it really interfering much with their operation. Unlike the oil wells, watching a field of wind turbines is very relaxing/soothing to me. Kinda reminiscent of the old dutch windmills.

[hiball3985]

Not sure what's up with that. Yeah, we have wind turbines all over. Some of the fields take a 1/2 hour to drive past. Works good for the ranchers. They get the extra $ without it really interfering much with their operation. Unlike the oil wells, watching a field of wind turbines is very relaxing/soothing to me. Kinda reminiscent of the old dutch windmills.

I have just the opposite feeling. Driving across the desert areas that I feel so tranquil and then driving through those fields makes me want to barf 

[RICH MUISE]

I'm sure you're not alone. To me it just beats the heck out of a nuclear or coal-burning plant.

[hiball3985]

I'm sure you're not alone. To me it just beats the heck out of a nuclear or coal-burning plant.

I like the natural gas fired plants myself, I agree on the coal or nuclear. I know the current weather conditions in Texas aren't normal but I had a good laugh about the wind turbines freezing. I guess solar panels don't work too well when covered with snow either..

[RICH MUISE]

Not sure what the issue is....from the governor down, we can't get a straight answer. I did find out yesterday Texas is not a part of the national grid systems which explains the lengthy outage. Only some of the turbines were not weatherproofed apparently, and the total turbine output only generates 10% of the current overall usage, so it's not too hard to figure out the stories we're hearing about green energy being the problem is total BS.
Grid system.............not only is Texas not on it, (so they did not have to comply with national regulations), but some cities in Texas operate independently of the Texas grid. El Paso to the west, and Beaumont to the east are not on it and have had no power outages. I have not been able to find out why we still have power here in Amarillo. Amarillo was not mentioned in the report on the Texas grid system I read this morning. We did have rolling power outages in parts of the city two days ago.

[hiball3985]

From what I'm seeing the power plants are down for several reasons. They were talking about gas lines freezing. Is that natural gas? I didn't know they could freeze.. I feel bad for what the people are going through with no electric, water, gas, food.. And broken water pipes.
I wonder why the wind turbines freeze? I know they have huge disk brakes, maybe that system freezes???

[RICH MUISE]

I wasn't aware natural gas lines could freeze either. There's going to be a lot of questions to be answered.
I've been thinking a lot this morning about prolonged power outages in large metro areas. So many things it affects. Aside from freezing to death, Food...........can the grocery stores even operate without electricity? can you imagine the spoiled foods they're going to have? How would you pay for it? not many keep wads of cash even if the stores had a way to accept it. You could have tons in the bank, but you wouldn't be able to access it except for writing a check. I've only written one or two in the past year. Gas...........you can't fill up anywhere even if you had the cash because the pumps are not working, so you probably can't even drive out of the area to relatives'. high rise buildings in the big cities............no elevators, might be workable for young folks. I can see why Fort Worth was requesting a truck to store anticipated dead bodies. Fragile society we live in.

[hiball3985]

I was just watching a story on the problems ranchers are having feeding and no water for their cattle and how it will effect food down the line. Saw some shots of grocery stores empty.

[mustang6984]

Most stores have emergency back-up generators to protect them from food loss, some even big enough to run other aspects. Ditto for high-rise buildings, especially residential ones.
Some gas stations also have back-up generators...the trick is knowing which ones do.

[RICH MUISE]

Hugh.....I hope you decided to stay home a little bit longer!!