RDM

Cool - Went to West End rather frequently. Good to know you enjoyed the softball too. I was the first non-Indian to win the fast-pitch batting title. Batted .610 my first year/season, but only .408 the second year. The Indians were really good at both slow and fast pitch in all positions; especially their pitching. Never played fast-pitch before going there and was amazing at their skills. Ravi Kumar, Madan Ram, and a couple others were stars. In slow pitch, we used unlimited arc with a strike mat behind home plate. Madan Ram could throw it 40 feet up and pick the corners. Strike outs were very common. Was just checking out Google Earth and it looks like starting in June 2020 and going through at least May 2021 the softball field was used as a staging area for construction. Appears as though they are rebuilding the entire housing compound and ACSA. Would be interesting to see first-hand what they are doing. The frisbee golf "course" was just a series of "holes" we setup after one especially intoxicating happy hour at ACSA (don't ask...). The 18 holes started at apt 48 on the housing compound and just worked our way around the housing compound, over to the American school and back. For instance, the 4th hole was to tee off from home plate on the softball field and then hit the distance sign in center field - was a par 3. Then T off on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance doors to ACSA and hit the double doors on the boiler room in the back of GSA - was a par 4. Had a couple par 5's over at the American school because there was more distance to play with. We all had to use the same Indian style frisbee we purchased at Khan Market so nobody had an advantage. They were pieces of crap wrt a real Frisbee here in the USA, but that made for half of the fun. Was a way to pass the time on Saturday's, especially in the Summer when most of the families cleared out for R&R. We played every Saturday no matter the weather. T off was noon sharp and the temps were often 120F+. Then monsoons came in and we still played. The downpours made for some interesting throws. Good memories.

Lived there 92-95. Lived in Vasant Vihar just outside of outer Ring Road. Amazing experienced. Lots of memories of ACSA and the movie theater too. Played a lot of softball there - both slow and fast-pitch. Had a nice 18 hole frisbee golf course setup too. 9 holes on the housing compound at the Embassy and 9 holes at the American School out the back gate. The player with the highest score on a hole had to carry the beer cooler to the next hole. The more you carried the more you drank to lighten the load the worse you threw. haha.

Bone dry here. Missed the multiple rounds of the last storms over the weekend by less than a mile (or whenever it was). Haven't had any appreciable rain here for 10+ days.

Spontaneous combustion is a big issue in the midwest farm belt too. It's why one never puts green/wet hay or alfalfa in the barn. It's a good way to burn your barn down. My dad actually helped fight a barn fire in Switzerland of all places in 1981. They put wet alfalfa in the barn and it lit up on its own. (Dad was a volunteer for 60+ years and in the first class of paramedics in Ohio).

Same here NW of Vienna. Lots of T&L with the first system around lunch time, which went N of us. Same with this 2nd round. Was outside mowing and had about 8 drops come down. The ground here is parched...

Yea - those monsoon rains were some of the most intense I've ever seen. Would just pour for hours with intense rates. Not a lot of lightning in Delhi other than one time I'll never forget, but the storms in Bangkok were sometimes very electrified. The one unforgettable storm in Delhi had so much lightning the sky was constantly lit up for about 2 hours as the storm barely crawled through. Was a major calamity for the city. Lots of people in the Embassy lost their cars and major property damage throughout the area, to a population that can largely least afford it.

Just checked my Vantage Vue - 92F and 82dp and 71rh? Really? That's a heat index of about 113F. That's in the tropical realm. Brings back memories of Bangkok and New Delhi during monsoon season.

Haha - with my luck, I'd kill that too! As it is, I have to pick up rocks in our yard every spring that are exposed from frost heave.

Awwww come-on man! We can't ever ever give up... ever... (tic) I have faith in your persistence to ID the secret so the rest of us can benefit from it...

Sounds very similar to our situation. I seem to recall you posted some pictures before - remember a fire pit and think it was you when we were ranting about grass last year. It's a real challenge. Our back yard is a leach field for our septic system too. 2 separate sections with 4 lines each. You'd think the perk in the drainage area would help keep the grass healthy. But it seems the clay base in the soil compounds the challenge. I've been mulching the leaves for 10+ years now and still don't have a very thick thatch in most of our yard. The fresh grass in the spring loves the mulched leaves from the previous fall, but once the trees sprout and start their thing it's as if the grass can't compete and gives up. Anxious for our grounds keeper pro to provide some tips.

Thanks for moving this here. Same experience in our back yard and parts of our front yard with the trees. You've done a lot more experimentation with the different kinds of grass than I have. Hopefully our expert will be able to shed some light on the secrets. After all, golf courses have trees too. Yet, most courses have a thick stand of rough along the fairways that makes my hodge podge look like - #@$%&

Happy Birthday and many more to come 007! Appreciate everything you do for the forum and our hobby, profession, and/or cursed obsession that we all enjoy so much.

Welcome any suggestions you may have. Echo'ing CAPE's comments about what a challenge it is to grow grass around here. I mulch leaves in the fall, put down lime to offset the acid based clay soil and mulch the clippings with Gator blades. The popular trees along the back of our yard just suck all the nutrition out of the soil. In the spring the grass grows like gangbusters until the poplars break out in leaves and then it's like the grass puts the brakes on. Some years ago I reclaimed a half acre of our yard in front, which is interlaced with maples and 6 very large white pines. Used a power landscape rake to wind-row the rocks and debris. Hauled out 3 dump trucks and 2 30 yd dumpsters full of stumps, rocks and debris. Spread over 200 cubic yards of 50/50 (topsoil and compost) and put down over 300 lbs of grass seed. The end results were to grow a nice 1/2 acre plot of weeds. The grass starts reasonably strong in the spring and then goes to weeds when it gets warm.

Suspect the flyovers are prep for the 4th of July celebrations. Normal for them to do a few test runs to get their timing down on the final run so it coincides with the agenda, with close coordination from ATC at Dulles. Separately - thanks for the "why" on the upgrade. Was just curious what prompted it and how the transition is going. Don't care much about titles etc, but have been here since the beginning and with Eastern before since 97.

Just picked up .92" in about 15 mins with this latest round, and still pouring. FFW issued for a second time for FFCO.

Heck of a deluge here. Unfortunately don't know how much we got in the initial wave, but it was torrential for about 20 mins. My Vantage VUE bu batteries were old and when the power burped the memory was lost. Below is a video after things calmed down some. Traffic on the road in front of our house was at a standstill. Edit - may need to right click and "open in new window" to view. IMG_6552.MOV

Yup - Mitsubishi split-packs are one of the gold standards in split-packs. The newer inverter technology has very high SER ratings (efficiency). Plus, like Stormfly said, they have multiple-units now where there's only one outdoor compressor unit that can power up to 5 or more indoor FCUs (Fan Coil Units). With precharged freon lines, they are something Harry Homeower can self-install with a little electrical knowledge. My former employer used hundreds of split-packs in the middle-east and Afghanistan. On reverse cycle they provide heat too. But not all of them have the reverse cycle option. Beyond Mitsubishi, there's some other Japanese brands that are also very good. Hitachi being one of the other very good options. Japanese homes don't have central AC and heat. They heat and cool the room they are in when they are there because electricity is very expensive. Much more per kWh than here in the USA. So there's a lot of pressure on efficiency. When I lived there in the mid 90's, my electric bill in the summer routinely approached $1000 per month. And that was for a relatively small 3 bedroom house. Can't fathom what the electric bill would be to run a central AC unit like we have in the USA at the cost of electricity in Japan.

Those work great in dry climate. Worthless with our dew points around here. Many houses in west Texas have "Central AC" based on a swamp cooler. IE: Centrally located box on the roof that draws in ambient air over water wicking down various substances. They work pretty well when it is dry. Same in the Middle East. Used units just like in the picture a lot in Kuwait, Baghdad and Afghanistan, when it was dry. When the winds blew in from the Gulf and brought the humidity, it would become intolerable in a matter of 30 minutes and even the fan on its own didn't help a lot. The humidity was so bad that a cell phone taken outside would instantly condense the moisture on the outside of the phone. Same for glasses - impossible to use until l the surface temperature adjusted to outside ambient temps. A cell phone taken outside from inside an air conditioned building left a wet spot in your pants pocket that looked like you'd pissed yourself. Nearly everyone uses external phone holders to avoid the embarrassment.

Nie on impossible to find a regular ole manual these days. Only a handful of vehicles have them. Another dying trend, like cursive writing.

Learned how to drive a stick in my oldest brother's 67 Vette. That was awesome as a 16 year old. Was a small block, but had factor side pipes that sounded great, and burned your calves on exiting if you didn't pay attention. The second thing with a stick I drove was a Ford F-9000 dump truck that took both feet to operate the clutch (well, sort of... it was a beast) and no power steering.

Just got back from 4 days at Chincoteague. First time there. Got an OSV pass and had a couple hundred yards of beach to ourselves on Sunday. Was close to being an Old Milwaukee Light commercial (their slogan in the 80's was "It doesn't get any better than this!"). SST's are in the low/mid 70's there, so with a constant onshore breeze of 15-20mph and air temps in the low 80's it was actually borderline chilly at times under the sun shade. Driving back today the thermometer on our car nudged up a degree or two every 10-20 miles as we moved away from the Atlantic. When we got back to FFCO and opened the doors, it was a reminder of why we went to the beach. Stifling. Still 88/76dp

Picked up a quick 1.44" so far in several waves of wind and rain. Would downpour and then lull, then repeated several times. NWS radar projection shows some back building, albeit not as intense as these initial waves...

.90" in about 30 mins. FF Warning issued with the proverbial alert on our cell phones. The main culprit in our area is Difficult Run that meanders through N central FFCO. Many areas are prone to FF with the threshold of about 1.5"/hr is exceeded (SWAG) .

Nothing here too. With all the storms in recent days we've not received enough to even register on my Vantage VUE. We define the DC Split here IVO Vienna...

Only 51 now here near Vienna. What a difference from a few days ago.