• Got the Contributing Memberships stuff finally worked out and made up a thread as a sort of "How-To" to help people figure out how to participate. So if you need help figuring it out, here's the thread you need to take a look at -> http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3581 Thank you, everyone! Rich Z.

Rain today

Rich Z said:
How did your delivery go?

Ours didn't go so well. They put the storm door, which was simply in a cardboard box, on a flat bed 16 wheeler and then drove it all over and into Georgia before coming down here. They laid it FLAT on the floor of the flatbed, and from what I have heard, that is not good for a storm door to be laid like that for any length of time. The truck made it's first delivery just after 6am and didn't get here till about 6:15PM. So the full glass storm door was bouncing around on the bed of that truck for 12 hours. And they forgot to send the door handle that I had to order extra with that door. And that dry spell we have been having lately? It broke today, and of course it was pouring down raining when the delivery showed up at the end of our driveway. So the cardboard box was soaking wet. And already mushy and beginning to separate and coming apart. Along with the other noted issues, I just rejected the delivery entirely. Yeah the door is aluminum, but the hardware isn't and I just did not want things getting prematurely rusty after I got it hung on the front door frame. That box couldn't have been any wetter if it were under water. For the $79 delivery fee I paid, I expected better than that. I thought it would be delivered in a covered truck, not some open flat bed.

So I'm figuring it won't be any worse just picking it up in Connie's pickup truck. I contacted them via online chat and they will refund the delivery fee when we pick up the door and handle. Of course, I fully expect to show up there an no one will know a thing about this whole affair.

So we waited around all day for nothing. Well, at least I did get the oil and filter changed in the Jeep, so I did get something accomplished.

Now our biggest challenge will be to get that storm door hung while trying not to be eaten alive by the yellow flies. The last two years we were in Sanibel while the yellow flies were running rampant. It appears that they are trying to make up for lost time. They are not fooling around, and just zoom in and BITE. I had one chew on my arm and when I swatted it, it spurted out what looked like a few ounces of my blood.
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Got the scope fine, but rained here today and looks cloudy for a week.

I hate them deer flies or yellow flies. I am by a marsh with saw grass on the gulf and get a few of them flying around on still eves with no wind and plenty of noseeums.

23upov9.jpg
 
Whatever happened with that big monster sized telescope you were planning on installing? Weren't you planning on pouring a slab for it or something? Sorry, my memory isn't as good as it used to be.

I've been trying to do some wide angle astrophotography with the new Nikon camera body I bought using a couple of lenses, but I'm not getting good results at all. Just too much graininess when I bump up the ISO values to try to bring out more of the fainter stars. I'm using a 50mm f1.4 lens so it should be able to collect a lot of light. I probably just need to play around with settings more, but it's kind of hard to concentrate out there on the garage apron with skeeters buzzing me. But it was pretty disappointing when none of the pictures I took look worth a damn to me.

We got 0.50 inch of rain today. Not as much as I had hoped for, but better than nothing. The entire rest of this week has some higher percentages of possible rain, but they can mean just getting bird spit amounts of rain, which doesn't help at all except to raise the humidity levels.

Something bit me good on the back of my left shoulder and I've got one heck of a welt there. I normally don't swell up from insect bites, but this one must have been one heck of a bite. The one yellow fly bite I mentioned earlier on my arm where I KNOW he took one heck of a bite didn't leave any welt at all. :shrug01:

But they are getting more ferocious and more numerous around here. Might not have been a real good idea to stay at home this year at this time of year. Not much fun feeling trapped inside the house with marauding flying teeth just waiting for us outside the doors. I've got three mosquito magnets running right now, as they will catch a bunch of the yellow flies, so hopefully they will help.
 
Rich Z said:
Whatever happened with that big monster sized telescope you were planning on installing? Weren't you planning on pouring a slab for it or something? Sorry, my memory isn't as good as it used to be.

I've been trying to do some wide angle astrophotography with the new Nikon camera body I bought using a couple of lenses, but I'm not getting good results at all. Just too much graininess when I bump up the ISO values to try to bring out more of the fainter stars. I'm using a 50mm f1.4 lens so it should be able to collect a lot of light. I probably just need to play around with settings more, but it's kind of hard to concentrate out there on the garage apron with skeeters buzzing me. But it was pretty disappointing when none of the pictures I took look worth a damn to me.

We got 0.50 inch of rain today. Not as much as I had hoped for, but better than nothing. The entire rest of this week has some higher percentages of possible rain, but they can mean just getting bird spit amounts of rain, which doesn't help at all except to raise the humidity levels.

Something bit me good on the back of my left shoulder and I've got one heck of a welt there. I normally don't swell up from insect bites, but this one must have been one heck of a bite. The one yellow fly bite I mentioned earlier on my arm where I KNOW he took one heck of a bite didn't leave any welt at all. :shrug01:

But they are getting more ferocious and more numerous around here. Might not have been a real good idea to stay at home this year at this time of year. Not much fun feeling trapped inside the house with marauding flying teeth just waiting for us outside the doors. I've got three mosquito magnets running right now, as they will catch a bunch of the yellow flies, so hopefully they will help.
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It was just too much for my back. I am done with monster size scopes..

I remember yellow flies getting bad in Aug up in the woods in Levy county near the gulf.
 
CHASZ51 said:
It was just too much for my back. I am done with monster size scopes..

I remember yellow flies getting bad in Aug up in the woods in Levy county near the gulf.
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Yeah, I hear that. I've got a few lenses for my camera that have gotten a LOT heavier lately. It is REALLY tough to try to hold them steady any more. Kind of takes the fun out of taking a camera out to shoot if you have to tote along a tripod too.

Mid May and into June have always been the yellow fly season around here. Nasty little buggers.

We got more rain this morning that pushed the cumulative total up to 0.98 inches.
 
We got more rain overnight and during the day today. Rain gauge is showing 0.48 inches

Hope the rain drowned some of the yellow flies. It's getting to where we don't even want to put a foot outside, because it might get bitten off.
 
Getting more rain right now.

I walked outside to check the mosquito magnets and there are a lot of yellow flies buzzing around. Not so many within the traps, though, unfortunately. Not sure why, as they have been good about catching a lot of them in the past. Might be the "new and improved" net capture bags the manufacturer has come up with. They are a much stiffer material, and I have a devil of a time installing them without the front flaps nearly closing off access into the bags. I did find some older ones with a finer material in the back room of my building, so I replaced one in one of the traps to see if that makes a difference.

I wore a floppy hat and my windbreaker, which seemed to help a lot from keeping the flies from biting me.

With the rain, I can see where me being laid up with my thumb and wrist injured a little while back and not able to keep up the clearing with the hedge trimmer as a brush whacker is going to allow a lot of the weeds and brambles to stage a comeback. Not much chance I'll be able to do anything with the yellow flies attacking like they are. Too bad, as I was actually getting my arms used to the exercise, and will likely have to start all over again when I can resume the weed whacking.
 
For the past two days the National Weather Service has been predicting a tropical storm to come up the west side of Florida next week. Just in time for Memorial Day!
 
85vette said:
For the past two days the National Weather Service has been predicting a tropical storm to come up the west side of Florida next week. Just in time for Memorial Day!
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Seems kind of early for tropical systems, but heck, you never know.

Looking at the weather radar, there looks like a huge band of moisture streaming up off of the east coast of Florida right now.

Connie and I just picked up a new storm door that we intend to put on the newly painted front door. Hoping we can get it installed real soon without the yellow flies tearing the flesh off of our bones while we are preoccupied with the install. Today when we went out to do errands, the flies chased the truck down the road and were clinging to the windows and mirrors.
 
Isn't that one of those salt shooters mentioned a while back? Meant to buy one of those, but for some reason never got a round to it. I'm not sure Connie would want me shooting those yellow flies when they landed on her, though. :hehehe:
 
Yeah, we’ve had it for two or three years now and it still works. I have gotten hit with some indirect salt ricochets and it does sting a bit. Definitely don’t want to catch one in the face. Bug-A-Salt.com
 
Yeah, now I remember. I was getting ready to order a couple of them, but sat there thinking about when and where I would actually use one. Not in the house. I certainly don't want salt everywhere. And we rarely ever get flies and such in the house. We do get palmetto bugs and sometimes centipedes, but Connie goes after them with the vacuum cleaner. And she is not going to spray salt in the house, neither. So I decided not to buy.

As for yellow flies, sure I could stand outside and wait for one to land nearby so I could take a shot at it, but while I'm waiting on that one to land, four more will be buzzing my head and trying to take a chunk out of my neck.

I do like the idea and the novelty of it, but I guess my greatly atrophied "practical gene" kicks in every now and again when I least expect it.

So what opportunities do you have to use it? I guess I'm looking for a good excuse to buy one..... :hehehe:
 
My wife uses it in the house/RV for the occasional fly and outside when the flies get on the carport ceiling. It uses very little salt. Also on the wasp/mud dobbers that try to build nest on the walls and window sills. They usually take multiple shots though unless you can get a point blank shot. She's actually gotten pretty good at slow moving targets like mosquitos!
 
Hmm, well I was on their site and they have a specialty model called the "Silverado". Maybe I'll get Connie one of them to go with her pickup truck.
 
So this is the kind of forecast (for Sunday) that the National Weather Service makes these days....

A chance of showers and thunderstorms between 8am and 2pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm.
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Yeah, BIG difference there between the periods "8am and 2pm", and "after 2pm". Like that will be anywhere near accurate anyway.

:face_palm_02:
 
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