Domino ideas

Even though life has been a little slow I have been busy playing a lot of dominos and have come up with several ideas.  The dominos are cast from a ceramic type plastic.  It would be easy to imbed a material that could be activated by a pencil sized laser.  The laser would light up all the doubles.  That way you would have to inspect an average of 6 tiles instead of 45..  The deluxe model would advance the number by one and the correct domino would be highlighted with one flash. This is actually a good idea and would involve "off the shelf" parts and a very minimum in investment to imbed the material into the tile

The next idea would involve the mixing of the dominos after round is finished.  My idea would be to have the tiles pushed into a tilted chute.  They would land on a tilted circular platform that would be activated by a hand crank.  The platform would have a square hole on the periphery 1/8 " larger than the length of an individual tile. This would assure that only one tile would fall through at a time.  A light sensor would key in on the individual tiles and flip each so that the tile  would be oriented with the numbers down.  The tiles would then slide down another funnel shaped chute.  There would be two very thin wires located 6" inch apart along the length of the chute.  this would further distribute the "mix" and orientation of the tiles. (much like a pin ball machine)   The tiles would end on a very slow moving conveyor that would pass in front of each player.  A counter would keep track of each tile removed from the belt.  After 15 tiles had been removed by each player  the conveyor would stop and a thin playing surface would emerge from the opposite direction of the converse movement of the belt.  I have yet to figure out how to construct such a machine smaller than a 30 gallon drum.

It is ideas such as this last one that forced G.E. to get out of the motor business.. 

A dream

It is said that dreams only last a fraction of a second and that you cannot dream in color.  I cannot argue with the first part of that statement, but I defiantly dream in color.  Consider the following tableaux:  A knight in full shining chain mail armor is kneeling before the queen.  His head is bowed in submission.  At each side of the knight stands a ceremonial guard core.  They are dressed in “Swiss guard” style uniforms complete with colorful blue and yellow pantaloons.  Each guard is wearing a gold colored fireman style helmet. They all are standing at attention and each is armed with an 8-foot spear.

The queen is sitting on a majestic gold throne dressed in an off-white gown decorated with gold sequins and wearing the crown that signifies her as the head of state.  The court jester is sitting silently cross legged off to one side.

The queen slowly arises from her throne and takes two steps forward towards the knight to-be.  She extends her arm, turns her palm down and quietly states, “pull my finger”.

The new toilet

This story begins with Connie’s decision to have new vinyl plank flooring installed in one of the bathrooms.  Needless to say, I was a silent partner in the selection of the color and pattern.  As a matter of fact, one salesman asked me my opinion.  I replied, “I have no dog in this fight”.  He understood.

On the day of installation, the installer told me that he would have to remove the old toilet.  That was music to my ears because the old toilet had started to make threatening noises.  I could almost imagine that it was swearing at me.  A quick trip to Home Depot allowed the salesperson to talk Connie into buying an expensive model.  What the hell, its only money and I could still remember the threats emanating from the old stool.

  The new flooring and the new stool were installed without an incident.  The new commode stood grandly in the corner of the bath. The new stool, one of those low water use models sounds very aggressive in action.  At least it is not swearing at me.  I had my revenge on the old stool.  I laughed at it as it lay forlornly on its side at the curb waiting for the trash man to take it on its final journey.  Let it swear at the trash man.  He would probably kick it in the bowl.

  The new stool had one difference in construction as compared to the old stool that I noticed immediately.  The seat opening was about 1 ½” to 2” narrower than was the old seat.  Precision alignment was critical when placing one’s gluteus maximus in the correct position for action.  This was only a minor problem until late at night a trip to the bathroom was required. I was made painfully aware of an old law of physics. That holds true to this day.  “Force is equal to the mass of an object multiplied by its acceleration”. Due to the Incorrect alignment of my right cheek and the toilet seat I can attest to its validity. My right testicle was trapped in the middle of the two aforementioned objects.   This brings to mind another of Newtons laws.  “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”.  Newton ignored the additional hopping, jumping, swearing, and the action of rendering one instantly awake in his law.

  Being trapped at home due to a complete shutdown brings out the worst in us.