Just In Time, Too!

Finally, after months of having a defective station for some pretty poor excuses, Winjama Weather is back up and functioning.

Winjama Weather is up on Weather Underground, Weatherbug, APRS/CWOP, WOW, and PWS Weather. (A quick aside to John - See? It did happen.)

The Automatic Packet Reporting System-Internet Service (APRS-IS)is maintained and operated by volunteer Amateur Radio operators to provide world-wide capabilities to the Amateur Radio APRS RF networks and to promote the Amateur Radio service as a whole.

The Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) is a public-private partnership with three goals: 1) to collect weather data contributed by citizens; 2) to make these data available for weather services and homeland security; and 3) to provide feedback to the data contributors so they have the tools to check and improve their data quality.

PWS Weather - Brings together personal weather station data worldwide from locales not served by primary weather services. PWSweather.com is a partnership between HAMweather, LLC and weatherforyou.com, LLC. The purpose of the program is to bring together data from personal weather stations worldwide, display it and make it available for other purposes.

WOW - Supported by both the UK Department for Education and the Royal Meteorological Society, one of the main aims for the Weather Observations Website (WOW) has always been to provide an interesting real-time tool for helping people learn about the weather.

Most of those letters probably don't mean anything to you and there's no reason that they should either unless you're really into the geeky side of weather information.

Winjama Weather is displayed right here on the blog in the right-hand column. Scroll down a bit and you'll see the pretty blue sticker, as it's called.

Winjama Weather Sticker

The information on the sticker gives you a quick snapshot of current conditions right here at Casa Winjama. If you double-click on the sticker, it'll expand and give you a more detailed look at what's going on weather-wise right here in the south-end of Corozal.

The information displayed is a bit more geekiness right up front:
APRSWXNET Corozal BZ (MD6180) Elev 6 m | 18.38 °N, 88.40 °W

All that means is that Weather Underground (Wunderground for short) is receiving Casa Winjama's weather information from the APRS Weather Network; that Winjama Weather is located in Corozal; MD6180 is the APRS identifier for Winjama Weather, the actual elevation above sea level for the station itself is 6 meters (it's on the roof of our pool house at 19-feet) and the rest is Winjama Weather's actual latitude and longitude.

Once you get through the geekiness, then you get a bit more detailed current weather information, and forecasts for coming attractions, er, weather.

If that's not enough, and if we're in hurricane season, which is coming up directly, the box following will provide you a wealth of hurricane information for the Atlantic Basin and Caribbean Sea.

Winjama Hurricane Sticker

Don't forget, once in a while, to check the far Eastern Pacific reports. Storms have been known to jump from the Pacific to the Caribbean Sea and scare the pants off of all of us - remember Tropical Storm Arthur, anyone?

Have fun, enjoy the weather. Impress your friends and family up north with our humidity and heat indices.

Dust Bugs, Bagworms, and Casebearers

What started me thinking about this was because we seem to be overrun with the little critters this year. I mean, we’ve had them on our ‘basement’ walls every year since we built the place, but this year, it’s a bumper crop.

It’s kind of strange. I guess I never really looked closely at them till this year. I never realized that there was a live, moving bug inside most of these little things. Well there is.

This also was the first year that we noticed them upstairs in the main living area of the house. As a result, I got curious about them this year. I first spent quality time observing one of them while I was sitting on the throne (as you do) taking care of some personal business. I happened to see what appeared to be some sort of worm or bug sticking out of one end of the thing and actually moving the thing along as it went. I’d never seen that before.

After that revelatory and satisfying experience, I happened to ask a few folks at our Friday pool party if they knew what the critters were. Everyone had seen the things, but no one had a clue as to what they might be.

I didn’t think they looked particularly ominous, but down here, with as many critters as there are, and some quite bad-ass ones to boot, you just never know. I wasn’t real keen to grab one and get bitten or stung and find out I’ve got like 30-seconds to live.

My only experience of getting into close contact with them previously was to grab my broom and sweep them off the walls into a nice tidy little pile, scoop them up into the dustpan and then deposit them into a nearby trash container.

Not that now that I know more about them, that I get particularly cozy and all with them, but now I don’t fret if I happen to actually make real, physical contact with them.

So, wanting to know more about them, but having run into a knowledgeability roadblock with our social crew, I thought I’d ask Dianna to post a photo on Facebook and see if anyone had more of an idea what they were than this lot seemed to.

My Blurry Photo of Small Bug-Thing

I would have done it myself, but for religious reasons, I refuse to have anything to do with Facebook.

Dianna had never posted a photo to Facebook before and suggested I ask Colleen to do it, so that’s what I did.

Tuesday, I emailed Colleen the following:

Hi Colleen,

I've attached a photo of those little bug things that seem to hang out on the inside walls. It's not a very good photo, but I think it gets the idea across.

The bug thing appears to be about 5/8th inch long by 1/4th inch wide at the middle. they're flat and appear to have some sort of worm sort of thing poking out of one end or the other, and they really like being on walls. It appears to be a very small inch-worm like critter. Must be a larval form of some type of moth.

If you could post the photo and the description to Facebook and ask if anyone can identify it, I'd appreciate it. I did ask Dianna to do it, but she didn't know how to do the photo end of it. Thanks.

Cheers,
Dave

While Colleen was posting the photo and request to Facebook, she and her hubby, Bruce, were playing host to the best minds in the business, who happened to be getting ready for a heavy day of playing golf. Their suggestion as relayed by Colleen as to what we were dealing with was the following:

The golfers said, “They are a cocoon of sorts. Have a tiny caterpillar inside that changes to a moth. We all have a lot.of them.this year.”

I’m glad I didn’t bet the kingdom on that answer. Those boys must have read my email. Colleen also provided a potentially useful tidbit when she said that her housekeeper called them ‘dust bugs.’Does that help?

Apparently, there were more witty responses on Facebook to the posting. One from some wag named ‘CT’ who suggested turning up the A/C as that made them go away. Wonderful. In the meantime, I wouldn’t be able to afford my electric bill - that’s assuming I had A/C in the first place, which I don’t.

After a few more erudite comments from the peanut gallery, CT actually came back with the most complete and concise posting on the topic. Big ups to him for that. He posted a link (http://indian-river.fl.us/government/ces/dc021499.html) to an informative article written by a Florida County Extension Agent (Daniel F. Culbert) about our critters. He called them ‘Plaster Bagworms’ (Phereoeca dubitatrix).

I’ve since found all kinds of research about the critters. It seems that the more correct name for them is the following from the University of Florida:

“Phereoeca uterella is a species of moth belonging to the family Tineidae. It is commonly known as the plaster bagworm but as the term "bagworm" more properly refers to moths of a different family (Psychidae), it is often called the household casebearer – which may in turn refer to the related Phereoeca allutella. It is found in warm, humid climates throughout the Americas although the exact range is difficult to map as it is easily confused with other case-bearing tineids.”

This came from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phereoeca_uterella). It seems the experts (so-called) have as much trouble as us lay people telling what’s what in the critter world.

Wikipedia had a much better photo, below, of the thing than my blurry effort.

Household Casebearer - From Wikipedia

Quite a bit more hot skinny on these critters is in a publication from the University of Florida IFAS Extension,  Publication #EENY003 (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in129). The publication also includes several photos, of which, below is a couple showing the Household Casebearer as we’ve seen them, and one showing the end result, the moth. Kind of pretty, that.

Household Casebearer Showing Larva

Female Household Casebearer Moth

Well, now we know more, but we’re still not sure exactly what we’re dealing with. It seems they could be any one of about three or four species of moth. I guess we can agree on the almost politically correct sounding name of Household Casebearer as being more specifically descriptive.

I dunno, I sort of like ‘dust bug.’ At least now we all know a lot more about these things than when we started. We can be assured now as we sweep them into our dustpans that the Household Casebearer isn’t quite the danger that it initially seemed was possible. Unless of course, you want to save and protect all those wool sweaters and such that you brought down with you.

Almost A Dollar Short

I have written before about mis-directed mail - that is, mail intended for us that was sent to some place else. It's really pertinent when the address to get it to us is plainly and correctly written and it still gets sent to God only knows where.

You can read those stories by following these links: One from March and one from April, both from 2009. The latest one happened just a few days ago. Well, we got the letter a few days ago. I have no idea when it originally was sent.

It seems that our good friends at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) owed us some money, not a lot, but enough that they felt obligated to send it to us. They didn't actually send us the money. What they did was send us an IRS Form 1099-INT. See, they owed us some interest from our taxes last year. So, they wrote up the Form 1099 and fired it off to us, trusting the US Postal Service to get it down to Belize where the Belize Post Office would actually deliver it to us.

That was their first mistake - trusting the US Postal Service. If you're like us, when you hear of mis-directed mail, you probably first think of the Belize Post Office as being at fault. Hah! They never get their hands on it at that early stage. First, the envelope has to be sent by the US Post to some remote and foreign spot on the globe. It's then up to that location's postal folks to re-direct it to us here in Belize.

That's what happened here. The envelope bearing the Form 1099 and plainly and correctly addressed to us in Belize, first had to detour to Paris, France. A location not even in the same neighborhood as ours. Granted, we have Canadian satellite TV and there's a bit of French language programming on there, but I don't think that necessitated sending our mail on an extended journey across the pond, and back.

Anyway, that's what happened. We did get the Form 1099 in time to include it with our tax filing, so no harm done. It's just interesting that we get to add another country to the list of places the US Postal Service has sent mail intended for us here in Belize. I'm glad we don't live in some back-water, out of the way, third world country. Who knows where our stuff would end up.

Following Up on Who Thunk It

When we left off, I had just completed filling the new filter with sand and at that point, I stopped for the day.

What will complete the posting for that is getting the piping hooked up to the filter and giving it a go - under pressure to see how it fares as far as leaks are concerned.

New Filter and Piping

The new filter is a Pentair Tagelus TA-60D pressurized sand filter with a top-mounted 6-way valve. The top-mounted valve necessitated re-routing the three piping runs - from the pump (center), to the pool (left), and waste (right), which dumps through our storm water drain system into the canal. Union fittings are at the valve for all three runs so that the valve can be removed for easy repair.

Showing More of the Piping

I was leery at first, when it was time to fire up the system and actually move water through it. I've chased my tail often enough with leaks involving all this piping. It was a very pleasant surprise when I did open the valves and turn on the pump - No leaks. Not even a drip. First time in what seems to be ages that the floor of the mechanical house was completely dry.

Below is a bit better view of the top of the valve and the pressure gauge. I had to build some piping for the gauge as its port is on the very back of the valve. Without some additional fittings and piping, there was no way I was ever going to be able to read the valve. Of course it took a trip to Lano's Hardware out on the Northern Highway in Ranchito for brass and PVC fittings, and downtown to Villa's Imports for the brass nipple before I could connect it properly.

Detail of the 6-Way Top Valve and Pressure Gauge

Anyway, everything is hooked up properly, no leaks and it's filtering the pool as good as ever, and that's always a good thing.

After all that work, I needed a rest. Speaking of resting, here's a shot of Nelson I took yesterday. He's relaxing in my office chair. What a rough life.

Relaxing at the Office

He's probably dreaming of the two Basilisk lizards (Jesus lizards) I took away from him the other day. Did I mention that he's an accomplished hunter?

'X' Marks the Spot

Here's a little tidbit that's long, long overdue here in Corozal. How about an updated map showing where most of the stuff is located that is of interest to tourists and Noobs to our little town.

Corozal Town Map

Sure, there's probably stuff missing, but this is the first iteration of it. Some things that will probably be added in the future are the location of the little bakery annex where you can get sweet roles and such. Likewise, the little cafe at the Thunderbolt pier where you might be able to get a cup of coffee to go with that sweet roll - both open at 6:00 AM. The bakery is more consistent in it's opening times than the cafe.

There's other stuff too. Say you got a parking ticket in town. Where would you go to pay it? If you guessed the police station, you'd be wrong. I've heard that all that and more will be coming in future additions.