Nothing Happens At Ten

Nope.

The Tablet went away again. It totally locked up, drained the battery over night and would not do anything this morning. After pushing the ON button a zillion times I finally got the screen to light up only to see this.

Wait a minute, you can’t read the message. Here’s a closeup.

Well OK then, Mr. Wiz, be that way. Here are my options.

• Continue waiting for another day.
• Close it.

I decided to close it.

Nope. Neither of those buttons actually would do anything. So I did what any self-respecting Professional Software Engineer would to. I frantically poked at the ON button muttering (well OKthen, shouting) things like “shucks” and “darn”. It finally posted a box behind that box asking me if I wanted to turn it off. Sorry no photo. I was concentrating on saying “shucks and darn”.

However, I managed to fat-finger around the first non-functional modal dialog box to the other non-functional modal dialog box and got the blasted thing to turn off. It is now charging the battery, and when that is done, here is what I am going to do.

I am going to do the dreaded Factory Reset.

Take that, Mr. Wiz.

I have one question. Don’t you have something better to do than read about my tribulations with the Tablet?

If you are still interested, stay tuned. Otherwise, go have a nice breakfast.

The sky was on fire this morning when I got up. Check it out.

Yeah. I know. Isn’t this the stuff of Facebook? You know. Here’s what I had for breakfast. Here is my dog sleeping. Here I am doing the laundry. Yada yada.

But still….. wow!…..

Since I no longer have to chase trains in the morning, I woke up and decided to make a batch of flapjacks for breakfast. What to cook them in? I went to the basement and I found this:

I bought that electric skillet when I was in Flight Training down in Laredo Texas at the A.F. Base BX. That was in….. (wait for it)….. 1970.

Yup. That skillet is now (using all my fingers and toes….) 47 years old. Yikes!

And I still have it! And it still works!

To cook flapjacks, I set it to 200° F, and wait until it is hot. I use the old-fashioned way of telling whether the temperature of the griddle is right. I toss in a few drops of water, and if they skittle around like little balls, without evaporating, then the temperature is just right. If you look closely at the following photo, you can see some of them.

It was tricky getting that shot because those suckers move fast. Here is a closer view of one of them.

If the little water balls pop when they hit the pan, it is not hot enough. If the water just vanishes and doesn’t make little balls, it is too hot. When the temperature is just right….. the water makes little balls that chase and dance around on the pan for several minutes. It’s kind of fun just tossing the water into the skillet and watching.

It’s called the Leidenfrost effect. Click on the link. Use caution; there be equations in there.

OK. I am easily entertained. Back to the flapjacks.

After the skillet is up to temp, I dump in the batter.

I cook it until bubbles appear on the top of the batter. Then, turn it over.

Yum!

This skillet is soooo old….. look at what is written on the bottom of the pan.

Can you see what it says?

GENERAL ELECTRIC

ELECTRIC SKILLET

MADE IN U.S.A.

An electric kitchen device that was made here. Now that’s old!

Hmmm.”General Electric Electric Skillet”. Isn’t that redundant?  I think “General Electric Skillet” would have sufficed.