Up On The Roof
I was reminded recently that there was an entry that wanted writing. Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend and the kids are in bed I might as well get it out of the way, eh? (Now if I were really on the ball, I would have a nice new laptop, with functional WiFi so I could sit in the living room with everyone else while I write this, but I’m an anti-MS curmudgeon, and it can be difficult to convince Linux and WiFi to behave themselves on old hardware.)
Anyway…
I read a post over at my mother’s site about men up on roofs. (Shouldn’t that be “rooves?” Oh wait, this is English; it’s not supposed to make sense.) No good deed goes unpunished, so I left a comment on her entry, which stirred up memories of a weekend not too far past.
I had been up on the roof fiddling with my wire antennas the end of September, or maybe the first bit of October. Can’t remember, and it doesn’t really matter. An excuse to get up on the roof is an excuse to get up on the roof. Sometimes the excuse is just that you don’t need an excuse, you’re just going up there. Because.
Now, my roof isn’t exactly the greatest for stringing antennas on, but I do what I can. (Much to my XYL‘s chagrin, I’m sure.) I currently have an nice (<ahem> “droopy”) 80-meter horizontal “sky loop” that cuts across the peaks, and circumnavigates the back yard (perhaps much to the chagrin of my neighbors, but I’ve told them it’s for Emergency Communications (with large ‘E’ and ‘C’), and they are kindly neighbors and just nod, and occasionally give me the odd look). It works pretty well—for a loop that’s at most twenty-five feet as it crosses the peak, and only 15 to 20 as it wanders around the back yard. I’ve hit South America, the Carribean, Japan, even Siberia with that loop. But I’m not here to talk about the loop.
Conference Weekend (LDS Semi-Annual General Conference) was the first weekend in October. I had been—as mentioned—up on the roof earlier in the week. We had had inclement weather (it rained) and I figured I really should put my nice new super-duper, extend-o-matic ladder away. So Saturday afternoon it got collapsed down and hung on its special super-duper, extend-o-matic ladder hook.
Well, I made a bunch of QSOs over the weekend—and during the previous weeks, for that matter— that I wanted to confirm with a nice QSL post-card. This is a ham radio thing, sometimes referred to as “collecting wallpaper.” And it is kind of fun. You talk with some far away place, like …erm, Milwaukee … so you record it dutifully in your logbook (not because you have to, which you don’t, but because it’s fun to go back and see where you’ve talked to) and think to yourself, It would be kind of neat to have a post-card from so-an-so over in Milwaukee; I should send him a card, thanking him for the nice chat. Well, the best kind of card not only has a personal note, with all the particulars of the QSO, in case he’s a state- or county-hunter, but one with a nice picture: local scenery is popular; as is a photo of one’s radio equipment, sometimes pictures of the radio operator someplace fun or exotic, like Tropic, Utah isn’t.
Well, we live at the foot of a very pretty mountain, Mt. Timpanogos. There’s even a story about the Indian princess, Timpanogos and her brave warrior. Since it was early fall, we’d had just a bit of snow up there, but still fall colors below the snow-line, and a bit of green at the lowest elevations. Could make for a nice photo QSL card.
I took my trusty eight-or-ten-year-old digital camera out front, tried to frame up the shot, … and decided that it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. Not that the mountain wasn’t gorgeous, but that there was too much cruft in the foreground: neighboring houses, trees, light poles, etc. (The one blessing about our neighborhood is that there are no overhead utility lines. The only wires in the air are <ahem> my antenna wires.)
Well that calls for a trip back up onto the roof! I think to myself. Funny, I continue, I think I just put that ladder away yesterday. Oh well. as I proceed to unhookify and redeploy the super-duper, extend-o-matic ladder. This is all happening during the break between sessions of Conference. (For those not familiar, LDS General Conference is four 2-hour blocks—two on Saturday, two on Sunday—with a 2-hour break in between.) I got a couple of nice shots during the break on Sunday. If I’d had a better camera, they might have been even nicer. Maybe the shots would have been nicer if I’d taken them on Saturday and not on Sunday. Might-have-beens. “The world may never know.”
When I came back in, the kids were, of course, rabidly curious as to 1) why I was on the roof, 2) why I was on the roof on Sunday, since that’s not normally considered an appropriate Sabbath activity, and 3) could they go up, too, with me, please, please, huh, huh?
Now what dad wouldn’t just feel all warm and fuzzy inside to hear that his kids want to go up on the roof with him? OK, I know a couple, but they’re “dull and crunchy like carrots,” to borrow a phrase from a diet book my mother once had. (Might still have; one never knows what treasures one might find at her house.)
Hmm … dilemma: we’re supposed to be listening to Conference; learning the Gospel of Christ from His Disciples here on Earth; being spiritually fed, and learning Lessons for life. OK, how about we sneak up quickly when the Choir is singing, so we can at least pretend we paying attention like we’re supposed to be. A schedule was quickly drawn up, who would go during which songs, and we home Mom didn’t catch us. We knew she knew what we were doing … at least we thought she knew, and anyway, this was bonding time with Dad, so it had to be good and wholesome, right?
My oldest daughter brought up her disposable camera from her last field trip; she still had some photos left so we both burned some taking pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. She thought it was very cool.
Oldest son was a bit nervous. He’s a much more cautious kid, when it comes to physical activity. Takes after his old man: skin and bones, skinny as a rail, not prone to go out for football or the like. Thought it was pretty cool, but hung very near to my side. Started warming up to it more towards the end.
Second daughter had no problems. Wandered around—not too close to the edge—perfectly at ease with the fact that gravity was not suddenly going to snatch her from the roof and fling her to the ground.
Second son was not going up on the roof. Oh, he wanted too … until he got to the top of the ladder. I carefully reassured him, assured him it would be safe, and that I would be right at his side. Clung to me like an octopus, but we carefully made the rounds. He’s only six, so it was a bigger thing for him than his older siblings, and I was glad he was willing to trust me enough for him to join me. We didn’t stay long.
Ah, the roof. There are lots of reasons why we go up there—and not just the guys. There are the views; you get a different perspective on the neighborhood and the city from up on a roof. (As part of my church duties, I get up on the roof of the churches to setup microwave links a couple times a year and love every minute of it.) There’s something about getting Up On the Roof that just feels … different … special. “You get away from that rat-race noise,” and all that. Thanks to The Nylons for pointing it out to me—at least a reason or two why I like going up on the roof.
(By the way, when you’re setup with your laptop at someone else’s computer desk, moving the mouse on the desk usually doesn’t do what you want it to, since it’s plugged into their computer. It doesn’t matter how many times you wiggle that thing, it just doesn’t move your pointer. <sigh> Again, no-workie!)
Tags: 80-m loop, antenna, cameras, church, conference, fall, linux, mountains, nylons, photo, qsl card, quality time, roof, snow, sweetie