finally...

[Tubeast]

Regarding 50 Pfennig - coins:
Haven´t seen the oak-planting lady in a while.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Johanna_Werner

The colloquial name for these were "Fuchs" (fox) for some reason.

[bloke]

This case was manufactured back when big ugly solid plastic handles - with a big ugly loop of plastic molded into each end - were mounted on various manufacturers cases. Those handles tended to break, and were mostly abandoned by case manufacturers. I found a supplier up north who still has those in stock, and purchased a couple to replace those (broken) on this case. I don't believe I'll be breaking the replacements, because I take my time and don't jerk or wrestle with my equipment. Also - since I'm not young anymore, they don't have to last forever. I was hoping for an easy swap, but discovered that Jakob Winter had put custom in-shop made hardware on either end, which means that I've got to dig the hardware out from behind the upholstery anyway, which is something that I was hoping to avoid. Most manufacturers used the supplied hardware which were a couple of loops of sheet brass on the outside of the instrument with one open end on each metal loop end. Jakob Winter made custom hardware that was buried inside with no open end, and was more secure. I should have looked closer before I ordered replacements, but I'm just going to deal with it.

Also, this case seems to be barely larger than those I remember that came with 681 Czech tubas, but only maybe two inches too long and two inched too wide for the bell. It's still just fine, and it's far lower profile than MTS cases - which tend to be bulky - whereas a few sizes fit all.

[Rick Denney]

Re: Northern Virginia. A few years ago I made the mistake (a location mistake, not a "people" mistake) of flying into Baltimore when I should have flown into Dulles. So I had to drive, in a rental car, at rush hour, to where I was going to spend the night, which is near Culpepper. I was flat out astonished that a turn signal would get me into the next lane, and the next lane, and the next lane after that on a six lane highway, when my Garmin didn't give me as much warning as I needed to exit. Here, hahaha you won't get that a whole lot of the time. Instead they will pull up closer to the vehicle in front of them to *prevent* you from getting "ahead" of them. Not all the time, but on a pretty regular basis. That courtesy on a highway at rush hour was so different from the bully-your-way-in that you sort of have to do here. It wasn't like that until two different waves of Southern California moved here and californicated the traffic.

Marylanders claim that Virginians put on their turns signal and go, never looking behind them.

My response is that any time I see overly aggressive driving out here in the country part of Loudoun County, the probability of seeing either a Maryland plate or a West Virginia plate is astonishingly high.

My professional experience is that second-tier (in terms of congestion) cities have morphed from being merely aggressive to becoming downright parental, with every sentence of self-talk starting with "You. Will. Not..." followed by whatever prevention strategy seems offer the highest probability of needing LifeFlight.

Also, speeds have measurably increased across the board since Covid. I think that while drivers are parental in dealing with others, they are teenagers in deciding what they want to do. I fear that civil war is the likeliest outcome.

Rick "who learned how to drive in Houston, which is still resolutely libertarian and non-parental, UNLIKE Dallas" Denney

[Mary Ann]

Traffic has sped up here too, but at least absent the freeway, somewhat sanely so, within the pre-existing culture. I noted that it is a lack of fuzzy cars checking speed and giving tickets that appears to be the cause. After a while of general mayhem, people (at least where I drive in town) have sped up but seem to be basically self-regulating. Which is actually how I think it should be -- go find a video of driving in, for example, Italy or Venezuela, where they seem to be able to figure it all out without the rigid rules we think we have to follow here. Everybody interacting instead of being parental / teenage. In the US, it seems everyone has been encultured to think that if there is not an actual rule against it, you can do it, and it's not your fault when it turns out badly, because there was no rule in place. Seems a bit immature to me but funds all the ambulance chasers.

[bloke]

I laugh at the stupid memes trying to shake their fingers at others about traffic behaviors, whereby the premises of the memes are just plain wrong. The other day, there was one that showed a picture of people merging into one lane up at the front talking about how those people we're never taught in elementary school how to get in a single file line. The dumb thing is that merging at the front of the line - from two lanes to one - is what is supposed to happen, and that doing it earlier accomplishes nothing... at least, nothing good.

Memphis people like to scold other people (social media/talk radio) about how fast they drive on the inner loop freeway (I-240) which - when built - used to be the outer loop freeway. If everyone else is going 80, I'm damn well going to go 80, because I don't want to get run over. Furthermore, I likely would go about 83 or 85, because I don't want to get stuck in some bunching of cars that is going to wreck into each other, and also I don't want to be on that freeway - where people shoot each other for sport or out of anger - for any longer than I need to be on it. To hell with their laws, because it's an absolutely and completely lawless city. Every once in awhile, I say a little prayer we're by the outer loop freeway (I-269) will be extended either from the north or south end westward across the Mississippi River, so I don't have to go through that city to cross.

Those idiots - who believe that the speed laws should be enforced on the Memphis freeways - haven't come to terms with the fact that probably one out of every twenty cars or so contains one or more gangsters who are all armed and value human life as much as some people value the life of a fly or a flea.

...so is Brett the off-topic culprit, this time?

[Mary Ann]

One of the things I liked about working on a military base was when at quitting time and everybody needed to get to the exit road, it was every other car, first the one from the left and then the one from the right, no squabbling. However, I think that was actually a rule.