Life Intervenes

Apologies for the long silence. Life intervened. If I get a chance, I shall post but that is not a given. I am well but Elder Brother is not. I am helping him (more with moral support than with physical support).

Cop Car

Aftermath

The reconnaissance following flooding is always enlightening. Yesterday's (Friday's) reconnaissance was no different.

Friday, after the Flood

[Yes, I got cute. Failing in an attempt to travel back in time to re-take the "after flood" photo, I kluged together my own inept version of a panorama. Fortunately, I need not do that for the remaining photos in this posting.]

Friday, sump lid missing

The first thing I must rectify is the loss of the lid to my eave trough downspout sump at the farthest reach of the real back yard (as opposed to the far back which is actually drainage easement). The sad thing is that I had replaced the sump lid only a few weeks ago. [In mowing, the older lid had collapsed as the large, right rear tire passed over the center of it. That's probably the fastest I had moved in 50-60 years, advancing the hand controls to speed passage so as not to give the mower time to settle into the embarrassing position of being hung up with one wheel below ground level.]

Large Long Log as Flotsam

Large Short Log as Flotsam

Broken Limbs in umbrella Catalpa

I shall not bother posting photos showing small things such as the pattern of the grass swooping downstream-ward or the small aggregates of flotsam (including paper, plastic, and smallish tree limbs), and such. Things did not settle out too badly. 

In the past, the water has come at least 10' nearer the house (this time, the closest approach was about 20' beyond the edge of the patio which is, itself, 20' from the house) and I've been left with large piles of flotsam - much of which was too large for me to move by myself. This time, I can probably roll the short log after it dries out, and I can probably pivot the long one. They will take a while to dry out which is good because we are now having a 3-4-day heat wave up to 100 degrees F, perhaps, with humidity to match. I cannot do that.

As part of last Friday evening's newscast, were shown videos from High Park - in Derby. It is located about one mile from here, as the crow flies, and is the source of some of the water that comes to me during flooding, via the tributary that joins Spring Creek at Adam and Kristi's lot, next door upstream from me. One year I decided that the park was the source of the dozens of (empty) single-serving liquor bottles I found among the flotsam. Ye-hah!

Saturday: I arrived at Lowe's shortly after their 7am opening, to purchase a new sump lid. That open hole was a real hazard, but not now. It took me about 30 minutes to clean the grass and mud from around the sump and woman handle the lid to get it into the opening and turned enough to engage the locking tabs. Whew! While buying the lid I also bought a new cover for the exhaust end of the duct leading from one of the eave trough downspouts, underground to exhaust at the street curb. The previous cover had been damaged when I first mowed over it. The lid flipped up enough that the mower blade took a chunk out of it. That cover has been replaced several times as the down-gushing rainwater dislodged it and it washed down the street into the sewer. (Not so much, anymore, as I had four downspouts added to the 4-downspout drainage system. As the new downspouts do not empty into underground ducting, the water pressure of the existing underground ducts is reduced.

New sump lid installed and "locked"

Old, damaged curbside effluent cover (7" D) removed

Some photos that have been overlooked in previous postings:

Glorious display of daylilies

Although I am not a big fan of daylilies, I do enjoy Stella del Oro and have, for some years, had a small planting of them. Five-ten years ago, I added a couple of Ruby Stella plants. It turned out they are taller than the Stella del Oro, but not quite as tall as standard daylilies. At any rate, even though they are not my favorites, they are putting on a great show, this year, so I wanted to show them off. Maybe I'll keep them. 

Glorious display of a single sunflower blossom

That is what one gets when she does not bake sunflower seeds prior to putting them out for the birds: sunflower plants.

Weather

 

2023-7-17 - Daytime view of mid-to-far-back yard

More often than not here in Kansas, we are complaining about lack of moisture in our daily weather. Not in June 2026. So far, not counting what we have been receiving since midnight, my rain gage has measured 12.945" of rain in June. The first 6-7" were welcomed. Not so much what we've received since last Monday (the 22nd). In my neighborhood, whenever we get a concentrated dose of 6" of rain, it leads to flooding.

June 26, 2026, 3:37am: I was startled from a deep sleep state by a noise. Considering what COVID-19 did to my hearing in 2023, that took a lot of noise. It took me a moment or three to figure out that the noise had come from my iPhone that was charging on a nearby chest of drawers. It was giving me a severe weather/flash flooding alert message. [Please don't ask who sent it to me. At one time, such alerts had been sent me by the county emergency manager's office. Now, I suspect it comes from Apple or from Verizon. I cannot tell by examining the message.]

Quickly, I went to the window to look out on the back side of the house, where flows Spring Creek. As it was dark, I flipped on the floodlights that are mounted under the eaves of the house. Ooh...it was still dark...but it looked darker at a middle distance than at a near distance. From years of experience, I knew that the middle-to-far distance darkness was water.

Keeping one eye on the back yard, I quickly dressed in yesterday's clothing, then packed my car for evacuation: boots, changes of clothing, prescription medications, water, fruit, cash, check books, binoculars, flash drives, hearing aids & phone - with chargers - et cetera. I opened the garage door (if we lost power, I did not want to have to wrestle the door with the car sitting there in my way). 

At that point, I took the time to consider the neighbors. No interior lights betrayed that any of them might be awake. I considered texting next door, but I knew that they do not get the near approach of water that my yards get so I left them in peace. I checked the TV. Nothing helpful.

It dawned on me to take a photo before I left the house. The floodlights did not provide enough light nor did the flash, but the photo - snapped from the sliding door to the patio - gives the idea.

2026-6-26 -503am - Flood Rising

I drove around the loop made by the streets in my neighborhood to check out how the flooding was impacting available escape routes. Everything was clear. I drove around town, then up to Boeing, to see how the main roads were faring. All clear.

Dawn was struggling through the clouds to the east, so I headed home to get a good look at the advancing water. It has advanced to within 20' of the patio (which is, itself, another 20' from the house).

2026-6-26 605am - Flood Peaking 

Thirty minutes later, I could see that the flood was no longer advancing but receding.

2026-6-26 629am - Flood Receding*

It turned out better than I had expected. What I had failed to tell you, up top, was that Wichita (nearest boundary 6-7 miles from my house) was experiencing flash flooding of its roads before I had gone to bed. There was a string of rainstorms moving in, with radar-measured rain rates of from 3"/hour to over 6"/hour.

2026-6-25 1138pm - Train of Storms & 6 cars submerged

(Blue Circles indicate submerged cars)

Lilac shows my location - Storms moving east-southeast

_________________

* Having taken a lot of photos during the past few days, I had not recognized that my attempt to use the panoramic feature of my iPhone camera had actually succeeded. The way it showed up among the photos did not distinguish it enough for me to recognize the difference. Hey! It worked. I'll try to remember to use that feature in future endeavors.

Training

Truly, I have been conflicted over artificial intelligence. As an engineer, I find it interesting and, possibly, useful. As an employee (which I've not been since April 2004), I would find it threatening. As a reasonably intelligent and reasonably sympathetic member of the public, I find it demoralizing.

Nearly every engineer, and I venture to guess most employees, face the task of training others. I spent much time during my engineering career in training others. It was just another part of my job, and I enjoyed watching younger engineers make progress in their own professions. 

BUT...when one is tasked with training the software to take away the job by which one makes a living, it gets really uncomfortable. I think it only human that when I read the article, below, I got a wry look on my face and thought, "What did they expect?" I actually expected better from Ford*. I don't know what to tell them.

Ford Rehires 350 Engineers After AI Fails To Preserve Expertise or Train Juniors

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday June 25, 2026 @01:00PM from the engineers-in-the-loop dept.

After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles." Bloomberg reports:Those engineers were "at the heart" of Ford's efforts to turn around quality problems, said Kumar Galhotra, chief operating officer. They now run mandatory meetings that rigorously troubleshoot quality problems and they have reprogrammed AI tools to head off glitches before they happen. "We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems" and not getting the desired results, Galhotra said. "We brought back technical specialists" and "they hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor."

The return of the veteran engineers at Ford cuts against the prevailing wisdom -- and fear -- that AI will replace all kinds of knowledge workers. But Ford found the machines couldn't replace experience. "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product," Poon said. But "we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals."

As a result of the efforts of the old hands, Ford vaulted above quality stalwarts such as Toyota and Honda on JD Power's bellwether survey that measures the quality of a car during the first three months of ownership. Only luxury brands Porsche and Genesis topped Ford this year.

____________

* At one time I worked for a company that was owned by Ford Aerospace. AFAIK, they did well by "us" although they later sold us to another firm that, in turn, was bought out by another. My retirement check from that nine years' work is from Northrop Grumman.

Slow progress

You may recall that, for multiple reasons, I did minimal yard work in 2024 and 2025. From about July 2024, on, I did not even water the grass, let alone get significant work done on pulling weeds and such. About the only thing I paid attention to were the lily-of-the-valley starts that Bogie had sent me (in 2022?) I did not want to lose them. The neglect, of course, showed!

Planting Bed #1 after removal of Blue Chip Junipers 

(in October 2025)

Although progress is slow (I am even older and slower), this year I am making headway in whipping (well...coaxing) the yards into better shape. For the past several weeks I have been concentrating on Planting Bed #1 (beyond the driveway, nearest to curb) and the (former) Rose Garden which now includes only one rose bush - a Mr Lincoln.  In addition, for the past two weeks, I've added the Cherry Tree space to the Rose Garden for my attentions.

Mr Lincoln & Mystery Sage (neglected in October 2025)

(part of Cherry Tree Area in left background)

Cherry Tree Area (neglected in June 2025)

Planting Bed #1:

Original landscaping filled this area with Blue Chip Junipers - with a low growth habit. They did well for about 20 years. Eventually, dogs being walked found the area so attractive that the junipers were suffering - and perhaps 20 years is about the lifespan of the Blue Chip variety. I don't know. At any rate, several years ago I started working on removal. It was hard work and I was in my 80s, so progress was slow. In 2025, as part of annual tree work that I have JoJac's do for me, I had them take out the bush that I had not yet tackled, and I started working on getting out the lingering roots throughout the bed. Meanwhile, the sedums that had been edging in the bed expanded a bit and were looking good.

This year, I have spaded up the area to further remove old juniper roots and to hand remove runners from Fred's Bermuda grass lawn. In recent weeks, I have planted four new pots of sedums and transplanted an equal number of sedums that were in my way in the Cherry Tree space into Planting Bed #1 and covered the bare areas with mulch. The area looks much better. (Yes, I rearranged the rocks.)

Planting Bed #1 work completed as seen from driveway

(in June 2026)

Planting Bed #1 work completed as seen from down the street

(in June 2026)

Rose Garden & Cherry Tree Area:

Hunky Husband always liked red roses better than any other color, so he would have been pleased to know that the Mr Lincoln bush was the one rose bush that, during my neglect, did not die back from the graft and come up from the root stock. (All of the roses in the Rose Garden were hybrid teas.) Mr Lincoln is still there, and blooming although the blossoms have been through enough wind and rain that they are somewhat bedraggled.

Having decided that all the bushes in this area should be removed, it took me several days to remove the mystery sage bush that I had planted at the corner of the garage. (It also turns out that my skin is sensitive to those plants - who knew?) I am now working on removing the bush cherries that had been near the North Star cherry tree that died a few years ago. I also decided that I was an idiot to have transplanted some of my asparagus plants to that area and am taking them out. Essentially, I plan to have vegetables such as dill weed and tomatoes in the area. (OK, so tomatoes are fruit, but I shan't be bothered - if you enlarge the Rose Garden photo you may be able to see the two tomato plants beyond the rose.) Otherwise, I plan to let the sedum edging fill in the area - with lots of mulch used until it does.

 

Rose Garden work completed

Cherry Tree Area work in progress 

(the vertical line is an artifact of the iPhone?)

The photos make it look as though I am growing mulch. ☺ BTW: The photos show $250 (including tax) worth of mulch - 25 bags. Sedum makes much cheaper ground cover.

Establishing length of pace

Back in the olden days, when I was truly young (age 17), one of the required courses for each freshman entering Missouri School of Mines & Metallurgy (MSM) was surveying. Right off the bat, I was confused. Our first exercise in that course was to determine our pace length - only, by pace, they did not mean two steps as did I. In that course a pace was the same as a step. Regardless, we walked a surveyed distance of 2400 feet four times, counting and recording our number of paces each transit. From those measurements I determined that my pace was 2.60 feet long and that my average number of paces/100 feet was 39. That was in September 1955.

A year later, Hunky Husband-to-be transferred into MSM. He did not get around to taking surveying, which had not been required at his previous engineering school, until his last semester at MSM. In September 1958, by which time we were nine months into our first marriage, HH determined his pace length by going through the same exercise. As is shown in his field book entry, his pace was 3.22 feet long, so he required but 31 paces to cover 100 feet. Is it any wonder we did not, in later years, walk or run together as exercise? 

Making do

Something that was emphasized in past generations, at least, was getting along/getting the job done with what was available at hand. To me, most decades have been accompanied by less need to do so. I have felt that with each passing decade I/we have had so much more with which to cope. I have been taking advantage of some of the marvels of modern-day life without giving it much of a thought. To wit: For the past decade or two, I have been scanning much of what can be scanned in order to let go of physical paperwork - including printed photographs. The project has had its challenges since succeeding generations of our family have been infected with the need to retain the physical evidence of our existence. Oh, me.

Something that has presented a challenge is the fact that previous generations of Hunky Husband's and my families seemed to favor large format photographs. Somehow, that predilection skipped a generation as I always preferred 5"x7" format in portraits for display rather than the 8"x10" favored by my mother or the 16"x20" favored by my great-grandparents, for instance. How to scan such large photographs? Like most of us, I suspect, my scanner plate accepts nothing larger than 8.5"x14".

As I am archiving photos and documents for my own use, I am not bound by the requirements under which professional archivists must labor. Whatever is acceptable to me, works. Thus, I have two work-arounds for the large format issue: 1) photographing the original using my iPhone (I no longer maintain an autonomous camera) and 2) using Microsoft Paint to join together smaller pieces of large format photos and documents - at which I am anything but accomplished. 

For instance, the photo at the top is an unedited product of my having hand-held my iPhone to photograph a large format photograph of HH's mother from 1935. Good enough for me! As an illustration of piecing together parts of a photo to produce the larger whole, I present another copy of my beloved mother-in-law's photo, below. Also, good enough for me!

Note to Dudette, who is now in possession of the original, large-format photograph: I appreciated your and WichiDude's visit, yesterday, and am posting this to show you what I meant when I said that you would be able to detect the piecing together of the two scans I had made of the photo. The splice is evident, but not (to me) objectionable. (Click on photo to enlarge.)