| While rummaging through a box of “stuff” I found this device which I haven’t seen in years. My wife read the “combination” and started to play around with the dials. |  |
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| In a few minutes she had it opened. To the right are the handwritten notes to the Chinese writing that explains the combination. |  |
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What a nice find. It’s refreshing how the words put meaning to the combination.
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I’ve taken an awful lot of photos over the years – some were for professional purposes, some were obligatory (family weddings, birthdays, etc.) and some (many, many, many) were for my own pleasure. This last category is a group that I consider fun photos. I’ve put a large number of them into my snapshot gallery and I’m happy to share them with you. Please click here and I’ll take you to see them. |
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After a complete redesign, you can now visit the Fine Art Gallery of photographs.
Since my portfolio is quite large I will continue to add new photographs to seven albums as time permits.
Why not take a few minutes to view the fine art gallery.
Friends know that I’m a big fan of traveling and do so frequently by car. Whether I’m visiting relatives who live far away or I’m vacationing at distant places, it’s usually a cross country trek.
Anyone who has traveled on our extensive road system has driven past signs denoting names of places of which they’ve never heard. Those places that especially stick out to me are ones that have colorful names. One of my “hobbies” is to note these names and later (sometimes weeks, sometimes months later) find out more about these places.
One of these places is Argenta, Nevada and this is what I learned.
Argenta is a ghost down in central Nevada. In the mid 1860’s prospectors discovered silver in the area. The town was planning to develop as a shipping center for the nearby mines and in Austin to the south. However, the town of Battle Mountain had stronger ties to the silver industry and by 1871 the entire town moved to Battle Mountain making Argenta effectively a mining ghost town.
Argenta remained vacant until 1930 when barite was discovered nearby. This mine in Argenta Mountain was operated by the Baker Hughes Company until it closed in 2015.
Well, that’s the short story about Argenta, NV.
Yet curiosity remains high and I hope to report on other interesting names of places that are part of my hobby.
Many businesses that have been allowed to open during the Covid pandemic have had to follow strict guidelines to keep their employees and customers safe. This has been proven to be an especially challenging task.
For the past year we’ve all been using some combination of face masks, shields, gloves, disinfectants, bleach, gowns, paper towels and hand sanitizer among other things all with the goal of keeping the virus away from our bodies.
Like other establishments we were spending a considerable amount of time cleaning our facilities. We use spray bottles of sanitizer to clean tables, chairs and other surfaces and then wipe them dry. To save time and supplies, we purchased an electrostatic sprayer. They are different from conventional sprayers in that an electrostatic charge is applied to the disinfectant as it leaves the cone making miniscule droplets that are evenly dispersed. That the droplets are so small allows them to dry quickly.
 This employee is using a large electrostatic sprayer to clean a dining table. |
 The cone on the end of the wand evenly distributes the disinfectant. The disinfectant dries in a few seconds and is safe to the touch. |
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This 3 gallon capacity sprayer has a rechargeable battery and can be worn as a backpack.
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This is a smaller sprayer comes with two rechargeable batteries. The unit weighs less than the orange one above. Instead of a wand, the nozzle is used to adjust the spray pattern of the disinfectant.
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So far we’ve had good success with these sprayers. If you’re looking for a way to keep your facility clean you’ll want to consider an electrostatic sprayer.
This year winter came a little late to Michigan. The cold weather seemed to wait until mid-January to swoop down upon us. Then suddenly we got a bunch of snow and the temperature dropped.
With the Covid pandemic keeping us close to home, we were looking for an activity that would be fun but safe. My wife came up with the idea to build a small backyard ice rink so that the grandkids could have some outdoor exercise.
After a little thought we decided upon a 20′ x 40′ rink. We made a couple of visits to a nearby hardware store to buy 140 feet of 4″ PVC tubing, a bunch of connectors to keep them attached and a bunch of 2″ x 4″s as a support frame. The hardest part was the hours it took to locate a large plastic sheet (30′ x 50′) to hold the water. After buying all of the supplies we were ready to start.
First we had to clear the snow from the area where we want to build the rink.
Next we carefully laid the plastic sheet down over the PVC frame and then filled it with water.
Hurry up and wait. We had to wait for two days for the temperature to do its trick. That’s how long it took for the water to turn to ice thick enough for us to use.
However before skating we have to smooth the surface using our home-made “zamboni”.
Finally a look at the rink after we smoothed out the ice.
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The weather has remained cold for February and so the grandkids have been able to use the rink since.
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The weather has remained cold so we’re able to continue to use the ice rink. They’re definitely tired of being in lockdown. It’s been a boon to getting the grandkids out and about. The skating and hockey has been a very welcome addition to their activities.
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We combined two of my websites into a single one. StayFocusedPress.com was merged into this ArnieLee.com site. The articles following this one and to the right (Search by keyword) are more of a personal interest. The link to Stay Focused Magazine contain articles mostly about photography. |
Please note the recently added new articles.
BTW, I have a fairly long list of items I want to write about so hope you’ll keep an eye out for more coming soon. I apologize if you encounter a few problems with some of the older articles – I’m still fixing them. You’ll notice some of the history that goes along with 12+ years on both of these sites.
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During the past few months while the activities here have been off of the air (so to speak), I’ve been planning to revamp the website. I’ve always had two sites: StayFocusedPress.com has been around for more than ten years and ArnieLee.com about four years. The plan is to combine the both to make it easier to maintain and navigate. Please stay tuned for an enhanced ArnieLee.com in the next few weeks. |
In one of my previous careers I was a frequent traveler.
Since the early 1980s, business has taken me to France dozens of time. During my free time I’d often visit the extraordinary art museums of Paris.
In the early years I was able to photograph most of the artwork. However, a few years later many of the museums began to put a moratorium on taking photographs.
With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, none of us are able to visit these art museums so I’ve come up with an alternative.
Below is a small set of artwork that I have photographed and collected over the years. Most were taken at the famous Musee d’Orsay.
I hope you’ll enjoy this artwork as you take a walk through my virtual art museum
Also available is my Virtual Art Museum video for those of you who prefer to just sit back and watch the masterpieces scroll by.
[Click on any of the paintings to enlarge]
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For those of you who prefer to view these artworks more leisurely, here’s the same Virtual Art Museum video.
Written by: Arnie Lee