Monday, January 25, 2010

A little Housekeeping, Wisdom from the Couples, & Tailpipes 1/24/10

A little Housekeeping, Wisdom from the Couples, & Tailpipes 
Weather
Clear & not so cold Temp 0F
Wind 4 mph NNW

Answer to a comment:
Yes Carol, the Galbraiths were the second mission president here in Novosibirsk. It is interesting how much in our lives connect to others isn't it. The grandson of some friends who formerly lived in Sacramento served here during the early part of our mission. One of our missionaries grandmother is in the same ward as the son of our new office couple (replacing us) and responded to their mention of Novosibirsk. It's fun. You live in my mother's birthplace. She was an Anderson, her mother was a Harris. Know any of them?

More wisdom from the Senior Couples

At our Senior Missionary Couples Conference we exchanged a lot of stories and some introspection. Among the latter was a list of reasons for seniors to go on a mission. These were contributed by our missionaries, two of which have served prior missions.
  1. Get to do things you can't do at home.
  2. Put yourself where good things will happen.
  3. Just show up, the Lord will do the rest. If you don't come, you will miss the blessings.
  4. Go and find out what you are. A Greeny (first time missionary) is either a moth or a butterfly.
  5. Become more aware of spiritual influences.
  6. It is not a sacrifice. The only real sacrifice was made by Christ.
  7. God grows you up while you grow the Church.
Here are a few pictures of our senior couples putting themselves where good things happen. First is the Holmes in Barnaul. It became known that they were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and the Branch members put on a Russian wedding for them. Here is Sister Holmes in full costume for the party.

Here are the two "newly weds" ready for the traditional bread, salt, and dance.



Another of our fun-loving seniors on the ice slide in Irkutsk. You can't say that we older folks don't know how to have fun.

Sister Southam is the one on the right in missionary attire going down the slide. Rumor is that she went twice.


Fun observation

An interesting thing I have seen on the way to the office and elsewhere is cones of ice in parking lots. Some may be 8-10 inches high. I saw one that looked to be a foot high. At first I was mystified, but soon it became clear; car exhaust. It is quite simple when you think about it. Here is a quote from a web site about water coming from a car exhaust.

"Gasoline does not contain water, as has been claimed in some other answers. However, water is a by-product of the combustion of gasoline. Gasoline does contain hydrogen, and when gasoline is burned, some of that hydrogen combines with the oxygen being used to burn it, producing water."

"Most of the time, the exhaust is hot enough that the water remains in the form of invisible water vapor. When the engine is cold, the exhaust pipe is cold, or the outside air is cold, this water may condense and become visible as 'steam' or as liquid water dripping from the tailpipe."


Well, sure enough, that is what I was seeing. Here in Siberia, the drivers run their engines for anywhere from minutes to almost an hour to warm up the engine before driving. I don't know if it is necessary, but almost everyone does it. Some of the newer cars even have remote starting features so that you can start your car while eating breakfast and have it warmed up by the time you hit the parking lot. This would cause water to condense on the cold exhaust pipe and produce lots of water until the catalytic converter gets hot enough to prevent it.

From our window I often see cars parked below with the hazards blinking randomly as if someone was clicking the electronic locks. I think this is related to that remote starting feature. Someone told me that even some of them have clocks that cause the car to start periodically during the night to prevent cold damage. I'm not really sure of that.

I tried to find some cool (pardon the pun) pictures of these water cones on the internet and came up empty. I will try and get some over the next few mornings.

You just never know what you will see next here in Siberia.

What a country.
DS

2 comments:

Bob Steed said...

Does it take several days to create the cone, or just one?

By the way, we shared the Hand and Foot game with a friend. I now receive regular text updates about their entire family participating. Interesting how the game is liked by nearly everyone (even me!).

Carol said...

Thanks for the picture of Sister Gneiting eating pizza. Glad to see that she is eating well. That is interesting about the cones. And I would sure like a car that started while I was eating breakfast and is nice and warm by the time I go outside. What will they think of next?