GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE for Friday, March 13, 2026

Happy Friday 13th! Let us expect good things for today, let superstition go, do we believe a certain calendar day/date portends doom? No, it is tommyrot, bunk, balderdash, and hogwash! Okay, let's wipe that unlucky day mess from our hands and talk of better things. If I think of topics to post or include in my Good Morning, Friends "daily" column here on our website that is shared to GF&FL on Facebook, I will make a note in my phone's notes app. After I use them, I delete them. I will often look through some of them to see if any of them jump up and down saying, "ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh," like Arnold Horshack, then I usually choose them.

Arnold Horshack from "Welcome Back Kotter." Yeah, I knew you had forgotten all about him.

I also store passwords and such, usernames and whatever in notes, as well as appointments, but mostly they are topic notes. Guess how many notes are in the notes section of my phone? Nah, now go ahead, guess! Alright, alright, I will tell you, there are 634 notes in my phone. Seriously. That really is a large number of notes. Of course many of them are put in my phone by Siri when I am driving, and Siri knows not much of what I want to make a note of. That said, Siri garbles many of my notes, some to such an extent that when I look back at them later, I have no clue as to what I told Siri to take note of. You may recall that I have culled a few of those gems to post about, and they can be very funny. A while back I went through the list and deleted many of the most obscure ones. I noticed one yesterday that was intriguing, "have you been simonized. Rectified. Etc," or, "Two hearts named Russ and gravy," maybe you will like this one, "A dog trike was like a porch," I tried for a redo on that one and Siri heard, "Adult truck was like a torch," I quit on that one, and still do not know what it was meant to say. Here is another one I particularly like, "can you hear me all they do here." This a nice one, "cattle dog forgery." I will end with this jewel, "some people's saltwater are friends with larceny." There many others, but we will save those for a rainy day. Now I will mention a topic that I know that you have never seen posted on Facebook by anyone.

Diatomic Nitrogen plasma, sixth from the left, denoted by N2, is the color produced in a gas laser using nitrogen.

Industrial laser mirrors

The subject is lasers, and in particular, industrial gas lasers used for metal cutting in the flat. I was once long ago, a certified industrial laser operator (yes, I did this for a couple of years, but hauling logs paid better, so there's that) and loved the lasers I operated, worked on, and babied, so as to keep them cutting well. I never tired of and was mesmerized by the unearthly violet glow of the nitrogen plasma beam as it was generated in the glass tubes it was contained in. It was visible through the glass window on the side of the unit. The color is the one in the sixth position in the photograph, but in those Trumpf 1500 watt and 2600 watt lasers, it is larger and hypnotically ethereal. I could stare at it for hours. Gas lasers work by generating a gas plasma beam that bounces back and forth inside the glass tube from mirror to mirror until it amps up enough to pass through the mirror rather than being reflected. The mirrors like these illustrated in the photo are key to the generation of the laser beam. When we look in an everyday mirror, it seems to be very smooth along its surface, but if you look into a laser mirror, you immediately see that the surface of it is thousands of times smoother than a standard mirror. The difference is fascinating. Well, I hope you enjoyed the kindergarten level industrial laser discussion this morning. I do so much appreciate you, and pray God grants us many, many days yet to meet here.

Numbers 6: 24-26, KJV

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me