What is it? Set 554

Yeah , he had some entertainment value , but the incessant damn carping about the answers finally pushed me over the edge . I only see quoted text from him now , and too damn much of that .

We have really appreciated your efforts and we will miss your postings. Thank you.

Dan

Return when you can , we'll miss you . Your posts on thursday have been a high point to my week since the first time I saw one .

It has been enormous fun for many people and you've obviously put a huge amount of effort into it. I hope you found it worthwhile.

Many thanks for all your work over the years, and I do hope to see it suddenly reappear at some time in the future.

All the best!

Thanks for ten years of interesting. Wish I'd tuned in sooner than the closing credits. Just to show there's no hard feelings, I'll help you out this once.

Bad news: no more puzzles from Rob for some time. Thank you so much for all the fun!!

Good news: no more posts from that God Damn stormin asshole.

Fred fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Don't count on it. Unless you plonk him, you'll get endless complaints about "where are this weeks puzzles?"

Lloyd

That made me laugh harder at a post than I have for a long time. Thank you for that Lloyd!!

Fred fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You'll be sorely missed Rob. Thanks for all the effort you've put into this and the enjoyment you've given us all going crazy trying to work out what the hell those things were. Have a great time on the road and hope to see you back in the future.

Another thought occurred to me for item #3236. It looks as though it could be used as part of a safety device by those working on power lines. In particular, there are pairs of clamps similar to this, connected together by a flexible cable. The cable could go to the eye on the left in the photo. The clamp is applied by an insulated pole which lifts it to the wire (by the handle of the clamp) and then is twisted to tighten the clamp onto the wire.

I've only seen these at a distance, so I can't be sure that this would serve for that purpose, but it looks as though it would.

Perhaps someone reading this does such power line work and could comment?

I saw them in use after the Derecho hit the East Coast a couple of years ago, and left us (Washington DC vicinity, Northern VA in particular) without power (and air conditioning) for about five days, and some for significantly longer.

Enjoy, DoN.

It does resemble a hot line clamp, I'm not sure if this is right or not but will forward it to the owner. Thanks for all of your posts over the years, I know you supplied answers for quite a few of the items. Take it easy DoN!

Rob

Will watch for your return Sir. Take it easy yourself.

I would feel more certain about it if there were a flat sided ring for the cable to clamp to, instead of a rounded ring for something to simply clip into. I guess that at the voltages involved, they will make connection fairly easily even without a rigid clamping of terminals

-- at least enough to ground the wire and blow a fuse upline somewhere. (Or kill some idiot's generator which is backfeeding the line. :-)

And the best of luck with whatever it is which you are going to be doing for a while.

I look forward to your eventual return. I've spotted some interesting things to submit to you for future puzzles, if I can remember to photograph them at the right time. :-)

Good Luck, DoN.

I've seen and photographed some items which were worthy to be put on the web site. If someone else has web site talent (I do not) the tradition might yet live on.

Thank you and enjoy your time off. Looking forward to your return in a few months!

Have a couple of rejected submissions I may post during your time off.

If you've got the web making skills, I may offer to send you pictures of odd items in my life. Xray of my brain, to start. Not that I ever use it, of course.

Not interested your X-ray unless you first submitted it to Rob and were rejected. And my 'web making skills' consists of cobbling together pages with huge pictures which give the few remaining dial up users nightmares. But here goes,

Can post this in a new thread if there are no objections?

Reply-to address is valid

I've only had a couple pictures I sent to Rob. I don't remember which he posted, and which were similar, or off topic, or what not. Still, it's a fun thing for me to try and guess what items are.

Yes, I would start a new thread.