Category: Miscellaneous (Page 2 of 4)

(Dad passed away last week. Therefore, he will probably show up more than usual in my posts here. That’s just how it goes.)

Dad apparently did not believe in jumper cables. When grandson/nephew #2 showed up at the door this evening with a flat battery in his van, I was sure I could find a set of cables in the garage. No such luck.

I do remember from years back in the past, that he had some kind of home-built gizmo that plugged into the wall and would charge up car batteries, whether the car was still attached or not.

Unfortunately, this gizmo no longer exists – and the van was down the road a ways anyhow, so this solution probably wouldn’t have worked. 

Thanks to his decaying, home-built arc welder that I decommissioned last week, I actually had all the parts needed to construct a nice set of jumper cables on hand. It would only have taken 30 minutes or so – less if prevention of catching fire wasn’t a concern – but before I could put this plan into action, he’d called the AA.

So, I’m scoring this one point to Dad; no points to his grandson.

Dad’s First Law:
Anything can be disassembled, providing you have the right tools.

Dad’s Second Law:
To obtain complete mastery over something, you need two of them: one to take completely apart and potentially fail to put back together; and a second one to maintain in good working condition for the rest of its life.

Colin’s Corollary:
Spare parts are handy.

Apparently a screw came loose in our 1930’s retro-style  burr coffee grinder recently, and has been helping out the process of turning beans into dusty espresso. Yesterday it decided to jam itself in a place it wasn’t supposed to be and, in turn, was chewed up like gum.

Since then, the grinder has been making these, well, grinding noises instead of the regular industrious hum. I dismantled it and actually found a replacement screw in my box of machine screws (various), carefully salvaged over the last 20 years.

However, I think the mechanism is irrepairably damaged, because I really don’t like the noises it makes and it does not produce a consistent grind any more.

It’s been very reliable up until now, and I would just buy another without question, except that it seems that Kitchenaid don’t make it any more. Drat!

So we have a few days before we run out of ground coffee to make a decision and find a replacement. 

We generated 20 kiloWatt Hours yesterday. And for some of that time, it was cloudy! So there.

Apparently the power meter is running backwards during the day, but I honestly haven’t managed to confirm this, because the little LCD panel cycles around the different display modes too fast for my slow brain to follow.

On Friday the contractors were here putting up the solar panels on the West-facing roof of the house. In my opinion they could have done the whole job that day if they’d actually spent all the time here, but they buggered off for 4 hours in the middle of the day and by the time they left only one row was mounted. However, it’s a start.

I took some pictures but they’re in the camera. The guys will be back Monday to continue the job, so I’ll have to work from home again – no great sacrifice.

Is April the official start of Spring? I could look it up but I’m too busy digging over the garden to care. Whatever. Marin County celebrated the (possible) start of Spring by attempting to set low temperature records a couple of weekends ago, followed by attempting to set high temperature records last weekend – and succeeding.

As a result, our dying silver birches have finally decided to emit some green leafy shoots and are now looking alive again.

Last month I realized I was behind in my seed germination schedule, and quickly prepared a little tray of tomato seeds from my stash. I used some from 2009 and some second-generation seeds from our 2010 crop, and almost immediately (i.e., the following weekend) the little green shoots started waking up and sticking their heads out.

Another week, if that, and I’ll have to move them into their own pots. With the weather as good as it is right now, I feel a month behind schedule.

Happy Holidays everyone. I hope 2011 is a good one.

Necessity is the mother of invention: Using the old chest of draws to support the OSB while cutting out the back-splash:

After turning it the right way up; clamping and adjusting the backsplash and screwing it in place, then mounting the power strip; dragging it into place and leveling it with the adjustable screw-feet, here it is:

Nice.

Today’s take: 2 “dark red”s; 1 “stripey”; and a “yellow”:

As for the ladder… well Euclid had a compass, so…