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WEEK 17 2018

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Saturday 28 April 2018

Saturday - Sunny but very windy.

S has visitors, and the H boys are busy, so no work at S's office today.

I did have lunch with the gang, R&S&N, at Miso Sushi.

My hands and shoulders were ibuprofen-for-breakfast sore, so I'm trying not to do much around the house over the weekend.

Book #12 was Hunter Killer - The War with China - Battle for the Central Pacific, by David Poyer. Dan Lenson's adventures continue.

My iphone gave the new battery error message, and shut down, when I tried using the messaging app in the morning. The battery capacity is at 85% the new iOS tells me. I guess this is a C- or D rating for an iPhone, so I'll have to bite the bullet and get the battery replaced. It's $29.

It's been slow responding for a while.

Friday 27 April 2018 Friday - Cool, but not too breezy.

Tom and I headed over to S's place. He began digging up the sewer line in back while I started a quick check of the swamp coolers on her roof.

The check turned into a long process. We removed the canvas winter covers, then lowered the 8 panels to the ground level for checking the aspen pads and a quick wash of the same. Some of the pad retaining clips were broken, so those had to be repaired. Meanwhile I broomed, vacuumed and eventually hosed out the pans, which were a good 3/8" deep in mud and calcium crystals in some places. I found one belt really needed to be replaced, the other while functional, we did as well, saving both as backups. One filter basket was missing, the other kind of caked up. One copper feed line had burst, probably from ice expansion, and I had to go get a coupler to join the ends after cutting the bad piece out. The motors seemed functional, but there was some exposed wiring that needed covering. All the squirrel cage bearings were lubricated.

As we were wrapping up I realized that the water supply wasn't feeding either unit suddenly. I checked the line filter, and it wasn't that, so it's somewhere in the feed line in the attic. I told S that we could either crawl into the attic and attempt to find the blockage, or we could run new line externally. I prefer new, flexible line, external to the house. Cheap Chinese made water line in the attic is just asking for trouble.

She'll have to decide. The temperatures aren't supposed to get much over 75F for a week or so, so no huge rush.

T got the top of the sewer line exposed, about 4' down, so we'll hit it again later this weekend. S has company, and has ordered a camera to see exactly where the broken segment is - the marks left by the plumbers on the surface aren't very specific. The camera should arrive on Sunday.

On the way home we stopped by the library and I picked up Poyer's latest. Looking forward to seeing how old Lenson fares in a naval battle against China...

I also stopped by Little Cesar's and picked up pizza for myself and the boys, the parental units are out of town for a couple of days...

Thursday 26 April 2018 Thursday - I ordered some seeds from Todd's, same as last year, and they've arrived. I need to find some pots, of a kind that the cat's won't knock over.

I decided to update the MacBook, since it's been nagging me for a while, and there is no sense in trying to do development with an out-of-date version of Xcode. And it took all day. OSX, iTunes, Xcode, and then more stuff...

My old MacBook is really struggling with the bloated new OS and Xcode. The new OSX now has a base usage of 850M, instead of 650. Xcode takes forever to boot, and sometimes can't connect to the Simulator. I think I need to update the disk drive to a SSD - things take so long that they are timing out now. The ram is the 8GB max, nothing I can do there. I hate to spend money on a five year old laptop, but if $100 will speed things up, then it's probably worth it.

Wednesday 25 April 2018

Wednesday - Sunny again.

I met up with S for a couple of hours discussion on the app. I need to get cracking on things again. I've been poking at it, but I need to put in some serious effort again.

S had found some plastic potable water barrels last week, for very low prices, at a yard sale. I bought them, and took the four biggest home last week, and today I grabbed the smaller units, three of them, and also took them home.

These aren't so much for water storage, but instead are to be a "thermal mass" for air conditioning purposes. There's a number of designs, I just have to pick one that looks good.

Book #11 was Stoke The Flames Higher (Maxwell Saga #5), by Peter Grant.

Tuesday 24 April 2018

Tuesday - Warm again, about 88F maximum. The swamp cooler is working fine.

I moved the small propane containers out of the Conex box. I also went into town and had the big 100# tank filled at Costco, for $2.44/gallon, which is about 50 cents/lb, not bad. I'm down below 30% capacity now on the fixed tank - I think that Mountain Flame (with horrible Yelp reviews) wants about double that price to fill it.

That, and a few household chores, took up most of the day.

Dinner was shredded chicken burritos.

I found at least one place that was selling 6' wide rolls of the reflective sunscreen for $17/lf. This is still kind of pricey, it means $51/window. On the other hand it won't hurt the double paned windows and is probably more efficient that the interior film as well, since the heat is reflected before it even gets to the window.

RIP: Roxy and Pounce.

Sad news, C's cat Pounce passed away. It was quick, from what he said, but it's still rough on him.

V had to put her cat, Roxy, to sleep on Sunday - it was in serious pain and discomfort from terminal cancer.

Monday 23 April 2018

Monday - A nice day, turning very warm in the afternoon, 92F!

Just a month ago...

In the morning I went on the roof at home and looked at my own swamp cooler. Good news - the pads were fine, the belt looked good, the pump worked well. So I washed out the pan as best I could - lots of dirt and silt - turned the water on, and removed the blocks inside the ducts. And then turned it on. It worked fine - though the temperature drop was only 10-15F or so. But it was about 20% humidity, so that's OK.

Overnight, the house had only cooled to 74F the night before, despite having windows opened all night, so this is going to be a relief.

I do need some way to secure my windows when partially open, and/or add an up-duct somewhere, so I can leave it running when I leave the house.

Researching window coverings I found that they do make reflective screen for the outside of the windows, that supposedly had big heat load benefits - I'll have to see what the pricing is for the fabric and make my own, because the custom built are mucho dinero, about $1200 for a 144" wide window.

I need to get my emergency propane out of the old Conex box tomorrow - really they shouldn't be exposed to the kind of heat that will be in there. I should also get the telescope out of the 40' intermodal container, the heat can't be good for it's lenses and electronics either....

Watched the 2nd episode of Lost In Space. Dr. Smith finally appears, and the other adult male, Don?

Sunday 22 April 2018

Sunday - Warm and windy.

I went to WinCo in the morning - didn't get a lot, but there were a few things I needed. I picked up some shelf brackets from the 99 cent store, and some Zantac from Walmart next door. It wasn't a bad crowd anywhere, except at the 99 cent store.

I was going to get some heat reflective window film at Home Depot, but they wanted $40 for a 15 foot roll. I have about 48LF of 3' wide west facing windows, so it's $160 to do them all. More if I also do the east facing windows. Ridiculous.

Later that evening I researched it a bit on the web. It turns out that the stuff I was looking at, 72% blockage, isn't recommended for double pane windows anyway - the reason being that unequal heating of the two panes due to the film can cause the seals to fail. Recommendations are no more than 50%. For my old windows, maybe even less than that?

My friend C called: she had some herbs in pots for me, so I stopped by for a few minutes and chatted with her. Her niece, who I remember as a munchkin and grade-schooler, has graduated college, started work, and has gotten married...

Watched the new Lost In Space, Episode 1, on NetFlix in the evening. Interesting, although the usual equality-cult role reversal of sexes is apparently going to happen here. Adventurous and competent Will being downgraded as a wuss that freezes under pressure and didn't actually make the cut for space exploration - in favor of adventurous and competent teenage girls. Who, exactly, does Netflix think their audience is? But Will and the (now of alien origin) robot do bond...

Picture of the Week

cat in the sun

Budd enjoying the morning sun.

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