Saturday - I was talking to my friend
Tim, and he mentioned that the first day of school for his kids was
last week. Yikes, time flies! It seems like yesterday that I was with
them for that, but it was a year ago for my last visit. I've seen them
down there whilst visiting with other people, and we've gone out for
pizza and stuff, but it's been a crazy year....
So
I puttered around in the morning, trying to figure out how to install,
and make secure against intruders, the casement air conditioner. The
installation instructions aren't quite right, there doesn't seem to be
a way to drill into the unit without hitting something and there isn't
the called out slot for a retaining tab at the bottom to keep
people from pushing the unit in. Also I just have the unit, and not the
various accessories (including a plastic window) that are included with
a new unit. I decided that I would use the metal flanges on either side
and through bolt into the window casement somehow. I have some
aluminum angle that I bought a while back for another project, so
that's a start, since the existing flanges are a bit big.
Friday
23
August2013
Friday
- Good to be back home.
I had a couple of problems awaiting me late Thursday afternoon.
The
first was an overheated timer than was being used to schedule the
on/off for the swamp cooler. I had left the swamp cooler on "HIGH" and
it was just too much for the switch I guess. It overheated, the plastic
side melted, and the plug to the swamp cooler fell out and the a/c unit
turned off. I have no one to blame but myself - my friend Roger had
warned me of the perils of an overloaded timer and my confident
response was that I was using an over sized unit that could handle it.
And I was...except
that at some point I had swapped it out for a smaller unit. I have a
vague memory of the old timer no longer keeping time and of
"temporarily" swapping it out. I guess I completely forgot to go back
and replace it. Well, all is well that ends well.
I can use a 1/2hp timer I have for running in LOW, and have ordered another heavy duty timer from Amazon.
[By the way, my Kill-A-Watt meter says that power usage is: 5.33A/280W on LOW, 8.9A/400W on HIGH].
The
other problem was the leaky water line to the swamp cooler. I had
decided to settle for letting the pinhole leaks remain as they gave the
resident toad in the tomato bed a damp spot to live. However the water
was just gushing out by
Friday. So I replaced it, in the dusk, cursing and swearing at the
annoyance and at the tiny ferrules as they fell into the lawn and hid.
Still, by dint of perseverance, by early evening I had cool moist (inexpensive) air.
I'll see if I can figure out another way to keep Mr. Toad's home nice and damp.
But then, Friday morning, as I walked through the dining room to the kitchen my feet went "squish"
in the rug. The new line had popped off its fitting inside the swamp
cooler at some point during the night, and was spraying directly into
the squirrel cage fan, which in turn spewed it out all over the dining
room table and rug.
The table had the Mac Mini on it, plus four
library books and a book of my own. One library book is a loss, one
questionable, and two probably OK.
The Mac Mini actually had water draining out when I unplugged it and turned it upside down.
I'll let it, and its keyboard, dry out in the warm Lancaster weather, but it's probably a loss.
I did
tighten the nut inside the swamp cooler last night, as I was forced to
get a wrench to undo it and reattach the line this morning.
In
the evening we went over to the Fair to take a few more pictures of
engines and vehicles with 'character', i.e. rust and corrosion and
fading paint, for the app. The Rusty Relics people kindly let us inside the
roped off areas, since S is a member.
I did a bit of research on taking pictures of artwork, which is similar. The basic takeaway items were:
Av Mode
(aperture priority)
ISO 100
Aperture: f8
(DSLR)
Shutter
Speed: the camera will decide when shooting in Av Mode
File Format:
RAW
Self-timer: on
Anti-Shake:OFF
Use Tripod
24mm or better
Moderate zoom, from further away, to "flatten"
As it happened the wind was too great to use the tripod, so I had to
hand hold with anti-shake on. Still, I think they came out OK.
Riley and Chainsaw. He likes the cool marble coffee table...
Thursday 22 August2013
Thursday
- OTR. Lots of work in the office.
In
early afternoon we broke for lunch, then I headed back to Lancaster to
deal with some household issues that had arisen in just the few days I
was gone....
Wednesday 21 August
2013
Wednesday
- OTR.
Out in the field in Ojai, for the work startup. It went pretty well,
once some misunderstanding with the contractor were cleared up. Then
off to another meeting in Saticoy for some levee project work scoping.
Then back to the office for more submittal and inspection guideline
work.
Tuesday 20 August2013
Tuesday
- OTR. Lots and lots of office work on submittals and guidelines. 9-9 basically.
Monday 19 August 2013
Monday
- OTR.
Showing the contractor's representatives where some of the job site
access locations might be, in Ojai and Ventura, then some office work.
Sunday 18 August2013
Sunday
- OTR in the evening, down to Ventura.
Keeping busy. The morning was mostly spent on various chores. Fixing
the sprinkler line was the big one, and that was easy enough, I had all
the parts. But my glue had dried out, so I had to go over to Home Depot
for that. Searching for a non-existent second can in my garage allowed
me to clean up a bit in there.
It was also laundry day. I haven't fixed the dryer thermostat yet, so I had
to be careful drying things. It was so warm out - 100F+ - that I just
laid out my denim jeans on the brick pile and they were completely dry
in 20 minutes.
Mid afternoon I took an on line course to make sure I was certified for
confined space work. Not hard, I got it done in an hour or two.
I'm pretty sure that Time Warner did NOT downgrade my TV service, as I
asked, but after nearly 45 minutes on hold I gave up for the weekend.
I'll try again tomorrow sometime.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Turtle
in Conejo Creek, Thousand Oaks, California.
