Fire in Paradise...

Fire in Paradise...  In our furnace, that is.  Our newly repaired furnace!

The experience reminds us once again of why we love living here.  We had two new furnaces installed in May 2014 to replace the aged ones that came with the house.  The fellow who advised me and did the work – Ryan Osborn, owner of Leading Edge Heating and Air Conditioning (435-994-0666) – recommended a Carrier model and installed them.  He did a great job, cleaning up some shoddy work done on the original furnaces – plus he helped me repair an irrigation riser that I knocked off with my lawn mower (the first of several, alas).

Now fast forward to last week, nearly two years after he installed them.  We had a problem with the downstairs furnace, so I gave him a call.  He instantly accepted responsibility and promised (and delivered) quick action.  Four visits later, plus a trip for his sidekick Joe down to Ogden to pick up parts, they had the problem (which was a weird one, naturally) diagnosed, with the parts covered under warranty.  Today he's going to preemptively order (and later install) the same parts for our other (identical) furnace.  I'm currently trying to figure out how to pay them something for their time, but so far he's not letting me.

This is so different than our normal experience in California – and yet here it's so normal that it is the expectation.  Honesty and hard work are the norm here, and it's still hard for us to get used to that after 40 years in the very different culture of California...

Amazing...

Amazing ... plus, pretty girls, for the double win!

Interesting piece...

Interesting piece ... by a scientist (physicist) and writer named Tom Hartsfield.  He takes no sides in the AGW “wars”, but looks at climate science and is appalled by what he sees.  The perspective he outlines in this article is very close to what Freeman Dyson observes, and that appears to be the source of Dyson's AGW skepticism...

I can identify with this!

I can identify with this!  I have always hated neckties.  Jeans and buttoned, loose-neck, short-sleeve cotton shirts, that's my “uniform”  these days...

Canada has a national treasure...

Canada has a national treasure ... named Steve McIntyre.  There should be a way to honor this man for his sober, level-headed analyses of the data that allegedly supports AGW.  He's done it again – no surprise there – and his article is yet another example of why he's been such a mainstay for the AGW skeptics.

I couldn't help but smile at his understated-but-still-devastating conclusion, starting with this paragraph:

The RCS technique used in the LW2005 MXD chronology eliminated high medieval values as a tautology of their method, not as a property of the data.  The Icefields data provides equal (or greater) justification for MXD RCS chronologies with elevated medieval values.

“…a tautology of their method...” indeed.  Translated into language I might use, this says: “The LW2005 MXD chronology is bullshit!” – but he says it much more politely (and with better support) than I ever could.  Do read the whole thing, and carefully – it's yet another Steve McIntyre masterpiece...

A map...

A map ... of Pluto's geology.  What a time we live in!  Pluto was just a smudge on a photographic plate when I was a kid, and now we have a map of its macro geologic features.  There's an article and a high resolution version...