CarveZilla update...

CarveZilla update...  The first parts for mine arrived today: the rails for the X-axis carriage and the Y-axis carriage (photos below).  These are all 6' long (to allow us a 4' square working area), and are steel rods supported along their entire length.  Linear bearings with recirculating balls will hold the carriages.  We bought these from a source in China for about a quarter the cost of U.S. or Japanese sources.  We'll see how well they actually work out, but just moving them by hand they feel smooth as silk.  For that sort of price advantage, we figured it was worth taking a risk. These were packed quite nicely: wrapped in plastic, then the “rope” shown at right, then a layer of a sort of plastic burlap, another layer of plastic, a layer of thick, tough paper, and a final layer of plastic.  They arrived here from Shanghai in perfect shape.  That rope is interesting.  At first blush I thought it was sisal, but on closer inspection it appeared to be made out of grass leaves.  I did some research on it, and found that it's more likely made of bamboo leaves – that material is commonly used for cushioning sharp metal edges in Asia, as it's both relatively soft and very tough.  I can vouch for the latter: cutting it was far more challenging for my knife than sisal rope would have been...

Construction progress...

Construction progress...  Our projects are still putt-putting along, though at a much-reduced pace through the holidays and nasty weather.  Our mud room is currently the most nearly finished – the photo at right is a view of its inside, as seen from our entranceway looking south toward the front door.  We're pretty happy with how it turned out.  The finished room will look quite different, however, as there will be cabinetry along both sides of the room (left and right in the photo).

The tile guys were here this morning.  They grouted the mud room tile (photo at left), made a perfectly rectangular hole for me to cut a threshold for (for the door between the entranceway and the mud room), and repaired the broken tiles in the kitchen (from the installation of the door to the deck a month ago).  They did a great job on all parts of it.  Now we're waiting for tile to come in so they can finish our sun room.  We have no ETA, unfortunately...

Product updates...

Product updates...  About a week ago I received six small LED lights that are powered by three AAA batteries (each, of course) and contain a motion sensor.  These had great reviews on Amazon, though some people reported problems with the motion sensor part, and the photocell that keeps them off during daylight.  But for the price ($23.99 for all six, or just $4 each) I figured I wasn't risking much.  Well, I have no idea what the complaints are about!  For me, they work absolutely perfectly.  I used all six to light the stairwell leading from the first floor of my barn to the second floor, and the path through the second floor storage area to my office.  In the early morning when it's pitch black outside, they come on exactly when I need them, and turn off about 10 seconds after I pass them.  They provide plenty of light for me to walk safely, and I no longer have to fumble around with my phone's flashlight mode.  Win!

We've had our new dishwasher now for a couple of months, and if anything our opinion of it has gone up.  Our biggest complaint is that we often accidentally open it while it's running, because we didn't hear it.  The dishes and silverware consistently come out sparkly clean and free of spots, except for those few occasions when we forgot to put soap in, or to refill the rinse agent dispenser.  We've never tried any setting other than the recommended “auto” mode, as it seems to do a perfect job each and every time.  We find the rack arrangements to be quite convenient, and certainly a lot better than any other dishwasher we've ever owned.  The cutlery tray is still our favorite feature – such a silly little thing, but it sure saves a lot of hassle.  The price is steep, for sure – but we'd unhesitatingly recommend this unit to anyone who can afford it.

Paradise ponders, whining old man edition...

Paradise ponders, whining old man edition...  Man, just about everything went wrong yesterday!  A Fedex package I was expecting never showed up.  The tile contractors who were supposed to be here in the afternoon never came.  There was nothing in the mail – not even junk mail.  The dogs escaped my attempt to capture them on the way in from outside, and I spent a half hour cleaning up mud.  Twice I left things in the house that I needed in the barn, and had to make a return trip.  I got almost no sleep.  Sheesh!

I did have an excellent steak dinner, cooked by my lovely bride.  That was definitely the highlight of the day.  We had a relaxing evening reading in front of the fireplace, too...

Hopefully things will go a tad better today...

Stop. Trying. To. Make. Me. Like. Him! Part 21...

Stop. Trying. To. Make. Me. Like. Him!  Part 21...  Yesterday came the (much anticipated) official news that Trump is going to nominate General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as his Secretary of Defense.  I first became aware of Mattis in 2003, during the first Iraq War, when he commanded the Marines invading Kuwait to throw Saddam Hussein's army out.  He was one of the figures whose leadership I most admired.  One thing I learned about him that I really liked: he's an avid student of history, widely and deeply reading both political and military history.  He's famous for being deeply knowledgeable about the history of the Middle East.  His clear-eyed (and long held) view of the dangers posed by Iran as a state actor are extremely refreshing when compared to the spineless posturing of the Obama administration.  Intermittently since 2003 he's been in the news, always taking a position that I already supported, or came to support in part after reading what he had to say.  He's also been a prominent character in all the histories and reporting on Middle East conflicts since 2003.

It never occurred to me that Trump might nominate such a solid, well-qualified candidate – either for Secretary of Defense or any other post.  His doing so nurtures the tiniest little flame of hope in me.  If there was anybody who might successfully guide the Department of Defense through the mess that is the Middle East, this would be the guy.  I'm stunned that Trump made such a great choice.  Stunned in a good way, too...

I'm not alone in this assessment.  One of the commentators I respect, on military affairs in general and the Middle East in particular, is Ralph Peters.  Here's his fawning approval of the Mattis appointment.  If you're not familiar with Peters, let me assure you that this article's style is not his normal style: he's more of the bite-your-head-off critic in most cases, of the kind with lots of those pesky facts at his disposal.  Peters was a vocal critic of Trump during the campaign.  It's notable that his approval of Mattis is, so far as I can discern, completely unqualified.  He must be sharing some of my feelings right about now. :)

If you aren't familiar with Mattis, it's worth your time to get to know him a bit.  He's famous for his pithy quotes, which are easy to find all over the web.  Wikipedia has a decent short-form biography.  If you search his name on Google, you'll find hundreds of articles that mention him.  For a more in-depth treatment, read any of the dozens of histories of conflict in the Middle East since 2000 – he'll be a prominent character in any of them.

The Donald...

The Donald...  Via long-suffering reader Simi L.:

After passing on, George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are going for a job interview with God.

God asks Bush: “What do you believe in”?

Bush replies: "I believe in a free economy, a strong America, The American nation and so on ..."

God is impressed by Bush and tells him: "Great, come sit in the chair on my right"

God goes to Obama and ask: "What do you believe in”?

Obama replies: “I believe in democracy, helping the poor, world peace, etc. .... ".

God is really impressed by Obama and tells him: 'Well done, come sit in the chair on my left"

Finally God asks Trump : “What do you believe in”?

Trump replied: "I believe you're sitting in my chair”.

I laughed way too hard at this one! :)

Why I like online shopping, part 51,939...

Why I like online shopping, part 51,939...  A few days ago, noting that we were short of printer paper, I stopped in at the Staples in Logan, Utah to pick up two or three reams.  As I browsed the paper aisle, I noted what seemed like a very good deal: five reams of Staples-branded, 20 pound, 96% reflectivity (very bright) bond paper for about $15.  Three bucks a ream is cheap.  It seemed too good to be true, so I checked the signage very carefully to see if I was being fooled somehow.  Nope.  It was clearly marked as five reams for $15.

So I grabbed one of the (heavy!) packages and headed for the cash register, where I had to wait for almost five minutes while the young woman who was the cashier finished her lengthy discussion about a TV show with the customer ahead of me.  Then when she rang up my sale, the charge was for $33.  That's about what such paper sells for on Amazon, shipped to my door, or about $5 a ream at Walmart.  It's certainly not the clearly labeled $15.  WTF? 

Well, my cashier explained (with a big, excited smile on her face) that I was about to have the privilege of getting an $18 rebate, with a super-easy way to submit it online!  Wow!  Now this was absurd on the face of it.  Why would Staples send me a rebate for a product that they're selling under their own brand?  The only possible reason I can think of is that they know many people won't bother sending in the rebate, so they get to misleadingly advertise a low price while actually (on average) getting more.

I was torn, but we needed the paper and I didn't want the hassle of stopping at another store, so I grumbled and paid for the paper.  This morning I pawed through my receipts and found the “Rebate Redemption Form”.  It's printed on a cash register receipt, and measures 25" long.  The poorly-printed text on it is in 8 point type (I measured it!).  It took me five minutes of mind-numbing reading before I found the URL to submit it online.  When I went to that web site, the first thing it did was ask me for a 17 digit “easy redemption ID”.  Easy, my ass!  I searched that form for ten minutes and was about to give up when I noticed that right at the bottom, in six point type that was barely blacker than the white paper, printed inside a bar code, was a 17 digit number.  Could that be it?  It was!  Though I only discovered that after typing it in incorrectly a few times before I got it right. 

I thought that was the end of my torture, but I was wrong.  There was more.  There was a form to be filled in, a web form designed by someone stuck in 1994.  Nearly every field had some rule about entry.  For instance, the phone number had to be entered as just the ten digits of an American phone number including area code.  No hyphens, spaces, or parens.  But this rule was completely hidden – when the form wouldn't accept a phone number, there was no explanation of why.  It just didn't work.  I spent another ten or fifteen minutes filling out this stupid form.  When I finally clicked “submit” and it worked, I was relieved.  Now my torture must be over!

Nope.

Next I got a confirmation screen that informed me that I was “soon” to be the recipient of an $18 Visa card.  What, exactly, did they mean by “soon”?  In some tiny pale blue type that I could just barely find, they told me to expect my card in 9 to 11 weeks.  Isn't that exciting?

When I finally got done with this process, I made a vow to myself to never, ever darken the entrance of a Staples store again.  I will pay a premium, if necessary, to avoid ever giving that company even one penny of my money. 

Amazon is so much easier.  I just ordered some more paper so we don't run out...

Regulating cow farts...

Regulating cow farts...  Our friend Simon M., who hasn't yet escaped from California, passes this along.  This sounded so crazy ... that I instantly accepted it as real news.  I did a little more reading on it to see if there was actually some plausible underlying thesis, but nope, it's really just as crazy as it sounds.  That's the bad news.  The good news?  Californians can expect much more such craziness, now that the Democrats have a supermajority in both halves of the state legislature, and a Democratic (and particularly loony) governor.  Our not-yet-escaped friends had better batten down the hatches, because a fiscal storm of epic proportions is approaching them...

Paradise ponders, vacuum-sealed edition...

Paradise ponders, vacuum-sealed edition...  Well, yesterday we said goodbye (for now) to our friends Jimmy and Michelle.  In the morning we drove them down to the Salt Lake City airport, dropping Debbie off in Ogden along the way for her hair appointment.  That's another one of those mind-boggling things that I'll never understand – every few weeks she drives an hour each way to see one particular hair dresser in Ogden.  For me, it's every six months or so driving about 15 minutes – and I don't like spending that much time and effort on it!

Our friends were off without incident, though we heard later that their flight's leaving was delayed because they had to wait while a first class passenger was removed.  No word on why that happened, and I could find nothing in the news.

On my drive from the airport back to Ogden (to get Debbie from the hair dresser), I drove through the eastern part of Ogden and right under the scene at right.  This was one of several erected by the Ogden Fire Department, and we saw similar things (along with hundreds and hundreds of American flags) in Brigham City as we drove through it.  All of this is in tribute to the recently killed Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Eric Ellsworth, whose funeral and procession was yesterday.  There were photos, flowers, and people everywhere you looked in Brigham City (Ellsworth's home town).

We finally got home at around 4 pm, much to the relief of our dogs. :)  Shortly after we got home, our UPS driver showed up with a huge pile of boxes for us and a very concerned face.  He was worried that he'd wrecked our new tile in the mud room when he delivered a box the day before – he stepped into the room before putting the package down, and only then noticed that there was no grout yet.  He thought the tile had just been laid, and that he had wrecked it.  In fact the tile had been down for almost a week, and the tile installers were just late to finish the job.  He was greatly relieved!

Among the packages he delivered for us was a large, heavy one containing our new vacuum sealer (for food).  Debbie's been wanting a vacuum sealer for a long time, as it's a good way for her to make food in large batches (which she's apparently genetically programmed to do) and then divvy it up into single portion bags for freezing.  Our go-to method has been either Cambro boxes or zipper bags, but both of them are imperfect and in particular leave air in the food (which allows freezer burn).  I did a bunch of research into these vacuum sealers, as we have absolutely zero experience with them.  Since perhaps half of what Debbie makes is liquid (stews, soups, and chili), the chamber type of sealer looked like the right way to go.  We unpacked this thing with much anticipation, and a bit of trepidation as well – after reading all the reviews of this thing, it looked like it might be tricky to set up and get working correctly.  All I can say is that there must be some mighty picky people out there.  This was about as difficult as making toast.  The very first attempt we made was completely successful, as were the next dozen or so as we started packing up the Thanksgiving leftovers still in our refrigerator.  Debbie was all smiles as she sealed bag after bag.  We both liked the sound effects and automatic pop-up at the end of the cycle.  We're also wondering why the heck we waited so long to get one!  This is going to have a noticeable impact on our life...

Paradise ponders, lovely breakfast edition...

Paradise ponders, lovely breakfast edition...  After some fun card games last night and a good night's sleep, Debbie, Jimmy, Michelle and I headed for Herm's for a great breakfast this morning.  I had carnitas and eggs, Debbie had steak and eggs, Michelle had a BLT, and Jimmy had eggs Benedict.  All of us made yummy noises while we shoveled down the food.

After breakfast we stopped at Smith's downtown so the girls could go shopping for Under Armor.  They came back with shopping bags and excited faces.  This is a phenomenon that I still just do not comprehend (having fun while shopping). 

Then we went for a drive up to Hardware Ranch.  The temperatures were in the low 20s, the scenery wintry.  We expected the road to Ant Flats to be closed, but it was still open – so we drove a few miles out to Miller's ranch, wildlife spotting.  We saw dozens of elk, a few deer, a bald eagle, an American dipper, and a raptor that we're pretty sure was an osprey (it was far enough away that i couldn't positively ID it).  A very nice drive it was, with beautiful scenery in every direction. 

Today's the last full day Jimmy and Michelle will be with us, darn it.  Tomorrow we take them to the airport so they can go home...

Paradise ponders, winter wonderland edition...

Paradise ponders, winter wonderland edition...  Well, the snow finally hit.  Some snaps from around the yard are below.  We've got about 6" on the ground right now, and it's still falling with abandon.  I went out around 8 am and plowed, just so I would have less to plow later.  I'm glad I did, as the snow was wet, gloppy, and heavy – too much of that on the ground and my tractor can't push it around!  Debbie's got a physical therapy appointment early this afternoon, so I'll be out plowing again before too long.

Yesterday I did a little work on the deck electrical wiring, but it was just plain too cold and nasty to work for long.  I gave up and came inside, where I spent the day with Debbie, Jimmy, and Michelle eating, cooking, and playing games.  A nice day. :)

Paradise ponders, turkey leftovers edition...

Paradise ponders, turkey leftovers edition...  Man, did we eat well yesterday!  Leftover turkey noodle soup, stuffing, meat, and gravy, and the girls added a mess of roasted vegetables (bell peppers, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and asparagus) to the mix for our evening meal.  Then on top of that, Michelle made banana bread.  Yummy banana bread!  There might accidentally have been some wine consumed, too.  That's some fine eating there!  The dogs had a great time last night cleaning off our plates. :)

Jimmy and I worked outside all day, and we got the four floodlights mounted and wired just before it started to get dark.  These took quite a bit longer than I expected, as we had a bunch of little things go wrong (all fixable).  It wasn't very pleasant, either – it was cold, and I got thoroughly wet from water dripping off the roof.  Once we wired them up, the floods all worked great on the first try.  In daylight they weren't all that impressive, but when we tried them after dark – wow!  Our entire back yard is brightly lit.  Each of the four floodlights is rated at 7,000 lumens, using 5,000K LEDs (actual power consumed is about 80 watts each).  We mounted oak panels to the 8x8s holding up our deck roof, then mounted the floods to the panels.  The result looks great, and it's strong and stable.

We were expecting snow last night, but it didn't materialize.  Instead we got relatively warm rain, which melted most of the snow already on the ground.  The forecast is still calling for 4" to 8" of snow between now and tomorrow night, though...

Paradise ponders, bright red door edition...

Paradise ponders, bright red door edition...  Yesterday Brad H., our painter, finished putting the second coat of white on the outside of our new mud room, and the third coat of red on its door.  The result is at right.  Debbie is quite happy with her red, red door. :)

Thanksgiving leftovers are a good thing.  Ours were complemented by homemade turkey noodle soup, with the broth coming from our Thanksgiving turkey, and the noodles handmade by Debbie and Michelle.  Oh, yummy, it is!  And there are a few quarts more of this ambrosia in our refrigerator right now...

Jimmy and I worked outside most of the day on the electrical wiring for the deck.  We didn't get nearly as far as I'd hoped, mainly because I made some mistakes that had to be undone and then redone.  At this point we have one duplex outlet installed on the house wall, a pair of switches on the house wall, and the switches are all wired up.  I can turn on the deck lights and the flood lights separately.  Or, more accurately, if I had the lights wired up I could turn them on. :)  Right now I just have the end of a wire that I can energize on command!  Today's first order of business is to mount the flood lights on their oak panels.  Then we'll start actually wiring some things up...

That's in between eating leftovers, of course.  I started with a slice of apple pie with my tea.  Wonderful apple pie, made with Jonagold apples that stay crisp after cooking, and enough cinnamon to start a cinnamon distribution business...

Paradise ponders, rapidly-disappearing turkey edition...

Paradise ponders, rapidly-disappearing turkey edition...  Debbie and Michelle whipped up a beautiful traditional Thanksgiving meal yesterday (roast turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, apple pie, and pecan pie, along with some very nice wine), making the kitchen smell oh-so-enticingly all day long.  Jimmy, Scott, and I were tramping through the kitchen all day long as we worked on the deck's electrical wiring, and those wonderful aromas made it a bit hard to concentrate on the job! :)  Eventually the turkey was finished, and we all loaded our plates to the breaking point (mine is at right).  We finished the night with some sleeping conversation in front of a warm fire, then we all collapsed into bed for the night.

We woke yesterday to a beautiful winter day (at left), with snow on the ground and icicles everywhere.  By the end of the day nearly all the snow and ice were gone.  Today and tomorrow are forecast to have highs in the upper 40s, so the rest will probably melt off.  Then on Monday and Tuesday our forecast calls for up to eight inches of fresh snow, and the beginnings of a cold snap.

The electrical work we did on Wednesday (mounting the boxes) is in the first photo below.  Most of what we did yesterday is in the second photo.  That circuit breaker box on the right is getting mounted “right” – on an oak board that's affixed to the house's sheathing (instead of the siding as it was).  Toward the bottom you can see a duplex outlet mounted that same way, and toward the top you can see where I'll be mounting a pair of switches to control the deck lighting.  The smaller inner hole is where the metal electrical box fits, and the larger hole exposing bare wood is where the oak board will be mounted.  I'll caulk the siding where it meets the oak board, and that will give me a waterproof mounting that's affixed to solid wood instead of the relatively flimsy siding.  I've got things like this to fix all around the house; the original construction was done by mounting stuff right to the siding which I think is pretty darned shoddy.  It would have been easy to do it right in the first place, but it's much harder to fix after the fact...

Today (and tomorrow) I'm going to keep plugging away at this.  I'm hoping to have the outdoors work all done before it gets too darned cold to work.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!  May you all have a food coma as intense as the one we're anticipating here!!

Paradise ponders, solid-phase H2O edition...

Paradise ponders, solid-phase H2O edition...  We woke up this morning to 24°F temperatures, with about an inch of snow on the ground.  It's beautiful outside, but a little sketchy for walking.  Last night we had mixed rain and snow, and now we have black ice on our driveway (and likely on the roads, too).  Pretty, though, like this giant icicle that formed on a dangling gutter heater cable (leftover from the demolition for our new deck)...

Yesterday Brad H., our painting contractor, finished putting the first coat of red paint on our new front door (the exterior door of the mud room.  It's going to be gorgeous!  Debbie seems really happy with the choices she worked out with Brad for which bits of the door will be red, and which white.  Tomorrow Brad expects to get the exterior of the mud room painted, which means our house will then appear to be complete from the outside as you drive in.  That will make Debbie very happy. :)

We left for Salt Lake City late in the morning yesterday, along with our friends Jimmy and Michelle.  The provocation for the trip was an appointment with Debbie's endocrinologist (more on that below).  After we finished with her appointment, we headed to Wild Birds Unlimited which is the closest source I could find for the bird seed I use in one of our feeders.  I discovered last year that these “no mess” seed mixes, with the right seeds, fruits, and nuts included, attract birds to the feeders that we otherwise wouldn't see.  It's also not as expensive as it looks, as it's 100% edible food (unlike, say, sunflower seeds which are about 25% edible) and it doesn't get eaten as quickly as regular bird seed.  For us, the “no mess” part is just an added benefit, not the main draw.  They had the seed in stock, but only a few bags.  The staff there fell all over themselves to help me out when they realized I was going to buy them out.  It was a shopping experience that reminded me of what we used to run into in San Diego all the time, a bit uncomfortable for me, and very different than in Cache Valley.  I can't imagine the staff in stores here ever being so deferential and obsequious, just friendly and curious. :)

Then we traveled north for 10 miles or so to eat.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, the photos below will tell you where we went: the Red Iguana.  Once again, it didn't disappoint – great food, cheerful and helpful servers, and old friends.  That's a very difficult combination to beat!  The first dish below was mine: a pair of luscious sour cream chicken enchiladas slathered in strawberry mole sauce (one of the specials).  Yum!

Our drive home from Red Iguana took nearly double the usual time, as it was either raining or snowing the entire trip.  As we climbed up out of Brigham City into Sardine Canyon, and then back down into Cache Valley, we had big, fluffy snowflakes dropping constantly.  The snowplows were working in the canyon.  The last few miles of the drive we had to go quite slow because the intense snowfall limited our visibility to just a couple hundred feet.  It was after dark, so the headlights reflecting off that falling snow really impeded visibility.  We drove by some houses in Hyrum that already had a beautiful display of Christmas lights up, and of course in the white snow they were really nice.

When we got home, Debbie and Michelle started baking pies for our dinner today.  We've got a yummy looking apple pie in the refrigerator, and a pecan pie in our microwave.  There's also a giant turkey (23 pounds!) defrosted on our kitchen island, and as I left the kitchen the girls were working on the stuffing.  That kitchen is going to smell good today!

My brother Scott will be here in a few hours, and Jimmy, he and I will stay out of the girls way while they make our dinner.  The three of us will be puttering away on the electrical wiring for our deck, in between sampling the goodies emerging from the kitchen.

On Debbie's endocrinologist's visit: some good news.  If you've been following her medical journey, you'll remember that the last thing she heard was that the drug that would help her the most (Forteo) was apparently causing her potassium levels to drop and her calcium levels to spike up.  Her endocrinologist told her to stop using it until we figured out what was going on.  That was extremely disappointing for Debbie, especially after the battle we went through to get her approved for that drug.  In the intervening month, the endocrinologist made a discovery: there is an interaction of sorts between Forteo and another drug Debbie is taking (the active form of vitamin D), and taking Forteo obviates the need for that other drug.  The interaction causes ... a spike in calcium levels.  That means that most likely all she has to do is stop taking that other drug and she should be fine on Forteo.  That is very good news for her, as it means faster and better bone regrowth.  So she's back on the Forteo, and in a month she'll recheck to make sure her calcium levels are in the normal range.  Her endocrinologist is not expecting any bad news on that recheck.  That's celebration time for Debbie!

Paradise ponders, muddy door edition...

Paradise ponders, muddy door edition...   What happens when you have brand-new exterior doors and you let the dogs outside, and it's mud season (as it is here).  Muddy doors, of course!  At right is the masterpiece that our four mutts created in, oh, about 12 seconds yesterday morning.  Some lunatic cleaned it off later in the day, but it looks just like this again now. :)

At left, left-to-right: Michelle B., Jimmy B., and Debbie.  They're in our kitchen, so obviously they made it here safely.  They may already be having regrets, however, as they've discovered that we're putting them to work.  Jimmy and I worked outside part of yesterday, fixing a poorly mounted main breaker on our house.  We made good progress on that, actually.  Today we're going to put up stringers with ceiling boxes, 11 of them.  Should be exciting! :)  Michelle discovered that she's going to be helping Debbie with the Thanksgiving cooking.  Outwardly she appears to be enjoying the prospect, but I suspect that inside she's saying “How did I let myself get talked into this?” :)  She and Debbie have a very ambitious menu prepared, one that required Jimmy and I to make a grocery run that appeared to be for a family of 40 or so.  We shall not lack for food tomorrow!

Blogging will likely be slow for the next few days, as we work our guests' fingers to the bone...

Paradise ponders, Navy buddies edition...

Paradise ponders, ancient Navy buddies edition...  Jimmy B. and his wife Michelle are arriving this afternoon for a week-long visit.  They were last here in September, when we moaned and groaned about their short (one day) visit.  Our punishment is to be inflicted with them for over a week. :)  We'll be sharing Thanksgiving with them and my brother Scott, who will brave the roads of snowy terror (we have snow in the forecast over the next few days).  I'm going to be putting Jimmy to work helping me with the various electrical wiring projects, and Debbie is putting Michelle to work with the Thanksgiving cooking.

Meanwhile, Mike B. sends this photo from North Carolina, where he's working on the CarveZilla project we're collaborating on.  What you're looking at is the inside of a 4' square vacuum table, with X-axis rails on two sides.  The vacuum table is missing its top, which will have lots of 1/2" holes on 2" centers all over it.  We'll attach this to a vacuum cleaner (think Shop-Vac), then place a piece of wood on top to be machined.  The vacuum will hold the workpiece fast to the vacuum table (we hope!).  Those X-axis rails will support a carriage that can move 4' back-and-forth, and that carriage will support a pair of rails on the Y-axis, which will in turn support a carriage that move in that dimension.  That carriage will support a pair of Z-axis (up-and-down) rails that will finally support something actually useful: a motor with a milling head attached.  When we're all done, a Raspberry Pi computer will move that milling head about in three dimensions, and be able to carve basically anything we want, so long as it will fit in a space 4' x 4' x (about) 1'.  Mike is building the things (one for each of us), and I'm doing the software and helping with the design.  So far, he's doing most of the work, as I've been a bit distracted with other things.

Jimmy B. and Mike B. are both old friends from my Navy days, back in the '70s.  It's hard to believe now, but I've known them both for 40 years.  Jimmy is roughly my age, but Mike is downright ancient, being almost ten years older. :)

I spent most of yesterday working on the electrical boxes for our new deck's light fixtures.  These fixtures will hang from a standard octagonal ceiling box.  There are nine of the fixtures, and they will be arranged in a 3x3 pattern.  Naturally, none of those positions fell into a place where the box could be conveniently attached to a truss. :)  So to solve that problem, I came up with a simple design: a pair of 2x4 stringers that will be tacked to two trusses, and the ceiling box mounted in between them (photo at left below shows the idea).  This approach lets me place the ceiling boxes precisely where I want them.  The boxes are mounted at three different offsets, with three at each offset.  I built them all yesterday, making the pile in the photo at right.  You might note that the box sticks down below the stringers; that's because the builders are going to put a “skin” on the ceiling made of 3/4" thick tongue-and-groove wood, and I've mounted the boxes to be flush with that.

Today I'll be building two more assemblies very similar to this, to hold a pair of duplex outlets that will also be mounted on the ceiling (to the north, toward the yard).  This will give us power out there, should we need it.  There will also be a pair of duplex outlets mounted on the house wall.

Last night and this morning marked a couple of corners turned in our puppies' growing up.  First one: Cabo (who has been sleeping in her crate in our bedroom) spent the night in the kitchen, in her crate, alongside Mako.  She didn't cry at all.  The crying was what prompted her staying in the bedroom; she apparently couldn't stand being separated from me.  Now she's fine on that count; spent the entire night without making a peep.  Second one: both Mako and Cabo were in their crates while I took a shower, and didn't howl.  They've both been howling up a storm every time I took a shower, for reasons we've never figured out.  One result of these corners being turned: I got the best night's sleep I've had in about eight months.  I could use some more of that! 

We've been feeding the dogs at night for quite a few years, generally just before we go to bed.  One thing we've noted with the puppies (but interestingly, not the adults) is that they need to drink water a couple of hours after they eat.  That means I've been needing to get up to let them out of their crates for a drink (which I did last night, for instance, around 9 pm).  So we decided to change our feeding schedule to mornings, starting today.  Not one of the four dogs seemed upset about getting an extra feeding this morning. :)  We'll see how they handle not getting fed tonight!

Paradise ponders, dented deck edition...

Paradise ponders, dented deck edition...  Well, that didn't take long!  Our formerly perfect redwood deck now has a nice little dent in it, created by a short piece of 2x4 that I dropped while testing out my electrical box mounting design.  Sigh. 

Last night our fencing contractor texted me to say that the back yard was now puppy-proof.  This morning I walked the whole fence to verify that, and then let all four dogs out into the yard to play.  Such canine joy!  Miki didn't want to stay out long; the old man likes his warm house and soft bed.  Race and the puppies, though, went into full-time, non-stop play mode.  Everything in the yard is a potential toy.  We've seem them tussling over rags left by the workers, a plastic soda bottle, and a willow twig.  It doesn't matter to them; everything is a toy. :)

I made a run to Home Depot and a few other stores, grabbing some supplies for the great deck wiring project.  This morning I've been sawing wood and testing whether my mounting design actually works (it does!).  Much more sawing and screwing directly ahead.

First thing I did this morning, while it was still crisp and cool outside, was to break out my chain saw and cut down an evergreen tree we didn't want.  It was in the way of the fencing guys completing the very last section of the fence remaining, which they will do tomorrow.  I have fired up the chain saw in about 7 months, so I expected it to be reluctant to start.  Second pull and it fired right up – thank you, Stihl!

Paradise ponders, pressure-washed cat house edition...

Paradise ponders, pressure-washed cat house edition...  I made a run to Home Depot this morning to pick up the supplies I needed in order to do the wiring for our deck.  It was a big pile. :)  While there, I noted that they had nice solid cedar dog houses on sale – for less than I could buy the cedar for.  Well, the heck with building my own for the puppy yard!  When I put the puppies out with it for the first time, Mako ran straight up to it – and started chewing.  Sheesh!  He's already eaten about a half inch off one corner.  At this rate the dog house will have completely disappeared in about a week.

My brother Scott came over to visit and to test the pressure washer I bought recently.  If it worked well for cleaning up old muddy driftwood, he wants one for his own use.  He and I put it together in our garage, filled it with oil and gas, hooked it up to a hose, and lit it off.  It worked great on my driveway for a couple minutes, then I handed the wand over to Scott to try on a piece of driftwood.  Immediately it stopped working, doing a funny pulsing instead of a nice, steady high pressure.  Dang it!  Scott thought it had died, but after a couple more minutes of this intermittent operation it went back to working great.  I suspect there was air in the 75' hose I used to hook up to it, and that took a while to work out.  In any case, the pressure washer passed his driftwood test with flying colors, so we ordered one for him.

Scott saw the shipping crate I blogged about earlier today, and had a great idea: he can make that into a nice, insulated cat house for the kittens hanging around his cabin.  We loaded that into his truck for him to take, along with a roll of the goat wire that our fencing guys have been removing from our fence.  Scott's going to use that as an armature for some future concrete sculpture.

Debbie and I just got home from a very nice dinner at the Black Pearl, with a dessert of ice cream from Aggie's creamery.  When we pulled in, we noticed that the deck roof had been “dried in” (waterproof underlayment laid down on top of the sub-roof).  That means we're all set for the storms forecast for tomorrow night and much of the next week.  Woo hoo!

Paradise ponders, baseboard matching edition...

Paradise ponders, baseboard matching edition...  It was slightly calmer here yesterday.  But only slightly. :)

I did a walk-around inspection in the morning, looking for any little bits of trim that might not be ready for the painters (who are scheduled to show up on Monday).  I discovered a missing bit, about 9" long (at right) – and we don't have any spare pieces lying about.  Home Depot and Lowe's have nothing even remotely like this.  What to do?  Our builder recommended trying Burton Lumber (the source of all the lumber we used in construction), so I ran up there to see if they could match it.  They did!  Given that the baseboard we were trying to match was installed 22 years ago, I think that's pretty amazing!

Speaking of the builders ... they've finished all they can do until I get the electrical wiring for the deck finished.  Below left shows what our deck looks like now, looking out from our kitchen doorway to the northwest.  The photo at right shows what the inside of the deck roof looks like at the moment – not so beautiful! :)  My wiring will be installed inside that mess, and then when I'm finished the builders will return and put a “skin” of tongue-and-groove floorboards over the bottom of what you see there.  All the interior framing will be hidden.  Our builder was absolutely delighted that (for the first time in the entire project) he wasn't the long pole – it was me instead. :)

Later in the day we got a call from SSL shipping, telling us that they had a delivery to make.  We were expecting this; it's a piece of furniture for our bedroom (more on that in a later post).  He was driving a big rig, so I made arrangements to meet him out on the road with my tractor in ten minutes or so.  I went out, got the forks mounted on the tractor, and drove out to the highway to meet him.  As I arrived, a Corlett shipping truck (which we were not expecting) drove up and pulled over.  He had a delivery, too – Debbie's office chair that we weren't expecting for another week or so.  What a weird coincidence!  The SSL truck showed up about 3 minutes after the Corlett truck left.  That was very convenient – which it happened more often!

The delivery from SSL (the bedroom furniture) was in the crate at right.  The truck driver told me he'd never seen furniture delivered in such a nice crate.  The crate was entirely constructed from 5/8" plywood mounted on top of a standard pallet.  Inside were pine 2x2s for a frame, and all screwed together.  Amazing!  The furniture inside was in perfect condition, having been protected on its journey with that beautiful crate.

Stop buying fruit yogurt!

Stop buying fruit yogurt!  There's something better, I've discovered.  Buy plain yogurt (I'm partial to Chobani, which comes in nice big tubs), then mix a teaspoon or two of quality fruit preserves into a portion of yogurt.  It's way better than the fruit mixture that ships with the yogurt, and depending on the selection at your grocery store you may have a much wider variety of fruit to choose from.  For instance, I'm partway through a jar of excellent lingonberry preserves right now...

Paradise ponders, all trussed-up edition...

Paradise ponders, all trussed-up edition...  Our builders worked all day yesterday with a crew of four, and they got a lot done.  In the morning they demolished our old (far too short) roof, and in the afternoon they put up the trusses (pre-fab) for the new roof.  You can see various stages of this effort below.  By the time they knocked off for the day, all the trusses were up.  Today they're going to put the “skin” on the roof (OSB sheathing) and we'll be ready for the roofer.  That was fast!

The romex cables I mentioned yesterday were handled expeditiously by the construction guys.  For all but two trusses, they were able to stuff the cables behind the uprights against the house.  For those two outliers, they cut a slot in the uprights, fed the cables through, then put a “patch” over the slot they cut.

When the builders finish putting the sheathing up (today, I'm sure), then it's time for me to wire up the patio.  We're putting 13 lights out there, along with several outlets, on two independent circuits.  That's quite a bit of wiring!  Fortunately for me, a good friend (Jimmy B.) and his wife (Michelle) are arriving on Monday for a 10 day stay, and I'm planning to put him to work. :)

Let the destruction begin!

Let the destruction begin!  Our builders finished most of the interior trim work in the sun room and mud room, and started the last major piece of construction left on our three-project marathon: the roof over our new deck.  The first step of that project was to demolish the short little roof that used to be over where the deck is now (they're at work on that in the photo at right).  As I write this, they've finished most of that job.  After lunch they'll finish the little bit that's left, and then start mounting the new trusses.

One surprise for both of us when they pulled the soffits off that section: there are a lot of romex power cables in there!  When they built the house back in '92, instead of running the cables through the studs, as you usually see, they're all run through this funny short roof section.  They're using what would otherwise just be wasted space, so it's actually kind of clever.  However ... that means our builder has a challenge trying to route these cables behind the trusses.  Worst case, if he can't find a way to do it, we'll have to cut every one of those cables, route them through the trusses, and then reconnect them.  That will be a big pain in the butt if we actually have to do it, so we're hoping that we don't!

I'm enjoying the way our builder is totally unfazed by anything unexpected we run into during the construction.  This is probably the tenth such “surprise”, and he just calmly takes them all in stride.  That's a great attribute for someone in his profession! :)

Paradise ponders, explosive barn edition...

Paradise ponders, explosive barn edition...  Well, our first snow is here.  We woke up this morning to three inches of the stuff.  It's already above freezing, so this will melt off quickly.  Still ... winter is here...

I had more excitement than I really wanted yesterday.

The first bit was excitement of the scary kind.  I walked into our barn to get something and nearly passed out from the overwhelming stench of gasoline.  This is the same barn that has a gas-fired boiler for heating.  My first thought was the danger of an explosion, so I ran in and shut off the boiler.  Then I opened every window and the big garage door, and set up fans for ventilation.  No explosions.  Phew!  Then I set out to find the source, which was much harder than I expected it to be.  I only have a few gas-powered things in our barn, and at first blush none of them were leaking.  There's no gas can in the barn.  On my second round of gas-powered tools I looked more carefully – and under my portable generator there was a puddle of gasoline.  That thing has a fuel shut-off valve, so I shut that and trundled it outside to dry out.  Then I used kitty litter to sop up the gasoline on my barn floor.  A few hours later the smell was mostly gone, so I closed the windows and door, and fired up my barn heat again.  I've never before had anything spontaneously develop a leak like that.  I'd be happy to never experience that again!

The second bit of excitement wasn't scary, just a hassle.  The builders sanded our new redwood deck yesterday morning, in preparation for the painters to show up and put a coat of penetrating stain down.  The goal was to get that down before the rain and snow showed up yesterday evening.  Well, the painters called and said they couldn't come out.  Yikes!  Freshly sanded redwood and rain on the way!  Not only that, but we were depending on that coat getting down before the builder started putting up the roof (think dirty boots all over the deck).  So I ran up to the paint store, picked up the last two gallons of the recommended stain that they had, a couple of brushes, and headed back home.  By this time the wind was blowing hard and cold, and it was a bit nasty to work outside.  Our builder took pity on an old man, and assigned a helper to join me in painting that deck out.  It took us a couple of hours, but we got it done while the sun was still shining.  Last night we got that snow, and the photo at left shows what saw when we woke up.  At right is the “after” photo, after I shoveled all that sloppy, wet, white crap off my beautiful deck.

I'm hoping today is just a tad calmer...

Paradise ponders, all trussed up edition...

Paradise ponders, all trussed up edition...  Man, I was busy yesterday!  Since it was the last forecast day of nice weather for a while (and most likely, the last until spring), I spent the day getting ready for winter.  That meant:

• Filling in the trench associated with our new “filling station” (which, it's clear now, won't be finished this fall)
• Removing the backhoe from my tractor, and storing it in the barn
• Attaching the tractor's three-point hitch, and then the ballast box
• Filling the ballast box with gravel (this adds weight low in the back, to counter-balance the heavy snowplow in the front)
• Moving all the tractor attachments into the barn for winter storage
• Attaching the tractor's snowplow to the front
• Picking up and storing the 26 pieces of 3" irrigation pipe (most of them 30' long) that water our lawns
• Draining and coiling the 7 hoses (most of them 75' long) that we use to water the nether regions of our yard, and storing them in our outbuilding
• Picking up and storing our three tripod sprinklers

For some unknown reason I was kinda tired after doing all that! 

Later in the evening, Debbie and I took Cabo for her second puppy class.  She did quite well in class, including being better-behaved around the other dogs (instead of barking all the time, she mostly just whimpered a bit).  I think she just can't stand it when it isn't all about her! :)

There was some progress about the homestead, too.  The tile guys showed up and finished laying the tile in the mud room – beautiful, it is.  We are just amazed at how good these modern “wood-look” tiles look. It's modern technology at work: they start with a photo of an actual piece of wood, then use an ink-jet printer to reproduce that photo in glazes which are then vitrified into the porcelain surface.  These are rapidly improving; in just a couple of years they've gone from two-color printing to four-color printing, greatly improving the result.  Another improvement is the incorporation of some wood grain texture into the surface (even when it doesn't match the printing, it still adds realism – our perception is tricked into thinking it's actually wood).  The tile guys will be back on Friday (after the tiles they were short on come in) to finish the sun room tile, grout the mud room, and repair the kitchen tiles where the door installers broke some.  Then they'll be back on Monday to finish up the grouting in the sun room and kitchen, and they'll be done.

Our construction crew showed up for part of the day, and they finished putting down the redwood deck and fascia.  They used a lot of screws!  Each deck plank crosses about 20 joists, and there are two screws in each of them.  I didn't count the planks, but there are about 50 of them.  That makes around 2,000 screws!  While they were working, a truck drove up from the lumber company with the trusses for the roof over the deck (at right).  These were already several weeks late, and we didn't know when they'd get here.  This is very good news; it means the builders now have nothing to stop them from finishing that roof!

The painters showed up to evaluate our job and estimate it.  We ended up agreeing to do a time-and-materials job, as it would probably be almost as much work to estimate as to actually do it. :)  That's because we have a bunch of little things to do, and nothing big.  We were very pleasantly surprised to find out that (a) they could come today to put a coat of preservative on our redwood deck, and (b) they can start on the rest of it next week.  Woo hoo!

Finally, the guy we ordered our doors through showed up to take care of all the little problems we found with the doors.  Three of the four doors had issues, and only one of them was something I could fix.  The rest had assembly issues or missing hardware or missing screens.  This fellow made a good list of all the issues, and promised that he'd have them all fixed within a few days.  That would sure be nice!

Things that slightly loony people wonder about...

Things that slightly loony people wonder about...  I play a lot of Scrabble, both against other people and against the computer.  On an average day, I probably play ten or so games.  I often find myself in situations where I'd like to make a word – usually a fairly short word – but none of my letters will make a word I know.  So I'll just try random letters, checking against the game's dictionary, to see if any combinations will work.  Occasionally they do, but far less often than I expect. :)

So I got to wondering: just what fraction of the possible combinations of letters actually form English words?  I know it's a small fraction, but just how small is it?  I found a source that listed the number of English words of various lengths (the first two columns below), then whipped up a little spreadsheet to do the math:

The “possible words” column is just 26 (the number of English characters) to the power of the word length.  That's the number of possible combinations of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.  This is actually a bit overstated, as in Scrabble you can't possibly have a three letter word that's all Qs, as the game only has one Q.  Correcting for this was more work than I was willing to put into this exercise. :)  The ratio possible:actual is simply the third column divided by the second.  It shows you (for example) that for four letter words, just 1 combination out of 151 possible is actually a word.  Sounds like terrible odds, doesn't it?  But then look at longer words, and the odds get far, far worse.  By the time you get to eight character words, you've got just one chance in 12 million.  And twelve character words (where I stopped), just one chance in 10 trillion.  Yikes!  This tells me that for words longer than four or five characters, random attempts are just about into crazy territory...

Paradise ponders, supermoon edition...

Paradise ponders, supermoon edition...  On Sunday evening and Monday morning, we had mostly cloud cover, so we didn't get to experience the supermoon first-hand.  Last night and this morning, though, was a completely different story.  Our skies were clear, and the supermoon still appeared to be completely full.  This morning was especially clear, and when I walked the dogs around 5 am the brightness was startling.  I could easily see colors: the red, white, and blue of our American flag stood out, as did the yellow of our Gadsden flag.  Even at a distance, our blue spruce were, well, blue.  The dogs didn't care, though – their little sniffers were plastered to the ground, following all the deer tracks with great excitement. :)

Our tile guys took three steps forward yesterday, but two backward.  As you can see in the photos, they did get quite a bit of tile put down.  The first step backward was a materials problem: they ran out of the blocks of four small squares that are the centers of the pinwheel pattern in the sun room.  They're on order, but won't be in until Friday.  The second step backward was a mistake in the mud room.  It doesn't show in any of the photos, but one entire row of the herringbone pattern was oriented 90° off.  Adrian (the boss of the crew) noticed it was he was helping Jose (the fellow who laid most of the mud room tile) with some cuts.  They called me over to see if I'd accept it the way it was, and I said “no”.  Jose was very embarrassed. :)  Adrian agreed with me that it should be redone, and they spent about an hour peeling up the incorrectly laid tiles (thankfully the mastic had not yet cured!).  Adrian is the cheerful fellow in the last photo, and he looked like that most of the time – that smile is nearly permanently plastered to his face.  Jose is the guy in the next-to-last photo.

Our construction guys showed up late in the afternoon, and stayed for just a couple hours.  They got more redwood laid down, but not nearly the progress we were expecting.  All my attempts to communicate with Jim J. (the boss) failed; I'm guessing that he was in dental surgery yesterday.

Our fencing guys showed up for a couple hours and made some more progress.  It looks to me like they've got two or three more afternoons of work to do, maybe even more – and the weather (see below) will likely stretch that out for a while.

I spent yesterday working indoors, on some finishing work inside our house.  I caulked the interior side of our new kitchen door (leading onto the hypothetical deck), and then masked about half the inside glass off for painting.  That was all quite tedious work.  More fun was what I did in our bedroom.  When the new door was installed in there, there was a gap left between the wood flooring of the bedroom and the aluminum threshold of the door.  Unfortunately this gap was irregularly shaped, about 48" long but varying in width from 1/2" to 1".  Worse, the depth of the gap was weird: about 9/16".   I had a piece of walnut in my shop big enough to fill the gap, but it would require quite a bit of milling to make it the right shape.  With some careful measurement and layout work, I was able to scribe 7 lines on the walnut that approximated the shape I needed, and then some freehand table saw work got that right.  Then I used my planer to get the thickness right.  When I plopped it into place it fit like a glove!  All I needed then was some Watco and glue, and presto! we had a hole-less threshold.  Now I need some caulk of the right color (just ordered) and the job will be complete.  Nobody looking at that would have any idea how complicated it was to put that in!

Today is the last day of nice weather in the forecast, and therefore most likely the last day before winter sets in hard.  Tomorrow we've got rain and snow in store.  That means I have to scramble today to get prepared for the winter: putting tractor accessories in the barn, picking up hoses and sprinklers, preparing the snowplow, etc.  I expect to be busy all day on that sort of thing, and tired this evening when we go to puppy class.

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Just finished a marathon paperwork session.  This sort of thing takes way more time than I'd like it too – but short of hiring myself a private secretary, I don't know how to make it just go away.  Given the number of mistakes I've caught in the past few years while reconciling credit card bills, there's no way I'm going to just ignore it all!  Oh, well...

We're expecting tile installers, redwood deck builders, and fencing people today.  Nobody's here yet, dang it.

We had something very nice happen last night, a simple little thing that's a great example of what we love about living here.  A week or so ago, we mentioned to Michelle H. (our friend and house cleaner) that we could use some help getting the rug in Debbie's office flat.  The challenge for it is several pieces of (very) heavy furniture had to be lifted to be able to move and stretch the rug.  Michelle and I, with the aid of a big piece of lumber as a lever and a hi-lift jack, were able to get most of it.  The rest, though, needed some muscle.  Well, last night Michelle texted us that she had a crew ready to come help.  A veritable horde showed up, including seven (!) well-muscled strapping lads – her sons and sons-in-law.  In five minutes we had the whole job done.  The entire time we were entertained by the smiling, laughing, and just plain happy family of Michelle.  Good mom, she is.  She's rightfully proud of the family she's raised, and we're grateful and privileged to know them.  This area is fertile ground for that sort of old-fashioned, solidly American family.  It's a very comfortable place for these two old farts to be...

We did indeed have our feast yesterday, prime ribeyes and baked potatoes.  Yum!  Miki and Race were very appreciative of the fat-eating and plate-licking opportunity thus provided, too.  Race closed his eyes and groaned in appreciation as he cleaned my plate. :)

Today I wired the final payment for our Tesla Model X.  They're consistently telling me “Early December” now.  Given their past schedule estimates, that likely means late April next year, but I remain at least slightly hopeful that I'll see the car this year.

Macey's put turkeys on sale at a most attractive price, so Debbie and I are going to go grab us some for our freezer.  The rest of the day I plan to be masking and painting our kitchen doors, on the interior side...