Paradise ponders, cont'd...

Paradise ponders, cont'd... Abby and I have finished her lesson for this week, and Debbie and I have been on a little shopping expedition (getting supplies for our road trip tomorrow). Here's the promised updates!

Yesterday's work out in the shed resulted in the interior “box” at right, on the bottom side of the top piece of the top side of the plenum I'm building (got that?).  Unseen in the photo are all the other pieces of 2x3 and OSB that I've cut to build the rest of the top.  A little bit of nailing and that will be finished.  Then all that remains for the plenum are the rails to hold the filter (also already cut) and the front cover.  After that's all finished I'll be wiring up the blower and testing it.

This morning was completely overcast, which makes for nice diffuse lighting for flower photography and saturated low-contrast landscapes, both interesting photographic effects.  So I wandered around our yard for a bit taking photos of springtime.  This was right after I filled all our bird feeders, and spotted a male Bullock's Oriole feeding at the feeder containing nuts and dried fruit.  Some samples:

Debbie and I are going to watch a movie (on Blu-Ray) this afternoon: Iron Man 3.  This will shock some people who know me :)  Even more shocking – we've already watched (and enjoyed) Iron Man and Iron Man 2.  These movies have no memorable characters, little real drama, implausible plots and technology, a bit of slapstick humor, tons of action, some pretty girls, and lots and lots of shoot-'em-up action that somehow all blends together into a somewhat mindless but very entertaining package.  Somehow that's just what we've needed the past few days... 

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Well, yesterday was an awful day for us – but all the calls, emails, comments here, Facebook posts, etc. about Mo'i that we got from our family and friends really did help.  We don't have the words to tell you how much they were appreciated.  Our vet from Jamul remembered how Mo'i was won over by her dog biscuit jars.  My mom remembered my dad talking about Mo'i as a fellow food-loving friend.  Our vet here remembered how even-tempered and unflappable Mo'i was.  Everybody remembered him as a sweet example of man's best friend.  We remember all of those things and more.

Tomorrow we're headed out on a day trip that should be almost the exact opposite of yesterday's experience with Mo'i – we're driving to Wells, Nevada (yes, on purpose!) to spend a couple of hours with a five week old litter of field spaniel puppies – one or two of which are destined to join our home in about four weeks.  This is a litter raised by the same breeder (Sheila Miller) who raised and selected Lea, Mo'i, and Miki for us.  She's going to try to pick the most likely agility star out of the litter, which is what she did with Miki and she hit a home run on that one.  Sitting amongst those little puppies will be good medicine, I think...

Yesterday morning, before we went to the vet's with Mo'i, I did some work out in the shed on the heating system, and I actually got quite a bit done.  I'll be posting about that later (I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, as my student, Abby S., is due here shortly).  After we got back from the vet's, Debbie and I both needed to do something to get through our grief for Mo'i. 

I went out and mowed the yard for the first time this season, and that turned out to have the perfect amount of thinking required: just enough to keep my mind on the task, not so much that my emotional state rendered me incapable of doing it.  After three hours of mowing I was slightly more functional. 

Debbie took a different tack: she went around the house and removed all the things particular to Mo'i.  That was a surprising amount of stuff.  Mo'i had a set of paraphernalia related to diapers, for instance: diaper holders, the diapers themselves, and a special box to hold all that stuff.  Then there were his medicines, five of them, occupying a corner of our kitchen.  He had his own special food to treat his kidney condition.  We had an ever-present spray bottle of Pine-Sol mix and a loose roll of paper towels, standing by to clean up Mo'i messes.  Then there were a couple of extra dog beds, the kind with very soft mattresses, to give him some comfort this past year.  All of these things were very visible reminders of Mo'i, and Debbie took care of them all.  The medicines and food are going to the vet, our donation to help other families whose pets need these things, but which they can't afford.  Two of the dog beds got re-purposed into “upstairs” beds for Miki and Race (which they used while we watched a movie last night).  Everything else was tossed or put away.  Debbie felt a little better after doing all that.

While filling the bird feeders yesterday, I noticed that we had some yellow tulips popping up, along with more daffodils.  I cut a few stems of them, and Debbie put them in some old pretty bottles she'd saved, making each bottle into a single-stem vase.  They add a bit of cheer to our kitchen right now.

More later.  Now I need to go prepare for the arrival of Abby S.!

Mo'i, RIP...

Mo'i, RIP...  We took Mo'i into the vet this morning.  Andrea Russell, one of the two vets at Blacksmith Fork Veterinary Clinic, answered the phone when Debbie called.  After talking it over with Debbie, she invited us to come right down, which we did.  Andrea took care of the euthanization quickly and painlessly, and we were there with Mo'i at the end.

Now we both feel like someone kicked us in the heart.  We're so sad to have had to say good-bye our great friend, yet relieved that he's not suffering any more.  We're also relieved that he made the decision about when relatively easy for us; it hasn't always been so with our animals.

Blogging will be light-to-nonexistant today...

Mo'i update...

Mo'i update...  Around 3:30 this morning, Debbie woke me up, saying that she'd heard an odd “dog noise” out in the kitchen – as though Mo'i were trying to bark.  I got up and went out, and sure enough Mo'i was trying to bark.  The poor guy was so weak that all he could produce was a pathetic mix between a moan and a bark.  He was lying on the floor (instead of on his bed), and couldn't get his legs under him.  That's a fast decline from even last night.

I picked him up and laid him out on his bed.  He looked frightened and confused, probably not understanding why he couldn't get himself up.  After we comforted him for a bit he looked a little better.  We tried to get some water into him, but he wasn't at all interested.  Debbie and I laid down next to him and petted him until he fell back asleep.  It was good to see that fear disappear from his eyes, and his breathing return to normal.

We're going to see if we can get an earlier appointment at the vet.  It looks to us like Mo'i is doing the best he can to tell us that he's done and ready to go...

Paradise ponders, even more...

Paradise ponders, even more...  Mo'i is still steadily declining; he's getting weaker by the hour.  He's gone from drinking 50 times a day to just once or twice, and from eating just about anything you throw at him to only being interested in a little bit of fatty raw hamburger.  If you know Mo'i at all, then you know this absence of appetite is a powerful indicator that he is hurting badly.  The one and only time this has happened before was over three years ago when he got “bloat” and we almost lost him.  The outcome isn't so likely to be good this time.  We have an appointment for him tomorrow evening with our vet, and I'm afraid there's a good chance he won't be coming home with us ever again.  As you might imagine, Debbie and I have been spending quite a bit of time with him...

Around noon today I went over to Tim D.'s house to spray his lawn.  I also sprayed part of his horse pasture (at his request), because there were a few million dandelions established there.

Later I worked a bit more on the insulated plenum.  I fabricated a piece of OSB for the top outside piece, and mounted the duct connector into it.  I used my scroll saw to cut that circle, and it went through that OSB like butter.  I also built a square box of 2x3s around the side you see in that first photo; that will allow air to enter the duct from a square hole on the inside piece.  For Eric S., who asked what I use for a straightedge: in that second photo you can see what it looks like right after I cut off a 16" wide piece.  The straightedge is a milled piece of walnut :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Well, our goose has been off the nest for over 24 hours now.  So far there are just the two goslings in evidence.  Either she had the world's smallest clutch of eggs, or something got the rest of her goslings.  Dang.

The next step on my office heating system is to build an insulated plenum with a filter holder.  This is where the warm air from the first floor will go first, basically into a big box with a filter in the middle, then after being filtered into an insulated 7" diameter duct.  I'm building this plenum against an insulated wall, and on top of an insulated floor, so that means I have four insulated walls to build to make a fully enclosed box.  I started with the two sides, which are now finished.  You can see it in various stages of construction in the photos below, which are in order left-to-right.

Having the right tools to do this with really makes this sort of thing easy to do.  The only addition I can think of that would have made it any easier would be a panel saw (for cutting 8' x 4' sheets of things like the OSB I used here).  Good panel saws are expensive, though, and my need (I think!) will be infrequent – so for now, at least, I'm sticking with a straightedge and a steady hand on the circular saw. 

I started by installing the two partially finished walls in the right place.  I left one side off so that I could nail the 1x3 frames into the existing wall and floor.  The nail gun with 2" nails worked very well for this!  Then I nailed the final sides on, and (last photo) stuffed them with blow-in insulation (which I just fluffed by hand and stuffed in).

That insulation was slightly mysterious.  The marketing folks have “green” in every possible place they could on the package, and even in green ink.  They really, really want you to know that it's recycled (up to 85%!), itch-free (not like that nasty fiberglass stuff!), and safe.  What they don't tell you is that it's full of dust that will make you sneeze non-stop, your eyes will tear up, and you'll need to blow your nose approximately 10 times per minute.  They also don't bother mentioning what the stuff actually is made of.  This leads me to believe that they're not very proud of the ingredients, whatever they might be.  That rules out my favorite possibility: dehydrated, shredded politicians.  If that's what it was made of, you can be sure they'd be bragging about that!

Paradise ponders, take three...

Paradise ponders, take three...  So much happening today!  After our goose adventures (I was right - those baby birds have been identified as Canadian goose goslings), I went back out in the barn and finished up all the work on the first floor.  The mounting plate is now complete, the fan is attached, and the fan is wired up.  That's it at right, in place and ready to go. 

After I finished with that, I went to work spraying (for dandelions and other broad-leaf weeds).  Given that the dandelions in our front yard look like cabbages ready for harvest, it's about time!  But this is really the first day that weather allowed it.  I first did the (about) 3.5 acres of our yard, including the acre or so on the highway side of the irrigation canal.  Then I went over to our neighbor Alan L.'s house and did his (about) 2 acres.  This was after eating a “Debbie special” pasta lunch that nearly put me in a carb coma.  My sprayer is towed behind my ATV, so I had four hours worth of shaking and vibrating to help settle that lunch :)

Then after I knocked off for the day, our neighbors to the east of us (Gary and Elaine S.) called us to ask if we'd seen any goslings!  It seems that the pair that's been nesting in a tree near our house showed up at their pond, with just two goslings.  When I told them about the four that I'd captured, much excitement ensued until we figured out that the ones I caught were a lot older than the two they saw – the ones in their pond had pretty clearly just hatched, whereas the ones I captured were around two weeks old.  There really should be more than two of the little goslings, though, so we're all afraid something happened to the others on the way to Gary and Elaine's pond.  Their pond is over a quarter mile and across a highway from the nest – how the mom got even those two goslings over there is a mystery to us.  All the more so given that both Gary and I were in our yards working all day – it's hard to believe we'd miss the gosling procession!

Now Debbie and I are about to go deliver a lemon pie to Tim and Jeannie D.  Debbie baked two of them today, one for us (now almost gone, because Gary and Elaine had a piece :)  and one for Tim and Jeannie...

Paradise ponders, cont'd...

Paradise ponders, cont'd...  So just a little while ago I was walking from our shed to our house, talking with my mom on the phone, when I spotted this little thing at right.  It's either a duckling or a gosling; from the size alone I'm going to say gosling (he stands about 8" high).  I searched around but couldn't find any more babies, nor could I see (or hear) any parental units that might be missing a baby.  Next thing I know this little guy heads for our back yard – where Race and Miki waited for him, slavering with anticipation.  That did it for me: I scooped the little feller up and called Debbie for some help.  We got him in a box with a towel and some water, and contemplated what we should do next.

Debbie had the brilliant idea of calling Michelle H., who we knew had a bunch of animal-loving kids, and who had a lot of bird care experience (she and her family have raised chickens, ducks, geese, and emus).  She eagerly accepted our offer of a duckling, and headed over to our place to pick it up.  When she arrived, we were standing at our doorway talking when Michelle drew in her breath and said “Look!  Two more!”  I ran out and captured them, and then we all undertook a thorough search.  I found a fourth one in our canal, just north of our property line.  That one took some doing to capture, and he was squawking like mad when I finally got him.  If there were any parental units around, that racket would have brought them running.  These four (and hopefully no more) were orphaned somehow.  Michelle took them all, and told us she was going to put them in with the emu eggs they're currently incubating – and then tell her kids these are baby emus.  She wants to see how long it will take them to figure it out :)

I neglected to mention earlier that we had gone to Jack's yesterday afternoon.  As usual, we had wonderful meal – fire-roasted tomato soup (wonderful stuff, that is!) and I had a “Cache” pizza (at right; roasted chicken, mushrooms, lots of mozzarella, spinach, onions, and a lovely white sauce.  Afterwards we went up to Aggie's creamery and had a decadent ice cream cone.  Stuffed, we went for a drive up Logan Canyon, taking the first right to explore something new for us.  We saw no wildlife other than a brief glimpse of an American Dipper, but I did see bazillions of plants that look like they're going to be wildflowers.  Several hillsides we drove by were quite densely covered.  I'll be out there again in a couple of weeks to check that out!

Before I got on the phone with my mom, I completed the next step in the heating system: installing the wooden tube and it's yoke on the second floor.  In the first photo you can see it in the hole, where it nestled perfectly in the mounting plate installed below it.  In the second photo you can see the yoke I built around it, so that I could nail it to the floor while covering that 1/2" gap I'd cut.  I used the nail gun (the yellow-and-black tool in the second photo) to do all the nailing.  This is the first non-trivial nailing that I've done with it.  The 2" nails I used to hold the yoke to the floor were effortless to drive, and wonderfully accurate.  There was the additional benefit of not hitting my thumb with a hammer :)  I used 1" nails driven at an angle to attach the tube to the yoke, and that also went very easily.  I think I'm gonna get attached to my nail gun!

Early this morning I went to Lowe's to pick up a few supplies for this part of the heating system construction.  While I was loading my truck with the stuff I'd bought, I noticed a big, healthy-looking black Labrador Retriever running around the parking lot, whining as if in distress.  He looked like he was searching for something; his owner, I imagined.  I called to him and he came right over to me, let me hold him by the collar.  He had a tag with his name (“Buddy”) and a telephone number, so I called it – but it was disconnected.  Dang!  So I walked inside the store (I was the only customer at that hour) and hailed the first employee I saw, a young woman.  I told her what had happened, and she went into action immediately – grabbed a rope to tie him up with and told me all the steps she was going to take.  First call would be to the shelter, where they'd have him checked for a microchip.  If that didn't work, the shelter would put him up while they searched for the owner.  Lowe's would put up a sign.  All of this was part of their new employee training, the woman told me.  Kudos to Lowe's – that's a really wonderful way to handle this sort of problem, and even better to train all their employees to do so.  I left feeling pretty good about Buddy's prospects...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  We're worried about Mo'i this morning.  He's our 17 year old field spaniel, and he's been in a slow decline for a couple of years now.  Until yesterday afternoon, he's needed diapers and frequent cleanups of “accidents”, but otherwise he's given every indication of still enjoying his life.  He's been able to walk around, to go outside and enjoy the yard, etc.  Most especially, he's enjoyed eating – that's always been Mo'i's main pleasure.  Yesterday afternoon we saw that he was having trouble standing and walking, even with good traction out in our yard (our kitchen is trickier because of the slippery tile floor).  This morning he looked even sadder.  We're going to get him into the vet to make sure there's nothing fixable, but ... we suspect we're near the end of the time we can keep him comfortable and happy.  We expected this day to come a couple years ago, so he's had more of a good life than we ever expected – but somehow that still doesn't make the day of reckoning (or the anticipation of it) any easier...

Yesterday was a busy day around here.  In the morning I took the next few steps on getting the heating installed for my new office in the shed.  The first challenge was to cut a rectangular hole in the floor of the second floor that exactly matched a rectangular hole I'd already cut in the ceiling of the first floor (got that?).  It took me a while to come up with a solution, but here's what I did.  I took a long “jobber bit” for my drill and put the shaft in one corner of the hole in the first floor ceiling, aiming straight up.  Then I used a torpedo level to get the shaft precisely vertical – and then drilled the hole.  That's the hole you see at the upper right in the first photo below.  From there I measured out a rectangle 1/2" larger in every direction than the one below.  After that I used my oscillating saw to cut out the floor, and when I pulled out the piece I cut – there was my other hole, right where it should be (third photo)!  Success!

That oscillating saw is right up there on my personal list of the greatest inventions in the history of the world – in the same company as chocolate ice cream, willing women, dogs, wildflowers, assembly language, and tractors.

The next step was to build a “tunnel” to conduct the air from the first floor to the second floor (being pushed by a blower that will be mounted on the ceiling of the first floor).  I made this with four pieces of OSB simply glued up.  You can see it in clamps below.  The soft mallet visible in the second photo is what I used to “bonk” the pieces into the right place once I had the clamps tight.  Force, applied carefully, does wonders for woodworking.  And management :)

Around 1 pm my brother Scott dropped in, and we spent the afternoon spreading some wood chip mulch around.  This is the first time I've used the wood chips that I made with the Wallenstein chipper/shredder I bought almost two years ago.  They looked very nice to me, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could easily move them with a shovel.  Scott told me that it was the nicest wood chip mulch he's ever seen – but he tends to the hyperbolic in both his praise and his scorn, so I'm not too sure how much to read into that :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  This time, with photos :)

My brother Scott and I spent a good part of yesterday planting sumac on the north and west sides of my barn (the result is in the photo at right).  These are just barely starting to bud, but hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll have lots of green around the barn, the weeds will be at least slightly suppressed, and they'll start spreading.  These have a beautiful red fall color, too.  Scott's coming over again today, and we'll put down a bit of fertilizer and then some wood chips as mulch.

Yesterday evening we helped my neighbor Alan L. move some trees: a couple of maple saplings, and several clumps of choke cherries.  We're going to finish that job by moving the last of the choke cherries on Saturday.

The little Husqvarna rototiller that I used to break up the dirt for the sumacs is at left.  Aside from breaking a shear pin, it worked without any problems for the entire job.  One thing surprised me in a pleasant way: the last time I had used it was in June of 2014 – close to two years ago.  It had been in our garage ever since.  Yesterday it started on the second pull of the rope.  Love those Honda engines!  It's sitting outside now until the mud dries completely – then I can chisel all that mud off and put it back in the garage.

Our yard is starting to get some flowers, and color!  Spring is springing!  From left to right: a flowering plum (I think) near our garage, daffodils out in our “garden”, periwinkles right next to the daffodils, some pretty new growth that I have no clue what it is, and something we have a lot of around the front of our house that my brother Scott tells me is spurge.  From that linked article you can see that Euphorbia comes in lots of flavors, some of which look nothing whatsoever like the stuff in our yard – but some of them, if you drank enough, might have some resemblance...

Prayers in Paradise...

Prayers in Paradise...  My friend and neighbor Tim D. was out in his field this morning, scratching up and reseeding areas where there was no alfalfa.  He told me he was also offering up a prayer for the alfalfa to grow.  He's envious of my field (which abuts his); for reasons neither of us understand the alfalfa is much more vigorous there.  His little dogs (Lexy, the white one, and Marley, the brown and black one) accompanied him all morning.  Most of the time his cat Trouble did as well...

Paradise reservoir...

Paradise reservoir ... is full, as expected given the recent rains and its already high level.  Debbie and I wandered up that way yesterday afternoon, looking in vain for some interesting wildlife.  The reservoir's overflow is impressively voluminous, and right now isn't being diverted for irrigation at all.  That means the entire overflow is going straight into the Little Bear River.  The lower reaches of Cinnamon Creek (the major feeder to Porcupine Reservoir, and the place where its overflow goes) are near flood stage just from this overflow. 

We're going to have plenty of water this year!

Mom-goose in Paradise...

Mom-goose in Paradise...  For those who wrote to ask about her: yup, she's still faithfully sitting on the nest.  We often see the male in the alfalfa field below her and to the west.  He's pretty good at guarding against smaller predators (especially cats), and at leading larger ones (like me!) away from the nest.

Lupper-time in Paradise...

Lupper-time in Paradise...  Our ready-to-eat lupper is at right.  I managed (though just barely) to eat everything on my plate; Debbie had some leftovers.  After we had finished, all three dogs had a chance to share in the feast: they got to lick the plates.  They were not offended by this in the slightest :)

From the left, that's Mo'i, Miki, and Race.  They each have a different plate-licking style.  Mo'i is methodical: slow, steady licking in the same spot until every molecule of goodness is gone.  Miki is the mad sprinter: he licks at turbo speed, in every direction, jumping all over the place.  He also growls at the other two while not missing a lick.  Race is fast and methodical.  He goes cross-eyed when he hits something tasty :)

Earlier, when we were preparing this feast, the dogs were particularly attentive to us.   They know that something good might slip from our grasp at any moment – and when it does, the probability of it hitting the ground is vanishingly small.  The photo of Race at right shows the typical concentration that all three dogs show during any activity involving food in the kitchen...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  This morning's tutoring session with Abby S. went very well indeed.  She is absorbing this material like a sponge, at a very rapid pace.  Debbie, observing the two of us working, was struck by just how eager and excited she looks.  Whatever the reason, Miss Abby is intensely interested in learning to program.  It's fun to be the teacher when you have a pupil who so badly wants to learn...

Debbie and I took a walk this morning after Abby and I were done, as the weather was fine (though a tad chilly) and the views beautiful.  Debbie's walking gait is now oh-so-close to appearing normal, both uphill (easier for her) and downhill.  It's a big relief to me to see that.  At the moment her need is more for strength and endurance than anything else.  Regular walks will help with that.

The photo at right above is the view from the fields above our home toward Logan Peak (map), a roughly 9700' high peak in the Wellsville Mountains.  The panoramas below were taken along our walk; each of them is about a 225° view (and the road is a straight road!).  The dark area in the top panorama is caused by a cloud shadow over us.

The goose is still in the tree, still sitting on her eggs.  We frequently see her mate below her in the field, standing guard and leading potential predators away from her.

We had something happen in our yard yesterday that seems really odd.  Mo'i, our ancient field spaniel, was wandering around our back yard (he loves that back yard!).  After he'd been out there for a while, a spectacular male pheasant wandered from our front yard, through the fence, and into the back yard – with Mo'i.  I poked my head out our back door to see what would happen.  Mo'i picked up on the pheasant's presence in just a minute or two, and started ambling over toward the pheasant.  That's Mo'i's highest speed today, about like a slow walk for a person.  The pheasant clearly saw Mo'i approaching – but did nothing.  It just stood there in one place while Mo'i walked over to it.  I thought for sure that was the end of the pheasant – Mo'i is a bird dog, after all.  Instead of lunging for the pheasant, though, Mo'i just went up do it, snuffled it, turned around and walked off.  And the pheasant still just stood there.  Very weird!

“Lupper” underway...

“Lupper” underway...  We eat a late lunch or early dinner most days, generally around 2 or 3 pm; we call this “lupper”.  This is a two-meals-in-one sort of thing for us; we usually just eat a light breakfast and lupper.  We just got done the preparations for one of my favorite meals: baked salmon in a sauce of mayonnaise, dill, and Peppadew peppers, accompanied by roast vegetables (today we're having Brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes).  Below are the two dishes just before going into the oven.  When they come out, our lupper will commence!

Optometry is a really weird business...

Optometry is a really weird business...  Some of my readers know that I was once part of that business – not as an optometrist myself, but as a software provider for them.  Veronique de Rugy has an (characteristically) excellent piece at Reason.

One weirdness she doesn't mention, as it wasn't relevant to her point, is that optometrists routinely under-price or even give away their exam services.  This is unlike any other medical provider that I know of.  It's as if all their training, experience, and specialized equipment was worth almost nothing.  Why?  Because their business model typically depends on giving away their services in order to attract customers for the “dispensing” side of their business: selling glasses and contact lenses.  This makes them particularly sensitive to competition from discount sources for glasses and contacts, of course.

The solution would seem to be obvious: the optometrists should start charging a fair price for their services, and stop selling glasses and contacts at high markups.  The problem is that many optometrists have tried exactly that – and failed miserably.  Why?  Because not all optometrists (even in a particular area) have switched models, and as long as there's even a single optometrist offering discount (or free) exams, that's of course where patients will go.  Then they'll buy their glasses and contacts from a discount source.

As de Rugy points out, this is difficult today for contacts.  It's not difficult at all for glasses, though: there are about 50 sources for discounted glasses on the Internet.  I've used two of them myself.  The glasses I got certainly aren't the best ones I've ever purchased – but – they are both properly constructed, the prescription was accurate, and they work fine.  And they cost about a tenth of what I'd pay for the equivalent glasses at an optometrist ($76 vs. $850 for my last pair).  They're made in China (of course!), and took about a week to get here.  That's not really much different than the optometrist!  I had occasion to use one of those glasses (which I purchased as spares) a few weeks ago when I had to get my prescription re-done for the glasses I purchased from an optometrist (as that pair had been mis-manufactured).  The cheap spare worked fine...

I'm an irrelevant clown...

I'm an irrelevant clown ... and projected to be a meat processor at Trump Steaks.  The Trump Score, via friend and former colleague Simon M...

Two reset buttons...

Two reset buttons...  Remy, on it again :)

More snow in Paradise...

More snow in Paradise...  We got even more snow last night; it just stopped a few minutes ago.  The radar looks fairly clear at the moment, so maybe this is finally over.  Looks like our storm total is just under 1" (including the snow equivalent)...