On September 8, 2007 · Comments Off
It’s Monarch season. No, not the dreaded form of government, but those butterflies that manage to migrate from the north east to Mexico every year. Because Susan has both milkweed and butterfly bushes in or garden, we’ve managed to attract a few this year, including one that is currently pupating.
And that left me with a question. I saw the caterpillar hanging from under the leaf when I went to work on Friday, and I saw the pupa when I got home, and the pupa is smaller. After a bit of searching on the internet I found a video which actually shows that transformation in time lapse, and it is definitely weird. I might have to rig up something to get my own time lapse of them next year.
On July 15, 2007 · Comments Off
For the past six months, Verizon has been spending a lot of time in our neighborhood. I was as likely to spot little tented trucks with big spools of cable spilling out, as deer on my way to work. Every day this last week there were Verizon trucks working on poles. And, as I suspected, it was because they were bringing in fiber.
Yesterday morning the Fios Internet flier went up on every mailbox in the neighborhood. The offer for our area is the enhanced deal, so 10 Mbs down / 2 Mbs up for the lowest level of service, and 20 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up for the next level. Given how often the cable modem falls over, and how while they increased the downstream recently, they decreased the upstream, which is annoying for things like NX sessions to work, photo uploads, and a host of other bits.
I’m still trying to figure out what the phone quality is like, before I make the plunge, but I’ll probably look at switching some time this summer.
On July 5, 2007 · Comments Off
Things you’d rather not hear your wife say first thing in the morning:
We don’t have any water in the house. None of the faucets work.
2 hours later, we have a new well pump, and we have water again, as the old one was burnt out. Not cheap, but given all the other issues that it might have been, at least it was relatively quick and straightforward to fix.
On May 19, 2007 · Comments Off
Man, it’s amazing what you can find on youtube now adays.
The production quality isn’t great, and the script wanders a bit, but overall not bad.
Update: Seems that the embed gets lost in many readers. The direct link is here.
On May 9, 2007 · Comments Off
We finished the deck last night, by doing the last 16 ballisters for the stair way. It’s an odd sense of both accomplishment and loss at the same time. Since sometime in February I’ve been focussed on the deck as a project. I had to come up with a plan, and make sure that plan was executed smoothly, especially as I had family come in from out of town to help out on it, and didn’t want to waste their time. Part of my brain has been devoted to the deck for the last 3 months, always making sure the next part of it was lined up to go. Now, it’s done, and I need to call the inspector today to come out and clear it.
But at the same time, building something like that from nothing has been very satifying, and I think I’ll miss not building every weekend. Most of the time I’m building virtual widgets, so producing a physical widget from time to time is quite a nice change of pace. I’ve got a set of corner shelves, and a potting bench for Susan that I need to build this summer, both of which will be fun, but not quite on the same scale.
Anyway, for now, I can have a lot of fun relaxing on the deck, before the bugs show up (a couple more weeks). I can also feel very accomplished for having a big summer project done before the summer even officially starts. 
On May 7, 2007 · Comments Off
I realize that I’ve been rather silent about the deck since before concrete pouring weekend. The deck is nearly done, with only 16 ballisters left on the stairs to go. That will hopefully be completed on Tuesday night, so I can get our inspection scheduled RSN. I’ve got a bunch of pictures from various stages of building, though I’m going to wait until after our memorial day party to put them up, as I’d rather let people see it in person for the first time, instead of by pictures.
I will have to say the deck project has gotten me to buy a couple of really awesome new tools. The first of which is a hammer drill, with which I can put a 3/4 inch hole, 6 inches deep in our cinder blocks in about 10 seconds. Just awesome. I also now have a proper cutting table for my mitre saw, which gives me 3 1/2 foot extenders on either side with rollers and guides.
On April 12, 2007 · Comments Off
More pictures of the ongoing deck project at my web album.
On April 6, 2007 · Comments Off
The Building Inspector came yesterday, and signed off on the holes we dug. He was quick to notice that we hit rock, so the depth of the holes isn’t an issue… yay!
While we probably didn’t have to go quite so crazy in digging through as much rock as we did, I’m sort of glad we did. Now I know this deck is never going to move, as it will be build on concrete pillars, that are surrounded by rock.
The inspection happening this week keeps us on schedule for the rest of the project (actually a little ahead of schedule, but we won’t be accelerating anything). In 8 days we pour concrete (with my Dad coming down to help), and 2 weeks after that Big Construction Weekend, where we’ll go from footings to deck in a weekend. Lots of family coming in to town for that one.
On April 4, 2007 · Comments Off
The Deck Project marches on. Last weekend I managed to round up a few trusty friends (Jay, Mike, Pyg), and dig the 4 holes required to pour concrete footings for the deck.
Town of LaGrange code calls for 42″ holes, to prevent footings from shifting under frost heaves. Now, as we found out later, digging 42″ down through dirt is about a 2 hr task for 2 guys to do, swapping off. However, my house is built on a hill. And that hill is there because of giant rocks. Not just boulders, but giant, span across your property, rock. One of the houses on the way up to ours is actually built into the rock. They have no dirt in their yard at all, just an acre of rock.
We’re a little better off. There is just enough dirt on our rock so that trees can grow, and you can plant shallow gardens. Depending on where you dig in our yard, sometimes you get a couple feet of dirt, sometimes just a few inches.
Of course, all of this was learned in gory detail this weekend. The first hole we dug, we managed to hit rock 6 inches down, but decided we could get through it with my 6 foot bar. 7 hours later, with 3 people working on it, we had gotten to 35″ and the hole was no longer moving downwards at all. The second hole was started about 1/2 way through that process, which we got about 24″ before there was no movement. Just before we were going to give up for the day, Pyg showed up, and we got to try out the auger on holes 3 and 4, which had a chance for having dirt in them. Hole 3 got 8″, then stalled the auger. Hole 4 got 24″ before it stalled it out. We then declared it a Saturday, and let our bones rest over night.
On Sunday after noon we managed to get through Hole 4 pretty quickly, and actually get it to 42″. Hole 3 dug to about 34″ before we declared it dead.
Pictures included for posterity.
Saturday morning, all idealistic.
Hey, this will be fine.
Hmmm… this is mostly rock.
Look what came out of the hole.
Not sure hole 2 is moving any more.
I can get it, I know I can.
Peppy in the hole.
It’s actually easier to scrape out the holes than dig them out. That should have been our first sign to stop.
Hole 4. I guess this thing actually works if you have dirt.
42″ == 2/3 of a Jay
Look at all that rock.
Good enough! Hope the inspector thinks so as well.
On March 25, 2007 · Comments Off
This Saturday I fully committed to building my new deck, by taking down the old one. Fortunately, the demolition went pretty quickly due to help from Jay and . Taking down the deck also required moving the outside firewood down to the firepit, done in the most awesome, if not the most effective, way. Enjoy the pictures.
