whc

Oops!

whc — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:05:40 GMT

We just got back from dropping the Subaru off at the shop that changed the timing belt a month ago. It seems that they forgot to tighten the bolt that holds the crankshaft pulley on!

I was driving along US 1 when I noticed the air conditioning had stopped working. Then, I noticed that the alternator light was on!

After checking the temperature gauge and remembering that the water pump is driven from the timing belt, not the alternator belt, I decided to drive on. As I got off the highway I noticed that the power steering wasn't working either.

When I got to my destination, I opened the hood and saw that there was no power steering belt and that the alternator/air conditioning belt was out of place, and the main pulley, with bolt still through it, was hanging from the belt! I brushed my hand against the pulley and it fell to the ground!

It looks like they can just clean up the threads on the bolt and put things back together, but it would be nice if they installed a new bolt and pulley.

Flipping house update

whc — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:34:59 GMT

It's been a while since I posted anything about the flipping house, so here's a list of everything we've done to it (that I can remember!):

-Removed paneling in basement and parts of upstairs
-Cleaned bathrooms
-Removed 12x12 foot covered porch (too much termite damage and rot to save it)
-Removed kitchen floor and first layer of sub-floor (lots of water damage)
-Installed new sub-floor
-Removed kitchen cabinets, countertops and sink.
-Removed "saloon" doors
-"sistered" broken floor joist under kitchen, after jacking up the floor that it supported.
-Turned off ice maker water supply that had been shut off by folding over the copper tube!
-Replaced sink and dish washer water shut off valves
-Ran new electrical circuit for dishwasher and garbage disposal
-Ran new electrical circuits for kitchen outlets, microwave, bathrooms, and outdoor outlet
-Removed tile around bathtub
-Repaired both layers(!) of sub-floor between tub and toilet
-Removed bathtub by cutting out two studs in the wall between the kitchen and bathroom
-Installed new bathtub, repaired studs
-Replaced missing mailbox
-Received property tax bill
-Replaced main heat/AC duct (something chewed a large hole in the original!)
-Repaired ductwork that fell apart while replacing main duct
-Cut access hole into attic over the single story portion of the house
-Found one inch of insulation in places :(
-Installed new bath/shower controls
-Removed asphalt and vinyl floor tiles in bathroom.
-Installed tile backer board around bath tub
-Removed junk from mechanical room
-Removed water heater and secondary solar water heater
-Installed new water heater (gas and vent still to be connected)

Water on mars

whc — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:41:35 GMT

Photos of water droplets on mars: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/17161866.html

New oven

whc — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:05:50 GMT

A half hour at 350 degrees F, or 20 minutes on broil and the door glass is cool to the touch! It seems to have some sort of coated low-e glass.

whc — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:55:26 GMT

Wow, the gout drug is really helping! I'm not in any pain unless I try to walk and it seems to be getting better as the day goes on. Compared to last night when I was in constant pain in spite of taking a vicodin, that's a huge improvement!

A bout with gout

whc — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:45:17 GMT

I woke up Sunday morning with a lot of pain in my right big toe. Taking lots of ibuprofen made it bearable, but hard to walk. Monday was about the same in the morning, but by evening I couldn't get my sandal back on. Today was even worse.

Monday morning I made an appointment with a podiatrist for today at 3:30. He confirmed that it was gout and gave me a strong anti-inflammatory and a pain killer. Things should be better in a few days.

whc — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:53:59 GMT

After I made the permanent power connection to the oven I realized that it was easy to tip the oven side to side, even if it is insanely heavy. So, I tipped it one way, slipped a concrete block under one side, tipped it the other way, slipped in a block, and repeated with 2x lumber until it was nearly the correct height for installation. Then, I tipped it forward a bit, so the back was high enough, and pushed it into place!

So, the oven is complete (except for some minor work at the breaker panel after we remove the old range).

whc — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:05:23 GMT

When we first made plans for the kitchen remodel, we bought a double wall oven on ebay. It was a $2500 oven that had been a demo at a local appliance shop, that we got for about $500. (similar to this one: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=299257-46-GBD309PVQ&lpage=none)

It's been out in the shed ever since. Yesterday, we hauled it inside, which wasn't an easy task. (one web site lists a weight of 300 pounds for a similar oven)

Today, I hooked it up to power, and it seems to work fine! I'll make the permanent electrical connection and then we can lift into place.

Kitchen progress

whc — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:48:55 GMT

I'm taking a van load of old kitchen to the dump today. After that, the van will be empty so I can pick up the countertop for the part of the kitchen we're working on.

I was all set to do the final prep for installing the cabinets when I found more water damaged sub-floor, probably from an old leak in the icemaker connection. Between the water damage in the old part of the kitchen and the dog damage in the room the kitchen is being extended into, we will end up replacing about 3/4 of the sub floor in the kitchen! I don't understand why anyone thought particle board was ok for subfloor in potentially wet areas.

There's no fire damage to the original floor in this area, but it seems to be covered in old cooking grease! It looks like the original owners put a new layer of vinyl down instead of cleaning the floor!

Kitchen Cabinets

whc — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:53:42 GMT

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of the kitchen cabinets.

First, here's one of a cabinet that I had just glued together:

Here are the cabinets installed, but without the countertop:

I don't have a shot of the entire corner with the countertop installed, but here's one showing the prep sink installed in the end cabinet:

And, a close up of the cabinet under the sink:

It's a bit crowded under there, with a reverse osmosis water filter, controller for the automatic faucet, and the leak frog keeping watch for plumbing problems.

Today, we start ripping out the other corner of the kitchen.

Kitchen progress

whc — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:50:52 GMT

We have a countertop and prep sink installed in the new corner of the kitchen, so I can start ripping out the cabinets with the main sink and stove.

It's time to dig out the cooktop and sink, so I can order the countertop with the cut-outs already made.

I found the cooktop and need to verify that I can get an LP gas conversion kit for it. (We bought this used from Habitat. It's missing the kit that's supposed to be taped to the underside of it.) I pulled one orifice and it is silver colored and has the number 54 on it. The instructions say the LP one should be numbered 69 and the natural gas one un-numbered but green in color. I'll order new ones to be sure of what I have.

Putting a cast iron sink at the far end of a very full shed seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's going to take some effort to get to it.

whc — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:52:40 GMT

Spraying lacquer in 30 degree weather. Burrrrrrrrr!

New Space Plane

whc — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:57:37 GMT

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/skylon_overview.html

This proposed plane takes off and lands like a standard airplane and can take 12 tons to orbit.

It's a good thing we don't have a basement

whc — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:25:05 GMT

I measured the well yesterday at 12 feet below the cap (10.5 feet below ground level). This is a huge improvement over the measurement of 28 feet below the cap during the drought! I wonder how much higher it gets?

Inauguration Cellular Overloads

whc — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:38:33 GMT

There's an article on RISKS about the expected overload of the cellular networks at the inauguration: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25.49.html#subj10

Here's my take on the problem, in GSM systems. I suspect other standards will have similar problems.

The HLR (Home Location Register, the master list of the locations off all subscribers) won't be impacted, but I don't think I've ever heard any info about the size of the VLR (Visitor Location Register, the list of all mobiles currently registered to a cell or group of cells)

I think it's more likely that there will be so much congestion on the RACH channel (used by the phone to register and request permission to make a call) that very few will be able to register with the cell or make calls.

GSM gives priority to emergency calls and specially coded phones used by various emergency services, but this assumes that the phone is able to contact the cell in the first place.

Also, they'd better turn off the location update timer, or all registered phones will re-register periodically. Disabling data access would probably be a good idea too.

I suspect that any system using a CDMA physical layer will be nearly inoperative due to the high noise floor created by all the calls and registration attempts.

Any good comics websites?

whc — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:38:22 GMT

Any suggestions for websites with comics? (right now I'm looking for traditional "print" comics, but suggestions for good web comics would be welcome too)

I've used comics.com for years, but they just re-designed the website and it's so slow that it's unusable, and much harder to use even if it was fast. (it now seems to require a log in to browse comics, unless you want to see many days worth of the same comic, and wait for them to load)

whc — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:19:35 GMT

I just figured out how to open the task manager in Vista (right click the task bar, ctl-alt-del doesn't seem to do it anymore) and found that it's taking 750 meg of memory with nothing running! No wonder this machine was slow with the 512 meg it originally shipped with.

EDIT: I just switched back into Vista and hit ctl-alt-del. There is an option for task manager at the bottom of the list. I guess I was confused last night because the appearance of the menu is very different from 2k and xp.

Also, the memory used has dropped to 450k, either while the machine was idle or during the suspend and restore.

Old Technology

whc — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:15:57 GMT

Friday, we picked up a 1921 Victrola that was posted on freecycle. It's missing the turntable and crank, but both seem to be available for reasonable prices.

It came with a bunch of records, but most are clearly "modern" LPs. A few are thicker and heavier, so I assume they are old 78 RPM records, which should work on it.

I'm not sure what to do with the LPs. Anyone want Captain and Tenille recorded in CD-4 quadraphonic?

Is it too late to buy the extended warranty?

whc — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:38:15 GMT

They're going to send one of the mars rovers on a 2 year trip to visit a large crater: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7630617.stm

That's quite a trip for a machine that was designed with a 90 day design lifetime!

The price gouging has started

whc — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:26:36 GMT

Local gas prices seem to be between $3.75 and $4.75 a gallon right now. Come on people, you haven't even refilled the tanks at the gas station since they shut the refineries down for the hurricane! It didn't shoot up this fast after Katrina when we knew there were supply problems.

Tires

whc — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:38:23 GMT

I just found a good explanation of the markings on car tires: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=33&

Amazing Quadruped Robot

whc — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:00:45 GMT

http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

Weather update

whc — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:48:02 GMT

Hanna was pretty much a non-event here, other than getting six inches of rain overnight.

Google Browser

whc — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:29:37 GMT

I just downloaded the new google browser. It's very fast, but doesn't seem to be able to render very many pages correctly.

The results so far:

google.com looks good (I would hope so!)
cnn.com is readable, but a mess
livejournal required 3 reloads before anything appeared
my ISP's webmail required several reloads
The tiger direct account info page displays as blank

I don't know if the problems are because the browser is more standards compliant than the pages I'm viewing, if it doesn't play well with the proxy at work, or if the browser has problems, but it doesn't seem ready to use quite yet.

EDIT: I tried a few more sites. How could google have thought this was ready for release?

EDIT: When the browser was installed, it added a registry entry to run the google updater on startup, which in NOT removed by the uninstall. Here's the registry key that needs to be removed: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\GoogleUpdate

EDIT: Word is that Chrome has problems working through a proxy.

Honey, I un-shrunk the TV

whc — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:11:39 GMT

Tiger Direct had a closeout on an 800x600 resolution video projector for $140. I ordered it and a 100 inch (diagonal) screen today.

Assuming we can stand the DLP rainbow effect, it should be very nice for movies!