I am engaged
As of Sunday to a lovely woman Miela Gruber. She will be meeting many of you at Pennsic.

We are looking at June 2018 for the actual wedding.

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Fun with plumbing
So the water pressure in the upstairs shower was low...

I slowly disassembled the shower head, the hose to it and finally the metal screen filter before the hose. Yep, sure enough, ir was clogged with grit, tiny plastic shards and more tiny metal shavings.

Pressure is back to normal, but it is time to go look at the house filter and probably flush the hot water tank.

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There is this one last step going to the mudroom
I missed it on Monday...

I bent my toes back at an unatural angle and have beautiful purple racing stripes across my first few toes. The xray shows nothing was broken, but it is very painful.

I also torqued my left knee which makes it hard to stand up and walk long distances. I also slammed one of the window cranks across my side. It left a lovely scrape.

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A busier Christmas than planned
Christmas eve: A christmas pageant at Meila's church in Hartford. Dinner at my cousins in Branford, introducing Meila and the kids to everyone.

Christmas Day: presents in Rockville/Vernon followed by brunch at her parents in Hartford. Then all of us drove to Clinton for dinner with my family.

Driving back things got interesting as Union Street was closed off a block from the house in each direction by police and fire vehicles. No one was allowed in. Talking to the police at the barricades we learn that a house caught fire and burned.

I drive around till I get to the alley across the street from the house and can get a look at my house which is thankfully fine, but as it has a hydrant by the front door, there is a pumper truck parked blocking my driveway.

We went Pokemon hunting for an hour, until the emergency vehicles leave and we finally get home. Talking to my neighbor it appears there was a loud boom and flames erupted from the house across the street and three houses up towards the hospital. There were minor injuries and no fatalities, which is remarkable if it started with an explosion.

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Passengers
A fun movie, that badly sacrifices science and engineering for visuals.

Suspended animation pods without more redundancy will fail more often than that...

If you have rotating crew modules, losing power does not cause a loss of gravity... great visual effects, but does not happen.

Again with rotating modules, if you walk off the horizotal edge on a tether, you do not stay in the horizontal plane, you drop down.

Also magnetic boots are not needed to keep you attached to the floor in such a ship.

Also as you slide down on that tether, percieved gravitational effects will increase... (actually centripidal acceleration)

A main drive that is a ring which incinerates anything falling through it. Nice visual, but what universe are your engineers from? And where is your safety net?

When you jump off a rotating module, momentum affects your jump, even if gravity does not.

Any engineer who builds a ship for a 120 year voyage with only single redundancy on multiple life critical systems, should be shot, not fired.

It was fun, the actors did well with their materials and there were some fabulous lines. Still the engineer in me had some serious issues getting over the flaws.

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Lego Kidfest
So the last of the Lego Kidfests happened in Hartford last weekend. There were vague promises that something else would replace it in the future though...

For the number of kids attending the convention hall was remarkably silent... they were all too busy building and playing.

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A few pies
I went to three holiday parties this year. As such I baked a lot of pies. The enclosed picture is after I already distributed thee of them to friends.

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Very confused tick
I have the habit pf plugging my cellphone in and leaving it on the cois/cupholder on my dasboard. I did thos snd happebed to notice while sitting at a stoplight that it had a speck of dust on it.

Then the dpecl moved...

Sure enough, it was a tiny dog tick. Several sheetsvof kleenix laterit was captured and intered. How it got in my car I have no idea...

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Voting in Vernon, CT
At 7:00 am it took all of 8 min from walking in the door to walking out.

Ran into Sisuile as I walked out to my car.

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All the excess pumpkins
So those of you that left late may have noticed that there were many pumpkins left unclaimed.

Don't worry they found a warm and loving home...

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Cookie Decorating Party Dec 18 at 2:00
The gourd mutilation is over, it is time to think about cookies!

This year's cookie party will be on Sunday Dec 18th at 2:00. You and your friends are all welcome to come and decorate the 14 dozen cookies I plan to make. Note my gf cut cookies have almond in them, warn me if that is an issue and I will insure they are marked.

The hot chocolate and whipped cream will be ready and there will be the usual finger foods.

Bring your desire to be artistic, just remember to take at least half as many as you decorate home.


Where: 103 Union Street, Vernon CT
When: 2:00 Sun Dec 18th

Contact: 781-608-1597
Email: [email protected]

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Gourd Report 2016


They came, they saw and the gourds suffered!

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LED Lightbulbs
Home Depot is again running a sale on Soft White LED lightbulbs. In this case the best deal is the 60W Ecosmart bulbs at 9.97 for an 8 pack.

At that price do your whole house...

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2016 Gourd Mutilation
It has been too long since I stabbed innocent unsuspecting gourds... care to join me?

At 2:00 PM on Saturday October 29th, I will be hosting my usual gourd mutilation. Pumpkins, mulled cider and finger foods will be provided. You are all invited to come make the gourds scream....

Where: 103 Union Street, Vernon, CT
When: 2:00 PM Sat Oct 29

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Not how it is supposed to work
So Meila and the kids brought their dogs over last night...

It took them about 15 minutes to both escape from the yard...

After 20 min Lyra went out to let them back in. Both dogs were outside the fence and there was a raccoon on the porch.

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So about that Insinkerator...
Several days after installing the insinkerator, I ran the dishwasher and it failed miserably... broken pump, dirty water collecting in the pan... I was not happy.

So I priced new ones and decided on a stainless steel with a stainless interior. I then started reading the instalation instructions, there were several additional pieces of plumbing I would have to buy. I had my list...

And then at the bottom there was a warning to make certain that the plug for the dishwasher drain had been removed if connecting to an Insinkerator, and a list of the symptoms I was experiencing...

Five minutes with a screwdriver and a hammer and the plug had been removed...

Which is a good thing as I also discovered another mouse in the drawer next to the dishwasher and I wanted to sterilize the contents. I also went nuts with Greatstuff and I think their access path is finally blocked.

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A new Insinkerator
No plumbing job is ever done with less than three trips to the hardware store...

The old 1.1hp insinkerator died after about 20 years. So I replaced it with a 7/8ths hp commercial grade one. That had different connectors, at different heights...

And once I had the right connectors, the old ones failed . So it was back to the store to replace them.

On the other hand the new one is quiet, the rubber backflow sleeve can be replaced without dropping the whole unit, and there is more space under the counter.

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When things around here go bump in the night.
They really go BUMP.

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Fixing the fence
Panels went on sale for Labor Day... So I finally got around to fixing the fence that blew down in late spring... I had some help unloading and holding half the panels in position, but mostly did it by myself.

Thankfully the ground is mostly sandy and the only real obstruction was the old half rotten posts.

I coated these posts in roofing tar which should help...

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The Hurricane that wasn't
So, on Sunday my girlfriend Meila, and her two kids Lyra and Liam went down to the cottage to have a boat ride before it was pulled at the end of the summer. The weather report had been threatening for days, but slowly went from apocalypse to light rain at the end of the day. So we drove south. We stopped for lunch at the Chowder Pot III in Branford, only to find out that the boat had been pulled in a mad dash the day before due to the threatening hurricane Hermine.

Instead we arrive to one of the most peaceful and placid days I can remember at the cottage. Al light breeze, no waves and a massively high tide. So we went swimming instead. They the kids went fishing for snapper blues without any luck, but still having a fun time with My nephew Colton and a bunch of the kids on the Island.

We drove home in the evening again with gorgeous weather, stopping briefly on the Guilford Green for some Pokemon go hunting. We all landed a Dudou and then went north.

Monday we went to Sonny's in Somers CT. The kids liked the batting cages, the monkey jump and the zipline, but the big hit was the arcade. All the pokestops and the poke gym did not hurt for Liam.

Afterwards we came home and I installed another replacement fence panel, only then was the wind picking up sprinkles threatening.

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