Randall's Blog

Last week I made what I hope will be the last trip to Florida to clean out my mom's house of 25 years of stuff and trash. It all seemed to be going well. We (Lowell, Juliet and myself) arrived just as they were delivering the 30 yard dumpster. We went through a lot of what was remaining in the garage and the next day Juliet and a friend tossed most of what was in the two backyard sheds. They were both very moldy and dirty but one had been hit by a tree in a hurricane and got water logged. We did find some interesting photos and letters that survived, however. On Friday my two remaining uncles on my mother's side dropped by (with my aunts and a cousin) and helped out a bit as well. They took some furniture that we didn't want as well.

Unfortunately, that evening (last Friday) I came down with the flu. It was rapid and unpleasant. I thought it could have been something I ate or perhaps the mold etc. but it was actually very classic flu symptoms. I had chills really bad, was getting up to pee every 20 minutes and when those symptoms calmed down I didn't sleep well because my stomach was in knots. I felt somewhat better the next day and my plane ride back wasn't too bad (I snuck in just before the snow) but Saturday night I was running a fever and had the chills again. I got up and plowed the driveway on Sunday and by Sunday night I had a fever of 105º. Debbie was a bit freaked but I just took some ibuprofen and I was fine. I don't run fevers that often but I have a history of running high ones. Anyway, I am surviving, though, not better yet and it hasn't been fun. Once again ibuprofen is my friend. I hope Debbie doesn't get it...

On a different note I've finished testing the generator hookup. I tried it with all the loads that I set up for it and it seemed to handle them well. It did strain a bit with the water pump but I expected this.

Randall

Happy New Year!

Debbie & I drove up to Lake Placid on New Year's eve to meet up with Dave, Kathie & the boys. We had a very nice time hanging out. On New Year's day I had planned to go skiing on Whiteface. I changed my mind because of my back coupled with the -60 wind chill at the top of the mountain (that part was closed anyway). Debbie & I met Dave & Kathie for lunch and Alex joined us for the afternoon. Lake Placid is a nice town to stroll around even though it was cold.

Dave & Kathie joined us in Delmar that evening. We had a nice visit.

Last weekend Rebecca & Chris came over as well. We didn't get a chance to see them for the holidays so this was our holiday visit. Again, a nice time. It's great to see my children doing well as adults. I can't understand parents that "don't want their children to grow up" - if you love your children why wouldn't you want to see them have a real life. Real life has it's ups & downs but that's what makes it real.... I'm very proud of my kids - they are well adjusted, intelligent, nice people to know.

I'm headed to Florida today to do some more cleaning of my mom's house. Hopefully this will be the last time. Lowell isn't working so we can tackle it together.

R

While Debbie is in Florida I have been busy with a few projects. I am making another work bench for the pole barn. This one will be on wheels. I am re-using some of the lumber that was in the basement as a shelving unit. A couple of people told me that the shelves would have to be moved anyway. They were too close to the electrical panel and the GroSolar folks wanted the wall for the inverters. I took apart the shelves and saved the lumber. It was a bit dirty and so I planed the edges to get at the nice wood underneath.

I used the table saw to rip them into the correct width and the miter saw to cut the angles. This is the top while I am assembling it.

I'll work on the legs next.

Another project I have been working on is wiring the house so the next time that the power goes out for an extended period of time we can use the generator to run the vitals. This has to be done so that the generator power does not feed back into the electrical grid (in case workers are repairing the lines). I selected several circuits that we would want to run on the generator; the water pump, furnace, refrigerator, sump pump and water purification system. Each circuit is wired so that power can come from the panel (normal grid power) OR from the generator. The switches select which power source the circuit will be connected to. The power from the generator comes in on a special cable that I fed through the basement wall. I wired a small electrical panel for the generator circuits as well.

Here are the before & after photos:

The next thing is to test out the job I did and see if the generator can handle all the loads. (I did calculate the amps but the real output of the generator might not be as claimed.)

R

Happy Solstice!

Winter is here but the days will be getting longer. With the ice storm and this weekends' snow, winter certainly seems to be making it's presence known. Debbie will be flying to sunny Florida for a while on Monday and is not happy about the weather. We also had plans to drive out to Boston this weekend and see friends. This did not happen.

We have been mostly inside interfacing with the hive mind (Facebook and the web) and watching it snow. We did some snow clearing yesterday when there was a break in the precipitation. I got to try out my snow blade for the lawn tractor.

I have to say that it's not the ideal snow removal device. It gets stuck easily even with wheel weights and chains and the amount of snow we got yesterday was just at the limit of what it could handle. It did work but it was a challenge. There is more snow today but less than yesterday, I hope.

I spent some time in the pole barn working on a workbench too. I incorporated some furniture that originally came from a house in Amsterdam. I was going to leave the pieces in Epping when I sold the house but decided they might be of use. I am happy to re-use items this way - saves $$$.

I am still working on installing the solar hot water system - almost all inside work at this point. It wouldn't much matter if it was finished this weekend anyway.

Congratulations to Debbie on finishing her first semester in law school!

R

Yesterday Debbie & I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We had a nice quiet evening at home (going out wasn't much of an option). Just after midnight things started beeping - the power was out. This wasn't really a shock because they were talking about an ice storm and it was bad when we went to bed. We put in a big wood fire to warm the house in case the power went out too. In fact, I was out generator shopping just yesterday. I looked at a lot of models but in the end I decided not to get one yet. I wanted to get a more permanent one (only available by special order). Just about everything in the house runs on electricity; the water, heat etc. Without power it's not as nice a place to be. Even the solar system (if it ever gets installed) wouldn't help because it ONLY works when there is a grid connection.

So back to last night, you see the basement has a tendency to accumulate water when it rains. There is a sump pump but if the power goes out... I was bailing out water at at 12:30 and again at 1:30. After that it seemed that the water wasn't rising all that fast so I slept until 5:30. Well, there was a lot more water in the basement by that time (and still no power). The bailing started again - with Debbie's help this time. We bailed for a while but we didn't seem to be making much of a dent in the water level. It was getting close to 7:00 when Lowes opens. I figured that if all the generators weren't sold yesterday (there were quite a few there) I might get one this morning if I got there as the store opened. Sure enough, there were just a few generators left and I was able to get one. A half an hour (or less) later and they were all gone - there were quite a few other guys running around the store looking for generators when I was there (while grumbling about flooded basements).

After hooking it up and getting the sump pump going for only a short while the power was back. Oh well... I didn't know how long it would take to get power. We were lucky as a lot of people still don't have power. Perhaps we will just keep this generator (it will save some money over the larger one).

Some photos of the ice: