End times

 I've decided that my web time is wildly unproductive. 

I have kept at granitix and g² for a decade & more (don't make me look!), documenting camera gear i shall never see again and receiving maybe three comments. To say I have a following online is an insult to followings as only my shadow follows me anywhere. 

I have documented a dozen years of weather in the yard, and who would consider that valuable? True records are interesting, but daily stats are tedious.

I say this after a weekend of router problems (self induced), when I reset the router to factory specs and detached tv tablets phones and weather station from the world and each other. The station now works but ive lost the w.underground password. I'm also in a decent place with camera gear, but very little of it is cutting edge or interesting to the masses. Olympus/OM Systems and Pentax are doing well enough, but I am unable to use them in exciting times.

My faceplant account is riddled with ads, polarizing topics and cute animal pics. Friends seldom post to me and I need to stop seeking them after theee scrolls. 

And so I shall:

• cease and desist posting here, and attend to my Visions blog which has been neglected for quite some time.
• keep some records for weather but only post huge events.. somewhere. Probably just at longviewers.one for now. 
• I will get to digitizing my slides and negatives and miniDV backpack and other trips. Many old jpegs have corrupted badly over the years and need help.
• RELAX and let the WorldWide Weird exist with less participation by me 😳

Timely migrants

The first call of a swainsons' thrush was heard on 5/18, right on schedule! Our first grosbeaks (black headed) were seen and heard five days later. We love both songs and it's nice to see and hear them.

We also had a deer family drop by, a mom and two small ones from last year. They camped out for most of two hours! 

My surgery in early May was followed by damp weather, which has allowed the grass to grow tall. This coming weekend should be dry, so it should be several inches lower soon. 

the never-ending struggle

 Me vs. TECH

As usual, I came in second.

I spent the entire last week in skirmishes with technology. Mostly it was the 5g home internet system.

I have three computers and a few phones/tablets. And a printer - and oh yes, a 'smart' television. These all conspire with each other in frequencies I cannot access, and choose which among them will take it turn in my torment.

This past week it was the computers taking turns. They mostly communicate with the internet, but very rarely with each other. All are in the same workgroup and use the same WiFi - but shared files often don't, and the internet keeps flashing in and out.

First up was the traditional tricks: reboots, network resets, even reworking the outdoor antenna that supposedly helps it all work. Finally, I descended to a network full reset - then things really went mad.

Two of the computers plug directly into WiFi box ethernet ports, meaning they should not be bothered by anything WiFi at all. Yet they were. After several attempts of varying types I recalled the 192.168 opening to the network internals. I rebuilt a 5Mhz and a 2.4Mhz channel and began reconnecting things to WiFi, removing the ethernet connections. Hooray, it all works!

Until the next day. OK that wasn't fun or effective.

The last two days found me trolling the web for newer WiFi drivers. I found an updated driver for the i7 box yesterday, and it's continuing to work via WiFi. Today I found a driver for the i5 box - but I couldn't get the file to the right computer. It's on my phone, it's on the i7 - but the i5 won't connect so neither google drive nor network connections will push it across! Finally a thumb-drive did the job. Now the i5 can't install it, as the driver needs to be uninstalled. Well I did that three times, but rebooting just reloaded the familiar old driver. At last I broke down and pulled the WiFi card from the i5 and restarted with ethernet, a clean WiFi slate and no drivers..

And now it works great on the ethernet port! OK I'm not feeling compelled to reinstall either card or drivers now. We'll see how long this lasts.

In the meantime the i3 box has been functioning again via ethernet for the last two days. 

Yippee?

And today I found a $30 4g+ phone with a smaller screen, a USB3 charging port, and all the features I liked in my old Moto E5 Play. I'm really tired of juggling (and dropping) the larger Moto 5G Ace UW, or somesuch long name. 

The tech world will make a Luddite of me yet.

Back story:

My favorite cell phone was the Moto e5Play. A nice size and screen ratio, nice performance, a good bit of memory, microSD capable and acceptable battery life. It even took a quick dunk with no repercussions!

With every new upgrade, I've missed it more. Actually it's still here, used as a voice recorder for music lessons - but it's not the same.

After dropping my 5G moto Ace yet again, I made a quick stop at eBay in search of a reasonable step down. I don't need 5G and would prefer something like.. well, a modern e5 play! And to my surprise I found one rather quickly.

It's an LG G5.

• Nearly identical size to e⁵play
  
• Android 8 (I liked Oreo :)
• μSDXC card slot!
• USB C port! 
• Speed charging!
• Higher spec chipset!
• Improved screen specs!
• NFC capable 
• Better user ratings!
• Used for .. $30?!

I'm looking forward to stepping back!

Plumbing day. Again?

Our master shower has been running cold lately. It occurred to me that our other shower would do fine. 

I was wrong. The push-pull hot-cold part didn't provide any water of any temperature.

While looking into the magic cartridge that controls such taps I leaned that a lack of heat or cold is a possible sign of failure. How nice: they both need replacing!

I tried to visualize what the correct part would be on the local store's parts shelf, but clearly the best option was to bring a part with me - both parts, in case they differed.

The main bath cartridge didn't want to yield at first, but the master tap cartridge let go without trouble. I went back and did the same on the other and finally extracted a much smaller and incomplete part :√(

Exhibit A: 1½ cartridges

Off to the repair store again - this time with a samples! As I'd suspected the Moen 1200 was the right choice, and the specialist agreed that they were probably both the same despite what I carried. Once home I used a big drill bit and some pliers to yank out the remaining cartridge bits. Everything went smoothly after that! 

- Until I visited the water heater, where one more task waited me. While putting a light amount of pressure on the outlet post on top, the one task became two:

Exhibit B: outlet hose failure 

Off again to the store, and I decided to grab two hoses. I'm tired of digging into this closet to change out fittings!! I needed threads on one side and a slip-on clamp for the other, and it went together pretty well. All done?

Oh no - not yet. I'd totally forgotten the original reason for visiting the water heater, and it took full advantage of my forgetfulness when I restored the water pressure. All the hose work I performed had caused the suspect part to fail - so off with the water supply, again.

The problem was another fitting I had put in a year ago. The cold-water pipe had failed lower down, but a slip-on clamp solved the problem; parts for the hot side were in hand but it hadn't been updated. I knew it was a matter of time.. and that time had now come. The hard way.

After inspection I decided this last problem was in fact two, or perhaps more: two suspicious connectors (one showing it had failed, the other waiting its turn) plus poor routing of my new hoses from the water heater. One final store visit brought home a longer pipe, another slip-clamp connector and the right tools (locking pliers and pipe cutter) to see things done right.

I rerouted the heater hoses, shortened them a bit and replaced the old tubing and two connectors with a solid piece. I also marked the pipes to ensure the slip clamps were fully inserted, as a few drops along one hose weren't reassuring.

So my two-plus days of shopping drilling cutting and yanking are done, and everything is currently holding! Both showers have hot water again, toilets and dishwasher are functioning, and a bunch of wet towels are off the ground and in the laundry.

Oof.

Later - wow that was a hot shower! Perhaps the heater can be turned down a notch..

Also later - I found my pipe-cutting tool right after returning home with a new one. I look forward to all my missing lock pliers coming out of their hiding places soon!

Covid inaction

We are into week #2 of our new COVID-19 lifestyle. It has been unpleasantly symptomatic so far: 101° fever, loss of taste, aches aplenty and energy shortages.

I was diagnosed at the doctor's office on June 27th, and home tests yesterday (3 Jul) show we both remain actively infected. So we await negative tests +5 days before rejoining the world at large.

We'll never know where we encountered it. Food shopping, drive up coffee shack? We've done so little public stuff that it is a real surprise that Covid found us.

Update - Friday tests (6 Jul) showed my spouse negative but me still positive. Another lost weekend coming up!

first batch!

When celiac disease wrecked my ale-brewing hobby in early 2005, I wasn't sure what to drink, much less what drink to invent. I actually went from the doctor visit that confirmed my diagnosis directly to the brew-shop, where I bottled an ale I wouldn't get to drink. That sucked!

I figured I'd become a wine snob. I liked a few German whites like Müller-Thurgau and Gewürztraminer - but pretending to swish and sniff didn't create a nasal impression that I could casually toss to a crowd. Also, I got wine headaches pretty readily, and don't ask how my wine-tasting night ended in 2008. So wine never took.

Recently I discovered cider. Yummy and versatile, generally with an apple base and lots of room for other fruity improv in the mix. My limit seems to be around 1½ glasses so I'm just an alcohol wimp (well 1½ whiskeys I might manage.. no skip that). In general the process is similar to beer making: get a 5 gallon container, make a large mess around it, then walk away for a week or two before siphoning, then come back later for bottling. Hey I can do this!

Nearly every sibling had a stash of beer gear that they weren't putting to full use, so my brother Larry gifted me a couple of carboys and other items as an early birthday event. His son had created a fine pear-apple mashup (literally!) from the back yard, and the fruit waits for no man - of any gender. So today it was time!

Larry rented us a fine cider-maker, with a power shredder to pulverise the fruit and a screw-down tamper to squeeze the remnants and release the juicy goodness. An hour or more of that, plus a similar time gathering the ingredients, and we had two 5g buckets of must! "Must" in that sentence being a technical term, and "5g" in my case being about three gallons - my wife wouldn't be aiding in the consumption, so I needed to exercise restraint. Yay, I exercised today!

So on to the next steps. I dropped in some sulfites this evening to purge any mutant yeasts hiding in Larry's back yard, and in a few days it's yeast-awakening time. Then after a couple of weeks watching it burp through the air-lock we'll see about bottles. Gosh I used to have so many fifteen years ago; where does the time go? And escpecially, the bottles?

This being the first batch of cider, I had no feel for the process and accepted that pear and apple would be the two fruits in play. Once we see how this develops perhaps more improvisation will come to mind.

And speaking of improv: it needs a name (Mu'ad-dib? nah)! I was really good at that in the past with my ales (e.g. 'Limping' Bitter in 2000 when my L5|S1 disc ruptured), but when dating an elf and Second Foundationer most of my names became of Middle Earth. So whither then? I cannot say.

Praps mirúvor? Hm that's more likely mead than cider, so that should be saved for another adventure. 

Hm, hom. More contemplation needed. Thank goodness this stuff takes its time becoming itself!

storm number one

 The first storm of the new season arrives in two days, and it will impress.

The latest numbers are lower than previous forecasts, yet still massive in many places. The weekend total was closer to three inches at Kelso, now 1.24" is shown. Friday night's official forecast is for 1-2 inches on the hill-top, so this evening was spent scraping off the rooftop moss from last year's fine crop. I'll blow out the gutters tomorrow since they captured most of it.

I also swept the woodstove chimney. It shouldn't be needed as this moist storm will keep temperatures in the mid-fifties Friday night when the greatest moisture dumps upon us. Thunderstorms are reasonable on Saturday.

This deep moisture means it's time to get the grass seed in place soon. No time to get it in place before the storm, and one this powerful would just was the seed into puddles - so gentler storms or strategic sprinklering is planned for next week. 

update/reality: at 10pm Friday we had 0.02" of light rain. An hour later we had 1/3", and nine hours later we had 1¼". Now for the thunder and random heavy showers, which are expected through Sunday.

practicing for the equinox

 The weather has taken a rather cool turn! I'd say showery too, but really just drizzle with a few heavier droplets. We've had a third of an inch this month, and some fell up in Anacortes during our visit. 

The forecast is for sub-80° weather for the next week, so outdoor work is possible. Sadly it won't be happening: a sag has appeared in our bathroom floor, and something is dripping in the area beneath that part of the house. I'm still trying to determine the best approach to the area - from beneath a layer of thick fabric hides the pipes, from the side I'm staring at a metal beam, and approaching from above may be the only sane choice. The water is tepid at best, so it's not hot water being wasted. In the meantime the water is turned off except for brief uses, and a large container holds enough to scoop out for a warm or cold drink.

I guess once it's done it will be time to redecorate the (master) bathroom with new flooring and some nice tile. This place needs work in more than one area, and it's sad to spend much on fixing small items. We do as we must.