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GRAFFITI -- August 31, 2009 thru September 06, 2009 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable.     About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
August 31, 2009

2230 - Go, go, gadget Congress. Wait, are y'all the folks that "wrote" FISMA?

I tried to reply to your office's email to me. I got this back:

: host hydrus.house.gov[143.228.150.181] said: 550 5.7.1 Unable to deliver to (in reply to RCPT TO command)

That's just rude. So is not including an unsubscribe link in the emails you send out.

I no longer live in California, haven't in years. I want my email address off of Rep. Eshoo's lists. Please confirm this has been done.

My email address is [email protected]

Finally, this form is unbearable. I have a legitimate need to communicate with your office, and unless I say that I live at the address I lived at years ago, and give you information you have no need of, I cannot submit this form. Yay, y'all win the kewpie doll - this also now goes up on my website.

annoyed in MD,

.brian

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
September 1, 2009

Watermelon

Mmmm, watermelon

1952 - More fruit of a summer spent gardening. This one's plus-size, though. Mmmmm, fresh watermelon! It is super delicious. It'll be good cold, tomorrow, too. But like so much from the garden this year, it seems best somehow still sun-warm. I also pulled out about 12 more pounds of tomatoes. That turned into another 3 big jars of salsa, and the rest went into the pot ... after I siphoned off half a gallon into freezer containers.

The sad part is that after all that, all I have energy for is to warm some frozen pizza product. Still, a productive day, followed by working with our productive garden. Both things make me happy.

Time to go relax. Ciao!

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
September 2, 2009

Busy. Boring. No post...

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September 3, 2009

Row 1 - Normal rainfall Glenn Dale Bell Station, 1921-1987
* Only nine months measured in 2008;
+ : includes low estimate from snowfall

1942 - Rain for last month was on the low side of normal, but still a pleasant follow-on to a dry, dry July. If we'd moved the last two days of July into August, there'd have been effectively no rain at all in July. Mindbendingly exciting stuff, weather, eh? In the meantime, I'm winding up for the new semester at UMUC. I'm looking forward to being challenged and learning some stuff, even in the Writing 101 course that the college is making me take because there are no writing courses in my transferred credits. That starts in two weeks. The Computer Architecture class starts next Tuesday. I've begun pre-reading for that course. Later on this Fall, as the college courses enter their home stretch, I'll be taking four days of intensive administration classes at LISA '09 in Baltimore. Better to be ahead of the game, eh? Back to the grindstone.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
September 4, 2009

Happy Birthday, Pete!.....

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September 5, 2009

Storm door rust

1959 - Last night, I did some mental planning for today's tasks, and read the first chapter of my Computer Architecture book by a bloke named Mano. Boy, what riveting reading! </sarcasm> I'd forgotten how much I hate Karnaugh maps, too. </shudder> Anyway today dawned nice and comfortable, low 70's. So I got going on the storm door project. There've been a couple (okay, three major, and several minor) rust spots breaking through on the steel storm door leading down to the basement. The behaviour is like rust was painted over, way back before we bought the house. Anyway, I used a wire wheel with the cordless drill and cleaned up the spots quite a bit, then applied Naval Jelly to remove the rest of the rust. Then I scrubbed the doors with a mild soapy solution to finish cleaning it up. Then while that dried, I took off for the closest home center to get some supplies for both projects.

Once back with 4x4's PT, 3/4x4's PT, quick setting concrete, post hole digger, and some paint for the storm door, I mixed up some bondo and skim-coated the deeply affected areas. Then I primed just the other small areas that I cleaned up so that they didn't start rusting again. That was it for the door project for the day.

Fence in need

So, the fence. Our back fence line had a couple of trouble spots. One of them had a section that had nearly blown over in storms over the last year or so. I'd braced it with a hand-made flying buttress, which held, mostly. I'd had to redo that once already, and it was time. The other post that was leaning heavily seemed pretty sturdy, but was quite out of line. So I pulled the fence boards off the cross pieces abutting each post, pulled the nails out of the hanger brackets, and lifted the fence section out on both sides of each affected post, and rotated it out of the way about a foot or so, leaving room for me to work. You can see that in the picture at left, after the post is out. You can also see the string line I pulled to get position of the new posts - their edges are marked with blue tape dangling.

The posts came out. On the left, it was way too easy - there was only about 5" of post below grade - the post had broken. On the right, it was a bit trickier. I screwed a board to the side of the post, and used one of the new posts as a lever to lift the post up out of it's hole about 6". Then I flipped the board to horizontal, and lifted it out the rest of the way myself, after rocking it a bit to increase the gaps. With that one out, I used the post hole digger to get down to 27" with a 10" diameter hole. We had some bagged sand, so I bottom filled the hole to bring the depth back to 24". That gives the bottom of the hole a bit of drainage, and keeps some of the water away from the base of the post. With a few nails in the bottom foot of the post to bind it to the concrete, I got it in, tipped in a few inches of concrete, plumbed it, and got some more concrete in to anchor it sufficiently. Then some water, some more concrete, some more water, and pretty soon the right post was done and curing.

Fence fixed

On to the left hand side, that was the worst part of the day. First, the thin (5") layer of concrete coincided with the rotted top of the remains of the post. Next, the post had broken ... because somehow it was burned. How does a sub-surface post burn enough to fail later? Maybe it was burned, but used anyway by the fencing company that installed this, years and years ago. Anyway, it was a bear to get through the concrete and get enough soil cleared to where I could pull the remnants of the old post out. Pick first, then lots of trowel work down to about 12", then I used a 4' length of 'C' channel (looks something like this) to pull cores next to the post down to about 20". Then I could rock the post enough to get it out. Whew! From there, I repeated the process to get the left post done.

Next, I re-installed the hanger brackets I removed from the old posts, then lifted and rotated the fence sections back onto the new posts. I secured those with screws. Then I used about 10 of the 3/4x4" PT (pressure-treated) stock to create new fence slats, and also to create new caps for the four sections affected by my repairs. You can see the finished work in the snapshot above right. In a few weeks, I'll find some matching stain to get it close to the gray-red-brown color on the outside face. Inside, it'll gray out and match on it's own in a year or so. So, outside working from 0830 until 1730. I'm freaking broken. Ciao!

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September 6, 2009

2045 - No pictures today. But I got lots done, just the same. After shopping, I froze another gallon of red sauce. Then I topped it up with skinned and rough-chopped larger tomatoes, plus buckets of romas. I added another onion and several cloves of garlic (sauteed in EVOO) to the sauce, along with more fresh purple basil and greek thyme out of the garden. While I was doing that, the pork shoulder I bought today was resting on the counter with a double handful of rib rub on it. After a couple hours to let the rub sink in, I put it on barbeque, not over the heat. I had a medium burner and a low burner on the right side, and the shoulder on the left. Four hours of that at about 325° F brought the shoulder to perfection.

While that roasting was going on, I sanded, cleaned, primed, and painted the storm door. It's good I got that completed - some unexpected rain popped up this evening, a quarter inch so far. Anyway, once the roast was out and rested, I sliced a bit for Marcia and for myself. The rest I chunked up and put in a pot, then topped that up with plenty of red sauce, perhaps 3/4 of a gallon. Spicing and spicing and assorted finely chopped peppers later, I have the base of a stunningly good chili on hand. It needs to cook for a few more hours. I'm also fence-sitting about adding a can or two of kidney beans. It'll be pretty good as it, but beans add some inexpensive nutrition and texture. I think yes, but I won't decide until tomorrow if I go out to buy some. So, another busy, productive day gone by. I just may "relax" for the holiday tomorrow, and just continue pre-studying for my classes this upcoming semester.

What gets to me, among other things, is that when I have quiet down time here at home, my thoughts almost inevitably go to our men and women fighting on our behalf overseas. They don't have the luxury of relaxation, surrounded by irregular forces embedded in the native population and willing to sacrifice all around them to get at our guys. Our condolences to the families and units of the fallen.

• Spc. Abraham S. Wheeler III, 22, of Columbia, South Carolina, died Aug. 28 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
• Staff Sgt. Jason S. Dahlke, 29, of Orlando, Florida, died Aug. 29 in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when he was shot by enemy forces Aug. 28 while conducting combat operations.
• Pfc. Eric W. Hario, 19, of Monroe, Michigan, died Aug. 29 in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when he was shot by enemy forces Aug. 28 while conducting combat operations.
• Lance Cpl. David R. Hall, 31, of Elyria, Ohio, died Aug. 31 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
• Spc. Jonathan D. Welch, 19, of Yorba Linda, California, died Aug. 31 in Shuyene Sufia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
• Pfc. Jordan M. Brochu, 20, of Cumberland, Maine, died Aug. 31 in Shuyene Sufia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
• Spc. Tyler R. Walshe, 21, of Shasta, California, died Aug. 31 in southern Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
• Staff Sgt. Todd W. Selge, 25, of Burnsville, Minnesota, died Sept. 3 in Baqubah, Iraq, of injuries sustained during a vehicle roll-over.
• Spc. Jordan M. Shay, 22, of Salisbury, Massachusetts, died Sept. 3 in Baqubah, Iraq, of injuries sustained during a vehicle roll-over.
• Petty Officer 3rd Class Benjamin P. Castiglione, 21, of Howell, Michigan, died Sept. 3 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
• Lance Cpl. Christopher S. Baltazar Jr., 19, of San Antonio, Texas, died Sept. 3 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

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