Category Archives: Beginnings

Starts of things. or restarts.

Vacation!! Granite State

Ok so i haven’t posted in way too long.  Just arrived home from VACATION in

New Hampshire – The Granite State!!

U like rock??  ok then you will like NH.

That’s a shot from what’s called Cathedral Ledge Lookout near North Conway, NH.  One of the natural wonders we enjoyed while staying in Bartlett NH.  I picked this to start posting about NH, because, well it’s GraniteHuge Granite hunk o mountain.

The day was perfect weather and me and my offsprings were there to enjoy the view, just to be on the mount.  The great thing is you can drive up there.  Now if u r a rock climber, u can also come up “the hard way”.  If u enlarge this pic and look at the middle right side where the green is amid the stone, you can see some peeps doing just that.

But for me and mine, including 11 grandkids, oldies like me n Mar, and the rest, driving to the top made it accessible.  Here r pics of them and us :

Here is a view looking outward:

  The ski area is Cranmore.

So I highly recommend New Hampshire.  If you like nature, you will LOVE it there.

More NH stuff will follow.  But b4 i go, just a shout out to our dear friends,

Kevin and Mary Ellen Canty.  We have known them for eons, and just recently got to see them as NH is a favorite vacation place for them.  Awesome to spend a great afternoon with them.

Corning Barge 04

OK so now we need to add once more to our project, here is the master getting more glass for it

Get Ready!

Touchdown!!

Snipped off the right amount:

Forming it

Gravity Assist –

Both ends on

More forming

Voila!  Handle!

Though i have given lots of pics, to see this done in person is really something special.  Remember this guy is an apprentice, with 4 years experience.  Just getting started in his skill-set.  In fact just the show b4, these two dropped the project in a failed transfer – Shattered into a hundred pieces.  I spoke to the learner after and he said this was his first successful pitcher.  Awesome.

June 30, July 1 Little Falls. GO SEE IT

July 3, Ilion Hurry!!

 

Wild Turkey

OK so some may expect a discussion on Bourbon Whiskey.  While that is one possible post to follow the above title, we are here today to discuss wildlife.

These two visited our yard last week.

Be sure to zoom in to see both

Wait what??   These kids!!  how did u get over there?

Come back here!   Now!

Yes, Right NOW!  what’s a mother to do?

Corning Barge 01

So i was going to come up with some catchy cool name for this series of posts.  But as i went through and selected pics to put into this, i realized there is really only one possible name i could use.

The Corning Glass Barge is in Waterford NY Today and Tomorrow, June 23, 24 2018.

Tickets are free, or you can just show up and hope it’s not too full.  Even if that was the case you can watch and see pretty good from the shore.

Clicking on the line above will take you to the website for the barge.  It is just one page of Corning’s awesome website.  Everything Corning is there.  You may already know, there is an AWESOME museum out in Corning NY that is a real treat.  I went many years ago and seeing the program today made me want to go back and see it again.  btw – all the pictures in this series were taken with my personal communication and photo device, that has Corning glass as an integral part of it.  Yours too.

Yes, that’s right you almost certainly use Corning glass daily.  in your hand.  with your finger.

Your smartphone screen is almost certainly clad in “Gorilla Glass”  a corning product.  Your welcome.

SO enough from me, let’s see some Corning magic!!

OK this is a glass furnace, aka the “Glory Hole”

The first bubble blown into the glass.  This guy is just starting his career, he has been doing this for 4 years!  Ya you don’t just pick this skill up in a month or so.

So now he adds more glass to his project.

The semi solid glass is real hot (you knew that!) but its constantly wanting to flow downhill.  To counteract this the glass maker keeps the pipe rolling.  As it droops, he rolls.

Now he has blown it bigger with the added glass.

And bigger still.

 

So stay tuned for more awesome stuff as we watch this raw glass get turned into something useful.

And b SURE to GO SEE for YOURSELF!   The barge is in Waterford Today, Tomorrow.

The 27th it will be in Amsterdam.    28th  Canajoharie.

June 30, July 1  Little Falls.

HURRY UP.  the barge is moving west, just like the glass company from NYC did long ago, on barges, on the Erie canal, to Corning NY.

IF YOU CAN CATCH THE BARGE WHILE IT’S AROUND YOU WONT B SORRY!!!!!

ok enough shouting.

Tank Tale 02

I inherited some things from my dad.  He was born in 1916, so he spent his mid teens to twenties scratching for necessities of life during the Great Depression.  You may know people who lived that nightmare from 1929 through most or all of the 1930’s, or even into the 1940’s.

They were scarred, their brains turned into amazing machines of how to get by.  How to never, ever waste anything.  Never ever, ever waste.

So among the things i got from my dad was the “Saver Mentality”.  Stuff can be used even when old.  Re-used or made into other useful things, or parts of new things.  See, you thought the 3 R’s were new hip stuff that came maybe from the hippie movement of the 1970’s.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

These are all good things.  We do need to hold true to the 3 R’s, or we will use up and destroy our beautiful earth.  But the original 3 R peeps were not the hippies of the 70’s.  It was those who lived the nightmare of 1929 and the decade after.  Save it, we can use again.  If you reuse things you don’t have to buy them again.  Even the broken things that no longer work can be taken apart and scrapped (recycled!).  My dad made alot of coin by tearing old electric motors (and other broken, or outdated things) apart and separating the copper from the steel to get better prices for the scrap metal.    Save, Save, Save.

Now i don’t like disorganization.  I have many shelves, especially in the basement.  Shelves allow you to save more.  It’s just that i have more to save than i have shelves.  Just so happens that some of the shelves in the basement are in the section where the oil tank is.  One of the sons asked me, “you think the oil tank will fit past the self i front of it?”  I told him – “Ya i think so”.  OK guess again:

Notice how i have hacked the shelf in front of the tank to try and get room to “make the corner”.  N.G.  the tank is lodged against the shelf unit on right, the one in front of it, and the wall behind.  I have already emptied the right side shelf as it needs to be removed.  Such fun!!

 

Tank Tale 01

Involuntary labor.  Forced servitude.  Subjection.  Are we here discussing man’s inhumanity to man?  Nope.  The failure of my fuel oil tank.  How can we use these words, for this subject you say?

Wait, just wait till you hear the tale of woe.

It began one day when i went to check how much oil was left in the tank.  This is a normal operation at my house, as i do not have automatic oil fill up.  I call when i need oil, and to know if i do, the tank is checked with a stick, and the chart consulted to see how many gallons therein.

So as i am checking, i notice the cement under the tank is discolored, damp looking.  I think to myself, my sump pit must be full of water (at the other end of the tank).  Now since i have lived here there has only been water in the sump pit a few times.  Once, maybe twice, have i pumped water out.  But it does happen (rarely), in early spring.  So i quickly go look at the sump pit.  Nothing.  Empty.  Now back to the discolored cement spot.  Looking under the oil tank, there is a drop of oil hanging.  Drip.  Drip.  The discoloration is fuel oil.  Upon further inspection it looks like the tank may be leaking from both the end and the bottom.

So we did not call for any more oil.  I spread absorbent under the tank and placed a shallow pan to catch the drips.  Found a free oil tank on Craig’s List.  Enlisted the aid of my brother in law and got the new (used) tank home.  Then began the sorry chore of ‘making a path’ through my basement.  Some may know the legends of my basement.  The tale of woe begins . . . .

 

Sunny Sunshine! Making Volts

So most people, if adding a detached garage, would make the roof layout the same as the house it sits next to, right?  But when we added ours a few years ago, i put the roof about 90 degrees off from the house.  But why, u ask?  So one side of the roof faces almost due south (about 10 degrees off from due south).  Who would do that?  Someone who has been interested in all things solar for like 30 years.  Then i got in contact with a solar salesman, who my son used to work with, so i know he is a reputable human.

So when Chris came over we went through the info that he would usually present in 3 meetings, in one sitting.  Chris went to work for this particular solar company after he took the time to research solar for himself and install panels at his home.  So i was pretty confident in things right off the bat.

      

First the aluminum rails are attached to the roof, lagged into the trusses.  The silver boxes are ‘micro inverters’, each panel puts out DC and it’s converted to AC by its own inverter.  This has 2 advantages.  1 – It allows AC to be sent off the roof and direct into our power system.  2 – If any panel or inverter stops working for any reason, the rest will still function.

The last pic is a shot of one day’s production.  Each micro inverter talks and is connected to the internet.  I have access to view the power made and each day the sun shines the software makes a nice bar graph.  When its ‘sunny sunshine’ all day it looks like the nice bell curve you see here.  So last Saturday, 4/21/18 our system produced 39.1 KWH (Kilowatt Hours).  Almost a record!  The record for my system happened on Monday, May 9, 2016 – 39.8 KWH.  It was fairly easy to look back with the software and find the record.

If anyone is considering a Solar Panel array for their property feel free to contact me for any questions you may have.  I love to chat solar.  (Disclaimer, if you buy a system from the people who put mine in, i get a finders fee)

 

You don’t really care about this post

So if no one will care about this post why do it?  Well because its like a marker in time for me.  Even though i have been blogging for years, it was just last nite that i looked up the difference between “Categories” and “Tags”.   that made me realize i have way too many categories.  So im cleaning house here. getting better organized.  Just removed a few.  may trim out some more without even asking you.  anyway you almost certainly don’t care, do you?

Happy Easter btw.     HE IS RISEN!!

Canoe Restoration 01

Ok so here starts the tale of my canoe, or perhaps my chapter of this canoe.

Bought slightly used.  Zoom in and have a look.  Made in Vermont.  1980’s.

When i got it in 2017 it hadn’t been used in a while.  For years it was in the owners back yard upside down by a shed.  People get busy and into different stages of life and interests change.  So these folks were getting ready to move south.  Put the boat up on Craigs list

Its a 17 ft with a composite hull and Ash gunwale strips. The hull is amazing.  Impervious to water.  While the ash strips are not.  Especially when left outdoors for years.  Rain and snow, north side of a shed so never really dried out. See those things along the top edge of the side?  Those r the screws sticking out where the ash used to be.  But the hull, tough piece of stuff.  It collected water while it waited for me to start work on it.

 

 

OK the official restart of the blog. Ready, set, GO!

So this started as an update to the “Read Here Please” page. Then i got moving along and decided it should b a post.  So it may have great similarities to that info page.

This blog has been running since 2007.  little action then ignored since 2009.  Brief flurry in 2014.  Now its 2018. That’s an even bigger gap huh.  Well now i might have a little more time as i am now, as i like to put it “semi-retired”.

Of course that also means its time to clean my (legendary) basement.  Ya legendary for being stuffed with stuff.  I will not admit to being a hoarder, but i also got the habit from my dad, who was raised in the depression, not to throw out anything that is still good.  So that’s like a pretty relative term, still good.  Apparently just about anything i pick up is still good.  So we are not talking about cleaning out the basement in a weekend.  If i get it to what an innocent wanderer would consider fairly neat i’m thinking like 6 months work.

So I think the difference between me and a hoarder is variety.  I think hoarders stick to mostly one thing.  Like a house filled with newspapers, or magazines.  or old rags. I’m pretty sure there are people out there with boxes and boxes of old toothbrushes right?  Those folks have the sickness.  surely a person doesn’t need more than say 2 for your mouth and maybe 10 to clean things with.

And i know for a fact that tools are never bad to get and keep more of.  Hand tools and power tools, never go out of style. Fix repair build etc, u always need tools.  I will b passing tools down to the grand kids.

Anyway i do hope to spend time also on the good old blog here. Wish me luck, i may need it.