After a brief hiatus of about 15 years, I picked up a new soldiering iron and am actually building hardware again. I’m slowly rebuilding my lab from scratch… the new house is going to come in handy, because I actually want space for a workbench and some decent magnifying glasses, and the usual crap.

As a reflexive problem, I figured out my first new project, because I need a lab, because of the new house, oh whatever…

I’m going to try my hand at building a wireless internet thermostat for the SF house.
As it turns out, (good) thermostats are fairly more complicated than one would expect, you want hysteresis in the system so you aren’t constantly firing and shutting down the heating/cooling units, plus, with multi-stage equipment (small and large furnace burners and small and large air conditioning) you want to intelligently maximize the use of the small (eco-friendly) stage, but kick on the big stage when the energy differential between desired and blah blah blah…

I just want to be able to turn off the damn heat when I’m out of the house for a few days.. or turn it on when I’m driving up from the Peninsula so it’s not freezing when I get there.

Once I’m done with that one, I’m thinking radio controlled helicopter with a .38 caliber handgun.

The house won’t be furnished like this, but the model is correct for the room architecture.

I should have done this months ago, so much less angst.

In other news (tree death day), it’s time to update the house to-do list:

• electrical: done
• roofing: done
• heating: done
• arborist: hired and in progress
• carpentry: install attic stairs
• painting: in progress
• decorating: decided to do it myself

Not a good day to be a tree in my life.

Last night, around midnight, this happened… it sounded like an explosion out back.

I had just called the dogs in 5 second earlier, they were going nuts, guess they knew the tree was giving way.

Tree guy came out this morning, then pointed at the tree out front and asked me when I was going to stop fooling myself and remove the zombie oak next to the driveway. He’s right.

Drove up to SF to talk to the tree guys up there that I was scheduled to meet. Removing a blighted Willow in the back yard and dealing with the Sycamore up front and the neighbor’s tree that is trying to kill it.

The tree guy goes, wow, what a beautiful Acacia (it’s 70 years old and at least 70 feet tall)… stares at it a second and says… “oh fuck. pardon my french… take a look at that”. I look, and see that about 30 feet up there’s an 18 inch crack where one of the main branches is about to break, and probably take out 4 neighbor’s back yards… with the location of the crack, it looks like the tree won’t really be salvageable (horribly off balance), so it is probably going to get murdered too.

In case you weren’t aware, I happen to love trees, that was a main deciding factor for both houses, and both of them are getting denuded.

If you are a tree, for your own sake, stay away from me today.

Almost six months have past and the list looks almost the same, but strangely enough, much has happened under the covers. New heating ducts and a furnace, rebuilt and insulated attic, deck rebuilt, new roof going on next week, plumbing fixed.

Todo:

• electrical: ground/replace parlor outlet, add office outlet, add tv wall outlet (tomorrow)
• roofing: new tar roof, eyebrow vents, fix flashing (next week)
• carpenter: finish patching walls, attic ladder, bracing for tv, finish attic insulation (next week)
• flooring: refinish hardwood floors (still need to pick stain color)
• heating: final inspection
• painting: color selection, paint and seal exterior, paint interior, stain deck
• select a hot tub under deck, investigate moisture damage possibility for deck
• electrical part 2: service upgrade, Tesla charger (220/70a), power for hot tub
• get an arborist out to look at trees up front
• webcam and water cannon to shoot neighbor when he throws shit in my driveway

Heading down near Santa Margarita for the week to hang out with friends.

Someone suggested this route:

View Larger Map

Seems like a nice idea, explore earthquake country…

Parkfield is the most active part of the San Andreas fault. Almost constant tremors and quakes. I may skip the Parkfield loop if it’s too hot…

A friend of mine pointed me to this site, great tools for sharing proposed routes or actual tracks from motorcycle, car, and hiking trips.  It’s sort of a social networking site for trip sharing.

Unfortunately, most of the users seem to be from Oregon, so if you’re a Californian, get busy!  I’ve posted my favorites/recent trips.

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Originally uploaded by Moloko Velocet

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Moloko Velocet