Humor

Cruel humor sent by a reader:

Engineer #1: Implementing this Arabic stuff has caused me to learn the darnedest things. Did you know that "al-" is the root for alcohol?

Engineer #2: You mean like, "Al Jazeera?"

Engineer #1: Yeah, and "Al Qaida."

Engineer #3 (the boss): Or "Al Gore?"

I am reminded of something that happened to a co-worker some years ago. He went to the post office to pick up a package. He had a book in his hand that had the word "algorithms" in it. Another person standing in line looked at the title and asked, "Is that a book of the sayings of Al Gore?"

House Project: Enforcing Warranty Compliance

The builder sent an email asking to know when he could pick up the final check. We have been waiting for several months for the plumber to show up to tighten up the kitchen faucet and replace the broken hose bib handle. Amazingly enough, the morning after I told him the check would be available, "after all the warranty work has been finished," the plumber showed up, and did his tasks. (He also removed the very expensive Harmsco stainless steel lead filtration housing. We don't need it; we aren't using it; I'm hoping to find someone who doesn't want to pay $1100 for a new one.)

Anyway, all that is left is one cracked tile (not badly cracked, but still visible) and the screens that need to be redone in aluminum, so the grasshoppers don't continue eating them. With luck, this should be done by Monday.

Last house project entry.

House Project: Concrete Color Fixed; Fiberglass Screens Being Eaten

After much struggle, the builder came up here with a representative from Brickform, the makers of the colored stamped concrete that we had done around the house. As regular readers will know, this was a disaster. The builder didn't put in drainage when we first discussed it, and some of the concrete on the rear garage apron cracked. When the concrete guys came in and re-poured it, it was the wrong color. Then they put on the finish that was supposed to be shiny and rose colored--and it didn't hide the gray concrete, and the finish was inconsistent and dark brown. At this point, we gave up getting the color the one that we had been promised--we would have been happy with a consistent color and finish.

Anyway, the first attempt to correct this problem didn't work so well, but by experimentation, the representative from Brickform and our builder found that a combination of the sealer (which makes it shiny and repel water) and xylene would dissolve the existing sealant layer, and produce a fairly consistent color and sheen. It still isn't quite what we had expected from looking at other work, but it's not too bad.

Here are a couple of pictures--and let me point out that we've tracked a bit of dirt across it, which hoses right off because of the finish.


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I mentioned a few months back that we had a problem with woodpeckers punching big holes in the screens on the south side of the house. We have noticed a gradually increasing problem with little holes in the screens mostly on the north side of the house, but a little bit everywhere. It turns out that the screen material is made of fiberglass--not metal. The builder was a little surprised by this, and suggested that we could rescreen them pretty easily. (Of course, he wasn't suggesting that he do it or pay for it.)

Had the problem been birds, I would have cringed at the cost of having it done, or the labor of doing it ourselves, but we finally caught a grasshopper eating the screen. What is the purpose of window screens? To keep out bugs. If the bugs can, and do, eat through the screens, they aren't performing their only function, are they? As far as I am concerned, this is a warranty issue.


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Of course, it might be easier to do just rescreen them ourselves. I bought some aluminum mesh at Home Depot, and two hours later, we discovered why Valley Glass charges about $28 to rescreen--this is a difficult job, and the results (if you don't do this regularly) aren't terribly pretty. There are enough screens involved here that we have told the builder to take care of this. If he delays too long, we'll have Valley Glass do it, and we'll deduct it out of the final check we still owe him for various work that has been done since we closed in December (about $5200).

And yes, I expect to write that check only after all warranty work has been done, and I will issue that check about as rapidly as he has responded to warranty claims. He may see it this year.

Last house project entry.

Another Great Idea Down The Tubes

My agent tells me that there has been one successful book about a house building project--Tracy Kidder's House, and that's bcause Kidder had a huge fan base. So I guess I'll resume writing history books.

House Project: Another Disappointing Towel Rack

My wife noticed that a towel ring in the bathroom was a little loose--so she decided to see why. Instead of using a molybolt or something similar--the screws were just turned into the wallboard. There was a stud all of three inches away--and it would have been centered between the wall edge and the mirror if they had used the stud.





It didn't take long for us to fix it--but this is inexcusable sloppiness.

Last house project entry.

House Project: Water Testing, Concrete Color

The builder came up with someone from another concrete company--not the guy who washed his hands of the project (but not of the money he received) and we did some color testing with a particular strategy for getting a reasonably consistent color. I think we have a solution. The builder needs to power wash everything before they do this, so probably next week.

The water test I submitted a couple of weeks ago came back. Iron: 0.17 ppm; lead: <0.002 ppm (none detectable); coliform bacteria: none. I guess I won't worry about this. I'll re-check it in six months.


Last house project entry.

Dark Skies

At the encouragement of my wife, I am resuming astrophotography. Big Bertha gathers so much light that even without a clock drive on it, it should be possible to get decent pictures of the Moon and perhaps of Jupiter and Saturn with it. With 800 speed film, 1/1000th of a second is a long enough exposure for a quarter Moon--and there's not much motion in 1/1000th of a second. (There's a very nice calculator for this here.)

Film? Why so primitive? Unfortunately, consumer digital cameras really aren't well suited to this, because the lens can't be removed to do prime focus or eyepiece projection astrophotography. In prime focus photography, you use the telescope objective as the lens, so Big Bertha is properly understood as a 2000mm f/4.5 telephoto lens. In eyepiece projection, you put one of the telescope eyepieces between the objective and the camera, substantially increasing the focal length and f-ratio. For example, with an 18mm eyepiece in Big Bertha, it becomes a 11,227mm lens at f/29.5.

It is possible to use a consumer digital camera in what is called "afocal" mode, where you focus the camera on the image in the eyepiece, but I haven't found that to work too well.

There are considerably higher end digital cameras with removable lenses, the digital equivalent to a 35mm SLR, but these were priced in the $800 to $1000 range until recently. (I just checked, and I was startled to see the Pentax body only version now offered for $342, after rebates.) Certainly when the old house in Boise sells, this is on my list of things to get!

Why Pentax? I have a number of Pentax lens from my ME Super that will fit, and I have an adapter for the telescope that is also made for the Pentax lens mount.

Anyway, away from astrophotography, and to dark skies. I was outside last night do star trails, where you aim the camera at the North Star, and set various exposure times: 5 minutes, 10, 20, and 40. As the stars rotate around the North Star, you get photographs like this.

My wife shared my amazement at how dark the sky was at our house. The Moon had not risen yet, and the Milky Way stretched across the entire sky, from north to south. Even the skyglow of Boise wasn't enough to drown it out. I couldn't find the constellation Hercules at first, because it was overwhelmed by all the other stars.

There's a big development going in about ten miles from us, just across the county line, called Avimor. I guess that I better write them a letter, asking them to think about preserving the dark sky when they are picking out light fixtures.

UPDATE: I located the Governmental Affairs guy at Avimor. Yes, preserving dark skies is on their list of objectives, and they will be picking exterior lighting with this in mind. While he has not yet joined the Boise Astronomical Society, he has attended at least one of our events, with his telescope. It's nice to have allies in important places!