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indistinguishable from springtime
Friday, February 18 2011
Today was even warmer than yesterday, with temperatures reaching up into the mid-60s. Psychologically, it felt indistinguishable from springtime. Judging from their melodic songs, even the birds seemed convinced. I even had the doors and the laboratory window thrown open for a few hours. This afternoon Sarah the Vegan came by and picked up Gretchen for what would ultimately be a day of cultural adventures down in Beacon with Ray and Nancy. I stayed behind and tinkered with multiple projects. I tried replacing the disco ball rotator motor with one of the big guys I bought yesterday, but it was far too loud and powerful. I had better luck with replacing the cable to my FM antenna with a new cable utilizing a different route (using the new wire chase to the outdoors that I added when we switched from DirecTV to DishNet — one that doesn't contain any hum-inducing 120 volt wires). It was a beautiful day to be out on the decks; three different cats were out on the laboratory and solar decks at different times: Marie (aka "the Baby"), Julius (aka "Stripey"), and Sylvia (the only cat who actually went all the way up to the solar deck). I'd shoveled all the snow off these decks some weeks ago so they were dry enough to walk around on with just socks.
Meanwhile, Nigel our newest cat has taken to pissing in random places around the living room. This might be because he is often terrorized by Julius when he tries to use his litter box. The latest victim of Nigel's nasty habit was Sally's dog bed, which has become a favorite place for Julius to sleep (indicating a certain vindictive quality to a Nigel's new behavior). After cleaning that up, I removed practically all the soft floor features in the living room and moved a litter box to the place where it was during Nigel's least-problematic phase.
From Beacon, Gretchen continued on down to New York City to spend some time with Gilley, who had flown in from Oregon to help her mother out with an unpleasant new phase of life.
For some reason I'm not getting many new episodes of my favorite shows recorded on the DVR, but tonight at least I got one my favorites: the season finalé of Gold Rush Alaska, where my favorite knuckleheads continued right up to the onset of winter (which arrives in October) in the pursuit of the gold necessary to turn their lives around. Though they don't really have much in common with me and probably all think Obama was born in Kenya, I still find myself hoping they find their god damn gold. But in a way, they have: their show is wildly popular and they (or someone) will probably make more from it than anyone ever has from a crappy Alaskan gold mine. Which leads to this idea: what other marginal activities can be made into wildly-successful reality shows? How about Couch Cushion Treasures or Highway Shoulder Finders Keepers.
Late in the evening, temperatures gradually fell through the 50s and then the 40s. Off to the east, occasional lightning bolts illuminated the clouds from within.
Some notes I took today about the existing solar controller to help with building its replacement.
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