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detritus on the solar deck
Friday, November 8 2024
I've been pretty bad about just letting detritus from my various projects accumulate on the solar deck, a place where only I ever go. So it's got heaps of crap on it from several different eras. There is a pile of old DishNet (or similar) satellite dishes that I once thought I might use as acoustic antennas (that is, to concentrate audio waves from specific locations in the distance), since they're not good dishes for the radio spectra I typically work in (5.8 GHz and below). Then there are a couple nice 24 dB parabolic WiFi antennas languishing, waiting for a good application. There's also a pile of Yagi antennas and antennas for over-the-air broadcast television from back when I thought that was how we might be able to get episodes of Jeopardy! after we conclusively cut the cord on cable television (it turns out it's much easier to get such shows with Bittorrent). There's also a classic 1980s-style antenna rotator. The legacy of numerous gallons of antifreeze being added to the top of the solar hydronic loop is over a dozen empty plastic gallon jugs that it had been sold in, some of them breaking into tiny bits after years of ultraviolet light exposure. There's also a piece of plywood I'd made into a structure to perhaps give me a way to repair the roof back before we had it professionally replaced. Finally, of course, is all the wood, bits of foam, screws, and other debris from the recent solar panel rejuvenation. Today I decided to do something about some of this crap, throwing all the latest debris down to the driveway to be sorted into usable and trash piles. The shattered remains of the old top plank of the panel went in the latter, but there was some treated lumber that had spent 19 years out in the elements that was still good enough to keep. I also brought all the old satellite dishes down to the laboratory deck, and from there I intend to move them to indefinite storage outside near the greenhouse. The 24 dB WiFi dishes might end up at the cabin, where they could be used to, for example, beam a usable WiFi signal through the woods down to the dock.
Gretchen's ex-"wife" Barbara drove to the Hudson Valley from Pittsburgh today. She'd arranged to stay somewhere near Saugerties, as something in our house (mold, cat dander, or something) had negatively affected her health the last time she'd stayed in our master guestroom. But her plans were to spend lots of time with Gretchen, beginning this afternoon. She, Gretchen, and the dogs all set off on a walk so quickly after she arrived that I didn't see her until they got back. Barbara was the person who had first identified Charlotte's underbite based only on the puffyness of her lips in a photo, an underbite she most definitely turned out to have.
After Gretchen, Barbara and the dogs returned from their walk, Barbara was hungry, so we (this time without the dogs) all piled into the Bolt and drove to Woodstock for lupper (my favorite meal of the day!) at the Garden Café. I say lupper, because when we sat down, it was still daylight and only after 4:00pm. Mushroom tacos were on the menu, so I ordered those with a side of black beans. But then it turned out there were no mushroom tacos, so I opted for a Beyond Burger smothered with mushrooms instead. At another table was a a group of people with cat-sized dog whose underbite was so severe that his or her teeth projected up past the upper lip even when his or her mouth was completely closed. (At some point our waitress True accidentally stepped on that dog, and he or she let out a terrible shriek. But she or he was fine.) Most of what we talked about was celebrities we have known or interacted with. Barbara, for example, once met Tony Bennett at an exclusive party (one of Barbara's ex-girlfriends had apparently been friends with Sting). By contrast, our celebrity friends are relative nobodies. But the friendships are more real. Fortunately, we talked very little if at all about the nightmare results of the recent presidential election.
Back in Hurley, after Barbara left, Gretchen and I watched Jeopardy! and then a movie called How to Build a Girl, about a teenage girl who becomes a successful British rock critic. Her chemistry with Alfie Allen, the actor who'd played Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones was notable, as was the beautiful voice that Allen had (it turned out to actually be his voice) when singing a few songs. (Gretchen added them to her Spotify favorites.)
Meanwhile we were laundering our bedsheets, as some cat had puked on them and then (judging from the smell) a dog had cleaned up (that is, ate) the puke and then pissed on the remaining wet spot. We used some sort of enzyme-based cleansers on that spot, and to accelerate the drying process (so we could sleep in the bed), I set up a large parabolic heater so that its beam of infrared energy was directed downward from above at the wet spot. To get this to happen, I built a makeshift frame of boards spanning the bed from its headboard to its footboard that I could then lay the parabolic heater on face-down. I then used bungee cords and a stuffed toy that resembles an American robin to force the switch on the bottom of the heater closed so it would work in this position. (For some reason I couldn't find a single working fan in the house.) This arrangement worked okay, but only for about five minutes at a time. After that, it would overheat, trigger an alarm, and shut off.
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