-
- Lou's Kiteboarding home page
-
- Lou's Comedy home page
|
|---|
Note: While not kiteboarding, I plan to update my blog infrequently, or when something special happens.
Tue 2/1 – I spent some time educating my self about solar panels, deep cycle batteries of various chemistries and controllers to make them all work together. Getting things ready for the trip to Mexico. I phoned Christian and suggested it was going to be so cold that we might consider going out for breakfast tomorrow morning and then return to our cozy homes. It turns out that Steven was bent on going because it was forecast to be windy. Later in the day I made the decision to not go... with a twist...
Wed 2/2 - ...are we crazy?
Thu 2/3 - I had to replace the batteries in my house's smart thermostat this afternoon. It let my house get down to 63 degrees because it is evidently not smart enough to keep going when the three AAs run down.
Click to see the latest version
- I revised the block diagram of the Auxiliary Power Plan for my van, which could eventually include solar.
Auxiliary Power Plan for my van, which you can see revised to reflect my curent thinking on the possible project,
Fri 2/4 - My nocturnal foot-rubbing (see my Blog for 1/15/2011 for details) has escelated from a vegetable brush (built up to 50 strokes) to a scrub brush (starting at four strokes).
- Bullzip PDF Printer is one of the neatest FREE pieces of software I have seen in a long time. Robby, my son-in-law, told me about it. My first use was making a PDF of the block diagram (above), which I created with Open Office's draw program. I installed Bullzip PDF Printer on my computer and now when I go to print, it shows up as one of the printer options. It prints almost any document to a PDF file.
Sat 2/5 - In looking up some of the comedians mentioned in Cosby, a book I am reading by by Ronald L Smith, I found one of the funniest skits I have ever seen here, about two young actors who are asked to do a nude theater scene. Don't worry, it would be G-Rated.
- This afternoon I went to La Fitness, trying to get my workouts back on schedule after missing a day or two while packing for the Mexico kiteboarding trip.
Sun 2/6 - Capital One Master Card has a neat online end-of-year summary that told me everything I purchased all year by category, along with graphs and other stuff.
Mon 2/7 - I bought 1-Calc today, but the calculator on my smart phone has no place to enter my purchase information, and since my trial has rune out, I can not use the calculator
- I started the monthly cycling all the batteries in my various rechargeable electronics.
Tue 2/8 - Bill, from the November Brazil trip, uploaded all the pictures (I had lost my copies) by ftp to my web server. The 1 gigabyte upped my web server disk space used to 10% of my available.
- I started the process of adding refill ports to the print tanks on my Canon Pixma iP4820 printer and re-inking the tanks. I used my Dremel to increase the above-tank clearances in the printer for the port screws.
Wed 2/9 - I found that it is impossible to revive a 15-year-old SLA battery (12v 7ah used in ham radio) after it has been sitting around for about 15 years, updated & uploaded my
Van Auxiliary Power Project diagrams, went shopping with 95-year-old Mildred and started an online boat safety course in preparation for getting my PASSA instructor certification in May.Thu 2/10 – Researched solar controllers that might be suitable for a LiFeMnPO4 battery and drove to Elite Power Solutions and got lots of good information from Rick about their latest-tech LiFeMnPO4 batteries.
Fri 2/11 – Tweaked some more & uploaded my Van Auxiliary Power Project diagrams to my website and vacuumed the house (it sure needed it).
Sat 2/12 – Bob, who lives nearby, came over to buy the heafy-duty wheelbarrow I had advertised on Craigs List. He got a good deal for $25 and I got rid of something for which I no longer had a need. In the shower at LA Fitness, noticed the tops of my feet were a little red where I have been scrubbing them with a brush at night to toughen them up so they will not blister from the rubbing of my kiteboard footstraps. I'll lay off a few days. Also I resolved my checking account – first try!
Sun 2/13 – Organized things like some of my stuff a la The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organizing Your Life by Georgina Lockwood like purging some files on my 55gB USB hard drive, paying two credit card bills online, organizing my phone calls for tomorrow, and exploring and organizing digital TV channels I found as a result of taping (with gaffer's tape, of course) my rabbit ears antenna half way up a back window. You'd think I am living in a double-wide!
Mon 2/14 – Made the phone calls
Tue 2/15 – Went shopping with Mildred. We're finally on our regular shopping schedule of the 1st & 15th of each month. I found my old B&W LCD Handspring Visor PDA. I was going to get rid of it, but will be using it as a dedicated calculator because it is easy to use, includes nine calculators and does lots of stuff. The two AAA batteries last for months.
Wed 2/16 – Researched 12v AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) batteries as a possible replacement of my regular van battery and eliminating the need for an auxiliary battery and all the work of putting one in.
- At GangPlank this evening I met Skylar who was working on and demonstrating his MakerBot Think-O-Matic that "prints" plastic objects. Oh, yes, Skylar is a neat ten year old kid. Equally neat is his dad, Jim St. Leger, who works for Intel.
Thu 2/17 – This is the big day I met my Kindle Challenge of getting to bed by 9:30 every night for a month. That has improved my life, outlook and accomplishments to an amazing extent. I have NEVER been able to accomplish that feat before. Holding myself to the challenge and having a big (for me) reward was the key. The reward? I went out to Target and bought myself an Amazon Kindle 3G. For my Van Auxiliary Power Project I turned the refrigerator on freezer mode along with a Battery Guard (low-voltage shut-off) to see if I might be able to get along with just the van battery I already have. It is Walmart's best and might be the most economical solution, if it is a practical one.
Fri 2/18 – My busy day started out about 6:50 this morning when I got up to go to Councilwoman Peggy Neely's bagel breakfast. It was interesting to listen to, ask questions of and speak with the head of Phoenix Water Department and our City Manager. Why is that such a big deal? Well, it is, to me considering Phoenix is a city of about 5 million people and is considered on of the best run in the country.
- This afternoon I had four awesome ladies here at my house. I had The Perfectionists do all the cleaning I hate to do and I had been putting off for too long (we're talking years, here, in some cases). In two hours they washed all the windows, vacuumed around the edges of the walls where the vacuum cleaner does not get, dusted EVERYTHING, cleaned the toilets, all the mini blinds, made the kitchen sparkle, mopped all the floors, and vacuumed the carpeted rooms.
- This evening I went to the Friday evening the Hamfeast way out on the west side, in Glendale...
- … and got to bed before 9:30! Although my Kindle Challenge is over, getting to bed early has been such a good thing for me, I am continuing.
Sat 2/19 – The thermometer fell of the bedroom wall opposite my stereo speakers. I guess that means I have a pretty good ones.
- Thanks to Craigs List, is afternoon Larry picked up my right, second row quad seat for $50. I'm sure I'll loose more that $50 on the value of the van without the seat, but at least I will not have to store it for another year or so. This evening
- This evening, at the Friday Night Ham Feast, I had some of the tenderest pork, ever – pulled pork on top of my salad. Good conversations with a good group!
Mon 2/21 – Presidents' Day: Today I drove over to George and Cindy's (younger brother & wife) in Mesa and helped them juice buckets of oranges from their tree. I was so efficient that I burned out their new ream-style juicer. Fortunitely, the hardware store replaced it for George.
- I started measuring the current (2A) and power (24W) that my van's refrigerator actually uses when it is running with a 4' cigarette lighter extension cord on which I installed break-out connections. My current thinking on the Van Auxiliary Power Project is to do nothing. That is, if I determine that I can get along on just my van battery on my trip. I am currently testing Battery Guard that shuts power off to the refrigerator at 11.06V. If so, it will save a lot of money and trouble, since I have an excellent warranty on the battery from Wall-mart.
- I got the version that I bought of 1-Calc working on my HTC Touch Diamond smart phone. There is no way to activate the trial version, so had to uninstall it then re-download and re-install it on the phone.
Tue 2/22 - Got a $377.30 dividend check from Amica Mutual Insurance Company today. It is surely is good being an owner.
- I fired up my oven today to 425 degrees to heat a lead slug to melt into the plastic of my new Amazon Kindle. It now says, "Property of Louis Self" on the back.
Thu 2/24 - I never know if I'm losing self control or being smart when I get started on unscheduled projects. The unscheduled projects today, I thought of in the middle of the night last night. Both of them involved the Internet (what else is new?). The first project was researching commercial blinders. I have decided that I do not have to get along with the overheating of multiple household blinders when mixing my Protein Frosties I. The second project was researching commercial citrus juicers for George to use with fruit from his trees.
- Washed the van, including its windows inside and out. The window job is one I hate to do since it involves so much stretching and rubbing but the van seems to drive better. It was all spruced up for late afternoon Bally Fitness with Mildred. I installed self-adhesive felt strips on the bottom of the tubes of one of my kitchen chairs so it will not make the floor black when it scoots around. If the strips stay on and work well, I'll add them to the other chairs.
- After a quick supper (actually all my meals are quick), so I could get to bed by 9:30, I got everything ready to crawl into bed and then took off to Tempe for the monthly ARA meeting. Rick Aldom, W7STS, made an interesting Power Point presentation on weather radar.
Sat 2/26 - Traveling today. First thing after breakfast I traveled to Goodwill (they would not open for another 1.5 hours so I went on) on my way to the