Watt's Up Musings of an original geek

Today’s event was the 2007 AT&T Austin Marathon
Update: That’s me finishing.

Photo courtesy of Action Sports International

This weekend I was busy with other things and while doing them Matthew and Beth put the fence together. Thanks!

A few weeks ago the fence on the side of the house blew down. The left-side fence post had rotted and weakened. So today, Sunday, after my marathon bus tour, Matthew, Beth and I spent a long time and a lot of energy digging a 2 1/2 foot deep hole with a post hole digger. Then we inserted an 8″ diameter cardboard form into the hole, back filled around it, and inserted a new 4″x4″ treated fence post into the tube. We mixed 80 lbs of concrete in the wheelbarrow, shoveled it into the tube around the post, and found that we didn’t have enough. So off I went to Home Depot to buy 60 lbs more. We mixed it up and filled the tube to the top. Tonight it’s curing and then we’ll put the fence back together. I really appreciate both Beth’s and Matthew’s help today. I couldn’t have done it without them.

Matthew wanted a chin up bar in the garage. Since he helped me clean out the garage in preparation for the hot water heater repair, and then assisted in the repair, we built a chin up bar for him on Saturday afternoon. Matthew already had the bar, but we had to create the wall mount. So when shopping for heater parts we bought materials for the mount. Since Matthew is a big guy we needed to make sure that it was strong enough to hold his weight. We worked together to drill the holes, mount the side boards, anchor them to the back, and then mount it on the wall with 4″ lag screw into studs.

At the end of last week Kathy noticed a puddle in the garage near the freezer. However, it wasn’t the freezer. Instead it was the water heater that is located right behind it. It was leaking. Very nicely Matthew on Friday cleaned up the garage and moved the freezer for me. So on Saturday after running the last 13.1 miles of the marathon course I opened up the water heater door and sure enough it was leaking. The floor was wet, and the top was wet. It didn’t look good. I was sure that the heater was leaking and it would cost upward to $1000 to buy and install a new one.

However after analyzing the symptoms I realized it was one of the pipes, the output hot water pipe (on the left), that was corroded and leaking. So it cost me $15 worth of parts and about $45 for a new torch. I shut off the cold water input, drained the tank, and turned off the gas. Then I took apart the old copper pipe joint, put on a new threaded coupling and then tightened on a new hot water output connection. Afterwards I turned on the cold water input, and lit the pilot. Unfortunately the sweating of my new coupling was leaking. So Sunday morning I did it all over again. Although initially it leaked a bit, the leak stopped and I’ve been checking it all day. So far it hasn’t leaked any more so I think I’ve fixed it. Slowly the damp floor is drying.

A local person, Diana H., is organizing a small robotic competition for 5-12th graders called RoboFest. I listened to her presentation this morning and volunteered to help in any way I could on March 24th from 1 to 5 PM at the competition. I even offered to assist a coach and team, but I don’t know how to make that connection.

The past few days have been icy here in Austin and throughout much of the country. As a result my work site has been closed. This rarely happens especially two days in a row. However I’ve been going in regardless. Driving has not been bad, and I’m a careful driver. IMHO having grown up in Buffalo NY this little bit of ice and sleet is nothing. At work it’s been quiet. I’ve gotten a few things done, which needed to get done. Some of my previous jobs and responsibilities have come back to haunt me. I’ve had a presentation to create along with a step-by-step lab on the SPU Overlay capability. Someone wanted to use the Terrain Rendering Engine program that I migrated to a new level of support software and it wasn’t working so I needed to debug it. Also there was a capability of the SPE management library that I personally wanted to investigate but was outside of my required work. Finally there is my primary work which needs me to write a design document. So I’m busy which is a good thing.

Recently on a Make posting titled “CueCatLibraryThing & CueCats – Catalog your books” I was surprised to hear about the old “:CueCat”. I remembered that I had gotten one years ago and never did anything with it. So digging deep within one of my old boxes of junk I found it.

It is a Digital Convergence 68-1965-A version with a Rev 2.1 board inside. I modified it using the How to Neuter a :Cat article and its Confuse-A-Cat sub-article along with the additional Geek posting using the “blue” connection as shown in the picture. [Most of this work was documented in 2000 and some of the links on the internet no longer worked.]When it was done I plugged it into the keyboard port and the keyboard into it and then tried it. Scanning the UPC on a book it spit out just UPC nothing else – very nice and the mod worked. Using isbn.un I was able to scan a few books and find them on the internet. I thought maybe Kathy’s library of stitching books could be aided by something like this. So I showed her what I had done. Naturally she wants a complete library cataloging solution not just a simple scanner, but then it’s a start. So I need to look into LibraryThing.com

Justin and Stephanie have gone back to San Francisco. Katie has gone back to university. Matthew and Beth are gone until Tuesday. The house is very quiet. Just me and my sweetheart who is transfixed by the college bowl games on TV. Oh, one more thing, to all please have a happy new year!
Update: It’s now Tuesday and I’m all alone. Kathy is now back at work. Today is my last day of vacation, and tomorrow I too will be back at work. It was a nice vacation and holiday.

Today, sadly, Katie departed back to Ohio and the universiy there. Her flights were somewhat messed up, but she made it. Somehow I hadn’t expected her to leave this soon. And I miss her.