Daylight Saving Switch Starts

Welcome to Daylight Saving Time! 27 clocks later, my annual DST audit is officially closed. I got nine clocks set forward on the main floor last night, did four more this morning in the basement and garage, fine-tuned four auto-updating devices, and verified ten net-synchronized devices. Whew. Glad to have all our devices at least showing the same hour! 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m pleased to report no *new* clock software bugs showed up this year, although my buggy Honda car clock is still living 20 years in the past. So this morning we were tempted to play music from 2006 on the stereo, in its honor… but instead, we’re listening to our local Boulder AAA rock station KBCO FM, playing music commemorating Women’s Day. More fun than changing clocks, is listening to Sheryl Crow singing “All I Wanna Do… is have some fun!” Fun fact: Sheryl Crow just came on KBCO to announce that she really appreciates our local station, as they were the very first ones to play her music.

Flash Bang Smoke!

An intense storm cell just moved through here, leaving some shock and awe in its wake. I was gazing out my window, looking away from my Flight Simulator DC-3 flight, and watching my next door neighbor’s construction materials blowing around, when my window suddenly got so bright I couldn’t see, and at the same time I was surprised by the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard. The first thing I did, is check on Jennefer and the kitties, who were fine, but the cats were on the floor looking up at me with a questioning tilt to their heads. I tried to assure them that all was OK, when my phone rang, and my neighbor across the street told me they thought my house was on fire, as they could see and smell smoke. I hurried outside while calling 911, and walked around my house, smelling a strong smoke smell, but didn’t see anything on fire, or even any concentrated smoke, although there was definitely a light smoke haze drifting around. The Emergency operator transferred me to the Fire department, who said that someone in the next neighborhood over had reported a fire, and they were responding. They asked me if I saw smoke or flames, and I had to say no. They said call back if you do, otherwise you’re probably smelling the neighbor’s house on fire. It’s been quite a while now, and still no sign of smoke or flames here, so I guess we’re good! It appears they got the neighbor’s house put out right away, as I’m not smelling smoke any more. Wow. So much for a quiet afternoon! 🤷‍♂️

Storm and Outage

There was a lot of storm activity here Friday afternoon.  I used iLightning to catch this pic of a lightning strike in the nearby foothills. 

Oops, and there went our power… and it came back on 90 minutes later, for 5 seconds… then went off again… here we are sitting on the couch playing word games to candlelight, and that was kind of fun…

The power came on and went back off twice more during the night. This morning, I was dealing with an angry beeping carbon monoxide detector in the basement, even after the power had been on for awhile. I replaced the battery and it was still beeping every 30 seconds. Turns out that several basement circuits were dead. I discovered, after tromping outside in the cold rain, and manhandling the dumb breaker panel doors, that multiple GFCI breakers in the newer power panel had tripped, probably when the power surged during one of the outages, or maybe when lightning struck nearby. Fixed! Then later this morning, we realized the house WiFi wasn’t working, as its backup battery had run down overnight. I hit the power button on the UPS, and we had internet! For about 5 minutes… then the UPS started beeping every few seconds, and shut down again. After downloading the user manual, I realized it was beeping because the outlet it was plugged into was dead. That lead me to yet another GFCI that had tripped, on the wall in another room, hiding behind my skis. After resetting that, everything seems pretty normal here… other than all that snow coming down out there.

We’re having fun watching the birds frequenting our feeders over the deck. I was going to say “Birds love snow,” since we tend to see more of them when it’s snowing, but of course the real takeaway is “Birds love to eat,” especially on snowy days…

Record low!

The weather folks say that Denver Airport hit -24°F last night, the lowest temperature in 32 years! I think that’s kind of a funny record, since the airport hasn’t been there that long - it was first commissioned in 1995, but “whatever,” as Dad would say. We’re glad to have a relatively new, fully operational and (comparatively) very efficient furnace, and woke up to a comfortable morning, with this beautiful view out the bedroom window. It’s somewhat over-exposed, but I really liked it that way, since that’s about how it looked to my sleepy eyes.

We received a few inches of snow overnight, which made the drive to pick up breakfast prettier. We went out to shovel the driveway before leaving, and I had on warm boots, thick socks, flannel lined jeans, three upper layers, and a hat. And I still froze my ears and face off... and decided to quit before finishing, for fear of them literally freezing off… with earmuffs and a scarf a short trip into the house away, I had no excuse, but still didn’t wear them, which felt kind of dumb, after the fact. 

Somebody is having fun decorating their yard, at a house that we see on our way to pick up breakfast.

Pretty expanse of snow-covered grass at Little’s Creek Park, on our way home from picking up breakfast.

The local birds are enjoying the bird feeders even more in the cold weather. We’ve seen House Finches, Chickadees, Nuthatches, Woodpeckers, Flickers, and Dark-eyed Juncos. 

Here’s a House Finch inbound to the tire swing bird feeder, with what looks like a bank of frozen ice crystals in the air over the foothills.

The local squirrels have been somewhat miffed, ever since we turned off the hospitality switch for them, after they chewed through my Christmas lights in multiple places. Sorry guys, you’re free to do what you do, but I’m also free to decide I don’t like that.

Broken spring

My car has been held hostage by my garage door for a few days… a broken counterbalance spring makes it tough to get it open… heavy! This time around, I called someone to replace it… and I’m glad to finally have it working!

Heat again!

We are so glad to have a new furnace! The old one had a lot of things going wrong with it, so after a bit of agonizing, I finally bit the bullet, and had them install a new one. We only had to survive a few days without central heat. Using a space heater and fireplace was barely working ok, mostly because the weather had warmed up a little, after that frigid 15°F Saturday morning, when we discovered it wasn't working any more. The installers were here all day, until long after dinner time, dealing with the intricacies of replacing the heart of a moderately complicated system, and leaving a spotlessly clean work site. We have our fingers crossed, that it all works perfectly throughout this winter, and many more in the future.

Cold Dead Furnace

It's a frosty cold 15°F morning in Littleton; that’s 17° below freezing, for those of us that are counting. The birds out on our feeders seem to be handling it ok. We have really been enjoying watching the birds at the three feeders we have out there. The squirrels are also gorging themselves on the two dishes of seeds that we keep filled on the deck box. Nice to have some wildlife that doesn't mind coming close, for us to watch, as they enjoy the goodies we're giving them.

It seemed a little cold in the house when I got up, and then I realized… Murphy’s Law struck once again, as four days after a regular maintenance visit, which included replacement of an aging but fully functional igniter, my heater is enthusiastically running the circulation fan, with no flame in the furnace. This is yet another of those times, when I should smack myself on the side of the head, and whisper intensely, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it“, as I call the HVAC folks, then move around the house, firing up the gas fireplaces, and plugging in the portable electric heaters.  

 

Update four hours later: somehow the furnace “magically” started working on its own, at least for awhile

 

Update even later: and now, it's cold again...

 

Here's a closeup of our cheery Christmas tree in the breakfast nook, which makes things seem better, every time I look at it. 

 

 

Basement leak... ugh!

I went into a basement storage room this morning, after freeing the stuck door, and found the carpet drenched from wall to wall, with a large six inch wide dimple on the ceiling. Not sure when it started, as I don't go in there very often. So much for the breakfast/walk routine. Frantically moved piles of stuff to other rooms. Safeco Insurance recommended a plumber and a water damage mitigation company. The first guy from the plumbing company came to evaluate - he pointed his infrared camera up, noted that there's a large area of cold (ergo wet) ceiling, and notified his company that they need to send the plumber to find and fix the probable leak.

Funny, haha 😞😡😬 that this water mess is happening at the same time I'm worrying about Dad and Adele in the path of Hurricane Irma. I guess we might have bad water Kharma in our family right now.

Update 9/7: Ugh. Didn't sleep well, after yesterday's water leak event. The bad news yesterday, was that the plumber got backed up (haha) and couldn't get to the house, and finally had to reschedule for late this morning. So, it was difficult to sleep very well, with the problem hanging out there unresolved. The plumber finally arrived, tore into the soggy ceiling, and found and fixed the leak, which was a pinhole in a hot water line. Replaced about six feet of copper line at the joints. Yay? The water damage mitigation guys will come tomorrow morning.

Update 9/8: The water damage mitigation folks lifted the carpet, and started the process of dehumidifying. Will check back tomorrow.

Update 9/9: The water damage mitigation folks came back this morning, pronounced the carpet bone dry, announced a negative asbestos test result for the ceiling, cut out the remaining moist ceiling drywall, and left warm air blowing up there to dry it out. They will probably be done tomorrow.

Update 9/10: The water damage mitigation folks came back this morning, tested for moisture in the ceiling and found none, and took their equipment out. I guess now I need to find someone to replace, texture, and paint the ceiling drywall.

Stuff works!

My refrigerator is running again! (I know, I'd better go catch it). I can read the display on my microwave again! The wrecked door on the oven bottom drawer is replaced! Gosh, I guess you'd call these simple pleasures. But I waited far too long, and it feels so good, to finally get that all done.

Celebration of Kristan's life

We will be having a "celebration of Kristan's life" reception at the house on Sunday between 2 and 5 PM. It will be very informal. We will have pictures of her, from earlier and happier times, on display around the house, for people to wander around and discover. A few people are bringing food.

Planning to go home

They're planning Dialysis for Kristan tomorrow morning. Then home! I decided to advocate for skipping the stay at yet another nursing facility, before bring her home. I think her complicated case is beyond the abilities of any nursing facility. Their difficulties (and ultimately, their lack of success) managing her food, pills, glucose, pain, outweighs the advantage of having full-time care available. Not to mention the disappointments of being away from her own home, and her "pack". — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

On the lighter side...

And, on a lighter note... Our Sonos system is working again, yay! I finally figured out that the AC power adapter had gotten fried by a lightning strike several weeks ago. The replacement power adapter arrived in the mail today. As we're getting ready for bed, we've got the soundtrack from Mama Mia! Playing. Take a chance on me... Take a chance, take a chance!

No rest for the weary

Unfortunately, I had a lot of interruptions, as people were texting me and posting on Facebook, asking how K was doing, so my phone kept beeping. And, the morning caregiver, who we thought "someone" had canceled, showed up at 7am, with no idea of what had been happening. Then our regular 10am dog/house helper showed up an hour early. So by noon, I had gotten maybe an hour of sleep, and headed back into work.

Mystery solved

Hooray. I finally figured out the mystery of the bedroom TV power circuit that's been dead since the deafening thunderclap last Saturday evening. I forgot you have to turn a tripped breaker completely off, before turning it back on. It looks on, but it's not. I stopped in the basement, this morning, and realized the computer and the UPS it's plugged into, were both dead. I realized we still had some other dead circuits in the house. When I got home tonight, I had the idea that I should try resetting the circuit breakers again. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember which breakers I had found tripped on Monday, so I had to turn them all off, and then all back on. The good news... Success! All circuits are alive again! The computer's UPS is charging! And the office lights work!

Breakers tripped

I had the idea that maybe the dead bedroom TV circuit, was simply a tripped circuit breaker, so I stopped at the breaker panels outside, when I got home. Nothing tripped on the old breaker panel, darn. Aha! The new panel that was installed when we finished the basement had four CBs tripped! I turned them all back on. No joy with the bedroom TV, though, which I kind of expected, since it's upstairs, and probably on a circuit that's in the old breaker panel.

Bedroom fun

We're having fun with our new bedroom furniture. We finally have a headboard, for the first time, and drawers to put things in, that won't get all dusty in a few days. I'm all excited about picking up two power strips at Office Depot tomorrow, to clean up our dozen electrical power connections. Simple pleasures...

The light at the end

OMG. It feels like we can see the light at the end of the home-repair-improvement tunnel. The refinished hardwood floors are all cured and ready for use. The furniture is mostly moved back onto the hardwood floors where it belongs. The new stairway railing is installed and stained. The new replacement carpet is installed on the main floor, staircase, and upstairs bedrooms. The leaking pipe in the kitchen ceiling is fixed. The five huge holes in the kitchen ceiling are patched, and the ceiling has been taped, textured, and painted. The new bedroom furniture (our first headboard ever!) has arrived, and the dozen electrical devices around the bed have been unplugged and replugged several times. Now, we just have to deal with the moderately long "punch list" that's left over from all that.

Scheduling conflict

It should be fun at the house right now, with the drywall repair and new carpet installation happening at the same time. I had a bit of a problem with the schedule... then I couldn't bring myself to send either of them away, since they're all busy, and might not be able to get back for weeks or months, and I so badly want all this work to be done.

Holes patched!

It's the first day of kitchen ceiling repair. Today they patched and taped. I'm so glad, to finally have all those holes covered up.

Found the leak

Some good news: After many weeks of putting up with five huge holes in the kitchen ceiling, while waiting unsuccessfully for the leak to re-occur, today our painter/friend and his drywaller/friend found a bunch of corrosion on a section of copper hot water pipe that was hiding between the holes. He sanded off the worst of the corrosion in one spot, and it started leaking immediately. A self-sealing (sort of) leak! Called a new plumber, and replaced the entire section.