changing scenery

Yesterday was not a productive day. I wasn't expecting it to be super productive, but I basically got no work done. Our uphill neighbor told us last month that she was going to have one of the big Monterey pines next to her house taken out. I've always been aware of the trees -- the many (non-Eucalyptus) trees are part of why I bought the house where I did. But this particular pine was right next to her house, with a major branch hanging over ours. Over the years, she had an arborist take care of it, but it had become somewhat unbalanced over the last few years. Even before that, K and I worried a bit during big storms or earthquakes that all or part might come crashing down. So I was torn when I heard it was time for it to come down -- it's beautiful, but can be a little scary.

hecka big crane

Taking down a tree that large between houses and power lines is a tricky business. So they brought in a crane. It's a big tree, so it needed a really big crane. (They were also taking out a smaller dead cypress tree near the other side of the house, and the crane would help with that, too.) Between the crane, chainsaws, wood chipper, and general mayhem, I was anticipating a noisy day. I stayed home hoping to work and to deal with any issues that might come up, and K wisely went to the Mercy Center for a day-long retreat. Guess who was more successful?

Friday morning we woke to the sound of a big crane lumbering its way up the hill. We also woke to the news of the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Although we currently don't have family there, K's brother and sister-in-law used to live in Tokyo (their oldest daughter was born there), and I was there several times on business and worked with some software engineers from Toshiba for a couple of years. So I was not only distracted by the mayhem outside, but I was frequently checking the web for news, praying, thinking of former colleagues and was generally very distracted by the events there. Add to that the relatively minor worries about the tsunami striking California, and it was not a peaceful or productive day.

Despite all that, the they did safely bring the tree down. They started by lowering a guy into the tree with the crane. He proceeded to tie off then cut branches, which were then lowered by crane to the ground for others to deal with. This went on all day, and by 6pm or so, it was all over but the cleanup. They did a lot of that last night, and then came and finished up this morning. We haven't counted the rings yet, but it was a very large tree. You can get some idea of how big it is from the picture of the slice in the back of the truck. It's about 5 feet across at the widest point.

We'll miss the tree (not so much during storms), but removing it has already made a big change in the neighborhood. People further up the hill have new views. We have a lot more light on the north and east sides of the house. And I'll have a lot fewer pine needles and branches to clean from the roof and front walk. One downside is that the azaleas along the path will no longer be self-watering. During the summer, the fog would condense on the tree and drip down onto the flower beds below. Now we may actually have to water them some. On the other hand, it reduces the fire risk, and improves our prospects for solar PV panels.

Dual Flush Toilet Conversion

The rains finally seem to have stopped for the summer. This winter was an El Niño year, which helped make up for the previous years of drought. But that means that it's time to get ready for fire season, so I've been busy pulling blackberries and weed-whacking the yard. Each year usually gets a little easier, but this year the growth has been above normal with all the rain we've gotten.

I took a break from that to fix the toilet in the original bathroom. It's a 1.6 GPF toilet that I installed some years back that's worked fairly well. Lately the fill valve sometimes doesn't shut off, which can waste a large amount of water if it goes unnoticed. I decided to replace the flush mechanism at the same time with a dual flush conversion kit.

I saw a similar product at West Coast Green last year, then saw them install one on Ask This Old House. On the HydroRight website they claim it can be installed without tools in 5 to 10 minutes. That's true, though it requires a pencil and a measuring bucket plus a few minutes to calibrate for optimal water usage.

Replacing the fill valve with their HydroClean valve took a little longer, though not much. The hardest part was removing the old fill valve and required a wrench. Installing the new one was very easy. The nut to attach the new valve underneath is even self-calibrating: you just turn it until it clicks once or twice, and it's properly tightened.

My only concern is the long-term durability of the valve and flush mechanism. They seem well designed, but they're all plastic. That's pretty common for toilet parts these days, but does give me pause. The manufacturer, MJSI, offers a 5 year warranty on both, though hopefully it will last longer than that.

enjoying the sun

As usual, Star was unimpressed. She was too busy enjoying the warmth and sunshine.






Hey, FTC! I didn't receive any thing in exchange for this review. Though I'd be happy to if MJSI wants to give me something :-)

Dead Bear Walking

Katarina and I just returned from 5 days of camping at Emerald Bay SP. Despite smoke from hundreds of fires around northern California, we had a great time. By Tuesday we couldn't even see the near side of Tahoe, never mind the far shore. But we had a good time taking short hikes, reading, or just enjoying the view from the hammock. We went to nearby Eagle Falls several times, and had a couple trips over to South Lake Tahoe for ice (gotta keep the beer cold) and other necessities.

The only downer of the trip (besides the omnipresent smoke) were bears. While it was fun to see a bear close up and not in a zoo, this young bear and its mother are rapidly becoming 'problem bears' at the campground. They always give reminders and warnings about bears at campgrounds in California, but these bears had already been around for a bit, so the warnings and reminder about the $1,000 fine for leaving food out were more emphatic than usual. Alas, as you can see in the picture, not everyone heeded those warnings carefully. These folks left their cooking gear and trash out, and the bear found it in short order after they left. I snapped the picture and then we scared the bear off by shouting and clapping; the guy a couple campsites over used an airhorn to keep the bear running up the hill. The bear's mother was around that night, and the night after that as well. That's our bear box with the scratches on it, left Wednesday night according to our neighbors. It doesn't bode well for the bears, though. If they can't be scared off, the rangers will try rubber bullets, and if that doesn't work, they'll be destroyed. I hope the folks who left the garbage got the $1,000 fine, but it may be too late for these bears.

Painting!

As previously reported, Katarina was growing tired of the unpainted addition. To be honest, I was getting a little tired of it, too, despite the, um, loveliness of primer gray and white. So after finishing off some bits and pieces of trim, we painted. And painted. And painted. Between the rustic-V siding, the ins and outs around the windows and doors, and under the eaves, the painting goes slowly. The fact the ground around the house isn't level doesn't help much, either -- setting up a ladder takes some doing. But despite the recent heat (it sure doesn't feel like June), we've managed to get 3 sides as well as the rebuilt wall where the doors onto the deck used to be painted.

I did a little demo work around the old front door, too. I recovered as much of the 1x12 siding as I could for reuse later. And I bashed at the stone step for a while with a sledge and chisel, but I'm going to have to rent the jackhammer again to take it out.

And here's your gratuitous kitty shot, with the Rosie and Star admiring the weed-whacked and raked yard. Yes, it's fire season again, only earlier this year because we had a dry spring. I had the yard in compliance ahead of schedule because of it, but I think a lot of people have gotten more urgent reminders from all the fires we've been having in California lately. A recent one here in the Oakland hills started very near the origin of the massive Oakland Firestorm of 1991. If that wasn't enough to motivate people to clean up their property, I don't know what is. The firefighter who came around to inspect said it gets a little easier with inspections every year, but that doesn't change the fact that state-wide more and more people are living in a wildland interface, in areas prone to fire.

It's Good Stuff

I realized I haven't given any updates in a while. I haven't been getting tons done on the house, partly because of other tasks, but largely because of lack of energy. Much of what Kat and I have done recently is cleaning up the yard. The Oakland FD came around the other month to give the friendly reminder that we live in a high risk fire area. The yard was horribly behind in maintenance, so we've been weed-whacking, raking, pulling vines, chopping stumps, etc. to get things in line. Three big green yard waste bins filled, and at least three more to go. Probably four since I've almost filled the bin again today. But it's good stuff, that needs to be done.

I have done some work on the house. I installed an additional light on the front of the addition to help light the pathway at night. And I installed reading lights over the bed. Kat and I read a lot. Even more of late because the TV died. It died a couple years ago, the power supply or a nearby capacitor, or both, and I got it repaired. Given the cost of TVs these days, we decided it was time to finally replace it, as it was pushing 20 years old. The new TV has a gorgeous picture, at least when watching the amazing photography in Planet Earth. It's a 4 disc series narrated by David Attenborough, and has some breath-taking images from around the world. I highly recommend checking it out.

Somewhat less breath-taking, but still lovely, is the view in our bedroom showing the new reading lights. Alas, the one on my side of the bed has a bad switch, but they'll be sending a new one along shortly.

Wahoo!

Well, despite the computer problems, the inspector made it. The guy who doles out the assignments for her is kind enough to print them out and do some optimizing. Like making sure that multiple inspections for a site (e.g., plumbing rough-in + floor framing) get scheduled for the same time and the same inspector (no, really...sometimes they get handed out to different inspectors). But the upshot is that her list was printed out on Friday, well before the computer problems.

So she showed up a little while ago, took a look at the plumbing, re-acquainted herself with the plans, made sure there was access to the crawl space, and didn't even insist I refill the 10' stack. I siphoned out some of the water earlier because as the pipes and water heated up, the water expanded, so it start dribbling over the top of the stack.

She also told me about a couple of things in the shearwall and roof sheathing to be sure to catch when nailing, and that there's a requirement for houses in this area to have sheetrock (aka drywall) on the outside of the sheathing, under the siding, for added fire protection. Given that the siding will be wood, we were both dubious about how much that would actually help, but easy enough to do. It will make it a pain when the wet weather starts.

But I'm 2 for 2 on inspections. And I can put the floor on, and start building walls!*dances about merrily*. OK, that last sentence probably sound weird unless you've played a game like Wyvern, a graphical MUD that my friend Steve created and I did some work on. Hmm...it probably sounds weird even to some people who have played the game.

Optimizing the inspections reminded me of a story with one of Steve's brothers. Back when he was in high school or college or somesuch, he went to work for a pizza place delivering pizzas. Company policy was to make the deliveries in the order the calls came in. Even if that meant going back and forth across town. Steve's brother thought that was pretty stupid, and did a quick traveling salesman optimization and delivered the pizzas in less than the allotted time. After a while of this, the owner came to talk to him. The owner told him "You're a really, really good driver." "Thanks!" "No, you don't understand...you're the best delivery driver we've ever had!" Steve's brother quickly decided this was not where he wanted to spend his life working, at least if he was looking for any form of mental stimulation.