Backyard Pool

We recently (last Fall) had a backyard pool constructed. Beautiful job done by the contractors. We did experience delays (permitting, hurricane, overseas trip, etc.) which meant that, rather than a finished pool in August, it was November. Too cold (even in Houston) for the pool (not the hot tub).

I'm the pool boy and actually enjoy the routine and accomplishment of keeping the pool clean. I knew there would be leaves in the pool but had not realized the extent of our pools ability to attract - well - just about every thing.

After the dead leaves came the pollen (oak) as new leaves were unfolding: Cottonwood seeds, tallow seeds, other, unknown little berry-like seed from trees - all were attracted to the pool. The flora deposits have pretty much abated but the fauna have, I fear, just begun.

Who knew that sowbugs ("roly polys") would reenact the lemmings to the sea scene. Hundreds of roly polys bodies, carpeting the pool bottom, greeted me each day. Fortunately, to every thing there is a season and for roly polys, it past. However, spiders like to hide in the waterfall outlets, so that, when activated, they come leaping out like creepy cliff divers. I think we've flushed them all out now - or they've returned to their spider universities after the spring break.

Other fauna have tried to enjoy the pool. I have a catch and (back into the bayou - or less prosaically - the ditch) release program in place for frogs (about half a dozen - or if I count the possible gastronomic possiblities, a dozen frog legs).

We have size limits on other critters: Any turtle whos shell is under two inches in diameter becomes an immediate pet. We have a great turtle habitat set up and currently occupied. We have returned the football sized turtle (Red Eared Slider) back to his/her home.

Can't wait to see what appears next - Just know that I will never run out in the middle of the night for a swim without turning on the lights.

Alternative Energy Generation

I've been thinking about alternative energy generation lately. One reason is to eventually get off the Houston grid.

(We have power outages more frequently than we should - some due to malfunctioning equipement and some due to the fact that we have above ground lines and lots of trees. Why we don't bury our power lines is beyond me. Any initial extra costs would be recovered quickly in reduced maintenance.)

I've been particularly intrigued by Sterling engines, which generate mechanical motion (and hence can generate electricity) from differing temperatures (Stirling Engine). There is a project beginning which will use just this technology in California (Sterling Energy Systems).

The heat pump systems already used in residential settings turn the sterling engine around for cooling and heating purposes, but are based on the same principles. It seems we should be able to use a sterling engine along with a radiant heating system, similar to those used for hot water generation, to build a home electricity generator.

Semi-Annual posting

I'm running behind on my semi-annual blog posting, so here goes.

Father's day was great - My wife and daughter let me buy an Archos 605 wifi meadia player. It it very cool. Thanks. My daughter made this breakfast that had to be seen to be believed: A lion made from a frozen breakfast bar, prunes (for the legs, of course), and a brownish cookie for the head & mane.

All kinds of news in the world, of course, but most all of it analyzed and expounded by people who have really thought about the issues. No need for my uninformed opinion.

My gut feelings

Read an article today describing how people's bacteria in their gut are not all alike, leading some researchers to speculate that our cravings are driven by our gut feelings.

Kind of explains the chocolate and cheeseburgers, huh!

Just enough

Nothing to share today.

I didn't know you could do that

Well.. I finally got a response on the blog but in checking it out, I found a SPAM blog as well. I didn't know you could automate blog comments - Oh well, you learn something new each day.

Still here

Just wanted to let you know - I'm still here, although not Blogging on any sort of regular basis.

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam - Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam - Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

I don't know about the rest of you but this is pretty amazing. I've been checking Mt St. Helen's out a couple of times a day. I think more of this sort of stuff ought to be around (probably is).

HR

The First Step

Well.. here goes. I swore when I saw my first IBM PC (circa 1983) that I would not let it intimidate me - and promptly got out the pliers and took off the cover so I could see inside. Moving away from punch cards to floppy disks was also pretty anxiety provoking, since I couldn't see what was on the disk, whereas I had been able to "read" a punch card and create a new one, even if the old was torn into several pieces. "Progress" never seemed to stop - a 5 MB hard drive could hold just about everything, it seems. Next were the intricacies of Expanded versus Extended RAM - modems and Compuserve. Just when I thought I could stop learning new things and, perhaps, start using them, along came Novell (version 2.15) and Arcnet protocol. What's this? A whole new domain of "stuff" to learn. Did someone say Operating Systems - it didn't even register until Windows came out. Oh no, not more details to learn! Then the World Wide Web - FTP, Email, UUNET, WAIS, GOPHER, and HTML. Now we have our own websites for business and family.

In summary, borrowing the immortal words of Monte Python, "and now, for something completely different..."

I hope we (family and interested others) can use this new tool for sharing, and dare I say it.. making the world a better place to live.

HR