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Odds and Ends
We closed our pool this past Saturday, 10/2, and not a day too soon. Less than 24 hours after we put the safety cover on, it was completely covered with leaves. Our final swim of the season was Sunday, 9/26, which although a couple weeks shy of our all-time record, was still pretty late, considering…
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Long Sleeves
Not much noteworthy about today’s ride, except that I wore a long sleeve jersey, for the first time since probably May. As hot as this summer has been, I didn’t think this day would ever arrive. Won’t be long, and I’ll be griping about how cold it is and how I wish I could get…
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Snowpocalypse
Unfortunately, Snowpocalypse 2010 has put the brakes on bike commuting for the time being this winter. If I can’t do it safely, I don’t do it, and the roads are not in good shape for biking. I’ll be back out as soon as some of it melts, and/or I can find a safe route to…
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This morning’s fun
Today’s pool maintenance fun.. Spend 30 minutes with the leafmaster, vacuuming up all the junk at the bottom of the pool from the storms last night. Achieve pleasant sense of accomplishment and well-being as I begin to remove the leafmaster from the now-clean pool. Watch leafmaster bag separate from leafmaster as I’m pulling it out…
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This and That
So.. another summer is upon us. Howard County schools finally let out at the end of this week. I remember when I was a kid, summer vacation was almost 3 months long, and now it’s down to barely two. Instead, there are tons more random days off during the school year, for “professional teacher work…
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Chlorine Generator Manifold Repair
I’m in the process of installing a salt-water chlorine generator (model DIG-60 from AutoPilot) for my swimming pool. As part of this, I need to plumb the salt cell in downstream of my filter. The cell is part of a big inline manifold which includes a 3lb spring check valve. The valve’s purpose is to…
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More fun with digital TV
The great digital TV antenna project continues. I found out that the cheapie UHF antennas I built are known as “4 bay bowtie dipoles,” and they are very similar to the Model 4221 by Channel Master. Based on my reading, I’ve decided not to try using a combiner to join the antenna signals. Instead I…
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Gorilla Glue Test
We have an automatic cleaner for our swimming pool. It’s the kind that runs on water pressure and uses a booster pump. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with it. When it works, it works great, but when it doesn’t, I’m constantly swearing at it. It’s got a lot of moving parts (belts, gears,…
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Blogging again…
Hopefully I’ll pick up the blogging pace a bit now that I’ve moved everything over to wordpress.com. In preparation for un-password-protecting the blog, I’m going through all of my old posts, and the only thing I’ve noticed is that all of my links to other blog entries are broken. Nothing unexpected, but I wonder if…
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Weekend update
Kind of a lazy weekend so far. It’s too cold to really want to go out and do anything, so everyone is just puttering around the house. Yesterday I drained the pool water back down below the tile line. First time doing that so far this winter. Since closing, the water had crept back up…