December catch-up report

Well, the new pellet stove is installed and operating to the delight of everyone. It is a Quadra-Fire Mt Vernon AE pellet stove that takes other fuels as well, such as seeds or corn. Needless to say, it is as absurd in this artist's mind to burn food as it is to burn petroleum, so we will stick to burning wood pellets of one kind or another (the Mt Vernon can adjust to different grades of wood pellets too).
The stove was purchased locally, through our heating oil supplier, HB Plumbing, and their crew performed admirably in delivering and installing this supplemental heat source. They were at all times methodical, attentive to detail, quiet and focused, and otherwise professional in their approach and execution of the tasks involved. The machine itself, a remarkable electric appliance, works like a champ.
I also have been busy finishing up the solar hot air collector, it is also performing well, though far less dramatically of course. It is an odd bird, though simpler than it sounds, and it will do a good job creating circulation in the house, and filtering the air, for free whenever the sun hits it.
These improvements, along with the Sunda evacuated tubes that pre-heat our DHW supply, should slow our oil consumption down considerably from now on.

Hemos por fin instalado la estufa especial que consume leña preparada a pedacillos (llamados pellets en inglés americano). Es mucho mas economico que el petroleo, y la estufa misma es un aparato que luce bien con su diseño tradicional. El sistema de calefaccion que tenemos en casa a base de petrolio es moderno, sigue conectado y funciona bien, pero con esta estufa de leña y con las placas solares podremos minimizar el consumo de petroleo, que es una barbaridad quemar una substancia con tantos usos diferentes.
Next stop - photovoltaics!

One of my Paul Newman stories

I was asked by a friend to recount this story of an odd encounter I almost had with Paul Newman in the 1970's, while he was filming location shots for "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds", I also include part of her email as in itself it is interesting.

"Good Morning,
In the wake (excuse he pun) of Paul Newman's demise, I recall you having a story of your brush with greatness with him..

J. did have a brush with him once while walking home from Bassick. She saw him outside the Burroughs's Home while he was filming "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds". He was 12 feet away.

I worked with a woman who had run into him in a parking lot once. She spoke to him by just saying hello or something and he snapped back at her something about "Don't talk to me, I'm with my kids."


I remember that your story was better than that.. Could you retell me that story? -E."

Here it is:

Paul Newman and his gang were familiar to us of course, they were only a couple of towns over, and we had a friend who lived next door to the Newmans.
When we heard that a home in our own neighborhood was going to be a shooting location for some interior shots, we did like everyone else and walked over to see the hub-bub.
We arrived as they were wrapping up and getting ready to leave for the day, and a small crowd of neighbors in front of the house was electric with anticipation at seeing the celebrities. Using that nutty intuition that has always been so much fun to indulge, I convinced my party to follow me to the unattended back entrance along the side street, and a couple of strangers followed along with us.
Within minutes a couple of crew members appeared, and right behind them came Paul, all of them making a beeline right by us to their suddenly arrived vehicles. As he approached, Paul greeted us with a tired but pleasant smile, he looked right at each of us and wished us a brief but friendly-sounding pleasantry in passing, and just as he passed me, an overactive little gremlin-ish child swooped in right between us with a raised clenched fist and smacked him square in the middle of the back with evidently as much power as his wiry small body could command, hitting him resoundingly hard, right on the spine a few inches above the belt line. Without skipping a beat, the little fellow sped off and disappeared before Paul had a chance to spin around and confront his attacker. When he did, he only saw me standing there looking stunned by the oddity.
I realized instantly that he thought that I had done this, and I just recall being bowled over nearly to the point hilarity to think that anyone could imagine that I would do something so stupid (I was both filled with loathing at the prospect of being mistaken for a childish assailant, and amused that I should be taken for such a type). To be sure, Paul thought I was the author, and he stopped and looked at me with a fixed stare and let me know his opinion that this was the rudest thing he had ever experienced, then he turned back again and continued to his car. His exact words were "That was the rudest thing I have ever seen (sic)".
I certainly had no chance to say anything to him then, and I never did send a note or otherwise try to send him an explaination of what I saw. To do so would have just been about me - I might have perhaps shifted the "blame" for the act from me to the real perpetrator, but to no positive end as far as Paul Newman was concerned. Regardless who did this, it would have remained an ugly action from Paul's perspective, so I just kept it to myself and hoped that in the bigger picture it didn't really bother him all that much.
Now and then I think about what a shame it is that he had to be bothered like that, but as we all know, it certainly did not put a damper on his generous spirit. - Edward Huse.

Fancy News - one solar hot air collector nears completion

Well, I finally am making progress on the solar hot air collectors.
The main thing with the whole solar hot air collector idea was getting my head around the concepts, as I have never given heating and air conditioning much thought until now. But now I like the subject and find it fascinating, mainly because it involves no plumbing, and little or no electric work, and most anyone can approach the technology. Of course a solar hot air collector only works while the sun is hitting it's absorber, but I am willing to work around that and accept that limitation. For example, the occasional low-grade heat will do nicely to help keep the stored pellets dry during storage in the basement.
One collector that is coming along nicely will serve to keep pellets dry in their storage area in the basement.
My latest progress to date is in designing and fabricating in sheet aluminum (read: "metal butchery") a return for the heated air in the tall narrow solar hot air collector that lets me move heated air from the top of the collector to the basement (where the pellets repose in an drying chamber).
That "return pipe" then, is buried in the backing insulation, behind the baffled air heating gap that is beneath the actual heat absorber, (at the top of the pipe where this transition takes place there will also be an escape door to the atmosphere, with a one-way valve, to let heat out if we decide to change airflows to circulate the basement or the basement heating chamber in the Summer, or in case of stagnation with attendant high temperature damage due to whatever reason).
There will also be vents in the cellar that can be adjusted to intake from the moisture-laden air in the rest of the basement when the pellet drying chamber itself is empty, and in any event it can be venting any air taken in in the Summer through the likewise adjustable vent at the top of the collector box.
This will solar hot air collector will work continuously all year-round,mainly to ventilate the pellet drying chamber.
To make the pipe or channel I bent and shaped a sheet of ten foot long and three foot wide sheet aluminum, by hand, using a handsome wooden tool lovingly crafted of ash, and of course with shears, pliers, and a hammer. The metal was scored and folded onto itself as neatly as possible so that I only had one seam to rivet and caulk (with high heat resistant silicone of course). This now provides a nice "floor" for me to assemble the internal baffles on, (the baffles to slow and guide the stream of air allowing for more heat to be shed from the heated absorber plate to the moving airflow).
My hands are a little beat. Luckily, I used gloves a often, only had one minor slicing wound and no nail punctures. Now to relax with a delicious and refreshing Magic Hat, brewed in Vermont.
Por fin, algun progreso en tema de las placas solares, y con la elaboracion en metal de las diversas partes del aparato mismo de controlar el aire ya calentado. A ver si me explico, (que a proposito subire' pronto alguna foto), para aprovechar de un espacio estrecho, alto y bien colocado en relacion al sotano donde se almanecen los pellets dichosos, he construido un colector de aire calentado que incorpora no tan solamente el panel negro absorbador y el vacuo detras de el, pero detras aun hay lugar suficiente como para incluir un canal que vaya desde la parte mas alta, donde habra que llegar el aire ya calentado, y llevarlo hasta la camara de secar pellets, cuatro toneladas, si, cuatro, preguntaselo a Alva y te dira'!!

Fancy News - Solar Hot Air Collectors in Progress

Today I worked on my alternative heating projects, in especial the active solar hot air collectors - that have use in the Summer as ventilation devices for hot attics and musty cellars. I like aspects of the three main types that I see used often and spoken well of, so I decided to make at least one of each (they won't go to waste, immediatly):

1) There was progress on a box for the ventilator/heater for the attic window, it will be a black polyester felt absorber type collector, in a "smallish" box of about 45" x 60", this size is to best take advantage of the existing 30" x 30" window opening. and still fit within the eaves and the window frames below it.
The black poly felt came in yesterday as a matter of fact, it is grand, and oh so very warm in it's inimitably polyesterlische way that it gags me to touch.
This black felt absorber theory is interesting. They claim great results from it for heating (but I will be happy just to keep attic from being a late afternoon radiator with any decent ventilation), the idea behind the theory of using felt is that the felt bakes like mad and has a million surfaces to release the heat. It's design is also different than the others in that it lets intake and output share same manifold opening in the unit, albeit with a partition. This attic unit will have a simple flip damper that moves to send heat either out to the sky or back into attic in the Winter (it will be good for the attic to have some heat, it will not be much anyway) - it's main value to me is in it's ability to ventilate the attic/oven in the Summer -

2) There was progress as well on the 4' x 8' box for the flat plate collector - I managed today to make a 1" x 3" frame around a sandwich of a 1/4 inch plywood and a 1" sheet of foiled insulation, with no accidents, gross mis-measuring, or ridiculous patches - this with a power drill, circular saw, and silicone caulk, I have already formed folded sheets of aluminum for "internal girder/baffles" and will assemble them tomorrow or maybe tonight, it is so much fun! Then the alum plate goes over that, cobbled from 36 inch wide sheets, then the cover of polycarbonate roofing, then the tempered glass.

Of course, besides making the collectors, there remains the confusing issue of ducts and fans, with various confusing but clever openings that let air supply be either cool room air or overheated room air, and with exits for heated air to the interior space or to the outside atmosphere - this will call for a dedicated "chimney" on the inside, and a similar one on the immediate outside, for each installation. I would far rather use the systems in the Summer for their excellent ventilation uses than just cover them up. For the big soda can collector I will use a second floor window for air to be delivered to the heater, it will deliver to the collector hot house air in the Summer or cold house air in the Winter, and whenever it sends it's product of hot air back to the inside it will go through an 8" diameter insulated duct of about ten feet long.

I have two huge bags full of Arizona Ice tea cans waiting too, but they need to go to a local friend's house where he has a drill press in his shop for me to trim each one.

Update - 17sep08 - by now I have banished sodycans as fascinating but not worth the trouble when I can have fun forming boxes and other shapes, fabricating in sheet aluminium, what fun! Today I had a wonderful moment, when I realized where some unexplained warm air was coming from - I was working on the porch, at the higher end of the collector, and when I felt warm air on my hand I instinctively thought for a moment that a tool was overheating. It turns out that the lower end of the collector was in the sun by a mere foot or so, as yet unpainted of course, and it was producing enough of a convection current to notice!

Fancy News - New Fancy Mural!

Well, another white wall bites the dust. Here is a detail of a new piece of decorative artwork in a local home, a handsome mural with imaginary views by Edward Huse, including one of his favorite guardian animals perched on a bit-o-architecture. The photo is taken now, before the final coat of polyurethane mixed with magic dust, because it becomes difficult for the camera to photograph after.

The artist's steed is re-shoed - another fine job by Ferguson's Automotive

Yippee! No more clatter as we trundle across the patches and random staircases that we use for roadways here in Springfield, Vermont - New brake calipers up front for the RoadMaster!

You have to really look in this picture, but the floor is a marvel of cleanliness and order at Ferguson's Automotive located in sunny downtown Ascutney, Vermont, (just East of the extinct volcano). The orderly state of the floor is testament to the seriousness of their attention - if it isn't broke, don't fix it, but if it is, you can trust it to be well-cared for at Fergusons. El taller de Fergusons es un lugar ultra-professional, donde toman el tiempo para dar atencion a todo detalle.

Fancy News - Newly Acquired Vintage Image Capture Device

It is certainly curious and more than funny to see how things can sometimes look like junk until you really give them a cold hard look.
Recently, we came across an old camera at a tag sale that I finally bought for a couple of dollars for the hell of it. Initially, I found it so unattractive and almost cheasy-looking (it sports an absolutely absurd atomic image) that I didn't let myself really focus on it too closely, having at first glance written it off as a crummy slr wannabe from like 1960's Korea or Blaabistan or somewhere equally dreary. I was almost too repulsed to touch it. It did seem clean tho', and I thought some kid might love to have it for a first camera to either use, or to finish ruining completely while trying to learn how to use it. Well, it also dawned on me to try auctioning it off online or something since it was so clean and it had it's case and all - someone might love it to complement their Trabant kit or Mao suit - but to research it I had to pick it up and look at it. The first thing I did was to look at the lense for info, and my eyes popped, for such an oddball it had a 1:1.7 lens which I know means a better grade than what I ever had on an slr, so I looked it up in real ernest now, and found that it is a commonly available, old-but-excellent range finder type camera, who would have known?
It turns out that this machine is a fourth generation (circa 1973), G series, Yashica 35mm Rangefinder Electro 35, GSN, and it has quite a following out there, loads of stuff about it on the net.
This one is in it's original banged-up case but it is very clean and shows little wear and no damage that I can see beyond somebodies clumsy efforts to remove a ring from the lense assembly, (scratching the hell out of the black ring with the lens info imprinted on it in the process). They were probably trying to get in to remove some offensive flakes of debris visible under the first layer of glass inside the actual lens assembly, and without success since the cruft is still there to tell the story. The outside face of the lens seems clean and unscathed, so I have hopes for it's ability to deliver knock-out pics even with the floaters inside. Luckily, while the last custodial guardian of this edsel with killer glass not only failed to open the lens, he did remove the old battery, so that the battery compartment is clean. I am in the process of cobbling together the recommended Rube Goldberg styled battery arrangement to replace the out-of-production mercury-based battery that would have originally powered the simple little electromagnet-based computer thing that makes this such a handy instrument of expression and all-round image capture device.
I can't wait to try it out with some real film this Summer, I am reluctant to take the new dslr so this electro might do nicely (even with the odd bits of dander under the lens).

Fancy News: First Cut to be Thrashed Soon.

The first crop of silage is ready to harvest, here the work is being done - locally for local consumption

"Claudia Waite as Princess Turandot", etching by Edward Huse, 2007

Fancy News - one of my favorite prints just turned up for me - this is one of the prints that I made from my drawings rendered during the dress rehearsals for Puccini's Turandot, at Opera North last year, in Lebanon, New Hampshire. It was great fun, and Claudia Waite put on a captivating performance in her role as the Princess Turandot.
I will have versions of this available soon as: 1) a US Postage stamp from my zazzle.com account, and; 2) a poster or card from my redbubble.com account [links on the right].

Fancy News: Flowers at Last! (yes, months behind most of you there in the Southland, still ... )

these have begun to take over nicely.

Harper needs a good home.

I would like to see this dog adopted, her current owners will take care of getting her to the new owners themselves, it is indeed a painless adoption for someone ready for a great pet. Please send the url for more info to anyone that might be interested - harpergooddog.blogspot.com

Hosta goes nuts

Hosta is at it's coolest when it is first bursting at amazing speeds from the Earth's outer debris layer.

Firemen in nearby Ascutney, Vermont, gassing up the beast

it's nice to see that you can still drive a gas-guzzler in matching outfits in this day and age.