A comedian and love for others

We really like Mark Lowry - we have watched his videos for quite a few years now.  In case you are not familiar with him - he is a very hilarious comedian, singer and may have other odd talents. 

Anyways, he came to the Tampa area a while back so we decided to see him in person.  I wasn't too thrilled initially about the location which was the Clear Water, Fl area.  Fortunately the drive was uneventful there and back even if a bit longer than expected (I do grown/moan/complain about Tampa traffic).  The event itself was well worth the time and money.  He is so very funny but also has a side we had not seen on the videos.  He called on the crowd to sponsor children through Child Fund (https://www.childfund.org/) where he sponsors a few children (I think he said 6!).  We decided to go ahead and do the same (er, 1 child right now that is) so we are sponsoring a girl in the Philippines. 

We received a little letter from "our girl" a little while back and it was such a sweet note.  Child Fund recommends writing and learning about each other.  The sad part is that I have been dragging my feet in regards to writing her a letter.  For a while, I just chalked it up to being busy - and at times I am.  I've started to figure out what is probably the bigger reason though.  It isn't because we have nothing to say but is more about feeling guilty when we admit to ourselves that we have such an overabundance of so many things compared to this little girl and her family.  One of the hardest decisions we make during the week is which restaurant do we want to go to.  Contrast that to mothers who have to pick which child gets food each day.  Our lives are very drastically different.

We were going to send a large shoe box sized bunch of stuff to our girl - colored pencils, paper, containers to put stuff but after getting it all and then checking the Child Fund site - it said it was only really feasible to send flat stuff like letters, pictures, etc.  It indicated that this was due to cost and "duty" fees or similar things - basically not very cost effective.  I'm still tempted to try but we'll see.  In the mean time, I'm trying to shake the embarrassment of "having too much" so I can write her and encourage her to love Jesus and pursue her dreams.  I think she mentioned maybe teaching someday. 

And by the way, Mark Lowry is a Christian comedian and unapologetic about it!  You can get more info about him or find his store at: https://marklowry.com/.

It is kinda funny - when we went to see Mark Lowry, we ended up parking "on the wrong side" of the building.. wrong only in the sense we had to walk a bit more but it was easier to get out afterwards though.  I wish I had known this ahead of time because we walked by Mark's transportation I think - I think it would have been hilarious to leave some funny notes etc for him.  Oh well, missed an opportunity that probably would simply had led to my embarrassment anyways.  

I'm just grateful that he is around sharing Jesus message using such a great medium and prompting everyone to do more than "help themselves".  

Hebrews 6:10

  God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.

Hebrews 13:16

  And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. 

Hope God blesses you and you use your blessings for others!

Scott

The house - the good and bad

I had hopped that we would be well settled by now.  It has been about a year since we moved down here and there has been lots of change that was difficult for everyone to adjust to.  I had hoped that getting into a house and having some space again for everyone to get some "quiet" and "alone" time would help. I guess it has in some ways but I know I still just feel a bit overwhelmed.  We have been trying to get the house in order since we moved in and have had more challenges than expected or hoped.

We realized a bit before Irma that some of the "might be old water damage" indicated on our home inspection was really "ongoing water damage". I did know about some siding damage and that is on my list to fix - was trying to hold off until it cooled a bit.  My thinking was that it has been there for some time so a couple more months..  anyways..  probably will make sure I stick to the priorities instead of letting other things bubble to the top of the todo list going forward.

After about 6 or so roof quotes we decided on a company.  We decided to replace instead of patch - it just doesn't make sense to spend a substantial sum to patch just to replace in maybe 10 years.  We are waiting on a home equity line of credit (HELOC) though.  It would have been ready by now if not for Irma - can't image why a bank would want to do an appraisal after Irma before handing over money? Anyways, it appears they just did a drive-by to make sure the house was standing without any tree sticking out of it and it wasn't wrapped like a fairy tale moat.

So we should be able to give a date for the roofers soon.  I'll have to find the name of a guy that came out a while back regarding our "dryer vent" issue - seemed ok so I'll see if his company can fix up the siding.  My whole family seems to think I shouldn't try dealing with the siding (upper portion of gable) nor roofing myself.  Part of me REALLY doesn't want to admit how hard some things are on my back and knees. Hoping to get out of the "exercise through home projects" state and back into the exercises that actually do strengthen the back.

Hoping that getting through the roof, siding and hopefully finishing the master bath remodel will make it feel "worthwhile".  Ok, so there are a few other semi-related projects floating around that I have to complete as part of that (like getting the old ceiling fan off the floor in the master bedroom and getting the new one with lights installed).  I guess installing the new light switches will make things more complete.. I don't think my wife is buying the "but honey, I just like the open look of the light switches and the retro wiring".

[2017/10] Roof is fixed!  Big load off my mind.  I still have some work to do on the chimney though. I'm seriously considering Hardie Board even though vinyl siding wouldn't need painting.  I still feel that the vinyl is too likely to loosen and blow off without being noticed. 

[2017/11] Have some siding companies coming out to give quotes. Just need gable areas done - T1-11 siding there is rotted, swollen and falling off. I would prefer Hardie Board here but will likely do a quality vinyl.  Had planned to do it myself but am going to try and save my back and that of my overly eager father (gotta love him but .. ).

What we both do like is how the bathroom is turning out though - with a bulk of work by my mom and dad.  I'm completing a good amount of it but my dad did much and showed me how to do "rag rolling" painting and work with tile which I had not done before this.  There isn't much I can do to repay them for all they have done.

The main work remaining is the grout.  We picked up some and I am going to take some scrap tile and do a small test to make sure we like the color before I do the whole floor.  We really liked one of the grouts where we got the tile but it only comes in the sanded variety and we have some pretty small grout lines in places which are better suited to unsanded grout.

I've spent an awful amount of time on the floor and even laying across the toilet (yes - lid down).  It is almost funny the shape of the bruise that caused.  I had to tell my wife that in that whole bathroom - there are only 4 full size tiles that didn't get cut and those are the 4 in front of the toilet.  I did have to laugh a bit at that - just seems a bit "wrong".  Hopefully just one day of grouting and then a half day of mouldings - once we find the mouldings we want.

The theme in this post is "hope" and the happiness expected at the end if one endures the unpleasantness. Ok, so I crafted the theme from a different book (want to make a guess) and took liberty in its use - similar to some news organizations and most movies based upon books.

Hope you enjoyed this post.
Scott

Irma

Well, we had only minor experience with Hurricanes in the past.  While Irma was expected to go to the east cost of Florida we were not really too concerned but once it decided to go across us we became a little more concerned.  Not frightened but concerned - mainly about the 3 largest trees around the yard which shed limbs without a breeze.

Initially we did do any drastic planning - just made sure we had extra food on hand and a plan to fill spare containers with some water.  Up north we didn't have city water so no power = no water, at least on the city water now it seems more likely to maintain some sort of water supply without power.  By time we were pretty sure Irma was going to go across us - stores were pretty much sold out.  Plywood was gone, bottled water gone, fuel was already in short supply, generators were way gone.  At this point we were a little more concerned - somewhat because my parents live in a manufactured home about an hour south of us - closer to the storm.  I also use a CPAP and the idea of being without power for maybe a couple weeks was not pleasant.  Up north we ended up without power one year for a week or so but before my sleep apnea was bothering me - since then we had been very fortunate.  It also turned out that 2 of my neighbors use CPAPs as well.

My parents decided to come up to our place well before we knew the storm was heading closer to us.  I was very very happy they made that call. As Irma was getting closer, we briefly thought about trying to leave the area but the traffic jams shown on the news pretty much made it clear that wasn't a great option at that point.  We even considered going to our local high school which was a shelter but we had some concerns about that along with my CPAP need, etc. We decided to stick it out and batten down the hatches.  We got to Lowes the morning before the storm and were able to about about 60ft of 1"x10" pine boards and combined that with "junk" laying around the house/yard we were able to board up the windows pretty well.  We stripped the pressure treated sides of our utility trailer, took the "ugly" paneling out of the sort-of office (wife prompted this one a bit just to get rid of the paneling I think..), found spare chunks of stuff I moved down from Virginia, etc and cut it to size and screwed it mostly into the frames of our original 1985 vintage single pane windows.  We took a few passes and packed all the stuff outdoors into either the garage or onto the lanai.  Garage was packed..

My wife was a little unhappy when I told her that putting the cars in the garage was probably only temporary for now..  still need a workshop.. until then.

We started thinking about where to stay in the house if things got bad  and finally decided that the half done office was the best bet.  More concrete around it and it is sort of between the garage and master bedroom area.  We move a bunch of stuff from there and started to make what reminded me of 1950's bomb shelters I had read about.

I was still concerned about my CPAP need but then I remembered that we had a small "inverter" - a small electronic device that can hook up to a DC power supply and produce AC.  I went over to the autostore and picked up a couple decent size deep cycle marine batteries. A quick calculation indicated that those should keep my CPAP running for maybe 2 weeks.  I figured we might even be able to charge phones off them if needed.  After this, I was feeling a bit more relaxed.

I did feel really bad for my parents - I know my dad was pretty convinced that their place wouldn't make it.  Sits within a stones throw of both a pond and river and it was looking like the storm would roll right over it.  My mom saved a few small items - pictures and such just in case.  I think some of our faith in Jesus did leave us feeling less stressed over the whole deal.  It was still really hectic though since I had hope that there would be little damage especially since we still are not fully "unpacked" after moving in.  It wouldn't have been the end of the world but I know I was already very tired before all this.

To make a long story shorter, we did lose power but only for about 2 days.  The only real storm damage was a section of fence blowing down.  It was probably 25 years old and way past prime.  My parents didn't have any real damage although some homes in their area did lose their roofs or had other severe damage.  We ended up sleeping in the house instead of the office (but not in the bedrooms near the big trees).

We have some really awesome neighbors and a number of them all came out and helped cleanup the large mess of debris (mostly from our trees..).  I still have to take apart the broken fence but other than that and the pile of brush by the road still - you wouldn't know the storm came through.

When we moved down here, I told our kids "it will be an adventure".  I think we do hope for a bit less excitement for just a little while now. But if that isn't how things turn out then..

Nahum 1:7New International Version (NIV)

7 The Lord is good,
    a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him,

I do pray for those that lost lots more - both around us, in Texas, Puerto Rico, etc and then the earthquake in Mexico.  It is a reminder that this life and associated belongings are not permanent.  We should remember that life is precious and can't be restored by us though - the place that we lay our head can be.

Goodbye Herbie Jr, Long live Herbie Jr.

Herbie Jr is the affectionate name we gave to our 2015 F250 4x4 with 8ft bed, full size topper and commercial roof rack. If you are familiar with Herbie, "The Love Bug", you will likely understand the humor in the name.  We bought Herbie after we towed home a good size travel trailer a few years ago with a 2002 F150 4.6l V8 and thought we were going to get stranded as it struggled down flat sections of road.

Well, we ended up selling the travel trailer here in Florida for a few good reasons and since then I had been commuting to work with Herbie. Unfortunately, Herbie does not make for a happy drive during rush hour around Tampa (or any place else likely).  The wife and I had discussed getting rid of it but is just seemed like there was always something going on.. work, family, etc.

Anyways, just about the time that the Irma hurricane was announced my wife prodded me one day to go for some test drives while we were going out for other stuff.  I purposely left the truck at home.. I wasn't feeling all that well that morning anyways due to back pain and planned on just getting our errands done and trying to come home.  Well, we ended up at the both the Ford dealer and Toyota dealer and started asking about trade-ins (again).  The Ford dealer made a pretty insulting low offer for which I responded - "Toyota here we come" and off we went.  I really just needed a small fuel efficient commuter car to deal with the Tampa area traffic to/from work.  We ended up test driving a Corolla and a Yaris; sat in a Prius but we didn't really like the odd feeling dash/cockpit layout.  Toyota made a reasonable offer on the truck and the wife prodded again so guess what.  We made the drive back home, cleared out the truck, went back and came home with a Yaris.

We named the new addition "Gigantor" - can you feel the humor in that.  I will say that we agree that Gigantor has a more manly horn than the Rav4.  Other than that, there isn't much to write home about other than pretty good fuel economy (about 32mpg at the moment - compared to ~12mpg from the gas hungy F250).

When Irma hit, I did have some reservations about not having Herbie Jr.  In the past, I have always used our "big" 4wd vehicle to get around after bad weather - whether it was snow, ice or the tropical storm remnants from a hurricane.  We were fortunate we didn't need it after Irma.  We can always borrow my parents pickup in a pinch now if needed - at least until we get one more vehicle.  Thinking of a used Toyota Highlander - big enough to tow our utility trailer and enough seats to take one car when all of us and my parents, etc are together.

There are aspects of Herbie Jr I will miss but I must admit that it really wasn't a good family fit anymore. Hoping for many years with Gigantor now.

Hoping you know and love Jesus!
Scott

p.s. The out takes.

I have to say that I really felt it in the pocket when buying a car this time.

Yes Honey - I should replace clothes before I get to the point where the jeans split getting out of a car during a test drive and have to wonder around the parking lot and offices with my shirt undone to cover (most of) it while taking care to not lean over. On the other hand, it was a memorable sale for the sales guy and him and all the other workers had a nice laugh.  ha ha ha ha...  I will say that "Honey" did return home with a pile of new jeans not long after this.  Good thing because I lost another pair while laying more tile in the bathroom.  sigh.

Taming the dryer

Ok, so we have the new house and get a somewhat nice (meaning expensive/over featured) clothes dryer.  Of course, what we soon found is that the dryer would shutoff after running a while and it would post a code indicating that the dryer duct is blocked or restricted in some way.

The house was built in the mid 80's and the couple we bought it from were older and dealing with some health issues so a blocked vent seemed pretty likely.  When we bought the house I had not really taken notice of the dryer vent location.  It turned out that is was in is pretty far from the outside wall and makes about 4 90 degree turns as it goes under the house slab and comes out outside the house where the tube rises out of the ground about 2 1/2 feet. The run is about 18 feet or so.

I bought 3 of the standard vent cleaners you attach to a drill and hooked them together.  I ran that through the vent but got nothing out except maybe a piece of fuzz.  I was baffled a bit and did some more research to find out that the drier is tuned to a max "effective" run of 25 feet.  The "effective" part relates to adding additional feet on for each turn in the run.  Each turn results in reducing flow so the formula attempts to tell you what an equivalent straight run would be.

Our effective run is somewhat over that 25 feet so at this point I made the guess that this was the problem.  I was a bit upset that the dryer people would tune things so close to this but I know it is a safety item since dryer fires have causes plenty of damage and deaths.  So I just accepted this and started looking for solutions.

I had pondered rerouting straight up through the roof but after days of thought I decided that putting a hole in the roof was not what I wanted to do.  It would be one more item which could leak and cause headaches down the road and with the high winds and rain we will experience here it just seemed like the wrong choice.

I considered rerouting through the attic and out but still end up with a long run which might not work. I like this idea a little though since I get rid of a vertical pipe popping out of the ground around 12" from the foundation.  I still think that pipe is going to get damaged at some point.

I started to look for a way to route through the walls and out the side but it would not be easy.  It may be possible but I think that this solution will end up need to protrude into a room.  I may look into this or the prior idea at some point but but I found a different solution (or I thought I did).

In my research I ran across dryer vent boosters.  These are fans built to hook into your dryer vent and boost the velocity of the air resulting in being able to have longer vent runs.  I researched this for a while and decided on an Acme Miami 9460 .  This choice was primarily based upon my desire to keep the vent booster inside and I didn't want to put another lint trap in before the booster.  I wanted to plumb the booster in at the laundry room since it either needed to be there or outside since the vent goes under the slab.  The benefits of this particular brand of vent booster include the motor being out of the airflow (so as to not get clogged) and the manufacturer allowing installs at the dryer and not requiring an upstream lint trap.

I went ahead and ordered it and had been trying to figure out how I wanted to install it.  The way it ships is that is that it sits on feet on the floor and plugs in to a standard wall outlet.  The outlet wasn't a problem (ok, until I realized that there was only a single plug in the outlet in the laundry room which was taken by the washing machine).    The problem was that this would result in needing to bump the appliances out from the wall more and space was limited.  I finally decided upon a short/mid-term solution that was acceptable to my wife.  I mounted it on a board above the dryer and relocated the air pressure switch onto the board in a horizontal position as instructions indicated.  This mounting position did result in a couple extra feet of vent to rise from the dryer to the booster and back down but the booster should handle the the effective increase.  I did make one enhancement to reduce the run and extra space behind the dryer by using a MagVent attachement. This meant I didn't have any substantial extra soft vent line laying behind things. It seems to work pretty nice as long as you get it tightened really well on the dryer side.

So after about 3 days of toying with everything needed, I had it in place one night and we just tested  it quick by turning the dryer on and off.  It seemed ok.

The next day I got a text from my wife saying after 40 minutes it did the same thing as before.  Put out a code indicating a blockage.  ARGGG.

So that put me into "what went wrong" and "what do I do next" mode because continuing to vent into a water trap filter in the house was not a long term solution.

I pondered all kinds of potential issues and solutions and none of them really seemed right.  I finally had an "aha" moment and told the wife that I would be right back.  I went out to the garage and got the electric leaf blower I borrowed from my parents.  My wife gave me the "ah, are you sure look" and I said yes. I asked her is she wanted to run the blower or go outside and monitor the vent. She decided to run the blower.  We called each other on the phone and I told her to let it rip.  For a couple seconds nothing happened but then I saw some lint coming out and the sound from the vent got odd.  I grabbed the vent cover and yanked it off.  As the vent cover was coming off a large wad of lint came out. I guess it would fill a gallon bag or maybe even another half gallon.

In retrospect, I think the vent cleaner brush may have loosened stuff but it wasn't able to move the lint up the vertical rise from under the house.

The next dryer uses work fine with the booster in place.  It may "work" without the booster but the dry times we have right now are really good - about 30-45 minutes.  I think those would increase without the booster.  We may still want to run the brush back through again and blow it out since I don't know how much might remain.  I will say I won't put my face in front of the vent during that process. Also, I would NEVER use the blower from the outside in unless you want to make someone mad..  I'm glad I didn't make that mistake this time!

Here is the Acme Miami 9460 mounted on the wall.  We still need to paint that room so I will clean up the look a bit at that point.  The surge suppressor is the solution to only have 1 outlet and anyways I like to put things with electronics on a surge suppressor anyways.  Not the prettiest of work but we are happy to be venting outside again.

Here is a behind the dryer view of the MagVent connection.  Simply pulling the dryer out with a nice tug cause the coupling to disengage.  I really like this so far.  I was concerned about adequate sealing but so far it is ok.  the pipe in this picture is the diagonal pipe in the picture above.

Hope Jesus blesses you today!
Scott

Jame 1 2-3
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Insanity coming to a close

It has been a crazy 9-10 months. This is just a summary of the many things that have gone on or been worked on.

• Moved wife and kids into an apartment in Florida with as many belongs as would fit. This took a couple trips.
• Put kids in brick & mortar school
• Put house up for sale - assuming would find job in Florida.
• After 5 weeks we put both kids in Florida virtual school for all but one class each. So wife drops kids off at school each day for 1 class.  The Florida virtual school, Hillsborough county virtual school and Hillsborough county regular school all tell you different things  regarding enrollment and other requirements - sigh. At any rate, kids are 5+ weeks behind with the switch.
• Job hunted from Virginia for nearly a month.
• Packed house into a POD storage unit and shipped to Florida. Moved a few belongings to mother in-laws house.
• Picked one of 2 jobs I had offers from.
• Had to leave travel trailer at house in VA initially
• Moved self and some more belongings to FL apt with family.
• Got braces for daughter - about a year later than we had planned due to waffling on move for a while.
• Moved travel trailer to storage area at apartment - has roof leak so had to cover with tarp (which promotes mold ..).
• House hunted and hunted
• Wife had cataract surgery done on both eyes
• Bought house - now we have 2 houses and an apartment
• Sold travel trailer at large loss. It may have fit in side yard but not comfortably and would have caused some problems.
• Had another kidney stone.  Number 7?  Maybe higher.  Had expensive ride to hospital this time - wife and family were all well over an hour way (probably 2+) at the time.  Hopefully be a couple years before another (at worst).
• Sold VA house
• Moved everything from apartment to new house.
• Still haven't got son his drivers license - he isn't in a hurry and traffic here is crazy at times.
• New house has many "minor" needs
• Main breaker went bad on day 1 (likely related to transition of power).  
• Dryer exhaust run is wacky and long - new dryer shuts off thinking that the exhaust is blocked. I need to install an external dryer vent booster such as this.  Still researching.
• Lots of light bulbs out.  Replacing everything with LED lights.
• Master bath vent broken.
• Haven't gotten around to trying the jet tub yet.  Not sure if it works.
• Fan/light fixture in front bedroom has bad light sockets. Will use master bedroom fixture + new light.
• Dining room switch got very hot - fixture using too high of wattage incandescent bulbs. Installed new dimmer with dedicated on/off and LED bulbs - now fine.
• Wiring in house is odd; number of breakers just labelled "lights" but no indication of room or scope.  Looks like some outlets are on same breaker as major appliances.  Mapping out what is on each breaker.
• 12 x 16 shed has hole in roof, floor and it full of roaches, etc.  Tore it down - took to landfill (approx 6k lbs of junk).  Wired off of water heater.  Will replace with metal building (soon I hope). 
• "Office" was built with no permit and needs lots of work to make usable and code compliant.  This is longer term project.  Office exterior door frame is rotted and termite damaged (long ago it appears).
• A number of other outlets and switches needed replacement. Started to replace those.
• Not efficient use of storage areas - putting in rubbermaid/closetmaid rails/wire shelving in pantry, laundry area, etc. This helped a lot.
• Used closetmaid rails and brackets and some wood to make decent adjustable desks and shelving for my kids.
• Master bath - one sink has leaking drain line.  On todo list - only using other sink.
• Kitchen cabinet shelves were "droopy" - added some 1x2 to back side to straighten/strengthen them.
• Exterior ends of house need to have some wood patched where rot occurred.
• Fence around back yard is falling down just about everywhere - need to talk with neighbors once we straighten more important stuff out.
• Pool needs to be refinished at some point - gunnite is worn away in many places.
• Master bedroom lacks light on ceiling fan.  I've got a new fan/light and am still trying to work on replacing it.  The ceiling fan fixture box was undersized and ceiling joist layout is odd there - access is only from the room unless I shrink a lot. Just need to take some time and work through it.
• Microwave trim pieces cracked and fell off.. need to degrease and epoxy.
• All carpet in house needs to go.  There is carpet throughout the master bathroom and it is in poor shape.  Looking into options now.
• Motorcycle lost one of 2 cylinders one night while going from apt back to house and got caught in a rain storm.  Assuming water got to wiring or plugs but have no time to fix - might try new plugs and some dielectric goop to seal plugs better; saw that online from some others.  Was fun riding along at ~60 (in 65/70 zone) at full throttle on one cylinder when 2nd cylinder would "kick in" for 20 seconds or so.  
• Replaced car brake pads; a dealer commented on them but didn't say how bad.  I think they were looking for an easy buck at that time.  I purchased and held some brake pads and rotors for about 3 months until I had time to deal with.  Pads still had 5k or so life left and rotors are not too bad.  The pads I purchased (correctly based upon model) turned out to be wrong - looks like during the major model change they switched to the brake system off the larger/heavier model they retired.  I replaced the pads only this time - next time I'll put on the rotors (if they are the correct ones.. sigh).
• Got truck in for a couple oil changes.  Didn't intend to drive "Herbie Jr" aka "Duckinator" that much but between rain and motorcycle issue..
• Finally have dentist and family practice doctor; working through catching up on all our "maint" work. I'm thinking I will need to have some work done on one knee again - all this moving took a toll.
• Had one gerbil (Shadow) die.
• My father is working on building us some book cases (a big thanks to my family) - we have a significant number of books and stuff is just stacked in boxes on their sides right now..  That should clean up much of the tornado look.
• Work has had a number of challenges - lots of new things to learn which is nice but also some other things that have been less nice.  Hoping things improve.
• Got a good chunk of the new house paid off with proceeds from old house - new payment is much nicer.  Big sigh of relief..
• Need to plan out a car for son.  Maybe a hybrid would be better around here. Still researching.

I'm sure I forgot a bunch of stuff  but this gives you an idea - it has been busy to say the least.

[Edit 2017/07/05]  Adding on painful plumbing job.  Toilet was running more and more.  Made best guess on replacement kit of internals - guessed wrong.  Had to guess because toilet shutoff valve would not shut off.  The valve was very close to wall so I was trying to avoid cutting but after a long attempt at removing without damage it was obvious the compressing fitting was tightened to the point of squashing the tube.  I finally cut it off, took out some drywall to give some room and had some issues with the torch as I tried to solder in a short extension.  All my last 15-20 years of soldering had been either overhead or flat I guess - my torch was not producing an even flame when tilted so low and even with 2 soldering blankets I ended up torching some paper backing in the wall (maybe related to stucco work - not sure). A little fast patting put out the flame fortunately.  I did have the fire extinguisher sitting there but it would have been overkill slightly.  I'm planning on a torch head with a hose for any future work.  Good news is my solder joint was good and my install of the new 1/4 turn valve was successful.  Bad news is that the 2nd toilet repair kit I picked up was the right size but missing a critical part (that I of course cut apart/off the old toilet since it was stuck). Another run to Lowes it was.  Eventually it all came together but it wasn't a restful holiday weekend. All this was combined with trying to organize a room for an office along with the garage which looks like a tornado moved in.  It is getting there but.. note to self.. don't move oneself again.. hire a company.  Sigh, I also just found this "Hexpander" tool - would have saved me hours of time and probably made the job very pain free if it works as well as demonstrated.  Not sure I do enough of this to warrant it but if I ever have to help my kids with some similar plumbing..

Everything is in the house at least.. many praises for that.

Psalm 127:1English Standard Version (ESV)

127 Unless the Lord builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.

Bleeding edge Angular

Are you doing either "bleeding" or "leading" edge Angular 2?

If you say yes as of recently (today is June 1, 2017) then I would have to question it.  Angular is now at version 4.x and the published release plan indicates another major release this year.  The plan says there should be major releases every 6 months or so.

Are you creating production apps?  I have to question the wisdom of that right now unless you either have a large set of dedicated Angular developers or maybe "a good number" of developers and a paid support plan with someone that can handle any issues with common 3rd party / open source components.

In the Npm/Angular ecosystem, generally you will only get a warning on version mismatches unless there is an incompatible API change.  The fact that something compiles doesn't mean it will work.

You take on a lot of risk either sticking with Angular 2 OR moving up to the current Angular release.  Sticking with Angular 2 leaves you little room for updating components which moved to Angular 4 as their official dependency.  You don't really know they will work unless you fully test things.  You do have nearly 100% code coverage in your tests right?    Of course, you can move to Angular 4 but there is always a chance that some component you use is stuck with Angular 2 and has some issue with Angular 4+.  Neither situation is good.  Angular 4 is supposed to be mostly compatible with 2 so maybe moving to Angular 4 is a safer bet?  I tossed my dice in that direction - if for no other reason, at least the components I use that moved to Angular 4 have a better chance of working (and/or gaining features I need) and if not - updated versions would be for version 4.  I suspect that many/most open source / 3rd party components will not be back patching for Angular 2  even if needed (unless you have a support contract of some sort). This is just my experience with a few items I used recently - I don't see any work going into Angular 2 compatible versions now that Angular 4 is the official dependency.

So this basically means that we must try and keep up with current releases of most everything to reduce the risk of a component becoming incompatible with something.  Of course, you may have components that don't release often (or maybe aren't even maintained any longer) - in that case you may have to do your own maint work.  This isn't a great situation to be in.

I will say that with Angular 4 using semantic versioning, it is a step forward in maturity and if enough important 3rd party projects either use semantic versioning or will shortly then some common pain points should clear up a bit.  Right now though, I still fear that any version decision made still leads to a painful problem. Increases in the maturity and stability of the entire ecosystem takes time.  I see the start of those changes occurring though (an example from this week is npm version 5 which was just released) - those in charge do appear to listen and are trying to improve things.

Now if only Bootstrap 4 would hurry along to a release.Sigh. Too much change in too short of a time span sure does cause a lot of headaches.

[Edit 2017/6/11] Using Angular 4 in production may not be overly problematic in itself - it is more about the supporting libraries, frameworks and utilities which are changing quickly and in incompatible ways. This is turning into a bit of "guilt through association". Some work that was started with Bootstrap 4 (alpha) is turning into an increasingly large headache.  I should have backed out Bootstrap 4 and reworked it with Bootstrap 3. Someone recently mentioned a desire to merge some code bases which would turn into a lot of work and analysis - which project dependencies are carried forward?  Hoping we can delay any merge for a little while - hopefully after Bootstrap 4 gets to a production release. At that point, it should make sense to carry forward all the "release" versions of things I migrated to already and get off of various beta items in other projects as well (Webpack 2 being the big one).

The loss of a pet

Well, one of our gerbils (Shadow) finally died May 26, 2017.  It was pretty sudden and very unexpected.  It was just within the last few weeks that my wife and kids finally moved from the apartment over to the house with me and "the boys". I really thought it would be another year before anything might happen to them.

I must admit that I shed quite a few tears over this - nothing like bringing the rest of the family to tears too.  Was it just because I really liked Shadow?  No.  I did really like him though. When we got them I didn't expect much even though I spent months figuring out that gerbils would be a good first pet for the family (er, I mean my daughter). They each have very distinct personalities and even though they don't produce the same level of interaction as dogs - you do talk to them and they do like your attention.  They are very curious and if you are doing anything near them they like to get in the middle of it.. sit in their play area and they like to climb on you and sit on our knees, shoulders, etc.  If you sweep their play area they want to sit and/or run in front of the brush/broom. If you are doing other work in the room they will sometimes just sit so they can keep an eye on you.. and try to get your attention for the treat they know you really want to give them..

So, if the tears were not just for a beloved animal then why?  I have always liked animals and I always hate to see one sick and/or hurt.  It is really sad to see an animal that is hurt and in pain - especially when they can't tell you what is wrong and have no way to fix it.  Here is what I went through with Shadow.

• On May 23th, I was doing my normal nightly "come out and say hi and you get a treat" thing.  That night Shadow did come out but only to grab the treat and head back down into his little hideaway in their tank. Normally he is a little more social but I thought that maybe he had just been playing during the night too much and was tired.  
• On May 24th, I had not seen him and he wouldn't come out for any treat.  I got concerned and took their topper off and had to dig out his nest area.  He was curled up and didn't want to move - his brother was curled up next to him at that time.  I was very concerned at that point but it was too late that night to do much.  My daughter and wife had gone to the apartment for one last night since my daughter had her last brick and mortar school exam the next day. My son was already in bed at that point.  It was probably 11pm or so.  I tried to rouse him a little and he would walk a little bit  but was obviously not feeling well.  He usually would only move for 10 seconds or so and then sit or lay down wherever he was and just stay there if not disturbed.  I cleared a spot in their play area so I could sit and he did come over and just curled up on my leg and laid there.  The last time one of them did that was when they were about 8 weeks old - just after we got them. They are normally in constant motion if not sleeping in their tank.  I put him in his sleeping area after trying to get him to drink.. not very successfully.  I did some research and decided that his only real chance was going to the vet the next day. Fortunately, there was one just down the street and they treat gerbils (not all vets treat small/"exotic" animals).  
• The morning of May 25th, he was still acting the same and I was mildly surprised he was alive.  I got to the vet when they opened and they noticed some blood in the urine. They expected it was a urinary tract infection (I didn't do xrays due to cost) so they gave him some antibiotics, pain killer and pumped him with fluid. They gave me the same meds to give him.  He had a mild seizure earlier that morning which I found out from the vet can occur if they are in lots of pain.  The expectation was that the meds would make a difference within 24 hours.  By that night though, he still wasn't any better. When I gave him his medicine that night about 8pm he did obviously like the flavor and took it well. He did move a few times but by 10pm I decided I better try to hand feed him some water. I don't think he was making any attempts to drink during the day. I got out the kids old medicine syringe filled with water and tried to get him to drink.  That worked a little bit but I still don't think he was getting enough.  He just laid on my chest for the most part and would occasionally wander a bit like he couldn't get comfortable.  By midnight it was obvious he wasn't improving.  I still had some small hope in me that he would improve but in my heart I thought he would die in the night.  When I put him in a spare tank that night, he almost seemed dead at that point but was still breathing.  I had been praying (yes, remember God said to pray for even the little things) that he would either get better or pass so he wasn't in pain. 
• May 26th around 6am I got up and he had died.  If he had been alive, my daughter was going to help give him his medicine that morning.  I woke her to let her know he was gone and to figure out how we wanted to handle it.

So were my tears just because of the trauma involved in trying to save a small creature that was in pain and could not do anything on its own?  That was part of it but not all.

The gerbils are the first pets that I have ever purchased myself and were our first family pets.  When we first got them, for quite a long time - me and my daughter would sit in their play area and play with them.  It was a nice bonding moment for me and Rachel - and the gerbils.  I have many fond memories of those days.  So some tears were related to sentimental moments.  I don't think that was all the reason for tears either though.

I asked Rachel what she would like to do with him.  She said she didn't care but I think she din't want to think about it.  I asked if she would like us to bury him in the back yard.  She liked that idea.  I got some spare wood (Gerbils are excited already at that thought) and made a box (i.e. tiny coffin) and we put him inside and used the air nail gun to close it up good.  When we went looking for a spot, I recommended near a nice palm tree and Rachel liked that but pointed to a slightly different spot and said "but in the sun".  I shed couple more tears at that for some reason. 

I think any loss reminds us that death is in everyone's future.  It reminds us of beloved family members that we lost (like most of my grandparents at this point).  It forces us to acknowledge that someday we will die and stand before God too.  

I think that I shed tears for all those reasons.  

As much as I liked Shadow and as much as I hate for Thumper to be alone - I am glad Shadow isn't in pain now. Now only if my wife didn't say "no more gerbils"..  maybe a dog in our future.  I suspect Thumper would be fine having a puppy running around that he can watch. Ok, probably not yet - too many house things to deal with right now.

Remember to praise God during both the good and bad times.

Scott

[Edit] The last picture of Shadow as I was trying to get him to drink while just laying on me.

Tampa - around 6 months now

We have been here for around 6 months now.  This time has been filled with some enjoyment but also plenty of difficulties, frustrations and just "stuff".

I wish there were more enjoyable moments right now but I must accept the good with the bad.  

Since we got here we have gone through cataract surgery (both eyes) for my wife, finally gotten the braces for my daughter which we had put off for over a year because we had waffled on moving south for so long.  I think the orthodontics people are still shaking their heads at how often we are in  with her to get wires fixed - she may cause them to revise their "off limits food" list.  

I've still not felt like I could take time to find a Sleep Apnea doctor and dentist.  I had started to try and look into apnea doctors and someone did recommend one.  I have not followed up though.  For a while, I was not able to get to a doctors list on the insurance web site - they still had me associated with my previous employer and couldn't figure out how to fix it.  I think they may have fixed it now (after months) but I haven't tried logging in.  It was extremely frustrating not being able to get to our current medical items.  For a dentist, I just need to figure out where I want to go - near home or work.. I need time to review the places that are nearby.

We still have our leaking travel trailer which we are going to try and sell for whatever we can get but need time to work that out.  We think there is a place that will buy it - have to let that one go a big loss I guess.  We don't have time/cash to fix that right now.

I had to replace the rear brakes on my motorcycle which I had unknowingly ground down to the metal (how I didn't notice sooner I don't know - guess I don't press them hard enough normally).  

A Toyota dealer says our front brakes are ready for replacement (although a different dealer later didn't comment).  I've got the rotors and pads just in case I find we need them right now. We still have a rattle around the sunroof in the Toyota - just no time to get it looked at yet.  Wife keeps laughing and telling me it is a nut that a squirrel stored - and is still glaring at me whenever I take the car.

On a plus note, we now have a house - and a nice one at that.  On the downside, there is more work to do to it than was revealed by the home inspection and that is frustrating.  We also are sort of stuck between between homes - family at the apartment and me at the house for most of the week (having together 2-3 days of work week) and then everyone at the house on weekends.  We took the travel trailer mattresses to the house so we had something to sleep on.  It is painful at times for me - I'm starting to try and get some back exercises going again - it is starting to help but slow.  

Regarding the house, we had to replace the main breaker the first week - we only had power to half the house (1 leg of the 240v wasn't working) and it left the big appliances either non-functional or partially functional.  I learned one day that cold showers are still not enjoyable.  I am thankful we have full electricity again.

The wife of the previous owners had some medical issues and we are slowly figuring out why some things were done the way they were.  We are slowly sorting out some of those things and updating the easy stuff.  I was sad to hear that once the prior owners moved out the wife went straight into a nursing home. I do try and pray for the family.

The washer and dryer didn't convey with the house so we went  out and got some new ones - includes some features we didn't have before like the "steam" functions. The problem showed up though during the first use of the dryer though.  It was putting out codes regarding "airflow" being a problem.  I, being somewhat handy, figured it must just be a clogged vent.  It was funny that I was outside at around midnight one night with a flashlight trying to find the outside vent - without luck.  The next day, my wife and family pointed out that it was a plastic pipe that comes out of the ground about 12-18 " from the outside exterior wall (!??!??).  Anyways, to make a long story shorter, it wasn't clogged -  the new "smart" dryers monitor airflow and will warn you or even stop if it thinks there is an "excessive" restriction.  In our case, the way it is plumbed under the concrete slab and out with around 4 90 degree turns ends up at around 20 feet of length without the dryer to wall connection which is longer than desired because we wanted the doors to open in a way that made loading easy. So we are at the moment stuck running the dryer into a "in the house" water based lint trap and leaving some doors open around the wash room to let the heat and moisture out (hope we don't draw lizards in - I know who will have to chase them). The long term solution will probably be a vent extender and possible a reroute of the vent through the attic and out a wall - not really in the budget right now.

We have some leaky drains in the master bath to fix up.  Those are on my list of things to do sooner and later so we don't get a bigger mess.

There are a number of light dimmers and electric outlets that need replacing - nothing too bad but time consuming and complicated because the house is wired "interestingly".  It was mildly noticeable when reviewing the breaker box - a number of items marked "lights" but no room indicated and things like that.  There were not nearly as many breakers in use as to what I would expect either. What we know now is that there are some items on the same circuit as a major appliance - like maybe some wall outlets and the stove.  The shed was wired off of a heat pump circuit and even that wiring I am not sure I understood one aspect of what they did.  This is going to take time to sort out.

Then there is the shed.  We knew there was some rot but not the extent - when we had looked before it was full of stuff so there wasn't much access.  On move in, we found holes in the floor and the ceiling was  a total loss.  My parents are awesome and want to help by replacing the shed.  We started tearing it down and found that they had tacked up new wood over exterior rot (some years ago probably - not for the sale).  There were plenty of ants and palmetto bugs using it as a home.  This is going to take some time to sort out too.

I've not ventured into the attic yet.  Hoping that doesn't show more issues.

We still have a number of items to bring down from VA.  I hoping we can make a trip soon - that will provide one real bed for the house at least along with a bunch of storage stuff and additional workbench for the garage.  Not sure I need the additional workbench but I may have some specific uses.

On top of all this, my kids are/were struggling to get caught up in their school work since they started late with some Florida virtual school classes.  They fell farther behind in those and I don't know whether it is a bit of a self-direction issue or just issues related to never doing work mostly online. I have not been overly encouraging to them and I hope they forgive me for that.  I should say that I am proud of my son for doing  *extremely* well on his SATs.  I am also very proud of my daughter for how well she is doing with violin lessons (and guitar as well).  They are both so very capable of doing just about anything but they need my encouragement more than harshness sometimes.  I am hard on them - I think they should always do things to the best of their abilities.

At this very moment, we still have not sold our house in VA as well.  It wasn't really a problem for a few months - it was a "safety net" if we just couldn't deal with it down here.  I think we are enjoying it to some degree and it is now time to get the house off our books.  That has been a huge anchor around our necks for a while.  I think we have an offer now and plan to sign a contract shortly - hoping this works out finally.  Still not getting what I had hoped for but it is a little higher than a previous offer someone made. I do want to give a praise that it looks like it is going to sell though!

I must admit that I have been handling the stress of the issues pretty poorly lately/still.  I'm very embarrassed and angry with myself at the moment.  I am thankful for Jesus forgiveness though. I continue to pray for strength and perseverance.  I continue to hope that once we get totally out of the apartment and into the house along with finishing up this years schooling - we can work on "renewing the family and individually" for a lack of better words.  Separation of family is never a good thing - I am understanding that clearly now.  That applies to both our family "unit" and church family as well.  There is strength in togetherness both those areas.   

Fortunately, the new church we visited twice now seems like a good fit.  I am hopeful that we can quickly make some additional friends (still massively miss friends from VA and wish they were closer).  I really need more support right now - still feeling personally responsible for many issues. I really need to spend time in bible reading and quiet time.  So many things keep wedging their way into that time.

Scott

Cry out to Jesus

Cry out to Jesus when you are tired. Why cry out to Jesus? Because he loves you.

Cry out to him when you wake up gasping for breath and heart pounding. Because he loves me. 

Cry out when you feel like everything you do is a mistake.  Because he cares.

Cry out when you are sad and disappointed with others.   Because he wants your burden

Cry out when you are disappointed in yourself.   Because he wants my burdens. 

Cry out when you are alone and scared. Cry out when you are in pain. Because he listens.

This is not crying out into emptiness; this is shouting to myself and others to know and remember that Jesus is the answer and he does respond to our cries.  All that is needed is to hold him dearer than all else.

I lay my head down again tonight with final pleas that he help me to love him the way I should and to show my family how to love him more.

Scott

Angular 2 and ecosystem: dislikes?

Ok, so Angular 2 generates a good amount of attention with lots of great things touted about it.  That is fine but what matters to me is whether it is like the medications advertised on TV - "Cures you <insert condition here>" but in tiny print has "side effects of nausea, vomiting and sometimes death".  Angular is still pretty new to me - typically I work mostly on back-end Java development. I'm not doing new Angular coding right this second but for a couple months I have been doing automated builds for Angular 2 projects and just started to work on converting some Angular 2 projects from Gulp based to mainly just NPM with Webpack2 which is resulting in some coding along the way.

Ok, so let me start off by saying that I don't think Angular 2 will have 'death' as a side effect.  Maybe headaches though.

My list of issues - some not directly Angular issues but related in various ways through tooling or general ecosystem.

• Documentation is poor.  I find myself asking questions like 'what about this or that' and official docs for what seems like most stuff in the NPN repository don't have the answers.  I waste too much time looking for answers at Stackoverflow or elsewhere for usage/API questions rather than working on the actual functionality. This isn't an Angular (2) specific issue but they didn't improve things.
• Searching for Angular 2 documentation, etc results in many links to Angular 1 stuff or to items which a beginner can't easily identify as Angular 1 or 2.  Just "Angular" everywhere. I wish that those blogging or writing examples, documentation, etc would consistently include a version in the content or at least a date when something was written so there is a better chance of figuring it out.  I'll admit that I don't always think about this aspect either until I'm on the receiving end of new technology but when breaking changes are very common this is more important.
• Seed projects drive me a bit crazy when they use beta software.  As of the date I am writing this (3/5/17), what appears to be a common seed project here is using webpack 2.1.0-beta.27. I have never worked where we would rely on beta software - especially well after non-beta software was available. I spent some time already looking into the non-beta webpack 2 and I see how the particular seed we used pushed the developers into using the beta initially.  I just wish that they would put time into converting to non-beta software even if it will take some effort.  It seems odd and unwise to expect further beta updates after a stable release so good luck with bug fixes or security issues. And just so no one thinks I am talking about just Webpack2, in this instance rxjs 5.0.0-beta.12 is also in this seed.
• NPM is so slow I feel like my hair will be totally grey before most 'npm install' processes finish. I did see there is at least one attempt at an alternative (Yarn) but I had problems with an app with just a moderate number of dependencies and it was still pretty slow for me. By version # terms, Yarn is still really young and I hope it makes major improvements. 
• NPM version? I've yet to see any nice documentation stating when/where particular NPM versions should be used. I've read some information listing some of the differences but nothing really saying 'hey, version 4 is where you should be now because..' or making it clear what the impact is of using various versions in different contexts.  Is it s difference of works versus not or simply efficiency differences? Does it depend on other considerations?
• Many 3rd party libraries are not using semantic versioning yet.  If people are creating apps/libs and passing them on to you for further work before deploying to production many times the build is dysfunctional by time I even try the build process. To many packages making breaking changes with no way of knowing by the version number. An example issue with ng2-bootstrap can be viewed here.  I think the main contributor to the issue is the extensive/default use of "^' and '~' to modify the process of selecting compatible dependency versions.  The default should be to NOT use them(^ or ~) in my opinion. It is a huge time waster trying to get a build working which was just handed to you that won't build because 'some' component got upgraded to an incompatible version which must be tracked down. [edit 2017/04/20] You have probably heard of Perl being referred to as a "write once" language - I sometimes think about Angular as a "build once" technology since each and every build of the same code has the potential to fail.
• Private NPM registry?  I found the 'blessed way' of handling this to be underwhelming. If you search for other free/open source options you will likely end up at Sinopia which is a dead project last I checked this issue. Note that nothing at the Sinopia link indicates it isn't maintained.  I would recommend Verdaccio at this moment. I find it crazy that you must expend a good amount of time just to figure out a reasonable open source private registry solution.  There are several non-open source solutions available.
• I've run into a number of odd and possibly random issues during 'npm install'. At this point, I'm trying to keep up with npm updates hoping to reduce the number of days where repeatable builds seem impossible.  Tools or infrastructure - who knows?
• Module systems - CommonJS vs AMD vs ES6 vs .... And people complain about the complexity of languages such as C++..  
• Typescript and integrating 3rd party JS based modules - I'm still working through a situation where a 3rd party module has only a single anonymous function exported and there is no definition file. This is another productivity killer. This may be more of an experience issue (lack of on my part related to Typescript) than a true technical issue but googling for "best solutions" is slow in this case.
• Throw in some technology such as an API generator targeting Angular 2 and other technology such as an API proxy and you get some unwanted complexity.  What was initially a quick (and good) way to stand up simple applications turns into something much higher in complexity.  How how I can't say. 
• Arg.  Renames of packages and/or packages of similar names make thinks difficult to sort out when looking for useful components and/or tying to use them.  Too much change and little maturity.

[Edit 2017/04/20 - feeling the need to add some positives to my analysis] 

+ It sounds like Angular 4 is a step toward better versioning (semantically speaking). I don't know that it is a total fix in itself since there are still many libraries/frameworks that need to fall in line regarding versioning.  

+ The dependency injection in Angular has been somewhat useful.  

+ The overall "feeling" of development isn't too bad - given enough time and maturity it may be "very good or great".

So should you dump your applications / user interfaces that are rooted in JEE type technology? I don't think so. At least not yet. It is probably worth keeping an eye on technology such as this.  I would certainly evaluate the risk for the type of use you expect along with the productivity differences between this and whatever you were doing.

Thanks for reading!
May Jesus bless your day!

Scott

Attitude adjustment - A truck and a Muscovy duck

Ever had a day where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and just feel cranky.  That was me earlier this week (or maybe more often and earlier than that according to my family). I'm being kind to myself with that description, I was way more than cranky.  There are so many people around Tampa who drive like complete jerks and by time I got about 4 miles from work I recognized my attitude was so wrong I couldn't even stand myself.  I was driving our F250 truck this day because I thought it might rain and I try to avoid to motorcycle when I'm just feeling off.  I took a mental pause and spoke a simple prayer to Jesus - "please help me improve my attitude".  I had no idea how Jesus might answer that prayer but I really didn't expect what happened next.

I had just gotten through a 4-way stop near some apartments and a golf course where the road has some wonderful trees that hang over the road.  It can pretty at times - probably more so once some of the construction near the corner is complete.  At this moment though, I suddenly saw a large duck flying straight down between the trees like it was heading for a landing. I immediately realized that I was directly in its path and it realized the same. I had no time to react and I think it tried to go into a climb but it was too little too late.  There was a very large bang and the windshield turned into a mess.  I was in shock but alert enough to keep myself on the road without any panic reaction.

"Ok Jesus, you have my attention.  Yes, my attitude is still bad and I know it.  Thanks for showing me you are listening and thanks for your forgiveness."

I didn't stop the truck right away - I thought about it but I didn't figure there was much use and there wasn't really a good place to pull over.  I was pretty sure the duck didn't make it - even now, although I have yet to see it laying along the road. It wasn't super easy but I was able to make it the last 3 or so miles to work where I was able to take a breather.


Anyways here is the formula.

1 Muscovy duck 

HTML BBCode HTML/BBCode:

+ 

1 truck 

 = 

If you look carefully above you will see feathers stuck in the windshield near the top...

Plus all the fun and jokes that are coming out of it.

1. The truck, originally nicknamed 'Herbie Jr' is now 'The Duckinator'.
2. My wife really wants me to admit that I screamed like a girl when it happened.  I didn't since I saw it coming - but if I hadn't.. well.. I won't speculate.
3. The day after this I ended up working from home since I couldn't drive the truck and there was a 60% chance of rain and the days after that I was driving the motorcycle.  On the way to work I kept looking for a duck with an odd waddle to no avail but there were plenty of them along the road and I could visualize one big one strutting along telling his friends "Yeah, I'm bad - I might be in pain but that big white thing didn't come back for more.. Oh yeah."
4. Some duck duck goose jokes..
5. Some comments on doing a better job 'ducking'
6. Comments on how dinner got away from me..
7. More comments on 'waddle home'.
8. etc etc.. a family of real comedians we are..
9. [edit 2017/3/3] How could I forget 'No harm, no fowl'

I have a lot to be thankful for.  I didn't get hit by this duck while riding my motorcycle.  That would have been more dangerous, probably very painful and even more embarrassing.  I would NEVER hear the end of it if I came home with feathers stuck in my riding gear or helmet.  It was a duck and not a large goose which might have gotten through the window to a higher degree.  It wasn't a person and no people were injured.  And of course, I am thankful for the opportunity to fix my attitude a bit. As much as I don't want to admit it, I almost always could use a little bit of an attitude adjustment but a future prayer may have to stress the 'little' aspect. 

Hope God blesses your day!

Scott

Sena 20S Bluetooth Headset - quick review

I bought a Sena 20S bluetooth headset for my (fairly old) HJC helmet about 6 weeks ago.  Now that we moved and have a lot of things going on I thought it was important to maintain my ability to talk with the family while I commute for work and it can be used with my phone for navigation use.  I did a little research and this headset seemed like a good solution.  The Bluetooth 4.1 is a bit newer, has some good features and the runtime is a bit better than others I saw.

You can find the headset at places like Revzilla.

The attachment to the helmet wasn't too hard to make - it just clamps.  My helmet lining wasn't as easy to work with as some of the newer helmets out there but it seems solid enough.  I will say that the location I have the speakers isn't perfect and squeezes on the ears a bit.  I might be able to adjust it a bit better or a different helmet may have a little bit more room in the ear area.

I tend to try to avoid talking while commuting (traffic is very heavy) so I have only made/taken calls a dozen or so times.  The voice quality and volume is pretty good.  The difficult part is that I still feel the need to adjust the volume when stopped versus travelling 35-55mph.  I usually end up being too loud when stopped.

The controls are basically a rotating dial (that depresses in the center too) and a couple buttons.  They are pretty easy to operate but the buttons I tend to have to hunt for a little bit.  It might be a bit challenging with thicker winter gloves for the smaller buttons but thin gloves still allow enough feeling to operate.

I don't use it enough (and haven't reread the documentation recently) to remember how to access most of the features while riding - just answering the phone taxes my memory some days. 

To program the speed dials or change other settings you can either use a smart phone app or a PC based application.  I've done both and it was pretty straight forward.  I do wish I had 4 speed dials instead of just 3 but that isn't a deal breaker.

I did use this with my phone (Android based) once or twice for navigation purposes and it worked well.  I bought a handle bar mount phone holder to allow easy use for this - this is pretty much a requirement. I'm also tempted to get a double USB charger and cables that I can use from the bike in case I get lax on keeping things charged on a day I really need it.  Would I ever get lax on charging?  Um, yeah.. (sheepish look)..

Overall this was a good purchase.  If we end up doing a bunch of dirt biking it might be worth getting more so we can communicate easily.

This is a view of the overall external attachment.  The mic is easily adjustable back into the correct position once you get the helmet on.

 

This shows where I detached the portion that contains the battery. I tend to detach it to charge but I could charge it while on the helmet if I have a convenient wall socket and place to sit the helmet.


The round blob on the lower part of the pic in the cheek area is one of the speakers. The kit comes with some Velcro type attachments which hold pretty well.




This pick shows the other speaker at the top of the strap.




Thanks for reading and I pray for safe travels for all the other riders out there.
Scott