From Can’t Get Much Higher newsletter, a list of the 18 best Podcasts About Music. This is basically a Venn diagram of my favorite things. Many of these I’ve never heard before and am excited to dive into; some of these I’m already familiar with (Reply All, Heavyweight, 60 Songs that Explain the ’90’s) but demand a repeat listen.
I’ve got a ton of open tabs in two different browser windows right now, so that’s my sign to offload them here. In no particular order, here are a few:
- An excellent writeup on Hagerty about car alternators, and the differences between one, two, three, and four-wire versions. This explains a lot about the three-wire alternator in the Travelall and the one-wire in the Scout.
- With the passage of the Big Stupid Bill in Congress, all incentive credits for EVs are now gone. Which means that $40,000 EV will now be north of $47,500. Not that I was ready to buy an EV, but this will change the math for millions of people and fuck up the EV market for years.
- This is a really good video by a guy tuning his carburetor to run better; there’s a lot of basic knowledge that’s just good to absorb for future use.
Happy 4th, everyone. Let’s try to remember why this country was founded and what we’re actually supposed to stand for.
A long time ago, in my previous house, I had an ancient oil-burning furnace (converted to natural gas) ripped out of my basement along with all the assorted radiators and piping, and had a central air system installed. This was 1999 or so, and the house was only 1600 square feet in size. I paid somewhere around $5,000 for all of the demo and ducting work, and enclosed it all myself when they were gone. $5000 in 1999 equates to somewhere around $9500 today, factoring inflation.
We had a very nice man come to the house and give us an estimate for a ductless air system, where he spec’d out five wall units and one outside air handler. The total estimate came out to a hair over $25,000.
Guess I’m going to be humping window-shakers up and down the stairs for a while longer.
Being an adult means you can make a command decision for the family and make dinner a medium shake at the Baskin Robbins down the street. It also means the vestigial amounts of caffeine in the Jamocha ice cream will keep you up until 3AM questioning your life choices.
Jen made me some cream of wheat for breakfast this morning, and it made me think of childhood weekend mornings when Dad would make us breakfast; I preferred his cream of wheat to his eggs. He’d load a bowl full for each of us and make a little island volcano in the center: butter in the cone, brown sugar on the land, surrounded with some milk. The way the flavors mix always felt like a warm hug, even when we knew he was preparing us for hours of cold dreary manual labor outside.
I miss you, Dad.
It’s pretty brutal across the Mid-Atlantic right now; we went from a month of wet but temperate weather straight into Sauna mode in one day. The girls and I disassembled and cleaned out all of our window units before installing them, and they’ve been rumbling away since Sunday evening. I’ve been curious to know exactly what it might cost to have ductless A/C installed in the house, so I called up a local company who’d come recommended to us by a neighbor and had the rep come out to walk through the house. He wasn’t scared by the layout, and is supposed to give us a quote for a couple of different options sometime today.
I’m prioritizing the bedrooms upstairs, knowing that the cold air will fall, and we talked about another unit in the office. It looks like the outside unit would most likely go on the west side under the dining room window, or possibly on the driveway side, but we’ll have to see how things shake out.
I don’t know that I’ve got the money for this immediately handy, but I want to know what we need to save up for to get it done. I’m sick and tired of humping window units up and down the stairs, having them block up the windows in each room, and having to store them on the porch or in one of the bedrooms all winter long. I was able to enjoy central A/C in my rowhome for a total of a year and a half before we moved; that was 22 years ago and it’s time to upgrade.
On my way down to Southern Maryland last weekend, I saw the shape of a semi-familiar vehicle out of the corner of my eye but didn’t have time to stop and check it out. On my way back north, I pulled over to give it a better look, and found a very rare 4×4 here in the states: a first-generation Nissan Patrol. These were only sold in the states from 1962-69, so this example is a unicorn. It’s in excellent shape: the sheet metal looked good, and the interior was clean.
I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of the color, but it is unique, and could very well be period-correct.
It’s always great to see an antique 4×4 on the road.
Sad news hit me late last week via Instagram; old friend of the blog Lis passed away after a series of health issues (fuck cancer, etc.) We overlapped at MICA and ran in some of the same circles but struck up a better acquaintance via the web later on. I didn’t pivot to Twitter the way she did, and I think the RockHaus went on hiatus sometime in 2010, so we lost more immediate contact, but we were still on Instagram together. The post that clued me in also featured a candid snap of the two of us—I can’t remember exactly when it was taken, but I’m glad it exists.
Rest in peace, Lis.
With the conclusion of high school, we are now in that glorious, short-lived period of time when the household doesn’t need to be up and moving at 6:45, which means we can lay in bed an extra hour and doze. I don’t know who is happier about this—us, or Hazel.
With the onset of the Heat Dome over the mid-Atlantic region, we spent Sunday morning out in the backyard disassembling and scrubbing out all of our window units with bleach. The girls went to see a movie and I put everything back together, then humped them all up the stairs and into each of the bedrooms. As much of a hassle as it is, it was lovely to have the place cool and dry again. We’ve got a guy coming today to give us an estimate on what a ductless A/C system might cost; I have no idea what to expect but it would be good to have a number to work towards. And if I could ditch these fucking machines once and for all, I’d be thrilled.
Something’s Always Wrong, by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I got this stuck in my head at a rest stop in Pennsylvania on the way home from Ohio. It’s probably the only song by this unfortunately named band that I like; the harmonies in the bridge are beautiful. This was on heavy alternative radio airplay back in the day in a time when “alternative” music was losing steam and leaning towards easy listening. I would have posted the actual music video, but it sucks.