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.
Hmmm. In light of Hurricane Sandy, I’ve been doing some more research on preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse. I’ve been working on this project slowly over the course of several months, but it’s taken a back burner while other things have come up. The other day, I found this list of emergency tools and gadgets for when the water starts rising. Some of these are pricey, but there are some good suggestions there.
Here’s a partial list of the stuff I’ve got already, and the stuff we still need (noted in bold).
- Waterproof container for supplies – I’m using a standard Rubbermaid tote bin
- Collapsible water jug (3 gallons)
- Camp shower–solar
- 8 gallon hard water container
- Purification tablets – Bleach will also do in a pinch
- Propane stove (4-burner, Coleman) – I found through camping experience this bungees neatly to the top of a standard Rubbermaid tote bin
- Propane campstove (1-burner) – mine is AWOL, but they are relatively inexpensive.
- Propane camp cylinders – I need about 4 of these
- Freeze-dried meals – I have 4 Mountain Home meals right now, but $40 for 10 is a much better deal compared to individual pricing at Wal-Mart.
- Matches and magnesium fire starter
- Headlamp – I have 1 right now, but I’d like to get three for all of us
- Dust Masks – great idea.
- Flashlights – currently these are in all of our cars and there are two in the house.
- First aid kit – ours is hopelessly out of date
- Backup documents – I started doing all of this, but there’s a lot of stuff to compile here
- Radio – the one listed in the article is beautiful and versatile. I think that’s the one we’ll go with.
- Wet Wipes
- Hand/Body Warmers
- Multitool – I’m asking for a Skeletool for Christmas, so I’ll drop my old Leatherman in the bin
- Solar charger – I like the one recommended in the article
- 2-way radios – Point taken. When the cellphones go down, these are the thing to have.
I know there’s more stuff in there that I’m forgetting, but it’ll have to wait until I’m in the basement and looking in the bin to complete the list.
Last night I cleaned off my overloaded workbench, dug out my service manuals, and lined up three spare wiper motors I have in my stash. Right now the wipers in Peer Pressure are defunct, after three years of working without a problem.The stopped working when I was in Chestertown killing time with Brian waiting for the welder, and I got stupid and started fooling with the bulkhead connectors.
My troubleshooting workflow should look something like this:
- Pull the cowl cover off, disconnect the power lead to the motor, and test it for power.
- Check the bulkhead connector for power.
- Test the switch on the dash.
- Pull the motor itself, pull it apart, and see if it’s seized up.
But, because time is limited, I’m a curious guy, and I frequently do things out of order, I decided to pull a few of the motors I have apart to see how they work. I’m starting with one very clean motor and two that have more miles (and grease) on them, but all three are identical. I cleaned the gunk off two of them, cracked the manual, and got started.
Disassembly starts with the switch side, where the arm connects to the housing. Pulling the top off the housing reveals two contacts and a gapped brass plate, which is how the the motor handles delay. Under the plate is a round plastic toothed gear which fits into a worm screw connected directly to the motor itself.
Pulling the cover off the other side of the motor reveals both brushes and the commutator, and inside the housing, the field coils. The clean motor looks almost brand new, while the second one contained the amount of dirt I’d expect from a 30-year-old truck.
I left all the grease in place, closed the motors back up, and decided to wait until I pick up a cheap battery charger to bench test everything with 12 volts. Harbor Freight has one for $20, which fits my budget perfectly, and I may run out and pick it up this weekend.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
8:26. Slept through the wind, woke at eight to the sound of the heat kicking in. I took a walk around the house to survey the damage, of which there was mercifully little. We have lots of branches down but all seem to have missed the greenhouse. The water in the basement got no bigger and the water by the outside stairs never breached the sill. The garage is mostly dry. Overall we made it through in great shape.
11:08. Sacked out in front of a dying fire. The girl is zonked next to me and Pique is curled up at her feet. Wind is still howling. There’s some water leaking in through the concrete in the ice room, but it hasnt gotten deeper since 9pm.
8:13. We all had dinner, took showers, and moved beds down in front of the fireplace. The girls just popped some popcorn, and we have bug-out bags next to the door.
5:41. Ran outside to bring in the feeders. Our gutters are working well, but water from the west flowerbed is emptying down the basement stairs into the concrete well. I dropped a pair of sandbags bags of potting soil over top of the puddle, but there’s still some drainage underneath. I also cleared out the artesian drain and that seems to be working. Otherwise, there’s only a 2″ sill between us and a flooded basement.
5:22. Still here. Gusts of wind are getting stronger. Jen just reminded me the bird feeders got left outside, so I’ve got to run out and save them. I still see people on the road here and there.
4:20. The girls are back up; the Weather Channel is pointing at New Jersey with sad faces and playing insurance ads in a non-ironic way. It’s gray and rainy outside, and getting darker. Our downspouts are working nicely, though.
1:09. About the same amount of wind. We’re all fed, and the girls are headed upstairs for a nap.
12:01. Wind is picking up. Lots of utility trucks going by. All of the leaves are now off the tulip tree. It’s stopped sprinkling and really started RAINING. Let the countdown to power loss commence.
11:03. Working from home. The governor told us all to stay home and they declared a state of emergency for the whole state, so I’m in my PJs using the VPN. What leaves haven’t fallen off the tulip tree out front are blowing sideways, and rain is hitting the windows intermittently. Were stocked with firewood, non-perishables and clean clothes, and the gutters are as clean as they’re going to get, so all we can do is hunker down and have fun.
The lawn furniture is in, the plants are covered, the gutters are clean, the house is stocked with non-perishables and water, the firewood has been gathered, the Scout is battened down, and we have one full tank of gas. Except for a generator, we’re as ready as we’re going to be for Sandy’s arrival.
I inspected the gutter guards on the back of the house and liked what I saw. Hopefully I’ll never have to get up there and clean that thing out, and we can start growing grass under the eaves again.
In the morning we had brunch with Dan and Elena one last time before they leave town. Jen and Finn went to the Baltimore Zoo for a Halloween event with the neighbors while I put some band-aids on our yard before the storm. Our crab salesman from across the street showed up a little after lunchtime with a bag of mediums and two handfuls of claws; not having made dinner plans it worked out very well and tasted great with a couple of glasses of IPA.
Nothing much to report around here. I dug out three spare wiper motors and brought them inside to the bench for winter work. The Scout was out for a brief errand this afternoon before the rain and wind hits. I put the top on tight, rolled up the windows, and battened down the garage, hoping that Sandy passes us by.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I got in touch with the officer who arrested our burglar the other night, and he invited me down to the precinct house to pick up my iPod. It was in a shopping bag with a Garmin GPS, a bag of cookies, several women’s hats, a Burger King value card, an Independence card, and other assorted debris. He sorted it with gloves on his hands, and told me the guy had been spotted in my car by a neighbor, who called it in. In the time it took them to get over there he’d continued down Beechwood and hit two more cars before they put the bracelets on him. I’m named on the complaint because the witness had him in my car at the time she called, so I may be getting a summons to appear. Fine with me!
Teller is getting wheezier and wheezier, so I’m going to make an appointment to get him into the cat doctor soon (after this week’s mess has blown over). His last visit revealed enlargement around his heart, so I think they’re going to prescribe some medicine for him to bring the swelling down. Poor little guy. We’ve been letting him sleep with us for the past week, which is a big change for all of us. I can’t say I miss the baby gate at the top of the stairs, but if I start finding tufts of cat hair on my pillow it’s going right back up.
Mom and Dad are safely back upstate; we had a great time together exploring Gettysburg, checking out a real St. Mary’s County stuffed ham and oyster dinner, doing some work/sightseeing in downtown Baltimore, and meeting up with a cousin to tour the Antietam battlefield. Mom got in some quality granddaughter time, Dad got some scenic exercise, and we all were treated to gorgeous fall weather and turning leaves. I’d place a bet that 50% of them will be gone by next weekend.
I finally got dome light bulbs for the Honda that fit, so I can now see in the dark. I installed them just in time for some asshole to walk down Frederick Road and lift valuable items from unlocked cars at 5AM; I’d forgotten to lock mine so he walked away with my old 60GB iPod. Later that morning (5:30, to be exact) the police knocked to see if we’d been burglarized, and to report they’d caught the guy, but we were too tired to get up. Later, our neighbors let us know what was happening, and I confirmed our loss. I’m supposed to call the officer when he gets on duty tonight and see if I can recover my iPod. While I was at the dealer, I picked up some touch-up paint to cover a scratch I hadn’t noticed on the passenger door. I have to scuff off a little rust and brush over it before the snow flies.
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I’m trying not to let something that happened on Tuesday bother me too much. A 75° ride in the Scout today helped a little bit.
There’s not much to report around here. I spent the majority of the weekend behind a desk working on an illustration, but we were able to get out a bit on Saturday to run errands with the girls and visit the Hoerrs’ barbecue in the evening. Sunday I ran the Scout up for the first time in two weeks and took her for a quick drive to the hardware store in beautiful fall weather.
While working, I’ve been doing a lot of research online about the battle of Gettysburg. My Dad has been talking about coming down to visit the battlefield, and this coming Friday we have plans to drive out there and see it. In preparation, I figured I’d find a copy of the Killer Angels, a historical novel based on the battle–something I’ve been meaning to check out for a while now. I got it on Amazon and started listening to it while at work, and it’s very good. I also had Netflix send me Gettysburg, which was made in 1993 and based on the novel. Certain parts of the film feel very dated (the production started out as a miniseries and from an aesthetic point of view it still feels very much like one) but the battle scenes are breathtaking and it definitely helped put faces to names and places (now I can only see Tom Berenger sporting a huge set of muttonchops when I hear of General Longstreet).
The novel focuses on several characters instead of jumping all over the battlefield, so it does a great job of personalizing the experience, but it fails to give a clear overall picture. I found several programs on Youtube dedicated to the overall battle, one of which was produced by the History Channel and which provides a broader view, and goes into detail about the technology and backstory. The show explains the design of the minié ball, different types of cannon ammunition, and reliance on Napoleonic tactics in the face of modern ballistics, helping make sense of the battle and why it was fought a certain way. It also sheds light on the incredible courage and waste of famous maneuvers like Pickett’s Charge; why else would thousands of men line up in neat rows and march straight into cannister fire from massed artillery?
There are also some podcasts available to help tour the battlefield, which I downloaded and put on my old iPhone for our trip. By the end of the week, I won’t be an expert on the subject, but I’ll at least know enough to be informed.
Monday we have plans to see Antietam, in Sharpsburg, which is another story entirely. I’ve done some preliminary research on this battle, but we’ll be joined by my cousin Brad, who I’m told is well schooled on the subject and willing to take us on a tour.