Mudville

Some of you might recall that I blew out my knee playing softball, back in late June. Well, it turned out to have been merely sprained and after a 6 week hiatus I was back in business. I never quite regained my sweet swing from the beginning of the year (I went 3 for 4 with a home run), but hit some nice line drives and by the final game was starting to feel comfortable in the field again. Our team, Ether Binge^, had made the playoffs, although that is less impressive when you know the top four teams make the playoffs and there were only four teams total. I am standing far right, holding a mitt that was holding a hidden can of Tecate beer. Worry not, it was a post-game beverage. I play clean.

Still, we were two games away from a championship and playing the dreaded Steamers, the very team I had injured my leg against two months earlier. It was a great game, back and forth each inning. We must have exchanged leads several times before finally getting into the final set of at bats, down 2 runs. We strike quickly and score a run and have men at 1st and 2nd, but then we make two outs. Our manager, batting right in front of me, takes a walk, loading the bases. So there I am, season on the line, bases juiced, any decent hit probably wins the game.

I take a ball. Then I take a strike. Then I make the second-worst swing of my shortened season, fouling the ball roughly three feet. I swing the bat once, trying to get a feel for it. There is some good-natured taunting as I am wearing a Superman logo shirt. I am warned not to break the windows in the buildings over 1000 feet away. I bear down. Another pitch, another ball, but only barely. It is now a 2-2 count. One long exhalation of breath. Then a pitch that looks hittable.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land
the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere,
and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing,
and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville--
Great Casey has struck out.

Alas, this was the worst swing of my season. I fouled the ball maybe 1 foot. I actually threw the bat down in front of the ball to knock it back fair. Not because I had any expectation that it would work, but because there was nothing else I could do. In slow pitch softball, you can foul out. I could make an excuse that I had picked up a heavier and unfamiliar bat, but the truth is I choked under the additional pressure and did not make good swings. And like mighty Casey, I will have to move on and hope for revenge some other day...

Now, in proper DaColbert Code style: Revenge is a dish best served cold. Cold hands mean a warm heart. Hart-to-Hart starred the incomparable Robert Wagner. Wagner co-starred in the made for television fiasco, "There Must Be a Pony" with Elizabeth Taylor. Of the two, Taylor's career has clearly plunged farther from the heights of such classics as "National Velvet" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." A tin roof is cheaper than a shake roof, but both are better than no roof, which is what my house presently has!



Eerie, no? Yes, after much hand-wringing, fretting, and general groaning we finally pulled the trigger and ripped the old shake roof off of the house. This was not the original plan. Our architect loved the old roof and wanted to keep it. I felt it had become a bit of an eyesore, that it just looked dilapidated and unsound (You can decide for yourself, although it should be noted this picture was taken after they tore up the roof to attach the new addition). Still, we were already so far in over our heads on this project that we were willing to listen to the honeyed words of our advisors and were going to live with the old roof a while longer.

Well, you know what they say about "The best-laid plans of mice and men". They go awry. Let me let you in on the big secret about home renovation. Every part of your house is in some way connected to every other part of your house. Pipes, ducts, and wires go everywhere. Walls touch ceilings, rafters meet walls. The most well intentioned contractor will run into obstacle after obstacle where the old house intrudes on the new. Not to mention the city, which continually terrorizes from a distance through its permitting and inspection process, doesn't like old houses much and loves to take every opportunity to dissolve them bit by bit. So time and time again compromises have to be made to move the project forward. Take out that plaster, remove that insulation, replace that wiring, shore up that wall, tear out that duct. This is the reason all remodel budgets balloon.


Or half of it anyway. The other half is that you never want to half-ass something at this stage. You could replace only the effected areas, but it seems absurd to spend 1/2 the money it would to replace everything to replace only 1/3 the stuff. I mean, if the walls are already ripped open and we got to replace some insulation anyway, why not do it all? A thousand here, a thousand there... pretty soon we are talking real money.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, my roof. As we were installing entirely new plumbing (original plan) and an entirely new HVAC system (one of our first "savings"), we were riddling the roof with new holes. To make the shake roof water tight again was just out of the question. Getting to the roof boards was like digging through crumbling foam-board. It wasn't going to go back like we had it and so much of it had to come up we had to replace it. Now we had the option of just replacing the back roof (no new holes in the front), but that just seemed silly. Why not just do it all? You see? That's how they get ya.



So here are pictures of the first two phases of my re-roofing. Phase one is the tearing off of my roof, right down to the frame. From a distance you can almost imagine there is nothing wrong, but the closer up shot from above makes it clear that my home's weather proofing is sadly lacking. My favorite is the shot from inside the house, looking up into the pale, blue sky. You can see my chimney there on the right, both inside and outside my roof.

Next comes the plywood roof. Still not exactly water-tight, at least it keeps out bird droppings and the morning dew. You can see my contractor up there talking with the roofer about exactly where they are going to dislodge money from me next. The close-up shows us the platform the new AC unit will be resting on. You can also see the makings of a little rooflet that they refer to as a "cricket". It serves the very important purpose of allowing water to run off your roof to either side instead of piling up against the new addition (where I took the photo from). It also served an additional valuable purpose as a place the HVAC guy could run air ducts to the new part of the house. Previously we had been talking about dropping down ceilings to accommodate those pesky pipes.

Speaking of pesky pipes... Those two girls of mine can really wail. Why just this morning Kayla had some unexplained discomfort (I am going with tummy-ache) and her screaming would have put a banshee to shame. Fortunately most days things are bit more mellow, with a much higher giggle-to-scream ratio.

Here are a couple of really nice shots that I have yet to squeeze into the blog. The quality is high, so you know I didn't take them. The lovely bride has not only a superior camera (a Canon D10), but a superior photographic eye. Unfortunately it is not always convenient to haul around a single-lens reflex camera and all its accompanying attachments and lenses. Nor is it always convenient to carry around my wife either... although she is as light as a feather. (Phew! Good save.) Still, when you can get both, I recommend it.



The first photo is the girls in their full Dodger outfits, probably getting ready to go to a game. Note the adorable baseball on their butts. The recent Dodger unpleasantness started after we last went to a game, so I think there is a clear correlation between our NOT going to games and Dodger losing streaks. Clearly they can not do without my babies for more than a week.

Finally, we have another album cover shot. Some may have seen a similar picture sent out around the 4th of July, but from a different angle. In this one our favorite duo, The 2nd Dimension, are acting like they didn't know we were there.

But they knew.



^I begged off explaining this team name in an earlier post. I am still not sure exactly how it specifically came to be the team name, but the Ether Binge name came from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson: "There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge."

But This One Goes To Eleven...

10 years today.

How about that?

Happy Anniversary to Mrs. C, who has made the years fly by.

I am now putting the vote to the Bundestag...

We have to wait a moment, as there is some concern over language. Something about a celebrity clause and a garbage lifting addendum

It's ok now. They have ironed it all out. Quorum has been reached. Yes! The Ayes have it. We have been renewed for another 10 years. Alert the media.



Also, please check out my new poll on the sidebar. I am trying to get some feedback on what people do or do not like about the blog. This poll should be next to useless for this purpose, but will at least let me test the new blog poll widget.

Let the Sunshine, Let the Sun Shine In, The Sunshine In

The title comes from the 1969 hit single by the Fifth Dimension, often erroneously called the Age of Aquarius. It was actually a medley of two songs from the musical Hair, "Aquarius" and "The Flesh Failures (Let The Sunshine In)". The Age of Aquarius is an astrological concept, referring to the shifting of the stars in the sky as the Earth continues through its 26,000 year precession, i.e the slow turning of where in the stars the north pole of the Earth points. Once every 3000 years this slow precession shifts which zodiacal signs are associated with which months by one. These are called Ages. Before 500 BC was the Age of Aries, The Age of War and Fire, which was followed by the Age of Pisces, an era dominated by Monotheism and Spirituality (whether that was that predicted or post-dicted, I think you can guess). The Age of Aquarius should start in roughly 2654, and should supposedly be a time of Freedom and Peace. While it is nice that Astrologers noted the precession, it doesn't seem to bother them that it means that the sun is not actually in the sign it was 2000 or so years ago, when much of Astrology was codified. A Taurus does not have the sun in Taurus at their birth. It is actually in Aries. Still, if I decide to freeze myself I think I will set the alarm to defrost me in 2654 when universal harmony will abound and all haircuts will be banned.

When planning to freeze oneself for centuries, you might want to keep track of how much Solar Irradiance is striking your potential cryogenic site, perhaps using a handy map like the one above. To put it another way, this map shows the average amount of solar energy -- sunshine -- that strikes each region of the Earth, including nights and periods of cloudy weather. This is also the sort of map you would want to consult when trying to decide on the best places to build Solar Energy collectors. The entire Earth is being constantly bombarded by roughly 150 PetaWatts (150 billion MegaWatts) which can be compared to the entire energy use of the human race, around 15 TeraWatts (15 million MegaWatts), roughly a factor of 10,000. The little black circles on the map show how much area one would need to cover with photovoltaic cells if they operate at 8% efficiency (light to electricity): roughly 910,000 square km. If that area were collapsed into one circle, it would be roughly 600 miles in diameter.



While not outside the realm of possibility -- the human race has already built structures and paved over even greater areas -- it is still a bit daunting. What would really help is if we could up that light-to-energy efficiency. Say, to at least
42.8% efficiency? This new solar cell record is not only impressive because it beat the old one by over 2% in a field where 0.1-0.2% has been the norm, but because they did it using a relatively simple system that should be much more easily placed in something thin, portable, and easily manufactured. Now don't get me wrong, cells of this efficiency are still clearly at the prototype stage, but a path to a mass-produced, reasonably priced 50% efficiency photovoltaic cell suddenly seem a bit closer today than yesterday. See how happy it made these scientists? Oddly enough, one of the team members appears to be a 14-year old girl... or a scientist that continually gets crap about her youthful appearance, anyway.

And what would a 50% efficiency do for us? Well, for starters that 600-mile diameter collecting area now only needs to be 250 miles across to power the whole Earth. For the United States (which uses roughly 1/5 of the world's energy) that circle only needs to be over a hundred miles across, or about 30,000 square kilometers. The U.S. has a lot of empty desert, people. For those panicked about Global Warming, solar energy seems like a fairly workable answer.^

One might rightly say, ok Bigshot, put your money where your mouth is. Put some panels up on your own damn house. Sigh. While that was in our original plans, the cost of everything skyrocketed to a point where we just could not afford it, at least not at this stage. Rest be assured it is in our long term plan to put them on the roof of our addition, once we figure out how to pay for stuff like electrical wiring and plumbing. Plus, I may want to wait for some fancy-dancy, high-efficiency panels that I heard rumors may be just around the corner...



Turns out our contractor was a bit late from returning from his trip. I believe there was a funeral involved, so I can't be too grumpy about it. The upshot of that is that there has not been much done on the Colbert estate this past week. To tide you over here are a series of pictures of the rough plumbing that has been-oft mentioned, but little displayed.

We start with a typical section of plumbing from our bathroom. The big black pipes are waste pipes out, the thin copper pipes the water lines in. You will also notice that the big black pipes go both up and down. Turns out you have to ventilate your waste pipes, otherwise nasty gases can build up. You don't want a methane explosion in your house, do you? I didn't think so.



Here is a close-up of that rough copper plumbing from the home of my future shower stall. The big white doohickey in the center is the main valve that controls all the water flow. It not only mixes the hot and cold water coming up from below, but it has a diverter valve that can send water to either the main shower head or a hand sprayer. The actual shower head, hand sprayer, and knob handle are all what is called "finished plumbing". Rough plumbing is what goes on inside your walls, while finished plumbing is what happens once the walls have been put on. Needless to say, rough is the tough part and where you actually spend most of your money.



Which brings us to our bathtubs. We will have two full bathrooms in the final house. A minimal guest/kids bathroom and our ultra-posh master bathroom. The first photo is the new kids tub, which is a very standard cast iron tub. So standard we literally pulled it off the shelf at Home Depot.




This beauty is our fancy-schmancy jacuzzi tub in the master bath. If you look underneath you can see all the various tubes that will carry air and water to the jacuzzi nozzles inside the tub. The tub is presently covered by several layers of tarp and cardboard to protect the tub interior. Not only is this a good idea generally, but it became essential after the tub was one of the early victims of our vandals (see the Space Toilet entry). Our poor contractor had to spend two hours gently rubbing off spray paint with a damp towel, so there was no way he was going to risk it again.



One of the great things about having twins is that each baby has a built-in playmate. I am sure when they get older they will be able to interact with cildren of all ages, but they are developing so rapidly right now that only a baby very close in age is really going to be on the same wavelength. Growling is fun this week, eating books is fun next week, wrestling in the crib is fun the week after that. These two monsters regularly crack each other up and that is really a hell of a lot of fun.






This series of photos all take place in one of the two cribs. For over three months now the babies have been sleeping in separate cribs as they have just gotten too big and too rambunctious to try and sleep together anymore. On our rare trips out of town they have slept in the same crib and no one got a lot of sleep. Being in separate cribs has hardly impeded their socializing. It is a rare morning when I don't walk into the nursery and find them both standing on the end of their repsective cribs, like two neighborhood ladies chatting over a fence.



Still, getting to be in the same crib for any length of time is a treat. If Rylie and Kayla don't have something more important on their agenda (i.e. food), they love nothing better than to crawl all over the same crib, climbing up the sides, and then falling all over each other in the center of the crib. They can build themselves into such a frenzy that they race each other to get back up onto their feet again so they can fall down and produce one more solid bounce on the firm crib mattress. I must admit I encourage this behavior, which I really shouldn't, as it more often than not ends in tears as one of the girls bumps her noggin or gets pinned to the sheets. But then again, they are usually squealing with delight again moments later, so I can't be too bad of a father.

Finally here are the twins in one of their more serious moments. I think they are posing for an album cover for their group, The Two Dimensions. I hear they are thinking of calling the album The Age of Gemini once they work out a few minor copyright issues.





^Caution: If it seemed like too many numbers or too much solar talk at the top you won't like this end note one bit. The situation is even better than described. First of all, roughly 10% of all the world's energy is already being produced by non-greenhouse producing methods. 3% Hydroelectric, 6% Nuclear, 1% solar + wind. Second, electricity production represents only about a third of that energy usage. While it is true that how the energy is being used does nothing to stop Greenhouse gases, it has a big effect on the practicality of solutions. For all our electricity needs we only require 10,000 square km. A big hunk of that we could generate locally, right on our own roofs, which helps further as 27% of electricity is lost in the transmission from the power plants to people's homes. If solar panels can get cheap and efficient enough we could see individual citizens driving the conversion from the bottom, rather than government struggling to impose it from the top. None of this takes into account increases in energy efficiency, which have been marching along nicely. Unfortunately the population has also been growing... which is another nice thing about the solar roof idea. More people, more roofs, more power. It scales.

Kiss Your Sassafrass

The main barrier to exploration and utilization of space is the cost of escaping the gravity well of the Earth. If it costs you $10,000 dollars per pound to put something into geosynchronous orbit then that is 1-2 million dollars for every person, and that doesn't include anything else that person might like to bring with him, like say air or some sort of barrier between them and the icy cold grip of space. When you total up all the stuff you are going to need, we are talking 20 million dollars a person minimum. Throw in the fact that every trip into space basically involves a controlled explosion and you can see why most of us remain fairly Earth-bound. One approach to this problem is to make rocketry more efficient. Many right-headed people think they may be able to get the costs down as low as $1000 per pound. At 2 million bucks a trip some sort of space tourism might occur, but it still seems likely that Space will be Terra Incognita for most of us.

Isn't there a better way?

In fact, there may be. If one were to suspend a cable from geosynchronous orbit to the ground, about 25,000 miles, you could run cargo up and down it for a fraction of the cost of rocketry. This concept is most often referred to as a Space Elevator, for which I have posted some futuristic concept art.

Why doesn't the cable fall? For the same reason that if you swing a yo-yo around your head the string stays taut, if you swing a space elevator cable around the Earth (and the Earth is doing the swinging just by turning around once every 24 hours) it will also remain taut. As you might guess there is a big problem with making a space elevator as none exist as of yet. As you swing your yo-yo around you have to keep tension on the string, i.e. you are pulling on it. Now imagine making the string longer and longer. You are going to have to swing the yo-yo faster, pulling on the string harder. At some point the yo-yo is going to be going so fast that the tension on it will be stronger than the string which will then break and you lose your yo-yo. The problem with the space elevator is finding a "string" strong enough to resist how fast we are going to have to swing it. And you can't just make a thicker cable. The thicker you make your cable, the heavier the cable will be, requiring even more tension to hold it in place. No presently available cable material (i.e. steel or nylon) has a high enough tensile strength compared to its weight to allow the production of a space elevator. They would all break.

That is, no material except for a substance called carbon nanotubes, which have the potential to put previous materials to shame, achieving factors of 100 times more strength for the same weight. Now all we need to do is manufacture it in quantities great enough to make a 50,000 km cable! Yeah, that is a small problem. Presently there is difficulty manufacturing enough of it to make a millimeter long cable. Still, from a theoretical standpoint there does not seem to be any reason this engineering problem can't be solved. Will it take 5 years or 25, I don't know. Such industrial quantities of nanotube material will have significant technological repercussions far beyond space travel, so believe me a lot of people are working on it.



In the meantime the Space Elevator fanatics are not sitting still. They have put together a yearly Space Elevator contest to help develop ideas and generate interest in the topic. A major secondary hurdle for the Space Elevator is powering the cargo up the 25,000 km to the top. No matter how you cut it, that is a long way to haul 20 tons of cargo. Traditional methods -- internal combustion engine, batteries, rockets -- all require bringing the fuel along for the ride, which is heavy, requiring more fuel, which makes it heavier... you get the idea. The simple solution is not to bring the energy producing stuff with you, but to beam it up to the elevator. No Scottie, not that kind of beam. A laser beam, which can hit a solar-type panel and power an electric motor. Build your giant lasers below your elevator and up it goes. It is true the laser will start to diverge/be absorbed as it goes upwards, but fortunately the higher you go on the cable, the lighter the elevator.



So every year there is a contest to build just such a ground powered space elevator. Well, since it only goes to the top of a 200-foot crane, maybe it should be called a crane elevator. Here are some examples of real life space elevator proto-types from the 2006 event. The first one is MClimber, the University of Michigan entry. You can see where light is being focused on the underside of the solar panels. This next one is the entry from the Kansas City Space Pirates -- surprise, surprise space elevator builders are geeky -- who use that snow shovel looking mirror to focus the light beamed from the ground onto a single solar bar. Finally we have the contest winner, from the University of Saskatchewon Space Design Team (USST) who climbed to the top of that 180 foot (55 m) cable in 57 seconds, just missing the cash prize for a 1 meter per second climber.



So, they have a ways to go. At 1 meter/sec it would take 289 days to reach geosynchronous orbit. The hope is something more like 200 miles/hour (90 m/s), which still takes over 3 days. Bring a book.

Speaking of books it feels like I just wrote one. These little intros are supposed to be teasers, not treatises. I blame slashdot for not having a quirky story this week for me to riff on, forcing me to pull out something requiring a lot of explanation. I promise next week to either have more healing plastic/rubber duck flotilla material or to abandon the "format" that I have presently slipped into altogether.



The house construction moves ever onwards and upwards. The past week has been all electrical all the time. Combined with the rough plumbing, my walls finally have the majority of their "guts". In this human body metaphor the framing is the bones, insulation is the fatty tissue, and the drywall the skin. And the HVAC would be the lungs and the flooring would be... the lymphatic system? Hrm. I really should think these metaphors all the way through before starting them.



Here are a series of photos showing exactly what all this electrical mumbo-jumbo involves. The first photo is a fairly typical example. The little blue boxes are the future homes of sockets connected by yellow wiring that has been strung inside the walls. The next photo shows a major switching station placed on the tiny piece of remaining wall between my den and kitchen. From there I will be able to control a ridiculous number of lights and possibly both the Hollywood sign and LAX airline traffic. You will notice white wiring coming up from the switches. You may also notice a couple of ceiling can lights up and behind.




This photo in the series shows more of these lights which will all be recessed into the future ceiling. This particular set of these lights is up in the loft, which just seems to get cooler as we proceed.



Here is our new electrical panel. I know I will miss the old one which required wedging the door against the water heater to access, but I suppose this one will be fine. Yes, it won't swing shut with a crash or contain an extended black widow spider family (who I think have all moved into my garage... but that is another story), but it will just have to do. No, I will not be able to enjoy running out to flip the breaker every time a vacuum cleaner is used for more than five minutes, but sacrifices will have to be made. Seriously, I will miss that old piece of crap electrical panel.

No, not seriously.



Now before I continue, I must know if you are prepared. Because below is awaiting the cutest damn thing ever.

I know, I know. I have put some fairly cute stuff on this blog before. The recent Potter stuff was nice. Babies at the beach is a classic. And then there was our valiant fight against Cranial Panis Mica (please give). And who could forget That's Show Biz..., a classic of its time.

But this is some grade A, uncut, pure and unadulterated cute.

Make sure you have fastened your seatbelts and put your trays in their full upright and locked positions.

'Cause it is go time.

---

Red Storm Rising

While Vladimir Putin has been making me a wee bit uncomfortable with his slow ramp-up return of Soviet-style totalitarianism, this blog title refers not to a Tom Clancy-esque return of the Cold War but to an actual storm on the Red Planet. Mars is in fact notorious for its gigantic, planet swallowing dust storms that can literally last for months. Nothing on Earth can really compare because, to put it simply, the Earth is wet and Mars is not. Firstly, on Earth any dust storm that starts on land will eventually hit the sea, or at the bare minimum land areas significantly less dusty (i.e. things grow there), which kills the storm by shutting off its source of dust. Secondly, on Earth the temperature of the air (and therefore storm behavior) is driven by its water content^. On Mars there is no water, so the very fine dust of Mars can drive the temperature up and down like water moisture does on Earth. It should also probably be noted that Mars has about 3.5 times less surface area (although nearly identical in area of dry land), so planet-wide storms are a bit easier to conjure.

Presently Mars has one hum-dinger of dust storm going on. It is in fact gotten so bad that it threatens the survival of the Mars Rovers. The above photo series was taken by the rover Opportunity over the course of 30 sols (Mars days) at the same time every day. The increasingly dark and hazy sky shows that the poor, little robot buggy is trapped in the middle of an increasingly hellish dust storm. The Mars Rovers are powered by solar panels, but the storm is now so thick that only 1% of the normal sunlight is getting through. To conserve power the weak R2-D2 wannabes have stopped all activity and are just hunkering down to ride out the storm. The danger is that they won't be able to keep their vital innards warm enough with such low power levels. It is enough to make one want to find a deep pit in which to ride out the storm, but where on Mars would you find such a thing?

I have no segue from Mars storm to house remodel and frankly I think such transitions were becoming a little tortured anyway. Not that I won't use one next time -- I am a sucker for the strained segue -- but I just wanted to acknowledge that I knew I was doing it.




To reorient you, here is a photo of our new two story addition, as seen up through our tree. Now our main contractor left for a couple week trip (not that it is any of your business, but the place he went rhymes with His Reel) so things have slowed just a notch. His partner (who has the exact same name...so confusing) has taken over the oversight of the project, but he is not pushing nearly as hard to move things along. And rightly so, as he is not nearly as familiar with the project and speed at this point would probably lead to mistakes. Nevertheless, we now have stairs and a second story!



Here is our new stairwell that climbs beanpole like into the velvety clouds. Will an ascent bring me a singing harp and a precious metal laying goose or will I just get stomped flat by a giant with an acute olfactory sense? Will I triumph over adversity and win the hand of the beautiful princess or will I simply be ridiculed for selling my inheritance for a lousy bag of so-called magic beans. And if I do manage to snag a hot bit of royal ingenue, will I end up on the wrong end of the present wife's new found knife skills or will I be able to convince her that fairy tale princesses fall under the Celebrity Clause. Only time will tell. Or, alternatively, I could climb the stairs.



Here is the upstairs loft or as much of it as I can fit into my camera lens anyway. Please note the large windows that appear to the right. The cool thing about a second story is that you actually get a view.



This is looking out that set of windows we just saw. On this side of the house is all manner of flora, so that is mainly what we see. No need for these neighbors to get too worried about privacy as there are sightline-blocking trees and bushes in abundance.



Here is a closer look at that view. Again it is a veritable jungle. If you squint you can just make out a roof in the distance. It should give a very nice window into nature feel up there.



Our neighbors on the other side, however, probably feel a little more loomed over. What can you do? Instead of the window into nature, this side looks out over all the homes of our neighbors. You feel like you are the highest thing around. There are actually some other two story houses around, but none are immediately obvious form this view. Anyway, if our neighbor on this side had been planning on doing a lot of nude sun bathing, I can only hope this discourages him. Seriously, I don't need to see that.


I would be remiss if I did not mention it was Harry Potter release week, with the seventh and final edition having been delivered to our door this Saturday. Here is a news falsh to everyone who waited in line at midnight to get the next book: They printed roughly one bazillion copies and you can get it anywhere, including Costco and the supermarket. You could have gone to bed early and then gotten up whenever you wanted before strolling out and picking up a copy for $18 + tax (Costco price), which is what my mom did.




Turns out that my wife, my mom, and myself were not the only Potter-maniacs in the household. The girls were clearly thrilled to finally get their hands on this last novel, gripping the book with an almost disturbing intensity. I am not sure if I heard it right, but I think they may have said their first words. Something about "The Precious". By the way, this series of Potter+Twins picks prominently displays our ultra-cool, many-colored fish rug, the present flooring of the main play area for the girls.



As you can see in this photo, the girls dressed up in their finest Potter regalia: Hand-crafted Onesies that say Potter Geek no matter the generation. For the tiny few who have not been exposed to the phenomenon that is the Potter: a) Get off your high horse. Yes it was written for kids. No it is not the greatest writing. But it is fun and everyone else is reading them. Your air of superiority on this matter is not really winning friends and/or influencing people. b) Rylie is wearing a Class of 2024 Hogwart's School of Wizarding outfit. It is where Potter matriculated (you non-Potter reading types like big words, don't you? -- you smarty-smart-pantses). Kayla's outfit claims her other stroller is a Firebolt, an elite type of flying broom used by Potter. To win Quidditch matches. Yeah, even I think Quidditch is kinda lame, although the made-up name is cool...

Still not impressed? How about this:



Rylie opened the Deathly Hallows without taking the proper anti-jinx precautions and look what happened. Someone's Patronus escaped and began flying around the room buzzing the babies. I had to bludger it out the window like a Quaffle to keep it from transmografying them both. It still wouldn't leave us alone, so I whipped out a Bat-Bogey hex and Aguamenti'd it out of there. And that is not me just picking Harry Potter vocabulary off some website at random.

It really happened.


^ Why does water content drive weather? Because water has just about the highest heat capacity of anything the atmosphere is likely to hold. Warm water can rapidly heat the air, while cold water is equally good at cooling it. Some hot or warm dust will be a very minor effect in comparison. Here's another exciting storm fact: If the Earth had no dry land it might very well create giant storms just like Mars for the same reasons, only you can replace dust with water. There is a reason hurricanes build and build over the Gulf of Mexico but die when they hit land. What if all of Earth was the Gulf of Mexico?^^

^^ First we would be dolphin-people, so that would be kinda cool and storms wouldn't bother us at much. Secondly the snorkeling would be great and the world would run on rum, tobacco, and bananas.^^^

^^^ Well... coral-rum, kelp-tobacco, and aqua-bananas anyway. Mmm, aquabanana. Say that ten times fast.

First Light

I will let you in on a little secret. While I often write with absolute authority on a wide range of topics, from ocean currents to materials science to space plumbing, I am not really what you would call an expert on any of them. In fact, I often know no more about the subject than you, oh trusted and loyal reader, until 30 minutes previous when I first find the cool online article which I choose to share with you. But today the topic is telescopes, at last something I know a great deal about. I would go so far as to call myself an expert, if it were not for the very high astronomer readership I have (second only to repeat murderers) who actually know true telescope experts. Still, as far as the general public goes, I am in fact a legitimate, certified, doctorized and astronomerated expert. So you can trust me now.

Also, a warning. If you thought I was long-winded before wait until you see me with something to say. If curious only about house and babies, you may want to scroll a bit.

"First light" is an astronomical term referring to a critical stage in the development of a new telescopes which has almost mythic importance in the astronomical community. You can think of it like the Annunciation, where the Archangel Gabriel came unto Mary to tell her she would soon bear the son of God. Only Gabriel would be an email with data attachments and Mary would be a overworked grad student who is not going to get to even use the new telescope. And in this scenario I guess the son of God would be... The telescope? Or maybe grant money? A late night mochachino for the grad student? All right, I have completely lost control of the metaphor, but you get the point. It is a big deal.

First light is the first time the telescope is pointed at the sky and light from some distant astronomical source is bounced through all of the optics and onto some sort of detector. Modern telescope optical trains can be very complicated things and there is no guarantee that you will see anything, having bounced the light off one too many slightly misaligned mirrors. Generally a tremendous amount of work must be done to tune and optimize a new telescope after first light, but a successful one usually marks the beginning of the home stretch of telescope production. Last Saturday the latest record holder for world's largest single optical telescope, the Great Canary Telescope, finally saw its first light.

With a diameter of 10.4 meters, this new telescope sitting at 7900 feet atop a dormant volcano in the Canary Islands edges out the present dual record holders, the two 10-meter Keck Telescopes sitting on their own dormant volcano, Mauna Kea, in Hawaii. Astronomers like dormant island volcanos, because they rise up so dramatically, giving us the high altitudes we like to work at without the difficulty of access one has trying to reach the center of a major mountain chain, like say the Rockies or the Himalayas. Generally much better weather as well. You may note I said dormant, not extinct. The geologists tell us that despite that unnerving distinction the odds of these dormant volcanos reactivating is practically negligible. Of course the geologists may simply be harboring some deep resentment about never getting the top story offices of physical science buildings:

Astronomer: We need those top story offices to stay close to our telescopes.

Geologist: Of course you do. Why don't you build your telescopes on those super-safe volcanos?

Astronomer: Are you sure they are safe?

Geologist: Positive.

The size of the World's Largest Telescope has been creeping upwards since the days of Galileo, whose first telescopes (circa 1609) had a diameter around an inch. For the next three centuries, astronomy was dominated by what we would call amateurs today: wealthy men working by themselves and building their own telescopes. Since these brilliant men (and women... but that is a topic for another day) refused to live forever their telescopes would often die with them, making the size of the world's largest telescope vacillate a bit. For instance, William Herschel held the record with his 48-inch telescope from 1789-1815. A telescope that big was not used again until 1845, when Lord Rosse built his Leviathan (actual name; it is pictured here) a 6 foot telescope in Ireland, possibly the worst place in the entire world to put a telescope. The Leviathan was abandoned in 1878.



In 1908 the title of World's Largest Telescope went to Caltech and its 60 inch Mt. Wilson telescope, beginning the modern age of institution-dominated astronomy. Caltech Astronomy in one way or another kept this title until 3 days ago. A 100-inch telescope was built on Mt. Wilson in 1917, followed 30 years later by the incredible 5-meter (200 inch) Palomar telescope, which was so ahead of its time that it remained the premier world telescope until the early 1990s. It is pictured here with rows of seats tucked underneath its behemoth frame. For completeness I must mention that the Soviets built a 6-meter telescope at Mt Pashtoukov in the Caucasus in the mid-70s, but its optics were never up to snuff and it way underperformed Palomar. In 1992 the twin 10-meter Keck telescopes, 50% owned and controlled by Caltech, were built using a revolutionary segmented mirror design. Instead of one mirror, it put together 36 hexagonal mirrors in a honeycomb-style pattern. Using computers to control each little mirror, the whole set of mirrors could act like a single mirror of unprecedented size. So successful was this design that it is exactly how the present record holder, the GranTeCan, was also designed.



Caltech is unlikely to let this slight go unchallenged. In fact they are one of the primary players in the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which could receive its First Light by as early as 2016. But don't hold your breath, as they have not even picked the site yet.



With a holy reverence similar to the first light phenomenon I approach the actual physical appearance of the architectural structure we have been planning for approximately forever. In what seemed a very short time the walls have gone up. Our house has entirely new rooms. The backyard has a whole new space. It is actually pretty damn cool.



In commemoration of all this new square footage I will not bitch and/or moan. We will just pan around the structure, starting at the future site of the backdoor next to the kitchen, around the back of the new addition, and then up the sides of the house.



The addition with its two stories is so large it is a little difficult getting it all into the frame. I can say from seeing it in person that I really love the space it is creating, particularly in the shade of the tree it almost wraps around.



The funny box you can see from this angle is actually our water heater. I find this "tankless" water heater to be ultra-cool. It only heats water you are going to use and is so small you can strap it to your house like a tiny backpack. Only drawback: they cost something like 3-4 times as much as a traditional water heater. Hopefully that cost will eventually come down, as they are big energy savers. In theory anyway. I have yet to use it. My water might always be cold, which will result in a complete recant of this section.

Well, this entry kinda ran on forever. I apologize. Hopefully if you don't find the history of telescopes interesting you skimmed down here to the good stuff. Believe me, I could have gone on for a lot longer (refractor vs. reflector, equatorial vs. alt-azimuth mountings, radio vs. optical astronomy, etc). I can only imagine that you, like me, are just exhausted. So with no further ado, let me (and Kayla) bid you adieu.



Now get some rest!

In the Toilet

Here is the latest picture of our new master bathroom toilet, with the latest in modern amenities, including foot straps and suction nozzle. Very European.

Not buying it? OK, actually this is a photograph of an actual Space Toilet, recently purchased by NASA for 19 million dollars from the Russian government. Anyone who finds that to be an outrageous price for place to pee isn't thinking this all the way through. This is a toilet for use on the International Space Station that will recycle most of the waste for maximum efficiency. Nothing goes into space that isn't put through an absurd number of tests from conception through final deployment. Anything that will be used by actual living, breathing humans and you can quadruple the amount of time/money that will be spent. A broken toilet on the ground is an annoyance. A broken toilet in space can actually become life threatening. So to find one that has already been deployed and optimized on 20 years of space stations is definitely the way to go and I have little doubt they are saving money with that price tag. Especially if it includes delivery.

Speaking of excrement, let me give a big shout out to the dumb vandals who visited my house this last weekend. We always knew there was some danger of this kind of nonsense, with a torn open house and no one at home, but I was hoping to get lucky. 7-7-07, my ass.

Before I continue with this tale of woe, let me preface by saying that so far this is a nuisance level incident. From the quality of the graffiti I would judge these to be kids running around just being stupid. I can only get so outraged at minor acts of malicious behavior having done a few similarly stupid things when I was in the moron age range of 12-15 years old. This is not to defend 16-19 year olds, who in many ways far outstrip their early-teen compatriots, but between cars, girls, drugs, and booze, the older set generally finds less vandalistic things to do with their time. Houses undergoing major renovations are like sweet, sweet candy to the ill-formed, suburban youth mind. As things are already ripped up, damaging them further seems both simultaneously ok and deliciously naughty. There may have been a couple of incidents from my own misbegotten youth where I crossed this very line, but I can not go into details under the advice from legal council.



Exhibit A: The number one thing they did which ticked me off was graffiti on my fireplace. I was not going to repaint my fireplace. Now I guess I am. They scrawled the word "Mexico" across the nice red brick. While I have no problem with our neighbor to the south, the font used is decidedly unimpressive. It also leaves many unanswered questions. Is this a pro-Mexico statement? Have I been hit by a Mexican-affiliated gang?



Exhibits B & C: Here are two more legible pieces of graffiti. If you have trouble making them out, they read: "I love Mexico" & "Mexican 4 Life". These were sprayed on a section of wall which will eventually become the back of the utility closet, so in the big picture not a big deal. The area was going to be repainted anyway and it is the back of closet. The message is now even murkier. I find it hard to believe that someone with Chicano pride would ever write such idiotic phrases. It is also seems likely that a real Mexican would have written it in Spanish, that being the national language of Mexico and all. Are these hate messages? As you might expect a large percentage of the guys working on my place are Mexican in origin, so is this an odd, reverse attack on them? Or could it really be a Mexican-American kid so bone-headed as to think he is promoting La Raza with such banal griffiti?




The rest of the graffiti seemed to be concentrated on two doorknobs, both of which were probably going to be replaced anyway, and more disturbingly on my pricey Jacuzzi tub. My contractor seems fairly confident that the tub is an easy fix and in retrospect that seems likely true. A bit of solvent should take care of it. Still, very irritating and totally illegible, so there are no further clues as to the ethnicity or predjudices of our culprits.

The final piece of evidence we must weigh is what the vandals stole, which is not much. They did not touch the several expensive fixtures we had purchased or most of our contractor's expensive equipment that he had lying around. Instead they stole a few wrenches and screwdrivers and one of the sets of our house plans. So if you see anyone trying to build a house just like ours with a few tiny tools you may have discovered our hooligans. I think it is fairly obvious that these guys are mischief makers and not any kind of real criminal.

So now we have to be more careful. Nothing of value can be left out. We are putting more locks on everything. We are telling our neighbors to keep an eye out for late night visitors who clearly would have to be using flashlights or something similar to be getting around. The police have been informed so that if things were to escalate in the future there is a record of this having occurred. Several other secondary thief-mitigation ideas are also being considered, the details of which I can not discuss on the freakish off chance one of these rapscallions reads this site. I am looking at you South Dakota user who has visited twice! (Google Analytics makes tracking your web site traffic fun).



Meanwhile the house proceeds forward unhindered by the flotsam and jetsam that it turns up in its construction wake. Today should be the completion of the rough plumbing and installation of the tubs. Windows and doors are being ordered as we speak. Cabinets and counter tops are in the final stages of selection. And the new addition has a floor! This first photo is a close-up of the floor framing for the master-bedroom-to-be, while the second photo shows the completed room with a floor you can walk on. That doorway you can see on the far side is where the master bath is going in.



In observation of the tragedy that had befallen my fireplace there will be no adorable pictures of the girls this blog. I am sorry that the actions of a few have led to the punishment of the rest, but I am just not in the mood. Hopefully this great disappointment will place pressure on the trouble makers who will turn themselves in to help assuage their great guilt. If not, then fine. Instead of adorable twins you can look forward to a series of pictures of dessicated rats:



This one fell out of my attic space when they removed the ceiling, a remnant of an earlier failed invasion from the fruit trees that line all the yards in our neighborhood. Please, young miscreants, turn yourselves in. I don't want to do a series of dead rats dressed up in costumes from around the world, but I will if I have to. I already got the tiny wooden shoes.

Plus I got to get on this Ratatouille money train. Woo-woo!