Moody With the Blues

I have just, for the second time in two days, reset the garage breaker. Yesterday I feel sure it tripped by dint of me closing the bay door on my way to work (without either garage heat source turned on). I’m going to hazard a guess that it blew again this morning when Lynn left […]

The Heat is (Not) On

Days after discussing how I haven’t really figured out the best way to use under-floor heat, and one day — less; hours (hours!) — after posting/boasting about how warm our garage is, Lynn and I experienced what appears to be yet another failure of a new part. When I look at it closely, it seems […]

Cold Enough

As I type this, wherever the weather station is out here at Riverwalk, the temperature is 14. Below zero. That’s Fahrenheit; if I really want to depress us, that’s -25.6 Celsius. Either way, it’s cold enough for there to be frost on the inside of every window in our house. While it doesn’t happen as […]

Family Friendly

I don’t know if you heard about this story, but shortly before Thanksgiving at an elementary school somewhere in Utah, a substitute teacher asked the class, fourth or fifth grade, to take turns expressing their gratitude for something. While several were thankful for turkey or pie or no school, one 10-year-old boy told his classmates […]

Not What, But How, to Watch

I was not particularly paying attention to the conversation at work the other day until Gilly spoke up: “All we had to choose from was three channels,” she said. She was speaking, of course, of television, and she made this remark in response to Kara and James, who were probably discussing sharing passcodes for different […]

Snow Job

In the half-hour I have been vertical and looking out windows, this is what I’ve seen: the sun was shining; it started snaining; the wind blew; it started snowing; a short but fierce blizzard-y squall; snain; and now we have this fine little mist of snow as the sun tries forcing its way past the […]

Den of Iniquity

After a long build-up I finally went to my homeowners association meeting last night, which was much less contentious than expected. But I did learn Lynn and I have been hopelessly naive about this “idyllic” place in which we live. The meeting was hosted by our resident attorney, who said afterward that this would be […]

Feeling the Heat

The first Dusty-built house we invited ourselves over to tour was a straw-bale house owned by Nancy and Bryan, featuring a concrete floor with in-floor heat. Not only did the concrete (perhaps it was adobe) radiate the heat from the pex tubing woven throughout; it also absorbed the heat of the sun coming from the […]

Saving the Planet?

No matter how you try to save the planet, someone is going to tell you you’re doing it wrong. I have owned grid-tied solar panels since 2006. There has been an eight- (now six-) panel array on the roof above Pat’s Screen Printing for lo these 13 years. Because it’s a business, the array paid […]

(C)Haste(ned)

I learned some hard lessons last night, at a time when I should have been blissfully uneducated, sound asleep. The overarching lesson seemed so vital that I feel it my duty — nay, my obligation — to try to sum it up in a neat phrase of my own devising and pass it along to […]