I spotted a defunct paper wasp (or, more likely, a hornet) nest on a lawn under a tree:
Call it basketball sized, large enough to raise plenty of wasps:
I vastly prefer encountering those critters after their season is over …
Category: Oddities
Who’d’a thunk it?
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Motel Room Safe: Whoops
We spotted a pile of room safes in one of the motel stairwells:
Motel Room Safes in stairwell Judging from what we found in the room, it’s out with the old and in with the new:
Motel Room Safes – mounting pedestal Too bad about the mounting pedestal, though: same size, different orientation.
Something unexpected always lurks in the datasheet …
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Monthly Image: Wall Painting
One day, long ago, this tree grew in a certain bedroom:
Outlet tree And then a flower appeared in the laundry room:
Outlet flower Much to our delight, she asked for forgiveness, not permission … which was, of course, granted immediately.
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Dutchess Rail Trail: Maloney Rd Trailhead Ruts
It seems the DCW&WA SUV makes regular trips through the “No Motor Vehicles” bike access:
Maloney Rd Trailhead – 2018-11-07 If it’s not them, then it’s somebody following their example.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should … but, of course, the ordinary rules apply only to little people, not public servants.
Someone in the bike advocacy apparat once told me I’m the most cynical, bitter person they’d ever met, at least on the subject of getting along with public servants. As I see it, I came by my attitude honestly.
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Three Dead Mice
The rodents around here have great trouble with outdoor bowls, but this trio ended in a deep six gallon bucket next to the garage workbench:
Three Dead Mice Even though mice don’t seem like cuddly creatures, they ended their days snuggled together; we’ll just ignore the cannibalism thing.
Heck of a way to go, even for rodents. I renewed the steel wool blocking a gap in the garage door.
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Ants in My Drawers
Our Compact Edition of the OED doesn’t get much use these days, but Mary needed a magnifier for a class on quilt judging and the OED has one that seemed just about right:
OED Magnifier Box in drawer The magnifier comes in a removable box fitted neatly into the drawer, revealing a surprise underneath:
OED Magnifier drawer – plastic ant A detail view:
OED Magnifier drawer – plastic ant – detail It’s a plastic ant from a bag in the Kiddie Surplus box my Shop Assistant grew up with and a pleasant reminder of long-ago days, carefully placed where only I’d ever see it.
Of course, it’s still there …
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Monthly Science: Motel Water Pressure vs. Height
Being a sucker for infrastructure and numbers, the fire sprinkler system pressure gauges in the motel stairwell proved irresistible.
The first floor gauge shows a nice round 100 psi:
Hotel water pressure – floor 1 Up on the second floor, it’s 90 psi:
Hotel water pressure – floor 2 With a different brand of gauge, it’s also 90 psi on the third floor:
Hotel water pressure – floor 3 Maybe 85 psi on the fourth:
Hotel water pressure – floor 4 Squinting at the parallax, call it 80 psi on the fifth:
Hotel water pressure – floor 5 At the top of the vertical pipe on the fifth, on the other side of a valve, we return to the original valve company at 78 psi:
Hotel water pressure – floor 5 – top Water weighs just over 62 lb/ft³ at room temperature, which works out to 0.43 lb/in² per vertical foot. Not having packed my laser distance widget, I’ll guesstimate 12 feet and 5 psi per floor.
A quick graph with an eyeballometric straight-line fit:
Motel sprinkler water pressures Call it 0.42 psi/ft, which is pretty close to the right answer.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 