The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Who’d’a thunk it?
Two mornings after a heavy, wet snowfall, the meltwater atop the concrete patio puckered up into ice crystals:
It seems the liquid water collects into the crystals as they freeze, leaving the concrete between the ice patches nearly dry. They seem surprisingly linear, with only a few hexagonal flourishes here and there.
That’s almost as picturesque as the window crystals…
An early snowfall brought down a big branch from a back yard maple:
The split showed signs of rot from the top down, so it wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.
Shortly after we pulled it off the driveway, three deer stopped by to see if this new thing might be edible. Deer do not normally eat maple leaves, but there’s not much left for them to eat around here.
Searching for deer will pull up far too many posts on the subject…
The nice countertop and sinks look like obvious replacements since they built this rest area on the NYS Northway up near Saratoga. Unlike the old sinks, however the countertop needed support struts to prevent the backsplash from peeling off the wall when somebody leans on the edge and those struts required planks to make the spacing work out:
Too bad about that strut right where the drain cleanout plug emerges from the wall. Also too bad that the elaborate welded square doesn’t rest on the wall, so it’s not really supporting anything. Triply too bad about the trim plate that used to conceal the plug; the one that didn’t fit behind the square.
Also: why do the sink drains have such a long horizontal run between the drain tailpiece and the trap? Maybe that’s so they can retrieve rings and other valuables that go down the drain? Perhaps the other trap orientation would put the joint too far forward, where it can be dislodged by an errant knee?
I’ve certainly created incremental monstrosities like that; look no further than the successive APRS interfaces on our bikes…
Wild Turkeys used to be all over our yard, up in the trees, even stalking the house, but then they got scarce. In fact, we haven’t seen any turkeys for several months.
Apparently the heavy snow just before Thanksgiving pushed the flock out of the creek bottomland to forage along the driveway:
We counted 21 birds… and we’re glad to see they’re doing well.
Welcome back!
This is not what you want to see on the monitor displaying the dental X-ray images guiding your dentist during a root canal:
Yup, exactly what you’d expect:
They dismissed the message and continued the mission.
You’d think that for as much as they’re surely paying for that software package, it would hold off all the updates until after office hours…
[Those quick on the RSS feed saw this in mid-November, after a finger fumble while typing the date dropped it into the past…]
This just arrived (clicky for more dots):
I’m not sure how many folks will drop 1.1 large in response to that mailing, but surely it doesn’t take very many to break even. Whew!
If I’m parsing the New York Times signup page correctly, an annual daily subscription delivered here in the hinterlands will set you back a mere $691, direct from the Official Source.
We finally took the trip to Bannerman’s Island Arsenal:
Back in the day, the only way you could get there was by kayak and that just isn’t my style. Nowadays, the Bannerman Castle Trust runs weekend tour boats and that I can do.
The view from the dock:
All the pictures you’ll see of the buildings look the basically the same, because you cannot get off the tour route:
Of course, that fine might be irrelevant after they dig you out from under the rubble.
Struts hold the fragile walls in place, but it’s not long for this world:
You can tell that Frank Bannerman got exactly what he wanted in the way of architecture; the buildings bear an uncanny resemblance to his “make it look like this” sketches. In the normal course of a design-and-build project, somebody in the loop will suggest that, mmmm, Boss, you can’t actually build it that way. In this case, the normal course of events went along the lines of “Sir? Yes, Sir!”
Money changes everything.
Their summer house sits dead center in the island with a commanding view of the Hudson to the south. Again, you can tell it looked just exactly like he wanted:
The natural state of Pollepel Island was barren rock; they hauled in all the soil when Mrs. Bannerman wanted flower gardens around the house.
That crack in the northwest tower can’t possibly be a Good Thing:
Back in late 2005, the castle looked marginally better:
That was from a small boat in the middle of the Hudson.
In the unlikely event you’re in the area, take the trip: it’s worthwhile just to see what one man’s obsession looks like. Wear one more layer than you think necessary, put on your lug-soled boots, and realize that nobody’s going to visit the ruins of your summer house a century from now…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 