7 May 2018

Chaos at the Star Rigger Ranch, Pt. 2

posted in: Home repair, personal news | 0

Range Hood Update!

So, they didn’t bore the hole in the wall for the range hood for another week, which was ample time for me to cut open the inside wall and discover that a stud lay squarely in the path of my projected hole! Gah. After regrouping and consulting, I changed the plan and took down the slim-profile rectangular duct that I’d worked so hard on, and switched to round duct all the way—just enough difference to slide past the stud. It worked! But it left me with an ugly rectangular hole to close up. Oh well, we eat problems for breakfast here at the ranch. I applied myself to the problem, and the ugly hole is gone! And the range hood is operational!

A lot of finish work remains. For example, I had to cut a hole in the side of the gleaming stainless steel chimney (that’s what they call the decorative shroud around the actual exhaust duct). Me and my Dremel (and several expendable cutting wheels), we did it. Did good, too. Except one thing: the chimney is too short! It doesn’t reach the ceiling! How did I not see that before?

The manufacturer offers a chimney extension piece—for $165! That’s almost the cost of the whole unit. I am now hoping to find a local sheet metal worker who can fabricate a piece for me for less.

Sitting tight on that for now. We love having a real exhaust vent for our smoky cooking! Plus, I put up the re-cut pegboard, and Allysen now has a new hobby of figuring out what to hang on it and how.

Oh, and we now have a working porch lift in front of the house. Did I mention?

(Also, I’ve had enough home construction to last me the year.)

21 Apr 2018

Chaos at the Star Rigger Ranch, Pt. 1

posted in: Home repair, personal news | 2

Because things weren’t crazy enough around here, we now have two major construction projects going at the same time.

A porch lift is going in beside our front steps, so Allysen’s mom can come and go safely. Here’s the concrete pad that got poured today. The lift will be moved from its previous owner and installed here over the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, on the inside, I’m completing my birthday present to Allysen (her birthday was in February): a range hood for our kitchen. We have needed a range hood and exhaust since we bought the house 26 years ago. But the stove is on an inside wall, and that makes it hard. Why are we insanely taking on this job at the same time as the other? Because the guys installing the lift have a big ladder, and they’re going to cut through the wall for me, and install the outside vent—which is located nearly three stories up!

Here’s our original (and still working) exhaust fan, which lemme tell you is chilly in February! And our smoky stove, with a pegboard holding everything:

Here’s the new hood, up for testing:

And here’s proof of progress (except I just took everything down so we can paint the wall):

Tomorrow they cut the wall.

9 Apr 2018

Now for something really scary…

posted in: artificial intelligence, technology | 0

Samsung is already making these things, and South Korea is using them at the border (though not yet autonomously, thank God).

Elon Musk has been trying to warn us about these killer robots. They belong in dystopian SF, not in the real world.

 

8 Apr 2018

The Bumpy Road of Rehab

posted in: animal friends, family, personal news | 0

Allysen’s mom came home from the rehab center not quite a week ago (following a broken hip), which caught us off guard due to poor communication from the rehab center. We did not expect The System to spit her out quite that soon. It’s been an absolute maelstrom of activity, finding out what we need to know about equipping the apartment, acquiring the equipment, setting up 24-hour care, learning a million things we never needed or wanted to know before. Early on, Allysen hired a care manager, without whose help I don’t think we would have survived the transition. But we’re getting there. Here’s a picture of her with Allysen and Jayce.

Meanwhile, Captain Jack smolders about being confined to a single room at a time, and wearing the Healing Hat, a.k.a. Helmet of Courage. (We do not call it [Cone of Shame] in this house!) Drugs are wonderful, when they work. But other times, the border collie spirit sneers at sedatives. Drugs? We don’t need no steenking drugs!

Moonlight has had to learn some navigational tricks, getting around the newly barricaded apartment. She’s almost twenty, and she can’t really vault over child gates anymore. Here she is, checking out the Bridge to the Future that I built for her at one checkpoint.

30 Mar 2018

Captain Jack Comes Home

posted in: animal friends, personal news | 2


Captain Jack came home from surgery on this Good Friday (a day barely noted by his frazzled humans), having had surgery yesterday for his blown-out ACL. The surgery, called TPLO by the docs, actually involves reshaping the joint somewhat by cutting the tibia end and securing it with a metal plate at a slightly altered angle to the femur side of the joint. (They can’t repair the actual torn ligament the way they do in humans; they’re tried, and it just doesn’t take). Jack has to be kept uber-uber-quiet for two months or longer. And that means keeping him separated from A’s mom’s dog McDuff, who is living with us because of A’s mom being in hospital and rehab for a broken hip!

A’s mom is coming home very soon, BTW, and will be continuing physical therapy at home. Jack, while she’s doing that, will in a few weeks be starting physical therapy at the animal hospital! He’ll get to do his in a tank of water—treadmill in a tank. Stay tuned!

Oh—I probably won’t have a chance to post this weekend, so Happy Easter, everyone! (Happy Spring, if that’s more your style!)

 

14 Mar 2018

Crazy, Crazy

posted in: personal news | 2

There has been enough chaos around here to make me feel like our lives are being whirled in a Vitamix blender, which would be fine if the result was a margarita, but this is different. Allysen’s mom spent a couple of days in the hospital after her hip operation, at which point nature decided to drop the third Nor’easter in two weeks on us—this one a blizzard delivering nearly two feet of snow—in the middle of which the Powers That Be transported Allysen’s mom from the hospital to rehab. Which meant Allysen had to go out in the blizzard to be there for the move (while I stayed home wielding the snowblower and shovel, resting a bit, then wielding the snowblower and shovel some more, resting a bit, then wielding… etc.).

Today I got word that Captain Jack needs surgery for his torn CCL (dog version of ACL), which he got while playing in a meadow with another dog, so he’s scheduled for surgery in two weeks—following which this border collie mix will have to be kept inactive and very quiet for a month, and pretty quiet for another month. Are we kidding? Nope, we’re not.

Coming home from that, I received word that my brother Chuck’s cancer treatment has hit some bumps—though the last MRI offered some encouragement, so they’re forging ahead with treatment.

And Stephen Hawking died. Well, damn.

On the other hand, the date is 3-14, so Happy Pi Day!

12 Mar 2018

Dragon Space!

posted in: BookBub, books, ebooks, my books, specials | 0

Make space for dragons with my first big sale of the year: Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus is just two bucks, for two novels, for three days! Any way you count it, that’s a bargain, especially if you like science fiction with dragons. The two novels are Dragons in the Stars, and Dragon Rigger, with a map of the dragon realm sandwiched in between. These two novels are set relatively early in the chronology of the Star Rigger Universe, though I wrote some of the later novels before them.

If you already have the two novels as separate books, then you don’t need this, unless you really just love a good deal. But if you don’t have both—even if you have one but not the other—this is a fine way for you to complete the pair. Regular price is $7.99. Regular price for the two separately is $4.99 each. Did I mention that the sale price is $1.99? Go ahead—buy it. Get your friends to buy it. Make this a good promotion. Please. And if you like the books, and you haven’t already posted a review at Amazon or Goodreads or BN or Apple or the like, you could help more than you know by doing so now.

Thanks! And watch out for low-flying dragons! Not to mention a cyber-parrot named Ed, and those ghostly ifflings.

 

11 Mar 2018

Life Takes a Sharp Left Turn

posted in: personal news | 3

Allysen’s mom fell and broke her hip Friday evening. She lives in our downstairs apartment, and I walked in with a slice of pizza for her, only to find her on the floor in the dining room. She said her leg hurt, so I didn’t move her—and in fact, EMTs and the fire department were already on their way, because she’d pressed the medical alert button she wears hanging from her neck. Allysen was out for the evening, so I accompanied her for the ambulance ride, complete with wailing siren.

The ER staff at Mount Auburn Hospital were terrific. By the time Allysen and I left for the night, her mom was scheduled for a partial hip replacement the next day. That was Saturday, and it went very well. I expect there will be a couple of weeks of rehab in our immediate future. I think she was especially annoyed about this in light of her having just gotten cataract surgery; she was really tired of people (us) hovering around giving her eye drops. Doctored-out, was how she put it, just a couple of days before her fall.

Ironically, after all the work put into the apartment to eliminate tripping hazards, it was playing with her dog McDuff that toppled her. She’d turned 88 just a few weeks ago. Old age is definitely not for sissies. She’s recovering well, so far, though.

“I didn’t do anything!”

 

1 … 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 … 150