Not Much

My brother-in-law and nephew came down this weekend. The nephew and his family have moved back to Tokyo and it looks like the move is permanent. They came down to see about possibly selling the house contents that have been in storage.

Well, no real luck or nibbles on ads in the paper or on Craig's List.

So - Chatham County Habitat for Humanity will be picking up the contents of the storage place this week.

They drove my brother's pick up truck down so they could take back a few things. No problems at all on the drive down but the truck refuses to start once they got to my house.

So - they drove my SUV back and I'll get the pick up truck repaired. Sister and brother-in-law are coming back to NC at the end of July for other events so we can switch back vehicles then.

All in all - not much was accomplished since there were no sales on the contents. I really didn't expect there would be. Usually you need a yard sale with things on display for people to get interested.

I could have arranged for Habitat to pick up the stuff.

But, I guess they had to go through the motions.

And, it was good to see Adrian.

Habitat is going to get some very nice stuff to sell in their Chatham County home furnishings store. If you need a practically new dinning room table and chairs (mission style), brand new office furniture, or assorted book shelves, sleep sofa, end tables, chairs, etc. - mostly contemporary style - head on over there after Wednesday.

The Butt End Of The Law

 

Nothing special. Just a photo I took on the way into work this morning.

There's two of them. If you click on the photo you can see them better.

Football +Addendum

It's never too soon to start thinking about football.

Exactly 2 months from tomorrow, NC State opens the season at South Carolina on a Thursday night ESPN game.

 

I came across this photo from last year on the web. You can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

Oh look - there's me!

The dweeb sitting to my right is Chip.

Nuke is undoubtedly in the parking lot drinking beer and annoying people.

A typical Football Saturday at Carter-Finley.

Life is Good.

Addendum

I forgot. The tall guy in the photo wearing the Nebraska shirt is Fritz.

Fritz won't be at the games this fall, he's redeploying back to the sandbox so he'll be out of position for WolfPack Football.

Which is as good a time as any to remind people of the link over in the right side column - anysoldier.com.

Fritz sent me this awesome photo of Memorial Stadium - University of Nebraska, Lincoln. You need to click on it to see it in full size to really appreciate it.

Pod People

 

No, once again, not Nuke.

I knew there had to be a place in the area that sells espresso pods. To recall, I ordered some pods online to try them out. Those things are fantastic (if you really like espresso).

So today, I found a place in the area that sells them. It's called CapriFlavors. It's really more of an online web based business that specializes in Italian foods. They are located in a typical suburban office park in Morrisville near the airport.

They have a small store and kitchen attached to their warehouse / office. Apparently in addition to selling authentic Italian foodstuffs, they also offer cooking classes and speciality catering preparation.

Clearly an Italian family owned business. Everybody there had strong Italian accents. Except for the black guy.

Blog Thingy

My nephew used to have a blog. But then he got too busy to post.

He (and family) have moved back to Tokyo. Pretty much permanent as far as I can tell.

(For which the whisking away of my sweet innocent little future Yakuza great-niece will not be forgiven. I have visions of her as O-Ren Ishii. I mean - if you get thrown out of pre-school for kicking the living crap out of the other kids - well - you've got a future as an assassin for sure!)

But - I digress.

Anyway - he's now a Googler in Tokyo (or, as Fake Steve Jobs would say - a Google-tard). And he's got a new blog. Except it isn't a blog. It's, a reader, or something.

I don't know what it is.

I'm old.

I'm not 'with it' anymore.

I don't know if I was ever 'with it' to begin with.

I get confused easily.

I'm going to watch Matlock.

Link is to the right.



[Actually, it's a microblog commentary on an aggregate reader compilation. Which is like - the latest thing.

So there. I know stuff.

Bill Cool, Uh Huh, Uh Huh. Bill Cool, Uh Huh, Uh Huh]

PODS

 

No, not what Nuke rode down on from the mothership.

I'm referring to E.S.E. Pods - which stands for easy serving espresso.

I enjoy coffee. I use my espresso machine a solid 4 or 5 times a week.

It's a pain using ground coffee in the little holder. The grounds get stuck on the steam head above the coffee holder and is difficult to clean. Plus, it's super hot as I tend to clean the holder and machine as soon as I make the coffee.

Nuke even commented once that it seemed like a hell of a lot of work just to get a small cup of coffee.

I've been using those senso pods which are the only pods I can find in the grocery store. They're sized specifically for senso coffee makers and aren't really meant for espresso machines.

Here's the strange thing - just about everybody has an espresso machine. They only used them when they first got them - but they have them. But I've never even seen a senso machine - not in stores, not in a home, nowhere. Yet - that's the only pod I ever seen for sale in the grocery stores. Odd.

There's a standard size and format pod for espresso machines - e.s.e. - but I haven't been able to find anyplace that sells them in Raleigh. There's probably a dozen speciality stores, either in Cary or North Raleigh - I just haven't found 'em yet. So - I finally ordered a sampler package of true e.s.e. pods from The Pod Merchant.

The package arrived the other day and I've used a few so far.

They are awesome. I don't know if it's the coffee itself (mostly from European vendors) or the fact that the e.s.e. pod is sized for optimum brewing in an espresso machine - but the results are just fantastic. As good as any coffee / espresso I've ever had in a shop.

I prefer decaf and that's what I ordered from The Pod Merchant. I read an article (The Atlantic I think) about caffeine in regular coffee vs. espresso. Caffeine is leached during the brewing process - the longer the water brews the coffee - the more caffeine. So the gist of the article was that the blast of steam / hot h2o in espresso is in brief contact with the coffee as opposed to longer contact in traditional drip or percolated coffee. So - the typical shot of espresso has far less caffeine then a cup of traditional coffee.

If the coffee used in the espresso is decaf to begin with - you end up in-taking very little caffeine at all. Not anywhere near enough to affect your sleep. Which is great for me since I like to make an espresso in the evening and sip it while watching TV or reading.

The espresso I've been making from the true e.s.e. pods is out and out yummy.

I think I'll go fix another.

Middle of the Day

 

 

One of the raccoons just showed up in the middle of the day. She's a lot smaller around than she used to be - I think she had her kits recently. Possibly the heat and the fact that she knows food and water is here brought her out at high noon.

That's ice and water in the little water bowl to the left.

She likes to eat ice.

Really!

Addendum

It must be the heat. She ate all the ice and drank most of the water but only ate a little food.

It's 102 today, 100 yesterday and the day before.

I'll put out a bigger bowl of water for them during this heat wave.

Tuesday, June 6, 1944

Thanks Dad.

March 15, 1921 Fayetteville, NC - August 22, 2002 Smithfield, VA

Ants

Music

Saturday the Nuk’str and I went into Raleigh for this years first Downtown Live Concert. The featured band was the Wailers; of Bob Marley fame. I wish Ziggy would play with them – but – since it’s been so long that’ll probably never happen.

Ants

My house has 2 heat pumps – one large one for the main house and a smaller one for the bonus room / Nuke’s apartment.

Friday, Nuke’s A/C wouldn’t come on – the heat pump outside just made a buzzing sound.

Being the weekend I told the Joyner and Dickson Heating and Air answering service to just wait till this week to come out so as not to incur a high dollar weekend service charge.

The 2 J&D guys came by around 1800 (6 PM) on Tuesday.

If you keep your eyes and ears open, you’ll learn something new everyday.

Today, I learned something about ants and heat pumps.

I live on the border between the NC Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. More specifically, I’m at the edge of the Sandhills which is a sub zone within the Coastal Plain. The main characteristic of the region are low rolling hills amongst a flat plain – all made of sand. (The sandy hills are remnants of ancient coastal barrier islands.)

And in sand live ants.

All sorts of ants. We got little red pea ants; small and large black ants; and the dreaded fire ant – whose bite hurts like hell.

Turns out – the A/C problem was caused by ants.

The heat pump has a contactor with points. Recall cars that used to have points before electronic ignition systems? Same sort of thing. The contactor closes the points which causes the circuit to close and the heat pump to turn on.

Well, ants get into the contactors and they insulate or sometimes even short out the contact points – which eventually causes the points to burn out. Also the contactors age anyway – just like points did on older cars. But the ants can cause the contactor to burn out prematurely.

The service guy said that a full 1/3 of their service calls were to replace burned out contactors due to ants. Newer replacement contactors now have covers to help keep the ants out – kind of like sealed units.

 

 

 

So – if you have a heat pump – make sure you keep the ants away. If you have an ant hill near or next to your heat pump like mine in the photos – you’re going to have trouble and spend $ on a service call.

 

Contactors were replaced in both heat pumps.