The temperature dropped into the low 20s today and the kitchen was unbelievably cold. It has always been the coldest room in the house which nornally doesn't bother me but today it was freezing. It's strange because it's been cold outside before but I can't remember a time when it was this cold in there.

So I went up in the attic to see if there was anything amiss, you know, a gaping hole in the roof, a serial killer living up there, make sure the insulation was ok, yeah, the normal stuff. What I found completely blew me away.

There is NO insulation above the kitchen! I brainstormed on ways I could reach the area that needs insulated but the space leading into the area is incredibly small. I am probably going to have to hire someone to come here and blow that fiberglass stuff into the space because there's no way I can get in there, I tried. Also, to get to the kitchen, I had to walk the length of the entire house so even if I had some brilliant idea for blowing the insulation in there myself, I don't think I have the proper equipment.

To make matters worse, as I was leaving the attic, I almost fell off the 2 X 4 I was walking on and when I instinctively raised my hand to catch myself, I impaled my hand in five places on roofing nails that were sticking out. That hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

I am looking for a thing-a-ma-jig, perhaps a whatchmacallit? Anyway, it's the thingy that hooks onto the leg of my camera tripod and it looks like this:

It is one inch in diameter and about one inch in length.

If you look at the picture, you can see where it goes on the tripod leg. If anyone has one of these thing-a-ma-jigs lying around, I would really love to have it. I will buy it or trade something, just let me know and we'll figure it out from there. Frankly, I'm tired of the tripod leg flying out every time I pick it up and I'd really love to be able to use the telescopic leg.

Into the Woods

This morning, the dogs and I walked out into a world of fog. Even with the sun as high as it is, there was almost no visibility and we walked almost half a mile before I could take any photos, the fog was just too thick. It is 19 degrees.

There are a lot of mountain bike trails near where I'm standing so at first, that's what I thought this was. Then I noticed that approximately 75 yards out, the trail goes under a fence and just behind me, the trail goes under another fence; this is a trail used by wild things who come out of the woods looking for food or beer or whatever wild things do at night.

Further into the woods

In the woods

If I had to guess I'd say this is an abandoned homeless camp but I'm not sure. I can't imagine any other reason why these items would be at this particular place.

We decided to stop and pose for a picture, l to r, Padfoot & Ziva. They just snickered and said, "Hey dad, you can just Photoshop yourself in later." Smartasses.

Yesterday I got bored and decided to create something out of the scrap wood in the shop. Using a large rock, I decided on a new shelf for my monitor:

The Flintstones meet the 21st century

When I awoke to find it snowing, the dogs and I decided to hurry out for our walk before the storm ended. I turned and shot this after we got up the street.

Kansas River bridge at Lawrence, KS

We had a fun walk and by the time we got home we were covered with snow.

The Montgomery Ward Airline Radio, Model 62-368

Back in the 60s my dad brought home an old radio. He was into electronics and used to work on TVs back in the days before solid state electronics, when they were chock full of tubes, this radio was a very successful project and it worked well.

Having bands called Airline, Police, and Foreign, it was able to pick up stations from all over the world so it provided me with my first exposure to what later became known as world music. I listened to stations from Rio de Janerio, one from South Africa and various others I can no longer recall. I also heard blues for the first time on this radio and that changed my life in a lot of ways; I put down the trumpet and violin and picked up a guitar and a bass.

I inherited this radio after my father died and when I moved to Kansas, it stayed behind at my sister's house. Yesterday, it arrived in a large box which means the cycle has started again, this radio desperately needs to be restored. This is my next project. 

Old wooden radios aren't that rare, I just think they're way cool. I was on radiomuseum.org and they reckon that this model is from the 1940s but I really don't know. Perhaps I'll turn up some info as I clear some of the dust off?

The face is in exceptionally good condition for its age. Wish we could all say that.

This is the underside which, oddly enough, makes sense to me. I can identify more things in this chassis than I can under the hood of my Xterra.

This is the topside, a forest of glorious tubes, most of the tubes are the originals! After some cursory research, all of these tubes are still available.

Will I get this radio working again? In all likelyhood, yes. I am researching it just to satisfy some of the questions I have about tube electronics but all in all, it's pretty simple stuff and I have the test equipment to determine if the components are in working order.

Ahhh, test equipment! I also inherited my dad's old voltmeter, have a go at this:

A voltmeter from the Hickok Electrical Instrument Company, Cleveland, Ohio. Hickok is still in business in Cleveland. Obviously they've moved beyond this particular model.

I makes sense to me that if I'm going to restore an old radio, I should use old test equipment. I calibrated this thing using a newfangled meter so I know it is accurate.

EDIT, 11:19

The Woodworking Portion of the Project

The wooden radio has a veneer finish that is mostly in good shape but it needs some repairs. As an exercise, I created this block and made a veneer for the edges. I will have to experiment on something bigger before I actually attempt repairing the veneer on the radio.

Today is our 8th anniversary. I took a dozen red roses to my wife's office because, let's face it, getting flowers is good but getting flowers in front of your entire workplace is on a whole other level.

Tonight I will have food ready when Mrs. M walks through the door then we'll probably watch Dancing With The Stars because that's what we do on Tuesdays.

EDIT - 14:48:

Jeepers! It is 72 degrees outside right now and it's supposed to snow tonight. I say it's high time to go run with the dogs, it might be my last opportunity for a while because I hate the cold and won't run or do much of anything until it gets warm again.

There are some really good photographers on Xanga. I never really perused photos before today but I saw some very interesting shots, great camera angles and good subject matter. It does motivate me to put more of my shots online but I need to find the time to go through some of them. It may have to wait until January though.

I also star photos that I like. It doesn't seem like a lot of people star pictures. For instance, I have some shots that have been viewed many times but have 1 or 2 stars. Not that I'm a star slut or anything, I'm just curious why people don't do that.

As usual, things have been too crazy for me to keep up with subs and other stuff. This week it was a roof, next week, who knows?

Here is a before picture of our roof. We never liked the color of our old roof because it was too light and didn't really match the rest of the house. however, a roof isn't the sort of thing you just change on a whim because you don't like it; a roof can be a bit expensive. When the insurance company told us the roof was totalled by a storm, we were almost delighted that we had the opportunity to get what we wanted.

BEFORE

AFTER

As you can see on the above picture, the front yard is a weed infested mess. Today will be spent tilling the front yard and planting grass seed. I'm sure this will not be fun.

Each weekend I look forward to my morning walks with the dogs, there is so much to see and most of the world is still asleep so it's kind of like having the whole world to yourself.

On Saturday morning I saw a bobcat and a fox within half an hour. Naturally, I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get either one of them but, as Mrs. Morhua commented, "Don't fox make their living being sly and fast?" So that might explain why I missed him?

I did see a magnificent sunrise on Saturday morning, it looked as if the sun was sitting right on top of the river. I shot several pictures with the Canon Elph but when I got home, Mrs. Morhua remined me that the lens cap thing doesn't open reliably so there is a good chance that I didn't actually take pictures of anything. This annoyed me so much that I went out Saturday afternoon and bought a Canon digital camera and while I was at it, a JVC movie camera, just in case.

All of the photos below were shot from the levee or the bridge except for the heron, we were able to sneak up on him probably because the water was so loud.

early morning mist at the falls

This would be an amazing shot if it weren't for the wires; they really ruined this shot for me. Since I can't fly, this is the shot I was stuck with.

There's really nothing like standing outside in thirty degree weather waiting for the sun to come up. I couldn't feel my hands when I caught most of these images so I was really happy to see that they look as good as they do. I saw them on my camera's viewing screen but that image is so small that it can be deceiving at times.

I rewarded myself by coming home and making waffles which I then topped with gjetost and lingonberries.

I've been creative lately.  On Saturday, I went to the Home Depot, picked up some cedar, went home and started cutting it up on the table saw.

After I cut up the wood, I sanded, glued and put outdoor wood screws into it until it was eventually shaped like this:

Adirondack Chair

Not bad for a weekend and it is very comfortable too!