Looking for Land
Tammy and I have been talking for a couple years now about getting some land that we could eventually (10+ years) build a house on and maybe live on when Mazie (and any other potential, future kids – settle down Grandma’s, no news here) have moved out, etc. I’ve been thinking that we shouldn’t bother waiting to get the land until then – prices are likely to be higher and we could use it right now as a getaway on weekends.
This Friday we did our first road trip to tour some options and looked at 6 properties in the Red Wing, Zumbrota area of Minnesota and in Wisconsin on the other side of the river. Mazie was with her grandparents so driving 240 miles in the country was actually pretty fun. We are looking at property between 15 and 25 acres. We want something within one to two hours from the Twin Cities. We want something fairly wooded, with a good building site. Electric service is not needed.
It was really good to look at these properties because it helped clarify how we would use the land and what qualities are important for us. There is a lot that we want to do.
First, a small living option is necessary right away. Tammy did a bunch of research and found this great option for us called the miniHome. As soon as you own the land, you need a place to stay on it and the idea of camping every time you visit wasn’t that appealing to either of us.
The miniHome is a near ideal solution for this. It’s rated as a mobile home so it can be brought to a site without any special police escort. It’s designed to be ecologically friendly and self-contained. They have an option that puts solar electric and a wind turbine with it for complete off-grid usage. It has reservoirs for water and waste. In short, this is a one-stop solution to having 350 square feet of comfortable, heated space with all the conveniences you would expect. The only thing lacking is air conditioning, which you could add if you wanted. (Note: it even has an ethernet network!) We would plan on leaving this on the land to be used as a guest option as well.
The other structure that we would need right away would be some sort of utility building. This essentially would be a 2-car garage. This would be where the solar array and wind turbines would come together with a battery bank to store electricity. The utility building would house all of this and also provide storage for a car and other tools. I would probably need an ATV with a trailer that could be parked in there as well.
Obviously we need to identify a good spot for an eventual home. There are a lot of structural issues to consider for this. However, we would add other issues as well since we want it to be efficient and integrated with the location. Correct sun alignment would be important for passive solar heat, for example.
All of these locations would require access by large machinery. Everything else would be fine just being accessible by ATV.
I would want to have a nice, big firepit on the property. Ideally this would allow 10-15 people to enjoy a fire, and include an option for open pit cooking as well. Preferably this would be in an area with a lot of trees.
For the evenings, and since we’d have the dark sky for it, I would want to put up a dome for my telescope with a permanent mount. This would be wonderful and make it so much easier to take in the night sky. This would ideally be in a fairly open area, on the highest point possible to get the best view to the horizon. Electricity is necessary but can be easily provided by a small solar PV module and an isolated battery. I would need to extend the network to it as well, most likely using some sort of wireless option.
It would be a shame to have a bunch of land without a good spot for a garden. Tammy and I are far from green thumbs, but we definitely want this option. And last but not least we want to have a cool walking path that would snake through the land and connect everything up. This would allow for nice, evening strolls or just serve the utility of getting to various places.
We also learned that the approach to the land was important for us. We didn’t like land that was right next to a busy road. We liked it much more when you left the highway, then took a smaller road with may eventually meander to a gravel road for access. Also of importance is what is around you. We really liked one property but didn’t like that there was a big campground a couple of miles down the same road.
There is much more research to do, much to learn about this, and we aren’t in a rush. However, it is pretty exciting to think about the potential!
Brain Games
We got the Nintendo DS because we liked these brain games. We bought both Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. As if you care , here are my comments on the games.
Brain Age
Brain Age is slow to impress, but opens up a lot as you start to play it more and more. The game feels well grounded in research, and in general the puzzles get plenty hard fast enough. The game does a very good job of introducing random elements into it, and even though multiple people don’t play it at the same time, it brings data from other people playing Brain Age into the sessions. For example, when I finished the math quiz today it told me that Tammy did a better job than I did. This resulted in me doing the quiz over and over until I beat her of course. Great encouragement.
One of the really fun things about Brain Age is it’s use of voice recognition. Some of the puzzles require you to speak to identify things and it does a good job of interpreting you. Last, the included Sudoku game is very well done. All in, this is a lot of fun.
Big Brain Academy
Big Brain Academy is more game-like than Brain Age. The characters are almost goofy looking, and the games seem more like parlour tricks than well researched logic tests. However, it is a lot of fun as well. It allows multiple player profiles, but doesn’t tie them together in anyway to create competition. It doesn’t use handwriting recognition or speech. The puzzles do get very difficult and it is certainly taxing, but not as well executed as Brain Age.
The winner is…
Honestly, if you like puzzles, get both. They are different enough that they are both worth having. However, Brain Age is definitely superior in almost all dimensions – even without the Sudoku game.
Wordplay
Last night Mazie’s aunt came over and babysat while Tammy and I went out for a “classic” date – dinner and a movie. We went to Wordplay at the Edina Theater. It was a fun movie all about the world of crossword puzzles. Sound like a topic that doesn’t really deserve a movie? Well, that just means you aren’t aware of the annual crossword puzzle tournament and the ridiculous speed at which some people solve a crossword puzzle (just over 2 minutes!).
The movie was great, and particularly fun for me since I have so many geeky hobbies: rc helicopter? rc cars? telescopes? home network? solar power? Watching Wordplay is like getting a 90 minute pass into this world of crossword puzzles. To an extent, you could envision a movie about one of your geeky hobbies with you in the hotel convention center talking to the guy about how amazing your telescope, helicopter, car is.
Fun, lighthearted movie.
Mill City Farmers Market
Yesterday
morning we went to the Mill City Farmers
Market. It was our first
visit, and only the second weekend that the market has been in
operation. This market is different than the huge Minneapolis farmers
market. It was coordinated by a number of people and led by the founder
of Cafe Brenda. The market combines great
locally grown food, with orgranic practices. There are also people there
with artisan cheeses and locally raised, grass-fed meat.
The space is great and there is even a musician playing resulting in an airy atmosphere that is relaxing and very enjoyable. I highly recommend it to anyone – either to stop by for some bread and cheese for lunch or pickup some food for the week ahead.
Kudos to everyone who made this market a reality.
MacBook
Amongst the celebratory gifts I got for father's day this year was a
pretty surprising toy. I had been commenting to Tammy for a while about
how cool I thought the new Apple MacBook was. She decided that it was
inevitable that I was going to get one and surprised me on father's day
with a nice box containing a black MacBook.
The Path to Here
I was born and raised on the Macintosh platform (after some very early years on TRS-80, TI-99/4A and finally Apple //c). I fondly can remember the release of the first color Mac, multifinder and the advent of System 7. However, when I came to college I discovered Unix and “real” operating systems. I then wandered into the Windows NT world as I moved into the professional or commercial world and never looked back to the Mac. Until…
About a year-and-a-half ago I got an iMac. The main reason I got the iMac was location. It was going in a very public place in our house and I wanted something that looked good. I was open to getting a Mac because of OS X. Apple had finally given up on the horrendous operating systems they had and moved to a Unix based environment. Stability and tools were greatly improved. I’ve been happy with the iMac, but then Apple got really serious.
The announcement a year ago to switch to the Intel chip was huge. The promise of hackable machines that could run Mac OS X but also run Windows and other environments was a siren song. And it’s become real over the last year. This decision, combined with a good, stable OS and some very nice hardware got me to get back in with the Mac crowd in a bigger way with the MacBook.
Initial Impressions
The MacBook is an extremely well constructed and versatile machine. It isn’t as light as my business laptop (Dell D410), but the construction quality runs laps around my other home laptop (Sony VGN-S360. Everything is solid. The keyboard looks like it may be a “chiclet” keyboard, but it’s feel is great. One of my favorite laptop keyboards thus far.
On the software side I’m enjoying Mac OS X. I’ve been using it on the iMac for a while, but mostly that computer just surfs the web and ’looks pretty’. This machine has been getting more industrial use and I’ve optimized it more for myself. I’ve purchased Parallels as well which allows me to run Windows XP (and really almost any x86 operating system) without rebooting. The product is great for a v1.0 and they will close the gaps in the coming updates. I look forward to having one machine with Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista and whatever else I want on it. Can you say Swiss Army Knife?
Areas of Improvement
There are some things that Apple didn’t get right yet. First, Apple’s insistance on a 1-button mouse is just infuriating. I may give them a break if they didn’t emulate a 2-button mouse themselves by holding down the control key. If your software uses a 2-button mouse concept, put one on the computer!
The MacBook is also extremely hot. Much has been written about this and I’m hopeful that there will be a firmware update to lessen this. I’ve been using CoreDuoTemp to monitor and I’ve seen my CPU hit 90 °C. (Right now just typing it’s at 77 °C.)
It’s a Wrap
I have to take my hat off to Apple. To get me to buy a Mac laptop is a feat. I had all but given up on them and they’ve really risen from the ashes. This is a fun machine.
PAX
Tammy and I decided that we wanted to make sure to raise Mazie understanding the value of charitable giving and in general “doing good” in the world. One of the things we are doing to that end is making a donation to a charity of her choice (or our choice on her behalf until she is old enough) on her birthday. This year we decided to support PAX, an organization that is working to reduce gun violence amongst children and teenagers. I attended an event of theirs a few weeks ago and the numbers were shocking. Eight children or teenagers die everyday as a result of gun violence. Even more shocking is the fact that more houses have guns than Xbox’s.
PAX has two main programs. The first is called “ask.” and is aimed at parents. The simple goal is for parents to ask if there is a gun in the house before their children go to play somewhere. Awareness is key, and many accidents happen while children are playing and some of the parents have no idea a gun was even there. The second is “speak up!” which is a toll-free hotline for students to report gun related concerns in school. The hotline receives over 15 calls a day of reported gun issues in schools, and coordinates with the school administration to respond.
They are an impressive, national organization with low overhead and a passion for working on this issue. Hat’s off to them and all the great work they are doing!
Happy (Delayed) Fathers Day
Being a dad rocks.
That pretty much sums it up. I could just end this comment now and be done. Dad’s that are reading it would understand. In fact, the openness of the statement is ideal as you can consider all that individual greatness of being a dad with your kids.
This year was my 2nd fathers day. It’s fun that Mazie’s birthday is right before fathers day. It makes for a better day as you are already celebrating how awesome it is that your child has grown more and more.
Mazie is so cool. She’s a pro walker now, rarely falling or getting tripped up. She even does pretty well on uneven surfaces with actual shoes on. She’s really verbal. She ranges from her version of dog, banana, gypsie, logan, mom, dad to her tendency to be, as Tammy and I put it, squaky.
She is a strong willed kid. She knows exactly what she wants to eat, in what order, and will clearly communicate it to you. She has started to play games with me. She’ll pretend like she’s going to come to me and turns away at the last minute giggling. Simply put, it’s pretty awesome to watch this little girl growing up.
Being a dad is a pretty great thing. I realize that it’s so much easier than the mom side of the fence. No being pregnant. No delivery. No breastfeeding. Even the things that are shared, this dad gets the easy route on. I change a tenth of the diapers Tammy does. The hardest thing I do is going away on business trips, but I credit that away time with making me truly appreciate the wonder that is my kid.
I love my kid. I love my wife. I love being a dad.
Solar Panels Started
Our solar heat project completed today! Just before 2:00 pm today Innovative Power Systems turned on the collectors and started to bring heat down to the storage tank. I’m monitoring the system and collecting data with Cacti. Below is a graph showing the temperature of the water that is coming back from the panels (this is one of several data points I’m monitoring on the system). The water coming back reached a maximum of 138 degrees and the panels themselves were about 145 degrees.
I’m really excited to have this project done. Not least of which is that it’s been 8 months since we made the decision to do it. I’ve been really surprised (but pleased!) at how many people have asked me about this project so I am going to write-up a thorough post about “My Solar Experience” and post it in the coming days. I’m very encouraged that some of you may consider to start tapping into renewable energy as well.
I have to go check my graphs again. 🙂
Save Some Birds
Over this past weekend I applied some bird protection to our house. We live in an area with a lot of birds, and we have large parts of our house where we have a lot of windows. On top of that, I like to feed birds and with the landscaping work that we’ve done over the last three years we’ve seen a marked increase in the number of songbirds that frequent our yard.
However, we’ve also seen a huge increase in “bird strikes”. Almost everyday birds would hit our windows, and sometimes the hit would be fatal. I searched for a while to find a solution to this problem and finally found Window Alert.
I’ve applied these decals to the major windows where we were having problems and so far it’s been great. No hits that we’ve heard since then. They don’t ruin the view – and while you can see them they are not annoying. They work by reflecting ultraviolet light which birds can see, but we cannot. If you have a problem with “bird strikes” you should give these a try.
Xcel Energy Cheating Customers
I’m mad.
I’m a big supporter of alternative energy. For the last 3 years I’ve voluntarily paid a surcharge to Xcel Energy to fund the purchase of wind power equal to the amount of electricity I consume. This program is called Windsource. I pay $2.00 per 100 kWh of electricity, and I buy 16 units of this to account for our total electrical consumption. Every month I tack on $32 to my electricity bill and have been happy in the knowledge that our entire house is powered by renewable energy.
In addition to the WindSource program that I just mentioned, Xcel also collects a “curtailment payment” from all customers to fund wind-generated electricity. This is not an optional payment. If you are a customer, you are paying it. Then the Star Tribune broke this article on June 1st, Public Paid for idled wind farms.
It turns out that in 2004 Xcel paid wind farms to idle their turbines because Xcel could not transfer the power. Xcel doesn’t have the transmission lines to accept the power. By the way, they aren’t doing much about it either as you can read in the article.
When I signed up for WindSource I asked the person “How can I insure that my money is going to wind power?”. Turns out there really isn’t a good solution for the individual consumer. Relying on the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission seems like the only real option, but they may be part of the problem.
Xcel Energy customers should be mad. We should be mad for being sold a bill of goods that wasn’t true. And we should also be mad because Xcel isn’t being a responsible corporation.
See also: KARE11 Article, WCCO, Minutes of MnPUC (page 2)
An Inconvenient Truth
It likely isn’t going to come as a surprise to anyone that the people who are currently finishing an installation of solar heat were at the opening showing of An Inconvenient Truth last night. I heard about this movie a few weeks ago and I’ve been eager to see it since.
Let me cut straight to the point: You really need to see this movie. Did you get that? I mean it. Go see this movie. I don’t care if you are republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, green or blue. Just go see it.
Calling An Inconvenient Truth a movie seems a little wrong, it’s really more like going to see a presentation. And you understand why fairly quickly. Al Gore has been giving this presentation on global warming for a long time, but one person can only be in so many places. The movie is a great way to get the message out to millions of people, and it is done very well.
I like to think that even skeptics of global warming will leave the theatre with a new perspective. I’m not going to try to summarize it here as I just wouldn’t do as good of a job. Go check it out – soon!
Slow Down
I left work late on Tuesday. I thought I would try to get home a little earlier and hopped into the MnPASS lane and hit the pedal. As I came out of downtown I was greeted by a cop holding a radar detector. He vigorously encouraged me to pull over and receive my due.
He clocked me doing 71 in a 55. Eek.
He had some generosity in his heart though. While there was no way I was going to get off without a ticket, he cited me for Unacceptable Acceleration instead of a full on speeding ticket.
That’s the first time I’ve been pulled over by a cop in probably 10 years.
Slow down.
Solar Project Update #3
In the last couple of weeks we’ve had a lot of progress with our solar project. The work on the roof and in the attic is essentially done now. This leaves the compicated plumbing work in the utility room the remaining items. This Wednesday the contractor is supposed to be out with the whole team to turn the system up.
In the last weeks we’ve pulled out the existing two gas water heaters and inserted a new Takagi TK-2 tankless hot water heater. Right now that is providing all of the hot water since the solar system isn’t up and running yet. I’ve been happy with it (it is the square unit on the wall in the picture).
I’ll post a detailed write-up once the system is up and running. Many of you have asked me about the project and I’ve certainly learned a lot having it done. One big lesson learned is added alternative energy and high-efficiency energy to an existing house is not trivial!
Safety Stairs
I’m a super-excited Dad! I’ve been on the search for a long time for a gate that we could put on the stairs in our house and was having no luck. And now that Mazie is mobile, the lack of a child gate was elevating my blood pressure significantly. The problem? One of the sides that the gate must connect to is relatively short.
The left side in this picture is only 30.5" high. This turns out to be a major problem with most child gates. I was lucky to find this one at USA Baby that turned out to be a perfect fit for the space. If you have a challenging spot this is a wonderful gate.
I can now relax a bit while Mazie runs all over the top level of the house.
Network Revamp
My home network has been pathetic for the last few months. While doing our solar project and other work in the utility room I had to make some quick cable moves. The unfortunate downside of this was that for over 3 months my gigabit network has been nada, since I’ve got a 100 mbit link in between it and everything that matters.
I decided I’ve had enough of this and decided to redo the network – right this time. I’m not done, but this weekend I got most of the physical work hung.
I put a 2’ rack on the right and have all the network switches where I want them. I still have to move the ethernet runs in the house from the other side of the utility room to this side and put them in the patch panel. This will be a pain as it involves rewiring. And once that is all done, I’m going to setup a proper secure home network with color zones for protection. I expect this project will be a month or more before I finish it completely. I’ll tell more when I do, and put a picture up of the pretty wiring.
Mazie Walking!
Two weekends ago Mazie really started to walk. She’d been able to take a step or two for a while, but while we were in Lanesboro on the Olson Family trip she “took off” and decided she was mobile. In the last two weeks she’s gotten pretty good at it and now pretty much demands on walking on her own. Here is a video of her walking at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. (Excuse the video quality, it was taken with my Canon S500 camera in movie mode, with a shaky hand.)
Add Video.
T-Rex Flying
This last weekend I finally said “uncle” and took my T-Rex to Hobby Warehouse in Richfield to get some help from the experts there and get my helicopter flying. There was a guy there, Rudy, who was awesome. He’s been flying RC helicopters for 12 years and has a T-Rex as well. He spent about 2 hours on my machine and got it working great!
The picture above is the helicopter I have. The picture doesn’t have the electronics on it, just the base frame and mechanical parts. After two hours with the pros it was going and I headed home to try on my own. The first encounter was not very successful – I never got off the ground but also didn’t have any major crashes.
The next day, Sunday, I took it to my father-in-laws for Easter. He’s been obsessed with heli’s as well. He emptied the garage so I we could play without the wind. After about a minute I took a hard landing and broke the base plate where the battery was connected. After we rigged a clothes hangar so I could strap the battery on we were flying again. After a while I got to the point where I could fly outside with a decent amount of wind. Until I had a decent crash at the end.
I ended up with a hard crash and a slew of parts needed. I broke the gears in two of my servos (Hitec HS-65HB), bent the tail, cracked the bottom plate, shredded the canopy. I got parts and spent last night fixing.
Tonight I went out and I was flying great! Hovering like a pro, things were really in control, until the very end. I was running low on battery and I came down too hard. The blades came down too far and one of the blades sheared right through my new carbon tail! Ouch!
The damage looks worse than from the weekend, but it’s all in the tail. I’m still in the phase where every trip off the ground with the heli is followed by a trip to the hobby shop. I’ll have to replace the tail, stabilizer bars and a couple other things. I should be flying again this weekend.
Solar Project Update #2
After much consideration and a meeting with our contractor I’ve decided to change the location and configuration of our solar array. I posted previously about our solar project and mentioned I had concerns about how the panel array looked.
We are going to change from the eight 4 x 6.5 foot panels that we have now to five 4 x 8 foot panels instead. The panels will be relocated to the front roof of the house, to the left of the skylights when facing the front of the house. We’ll be dropping our panel footage from 208 to 160 square feet in the process, but will still get a lot of heat collection.
The new location will make the panels only visible from the front of the house, and will not disturb the outline of the house as they will be completely on the roof face.
This will result in a 4 week delay to the project to get the new panels, but considering this is something that will be in place for years I want it to be right.