To The Surbiton Manor Born

  Eighteen   more inches of snow over three days last week. Once again, it left the solar panels buried and useless. I only had time to liberate four of them this weekend because of indoor projects. With the tax credits from the plug-in hybrid & the wood burning stove, we invested in carpet for much of the house. Before it comes, it seemed like a good idea to paint some of said rooms that still bear the dingy grey "unlight" that the Hated Previous Owners (HPOs) bequeathed to us.  Painting is a dreadful chore in the best of times. However, this was not the best of times. On Friday night, I noticed that the big box hardware store that we use had a "pick up in store" option. To avoid the early Saturday morning standing around waiting for the person at the paint counter to mix up the color we needed, I thought, seeing that "most orders are ready in two hours" that I might give this a shot. Terrible mistake.  While there was a great deal of "preparing

In Star Trek III, The Search for Spock , Chief Engineer Mr. Scott said prophetically in his signature brogue, " The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain ." This weekend's events thus far have been instructive.  Kiki and I were contemplating spending large sum...over $500 on an expresso maker. The more we looked, the more daunting the process. Some of these ridiculous things connect to the internet. Then Kiki thought, "how did they do this before they had $15,000 machines and $250 grinders?" It turns out that they had humble little pots sort of like percolators. Worth a shot, we thought, for $30. It turns out that this makes a truly mean cup of expresso. We bought a $30 milk steamer. Voila. Better than a Caribou. Saved ourselves about $460. The simple, analog, manual ways are best. No experience illustrated this better than the way I spent half of my morning. I got my mom a so-called "smart" T.V. Call me crazy, but I t

I've long thought that purchasing gas masks would be a good thing to do.  Now wait, wait, I know that you may be thinking "That's it, ol' Tom has finally gone 'round the bend."  But I'm going to argue that no, it makes sense. The immediate inspiration for the purchase was news of a train derailment this week in East Palestine, Ohio. Some "dramatic footage" as it is known in the parlance of our times can be seen here .  Thousands of people were evacuated. The train has been burning for days, releasing a plume of phosgene and hydrogen chloride. Phosgene was used as a weapon in the first world war.  The Guardian calls the derailment "a wake-up call" and adds the sub headline, "The next derailment 'could be cataclysmic' if action isn't taken after the incident near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, says expert." The Guardian story goes into quite a bit of detail, but the underlying problem seems to be the usual one: greed

It's too soon to plant, as we discovered last year. But it is not too early to lay things out and get them in place. A slow afternoon in February is the perfect time to clean up the greenhouse, re-hang the grow lights, and label the starting pots. This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts when it is time to drop in the seeds, and it takes hours. Now it's done. All we have to do is get some seed starting soil, pop in the seeds, and pour on some water. Cauliflower will be first.  The grocery store put out flower seeds. It's a little early...sort of 4-5 months early, but hopeful. I purchased some fencing for the side of the house to build a shadow-box fence around our garbage cans. This way we spread some of the summer expenses and we'll be ready to go when it starts to warm up. I picture one of those "teaser" days in March when it is in the '50's and you think spring is right around the corner before you get slammed with a foot of snow the next day.