Post #22

Everything creaked as the button was pushed that shot electrical current to the motor which spun the wheel that turned the belt which pulled linkage to the opening garage door. The air had been cold before, but now exposed to the outdoors the shuttered garage went from refrigerator to ice box. I made my way down the steps embracing the reality of living in the midwest USA. Winter. Snow. Shoveling.

Eight days ago I began a morning with 70 degree air temperatures. That day ended in 25 degree coldness, chipping away at half a snow packed, ice-enclosed drive way, a sidewalk that had barely been touched, and a front walk which had been salted. G and Z thought road salt would take care of the ice and snow without shoveling. My goal today, on day number eight, was to finish the awful process of hacking the solid, two to four inches of solid ice from the rain gutters. It may not sound like much, but three feet by forty or so is sort of a lot, especially when cars have been parking on top of it over the course of a month.

How is it possible we’re a month away from temps rising for Spring?

I start shoveling. The sun is still trying to make its way into the sky and so the morning breeze is still stingy. Two inches or so of snow packed ice and another three inches or so of powder on top begins to succumb to my shovel. I make sure to toss the powder with the direction of the wind. No need to make the process colder or longer than it is. At the end of the street two neighbors have their snowblowers going. Admittedly, I’m slightly jealous. Then I remember most times I’m at work when it snows, most times a snow event in our area is an inch which melts in a day or two. A snowblower would be useless, this would have been the first time in two years I would have used one. 

Short order is made of the front walk and driveway. The sidewalk and street outlet are tougher because of the concrete patterns. I start down the longer of the two sides. About two thirds into the clearing on that side a neighbor’s wife comes out to shovel out a spot for her husband to park. He’s coming home from work. I help her out. He arrives a few minutes later and parks in the unplowed street. I’m just starting into the shorter length sidewalk when another neighbor’s wife opens her garage door, backs her minivan out, and proceeds to get stuck in the unplowed street. Snowblower neighbors 1 and 2 have already completed and gone inside. I’m the only one out shoveling. She gets out of the van, I call down the street asking if she needs help. No, she’s going to get her husband. A few minutes later she re-emerges from the house. No husband. I start walking down. Modern cars are no match for five inches of unplowed ice and snow.

I clear out enough snow to reveal solid ground ahead of and behind her power tires, and ask her to rock her car. She is unsuccessful, but also I think she is a bit confused as to what I was asking her to do. So I ask if I can give it a shot. My second attempt (the first doesn’t count because she had her parking break on) is successful in getting her tires on solid ground. She decides she isn’t going to wherever her destination was and wants to back the van into the garage. Not wanting to be out there all day on a futile mission I advise her, get the van moving. Once you do, don’t stop. Go all the way around the block with enough speed to get up your driveway (slight incline) and in to your garage. It’s awesome advising a middle aged mom in a minivan to ignore stop signs. While she’s circling the block I quickly clear a path up the driveway for one of her power tires and she makes it back in the garage.

G eventually joins me outside, remarking about the size and thickness of the ice chunks as I bring them up. My garden spade is hating life, as was the snow shovel when it was being asked to chop ice before I knew what I was getting into.

It’s such a pretty snow today. In the moments of sunlight diamonds sparkled amid the powder snow and ice particles. I wish I could have put the drones in the air to capture the scene but sadly the cold temperature is keeping me grounded. But no matter. This will be a day I enjoy simply because I was here to enjoy it but will soon forget it unless I stumble upon this post and actually read it.

 Post #20

It’s February 13th and tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. YB decided to host a Valentine’s Day Donut event at our house for the neighborhood kids and their moms. It started at 10a and has been going on for four hours. Our backyard neighbor left to take her son to basketball practice and made it back to the party after practice ended. That was an hour and a half ago. There is nothing safe in the house when events like this are going on. I’ve already saved our bedroom doors multiple times and booted 10 or 15 kids from G’s room twice (for some reason his room is very popular.

I am really ready for this day to be over.

The outdoor temperature is 27 degrees. Freezing. There is no change in the weather forecast for the foreseeable future. The problem with having a drone hobby is that, when there are sugar-filled kids running around the house with their collective heads cut off I cannot fly inside. And since its all about me, and with all the noise being made just outside my bedroom door, I will state the following happenings from today.

At 10a I sort of hid myself upstairs in UncT’s room. I have a couple projects going on up there. Once those were done I charged a couple drone batteries because, though cold, the outside did not have the white stuff falling. I took the opportunity to put my newly built freestyle quadcopter in the air. I had messed with some of the ESC settings that drive the motor after finding my flight controller motor settings were wonky. The process was kind of clunky because in order to change motor settings the drone must be fully powered as if going for flight and connected to my laptop. The first part can be done outside and the second only done when the day is nice and warm. With two fully charged battery packs I went outside, gave a quick test flight, brought the quad in to hook up to the laptop, change settings, and repeat the process. My goal was to lower the speed of battery pack consumption caused by high motor settings, TL:DR I want longer flight time. As far as this experiment goes, I achieved success. Next week I travel to Knoxville where the weather should be warmer and I can re-tune the quad on the new motor settings. Of course, that project finished a little over two hours ago. The party is still going.

I am very impressed that YB can handle this kind, this level, of noise. Of people. Of everything that I consider our house to be a sanctuary from. It’s a special gift I think she has. It’s one of the reasons I love her.