Winter's Coming

Much more than SW Michiganders, Mainers are keenly aware of the coming of winter. The leaves are mostly down as we enter November. Snow has already fallen in the New Hampshire White Mountains which we can see from here. Winter preparation in the form of getting plenty of firewood under cover, servicing furnaces, doing exterior home repairs and winterizing, vehicle prepartion, etc. are well underway around here. It's a topic that's never far from conversation. In our case we live in an old farm house that is FAR from well insulated and sealed up. I installed some insulation board on the unheated portion of the basement ceiling this week to help as well as put up a large tarp as a wind block.

The house is heated by oil which is EXPENSIVE. When we moved here it over $4 per gallon. The owner has a contract that caps the price per gallon and spreads out the monthly cost. Even so we are paying $480 per month. Despite this it is still cheaper to live here than rent and pay utilities. We have never been so keenly aware of the cost to keep warm as we are now. We keep the thermostat turned down at night and close the door to the kitchen (coldest room in the house) to keep a lid on things. More than ever we understand the need to live in a highly energy efficient home. Thankfully we will be some day soon!

I've started getting some amplifier repair business for Black Crow Workshop in Maine. A great guitar player I met at a local jam gave me a couple of amps to work on. The Fender Super pictured was gently abused by someone who replaced the power transformer. In the process they bypassed the tube rectifier but left it in place. My customer thought he had a tube rectifier when all the tube was doing was heating the cabinet! I replaced the transformer and restored the amp to its 1963 glory. I also repaired a Dr. Z amp that beer had victimized. The beer spilled into the amp, shorting out an output tube. Fortunately the damage was limited to a tube socket and power resistor and was easily fixed.

When I'm not working on amp repair, the same desk serves as my engineering office. I'm starting to get more settled into my job with a local engineering firm. It's a big change to be working 98% from home, especially in such a small home. I've been struggling to concentrate with the daily whirlwind going on around me. And it is really easy for other family members to forget I'm at work and interrupt me. For awhile I tried to handle the interruptions and then go back to work. But quality programming can't co-exist with multiple interruptions. So I've had to bolt the door and turn on music. Things are much better now but I'm sure the adaptation will be ongoing. And if there's an emergency such as a horse in the road I'll still be called on!

This picture is of a neighbor's yard. They moved out yesterday, heading for Kentucky. Since they only had a trailer and minivan with lots of kids in it, not everything fit. They held a yard sale and also sold or gave away the larger stuff. After the first trailer loading, they test-drove and found the trailer unstable above 35mph. So they had to eliminate some more stuff. Here's what's left. They determined what they couldn't live without and the rest went to the thrift shop. We felt put to shame in our efforts to slim down prior to moving here! Note - they managed all this in a little over a week's time!!