I’m looking for my Probability (MA 3720) textbook . . . it has a blue cover and the solution to the problem I’m trying to solve. If you have it, send it to me please and I will pay the postage.

Oh yeah, I need a real job too. Help in either realm is much appreciated.

The weather up here took a favorable turn recently so I the fix it up bug bit me again. Yep, that’s right, I’ve started yet one more project before the rest have been completed. Though this time, I think most will have little trouble seeing how this particular one has implications with regard to the dependencies of other longitudinal projects currently in progress. How much longer can I write about what I’m doing and not actually say it? This is about it.

Today I took delivery of 100 bags of the blown in cellulose insulation as well as a blower. The bags are currently calling the front room home and occupy a deceptively huge volume of the room. Now to get it on the other side of the wall. So this blower I’m using is something that sort of resembles a cast concrete Cold War relic and the tubing that conveys the cellulous and requisite amount of dust to the point of delivery reminds me of one of those watering strip hoses with all the holes in them. All bullshit aside, when you rent the thing, it comes with a free roll of duct tape! Trust me it is damn good thing too. In the 5 hours I worked with it today, I already used most of the roll. Ok, so the device is a hunk of shit with rotating parts, let’s talk about the house then.

So I’m perched up on the ladder, my home for the evening, the tubing in my hand is shaking under the sporadic momentum transfer of cellulous periodically finding the correct way out of the machine’s hopper of death and I can’t help but think it is taking an awfully long time to fill that wall cavity. The music playing in the background is probably too loud yet the overall upbeat sort of quells the possibility that unbeknownst to me, I may in fact just be insulting my yard outside. And so the process repeated for several hours and as I sit here in my 3rd floor perch I can’t help but wonder what I’m going to see on the east side of the house when I make my morning survey of the universe from the turret. Will it be a 30 foot pile of blown insulation forming little tornados in the wind? Sort of hope not.

It took a while but I eventually figured out why I have been crashing around 10 pm like a cokehead at a Garth Brooks concert: my body has been woefully protein deficient since I started training and is pissed off about it. I’ve been doing ok at sticking to the schedule I laid out several weeks ago with the glaring exception that it was hard for me to stay functional after about 10pm. I would literally just switch off. So after talking to people vastly more wise the conclusion was pretty clear. The combination of my terrible diet (in terms of meat consumption anyway) coupled with the induced physical load creates a near catatonic state which is basically exhaustion. Anyway, fixed that problem – my evening cocktail is now spiked with about 30g of vanilla flavored protein. It is not nearly as bad as one would think . . . well if you can de-lump it that is.

Man what a crappy day in the lab.  I’ve been taking my sweet time running another bismuth test lately mainly due to the enormous amount of work it takes to scale back up into testing mode.  Everything has to be in place and functioning for the magic to happen and with 7 other people using much of the same infrastructure as I do it is a real rarity to find devices in the same place or condition you left them.  Goes with the territory but when I’m offline for about month it is like gathering lost artifacts from the four corners of Earth.

Once I finally had all my ducks in a line and enormous holes in the vacuum chamber plugged, I proceeded to pump down and start the test.  The first thing I do (after general voodoo) is to light the cathode (electron source).  Usually this doesn’t present much trouble for the cathode I usually use, but I certainly received no love from it today.  The initial mechanism for electron extraction is via a process called thermionic emission.  Thermionic emission is basically heating the ever living hell out of a material (in this case lanthanum-hexaboride) until electrons begin boil off.  Obviously then this requires a pretty robust heater.  That is where the problem was today.  After it failed the first time I grabbed Makela to give me a hand rebuilding it, tossed it back in the tank and tried again.  The whole process took about 2-3 hours by which point it was already about 7pm.  I wanted a successful test though dammit! So I pumped down again.  Different problem, same place.  Yet another dead cathode heater.  Meh, I give up for the day.  I can only dig out and fill back in the same hole so many times per day.

I figured out the real problem though – I didn’t give my tithe to the God’s of Experimental Research.  You see, when it comes to experimental systems as complicated as these I’m certainly not above superstition.  The current rain dance we do before a bismuth test is as follows:  start the roughing pumps, run down to the Dog, do one shot of shitty tequila each, run back and test.  I guess tomorrow I know what I have to do then.

As Soland previously mentioned in the comments, the pictures he took while he was up here are now available on his site; more specifically in the Road Trip Photo Gallery.  Here’s a very brief sample of when him and Nathan were at the house.

My longest hot water pipe expands by about 3/4″ of an inch when in use. No ghosts here, just thermal energy. It also takes about 32 seconds for hot water to reach the 3rd floor bathroom. Now you can sleep easy tonight.

Good day today though since the Democrats secured both the house and the senate. As previously alluded to, finally I don’t see just doom on the horizon for this country. There’s a fair chance that we can stop the train wreck before it is too late.

My thruster anodes finally returned from the weld shop they were sent out to and I can say they did some beautiful work. I’d post pictures but I don’t want to give away any state secrets. In any case, tomorrow I resume experimental work on the bismuth thruster. Despite all my intentions to return to work this evening to get things all set but I am in the process of failing. I’m not in the mood to do a proper job assembling the thruster as it is a very precise and tedious process that requires 100% accuracy to ensure minimal destruction.

I can’t handle the anticipation!  Finally for once in a great while, I’m optimistic that things may work out for the better.  Until then - it is beer and CNN until the Daily Show is over.

So close to being done! I took these last Friday when it was snowing (obviously).

For those who don’t know, which I’m betting is most, I’ve commenced training for a half-marathon. Thus far it has been going very well – my endurance has increased three fold and I can feel my body transforming into a form less sucky. At this stage of the game, out of shear self loathing I’m currently running 4-5 miles 4-6 times per week on a treadmill in the sauna like SDC weight room. That special sort of torture does not come with out rewards, naw consolation prizes. For instance, bouncing my brain against the base of my skull for 30-45 minutes leads to all sorts of interesting thoughts. Not to mention I get to listen to all the new music I download and judge its worth (wish my mp3 player had a delete button under all the tape holding it together). But by far the most fascinating aspect of the sentence is that I get to watch people come and go from the gym. With my new found rumble strip intellect, I can’t help but be conflicted by a certain class of people that show up regularly: the guys with long pony tails.

Exhibit A:

At first glance, you can’t help but think it is retarded (which it really is). Trouble is though, at some point in the obviously distant past, growing your hair to your ass seemed like a good idea. However, at some point it invariably fell out of favor, as do most drastic appearance altering trends. Fast forward many, many, too many years, and you’re left with those still clinging on to the trend. What drives them I wonder? I mean if ass length hair ever comes back into style, these guys will be the samurais of the social scene. Until then I’m sure they must lead a tortuous conflicted existence as the eternal debate of “cut and run”, or “stay the course” ensues. Honestly though, if you’ve been growing you hair out for years at what point do you draw the line and decided: Enough is enough! Cut this raccoon off my head! Perhaps tomorrow will hold the answer.

My laptop, a Dell Inspiron 6000 really has pretty good speakers until of course you try to do something while music is playing then your sleeves cover them up a bit. On the other hand, if you live in a climate such that you don’t need to wear a whole field of cotton to keep warm, this probably isn’t such an issue.

Despite still being sick, I went to work to avoid succumbing to boredom in my chair which would have invariably lead me to start eating pieces of my puzzle. Work wasn’t all that fantastic owing largely to the fact I still felt like crab leaving me only qualified to hold down various chairs in the lab – standing was hard. After work, I made good on my promise to keep the flow of scaffolding going. I darted home and loaded up my truck and was able to get another load dropped off before the rental place closed their doors for the evening. At this point, all the low hanging fruit is gone yet 11 rings still remain in two ominous towers entrenched on either side of the front entry like some lost order of Greek columns. So I stopped by the KBC, slammed two quick beers to calm nerves and went home to face the pillar of steel and plywood. After two hours of a delicate dance on tubular steel, I at last had victory. There was one real close call though, I was taking down one of the planks on the third level when the wind caught it and pushed it into me and me into the cross bracing. If I had been one or two levels higher, that may have been enough to topple the whole mess. The job is now about half done. I had intended to complete all of it this evening but the snow coupled with the close call earlier forced me to table it for another day. So tomorrow I have to do the really really really high part – high enough that I could step out my third floor window and ride scaffolding all the way down. I can’t tell you how excited I am.