Spring brings fountains, solar sails, and relays

I think this mystery photo is too easy, but is scary pretty:

And the hills around here are simply pretty pretty:

And the birds above the hills are pretty pretty pretty:

I’ve been playing a game with the birds that come to the feeders I placed next to our windows … how close can I get with my point and shoot camera:

Cross-cultural sharing:

The bigger birds seem to have closer limits, but even they get mad if I get too close:

Thankfully, the cat is leaving them alone … might have something to do with them being 15 feet in the air and with Helen trying to feed her everything in our Fridge.   No need to hunt so she now lounges on our deck all day.

And on our laps all evening … makes for a soft tablet stand:

I’ve been having fun tweaking the house.  Here tuning the ceiling light show:

And I can now control the pool light remotely via Z-Wave.   When wiring that smart outlet up, I ended up with an extra outlet, so seemed like a good excuse for a fountain!

And I moved the small fountain that was on our bedroom deck to our kitchen deck, and added a ‘solar sail’ shade. 

Waiting for our next good windstorm to see if it will sail or not.

I spent most of the last 2 weeks hacking together another Arduino (a 4 watt $20 computer) to monitor and control the pool, similar to what I did with the hot tub last month:

In addition to temperature monitoring and pool pump control, this will allow me to remotely control the pool cover … that is the theory anyway:

For the fellow geeks out there, this the data collected by this new box:

https://cosm.com/feeds/127959

On the medical front, I finally confessed to Helen that my shoulder had been bothering me for the last 3 months, after a minor, but sudden, slip off a snow bank when climbing off our roof.   She immediately noticed my right shoulder was much lower than my left:

Helen and Irena have 3 theories as to what it might be and I have an appointment with another doctor to get another opinion later this week.   Not too painful, but I can’t sleep on that side, which is my Helen side, so that is a problem that needs to get fixed!

Bruce

 

Mystery photo:  Wasp nest built into one of our LED yard lights.  I had brought that light in house, charging next to a window for several days before I notice a bunch of wasps hanging out inside.     The LED was fully encased in Wasp hive glue and did not recover.

A not so feral cat

Guess who this is:

Fortunately it is not a 3d photo, or Irena would have been terrified:

A slightly different view of the guy who owns those teeth, here finalizing the circuitry for the Hot Tub solar collector:

I got the evacuated solar tubes mounted right above the hot tub:

These plots show the various sensors.  Temp2 is the water temp out of the tubes, Temp3 is the hot tub temp, TD23 shows the difference (pump relay stays on as long as that number is positive): 

  https://cosm.com/feeds/115667

This guy was skeptical that all that complexity would actually work:

When I told him all that data was stored in ‘the cloud’,  he threw up seeds in amazement (the clouds he knows don’t talk to hot tubs):

 

This guy was so amazed he forgot to chew the sunflower seed before he swallowed:

As you might have guessed, I recently moved the bird feeder to hang off the roof right next to our windows, so now they can watch us watch them:

Our friend Marie has the cutest little Dotson.  This is how he rides when she rides:

We just finished a fun 3 day visit with friend Jim. We went skiing at Deer Valley, one of the resorts by Park City:

Jim got a high tech fitting for some custom, computerized fitted ski boots.  After detailed measurements, they inject foam into his boots to form around his feet:

Was just enough snow to have fun.  The slopes are melting fast, will close next weekend:

For the past 2 years we have been watching this elusive Calico cat wander around our yard.   Helen was convinced she was feral.   No tag, very skittish, rarely seen.  Last week, all of the sudden, she starts responding to Helen meow calls and becomes a completely different cat, adventuring in our house without much concern:

Unlike all other cats I know, she will take all the attention we can dish out:

When we get tired of petting her, she will fall asleep on the couch:

She is a mystery.  We haven’t let her stay overnight or unattended.   Helen put a collar asking if she has a name in hopes of hearing from her owner, if she has one. 

In news from CA, Nick and Chloe just moved from San Jose to San Francisco so Chloe can be closer to her job’s new office (walking distance!).    And Nick just published the book he wrote last summer on as an ebook on Amazon, a fun read!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C8N4FNK

Bruce

Fawns to Bucks

You remember those cute little deer fawns we had pouncing over our pool cover last spring?   They grew up:

This hawk has been watching them like a hawk:

And this wood pecker:

Was pecking on our rock siding.  Must have been some rock insects in there:

Which leads into things that weight about the same as a woodpecker (150 grams), we switched phone carriers and somehow our phones magically grew in size, from iphone to Galaxy S3 and Note 2:

Speaking of notes, note to robot.   Do not pick a wrestling match with a Norfolk Pine … you will loose:

And while we are on the topic of pretty (the Norfolk Pine tree is pretty), we had some pretty fog recently:

That streak of light at top of this photo is a jet landing at the SLC airport:

And speaking of lights, I bought a couple of fun LED lights.  I put a 3 watt spot light on the glass sculpture on the piano:

And pointed a 20 watt colorful ‘water effect’ light onto the ceiling.  It looks like the rippling water reflection we sometimes get from the pool:

And speaking of pool, we are not swimming in it because we had record snows this winter.  I got some good snow shoveling exercise keeping up with it:

Last months snowman, the 12 footer that quickly fell over, had a re-birth:

Then, as nature dictates, started his life cycle:

Then we got even more snow:

So he got a face lift:

And a new buddy!

Then the sun took their arms:

They leaned back to worship and appease the sun:

But, like it was with Icaras, it didn’t work out:

The massive snows also collapsed the left side of our pool cover.  I rescued it from the bottom of the pool this weekend.  Now I need a wet suit to jump into the 45 degree water to bolt it back on:

The lower left of the above photo shows my solar water collector experiment.   My next step is to put some sensors on it to make it more efficient, turning the pump on/off when at optimal times:

These little microprocessor boards have the power of PCs of just a few years ago.    That $20 white SD card on the right has both a processor AND a wi-fi radio built in.    It is a fun time to be a tech geek!