Just Let Me Drive the Damn Thing Home!

Adventures with Automotive Repairs

Over the weekend, I installed some new ball joints and a new head unit in my Jeep. I was enjoying driving my Jeep, so I decided to drive it to work.

When I got into town, I noticed that I needed fuel, so I stopped at the local Speedway and filled up. Since I use a gas card to pay for my fuel every month, I like to stop the pump at some increment of $0.25. It just makes the balance on the card "neat." Sometimes that means pumping a few more cents into the tank after it's automatically shut off.

Well, I missed the mark a few times and wound up putting about $1 more in after the "click." I noticed that I had a bit of overflow that dripped onto the pavement at the gas station.

Another thing about this Jeep: It has had a small fuel leak for the last couple months. This leak has never been severe, and it would only leak when the engine was running. It was on my list of "things to fix," but not at the top since it was such a minor leak.

I then drove the Jeep over to the parking lot at Hoyt Hall on the campus of Miami University (Ohio) where I work. I parked in a slanted parking space so that the Jeep was slanted toward the driver side. Because of the extra fuel in the tank, and the fuel leak, it started dripping. I figured it would drip for a little while and then stop. After I had been in the building for about 30 minutes, an email arrived telling me that my Jeep was leaking fuel and that the police had been called. I immediately picked up my keys to head to the parking lot. I planned to move the Jeep to a level parking space, and if the fuel leak did not stop, I was going to bring it home.

NOT.TO.BE.

When I got out there, the police were already on-site.

I approached the cruiser and told the officer that I was aware of the leak and that I was just going to take the vehicle home. He would not let me.

"Gasoline is explosive," said the officer in an "official" tone. "I can't allow you to drive the vehicle with it leaking fuel."

I explained that as soon as the vehicle was leveled out, it would stop leaking on the pavement, and then I could safely drive it since the leak will stop. He refused.

About that time, the shift supervisor showed up. She also repeated the prohibition on moving the vehicle.  I also told her that if they just let me drive it home, it will be fine.

"Sir," she said in her version of the official tone, "It's an issue of liability.  What would happen if someone rear-ended you? What would happen if you had an accident? We (the police) could be held liable for letting you leave."

"Fine," I said, "I absolve you of any liability.  What do I need to sign?  I just want to leave."

"I can't do that. You're going to have to have it towed.  I've called the fire department to clean up the fuel spill."

I don't have AAA.  Some quick math tells me that it's going to cost well over $100 to have my Jeep towed from Oxford to Hamilton.  If the Jeep truly was unable to move, then I would have just sucked it up and dealt with it.  However, since I knew that simply moving the Jeep to level ground would alleviate the entire problem, I was rather miffed.

I started getting pretty upset about all this, and kept pleading with the officers to let me just drive it home. My frustration started to show in my vocal tone.

"Sir," said the male officer, "You're starting to take this to a place that you don't want to take it." His tone was very clear.  He was telling me "back off, or I'm going to place you under arrest."  I've heard this tone on many "COPS" episodes, so I know he meant it.  I calmed down a bit, but kept pleading.

After a few more attempts to get them to let me leave, I must not have calmed down enough. The male officer asked for my ID. Oh boy.  That made it worse.

I'm not the type of person who just hands over their identification just because the police ask for it.  There's got to be a good reason. I believe that my anonymity is precious, and unless there is a really good reason that I should have to give up my anonymity, I don't. I believe it's my civic duty to question the police and their motives. I think it provides balance.  Keeps them "honest," if you will.

"We need to record who we are dealing with," said the supervisor.

"You guys know me!" I exclaim. "I'm the guy who comes and fixes your computers.  You and I have worked together several times!"

"I recognize you, but I don't know your name," replied the supervisor.

"We are required to get ID from everyone we have an interaction with," said the male officer.

I thought about refusing.  I really did.  Like a chess grand master, I looked ahead several moves, and more than one move in a in confrontation over the ID had the possibility of leading to my arrest. That could jeopardize my employment at MU, so I decided that I'd save that battle for another day when the situation wasn't so intimately connected with my employer. I handed him my ID and listened to him call in the driver's license number over the radio.

Around this time, the fire department shows up and spreads kitty litter all over the fuel spill, and puts a pile underneath the Jeep where the fuel is leaking. While this is going on, I call my mother and she calls AAA to come and get me using her policy.  I am very thankful that my Mom is willing to use her AAA benefits to help me.  This saved me well over $100.  Thanks, Mom!

After about five minutes of puttering around with the kitty litter, the fire department guy comes over and asks for some information.  Name, address, phone number.  I give him what he wants and they load up and leave.  I'm just thankful that they didn't come "lights and sirens." 

This whole situation seems really overblown.  It's just a little gasoline on some asphalt,. But now, there's me, a police officer, a police supervisor, a fire truck and 3 firefighters involved.  Oy vey.



Finally, after an hour of waiting, the tow truck arrived.  And, as I promised, as soon as it was up on the flatbed and level, the leak stopped.  Once I got the Jeep home, I spent the rest of the day draining the fuel tank and putting it into the Motorless Home's tank, I removed the fuel tank and repaired the leak.  I had to buy a whole new fuel pump ($159!!!!) since it was the pump assembly itself that was leaking.

I'll also make sure that I fill my gas tank away from Oxford. This way, it won't be "super full" when I am forced to park on a slope.

What a fiasco. I understand that the police have policies that they have to follow, but these policies are in place not because they make sense, but to protect them from a lawsuit should something bizarre and uncommon happen.

It's things like this about our society that really scare me. All I want is to have my personal freedom. Live and Let Live.  Whatever happened to allowing people to accept responsibility for themselves?  There are so many nanny laws on the books that are there to protect us from ourselves.  It makes me sick.

I just want to go to Texas, live off the land and be left alone.  Patience.....patience...

Restaurant Review: East Meets West Buffet and Grill

Exploring a new (to me) Chinese Buffet

I hadn't had Chinese food for a while, and sometimes I like to stop in at a Chinese buffet. I was over in the West Chester, Ohio area and spotted the East Meets West Buffet and Grill in a strip mall near the Home Depot.  I decided to give it a try.

I arrived at around 7PM. It was the middle of the week.  I figured this would be a good time to go.  Dinnertime, but not when they're likely to be totally slammed.

The place certainly had the standard "Chinese buffet" decor.  A large bank of buffet steam tables lay in the center of the room with lots of very attractive-looking specimens. I ordered my drink (water) and asked for some chopsticks.  I then headed up to the bar.

Plate 1: The Hot Table

I encountered a shrimp dish that looked good.  I could see some hot peppers mixed in, and so it was likely to have some zing.

Next to that, was an old stand-by.  General Tso's Chicken.  When done well, this dish will have some spice to it.  After all, it's supposed to be a dish from the Szechuan region, which is known for its picante bite.

Cruising around the bar, I next encountered some pot stickers.  These are rarely spicy, but often a pretty tasty thing to dip in the soy-ginger sauce that's always offered with them.

I returned to the table. My glass of water was there,  but there were no chopsticks.  I'm Caucasian.  I don't look Asian in the least.  So, I imagine that the waiter thought I was only kidding when I asked for chopsticks. Of course, there was no waiter to be found.  Luckily, I spotted the container of chopsticks on the waiter station and fetched a set on my own.

I tried the shrimp.  It had pretty good flavor.....except that it was barely even warm. Had this stuff been fresh, I would have really liked it a lot.  However, it's seafood, and lukewarm seafood is an invitation for another "Lesson in Microbiology."  So, I set it aside and moved on.

The General Tso's Chicken was sweet, but the heat was only barely perceptible.  I didn't hold this against them, since most Americans don't like hot stuff, so the cooks deliberately tone it down.  However, this stuff was only slightly warmer than the shrimp.  It was fully cooked, and warm enough to eat (and I was really hungry) so I ate it.

Next on the plate was the pot stickers.  I picked one up, dipped it in the sauce and popped it into my mouth.  My first impression was that they had done a good job with the soy-ginger sauce.  It was flavorful, but not too overpowering.  It actually seemed like it was hot! So, I proceeded to sink my teeth into the pot sticker.

CRUNCH!

WTF? Pot stickers are supposed to be firm, and browned on the bottom, but they are never supposed to be crunchy! I tried to chew up the crunchy part, but it had simply sat out for too long and gotten too hard. It was like trying to eat dried pasta. I spat the damn thing out.

Plate 2: Hibachi

In an effort to eat some shrimp that was not so cold that it was dangerous, I decided to take a run through their Hibachi station.  at least I was guaranteed a hot meal.

I chose lo mein noodles, shrimp, snow peas and bean sprouts along with their "house special sauce."

While speaking chinese with another employee, he stirred my food on the grill.  No flair.  No show.  Granted, this is no Benihana, but I'd expect at least a smile.  I didn't leave a tip in the jar.  Once he shoveled my food onto the plate, I returned to the table.

My reaction was "Meh."  The shrimp?  Overcooked.  This is a very common problem with a hibachi station.  It's very easy to overcook shrimp.  Even when my wife and I try to stop them and tell them that it's done, they usually look at us like we're nuts and just keep on cooking the bejesus out of it. I ate it anyway because it was actually hot and I was hungry.

Plate 3: Sushi

Next to the Hibachi bar was a sushi bar.  I usually don't go for sushi, but I thought "What the hell, I'm reviewing this restaurant, why not?" I picked up several items and a blob of wasabi and returned to the table.

I could not detect the sweetened rice vinegar.  This is one of the primary flavors I look for in sushi rice. I like the sweet acidity.  I enjoy their juxtaposition.  I've always liked the entire sweet/sour spectrum, and I was disappointed.  Even the wasabi was somewhat weak.  At least it made the rest of the items edible.

Bowls 4 and 5: The Soups

I was impressed by the large number of soups they had.  The selections included the "Chinese Buffet" stand by items of hot/sour, egg-drop, and wanton.  There were two others that aren't common.  Miso and Red Bean.

I probed the hot-sour soup.  It's often one of my favorites, because it is also in the sweet/sour spectrum that I enjoy.  However, this soup was over-thickened with corn starch, and didn't have many really authentic Chinese ingredients like cloud ear mushroom (to date, the only mushroom I will eat) and the little straw mushrooms. Instead, it had the usual bamboo slivers, baby corn and canned sliced mushrooms.  I decided to pass.

The wantons were in a separate steam table and they looked as crunchy as the pot stickers.  I left it alone, too. Like the hot/sour soup, the egg drop was also thickened far too much with corn starch. I couldn't eat it, either.

So, that left me with two choices. Miso soup and Red Bean Soup. I decided to try both.

 I was actually quite pleased with this Miso.  First, it was hot. Secondly, the ratio of seaweed to tofu was just right.  The flavor of the Miso broth was tasty and not too salty.  But most importantly, the seaweed was not mushy.  It had a little bit of "tooth" to it, giving just a little bit of crunch.

The Red Bean Soup was exactly what I thought it would be: sweet. In fact, I didn't finish this soup. I found it just too sweet to eat.  I like red bean paste in my dim sum, and I had never had a red bean soup before.  Perhaps this was a poor example, perhaps I just don't like red bean soup.

Plate 6: Dim Sum

I made another trip to the bar to explore their selection of dim sum.  They had pork siu-mai, pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, shrimp and asparagus dumplings and char-siu-bao (BBQ pork buns).

Unfortunately, none of these items were particularly hot.  They were warm enough to eat, so I dove in.

While the wrapper was a bit tough, the siu-mai was decent.  It certainly wasn't made in-house.  None of the dim sum was.  Because of this, it wasn't terribly special -- just like all the other dim sum I've tried, except that these had been left to sit out too long.

The pork dumpling was also not really all that much to write about.  there was a little bit of illegal crunchiness on the scalloped edge from having been out too long, but the flavor was just the same as any other pork dumpling.  Boooorrrring.

I moved on to the shrimp dumpling. It was going really well until I got to the part where it was gathered.  It was impossible to chew.  Since this wrapper is made from rice starch, it doesn't try out like the noodle wrappers you see on siu-mai and pot stickers. It got really gummy.  I just couldn't chew that part.  The rest of it actually tasted pretty good, though.

I then sampled the shrimp and asparagus dumpling.  It was hot.  The texture of the wrapper was perfect.  The flavor was shrimp-y and asparagus-y. I actually enjoyed this item quite a bit.  I hadn't had this particular type of dim sum before, so it was a welcome change in flavor.  Since I have nothing to compare it to, I can honestly say that it was the best example of one of these that I've ever had.

I saved the BBQ pork bun for last.  This particular dim sum item has got to be my A #1 favorite of all dim sum.  I sometimes even make them at home.  This specimen exhibited the very common "exploded" look that comes from the cooks taking frozen bao and microwaving them to get them hot.  The best way to deal with these when they are frozen is to allow them to thaw completely, and then gently steam them until they are at temperature.

Preparing them incorrectly doesn't affect their flavor, but it does affect texture.  When done right, these things are so incredibly yummy that I can't help but eat 3-4 of them.  This one tasted fine, although it wasn't as hot as I would have liked.

OK, Where's the "West?"

The place is called "East Meets West."  When I went in there, I expected it to be different than your average "Chinese Buffet."  It wasn't.  The "west" part was 2/3 of one hot bar that had your usual "found at the Chinese Buffet" American fare.  Pizza, mac-n-cheese, a roast beef, potatoes, etc. When I envisioned this place, I kinda thought I could get a steak cooked on the hibachi, or maybe even a freshly made cheeseburger.

Conclusion

I won't be returning to this place. First, had I been a health inspector, they would have been written up for low temperatures on at least 5-10 items on the bar.  The waiter did not bring the chopsticks, the bland hibachi attendant and the overall crappy food means that I won't be wasting my money here in the future.

Maybe I just caught them at a bad time.  But restaurants have to always be on their A-Game, just in case some blogger like me shows up with an appetite, a discerning palate and a camera.

Lessons in Microbiology

Recovering from a "Bad Bug"

It's been a week now since my last blog post.  Some of you may be wondering if I had dropped off the face of the planet.  Well, in a way, I did.  I discovered that my stomach happened to be the perfect incubation chamber for whatever-the-hell-it-was that was growing in the sliced ham that was in my refrigerator.

Around the beginning of April, I stopped at my local grocery and they had a really good deal on boneless whole ham. You know, the stuff that they take the bone out of and compress into a roughly (American) football shape.  I then took it to the deli and had them slice it up into lunch meat.

Linda and I have done this many, many times in the past. It's a really great way to save money on lunch meats, especially if you wait for it to go on sale for $1.69/lb.  We then have it sliced into a mix of lunch meat and ham steaks.  We then take it home and divide it up into smaller baggies and toss it in the freezer to preserve it.  This way, we can have sliced ham or ham steak when we want it.  Just grab some out of the freezer and thaw.

Well, since Linda was in the hospital recovering from her own "Lessons in Microbiology," I didn't take the normal step of dividing the ham up.  I just dropped it into a one-gallon zip-top bag and stuffed it in the refrigerator.  Over the next several weeks, I'd go into the stash and grab a handful of sliced ham and snack on it.

Well, that all came to a crashing end on this past Monday evening. Like I had been doing all month, I grabbed some ham and sat down in the living room and munched.  This was around 9PM.

Around 3AM, I woke with the worst belly ache I've had in years. I just lay there moaning.  Linda finally asks me if I'm OK.  I sit up..and the nausea hit.  It was really powerful.  I grabbed my trash can and let it fly.  Some might describe what I had as "projectile vomiting."  I think I would go further and use the word "tsunami."

When my alarm went off to wake me for work, I knew that there was no way I was going.  In fact, I was so out of my mind with sickness, the only words I was able to get out in an email to my boss were "Not coming. Very sick."

Between fitful sleeping and additional Trash Can Tsunamis, I spent the next 16 hours on the couch in my very own personal microbiological hell.  When I finally came up for air around 10PM, I was still running a fever, so I decided to stay home from work again.

I slept.  And I slept.  Finally, around 2AM, my fever broke. I spent the rest of the next day just recovering and went back to work on Thursday to play "catch up" on all the stuff I had missed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

NOTE TO SELF: Month-old ham is probably not safe to eat.

Just call me "Bob the Builder"

Adding a handrail to the basement steps

I brought Linda home from the rehabilitation facility today.  Her right ankle is still encased in the air cast, so she is limited to using a walker to get around.  Since our restroom is in the basement of our house, she needs to be able to navigate the basement stairs.

When we moved into this house in 2001, we noticed that there was no handrail on the basement stairs.  Up until now, we've always just braced against the wall as we went down.  This, of course, is fine if you have two fully functional ankles.

So, I took the day off work today to get some things done around the house, and I also installed a handrail.

One of the skills I need to improve before I go to Texas is woodworking. I always seem to screw things up.  So, when I decided to add this handrail, I really took my time to measure everything and think about it.

I eyeballed the lengths of stuff I'd need, figuring that the rail would need to be around 12'. So, I went to Menard's and picked up a 14' fir handrail, 14 handrail brackets, and a piece of 1"x8"x12'.

The 1x8 was to make a mounting plate for the rail.  I didn't want to mount the rail directly to the wall, since the plaster and lath might not hold as well with the smallish screws that came with the brackets. At the base of the stairs, there is a "window" in the wall that I would not want to run the base plate through, so I decided to cut the base plate and let the railing run without brackets across the window area.

I measured and thought about it.  I thought about it and measured it.  I made little drawings. I thought about it and measured it some more. Then I cut.  I took the pieces in. WHEW!  They fit!  Just like I thought they would.  Woot!

I then drilled pilot holes and countersink holes so the screws would go below the surface of the wood and screwed the backing plate to the wall.  In typical fashion, I did it "overkill" style, figuring that more fasteners are better than fewer fasteners.  That backing plate might as well have been welded to the wall!

I then hung the first and last of the brackets so I could determine the final length of the rail.  Then I measured and thought a little while more and then I cut. 

HOLY.COW. Two for Two.  It fit PERFECTLY. I then installed the rest of the brackets, also in "overkill" style. There is a bracket just about every foot along the length of the rail, except for where the railing crosses the window.

I'm really proud of how well this thing turned out.  It's very sturdy.  I bet I could stand on it without any damage.

Who Moved my Cheese?

My First Experiments in Cheese Making

One of the things that we will have to do when we are homesteading is to preserve the milk that we get from our goats.  Refrigeration will be limited, so we will only be able to keep a small supply of liquid milk on-hand. According to one of Linda's information resources, one milk goat nanny can produce 2 or 3 quarts of milk per day. So, we've decided that making cheese would be a good use for the excess.

After just a few moments of Googling, I stumbled onto a site designed for total cheese noobs like myself.

Cheese Making for Beginners

I read over the site, and it looks pretty easy to do.  When I went to get the rennet I'd need, I discovered that the recipe for the hard cheese that is included in the box was written by Dr. Frankhauser, who is the same guy who wrote these web pages.  That's encouraging!

Hard Cheese

I really want to learn how to make a cheese that can be stored without refrigeration. Granted, I'll need a cool place to store it, but as long as that space can be 50-60F, then I should be able to accommodate that once we get out to Texas, either by creating a cool-room with the geothermal loops, or by digging a root cellar.

I followed the directions on the package with one minor alteration.  Instead of using regular plain yogurt, I used Greek yogurt, which has active cultures, too.

I heated up the milk to the prescribed temperature of 65F and then stirred in the yogurt.  I left it to ferment for about 9 hours.  Then once it was smelling very "yogurt-y," I heated it to 85F and and then added 1/2 a rennet tablet, dissovled in a little water.

The instructions implied that I should get a clean break after a few hours.  Nope.  I wound up letting it sit for almost 18 hours and still was no closer to a clean break than I was when I started.  So, I went ahead and cut the curds anyway.  They promptly fell apart.

So, I put a clean white tee-shirt in the colander and poured the mess in, figuring I'd get the whey to separate by a long straining process.  once enough of the whey cad come out, I bundled the shirt up so I had all the curds in a ball.  I then put it in the refrigerator to drain overnight.

When I came out in the morning, it was quite a bit denser and I think actually ready to go into the home-made cheese press I made from a large can of ravioli.  I ate the ravioli in the interest of science and  to get a valuable tool for cheesemaking.  Burp.

After cutting both ends off the can and cleaning it thoroughly, I took the curds out of the shirt and put them in a bowl. I then added 1 tsp of fine canning salt and mixed it in.  While I was doing this, I thoroughly rinsed the t-shirt out and wrung as much of the rinsewater out as I could.

Next, I lined the can with the t-shirt material and put the curds in.  After folding the edges of the shirt over the top of the curds, I put one of the cut-off ends from the can on top and added a weight.  I used a jar of chili that I had canned a few months ago.

Now to wait again.  I put the press on top of a grid and placed the contraption on a plate in the frig. After leaving it in the press for 24 hours, I removed it and started the "refirgerator aging" process.  I wrapped it with a tea towel and let it sit overnight. 

When I got home from work, the bottom of the towel was wet, so it was time to change the "bandage." I re-wrapped it in a fresh, sterile tea towel and put it back in the refrigerator.  Now, I just need to wait for it to develop a rind.  I'll keep replacing the bandage when it gets wet...

Then the real question:  Do I cut into it to taste, or wax it and age it?  I think I'll plan to sample it, and prepare another set of curds to age.

Restaurant Review: Taquiera la Preferida

Adventures in Alternative Cuisine

This evening, I decided to try a new Mexican restaurant. The building used to be a Taco Bell restaurant, but  it's now been painted bright yellow, in the common "Mexican palette." Any place painted such hues must be aimed at the native Mexican population.  I just had to check this place out.

I went inside and ordered a water to drink.  While most Mexican restaurants serve chips and salsa, this place serves a homemade soup that is absolutely fantastic.  I didn't catch the name of the stuff, and I'm considering ordering just a big bowl of that stuff as my main entree sometime.

It has a wedge of avocado in it, and a hunk of radish. It's got a good helping of cilantro, which lends its characteristic flavor to the soup.  On the side, they give you a wedge of lime to squeeze into it, and a roasted chile pepper that you  crack open and dump into the soup.  This gives it a bit of heat, so if you're not a fan of the spicy side, skip the chile.  It also gives it flavor, but you can't separate that from the heat.


The waitress came over and I asked her what she recommended.  She pointed out their tortas, which are just big ol' honkin' sandwiches.  I really had a hard time selecting one.

I finally settled on The Cubana.  It has just about every meat known to man in there, and, despite the fact that it had no cheese, I ordered it anyway.

The waitress asked me if I'd like to try a margarita.  I've become rather disillusioned by restaurant margaritas over the last several years.  They always use a mixer that is REALLY sour. This is because the "frozen margarita" has become so popular. To serve a frozen drink, it needs to be much stronger in flavor because of the cold.  I, however, prefer a "proper" margarita, served over ice.  When you add this overly strong margarita mixer to "just ice," it is often so acidic that it gives me reflux.  No fun. 

So, figuring that I'd save some money, I told the waitress, "No thanks. The mixers everyone uses are way too acidic for a margarita."

"We don't use a mix here.  We blend all the ingredients ourselves."

Now that piqued my interest.  "OK," I said, "Bring me a margarita." A few minutes later, the waitress brought a very pretty drink to the table.

It sure looked good.  Then I tasted it and I was sure that it was. The alcohol was a bit strong, but I'm the oddball here; I generally like my fruity mixed drinks to taste more fruity than "alcohol-y."  I'd say that your average Joe would have found the alcohol level "just perfect."

Since I was still working on that fantastic soup, I didn't really have a lot in my stomach.  So, after a few sips of the margarita, I felt it.  So, I decided I'd back off and wait for my entree to arrive.

I didn't succeed completely. I had about a third of it gone by the time my entree arrived.

Right about the time I was extracting the last bit of goodness out of the bowl of soup, the waitress returned with my sandwich. Good lord, they should have brought that thing on a forklift!  Maybe they call it "The Cubana" because it's the size of Cuba!

This sandwich is utterly colossal. It's almost all meat! There are some veggies in there like onion, lettuce, tomato and some jalapeno peppers.

I picked it up. I actually had a hard time getting my mouth around it.  After a couple of test bites, I found the proper angle and sunk my teeth in.

It gave a really satisfying crunch.  The bottom layer of meat was pan-fried, so with that and the lettuce, it gave a really good mouth feel.  With all those meats, it would have been easy for it to be a mush-fest.

It wasn't really that spicy at all.  In fact, if you omitted the jalapenos, even people who can't stand spicy picante flavors would be able to handle this sandwich. Providing, of course, that they are able to unhinge their jaw like I did to get this thing into my mouth.

The entire time I was eating it, parts of the sandwich were raining down onto my plate. I didn't worry.  Even with the loss of a lot of the sandwich's bulk due to gravity, there was still plenty in the sandwich to satisfy any appetite. I actually managed to eat the entire thing.  Then, I got to enjoy the "gravity salad" that was on my plate.  Yum.

I was about to roll myself out of the place when the waitress returned and asked if I'd like dessert.  She told me they had flan.  Now, flan is just a special case of vanilla custard, and I love custard. Generally, after a meal of that size, I pass on the dessert.  However, for some reason, I ordered the flan.

The presentation was interesting. They had drizzled chocolate sauce over it and put a dollop of whipped cream on top.  It really was very pretty, but I'm a custard purist.  I would have preferred the flan not have those two additions.

However, even with the chocolate and whipped cream, it was a delightful desert.  The texture of the custard was firm, but very smooth.  Many times, a restaurant will cook a custard too quickly, and it will develop a grainy texture.  Not this time.  It was like vanilla-flavored silk on my tongue.

When it was all done, I went to the register and my bill came to $24.57.  Considering that I had a full meal that could easily have served two or three, and a margarita, I felt that it was an overall good value.

The authenticity of this place is really good.  They don't serve ground beef.  That was an American addition to Mexican cuisine in the states.  If you want beef, you get sliced steak.  They have carnitas as well as a marinated pork, lamb, chicken and even beef tongue.  I will definitely return.  I can't go all the time due to the expense, but it was well worth it.

This ain't no Taco Bell anymore.

Beating the Heat in the Texas Desert

I often get some good ideas from Earthbag Building Blog. Check out this video featuring Owen Geiger about how to beat the heat without using any energy.

I have already planned to use most of these ideas in the design of the HexHouse.  He talks about using a small amount of space at the top of each wall with some screening material to allow heat to escape. My design puts that venting at the peak of the roof, so that there is always a flow of air.

I like the idea of using the casement windows as "scoops." I still plan to have some fans and other cooling technologies in our house, but anything we can do to get cooling for free is a great idea!

Trial and Error

Building a Prototype Solar Oil Heater

 

This past weekend, I spent a few hours in Home Depot, Lowes and Harbor Freight gathering materials for a prototype of my solar oil heat design. I then spent the rest of the weekend (apparently neglecting my wife) working on assembly and testing.

 

The Theory

The basic idea I had for this was to heat mineral oil which would be stored in an insulated container. Then, I would put coils of copper tubing submerged into the oil to make hot water, and use a second pump to circulate the hot oil through a heat exchanger that I blow air over to make hot air. By using heat stored in oil, I could make hot water and hot air even when the sun was not shining, by extracting the stored heat out of the oil.

 

The design is to pump mineral oil through black tubing of some kind that is in a box that is covered with Plexiglas. This would heat the oil in the sun and then circulate it into the insulated storage vessel. the pump will be powered by its own solar cell, so that the pump automatically starts at sunup and stops at sundown.

 

The Protype Design

The protoype design varied a little from the ideal, since it was more of a proof-of-concept than a true full-scale prototype. In order to keep costs down, I decided to use garden hose that was painted black, and used motor oil instead of mineral oil.

 

Here's the list of materials I picked up:

• 2 1"x4"x8', cut in half (they will cut it for free)
• 1 1"x2"x8, also cut in half
• 1 4'x4' piece of plywood
• 150' of garden hose
• Several clamp-on garden hose ends
• 12 5-pack bags of 3/4" PVC Pipe clamps
• 2 cans of rubberized black body undercoating
• Various metal brackets
• Caulk
• Screws
• 2.5 Gal cooler
• 30' of 1/4" copper tubing
• 2 pieces of 24"x48" Plexiglas (they did not have a 48"x48" piece)
• 12v fluid pump from Harbor Freight.

  

The Build

After gathering my materials, I made a frame from the 1x4s and put the plywood on the back. I added one of the pieces of 1x2 to add some rigidity.  I drilled 2 holes in one of the 1x4s to allow the hose to enter and exit.

Next, I sprayed the inside with the undercoat material to give it a dark, flat black color. While I waited for the undercoat material to cure, I untangled and straightened the garden hose so that it would be easier to coil up inside the box.

I then spent the next several hours battling the hose to coil it up inside the box and keep it flat.  I used the PVC pipe straps every couple feet to keep it where I wanted it. 

 

Part-way through the build with 100' of hose installed.

Once that was done, I put female ends and cutoff valves on the hose ends that were sticking out of the box. I then sprayed the hose with the undercoat material to make it black, as well. I then added another crosspiece and used the caulk and brackets to secure the sheets of Plexiglas.

The completed collector

I connected the pump and ran the lines into the cooler.  I filled the cooler with used motor oil and inserted a digital thermometer into the oil.

Since the whole point of this exercise was to make hot water, I took 30' of 1/4" of copper tubing, coiled it up and submerged it in the oil.  I added hose connections to the end of the tubing using some compression fittings. 

I got out my battery charger, and got ready to fire it up.

 

The Test

When I powered up the pump, it ran but did nothing. The pump got REALLY hot.  It was clear, that despite the fact that the Harbor Freight pump claimed to be self-priming, that it was not.  So, I removed the hose from the discharge side and poured some oil into the pump.  Naturally, this made a huge mess, and I promptly knocked the cup containing the oil over and leaving a puddle on the floor.

Once primed, the pump started moving oil. It was clearly not pumping 200GPH, like it claimed.  Perhaps that was due to the increased viscocity of the oil, or perhaps it was damaged when it got so hot.  The flow rate was acceptable to me for this test, since having the oil move through the heat collector more slowly will allow it to collect more heat.

 

It was already 3pm by the time I got it set up, and it was definitely raising the temperature of the oil! It got up to about 80F by 7pm.  Since I got started so late in the day, I was not too worried about it.

 

I came out the next morning, and the oil had cooled to 61F. Since I had to go to work, I connected the battery charger and left for work. When I got home at about 4:30pm, the temperature was up to 130! I was quite happy.  My neighbor, who has taken some interest in the project, told me that he checked the temperature at about 12:30pm and it was 153F.  That was really encouraging! I left the pump running and went to run some errands.

When I returned at 7:30pm, the temperature had fallen to 80F. It was cooling off a lot before the sun was even down.  

 

The Results

So, it seems that using the garden hose was a bad idea.  The rubber in the hose was acting as an insulator against the heat of the sun. I had picked garden hose because it's cheap, and I thought it would work. I had remembered that when I was a kid and went to get a drink out of the garden hose in the summer, that the water was often quite hot, and you had to wait several seconds to flush the hot water out before you drank.

 

The vessel for the oil didn't hold the heat. Maybe that was because the lid was propped open a little, and maybe because the cooler isn't designed to keep hot things hot.

 

No experiment is really a failure.  Often, getting a negative result can be far more useful than a positive one. Whlie I was unable to get the oil hot enough for long enough to heat water, I've now got a lot of good data about which parts of this design work and which parts don't.

 

The hottest I was able to get the oil was 150F, and that was only for a very short time.  I need to be able to get the oil to that temperature more quickly than this design did, and I need to devise a better hot oil storage tank that will keep the oil hot.  I'm thinking of using copper tubing in the collector and a couple of trash cans, one nested inside the other with spray-foam insulation (the densest I can find) between them.

 

Conclusion

I think that from a learning perspective, this was a success.  I learned a lot about what is needed to make this system work.  I was trying to avoid the expense of copper pipe, but after some additional research and discussions with others, I think that the next step in this design is to use copper for the heat collector.

I'm looking into trying to find an old satellite dish (one of the 6' ones) and attaching the copper tubing to it. If I can also get hold of a tracking motor, I can set the dish to track the sun and get maximum heating.

So, stay tuned for Version 2!

Yeah, I'm a Smart-Ass

How to Visit your Wife when She is Tucked Away in a Nursing Home

I have been working on a number of things lately, and despite the fact that I visited Linda on Friday evening, she was feeling neglected by the time I arrived on Sunday evening to visit with her again.

During our conversation, I mentioned that I had been shooting video for an upcoming blog post about solar oil heat storage, and she said "You should shoot a video about how to visit your wife when she's tucked away in a nursing home."

So, I did.

Advice and Tips on Raising Chickens

Advice and Tips on Raising Chickens

Linda and I plan to raise livestock when we get out to Texas. I found this article about raising chickens to be rather interesting.

Since Linda and I are total noobs when it comes to raising farm animals, some of the tips that this author shares are nice -- I probably would have been chasing the chickens all over the yard!

"Sherman, Fire Up the Wayback Machine!"

A Classic Post Copied from Facebook

I'm reposting this story to my blog because it's just too funny. On my 37th birthday (July 23, 2011), I posted this to Facebook.

I was out driving around today when I stopped at the intersection of River Road and Nilles (that's NILL-iss for the non-locals) in Fairfield, Ohio, when I saw this sign.  It said "We Buy Hoses," and left a phone number of 278-7405. 

So, I decided to teach the guy a lesson in proofreading.  I called and left a voicemail.


"Hi, my name is Chad and I just saw your sign at the corner of River Road and Nilles.  I wanted to let you know that I was extremely interested, since I have several hundred feet of hose that I don't need anymore and didn't know what to do with it.  If you're interested in my hose, please call me back."

Well, I figured that would be the end of it..after all, I made it clear that I was not selling a dwelling.  I guess the guy is so greedy to low-ball someone for a house that he did not listen to my voicemail.  He called me back.


(ring ring) "This is Chad."


"This is Jim.  You left me a message about one of my signs?"


"Yes!  Thanks for calling me back so quickly!  I never knew that there was a market for used hose.  I've got a ton of it that I don't know what to do with."


"What? I think that's supposed to say 'houses.'"


"OOOOOOH.  I'm sorry.  I thought you were buying HOSES."


"I'm sure it says 'houses,' its just that you can't see it."


"No, we looked at it very carefully," I said.  "It says HOSES. We see the signs all over town for HOUSES, but never saw one for HOSE.  And I thought that I finally had someone to sell all this extra hose to."

"OK.  Sorry for the confusion."


"Yeah, you might want to fix that sign so nobody else thinks the same thing...Thanks for your time!"
(click)


So, I ran back over and took a picture to share with all of you.  If you are as equally (or more so) appalled at the degradation of our English language, and the utter disregard people have for proofreading, I encourage you all to call this guy to sell him some "hose."

Within an hour, the sign was gone.  One of my coworkers called the guy and asked if he wanted HORSES. 

What a hoot.