Notes For Me ( and You)

Although it is now starting to get cool, we are still enjoying veg from the garden. The zucchini are still producing and there are still carrots and potatoes left. The fall lettuce are still too small to eat, except as thinnings, and the broccoli and cucumber are also still weeks away.

Next weekend I will put the cold frame out, and plant few more rows of lettuce under there – although I won’t need to bother covering it for a while, unless we get some serious cold weather earlier than usual.

Alex is making a strong recovery since his surgery ( he has a plate with 7 or 8 screws holding the various parts of his collar bone in place). He has a portable ultra sound machine that he has to use twice a day for 20 minutes to stimulate bone growth. Sounds kind of weird, but it is covered by insurance so it must have some kind of track record.

Things have been very busy, but I have finally got some time to write some stuff for this blog. The bad news is that I have this time while waiting in the reception area of Holy Cross Hospital. Behind me Alex is being preped for shoulder surgery to bolt his broken collar bone back into one piece.

A week ago he was playing pick up football when he flipped end over end after hitting someone who was kneeling on the ground. Jeremy, his roommat called us from the ambulance that was taking him to hospital. He saw a specialist on Tuesday, and the strong recommendion was for surgery. His clavical was actually broken in two places, with a small piece between.

Hopefully in a couple of hours he will be in better shape. He will be coming home with us for the weekend, but should be back at school on Monday.

On more conventional news, my fall garden is in good shape. Cauliflower, broccoli, and kohl rabi were planted as seedlings, and lettuce and rocket sown directly. The weather has turned gradually colder, but no frost as of yet.

Inside I have been playing around on the computer trying to get a weather simulation/model up and running. This is a real model, run nationally by “proper” weather folks. I expect it will be super slow on my own system, probably taking longer than real time – i.e. the model will take longer to run than the actual weather ! But it will still be kind of cool – and provide a reason to buy a faster system.

The model is the WRF
model has been developed by various agencies and all the code is freely available. Getting it all to compile correctly has been a challenge, but so far I am making progress. I have the pre-processor running, the actual forecast engine has been run once, and now I am working on the post processor stuff – to actually be able to get to see what has been calculated.

A nice weekend, weatherwise – and otherwise.  This was a quiet weekend on the sports front, with most sports  having a bye week due to the Jewish new year. Peter played on Thursday night – and this time Wootton won in overtime.

We had a nice time at a party for Nancy’s summer softball team. It was at a nice house out in Damascus – crabs, burgers, chicken, with lots other dishes and desserts.

I changed the oil on the van, and also changed the coolant – we have now had the “new” van for five years.

We did talk to Alex on Sunday night, hopefully the start of a regular phone call, and things are doing well for him. President Obama visited the campus l;ast week and there was a great exitement ( one of the pluses of going to a university so close to the nations capital).

Things have been busy on all fronts lately. A new boss at work has meant an outbreak of micro management and supervision, while on the home front all the fall activities are in full flow. Both Jake and Peter are playing football, with Jake also playing soccer. Add in guitar, church school , etc and it is easy to see why we are busy driving around.

Alex seems to be doing well at the University of Maryland, only 25 mile away in College Park. Perhaps I should say he is happy and enjoying the experience. How much studying is getting done ? We will wait and see.

The garden is enjoying a new burst of productivity now that things have cooled off a bit. The tomatoes are still coming, even if the plants look near death. I have pulled all the beans and planted broccoli and cauliflower in their place. New seeding of lettuce and rocket will go in this weekend, sown in such a pattern as to allow the installation of the cold frame later in the season.

Last night, just as we were sitting down to watch Peter open his presents, Jake remarked that there was water on the wall of the kitchen. Oh Sh*!. Closer inspection revealed at least two spots on the ceiling where water stains could be seen and one was positively wet.

I knew this might happen. We have seen a few drips coming from the pipes in the basement. In our area there is a known problem with pin-hole leaks in copper pipes. There is some disagreement on the cause, but the most common explanation is a reaction between certain chemicals in the water and microscopic impurities in the copper pipe. For the pipes in the basement we have seen some degree of self healing. My guess is that the  the pin prick hole caused by the dissolving  impurity is then blocked by copper oxide or similar.

However in this case the ceiling will need to be repaired and once the drywall is cut out I will then cut out as much pipe as can be easily reached and replace with, heavy duty, copper pipe.  But it could happen elsewhere !

There are folks out there selling processes that coat the entire system with epoxy  from the inside – but that is very expensive ( but still less than re-piping the whole house)> For now we will fix this one and hope.

Two days before we launch Alex off to the University of Maryland. He is finally getting motivated to take care of the various loose ends we have been bugging him about – and we are getting a taste of the various extra expense over and above the tuition fees ( which are not too bad, given the in-state rate). New laptop, new printer, bunch of new clothes, mini-fridge, etc, etc..

Here is where he will be staying, Cumberland Hall.

One of the noisier nights last night – we had three ( at least) storm lines come through, waking everyone up. Jake had a hard time getting back to sleep – although at least part of it – he would never admit this – was nervousness about his football scrimmage set for this morning.

Alex is finally getting focused on the fact that this week he actually leaves home – and that there are things to do, parents to be taken advantage of, and time is running out. He did get his new Macbook computer yesterday – combination graduation present/ thing he needed for school – and is thrilled with it. I’ve never been exposed to Apple stuff before, but it seems perfect for someone like Alex who is really not interested in learning “techy” things. He got it up and on the wireless network, webcam operating, etc, etc.. with no instruction from anyone.

Peter had the first football scrimmage of the year last night, and he played quite a bit – at least half the game at right guard. Jake plays football this morning, after playing soccer last night until the dark clouds and lightning ending play.

Today was the first day of serious “football” – not the round ball type – practice for Peter. These are the infamous “two-a-days” with the first session from 7:30 am to 10 am and then a second session from 5 pm until 7:30 or so. At least this avoids the heat of the day. There is, correctly, major emphasis on keeping the boys hydrated.

Jake has also been to his first practice for the middle school team, which is set up as a feeder for the Wootton squad, playing the same plays, running the same offense.

Hopefully this weekend I will find time to get the veg garden back into shape after the neglect of the long vacation. The potatoes, which looked rather weak before the holiday, seem to have died off completely. I hope that the actual tubers themselves are OK in the ground.

The weather is dry and rather warm and humid. The first named tropical storm of the season has formed in the Atlanta – TS Ana.

With the swimming season wrapping up tonight with the end of season banquet, we are offically in mid-summer. Mid, that is as in between swimming and football. This is our best slot for a vacation and we will be heading off for a few days shortly.

Only problem with vacation this time of year is that the garden is just coming into full flow. This means that our designated water person will be amply rewarded for coming by every other day.

So far the report on the garden would be bush beans A, pole beans B-(growing well, but the pods become too seedy too quickly). Tomatoes – still to early to tell, same with cucumbers and squash.

It has been a dry July – after all the rain before – but the past few days have once again brought on the afternoon storms to freshen up the rapidly browning grass.

This is the peak of the outdoor swim season, with various meets almost every day for a few days. Here in Montgomery County we are fortunate to have what is believed to be the most competitive, most heavily supported, summer swim season probably anywhere. Each neighborhood pool fields a team with boys and girls from 6 or 7 years old up to 18 year old, many of whom have been of at college for a year. The points scored by the 7 year old count just as much as the 18 year old! The really cool thing about the culture in which these swimmers grow up is that you are never to good to swim for your local pool.

This weekend Jake was (un)fortunate to be going head to head – actually head to chest would be more accurate, since this kid, Jack Conger, is at least 6 foot tall at 14 years old – with the USA national record holder ( 13-14) in 200 meters back. Who held the record before – a certain Michael Phelps! Of course Jake lost – big time – but if this youth goes on to fulfill his potential, we may be watching him on the TV soon.

Great weather for all this swimming – not too hot, and the cycle of constant storms we were in for a few weeks has stopped. I actually have had to water the garden now.