The King of Somewhere Hot

The water heater circuit board came today, and I spent a couple hours putting it in tonight. The rubber foam I got to put behind it wasn't going to work out because it held the big transistors away from their heat sinks. So I fashioned a shield of sorts from a ziplock bag, poking holes in it where wires needed to go through. Also needed to re-shape some of the connectors that had gotten stretched and wouldn't grip tight to the contacts.

Vicki went out and got Oki Mama's for dinner, so I stopped and ate that (it was very good, thanks, sweetie!)-- then went through one final check, and ran through the circuit board matching instructions, and bam! Hot water.

I'll always appreciate hot water coming out of the tap from now on. After 12 days without it (except for the camp shower and whatever we heated up on the stove)... a full, real shower in the morning will be nice.

Ryan and I went on walkabout on Sunday. This time we got video of starting a fire with a fresnel lens. It's 47 megabytes so I won't post it here ... until I can shrink it down, anyway. It had snowed about 4 inches. That pretty, sparkly cold, dry snow that blows around. So it was a nice hike in. On the way in we ran across an interesting print in the snow. It took a couple of seconds, but it was obviously the landing spot of a turkey, and you could see his tracks away from it. The tail feather imprint gave it away.

The cold has broken for now. We've been way below normal for about the past 5 weeks. This week it's going to be in the upper 50's and maybe low 60's during the week. We've had some sleet and/or snow on the ground for pretty much that whole period. Most of it's gone already except for the piles pushed up by the plows.

Been playing with the doubler on my Digital SLR with the Tamron 28-300 and my old Vivitar screw-mount 75-260. I'm going to have to try it with the tripod. I've had mixed results. I don't think it's going to do well with the Tamron past about 260 or so, though. I'm not finished experimenting, though.

All this talking with Megan has me kind of psyched about photography again. Don't think I'll ever make a living at it like I'd like to, but I'd at least like to be a good amateur someday.

Speaking of amateur, I'm doing as well as I'd ever hoped with the guitar. Not great, not even really good, but good enough to sit and have fun and pick things out -- simple things - pop, rock, folk, a little bluegrass and country stuff. Still strumming and pattern-picking chords with a few walks and flavor-fingering, and I'm still going to Lee Ruth and he keeps me honest and makes me practice better technique. Thumb joint on my left hand hurts a bit. Think I'm going to have to start exercising it.

Oh, and the rest of me. I think my elbows are healed. The excuses are gone.