Bogieblog

Two Deering Icons Pass

I lived in Deering, NH for about 25 years. I attended almost all town meetings and knew of a lot of the people in town. In the last two weeks, the free local (weekly) paper, The Messenger,  has had death announcements for two prominent residents.

The first one was Nancy Cowan. She was town clerk and tax collector for 15 years. She started the NH School of Falconry after she retired from town office. Interestingly, she was born in Kansas.

There was a facinating multi-page write up of her life in the newspaper below (pdf)

Download Messenger Nancy Cowen deceased downloaded 1-22-2022

 

In this week's Messenger, a former neighbor, Ed Naile is deceased. I used to take care of his and his wife's animals when they were away. They had a dog, Mocha, along with sheep, sometimes chickens and sometimes goats.

 

The above is the total write up, but thought I would share the entire paper as well (pdf)

Download Messenger Ed Naile deceased downloaded 1-30-2022

Boosted

Last Sunday I made the trek up to Concord, to a state run site to get my J&J booster. No particular reason, my work does not require it, just decided to do it (and no, I don't care if anyone else is immunized, much less boosted).

When I requested the J&J booster, the staff mentioned that it is recommended to get one of the other shots as a booster. In fact, the paperwork I had to fill out never allowed for the possibility that the person had taken the J&J vaccine as the original shot. It told me I had to have "both" shots in order to get a booster and questions were worded in such a matter that I had to answer "no" to them, even though it should have been yes in order to satisfy the intent (I scribbled explanations beside those answers). Anyway, I said, "No thank you" to getting one of the other vaccines as a booster. I did well with the first J&J shot, so want to stay with what I know. I'm not convinced that the mRNA tech is the way to go and the J&J uses older tech that is used for such things as flu shots, so I am just more comfortable with it.

Still, the J&J is not "proven" as safe, but then all the shots are still basically in trials. This can be shown by the fact that the CDC contacts me daily to see how I am feeling and if there are any side effects, just as they did with the first shot. I have never had the CDC interested in any other shots I've taken. I don't mind so much that I am basically a guinea pig, but it would be nice if they stated that up front so the general public fully understands that.

And, just because it bugs me after constantly hearing "the vast majority of hospitalizations happen in unvaccinated people", here is a little tidbit that I heard on the local news the other day.

So if you take the fully vaccinated (which now means boosted - and who knows if it includes those that only use J&J because no one talks about it) and add in the partially vaccinated (which could mean 1 or two shots of the big two, or maybe 1 or possibly boosted with J&J shots), that equals 39.2% - which is not so far off from the 44.9% of unvaccinated persons to warrant a "vast majority" ruling. If you insist on keeping the full versus partial separated, those stats seem to indicated that you are better off as partially vaccinated as opposed to being fully vaccinated. And then there is that 16% of unknowns - that could include people who have had the J&J if people are as confused as I was on how to classify the J&J.

If anyone is interested, here is the state run Dashboard on vaccinations. It loads extremely slowly, which is standard for PowerBI reports (I hate them - we use them a lot at work and it is not uncommon to wait up to 5 minutes to have one load).

Like a Mini Sun

I was perusing the FHC forum last weekend, when I ran across a post asking about if anyone had tried Tri Burst lighting for use in their shop. So, I had seen them before and thought about trying them in the basement stove room, but had gotten no further than thinking about it.

The stoveroom has one light bulb which is set way over by the wall. It is "good enough" for most things, but doesn't give any light where needed when I'm cleaning the P61a out, or when I am having the boiler or DHW heater serviced. In the back of my mind I had a plan to "one day" get an electrician in to add another light to that area, as well as additional lighting where the washer and dryer are.

Well, I did a bit of research and wasn't impressed by what I read about the Tri Burst, but found a GE Ultra Bright LED light that had good reviews. Since I was going to Concord that day anyway, I decided to drop by and grab one.

Here is what it looks like with a regular bulb. Tried to take a picture of the water heater area, but it is dark enough back there that the camera adjusted for it - so a picture would not have shown the difference (unless I wanted to photoshop, and I don't). You can see I placed a motion activated battery light over to the left to help lighting, but it activates when Spot goes in there for the stove warmth and I go thru a lot of D-cell batteries.

This is with the GE construct - much brighter

The phone didn't need to manipulate the lighting - nice and bright by the water heater

The controls at the bottom of the construct. the H/L/M is to change the brightness between 3kn 5k and 85 lumens. I later changed it to having the sensor on so I don't have to pull the cord.

I have the arms rotated out (having them aimed straight down was super bright) and then the lights at 90* in the pic. Afterwards I changed the configuration a bit to make it so I'm not blinded by the one arm if I come around the corner from the dryer side

This works so well that all I really need to do is move that light over to the center of the room instead of adding more lights.

More Cold and a Nor'Easter

Another morning of -12 on the 27th. Glad I'm not up in the White Mountains where I have seen pics of -28

The Nor'Easter that blew thru early yesterday morning thru late last night affected mainly the coast. The town grader made its 2 passes about 4:30 pm so I immediately suited up to go out and snow blow. Wind was whipping up pretty good (not nearly like now where snow is going sideways). I had on my balaclava and cold weather riding pants (from before I had heated gear), cold weather riding gloves, my Carhardt jacket and a baseball cap. Boots, interestingly enough are my almost knee high "fashion" snow boots. They are warm and grip better on ice than any other boots I have - including my mountain climbers.

The 4" of snow was so light that most of the time I had the snow blower in 5th gear. Naturally I slowed down for the berm from the grader, around the mailbox and around the fence gates, but other than that I was pedal to the metal all the way. Even did the drainage areas for when snow starts to melt. The only thing I didn't do was clean off the Explorer.

That was probably the fastest round of snow blowing I've ever accomplished at a little under an hour.

I see the town went thru in the wee hours this morning, so will need to go out and clean that up. The wind cranked up pretty good after dark last night and I watched snow being blown south at a horizontal, some of it being lifted up higher than the street lights. So, I will also need to clean up the additional snow that fell, plus wind driven snow. The ramp is covered with a couple inches of snow, which is impressive as that is the "protected" side as well as mostly being under the 3' eave.

A Little Chilly Here

Yesterday was the coldest temperature of the 2021-2022 winter season so far.

Despite a couple of days in the hi 30's since the snow and ice storm last week, the ground level has stayed cold enough that no snow has melted. Visual representation of snow stuck to the foundation (it was wet when it hit). There is a shelf of snow that I shoveled off the ramp that can be seen between between the rails on the ramp. Pictures taken Friday, but it has not budged since then.

Now, if it were near the ground, it wouldn't be surprising that it is still there, but it is a couple of feet above ground, with about 3 rows of concrete foundation block showing beneath it.

This section is along the east wall in the basement, and encompasses part of the work shop as well as the room that the boiler, DHW heater and the big pellet stove are housed in. It seems to demonstrate that I got that part of the basement well insulated. Each room was insulated differently;

• The workshop was insulated with 1" rigid foam board then R13, then sheet rock this used 3" lumber for framing on top of the rigid foam.
• The stove room was insulated with 1" rigid foam, with Reflectix and a 1" gap to the sheet rock.This used 1" metal strips on top of the rigid foam/reflectix combination.
• The sill to both rooms was stuffed with regular insulation that is thick enough to cover the tops of the foundation blocks.
• The ceilings are not insulated.

So the stove room, using the foam / reflextix combo, uses a smaller footprint for the insulation, but seems to work just as well as the thicker combo of foam /R13. 

Doesn't really mean anything to the average person, just found it interesting

Where do Raindrops Go?

Cop Car sent the family This "pretty cool visual representation of where a drop of rainwater travels and where it ends up". So I tried it from my place, and this is what I got:

Interestingly, a raindrop goes north to Concord before heading back south, then hits Lowell, MA before truly heading east and again north to get to the Merrimack River estuary into the sea (100.7 miles) . When I clicked on my place, it made the starting point the North Branch River in Hillsboro. But, the North Branch dumps into the Contoocook, which is 4 blocks (and downhill) from me, so the trip of the raindrop is really about 3 miles shorter.

 

Warm Spot

I've been running the mini splits for main floor heat when the outside temps are conducive (which can mean anything including how windy it is or how cold I "feel"). Friday was one of those days. The basement pellet stove must not have run for a while so Spot found a new warm place to hang out for a while.

 

Too Funny - But Basically True

On FB Marketplace this morning - funny, but sadly, about right. We have such a housing shortage that it isn't funny.

 

 

Not Fair Weather Riders

We had a snow event yesterday (as did a lot of the eastern seaboard, but that didn't stop some from riding

The first was featured on ulocal and shared by a local news anchor. This was taken in Portsmouth, NH

This was taken from a news report in Fall River. MA and shared to New England Riders group

 

Package Arrived

The package that bypassed me, finally made it here after going from MA back to the NH/VT border.

The butter dish is way more ornate than I need for everyday use, but at the same time, not as ornate as some of those out there. The challenge was to find a USA made dish, that wasn't plastic and wasn't, in my eyes, not aesthetically pleasing. I would have been happy to find a plain white ceramic dish for which the cover had a handle (as my old one was), but all I could find were with plain covers.

Plastic to me usually still feels a bit greasy/oily after washing. I do keep the wrapper on the butter so don't have to wash very often, which is good since the top isn't dishwasher safe. This piece of art is made by a "local" artisan.

I should have taken the pictures on a different surface to better show off the colors, but you get the idea.