Nagel Family Website

I got a lot done this weekend, which is good because I hate wasting life away doing nothing.

On Friday, I got some pool chemicals & took off the winter cover - the water was BLACK. Remember back in October we had a little storm? Well, that threw tree branches through the winter cover, allowing leaves & other stuff in the water. We tried cleaning it in November, but didn’t have enough time. However, since the pump wasn’t hooked up, I couldn’t do anything with it.

On Saturday Mr. Bishop & I hooked the solar heater up to the pool. I think it’s going to work great, since I burned my hand on the roof while up there. The temperature up there was at least 120°, if not as high as 140. There are now 72, 1/4″ black tubes that carry the water along the roof, heating up before going back into the pool. Photos coming soon. Of course, we get that hooked up, pump going, and a hose breaks - after all the pool stores are closed. So I had to stop the pool from draining into the backyard, and turn off the pump.

Since Mr. Bishop helped me on Saturday, I went up to the cottage on Sunday with Jason and helped cut the grass & dig up a new garden. Nothing mind-blowing… just lots of manual labor. We did, however, find a stone path leading to the cottage that’s at least 35 years old, since Mom Bishop doesn’t remember it being there, but we dug it up while putting in the garden. That slowed us down a bit. Can’t wait for harvest time to eat the veggies that we worked so hard to get planted.

We got home Sunday just in time to fix the pool, get the pump turned on again, and watch it POUR outside. I figured (incorrectly) that it’d take 3″ of water to fill the rain barrel. Here’s what I thought:

It’s a 58 gallon barrel
58 US gallons = 13 398.0001 cubic inches
My roof (back 1/2) is about 20 feet by 30 feet. That’s 600 square feet, or 86,400 square inches.

That’s where I screwed up the first time… I took 600 * 12, not 600*12*12. So now,

13,398 / 86,400 = 0.155. Really, it only takes .16, or far less than a quarter inch of rain to fill the barrel. Needless to say, after yesterday’s rains, the barrel was overflowing & I switched the bypass on & put the water into the storm sewer. And now I have 58 gallons of rainwater stored up, ready to use for the lawn & gardens.

The pool is now a blue-gray color, with just a few leaves in the middle that need to be scooped out. We should be swimming in there next weekend, if the weather’s nice!

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 8:49 am and is filed under Energy, Family, Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Well, a bit surprising, but the Oregon Scientific THWR288A Waterproof Floating Pool and Spa Thermometer is dead. It seems that it can’t quite handle the heat of the hot tub plus the motion from the jets. So, the hot tub temperature will be reporting 0 until it’s successor, the Oregon Scientific THC268 Remote Temperature Sensor, arrives.

As for the pool, I think it’s OK for now because there are not too many waves in the pool. However, that will change come summer, so I may order 2 of the THC268 sensors. Speaking of the pool, my solar heater should be here today, although I don’t think we’ll get the pool open until June, because of all the activities we have in May. Not like we’ll need it before June… although it should hit 80 today, I’ve seen snow on Memorial Day, so we’re not exactly in summer yet.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 10:59 am and is filed under Outdoors, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I’m not very focused right now, so I figured I’d do a brain dump here.

Lost is ending in 2010 - as I read this, I wondered how ABC decided to continue this show after the pilot. I mean, if you watch just Episode 1, could you imagine what the writers had in store? The writers must have shared a lot more than 1 episode. And who knows the real ending? How many people know for sure, and how are they keeping so quiet?

Completely changing subjects, Jason and I went camping with Steve and Ray this weekend. Some photos are here, but Steve and Ray have more that I’m waiting to get from them. We had a good time, and found a few geocaches. Ray’s hooked, and getting a GPS unit for himself. I’m still learning, and learned to print the hint and last 5 log entries when I go, so I have some more clues as to where to find them. It’s real disappointing hiking 1/3 of a mile, up a hill, off the path, only to not find anything after 20 minutes of searching. Of course, that was exhausting, and today I feel like crap.

I’m so fed up with Geiger Brothers Construction. If you’re looking for a contractor, don’t hire them. Ever. They did my roof 3 years ago, and I had a leak near the chimney. OK - I’ll call them, they’ll fix it, I’ll pay them, and we’ll all be happy. So I called them, they called back - “yeah, we’ll be out in the next couple days. No, no charge… it’s part of the original service”. After at least 8 phone calls now and a BBB complaint, still nothing. Next steps? Hire someone else to fix it, then meet with Mr. Ken Geiger in small claims court with the bill from the other company. I’ll never use anyone but Stockmohr for my roofing, siding, windows & doors. They’re getting my business later this year for new windows. Too bad they don’t do roofing repairs. Sure, they may cost more, but you get what you pay for.

This week is crazy-busy, with Scout going to the vet, me to the dentist, 3 (yes, three) Cub Scout events, meeting w/ the financial advisors, all while trying to get some work done and heading into Mother’s Day weekend. UGH.

Well, I think I dumped enough out of my head to get to work. Hi ho, hi ho….

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Family, LOST, Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Since 6AM on Sunday, my internet connection has been buggy, at best. At least I wasn’t the only one, but waking at 6AM on a Sunday, only to find I have no connection, didn’t make me a happy camper.

Speaking of being a happy camper, looks like the weather this weekend will be perfect when Jason, Steve and I go camping at Letchworth. I’m really excited about this trip, mainly because the weather looks perfect. While it’ll be cold at night (in the high-30’s or low 40’s), at least it’ll be sunny & dry (well, not sunny at night, but still dry).

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 8:45 am and is filed under Outdoors, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I spent some time this weekend finishing the installation of the weather station; I put the outdoors temperature sensor out, and the rain gauge, and the wind-thingy (technically, an Anemometer, but I just call it a wind-thingy).

It collected data, I moved things around, re-calibrated the Anemometer, so now it’s reporting what’s really going on outside, and moved the front-porch sensor to the back deck. I also reset everything, since the “outdoors” data that was collected last week was really my office.

I’m also uploading my data to wunderground.com; my station is known as KNYKENMO2. While that’s neat, I like the google maps page of WNY weather stations better. Right now, I’m the only station w/in the 190/290 loop of Buffalo that’s reporting data.

Later this week, I’ll enhance the weather page of my site, to show more data. As for now, I’m just going to watch the wind-thingy to make sure it’s reporting where it’s pointing, adjust that as necessary, and let it collect data for a while.

This entry was posted by Eric on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Outdoors, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I got a new toy today: a Oregon Scientific WMR-968. I chose this weather station because the sensors are wireless, and solar powered (so I don’t have to constantly maintain them with changing batteries). I added a couple Floating Pool and Spa Thermometers (for the pool and the hot tub). I may add this shelf, if I can’t find a good place for the rain gauge. Right now, all of the outdoor sensors are sitting in my attic, since it’s raining out, and I’m not going to try to put them up in this weather.

You can see some data reported on the sidebar:

As of Apr-16 3:44, it’s 64.04° in my office; the swimming pool is 38.84°, but the hot tub is 95.36°

Once this present storm passes, I’ll get the outside sensors mounted and reporting, and send my data to wunderground.com.

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Outdoors, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.