Yearly Archives: 2005

homemade playdough

Posted on 06 March 2005 by J.M. Dodd

Ingredients

  • 1 C flour
  • 1/4 C salt
  • 2 Tb cream of tartar
  • 2 ts food coloring (optional)
  • 1 Tb vegetable oil
  • 1 C water

Procedure

Mix the flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a medium pot. Add water, food coloring, and oil.

Stir over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. The mixture will gradually combine and solidify to form dough.

When the mixture forms a ball in the center of the pot, remove from heat and let cool. Once cooled enough to handle, remove it to a floured surface and knead for 30 seconds, or until the proper consistency.

Storage

Store, refrigerated, in an airtight container.

2 Comments

it's in pieces

Posted on 26 May 2005 by J.M. Dodd

As we've been cleaning out the office, Marcus and Rebecca have been kept busy disassembling old electronic hardware that no longer works.

Rebecca's favorite piece is the phone, on which she has been constantly chatting with Frodo, her imaginary friend. Marcus is altogether too fond of solenoids, I'm afraid.

Leave a comment

the triumphant hunter returns

Posted on 27 May 2005 by J.M. Dodd

Matthew has begun the lengthy process of emptying out his office to prepare for the inevitable gutting of the northern-facing exterior wall of the house.

Tonight, he found mice. Lots of mice. Thankfully, these are not dead, just obsolete.

Leave a comment

bye, baby bunting

Posted on 30 May 2005 by J.M. Dodd

"I think I hit a rat." Words that I really, really wanted to hear as Matthew mowed the meter-high brush under a wood frame propped up in our backyard. He finished off the section, stopped the mower, and we headed back to investigate the burrow.

The remaining two small (intact) critters nosed around as we tried to figure out if we were dealing with rats. I went inside for a pair of tongs and a plastic bowl to put the critters into while we figured out what they were. Wads of grey fuzz fell to the ground as I scooped up the first critter. It would have fit in the palm of my hand; guesses ranged from squirrel to chipmunk. We weren't certain if the mower had gotten the mother or a sibling, so we gathered them both up (still oblivious as to their species—they were missing the telltale stripes of a chipmunk and tail of a squirrel) and I headed to the Internet to try to figure out what they were. While Googling for "chipmunk orphan," I had an epiphany. We'd seen a brown rabbit in our headlights while driving up the drive in the past, and these were the size of full-grown chipmunks, but their eyes weren't even open yet.

They were rabbits! Little baby brown rabbits!

Judging by their size (I weighed the babies in at 57 and 58 grams when I was trying to figure out what they were), they are just shy of a week old. After some hemming and hawing about hand-raising rabbits and figuring out that the mother was probably somewhere off in our backyard avoiding us, I put the nest back together as best I could and put the baby rabbits back into it. Hopefully, the mother will come back and care for them in the remade nest.

My thanks go out to Heather and her extreme Googling skills, as she fed me useful information while I tried to figure out what was living (and breeding) in my backyard.

Leave a comment

i hate elmer fudd

Posted on 31 May 2005 by J.M. Dodd

At this moment in time, there is nothing so disturbing as hearing the tiny Elmer Fudd in my head singing, "Killed a wabbit, killed a wabbit, killed a waaaaaaaabbit just now. Oh, I just now killed a wabbit, killed a wabbit just now."

The good news, however, is that the remaining two babies are fine. I trekked outside around midnight armed with a flashlight and saw the flash of the mother rabbit's eyes as she sat on her nest. She didn't bolt, and I backed away slowly and went back inside the house.

When I checked on it this morning, the nest was all tucked into itself securely, so I guess things will turn out okay. I'll have to make sure the kids don't disturb it, and have my camera ready in about two weeks when the babies start venturing out to explore my backyard.

Leave a comment

child-proofing

Posted on 03 June 2005 by J.M. Dodd

Lately, I've taken to having a Stonyfield Farm Vanilla Truffle yogurt for breakfast with a piece of fruit. However, I am particularly possessive of my yogurt, as I'm not really big on breakfast and finding something acceptable is difficult. If the kids ever tasted it, I would no longer have any breakfasts left in the fridge.

"Mom, why is your yogurt brown? Is it chocolate?"

"No, it is truffle-flavored."

"Like on Iron Chef? The mushrooms?"

"Yes, exactly."

I am a horrible mother.

Leave a comment

bunnies on the loose

Posted on 05 June 2005 by J.M. Dodd

Well, the day has finally arrived. This morning when I went to check on their form (the hollowed-out nest lined with straw and rabbit fur), it was empty. One of them was sniffing about nearby in the shadow of a dandelion, so I took a few pictures before it ran away.

I'm not sure if they'll come back to the form to sleep or not, but the kids have strict instructions to not bug the bunnies. They're absolutely adorable.

Leave a comment

how we fixed our carrier air conditioner

Posted on 14 June 2005 by J.M. Dodd

Our Carrier air conditioner is fifteen years old. Last summer, it kind of died in late August. Since the weather was fairly mild, we managed by opening up the windows and using fans. However, when July weather hit in early June, it was pretty clear that we'd need to fix it or replace it for the summer. Being ever so handy with tools, Matthew went out to look in the access panel and found more carbon than he should have. Apparently, the ceramic capacitor had released its magic smoke, which did a great deal to explain why the fan blades had stopped turning—there was nothing to impel them to start rotating.

So, a blown capacitor. It should have been an easy fix, right? Call around to HVAC shops, find one with the part in stock, that sort of thing. Oh, but no.

I started by calling Yorkshire Plumbing Supply in Manassas. Unfortunately, they didn't carry much in the way of HVAC equipment, but they kindly referred me to Lyon, Conklin & Co. in Chantilly. Unfortunately for me, Lyon, Conklin is in the business of parts wholesale, not retail. Okay, I could handle that. I wasn't in the market for a gross of capacitors.

Next, I had a bit of an idea and called Sears Parts & Repairs. They would love to have sold me a replacement part but unfortunately, they didn't carry parts for Carriers. Again, reasonable. The service representative did give me the phone number of Carrier.

Carrier was kind enough to give me the name of their dealership in my area, and I promptly called ARS Service Express of Manassas. This phone call, however, did not go as swimmingly as I might have hoped. The only way they would sell me a part for my air conditioner was if they made a service call. Because clearly, I'm an idiot who can't spot a blown capacitor.

Right. Not happening.

Matthew did a good deal of googling and came up with a page on the Arnold's Service Company web site. It had a picture of what appeared to be exactly our capacitor (minus the scorch marks) as part of a Bryant/Carrier Thermal Start Kit. We took a chance and ordered it, as it was still cheaper than getting a repairman out to replace the part and bill us for labor.

It arrived today, along with some other goodies. A comparison of the numbers is as follows:

  • The old one: CERA-MITE CM CEROC(r) 305CIS HC95XX005 8823
  • The new one: CERA-MITE CMF CEROC(r) 305CIS HC95XX011 0318

I am a totally happy and satisfied customer of Arnold's Service Company, which is a do-it-yourself-er's dream.

The not-so-good news is that the AC unit needs a freon charge (which is typical), so we still don't have AC. However, we're one step closer to, oh, being able to get through the day without a mid-afternoon meltdown. (However, it does work and cycle on; the low freon charge is just preventing it from being able to produce enough cold air to make a difference.) Guess I'll be calling Sears again tomorrow.

6 Comments

standards, and the importance of having them

Posted on 19 June 2005 by J.M. Dodd

We pulled a late-night SciFi Channel watching spree on Saturday night, and were treated to Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy and Dark Waters. Of the first, I can say only that Matthew was cheering for the shark. Also, the fuel tanker. Because clearly, if there are bad guys hiding behind a fuel tanker, it is time to fire at it.

With Dark Waters, I went through the entire movie thinking, "Gosh, the hero looks like Lorenzo Lamas, but… he was in Renegade. He wouldn't be in a shark movie this horrible… would he? No, of course not. That must be someone else."

Oh, but no. End credits roll, and there he is. I go cry now.

Leave a comment

doldrums

Posted on 20 July 2005 by J.M. Dodd

I turned 26 on Monday in what has to be the largest heap of a self-pitying funk ever heaped by a human being. I spent the day frantically coding a backend for the ever-worthy project Blogathon 2005 and reading Harry Potter spoilers on Wikipedia because UPS saw fit to reschedule my book delivery for the 19th, which as far as I was concerned was about 3 days too late.

So, things. Things are decent. I was ganking some of my old pagination code from Globe of Blogs and noticed that when I coded it, I'd apparently never heard of LEFT JOIN and other useful things like um, running a SELECT on more than one table. I think it is more a failure on my part to grok the sorts of queries that make multiple SELECT statements obsolete. That might explain some of its issues, which really means that I need to review the codebase and otherwise fix it. Go, me!

I still need to order the kids' curricula for the next year of homeschooling, which is annoying (I hate talking on the phone, period), but well worth the effort.

The air conditioner motor finally bit the dust—closer inspection reveals that it is probably the second motor for the unit, and replacing it isn't that difficult. The oil reservoir sponge was completely broken down. Cost of a new blower motor? $74.04. Spending three days in July waiting for it to arrive? Fracking annoying.

Really, the unit is not in bad shape. We disassembled the blower and Matthew went in and cleaned the cooling fins and you know what? It worked. It did not cost $2200 to fix. It cost a bit of sweat equity and some skinned knuckles (mostly Matthew's), but really, the whole culture of "it's old and looks kinda dingy, let's throw it out and get a brand new one" is wearing on me.

(And just now, I checked the estimate and the line item for "blower motor and capacitor" says $584. What the frack. Even with installation and labor, what the frack.)

Leave a comment