Tag Archives: baked French toast (vegan)

2015/11/08 (N) SLAARC Elections

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Madeline was in bed last night at 8 PM and fell asleep quickly.  We were in bed before 10 PM.  Linda fell asleep right away and I put my iPad away and turned off the light at 10:30 PM.  Good thing, too, as Madeline started coughing at 5:30 AM.  Linda got up at 6 AM and brought her into our bed.  I don’t know if she ever fell back asleep but we all stayed there quietly enjoying the warmth of the covers until 7:30 AM, by which time the house was warming up.  Hurrah for programmable thermostats!

Being Sunday morning, and having Madeline here, we were in no hurry to get up, get dressed, or get busy.  Not that we had nothing to do, we just were not in a hurry to do anything.  Linda prepared baked French toast last night, with a little help from Madeline, and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.  She got up at 6:45 to pre-heat the oven and again at 7 to put the dish in to bake.

I got up at 7:30 and made coffee.  The downlight over the end of the counter where I make the coffee burned out last night so I replaced the bulb.  Linda set the table and took the French toast out of the oven at 8.  When she cut into it and served out pieces for each of us it was obvious that something was very wrong.  Instead of baked French toast we had inedible goo.  Linda has had very few recipe failures since we switched to a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) vegan diet but this one took first place.  She mentioned that it was a different recipe than she has used in the past and that she used an egg replacer she has not used before which did not seem to dissolve correctly last night.

Linda was willing to make vegan pancakes but I did not see any reason for her to go to that trouble.  We still had plenty of granola, part of a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, and fresh berries, all of which made for an easy but tasty breakfast.]

Madeline plays (at) the organ. It is one of her favorite “toys” at our house.

Madeline plays (at) the organ. It is one of her favorite “toys” at our house.

After breakfast I cleared the table and then read a book to Madeline while Linda cleaned off the dishes.  I turned on the fireplace and we drank our coffee in the living room while Madeline found various things to play with, ultimately ending up at the organ.

By 9:30 AM we were feeling like getting dressed.  I put in my work clothes and finally got to work in the bus at 10 after turning up the thermostats in the library, garage, and bus.  The first thing I needed to do was screw down the last/top layer of SurePly underlayment in the landing and driver area.  I used #6 SR (square recessed) self-drilling wood screws in three different lengths based on what was underneath the underlayment.  I chose to use screws rather than staples for several reasons.  The main one was that I needed the ability of the screws to pull things together.  The other reason was that I did not want to get the air compressor and stapler out for this relatively small number of fasteners.  (The SurePly underlayment for the main floor of the bus was stapled with approximately 350 staples per full 4’x8’ sheet.)

I pulled up the larger piece of SurePly one last time, measured the location of the boundary between the original bus floor and the new patch, marked the boundary on the top of the large piece, and put it back in place.  I carefully aligned the smaller piece to the stair edge and along the front and made sure the larger piece also fit correctly.  The smaller piece sits entirely on the new landing, which is 3/4″ plywood, so I secured it with 1″ screws, spacing them 2-to-3 inches apart along every edge and about 4 inches apart in the field.

The 1/2″ piece of plywood just forward of the driver’s seat was partially unscrewed and needed to be screwed back down.  Since it was installed over the original 1″ thick plywood bus floor I replaced the existing screws with 1-1/4″ screws and added more, especially along the edges.

To secure the larger piece I used 1-1/2″ screws over the patch, which was already about 1-1/4″ thick.  Over the original 1″ thick plywood bus floor I used the 1-1/4″ screws and over the 3/4″ thick landing I used 1″ screws.  I ran out of the 1″ length before I got the larger piece secured.  As much as I did not want to spend time driving around today I could not finish this task without the proper screws so around 11:15 AM I headed off to Lowe’s.  As long as I had to make the trip I looked for washers to space up the mounting bolts for the passenger seat pedestal base and nylon washers to go under the nut on the main mounting stud for the two swivel bases.  I found something that might work for the former but not the latter.

Linda and Madeline were getting ready to leave as I returned home just before noon.  Madeline was upset because Linda made her wear a sweater under her coat and she did not want to.  She is generally a cheerful and pleasant little girl but we never know when or why she is going to draw a line in the sand.  She doesn’t always or even usually get her way but she is persistent.  The tears, of course, are not the result of genuine injury and are usually quickly enough wiped away by focusing her attention on something else.  They finally pulled out of the driveway at 12:15 PM for an outing at Kensington Metropark.

I finished securing the larger piece of SurePly over the landing and then started on the next task.  I had decided to patch in an area at the end of the passenger platform where it drops down into the back of the driver area.  The area to be patched was only 12-3/4″ long and less than 4″ wide but the underlying metal was rounded over in this area and there wasn’t much I could use to attach new wood.  The area was also deep and not level.  I ended up making a sandwich with two layers of SurePly, two wood shins on top of those, and a piece of 3/4″ plywood on top.  I got all of the pieces cut and fitted and then marked them with pencil lines down the exposed edges to act as alignment marks.

I carefully assembled the sandwich upside down in the shop and screwed it together from the bottom.  I then put it in place in the bus and measured for a vertical piece with an angled rear edge to catch the outside edge of the patch and hold it up.  I secured the patch with one 1-1/2″ screw near the front and secured the vertical piece with one screw into the same piece of wood.

Building and installing this patch took a while and I was just finishing it when Linda and Madeline got home around 3:30 PM from their trip to Kensington Metropark.  By this time it was too late to start working on the underlayment for the passenger seat platform as I needed to stop working at 4 PM and get cleaned up for our amateur radio club meeting this evening.  With the little time remaining I unscrewed the top of the step and removed the two screws that held it to the rear and side walls of the co-pilot/navigator platform.  I then removed a half dozen flat head wood screws that held a piece of metal trim to the front edge of the platform.

The screws were rusted but came out.  The issue for my work was that the heads were not countersunk and stuck above the metal in a way that would interfere with installing the sheet of underlayment.  I used a 7/16″ drill bit to create tapered holes and may go back tomorrow and use my countersink bit.  I looked, but did have any appropriate screws to replace the ones I took out.  That meant another trip to Lowe’s which I could do after dinner on my way to the ham radio club meeting.

I put the two swivel pedestal/bases back in the landing and locked the bus.  I made sure everything was in the garage that needed to be and closed the overhead door.  I showered and shaved and put on clean clothes.  I then sat on the living room sofa with Madeline while Linda fixed dinner.  I worked on this post while Ms. M played games on Linda’s iPad.  It’s amazing to watch a 3-year old manipulate an iPad.  Their use of the touch screen is intuitive, which is cool, and it holds their attention in a way that other activities do not, almost to the point of obsession or addiction, which can border on troubling.  In spite of how much Madeline likes to eat, Grandma Linda had to gently take the iPad away and get her to come to the table for dinner.

As part of her food planning for this weekend Linda had picked up some mock turkey patties with gravy.  She also picked up some vegan heat-n-serve mac-n-cheese.  Those were the main course this evening along with a nice green salad and the rest of the fresh pineapple.  Dessert was going to be cake but I had to leave before it was served.

I left at 5:30 PM and drove to Lowe’s in New Hudson.  I monitored a QSO between Mike (W8XH) and Steve (N8AR) until Steve reached the meeting location in South Lyon.  I then called for Mike and we chatted until I reached Lowe’s.  I bought a box of 1-1/4′ long # 12 flathead wood screws and picked up three 40 W appliance light bulbs for the microwave in the house as the installed ones had burned out.

I got to the Witch’s Hat Depot at 6:35 PM so I had a chance to visit with my fellow hams before the meeting started at 7 PM.  Steve (N8AR) had a display set up with several different DC power meters he ordered off of EBay.  The business meeting was longer than usual because we had to elect officers for 2016.  The process was very smooth, surprisingly so actually, but still took 10 minutes.  The meeting was done by 7:20 after which the club president, Harvey (AC8NO), did a presentation on his Icom IC-7200 portable base station transceiver.

I was back home by 8:40 PM.  Madeline had already gone to bed so Linda and I had some quiet adult time to enjoy a cup of hibiscus tea.  We were both tired after long days of work and play but we did a lot today and felt good about the things we accomplished.

 

2015/11/07 (S) Measure One, Cut Twice 

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We were all up at 7 AM.  I got dressed and left at 7:25 AM for the SLAARC breakfast in South Lyon.  Linda and Madeline had toaster waffles and fresh berries for breakfast at home.  The main reason I went to breakfast was to talk with Larry (K8UT) about a plug-in for WordPress that he recently found and though I might want to use for the SLAARC website.  He purchased a five site license for the full version of a survey plug-in and was willing to donate one use to the ham radio club.

When I got home at 9:30 AM the girls were getting ready to leave.  Linda’s plan for the morning was to take Madeline to the Howell Public Library.  The library has a very nice play area for younger children and a good selection of children’s books.  Apparently they planned to be gone for a while because they had a bag packed with snacks and other things for an extended outing.  I changed into my work close and when they left I resumed working on the bus.

My first objective was to cut the final piece of SurePly underlayment for the entry landing and area under the driver’s seat.  It was a large and complex piece that took me a long time to lay out even using the piece that goes under the driver’s seat as a template.  When I finally had it cut and drilled with the holes for the seat mounting bolts I took it to the bus to see how it fit.  Unfortunately I could not get it in.  It had to go under something on the front and back and also had to fit around curves and angles, and it just was not physically possible to get it in place in one piece.  It was immediately obvious that I would have to cut the piece into two parts but not so obvious how best to do that.

Linda and Madeline returned about this time (12:30 PM) and I was ready for a break.  They brought in their “haul” from the library—eight books and five videos—and laid it out on the living room coffee table.  The play market that Madeline likes so much had been replaced by a play kitchen.  The librarian told Linda they rotate the playsets every three months to keep it interesting for the children.

After going to the library Linda drove to the Brighton Mill Pond so Madeline could play at the Playscape.  Linda reported that Madeline has figured out how to pump a swing and is able to keep it going once someone helps her get started.  As a special treat they went to the ice cream shop nearby and Ms. M got a scoop of ice cream.  She did not tell me what flavor, but she said it had sprinkles on it.

It was going on 1 PM and seemed like a good time to have lunch, so Linda made hummus sandwiches with sliced onion for us and hummus on bread for Madeline.  She washed off a big bunch of grapes and we all enjoyed some of those too.  After lunch I read one of the library books to Madeline and then Linda read her a different one.  At that point I excused myself and went back to work on the bus.

I pondered the situation with the piece of underlayment and finally saw what appeared to be a natural cut line.  After considering where the tile would go, however, I decided against it.  Unlike the tile on the main floor of the bus, which is installed on the bias, the grouted joint lines in the cockpit/entry are going to run straight fore-and-aft and side-to-side.  I was not sure, however, exactly where they would fall.  I needed to avoid having a grout line fall on a joint between two pieces of underlayment so I ended up cutting the piece that covers the landing at an angle.  This gave me a smaller piece that tucked under the center console on the dashboard and a larger piece that tucked under some metal trim behind the driver’s seat.  I was now able to get both pieces in but they did not fit properly.

I had used my last large piece of SurePly to make the original single piece, and it had taken me hours to do, so I did not want to remake it.  I made any trips between the bus and the garage/shop, trimming a little bit at a time and rechecking the fit, until I finally got the piece to fit correctly.  In the process the piece had changed enough that the smaller piece was now too small and could not be trimmed to fit.  I searched through my scrap pieces of SurePly and found one that was almost big enough to remake the smaller piece, but not quite.

It was now 3:30 PM, and I still had some good daylight to work by, so I secured the floor patch under the driver’s seat.  The patch consisted of a 1/4″ thick layer of SurePly with a 3/4″ thick layer of oak veneered plywood on top of it to make a 1″ thick piece.  The SurePly was screwed to the 3/4″ plywood from underneath.  With the patch in place I installed another piece of 1/4″ SurePly that covered the patch and extended out over the old surrounding wood, which was still sound, and filled in the area once occupied by a 1/2″ thick piece of plywood.  I used 1″ self-drilling screws to secure the top layer of SurePly to the underlying wood, slightly countersinking the heads and pulling the underlying patch up tight while pulling the SurePly down tight to the old wood.  I walked on it and it felt secure.  There will be one more layer of SurePly and a layer of tile before the seat base gets re-installed.  Bolting down the base will obviously pull everything down tight to the structure of the bus if it isn’t already.

Linda and Madeline spent part of the afternoon baking vegan cupcakes.  Linda usually makes chocolate ones but I requested white/vanilla ones this time.  She found a recipe that looked promising and used it.  They needed frosting to finish the cupcakes so they bundled up and went to Meijer’s.  They got back a little before 4 PM, frosting and sprinkles in hand.

I needed more SurePly to continue working, not that I was eager to; I had spent most of the day trying to make one stupid piece of wood and still wasn’t finished.  The temperature had been dropping all afternoon and it was down to 55 in the garage, which was open so I could go back-and-forth to the bus.  I still had the antique SUN distributor tester in my car and determined that I could not get 4’x8′ sheets of material in the car with the machine in there.  Linda and Madeline put on their shoes and coats and came outside so Linda could help me get the tester out of the car.  I then went to Lowe’s.

I had a nice QSO with David (W8DRD) from our ham radio club on the way to Lowe’s.  At the store I was struggling to get the SurePly off of the top of the stack, which was above my head at the limit of my reach.  A customer stopped and helped me which I appreciated.  I needed one sheet to finish the driver/landing area and get the piece I need for the passenger seat platform floor, but I bought two sheets just in case the various scraps I have are not large enough to do the walls of the passenger seat platform.

I was back home by 5 PM and unloaded the two sheets of SurePly.  I put one on the 2x4s across the sawhorses and the other one in the small bay with the other sheet materials.  Linda and Madeline put their shoes and coats on once again and came outside so Linda could help me load the distributor tester back into my car.  Linda said we would eat dinner around 6 PM so I started working on remaking the small piece for the front portion of the landing.

I used the original piece as a pattern for the edges that fit properly but cut it larger than needed for the edge that needed to match the other piece where I cut it into two parts.  After getting it trimmed to fit correctly on three sides I put the larger piece in place overlapping the smaller one and traced the edge on the smaller piece.  I took it back to the garage and used the clamp-on saw guide to get a clean, straight cut.  When I took it back to the bus and set it in place it fit.  Success at last.

By now it was dark and getting close to dinner time.  I decided to leave the securement of this last layer of SurePly until tomorrow when I was refreshed and had better light.  I had hoped to get this landing/driver floor finished today, as well as the floor for the passenger seat platform, but given the difficulties and frustrations of today I felt like I had ended at a good place.  I locked up the bus and closed the garage door on my way in.  I expect tomorrow to be another good day, but then if I didn’t, why would I bother?

I changed out of my work clothes and put on my sweats.  Dinner was vegan cheeseburgers with a vegetable medley on the side and fresh pineapple.  Dessert was vanilla frosted white cupcakes with sprinkles.  After clearing the table I interacted with Madeline while Linda cleaned up a few dishes.  She and Madeline then prepared the baked French toast, which has to sit overnight.  As promised, once all of the stuff was done we went to the basement and watched one of the Daniel Stripped Tiger videos.  When we had seen enough episodes we turned off the TV set and went upstairs.  Madeline got into her pajamas and went to bed.  I put a load of laundry into the washing machine and then settled in to my usual evening routine.  I pulled the laundry out of the dryer at 9:45 PM and we turned in for the night at 10 PM.

 

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This

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We turned the air-conditioning off last night and enjoyed the fresh air, pleasant temperature, and lower humidity.  The overnight low was 58 which made for good sleeping.  We awoke to blue skies and what we thought would be a picture perfect Michigan summer day until Linda checked the morning news (iPad).  There was a story about a storm that moved through the upper plains yesterday and had a bead on Michigan for later today and this evening.  What had been a 10% chance of rain for today had been replaced by a forecast for strong-to-severe thunderstorms with the possibility of strong winds, large hail, and tornadoes.  Ahhhh, summer in Michigan.

Not ones to sit around and wait for the apocalypse we did what any sensible couple would do, I made coffee while Linda reheated the last of the Baked French Toast from yesterday’s brunch.  We had breakfast and then sat on the deck enjoying our coffee and contemplating the end of the world, or at least the possible destruction of our brand new roof.  But it’s insured, so “no worries, maan” as they say in Jamaica.  More coffee please.

We have a whole house generator that runs on natural gas so as long as a storm doesn’t damage it we can survive for a very long time without electric utility power.  Losing our AT&T Internet connection, however, would be a genuine hardship as that would require us to use our Verizon Mi-Fi (without the benefit of the new Fusion5s cellular booster which I plan to install on Wednesday) or go to Panera, McDonalds, or one of the libraries to get online.

Keith showed up around 10 AM to cut the grass.  We were hoping he would make it as we have not had too much rain this past week and the last few days in particular have been dry.  I think this is the first time this season he has been able to cut our grass without it being wet.  It looked nice when he was done.

I got a call from Phil Jarrell.  He had been successful in reaching Mike Fearer of Bid Rite Concrete on Mike’s cell phone.  Based on Phil’s description Mike was interested in looking at our tower foundation project and was expecting me to call so I did, using my cell phone, and this time I was able to reach him.  It turned out that the information about his business on the Internet is out of date.  He is no longer in Whitmore Lake but now operates from near M-59 and Latson Road, not far from us.  We agreed that he would stop by tomorrow at the end of the work day to look at our project.

I did not want to do a lot of heavy work today, as I was still a bit tired and sore, but I needed to mount two lightning arrestors in the cable entry box and mount the cellular booster in the sump pump room so I could figure out what coax cable lengths I needed and go get them from Scott Adams (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics in Wixom.  But first I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know I was planning on Wednesday for the tower work, assuming he was still available and the tower was still standing.

Cable entry box showing copper ground plane with Morgan lightning arrestors (lower left), control line arrestor (center top), and cellular and OTA TV arrestors (center).

Cable entry box showing copper ground plane with Morgan lightning arrestors (lower left), control line arrestor (center top), and cellular and OTA TV arrestors (center).

I determined that I needed two coaxial cables and ordered them from Scott by phone rather than take the time today to drive to his place of business.  They will both be LMR-400 with N-connectors on both ends.  One will be 50 feet long, for our 2m/70cm Diamond X50-N VHF/UHF base station antenna, and the other will be 15 feet long, to get from the cellular booster lightning arrestor in the cable entry box to the repeater (amplifier) in the sump pump room.  I will pick them up early Wednesday morning and install them.

One of the lightning arrestors was for the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster system.  It has N-connectors on both ends, one of which is intended for bulkhead mounting.  It came with an angle bracket that fit over the bulkhead end and I used that to mount it.  I used the 2′ length of LMR-400 that came with the booster installation kit to position the lightning arrestor so the cable from the repeater could exit one of the 2″ conduits and bend around and connect to it.  LMR-400 is a low loss, 50 ohm impedance, coaxial cable that can handle high RF transmit power.  The cellular booster only has a 1 Watt transmitter but is operating at frequencies where energy losses in coax cables become significant.  To do what it does LMR-400 is just under 1/2″ in diameter.  It is fairly stiff and does not make sharp bends so cable runs and connections have to be carefully planned.

The other lightning arrestor was for the Antennas Direct DB8e OTA TV antenna and serves a dual purpose as the power insertion device for the tower mounted amplifier.  The coax cable for OTA TV signals is typically 75 ohm impedance RG-6 with F-connectors.  It is half the diameter of LMR-400 and much more flexible.  It is also typically used to receive low power signals and convey them in one direction; from the antenna to the TV.  Because we are 25 miles from the nearest TV tower and some of the towers are 50+ miles away, I ordered a signal amplifier to go with the antenna.

Ideally you want to amplify an OTA TV signal as soon as it comes out of the antenna and this amplifier does just that.  It will mount on the same tower leg as the antenna about two feet below the antenna feed point.  However, being an active electronic device it needs electrical power to operate.  There are two basic ways that could be done.

One way would be to have power wires, such as +5 VDC and DC Ground that are separate from the coaxial cable that carries the radio frequency (RF) energy.  The two OTA TV antennas on our bus are set up this way with three wires to supply power and control the enclosed rotor.

The other way is to provide DC power through the coaxial cable itself, which is how this amplifier is set up.  The nice thing about this arrangement is that the amplifier only has two connections and they are both coax connectors that can be weather sealed.  To get the DC power into the coax cable, however, requires a special device called a power inserter.  The power inserter, in turn, requires the coax to be split into two segments so there end up being four connections instead of two.  The power inserter for this amplifier very conveniently acts as a lightning arrestor as well, which is why I mounted it to the copper back plane in the cable entrance box.

By boosting what I presume will be weak signals from distant towers the amplified signal should be strong enough to survive the trip through the coax cable to the power inserter, from there to a 1-in/2-out signal splitter, and then through additional lengths of coax to the two TV sets.

After getting the two lightning arrestors mounted in the cable entry box I took a break for lunch and then went to Lowe’s for some supplies.  When I got back home I turned my attention to mounting the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster (repeater amplifier) in the sump pump room.  The sump pump is in the northeast corner of the basement, which is also the northeast corner of our ham shack and office.  (The ham shack occupies the north wall and my desks occupy the east wall.  Most of the rest of the room is storage.)

I gutted and rebuilt this space, with the help of long-time friend John Rauch, before we moved in and created the large closet (small room) around the sump with insulated walls to contain sounds.  I installed an electrical sub-panel in this room to provide power to the office and ham shack desks and to an RV outlet by the pull-through driveway.  I fed the power for the RV outlet through the bond on the east wall just above the concrete block foundation and ran it underground to the far side of the driveway.  It was my intention from the beginning to mount a cable entrance box next to the power feed and have all of the coax cables and control wires for outside devices enter the sump pump room in the same manner as the power.

The ham shack/office walls are finished with T-111 exterior plywood with 4″ groove spacing and I finished the interior of the closet the same way as I knew I would eventually want to mount things to the walls.  I mounted the SureCall Fusion5s booster on the west wall of the closet about a foot inside the door and just below my eye level so I could see all of the connectors, switches, and indicator lights on the top and front of the unit.  It had four mounting tabs, two top and two bottom, that attached easily to the wall with short wood screws.

There is a duplex AC electrical outlet on that wall and one on the opposite (east) wall.  The power supplies for the cellular booster and OTA TV antennas will plug in to these along with the sump pump and the charger/controller for the battery powered backup sump pump.  One of the things I bought at Lowe’s were two outlet expanders which I installed in these two duplex outlets.  I also bought a switch with a pilot light to replace a single pole Decora switch that will eventually control the light in the closet.  I installed the switch but did not complete the wiring as I have to tie it in to the light fixture which requires me to cut the power to that circuit.   I would also like to replace the bare bulb fixture while I am at it but have not yet purchased a replacement.

Although it was late afternoon I decided to install the inside antenna for the cellular booster system and run the coaxial cable that connects it to the booster.  The antenna is designed to mount to a flat ceiling and provide a hemispherical coverage area below the plane of the ceiling.  I had previously figured out that if I mounted this antenna in the main floor hallway near the midpoint of the house I could connect it to the cellular amplifier using a 50 foot length of coax cable that came with the system.

The desired mounting location was opposite the door to the hall closet and the access to the attic is through the ceiling of that closet, so that was very convenient.  We emptied the closet, removed the clothes rod, and setup our six foot step ladder.  I removed the piece of foam insulation we currently use to seal the attic access opening and climbed up, flashlight in hand to check out what was on the other side of the ceiling.

Our desired location for the antenna was free of problems on the back side so I drilled a 3/4″ hole for the mounting stud and used a piece of rebar to poke a hole through the insulation for the coax cable that came out of the stud.  Linda fed the coax and stud through the hole and I put the retaining nut on the stud from the attic side of the ceiling.  The antenna is shaped like a coffee filter, is about six inches in diameter at the ceiling, and tapers down to about four inches in diameter about four inches from the ceiling.  The housing is white plastic and blends in well with the ceiling paint.

About four feet from where we installed the antenna is a chase that runs from the attic to the furnace room in the basement.  It appears that once upon a time something having to do with the furnace ran through this chase, such as the combustion air intake.  The combustion air is now drawn through the back wall under the deck and the exhaust goes out through the east wall of the basement via a double wall stainless steel flue pipe.  The chase is no longer used for furnace or other utilities although there are electrical cables to switches mounted in the bathroom walls and it still contained a piece of 4″ plastic pipe.

I positioned myself near the chase and guided one end of a 50 foot length of LMR-400 coax down through the pipe and through the hole into the furnace room while Linda held the roll of coax near the top of the ladder and unrolled it.  At one point the coax bunched up and Linda had to go to the furnace room and untangle it.  At another point the 4″ plastic pipe slipped through the bottom hole into the furnace room which caught me by surprise.  Once the cable was mostly fed through I routed it to the location of the antenna, connected it to the pigtail coax from the antenna, wrapped the connection in weather seal tape to keep moisture out, and secured it with a cable tie.

With the antenna installed Linda started preparing dinner while I dealt with the 37 feet of coax in the furnace room.  The furnace room does not have a finished ceiling so I had access to the areas above the suspended ceilings in all of the adjacent rooms.  In particular I was able to feed the free end of the coax above the ceiling in the office and into the sump pump room.  I secured the cable with plastic cable ties at two points in the furnace room to keep it away from the flue and various hot water pipes.  I had about 8 extra feet of cable so I made a large coil with two loops such that the free end came off the loop straight down into the connector on top of the booster.  I hung the coil on the wall above and to the right of the booster making for a very neat installation.

I took a shower to try and get rid of some of the fiberglass itch while Linda finished the dish she was making for dinner.  It was a complex Indian style dish with Basmati rice, garbanzo beans, Swiss chard, onions, and shallots, seasoned with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, garam masala, fresh lemon (zest and juice), and fresh dill that Linda grew herself.  The house was filled with the aromas of all these ingredients for a couple of hours as they were prepared and combined into the final dish.  It tasted as good as it smelled with many flavor layers.

Our beautiful blue sky gave way to high, thin clouds through the morning and then to lower, thicker clouds during the early afternoon.  By 2 PM the clouds to the west were dark as I drove to Lowe’s in Howell and the first, heavy rains came as I got to the parking lot.  I waited a few minutes and they stopped so I got into the store without getting wet.  I had the same good fortune on my way back to the car.  The sustained rains came later in the evening along with a tornado watch.  We went to bed before 10 AM but did not go to sleep.  It took me a long time to write this post and we kept a watchful eye on the weather radar.  Although thunderstorms were forecast as a certainty from 1 to 5 AM with the possibility that they might be severe, we finally turned the lights out around 12:45 AM and tried to get some sleep.

 

2015/06/21 (N) Father’s Day

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Today was Father’s Day and also the summer solstice, which is the official start of the summer season.  Climatologically and culturally, at least in this part of Michigan, summer is more closely aligned with the period from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.  The summer solstice is, of course, the day with the most hours of daylight but it is not the day with the earliest sunrise nor the day with latest sunset.  Regardless of that detail, one of the things I like about this time of year is that the evening twilight lasts for a long time and fades to the blackness of night very slowly.  By contrast, the sun seems to set quickly in the winter and it gets dark very quickly after that.

Linda arranged for our son and daughter, and their families, to come over for brunch today.  It was a combination Father’s Day and happy birthday gathering as our daughter was out of town last week on her 34th birthday.  Linda spent last evening cooking, which minimized the amount of work required today.  I requested pie for Father’s Day and she found an excellent recipe for a vegan apple pie with a crumb topping.  She also made a dozen small chocolate birthday cupcakes.  The star of the show, however, was a Baked French Toast made with French bread and topped with streusel of ground pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg with vegan “butter.”  It soaked overnight and all she had to do this morning was bake it.  She made a large bowl of fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries, and black and red raspberries) and sliced up some cantaloupe.

Company was due at 10 AM so I made a full pot of our Cafe Europe half-caff blend coffee.  We each had a cup and Linda transferred the rest of it to our insulated dispenser.  I was brewing a second pot when Meghan and Chris arrived around 9:45 AM followed by Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline around 10 AM.  Birthday and Father’s Day cards were exchanged but Madeline was the center of attention.  She pulled out her toy box and built a Lego tower with her aunt Meghan.  We walked around outside a bit, looked at the new roof and the cable entrance box, and played hide and seek in the backyard with Madeline doing the seeking, assisted by her mom.  I was hiding behind our gas grill, which had a cover on it.  Madeline saw my reflection in the rear door walls of the library, walked right past me towards the reflected image, turned away from my location, and was walking back towards Shawna before she spotted me.  Reflections are one of those things that we have to learn about.

The French Toast was done baking at 11 AM and we sat down to a fabulous brunch that included Prosecco and orange juice.  The Baked French Toast was outstanding and everyone had more than one piece.  By 12:30 PM no one was hungry for dessert so Linda packaged up four cupcakes for Meghan and Chris and four cupcakes for Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline along with a quarter of the pie for each group.  By 1 PM Madeline was showing signs of being tired, that being her normal nap time, so everyone gathered up their things and made their way to their cars.

After everyone had left we had some pie.  It was also outstanding, as good as any non-vegan pie I have ever had and, frankly, better than most.  Linda went for a walk while I settled in to finish the draft of yesterday’s blog post and start writing this one.  When Linda got back from her walk she read for a little while and then took a well-deserved nap.  By 4 PM I could not keep my eyes open and took a nap that lasted until 6 PM.  I have never been into “Hallmark Holidays” but I like Father’s Day.  🙂

For dinner Linda made a salad and reheated the last of the angel hair pasta and black beans and rice.  We each had one of the vegan cupcakes for dessert.

Today was my dad’s 90th birthday so after dinner I called to wish him a combined happy birthday and Father’s Day.  He did not answer, which is not unusual as without his hearing aids he doesn’t hear the phone ring.  I left him a voice message.

I have been busy enough with things the last two years that I have not read any of the magazines we receive as part of our various organizational memberships.  Tonight I went through the July 2015 issue of QST, the monthly publication of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).  Although my main focus this summer is the remodeling of the interior of our motorcoach, I am trying to get ham radio antennas up and useable.  We are also trying to get a base built for the 70 foot tower we bought last summer, get the tower assembled and erected, and at least get some sort of HF wire antenna attached to it.

Linda was tired by 10 PM and trundled off to bed.  As a result of my nap I was not sleepy and stayed up using my iPad until well after midnight.