Driving Directions

Medivac

I'm sitting here in my office doing some paperwork. It's almost the end of my 2 week shift and this afternoon is pretty quiet. Then I hear a small jet land and look out my window to see it the Medivac plane. And an abulance is on the ramp waiting for it. This is not a good way to go home from a work shift. But I'm glad the medivac plans are available when they're needed.

PLUS, look at this spring snow storm. YUCK. Last week it was sunny and 40's. Melting snow everywhere. All the parking lots flooded. I'm NOT ready for snow again.

Island Countertop

I've been looking for months for a picture, showing what I want my island countertop to look like. It will be 4 ft wide, 10 ft long and 1/2 has cabinets underneath. The other half will be open so people can sit around it like a table.

I read about using hot rolled steel as countertop material but couldn't find a picture of what it looked like. I know it will rust if it's not kept waxed, but that's OK. It looks very durable and industrial. And it's all 1 piece, no seams which is what I want.

So here is the picture I found. This table was created at a shop in Dallas, The Weld House. I found this picture on Flickr.

http://joelhester.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/weldhouse/collections/

So, then the question is. What do I do for the rest of the countertops. The floor is dark gray with sprinkles of aluminum filings. And the cabinets are natural maple, which is very light colored. Hmmm.....any ideas?

Wildfire 2

The wildfire up the road from us is roaring out of control. I was up at the fire station last night about 10:30 pm (took some brownies up to help feed the fire fighters). They were expecting it to have grown to 1000 acres by this morning. The State sent in some Forestry crews, but the volunteers are on day 3. They're doing structure protection, while the Forestry crews try to put up fire break. But it's soooooo dry, that they won't get this under control until we get some rain. And there is NO rain in the 7 day weather forecast.

Patty took yesterday off from her job and took the ambulance up to the staging area to be on standby in case someone got hurt. She said there were a few minor injuries among the fire fighters, but not enough to send anyone home. Just patch them up and send them back to work. She's going to do the same today.

These are a few pictures she took from the ambulance.

Wildfire - the first of our season

HEA had a powerline go down yesterday, and sparked this wildfire. The first of the season near Homer. It started about mile 17 on East End Road and has grown to over 100 acres. The fire teams got it knocked down pretty well last night, but it's warm and sunny today. This afternoon when the day breeze got going, it blew back up. Here is a picture of it from town, and then another from the Spider House. We're at mile 10 but the wind is currently pushing it toward the head of the bay which is away from us.

Sheetrock is done.

I was surprised but happy to see the crew working on Saturday morning. But they got the sheetrock all in. Will the taping & mudding start on Monday? Stay tuned....

Burning Sticks

Yesterday morning was nice so I spent several hours pulling dead tree limbs and assorted sticks out of PART of the yard to be. Boy, this is going to take me a couple of years to really clean up. Anyway, we were supposed to get rain showers in the afternoon, so I thought it would be a good time to burn them. Instead it turned to snow. In fact we had about 1/4 of fresh snow still on the ground when I got up this morning, but it's melting fast.

Anyway, burning sticks was a muddy, cold, snowy & wet mess. Kind of fun though :-) These pics were taken about 8 or 8:30 pm.

Sheetrock!

The guys started putting up the sheetrock today. Yay!

That should mean mudding & taping next week...

Outdoor / Deck / Garden Sink Needed

I've been looking on and off the past year or so for the perfect sink to put on my deck. And I haven't found it so I'm hoping someone has seen it and can let me know where to look. I had hot & cold water plumbed outside, I want to have both in my deck sink. Though I'll have to use it only in the summer.

Anyway, I've been looking at lots of these garden sinks.

And I like them. Either style would work. They both close up when not in use, and will be easy to clean. I don't really want or need the hose reel, but I could live with it. The real problem is they are made to be hooked up to a garden hose, so they are either hot or cold, but no mixing. Bummer.

So then on e-bay (which I love) I found this sink built into a wooden frame. It could work. I really like the fact that the 2 side's fold up to cover the sink when it's not in use. But it's wood & metal, not heavy plastic like the first 2. And I don't really want the decorative splash guard.

I may end up finding someone to build me a sink. If that's the way I end up going, then something like the 2 above will probably be it. I can just go to Home Depot and buy an acrylic sink and a faucet to install in it.

Hmm, should I consider some sort of splash guard to protect my siding?

If you run across something I should look at, let me know. I want to get the sink in place sometime this summer.

Retirement Sendoff...

One of the Otter Pilots is retiring today. So the DOT guys arranged a little send off for his last official flight. Though I didn't get a very good picture. The jet was in the way.

HRV System

Patty sent me a few pics she took yesterday. Looks like the ducting for the Heat Recovery Ventilation system is in.

Redoubt 7

Redoubt was really pouring out a huge steam plume yesterday, but this morning it's very quiet. I had to post this photo I took off the AVO website. It's taken from their webcam. You may need to copy this to your desktop and view it at 200%. But you can see the new lava dome with ash rising from it, and falling down the front of it. And below you can see a waterfall created when the hot ash melts the snow & ice around the dome.

Interior Walls Framed

The concrete is all covered with Tyvek. It will allow moisture to evaporate out of the floor, and still protect it a it. So the guys are inside, hard at work. The interior walls are framed up and the plumbing is about done. Next week the electricians will be in to do some work. But next week is also Russian Easter, so sheet rock crew won't be available. But with a little luck, they'll be able to start on the 27th. So when I get home around May 3rd, the sheet rock should all be up. That's pretty exciting!

Here are a few pics from this morning.

The shower pan is in the guest bathroom and the walls are framed.

Tim is smiling, and finishing the plumbing for the wash machine :-)

Here the guys are putting up Tyvek and then painted plywood to cover the insulation under the canteleavered living room and bedroom floor.

Concrete Part 2

The guys were back at my house today. They got the 2nd half of the floor poured. I got to watch part of it, it's going to be a great floor when we get it all done.

Step one is the pour the concrete, 1 wheel barrow at a time. That's a lot of work. This concrete has a dark gray dye in it. It will get a bit lighter as it cures, but should be a 'smoke gray' when it's all said & done.

Then, after it's set up for a couple of hours, the guys are sprinkling some aluminum filings and black glass chips on it, then trowling them in. Once the floor cures for a month, we'll polish the surface which should expose the aluminum & glass to give the floor a bit of sparkle.

Concrete Part 1

I got back to Homer yesterday, and went up to my building site. The guys got the first half of the concrete poured on Friday. I thought they were going to finish today, but Rob had to go to Anchorage. So hopefully he'll be back in a day or 2 and they can get finished.

I wiped down all the windows & doors, the water evaporating from the concrete had condensed on them, they were soaked. I opened all the south facing windows this morning, since it's nice & sunny. Hopefully the house dried out a bit, I'm going to go close all the windows in a few min.

Redoubt 6

I spent Saturday in Soldotna with mom & dad. Had to stop and watch Redoubt steam for a while on Sunday, when I was driving home. My little camera doesn't have much of a zoom, but I got a couple of decent pics.

When I got down by Anchor Point, there was a lot more ash. Driving through it wasn't good. My throat still feels raw from it. I'm sure my car wasn't very happy with it either. Though once I got out closer to home, the amount of ash really dropped off. There is very little this far out.

Redoubt 5

OK, I promise to get off my volcano binge, eventually :-). With some luck the concrete guys will pour my floor next week, and then I'll be back posting house pictures.

But, today I pulled a couple more off the AVO web site. Thse were taken by Bretwood Higman last night and early this morning. Lightning in the ash clouds...it's really beautiful.

Redoubt 4

More cool photos taken from the AVO Web site. I really like this first one. These were all takend on Thur, 3/26/09.

MTSAT National Weather Service

Geographic Info Network of AK.

Anchor Point, Dennis Anderson

Redoubt 3 - AVO

The weather at home is clearing up a bit, so the AVO (Alaska Volcano Observatory) Web Cam is capturing photos of Redoubt. It had quite the eruption this morning at 9:24 am. The ash cloud went to 65,000 feet. Shut down our planes for a few hours, but we only had to cancel 1 flight, though several others were delayed.

I've been watching the web cam, it updates every 3 to 15 min. Here are a series of shots, sort of a time lapse effect.

1:39 PM

1:54 PM

2:23 PM

2:38 PM

2:50 PM

2:53 PM

3:10 PM

3:13 PM

3:25 PM