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Showing posts from April 22, 2007

Carbon Monoxide!?

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Weird. The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured out what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared, I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace draft (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heat...
I am out in Idaho. I slept well on the plane on the way out here last night. So even though I got in quite late I put in a good days work and felt rested. I am staying at http://www.cdaresort.com/. The place is quite nice. I get to stay in the penthouse starting on Wednesday. I have a presentation to give Monday. It should go great. Bonnie and I will have to get out of the populated areas and see what the "out of the way" areas are like out here. Tomorrow the guys and I are going to take a seaplane ride in an old radial engine beaver on floats. I am looking forward to that.
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What a difference a week makes with weather. We had over a foot of snow last week and this weekend it is in the 70s and is just beautiful. I have been working on farm work, gathering firewood for next year, tractor work, and so on. It is easy to over do it. I am a little sore so I am taking a break. I was outside enjoying the sun and warmth and tried to relate it to sleeping in a tent in Antarctica. There is no comparison. Even here out in the country there are signs and traces of humans everywhere and the sounds and smells of all the wildlife is more like a jungle than anything else. It is a remarkable difference. I have been looking through photos from Antarctica as a screen saver on my computers. Some one them I am seeing for the first time. We are still working on Rosey, but it is not looking good. She is up and down. Last week she got out of the barn and fell in freezing water out in the pasture and couldn't get up. Bonnie and I were out there dragging her back in the barn...