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 oout 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 (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 heating eff...
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Surprising enough we have made it to our final destination. We are at Zancudo Beach on the Southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica. I am in shorts drinking an Imperial beer in the beach cabina. I have wireless access. Talk about ubitutous computing. This is it.

We flew standby on two flights including the flight from San Jose to Golfito. We didn't even get boarding passes. We handed over another 30 bucks and were escorted to the single engine Cessna without a lot of red tape.

After we got off in Golfito we grabbed a cab to get to the dock (surprised we made that connection) then after a half hour boat ride landed in downtown Zancudo. Another 15 to 20 minute truck ride down the only street. We arrived in paradise. You may have heard already that paradise is not perfect, but that is another story. We almost ran over an iguana (Basilisk) about 3 foot long on the road.

There are waves of defining sounds of insects like cicuadas. I mean it can get really loud when all the little buggies go at once. Audio file will follow.

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Carbon Monoxide!?

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Image
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 oout 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 (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 heating eff...
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