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...
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Finland Bound and Back

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I am back in Finland. I have a 3 hour or so layover in Helsinki before I get to my final destination this evening. It will be about 1:00 in the morning when I get there. Tomorrow morning I drive for a couple of hours. The plane tonight carries freight as well as humans. It takes a while to get to the inside of Finland even from the UK. I will be in Finland 4 and 1/4 days. I have two cities to get to and participate in many meetings.

Driving in England was a great experience. learning to drive on the left hand side is much easier than learning to fly an airplane.

I anticipated and got some great shots from Birmingham (BHX) to Paris (CDG) today over the English Channel. The pics are from Seat 01A on an Air France AVRO RJ85 jet. These things have so many engines for such a small plane. I suspect they shut two down during cruise, 'cause the plane makes some pretty weird engine noises after takeoff and while on approach.

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