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Showing posts from June 12, 2011

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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The sad news yesterday was that the Liberty Belle B-17 burned up. I toured the plane a few months ago. I took the pics, but not the one on flames. Thank god they had a good place to land and everybody got out. Gasoline! and lots of it.
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The past week has been a blur. DJ has been in Atlanta for a few weeks. We went and saw Loretta Lynn in concert. What a trip. She won't be doing a whole bunch more concerts, I suspect. The weather up in NY continues to be difficult. If it isn't bridges washed out, it is high winds ripping barn roofs off like mine. The neighbors barn roof got wrapped around the wires. OK, already, I understand about the destructive aspects of weather and time. I cropped one of the photos from last weeks air show. It is pretty unbelievable what some of these guys do especially when I find myself a bit to the left or right of the center-line all to often on landing. I expect to be in the air pretty much every few days for the rest of the summer. The high temps certainly affect aircraft performance. Just because an airplane has four seats doesn't mean it can carry four people. When it is 95 degrees out the newer 172s can only carry 2 people my size, full fuel and a sandwich or two. ...