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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Home as an exotic destination

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In previous years we have spent Christmas in Panama, Peru, Hawaii, and Nicaragua. This Year's Christmas is a bit different. We aren't in some exotic locale, or perhaps we are are. We are home in Duluth GA and went to our home Church for Midnight mass in Norcross, GA. We are busy making plans on spending more time in Southern California.

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Carbon Monoxide!?

-
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...
Read more

LavaCon 2025

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I spoke at the LavaCon this week. My presentation was very well received. There were well over 100 folks who chose to attend my presentation. Afterwards we had a supplier meeting in Cartersville and a hike up Pine Mountain. https://www.lavacon.org/ It was good to enjoy some brief moments with a llama as part of the conference. And it was good to meet up with lots of folks I have got to know over the years.
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DJ and I climbed Stone Mountain today. Stone Mountain is an "impordent" part of Atlanta life. In any culture high places often have spiritual significance. No different in the modern-day growth-region of Central/Northern Georgia. It is an interesting walk. Stone mountain is a largely monolithic mass of granite. I had become familiar with the obvious out-crop just like the skyline of downtown Atlanta. I see it from the cockpit of my C-172 as well as the very-top overpass of "Spaghetti Junction". The walk gets steeper as you get nearer to the top. My altimeter watch indicated that we scaled a 70 story building, albeit in nature. I saw no one turn back. That also seems to be part of the culture. People as everywhere around here are openly conversive with strangers. It is a regular walk for exercisers and urbanites that need to do something different. It is close to Duluth and Atlanta. It took about 30 minutes by car to get there from Duluth. We spent about 2 hours on t...
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Honshu and Okinawa

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I am back. I spent 10 days in Japan, 5 days for work on the main island of Honshu and 5 days of solo adventure in Okinawa. Travel is so invigorating dispite the uncomfortableness. Jetlag, anxiety, crowds, and other discomforts aside, it is mind-expanding and rewarding. Work went well. I flew a new airline (Skymark) from Tokyo to Naha. I am always wary of strange discount airlines and all the traps they set. However, I had a great expereince with "Sky". I was actually shocked. Super easy checkin at the airport, no extra fees even with extra luggage. The primary mission in Okinawa was to visit the Peace Park and the suicide cliffs of Okinawa. From what I understand, at the end of WW2 the inhabitants were encouraged to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans and get tortured and eaten. Besides other types of suicide, they jumped off the cliffs at the Southern end of the main island. If you have seen the original color footage taken at the time, I am sure you ...
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Early Fall in North Georgia

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The weather is great-- cool, low humidity, dry. It is easy to get used to. I found an original air-box for the Honda on Ebay. I needed a few other parts to put the car air intake back to factory original. Things always cost more and take more time. But it was a mini-project and it is done. This is a pic of our cat jewel. It was great to get a pic that makes her hetrochromic eyes stand out. She is a beautiful cat for sure. Rare and beautiful. At work we had our 2024 Demo Days where we invite customers through their respective dealers to try out many different types of equipment. There were many Excavators, Dozers, Dump trucks, Wheel loaders and even some forestry equipment. It is a annual event and it is fun/busy for employees. As part of the event we were lucky to get one of the current year's Williams Formula 1 cars on display for a couple days. It was very cool showing up for work in the morning and seeing it in the lobby. I have never been so close to F1 car during its act...
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