The single most unpleasant houshold task

My neighbor and I were having a chat on Thanksgiving day and somehow our wide-ranging conversation turned to the least desirable handy man-type task we have done. He, a liberal, me a conservative; we agree on little--but we were of one mind on this: Changing a kitchen faucet is the least pleasant task.

• There is no room to work--all the manipulations are in the narrow space between the back of the sink and the wall behind the sink.
• It is dark and the drain pipes are all in your way.
• It is wet since you normally only change a faucet once it gets to be a problem.
• It is messy since your head is below the work and so water and rust fall into your face.
• It never goes smoothly since the bolts are all rusted into place, or the copper leads kink, or any of many other things go wrong.
• It is always an emergency--no faucet gets more use, or is more critical to the smooth operation of a household, than the kitchen faucet.

Given all of this, it was with supreme dismay that this evening, at the height of making dinner while my wife was at karate, the faucet sprang a leak. Visions of my last weekend before Christmas spent in miserable frustration danced in my head. Or really, more like clogged on my head. What was especially galling was that I just put the thing in a couple of years ago and if you have ever purchased a faucet you know that they all come with 10, 15, 25 year or lifetime warranties--so it shouldn't be malfunctioning in 2 years! Plus, plus--I just threw away the box after having it sit in the basement all this time. That is where the documentation needed for free replacement would be, so I would pay for a new one and get the fun of putting it in.

Figuring I had little to loose, I set about taking the faucet apart. I got to the very bottom of the thing and found a plastic ring out of position. I adjusted it and then reassembled the thing: Voila, it works now! But I've got my eye on it.

Five Goldennn years

Five years ago today, I made my first blog-post. In all that time I still haven't hit the 1,000 mark for posts, but should do so early next year. Well, it is just a hobby--not a job.

I would like to thank each of my five readers too, but really five is a guess--it could be three. Either way, thanks! I hope to write something you will find interesting soon.

Darn Blurry picture

At the wedding, we thought we had the perfect opportunity to take a Christmas picture: The kids were all dressed-up and we had a good setting.

But no. All the shots came out blurry!

Killin' time.

I just couldn't get anything going today project-wise. I need to make a table for the new study and I have all the materials at hand but don't want to create dust in the basement while my wife is down there wrapping gifts.

After running a few miles (less than normal for a Sunday and slower) I did finally reinforce the stairs to the basement. One of the the angled 2x8's was badly cracked and would flex whenever weight was put on it--like whenever I went up or down the stairs. This has been a problem for all eight years we have lived here. Today, I rummaged-up a 2x4 and nailed it to the inside edge of the weak beam. It is noticeably more solid now and took all of 10 minutes. Why I waited 8 years? Can't say.

It was a day filled with little things: Cleaning dishes, cooking, taking the eldest daughter to CVS for her Christmas shopping etc.

The Second Coming

The Poem by William Butler Yeats: The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming!

Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

American Dream 2: Default, Then Rent

I was reading this article in the Wall Street Journal this morning:

Not surprisingly, people will default on loans where they owe a lot more on their house than it's worth. A couple of thoughts come to mind: If you could afford a $500,000 loan when you purchased a house, assuming that you still have the same income, you should still be able to meet the payments If it drops in value to $250,000 this has no bearing on the affordability of the payments. But why would you do that when you could default and then rent or buy the house across the street, which now only costs $250,000 and is just as nice as the one you are in?

A few of the people in the piece were offered slightly better mortgage terms from their lender, but nothing close to as good as just walking away from their home. So the banks end up having to sell a house for $250,000 that they're owed $500,000 on.

Here is a proposal which would help everyone: The bank decreases the principal on the above home to $225,000. The owners now have every motive to stay and the bank is more-or-less in the same situation as if there was a default. Here is the added twist: The terms of the agreement are that if the house is ever sold, the bank gets the first $25,000 of profit plus 50% of any additional gain. The 25k is to recapture the 10% equity granted to the homeowners (the house was valued at 250k, but principle was reset to 225k). The remaining 50/50 split incents the owners to stay put for the long-term and yet allows the bank to recapture some of its losses if the house ever regains value.

It seems win-win to me: The owners save the trouble and expense of moving and a hit to their credit and still get the lower monthly bills they could get by defaulting and then renting. Banks initially loose about as much as they are loosing anyway, but they have a long-term chance of getting a bunch of it back instead of no chance of getting it back.

Crikey! I should patent this!

A little speech commentary

Before the commentary about the content of the speech, here is an astute take on the whole event:

Roger J. said... I am curious about why one would even want to listen to an "acceptance" speech for an award that was not deserved and proffered only to make a political point about a previous administration. (From Althouse)

Now that is out of the way here is some selected commentary with the caveat that I am only looking at a couple chunks of it and am not up for a full Fisking. Indeed, there are many parts of it that I like. So, here goes:

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Clearly what he means is that we did not seek war in Afghanistan but did in Iraq. I think this is an artificial distinction: In both cases a country was offending us in some way, we made demands which were unmet and we responded by invading.

Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. (1)That is why I prohibited torture. (2)That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. (3)And that is why I have reaffirmed Americas commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

(I added the numbers since I want to write about each of these things)

(1) The previous administration did not allow torture either. There are different definitions of torture, but for the record, nothing defined by the administration as torture was ever allowed.

(2) King Canute ordered the tide to stay out as well and with as much effect, though his point was the opposite of president Obama's. For the president it doesn't matter that the prison remains just as open now as it did when he ordered it closed. Words, actions, what's the difference? Incidentally, I was listening to NPR commentary on the speech and they actually misspoke that Obama had "closed Guantánamo," I guess words and actions have no distinction with NPR either.

(3) The United States has never renounced the Geneva Conventions. The view of the previous administration was that conferring the benefits of the convention to enemy combatants who do not abide by any of the rules of war corrodes the Conventions. That is, why should any group sign the treaty when they already can expect all of the benefits without having to follow any pesky rules themselves?

Logic and Gaia

I am well aware that finding logical inconsistencies in environmentalist positions is like shooting fish in a barrel, but this thought just occurred to me:

We know that there have been vast changes in climate in the past, most notably ice ages and periods of warmer climate in between. One would presume that in the absence of mankind, these shifts in climate would continue. Now, if one can encapsulate a general philosophy of environmentalists, it is that they think Man should have as little impact on nature as possible.

The current issue of man-made global warming (AGW) would seem to fit into their philosophy well: We are causing the planet to warm due to our use of fossil fuels and therefore should take efforts to counteract the changes we are causing. Here is the rub: The data are unclear about warming*, but let's offer a hypothetical--What if there was unequivocal data indicating that the Earth was cooling? By this I mean such clear-cut evidence that there was no doubt in the mind of anyone that the planet was cooling-off by a lot. Whatever the actual cause, does anyone doubt that conservationists would be utterly convinced that Mankind is to blame and that therefore we should take (economy-crushing) steps?

In other words; any detectable change will be opposed by the pro-nature crowd and yet this would seem to violate their basic philosophy. They would have the Earth locked in amber, as if this period in time just happens to be the perfect and ideal climate--when what is natural is for the climate to constantly shift over time.

*Warming or cooling seems to depend a lot on what the baseline is. If you start at the end of the little ice age 1850, then we have been warming. If you start in the warm year of 1998, then we have been cooling etc.

Tales from the land of mixed blessings...

I signed up for the Boston Marathon a couple of days after running the NYC Marathon. I didn't want to sign up earlier because the tail-end of a marathon can be unpleasant and it only adds to the unpleasantness when you know that another run is scheduled.

I just found out that the Boston Marathon closed its registration in the middle of November, so it is awfully lucky that I signed up early!

On the other hand; my injuries are not healed and it is unclear that they will heal in time for me to train for an early Spring marathon. So, I may have spent a lot of money for nothing.

We shall see.

Cute and Lethal

Wish I brought my camera cable...

Up in the Berkshires for a wedding, where it is beginning to gently snow. Two things: Glad I drove the Yukon. Wish I brought the cable that would allow me to post pictures of this pretty resort.

Update: Wish I remembered my bathing suit too. They have a great indoor pool--the cleanest I have ever seen at a hotel. They have trunks on sale in the gift shop but two things: They were expensive and I have maybe half dozen at home, so it is not as if I would get much use out of a new one other than today.

Great Althouse comments part n + 1

Richard said... The Raisin is a great symbol of lack of desire and disappointment. Who is ever happy to find out that their chocolate chip cookie actually has raisins in it instead?

Truer words never spoken.

How much pressure can a fermentation achieve?

This ought to be known since, in principle at least, it is a pretty simple experiment to envision. However, I have done a bit of searching on Pubmed and found nothing on this subject. There could be a couple of good reasons for this: 1. It could be such a well known thing that a published paper would be pointless. 2. There is no practical need to find out an answer to this question. Makers of sparking wine already know how much sugar to add to get the desired level of carbonation and avoid exploding bottles, so what more is needed?

Well, I am interested out of pure curiosity. But how to do the experiment? One could fill a strong tank with juice and yeast, then close it up and keep track of how high the pressure gets. One possible complication is that the yeast may run out of sugar before the pressure stops them. Or the alcohol may get so high that this kills off the yeast. Or the Carbon dioxide in solution may cause the pH to drop to levels that kill the yeast. A couple of these things can easily be eliminated, depending on what happens: Let's say the fermentation slows to a halt at 200 psi. We relieve the pressure and then close-up the system and it again builds to 200 psi. This would show that the alcohol is not too high and the sugar is not limiting. What about the pH? When you vent the reactor the CO2 will leave and the pH should be able to climb. The only solution I see to this would be to have a neutralizing agent in the mix, perhaps a bit of Sodium bicarbonate for instance.

Part of what interests me about this is that I don't have a good feel for the relationship between delta G (or the energetics of a reaction) and pressure. Surely it takes energy to generate pressure, so at some point the reaction would stop at some pressure. There are also concentration effects in chemical reactions. We have Sugar going to Alcohol + CO2 and this reaction gives-off energy. If neither the Alcohol nor CO2 harmed the yeast then at some concentration, the mere excess of either of these would slow and then stop the reaction from moving forward. This is Le Chatelier's principle.

The technical term for it is wine

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I made a little bit of hard cider. This is very easy to do: You just put yeast into a bottle of apple juice--having first made sure it contains no preservatives. Preservatives do their thing by stopping the growth of yeast, among other things.

I like my hard cider to be bubbly, so I do the fermentation in the original bottle with the cap on tight. One must remember to relieve the pressure fairly often so that the bottle does not explode though!

The first batch was going well, so when it was close to being done I started a second batch by pouring a little of the first batch into the new one.

I was relating all of this to a few of our younger guests (high school and college aged) and suggested that when this last apple batch finished, I planned to inoculate a bottle of white grape juice. It was purchased for a party, it didn't get drunk and our kids don't like it--so it seemed like a good way of getting rid of it.

"Wait"! One of the young guests said, "You can ferment grape juice"? He may have regretted the words before they were fully out of his mouth: Not due to me though. I am gentle on youth. I said something like, "Yeah, sure you can". rather than the title of this post. And yes, I did think of the mean answer before I replied.

Dahlia turned 10 on the 23rd but we had her party today

It was a bowling party in "mood lighting". Hence the psychedelic picture.

Where the office used to be

This spot is where our home office has been for the last 8 years. Now that we have a new office, posted about in the last week or two, the original is being pressed into family room service. Wasting no time, the Christmas tree is installed. This year a live one that we can plant outside after Christmas. My wife did all of the decorating with my one contribution being the addition of glass blocks to give a little more height.

A tale of two turkeys

We had 19 people over for Thanksgiving dinner, so I cooked two turkeys. One in the oven and one in the charcoal grill. They would have both fit into the oven side by side since I prefer birds that are in the 12-14 lb range, but variety is the very spice of life & all that.

The verdict: I pronounce you both guilty! Of being delicious, that is. They were different of course. The oven version, cooked mostly breast-side down @ 325 F. was very juicy and really as good as one could hope for. The grilled one I cooked breast-side up the whole way since the coolest part of the grill is the top and the breast requires the least heat. The meat was a little bit less moist than the oven one, but it was reasonably juicy and one can put extra gravy on it. The main difference was that it had a strong but pleasing smokey bouquet.

The verdict, based upon which one got eaten-up the most is that the oven one won. Deep down I know that really the grilled one is better, so like a climate "scientist", I'll just water-board the data a little and come with a new verdict: People are good and as such, they naturally wanted to eat up the less desirable turkey to leave the best for others. That's the ticket!

Joke from JAMES TARANTO's WSJ Best of the Web today

Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.

Thanksgiving

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof: (via WSJ)

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

I plotted an aborted landing but ended-up flying right

One week after the marathon I injured myself. I don't think it was the marathon that did it either since I had run a couple of times after the race and was just fine. Rather, I think it was from running the day after straining myself with yard work. Go figure; a non-stop 26 mile race and I'm fine, but re-starting a recalcitrant lawn mower and I'm wrecked.

The injury spun out of control for a bit: My calf hurt so I favored landing on my heel--which then got a deep, deep blister. This caused me to compensate by thrusting forward with my good leg which caused it to get sore too.

I still ran, but slower. My experience is that injuries can take months to heal and if you stop training all that time you will be back to square one. So I ran, but I couldn't run very fast--till today. I actually set a PR for the below run. Not by much and with lots of pain still, but this is much better than pain + slowness.

Update: I paid for yesterday's exuberance: Today I ran a mere 4 miles at greater than 10 minutes per mile. I swear, some little old ladies with walkers zoomed past me but I can't be sure since it all happened so fast.