To the attentive traveler with a curiosity for such things, there’s always an old cemetery tucked away in unsuspecting places. There’s one down the street from the Dayton mall, by I-675. There’s one in Toledo on Central, by a BP gas station. They blend into the background, because we have the space for them here. In more populated areas, the grave sites are exhumed for reuse, with the prior tenant relocated to a mass crypt.
Yet despite the differences in space, while I never see anyone landscaping, cemeteries are always properly mowed, no matter how dilapidated the gravestones.
My former dogs posses such a plot, and with plenty of room. They are properly cared for, but have also sustained years worth of environmental damage, it was time to restore their graves.
Their markers had sunken beneath the sod, and squirrels had toppled the shrine. So this time, I employed construction adhesive and firmly cemented everything in place.
May it last another 9 years, properly prepared to receive the next round of canine souls who, unlike their predecessors, always enjoyed the benefits of a mowed whippet patch.
No, not a concealed carry license, although that would be appropriate. I speak instead of America’s 250th anniversary.
Outside a momentary “oh that’s neat” thought, I didn’t see much in the way of gushing over this momentous occasion. Unlike the Bicentennial, which Boomers constantly talked about in a way that compared it to Woodstock, this event went by as more or less a standard holiday. I assume this is because younger generations are alive for it, which removes the “I was there for it and you weren’t” retro-FOMOism bit. Still, a few found the time to complain about events being more drone-heavy, with tech starting to supplant explosives. Remember when more people were killing themselves with fireworks and causing massive property damage? Those were the days. We were a tougher generation.
A lack of skin grafts notwithstanding, here’s some photos of the Easement Acres celebration:
Product stickers I’ve received, place on my cooler. Capitalism! America!
Burgers!
Family!
Drones!
Not a firework, but a road flare. Because I never lit one before and it seemed like a good excuse to use one.
One day I’ll have a whole house generator. I’m thinking one of those automatic devices that runs off the natural gas line and engages itself when the power goes out. Or maybe I’ll have battery banks installed. And maybe satellite internet. Because our wired infrastructure here at Easement Acres is getting increasingly unreliable.
Some of it may be due to hurricanes. Or, most recently, because a friggin truck snagged the power line and ripped the utility pole down. Of course, whenever it’s windy the power flickers in and out, too. And when it’s hot out. Or if someone walking through the neighborhood gives off bad vibes. The power goes out with with an annoyingly increasing frequency, is my point.
Then I stumbled upon something rather obvious in retrospect: companies that make battery-powered tools also make power inverters for their own batteries. So like, I can plug an AC device into the battery. Duh. Seems obvious now.
So when the power went out due to the aforementioned truck incident, I was able to power a nice bright table lamp in the kitchen and continue drinking without interruption, while charging phones in the process. But unfortunately it was limited to one battery, which didn’t generate enough total wattage output to power the garage door opener. That in itself wasn’t a major problem. It’s always the refrigerator that poses the most immediate concern. Based on past experience, I can get up to 6 hours before it reaches unsafe temperatures…if no one opens it and it’s already at ideal temperature.
But then this came to my attention:
If anyone here’s played any of the Fallout games, I think you can agree that this totally looks like a generator from that franchise. Or one of the many fusion batteries seen hooked up to mobile equipment scattered throughout the DC metro. It even has that green nuclear glow, which I’m sure was intentional designing by the manufacturer. I’ll admit, it looks cool. And it can power the refrigerator, for quite a while it seems. Idle, the power usage estimate was a couple days. When the compressor kicked it, it dropped to 12-18 hours, which is still impressive. So I’m guessing that as the fridge cycles on and off, this would give us about a day with my mixmatched set of amp-hour batteries. I’d buy some 12AH batteries, but they cost as much as the inverter itself. We’ll see where my needs take me.
It’s impressive what modern battery technology can do. It brings promises of The World of Tomorrow, but unfortunately I’m currently having to use it for more of the Fallout-type scenarios.
Today’s entry for boring project announcement is the installation of deck lattice! Yay!
I didn’t post about this, but the deck had been recently painted. Originally the goal was to strip and re-stain the deck, which Liz contracted out due to the time and effort investment which was lacking in-house. But project companies and their sub-contractors never seem to get along. For some reason, there’s always a disconnect between the 22 year-old blonde marketing major who promises everything in a job quote, and the grizzled old Mexican migrant workers who actually do the work. Becky may have some experience in stripping, but I’d guess it’s of a different type.
In the end, Liz settled for paint instead of stain. But not after a lengthy back and forth discussion to confirm colors and timing and price adjustments. Were the goal to only paint, that would have remained in-house. We should have canceled outright on principle, but this wasn’t my project. In the end, Becky got her pay day, and we got an overpriced paint job. But it does look nice, I’ll admit.
The final stage, which we did not outsource, was the lattice. The original lattice was that cedar stuff commonly sold for cheap at every hardware store. 10 years of removal and re-installation for each deck staining had left them in a sorry state. They also wouldn’t match the new paint without painting of their own. Not worth the effort. So we replaced them with vinyl.
Just one more improvement to Easement Acres. I don’t anticipate them keeping the groundhogs out, but maybe the skunks will be deterred.
