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Through a Glass, Darkly

This is a minor project, but all projects will be recorded into the annuls of whatever time period this is!

This is the garage window:

As you can see, its existence serves no purpose, and is a security flaw.  I had covered it with a paper blind, but that was ugly and dirty and falling apart.  I needed a more elegant solution.

So I fell back on a solution I employed previously on the back door: security film.  This film, when applied, bonds with the glass pane and prevents it from shattering.  The back door, which contains a large window, was stupidly fitted with a thumb-turn lock.  I’ve since taken additional security measures on the lock, but at the time this added an obstacle to simply breaking the glass and unlocking the door.  This film is also offered with dark tint.  This let me reinforce the glass as well as block out external peeping.

Ta-daa!

I put a motion sensor on that green light too.  If the door is shut and the light is off, even at night it’s not possible to effectively look in and inventory anything.

Security Protocol!

–Simon

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Shutters, Shudder

I was in the midst of a political analysis post and decided…fuck that.  I want to write about house projects instead.  And that’d probably make a more interesting read anyway, or at least less boring.  Besides, there are pundits aplenty who write articles for a living and can offer you much deeper insight.

In short: contemporary society is still divided, arguing like children and refusing to make any concessions unless forced, even when the benefits of those concessions are pretty obviously for the greater good, like getting vaccinated or addressing unsustainable entitlement programs.  And the world still hates men.  That hasn’t changed much.

So instead of contributing to that noise, look at these shutters!:

They’re in a recessed window frame.  They were also rotting out.  So Liz ordered vinyl replacements and I ripped them out.  Problem solved.

Haha, no.  Just kidding.  The replacements exposed the air gap between the brick and inner wall, as they were much thinner than the custom-cut original wood variants.  I had to get creative.

So I sealed the gap with vinyl molding and lots of caulk.

That’s it, really.  I’m just complaining, because it took a long time.  I invoked the 6 Month Rule.

At least the superstructure won’t rot out.

–Simon

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Doppler Radar, Revisited

Many moons ago (like 52), I expressed discontent with available Doppler radar weather services, citing a lack of user-friendliness and clunky UIs.  I had concluded that I should instead design my own by “borrowing” NOAA’s static map image and embedding it with some CSS into my own page with a timed refresh.  It may have been a shameless hack, but it did what I wanted it to do.

But recently, I noticed that the image no longer appeared.  I suspected that NOAA’s admins finally restricted embedding, as doing so is a standard security practice.  I sighed sadly at the prospect of being forced to use a commercial product once again.

Originally, to get the radar image, I had to dig through their source code.  I considered that maybe the file name just changed, so I went back to NOAA.  And to my surprise, I found that they had completely overhauled their weather site, replacing their own radar page with a dynamic, higher-rez version that auto-refreshes: essentially what I was trying to create originally.

So my point is that this renders my own page moot.  I’ve updated the link accordingly to redirect to their site.  I’m just glad to have back what I wanted originally.

–Simon

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So Long February

Suicide month is finally gone, and Spring is around the corner.  Woo!

That is all.

Oh and I did some minor car work because the weather was warm.

–Simon

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The Road

It’s February.

I call this, somewhat unsubtley, the suicide month.

So what better time to pick up a classic post-apocalyptic novel that’s been on my list?  That’s right, go all in!

In short, it’s the story of a man and his son.  The man tries to keep his son alive by scavenging in a nuclear-ravaged wasteland while traveling south in a bid to survive the oncoming winter.  In so doing, he attempts to maintain certain higher standards of conduct which most have abandoned for the sake of basic survival, and instill them in his charge.

The book’s been around for a while now, so there’s reviews a plenty if you want to delve into the discussion.  And like all renowned creations, there’s volumes of criticisms.  To save you time, I’ll reduce them down to the top two complaints and comment on each:

  1. It’s repetitive.  Yes, it does tend to touch on the same topics and events, but that’s because the same problems keep arising and don’t go away.  Each victory is minor and fleeting, without permanently fixing anything.  It’s a narrative of how things just don’t get better.
  2. The writing style is juvenile.  I don’t think this is a fair assessment, because it’s essentially the running monologue in the man’s mind.  I don’t know about anyone else, but my internal thought train is just that–an ongoing collection of observations, conversations, analyses, decisions, and memories; all devoid of punctuation or grammatical syntax.  And that was clearly intentional by the author.

It does ultimately end with a glimmer of hope, that the ethical codes are not extinct.  It’s a depressing journey, but a good one for the heart of winter.  Keep the fire.

–Simon