Wow! Charlie can open doors!!
I closed my office door so I could do some soldering, but he didn't think that was a good idea, so he's meowing and tugging at the door handle and then next thing you know I hear this sniff-sniff-snoo-snoo-sniff beside me - he actually got the door open!

We have the most cleverest kitty methinks!

(and yes I want to toilet train him, but Naomi says I should just let it go already)

Here's a global campaign to get rid of nuclear weapons, which seems to be getting some real action by the big governments in the world: http://www.globalzero.org/en/about-campaign

I signed the petition, cause I don't really like nukes. Nothing personal, nukes.

ps. did you know that the peace symbol actually started as a nuclear disarmament thing?

I kicked butt on my Built-Green test! So apparently I get a certificate in the mail for that. Sweeet.

We picked up the Delica on Thursday and it's awesome :) Naomi cleaned it up yesterday and now it's even more awesome. The guy in Coombs did quite the mechanical restoration on it so it's as reliable like a new vehicle (perhaps even more so).

My brother is getting married today, so we get to hang out with the family all day.

The guy who wrote an article about our b&b in More Living Magazine is popping by this morning to drop off a set of magazines for us to have and distribute.

Tomorrow is the Rhodo Society garden show and our garden is on the tour. Naomi's art gallery is also ready to roll, so that'll be open to the public for the first time tomorrow.

Busy weekend coming up! And then it's back to school in Nanaimo for me for the next 4 days. The 1.5 hr commute makes for some long days, so I hope class doesn't run late like it did last week.

Well, I survived my first 2 days back in school. got up early and got home kinda late both days.
It was a very intense lots-of-information kind of course, with a test at the end of the second day (designed as a 3 hour test, like a final exam thing). Good thing I read the books *before* the class! I'll find out my mark on Saturday. You need 80% to pass, and then I think it makes me either Built-Green certified, or eligible to become a Built-Green certified builder... not sure how that works. But I just need this as part of the requirements to become a Certified Energy Advisor.
Next week is phase 2, for 4 days. I think it's mostly to learn the hands-on stuff of how to use the Hot2000 software and the testing equipment like the blower door (which checks your house for airtightness).
Guess I should play with the software a bit more before then. Thankfully no huge reading list this time, but the bit at the end of the month has a ton more reading. I best start that right away too.

Every year we have at least one woodpecker that wants to use the peak of our house to make noise. I guess they like the wooden shingles there, and maybe the way it reverberates through the house. And it's always the same type of bird - the Northern Flicker. All the other woodpeckers are happy to just hammer at trees and enjoy the suet blocks. The little Downy Woodpeckers are still my favourite because they're so friendly and don't mess with the house :) Plus they thank me for the suet by cleaning some of the riffraff of bugs off the trees ;)

So every time we hear this misbehaving bird hammer on the peak, I go out and chase it away by clapping my hands and yelling a bit. This has been surprisingly successful the last many years - seems they are somewhat trainable.

So today I hear the hammering, and I run out across the deck, down the steps, over the stream and start clapping and yelling to chase the bird away and this sleepy raccoon starts to slowly walk away from where I just ran past. Poor thing didn't even argue or look at me. just slowly groggily walked away. Last I saw, it went into the neighbours' yard - I guess their deck is nice to sleep under too.

Oh, and the neatest thing is that I can go out there and chase the bad bird off the peak of our roof, while all the birds nearby on the feeders barely pay any attention to me. It's like they know :D

Oh, and we just got a new addition to our woodpecker family - the BIG pileated woodpecker! Very cool!

I think we'll have to get a roofer up there this year to make sure that peak is still solid, and maybe to add some reinforcement and backup in that spot! Thankfully that peak does have several layers there already.

A lot of felines out there may not like me for this... ;)

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find your kitty's belly button.
Go!

I've been running the desulfator on a few of the batteries over the last week or so, and at first I wasn't sure if it was working or not. The old UPS batteries very quickly lost voltage when I put it on, and also the motorcycle battery dropped to around 7 volts over the week I had it on the desulfator.

I since read that I should be charging the battery daily as part of this process - oops. So I've been doing that since.

The other thing I learned is that the voltage in the battery will actually drop as its capacity increases due to desulfating - so it's possible that this process is actually working quite well.

I've also hooked it up intermittently to one of my solar system batteries, switching the little maintainer-charger and the desulfator between the two batteries.

I have a box of transformers in the basement from old electronics stuff (printers, laptops, and such) so I want to hook a 14 volt (ish) 1 or 2 amp charger into the desulfator so I can hook it up and leave it on while it desulfates and trickle charges simultaneously. Ideally I can make this something i can plug and unplug as needed...

And Canadian Tire has a regular battery charger on sale today so I should pick up one of those - the maintainer doesn't really give a good full charge.

Oh, last night I also built a peak voltage detector (very simple circuit doohickey consisting of a capacitor, a diode, some wires and some clips) - that showed me that the desulfator IS actually working! woohoo! :) Now I just have to figure what the 22 volt peaks mean in terms of how well desulfating is progressing.

I just exported my LJ to pdf using ljbook.com. It did a great job. Looks nice. Too bad I changed the location of some of my earlier pictures (I think we switched servers), so some of the older ones are not showing up.

In other news, I'm desulfating my motorbike battery right now. Started it on Thursday. Apparently it can take a week or more to rejuvenate a battery. Guess we'll find out. I originally tried desulfating some older UPS batteries, but I think those were too far gone already - they showed around 6 or 7 volts, and they are supposed to be 12 volt batteries. I might try them again while simultaneously hooking up a trickle charger.
The desulfator makes a high pitched squeal when it's working, so I can tell when it's on. Seems there might be a loose connection on the board though, as it doesn't always start right away... I'll have to check that out later.

And we're expecting a b&b visitor today who will be writing a magazine article on us - yay!
His website: http://www.thefreelancewriter.ca/

Maybe this can be my next gig ;)


(found on reblog)

I finished the timing part of my battery desulfator circuit and finally tested it today.


This is the timing part of the desulfator now permanently soldered onto a little project board that I got from The Source. That empty space will house the bigger components - 2 coils, a mosfet, a diode, and a capacitor.

( more pictures... )

Next I need to add the high amp part of the circuit and add some battery clamps, and then it should be ready to rejuvenate some old 12v lead-acid batteries!