Mercedes Leaving Petrol Behind?

EcoGeek is running a well-sourced but unconfirmed article that Mercedes plans to remove petroleum-based vehicles from its lineup by 2015.

Wow.

link to the article

Mercedes is looking into electric vehicles, both battery-powered and fuel-cell powered. Not only are models in development, but we’ve also seen the company making steps towards its zero-petroleum goal right now, from better cabs in London to li-ion battery improvements. The company also has about 100 Smart electric cars undergoing testing in London, with that favorite 2010 year as the projected market release date.

Geez, They're Talking about MY Kids...

GearDiary blog has a post about the Eyedentity labels, temporary tattoos custom-made with information you specify. Contact information, say, or medial issues. The temporary tattoo mechanism means that the info will eventually come off, but not quickly OR easily. Pretty much guarantees that anything that MUST stay on your kid WILL. Because we know that, if it isn't irretrievably attached to their body, they'll lose it...am I right about this?

 

link to eyedentity labels

ALLLmost There!

The three-day Fourth of July weekend made time for some high-impact finish work on the house. Going into the weekend, I had the following list of thing I wanted to accomplish:

1. finish the trim paint on the eaves and gutters - DONE
2. barkdust the flowerbeds in the back yard - DONE
3. install the latch on the dining room stained glass window - DONE
4. Clean out the garage. - MOSTLY DONE
5. remove the five junipers in the front yard - IN PROCESS
6. Fix the awkward crooked gutter thing at the front door - IN PROCESS
7. put some trim pieces on the corners of the house where we replaced the siding
8. plant grass on the unseeded half of the front yard
   

I also did a couple other items not even on the list:

1. figured out how to make the pantry roll smoothly. Floor just needs a piece of masonite!
2. installed the ogee baseboard trim in C's office
3. installed C's fancy door knocker on the restored front door
4. fixed the crooked door trim around the front door
5. installed the original (freshly restored) house number tiles
6. fixed the open gap in the garage wall near the small garage door
7. Installed the new doorbell button at the back door
8. Cleaned house paint over-spray off some of the vinyl windows in the back

I'll update the slide show with some new AFTER shots.

The dining room window latch is a turn-latch with a strike plate. The strike plate gets installed IN the window casing, with some chisel work to make a void for the latch. Then, the latch goes on the window frame. Close the window, turn the latch into the strike plate, and it cinches closed. Easy enough...except for making it all fit well in the three-dimensional space. You only get one shot at this, afterall. Nonetheless, after three hours of careful drilling, chiseling and carving, I had succeeded in matching the latch to the strike plate.I ended up having to carve away about a quarter inch of the window frame underneath the latch piece, so as to countersink the latch. It turned out well, given that the top of the latch mounting plate now lies flush with the window frame itself...looks 'right' and intentional. That's the point, I guess. I was quite afraid that the window would fit poorly when I finished. Luckily, those fears were unfounded.

We pulled the original WPA-style house number tiles out, renewed the black paint on the numbers, sealed the paint with clearcoat, and put the tiles back into a brand-new reproduction frame from Rejuvenation. The result? Historic, original numbers that look 75 years younger.

Some of the back-side window frames got a dose of over-spray when the house was painted. I figured out that a bit of Painter's Pal solution, followed by a light scrub with steel wool is a relatively quick way to remove the paint. It takes a bit of effort, but not nearly as much as scraping with a razor blade or other such method. Good news, that. There are only three windows (and one screen door) needing this sort of aattention.

And then there was the garage. Ah, the garage! Saturday was garage day. We looked like a garage sale as we put all the stuff out into the alley and the parking strip. With some room to work, we cleaned up the dust and scrap that the contractors stuffed everywhere. Then we got the shelves arranged properly and pulled the 'sell/donate' items off the shelves and into the 'sell/donate' stack. Some logical ordering of shelving contents, and sorting/combining of the remaining boxes left us at the end of the day with:

• a car-load of donate/sell items all staged to go. There will be more in this category, once we've gone through the remaining boxes.
• about a dozen boxes for the living room, dining room, kitchen areas
• about 16 boxes of kid stuff including obsolete toys, science kits, etc.
• a clean garage floor
• bump-outs fully functional as storage alcoves for yard and automotive items
• organized and logical storage system for our other stuff
• a garbage can already full of stuff for disposal
• a big pile of scrap firewood for the Chiminea.

I'm realizing that, with the exception of: the porch stained glass (yet to install, 4 hours); the pantry floor (proven out, 1 hour); M's baseboard trim around her curved section (4 hours); and back door hinge replacement (overnight), my in-the-house list to-do is essentially complete.

Everything else is outdoors. And that's getting short too! Trim paint second coat (2 hours), siding trim corners (3 hours), juniper removal (a day) and grass seed (2 hours), front yard bark dust (4 hours).

I count about 30 man-hours of work here, and I'm done.

Folding Skills

Okay, I'm lifting shamelessly from the most excellent blog, Unclutterer. But it fits DIRECTLY with an ongoing conversation we've been having around our house. I won't recount the positions or the arguments being made here, but I will post constructively-oriented, skills-based discussion about how to improve space usage through folding techniques:

As I looked at the two sacks of sheets at the bottom of our closet, I realized it wasn’t the best use of space. I don’t fold well and to get around this I simply shove sheets into a pillowcase. The fitted sheet is always the one that makes the whole process aggravating. Real Simple has a how-to guide on efficient ways to fold just about anything. Here’s their step-by-step instructions on how to conquer the dreaded fitted sheet. The whole “How to Fold Anything” page can be found here.

Properly folding sheets, towels, or clothing can save you quite a bit of space. Whether you are packing for a trip or just putting things away in your dresser or closet. Take a little time to fold things well and the space you save will be worth the time.

My most favorite? How to fold a fitted sheet

I also posted about linen storage techniques way back when, here.

Breakfast in Bed? On a Wednesday?

I was awakened this morning by the lilting voices of my lovely wife and my darling son. They were talking; she was still in the bed with me. Slowly, I realized they were talking to me. So I started to listen to the meaning of their words. Seems they were trying to make me aware that R had made breakfast in bed for us both, and that I was to wake up and eat.

Wow.
Just....Wow.

Absolutely I resisted the urge to get suspicious. R's not the 'butter-you-up' type. If he made breakfast for us, it was because he wanted to demonstrate his love and appreciation. That's more like how he's wired. A lovely, lovely gift.

Thank you, son. Thank you.

Origami Fun

Here's how to fold a US currency bill into a finger ring

Hello muddah, Hello faddah!

 

R will be at Boy Scout camp July 5-12, at Camp Meriwether on the Oregon Coast.

C will be attending with him for a couple days at the beginning of the week; I'll close out the week with him.

At flag ceremony each day at camp, the troop staff does a mail call. Given that this is R's first full-fledged BOY SCOUT camp, I'm posting how people can surprise him with a piece of mail at camp. It's always a surprise and a sort of a badge of honor to get mail while at camp. Mostly because everyone knows the mail had to be sent almost before camp began in order to arrive on time.

So, if you're interested in dropping him a note of encouragement or connection, here's how you do it:

[MAILING ADDRESS REDACTED - TIME EXPIRED]

To arrive by Friday of camp week, you'll need to mail your last item by Monday's early post. In other words, if it doesn't go into the mail by July 7, you'll probably miss him. My suggestion is just a quick postal card or a short note/letter.

I'm sending a small care package, hopefully timed to arrive before I get there.