Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Jeremy beat me to the punch on making a post remarking about how hot it had been this past week.

I ran to HEB (grocery store) today and well it felt like it was the hottest it has been so far this season.

I am sure that it was more likely not the hottest day so far, but rather the fact that I was outside around 2pm and in a parking lot (that had been collecting heat all day).

Regardless of whether it was or wasn't the hottest day so far, even the breeze was hot.

Not "sort of warm", not a "mildly refreshing" breeze, but hot, sort of like a hot breath on the back of your neck.

Needless to say I got inside the store quickly and made my purchases.

I have a little bit of a cold. Speaking of which my OJ should be ready, I am going to go and drink a glass of OJ and take a nap (which might turn into tomorrow, but who knows).

Laterz

My iGoogle homepage says that is 99 out. However, it has to be even hotter out than that.

It is 77 in the kitchen right now, but that is also because Gina was using the oven earlier.

I had to run to the store to get some pasta shells so that Gina could finish making dinner. We also needed some Ice to I hit the 'Ice Shack', I don't know what else to call it. It is this little building, similar in size to those tiny espresso shacks, but without the clerk.

You walk up, insert your $1.75 for a 16 lb bag of ice. You get 20 lbs of ice if you have your own container to put it all in.

Anyway, I know this is Texas. SO not really whining, just reporting that Texas summer has come. I am pretty sure the last two days are the hottest we have had this summer.

Maybe I bitched about the rain just a little too much. I would love if it just poured for an hour right about now.

Laterz.

I think that is how the saying goes.

Regardless, Jeremy and I got the last of the tree limb out of the tree.

I took up the pole saw this time and trimmed off the remaining leaf bearing branches on the dead limb. I also attempted to trim off some parts that we thought were keeping us from being able to remove it easily from the tree. A couple of pieces I cut off might have proved useful. However, given what the solution we ended up using to remove the limb, I doubt it.

Jeremy at one point was on top of the ladder pushing the tree limb up, as to dislodge it from the other limb it was sort of stuck in. However, even with me helping out we couldn't lift it high enough.

The way in which we were attempting to dislodge it, ie lifting it up, made me remember that I had some 8' (maybe 10') 2x4 beams in the garage from one of the renovation projects. We went and retrieved two of these and set about finding a good spot to plant the beams as to be able to push the limb up and out of the tree.

And with a resounding... CRASH-THUD, the limb hit the ground.

Luckily it didn't hit either one of us. Just before my thought about the beams, while Jeremy and I were messing with the limb whilst Jeremy was on the ladder, Gina had let Curly out into the front yard. Thankfully, when the limb had come crashing down finally, Gina had taken Curly for a walk around the block, we think the limb weighs a good 80-90 pounds, so it most definitely would end the life a little dog (or a knucklehead who is trying to jostle it out of the tree).

No one was hurt in the end, which is good. However, now there is a front yard full of tree limb to take care of.

I can honestly say that I am avoiding the task, as it is very HOT and HUMID out.

Jeremy and I are currently hanging out at the DraughtHouse in downtown Austin. We ate a late lunch @ Delware subs just south of here and are now currently enjoying a pint. We are going to work on John's weasel site. We will likely move from here over to Mozart's coffee house, as there doesn't seem to be any power outlets, which always seems to be the case for me.

Time to get cracking.

Laterz

The duct work replacement job is about 95% done now.

I had to run out to Lowe's real quick to get some registers that we hadn't gotten around to replacing.

For some reason I thought they were going to do a pressure test or something. Nope, they just wanted to close the registers as to avoid stuff coming through the vents while they were redoing everything in the attic.

At one point the garage was full of the old duct work, I mean pretty full of it.

I believe they just finished setting up the last duct as it now sounds a little bit like I am in a wind tunnel here in my home office.

I am going to wait for the OK from them to open back up the register, but I am hoping that all the sudden increase in airflow means that my thoughts on the general air pressure coming from the vents is correct.

More to come.

Laterz

The AC guys wrapped up their work and had me sign-off on the paperwork about 10 minutes ago.

I got out the ladder and shoved the old remote thermometer up into the vent to get a read on the temperature.

The temperature coming out of was 64 degrees. It has dropped down to 62 since they left.

The house thermometer in the hallway along with the one in the kitchen have both dropped a degree.

One interesting thing is that when the blower would kick-on before, it would just about suck the air-filter up into the duct. This one wasn't nearly as powerful. I mean I could hear it come on and see if "grab" onto the air-filter, but not in the same manner.

It would appear that the blower as a whole isn't quite as powerful as the old one and just doesn't pump the same amount of air output as the old one.

However, some of that might change when they re-do the duct work next week. I would guess the following:

#1. The old ducts aren't sealed well to the unit or the wall.

#2. That the old ducts were put in inefficiently, thus the air coming out isn't as cold as it could be.

#3. That the old ducts might actually be bigger than the ones that are going to be installed. I would guess that smaller ducts would mean a higher output of airflow, because it would add pressure to the amount of air being pushed.

Anyway, the outside unit is about 1/2 as noisy as the old one, which is nice. I noticed that I tend to have the TV up louder than I normally do when the outside unit is on. I don't think that will be the case anymore.

I hope the house is nice a chilly when Gina gets home.

I need to run a few errands.

Oh yeah, I am going to crawl up into the attic either tonight or in the morning (ie when it isn't insanely hot) and take some pics of the new inside unit.

I can't wait to compare July's electric bill against last years.

Laterz.

I picked him up from the airport yesterday afternoon.

I was a bit late, I got caught up folding clothes and hanging towels out on the clothesline. Which, now one of the posts for the clothesline needs to be replaced. It has snapped at the base. I had noticed that it was rusting pretty bad right where the dogs had been marking it, I figured it would probably last a couple of years.

So that will be a project for next Saturday. I will try to get that in the ground before taking Jeremy back to the airport. I fly out to Boston on Sunday for the eBay Developers Conference.

On the way back from the airport, we went through downtown and over to the UT campus. I haven't been down there in a quite a while. We hit "Einstein's" an Arcade right there on the 'Drag' and played some video games. Then I got us lost looking for the Dobie mall, I thought it was north but it was south.

So along the way we stopped in at 'The Hole In the Wall' and had a quick beer and shot a game of pool. Asked directions to the Dobie.

It was very Hot yesterday, and 'It is very Hot' was said many times, mostly by Jeremy.

We browsed and each bought a graphic novel at Funny Papers, the comic store in the Dobie mall.

Then we headed towards home, stopping at HEB along the way to pick up some stuff for dinner and lunch stuff for Jeremy for the week.

I gotta go.

Back to the grind.

Laterz