Common Sense

Lou Ann Appendicitis

Lou Ann had her appendix removed on 03/31/08 at Jasper Memorial Hospital. She is back home now after spending a couple of days in the hospital. The appendix has ruptured which resulted in some IV antibiotics and the extra day in the hospital. ~Greg

Fan Fair 2007

I attended the National Convention of the Antique Fan Collectors Association (AFCA). It's called "Fan Fair" and it was held July 19th - 21st this year at Lebanon Indiana. Hosts were Fanimation, a fan manufacturer based in Zionsville, and Kim Frank, a restorer also based in Zionsville.

I was fortunate enough to win one of the Fanimation Fans given away, their "Air Shadow" ceiling fan with hide-away blades (suggested list price $1,197). This thing is too cool, when off the blades are folded up above the light fixture. When you turn it on the blades swing out and begin moving air.

Had a great time.

~~Greg

POTABLE

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/potable

With audible pronunciation.

~~Greg

KIDS' CLOSET

The wife is opening her children's clothing re-sale and consignment shop Friday May 25th, 2007; 605 E Main Street, Petersburg, IN. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Over 2000 articles of clothing ranging from newborn to teen sizes. I've never seen so many $3 items in one place, we could have called it the Kids' $3 store. Tell your friends !!

Prius gone

I traded in the hybrid Prius (see post of Feb 4, 2006) on an '07 Hybrid Camry last August. I like the Camry better. ~~Greg

Suit no longer fits

Well, it had to happen sooner or later I suppose... The suit I'm wearing in the pictures on the website no longer fits. At least the pants don't. My waist seems to have grown, or the cleaners shrank the pants (not likely). I've accused my wife of shrinking all of my blue jeans. Odd, they all shrank about the same time, even the ones I haven't worn for a long time. Perhaps it's a conspiracy... yeah, the denim cartel of the world has made jeans all shrink waist size at the same time so they can sell more jeans. That's gotta be it... ~~Greg

Freezing Water

"At 32 degrees (Fahrenheit) water freezes", I was told "everybody knows that". This was in response to my statement that it "tends to freeze". I suppose I should have said it "begins to freeze" or "crystallization begins". The act of freezing is a phase change from liquid to solid, that much most everybody knows. What my pally forgot from Physics is that there is a latent heat of fusion (a rearrangement of the Hydrogen bonds) that has to be removed during the phase change. Take distilled water and lower the temperature to 32F by removing heat then stop removing heat. What do you have? 32F Water!

Yes, water "Tends to Freeze" at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

After reaching 32F, an additional 6000 Btu's have to be removed from a 5 gallon bucket of water for it to become completely solid, all the while at 32F.

As we ALL know from having water cooled engines in our vehicles, impurities or designed additives can cause "freeze point depression" or change the freezing point temperature of water. Such mixtures can depress the freezing point to -60F or below.

The oceans are another good example of freeze point depression, 1 pound of salt (NaCl) in 3 pounds of water lowers the freeze point to about -15F. The oceans aren't nearly this salty though, and the freezing point of average seawater (34ppt salinity) is about 30F.
~~Greg

June 9th, 2006
From Wikipedia.org

Water has a freezing point of 273 K (0 C) but can be supercooled at ambient pressure down to its crystal homogeneous nucleation at almost 231 K (-42 C). If cooled at a rate of the order of 1 million K per second, the crystal nucleation can be avoided and water becomes a glass. Its glass transition temperature is much colder and harder to determine, but studies estimate it at about 165 K (-108 C).

- The above describes "freezing rain"

LEED AP

I passed the US Green Building Council exam. I'm now a LEED Accredited Professional.

ASHRAE meeting/AHR show

I attended the winter annual ashrae meeting and ahr product expo in Chicago the week of January 22nd. What a blast! Another record crowd of nearly 58,000 visitors and 1900 vendors were at the product show. It's always fun to cruise around the product show, there's so much to see. New products, old products. Old friends, new friends. I came back with a bag full of pens, sticky notes, pads, whatnots and thingamajigs. Not to mention product CD's and info sheets. Had my ID card scanned a few dozen times so the mailbox will be full for a while as the literature from all the manufacturers comes in.

I found out the hotel I stayed at charges $38 a night to park my car and $12.95 a day for internet access. Wow! I thought some of that would be included in the $155 a night room charge. I did get a "free" apple each day at the front desk.

As I was getting ready to leave, I called the valet to have my car brought up while I checked out. When I went to the garage the parking valet met me with the news that my car wouldn't start. He thought the battery was dead. I had to go down into the parking garage with him to show him where the battery is. The car is a Hybrid, they had looked all over under the hood for the battery but it's in the Trunk. Once jumped, the car ran fine and is still fine. They must have left a light on for me...

Moving Heat

I used to go to the local elementary school where my children attended and make a presentation for "science day" or "career day" or "share your parent day". My presentation involved bringing a small window air conditioner into the classroom. After my 15 minute or so talk about the history of air conditioning I would plug in the air conditioner and see if the kids had caught on to the simple "moving heat" principles I had been espousing. The air conditioner would sit there spitting cool air out the front and warm air out the back, just like it's supposed to. I had explained to the kids that the air conditioner didn't "make cool", rather it "moved heat". It moved it from inside the house to outside the house where it rejected it. I explained that the air conditioner rejected more heat than it moved out of the house because the efficiency can never be greater than 1, you can't get something for nothing, there is no perpetual motion machine, or something like that. The work of the compressor is additional heat that has to be rejected.

After letting the a/c run for a few minutes I would ask "Will the room get warmer or cooler with this unit running inside like this?". Invariably, they would answer "cooler". Guess I need to work on my explanation more....
~~Greg