New York Greetings From Hill-Billy Calvin, AKA Augie

[Benjamin Marks]

Sounds like a hugely satisfying set of projects. My wife and I moved to Vermont from NYC in 2002 for her job and although I had visited "the country" from time to time, we have now lived here for a good while. During that time I have learned:
1) There is more than one way to stack cordwood, and most folks with a woodstove have a marked preference for their own method.
2) AWD is fine. AWD with snowtires is better (Hakkapallitas). AWD with studs are the best. Even then: drive with respect for the conditions. Serious car guys around here get a set of snows on a separate set of rims.
3) There is no such thing as bad weather -- only the wrong clothing.
4) Everything in your built environment will eventually rot, rust, or break. Simple is good. User-servicable is best.
5) Figure out now which of your pipes will freeze when it gets really cold. Hint: they are the ones inexplicably set against exterior walls. Get a heat gun.
6) Cats are really good against mice. Siberians are hypoallergenic and very personable beasts.

That's about it.

 

[MrFujicaman]

Cal, since studded tires are outlawed in many places, I'd suggest 2 sets of cable chains-a set for each axle.

 

[Calzone]

Sounds like a hugely satisfying set of projects. My wife and I moved to Vermont from NYC in 2002 for her job and although I had visited "the country" from time to time, we have now lived here for a good while. During that time I have learned:
1) There is more than one way to stack cordwood, and most folks with a woodstove have a marked preference for their own method.
2) AWD is fine. AWD with snowtires is better (Hakkapallitas). AWD with studs are the best. Even then: drive with respect for the conditions. Serious car guys around here get a set of snows on a separate set of rims.
3) There is no such thing as bad weather -- only the wrong clothing.
4) Everything in your built environment will eventually rot, rust, or break. Simple is good. User-servicable is best.
5) Figure out now which of your pipes will freeze when it gets really cold. Hint: they are the ones inexplicably set against exterior walls. Get a heat gun.
6) Cats are really good against mice. Siberians are hypoallergenic and very personable beasts.

That's about it.

Ben,

In New Mexico they say, "If you don't like the weather just wait 5 minutes."

I loved when in December you could experience 4 seasons in a day.

I have a "kick-out" (that's what Devil Christian calls it" that is a bathroom that was added that features a crawl space that I think will be prone to freezing pipes. I have an industrial heat gun and a portable electric heater, but I think they also have wrap around electrical heaters for wrapping around pipes.

The Jeep Scrambler with Mud Terrains did well in snow, but of course you had to go slow and understand the laws of physics. I had a set of chains that would allow passage over snow about a foot above my bumper I was told, but I never had to use them.

When I lived in the Santa Fe National Forest at an altitude of 7000 feet the State used a Cat-A-pillar road grater to plow the roads. When it snowed it could be 3-4 feet plus drifts.

I don't plan on using my car so much in snow unless I have to. I'm pretty fine with staying home unless I must go out.

But one of the things I'm looking forward to doing is to go mountain biking in fresh snow. There is a muffling and this sense of peaces the bike.

One of the great things about my Baby-Victorian is its small size, but another is that it has great strong bones. Not that I'm living in the Nation Forest again, but I literally am on the edge of town and bordering on a 1500 acre preserve.

In the morning it appears like the NYC bound train that I'm waiting for is heading upriver because Peekskill abutts a "bay" and the northern end of town is a peninsula. The Hudson is wide in Peekskill, but just north on the westside is West Point a narrow point in the Hudson.

I can see the strategic value of the geography. I think I had great vision in seeing the full potential of this home. I can see with the super insulated heated garage as a work space, along with the addition I'm planning that the notion of having a separate work space and closer to 2K of living space adding mucho value to the home.

Devil Christian made a point that with an older house you can't make it super insulated like a home built with modern construction, but with the double car garage I can.

Seems like I have the perfect roof facing south for a 10 KW solar array on the rear roof of the house.

The idea of the sound proof roof is to avoid needing a vapor barrier and to avoid mold. It also exploits the space where I have the most ceiling height.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Cal, since studded tires are outlawed in many places, I'd suggest 2 sets of cable chains-a set for each axle.

MFM,

My experience with all season tires on a Jeep made me a believer in aggressive truck tires like BF Goodrich Mud Terrains that howl and produce road noise. The Audi has AWD, but just all season tires. Not the best, and the Electronic Stability Control would have to be deactivated, and might damage the Tire Pressure Monitoring System.

If anything it would be a reason to buy a truck with 4 wheel drive.

I have no problem walking/hiking if I have to.

Cal

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I doubt you would ever need to worry about fitting any new tires on the Audi. Germans know how to make cars for snow. My rear wheel drive 1972 Benz has all season tires and it has never gotten stuck in spite of driving in awful weather, with quite a bit of snow, mud, some ice. Winters in New Mexico, Washington, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, nothing led me to doubt the confidence in the car. I have chains but have never felt I needed them and so have only fit them once for initial setup to get the fit right.
Since you're right on the Hudson, you're going to get the insulating effect of the water which will cause less snow but more rain. Go a few hundred feet up the side of the valley on either side and it will be snowing.

Phil Forrest

 

[Benjamin Marks]

I have a "kick-out" (that's what Devil Christian calls it" that is a bathroom that was added that features a crawl space that I think will be prone to freezing pipes. I have an industrial heat gun and a portable electric heater, but I think they also have wrap around electrical heaters for wrapping around pipes.
[snip]....

Devil Christian made a point that with an older house you can't make it super insulated like a home built with modern construction, but with the double car garage I can.

Seems like I have the perfect roof facing south for a 10 KW solar array on the rear roof of the house.

The idea of the sound proof roof is to avoid needing a vapor barrier and to avoid mold. It also exploits the space where I have the most ceiling height.

Cal

Sounds like you are well on your way to being sorted. In our house the kitchen water supply was (inexplicably) routed in perspex piping against an external wall. The pipes froze, but didn't burst, every time the nighttime temps went down to 20 F or so. My "bubba" solution was to carve a Styrofoam cooler we had into four panels and slip the flat Styrofoam between the perspex and the wooden walls. That did the trick. Failing that, constant air circulation from a warm part of the house was Plan B. Plan B always felt suspiciously like conspiring to heat the outdoors, so I am glad it never got to that.

I lived in Amherst MA during my late teens and had an early Mongoose mountain bike. Its knobbly tires did pretty well in the snow.

Finally, we have a 7kW PV system in the back yard with battery back up in the basement. Ours is ground mounted on concrete ballasts, but roof mounted is definitely the less expensive way to go. :bthumb: There are four of us, so we tried to hit a sweet spot with the system size that assumed the kids would be gone for half of the PV panels' useful life, but that a cold climate heat pump and electric car would be added (and they have been). We have only paid one or two electric bills in the past five years. That alone has some entertainment value, quite apart from the bill savings. By year 9 we should hit break even, and then electricity will only cost the price of repairs during system life.

 

[Calzone]

Sounds like you are well on your way to being sorted. In our house the kitchen water supply was (inexplicably) routed in perspex piping against an external wall. The pipes froze, but didn't burst, every time the nighttime temps went down to 20 F or so. My "bubba" solution was to carve a Styrofoam cooler we had into four panels and slip the flat Styrofoam between the perspex and the wooden walls. That did the trick. Failing that, constant air circulation from a warm part of the house was Plan B. Plan B always felt suspiciously like conspiring to heat the outdoors, so I am glad it never got to that.

I lived in Amherst MA during my late teens and had an early Mongoose mountain bike. Its knobbly tires did pretty well in the snow.

Finally, we have a 7kW PV system in the back yard with battery back up in the basement. Ours is ground mounted on concrete ballasts, but roof mounted is definitely the less expensive way to go. :bthumb: There are four of us, so we tried to hit a sweet spot with the system size that assumed the kids would be gone for half of the PV panels' useful life, but that a cold climate heat pump and electric car would be added (and they have been). We have only paid one or two electric bills in the past five years. That alone has some entertainment value, quite apart from the bill savings. By year 9 we should hit break even, and then electricity will only cost the price of repairs during system life.

Ben,

I assume your home is likely about 2K square feet, or a larger home than mine (just under 1,500 square feet).

I'm convinced that a Mitsubishi heat pump and superinsulating the garage means that I would have a heated bunker of sorts.

I found these RayCore Structural Insulated Panels that utilize Polyurethane insulation that come without sheathing in either 2x4, 2x6 or 2x8 studs embedded.

2x4 is R26, 2x6 is R42, and 2x8 R52.

I was going to buy a Cloplay 5 ply insulated garage door (19 foot) for $4.5K that has an R value of 21, but now it seems more cost effective and feasible to build two sets of carriage house doors out of 2x6 RayCore SIP's and gain R42 or double the insulation.

The garage roof is a hip roof that I think I will convert to a gabled roof to have a storage loft. The old roof is so far gone that new sheathing will be required anyways, and while I'm at it I can extend the roof to initially have an 10 x20 foot awning that I can easily close in to make it a green house without the glass roof by adding walls of windows and perhaps French Doors.

The Baby-Victorian already has a 200 amp service, and the garage taps off that 200 amp service and has its own 50 amp breaker panel in the garage. I can share the garage with my evil car that I call "Beauty" because it is a black beauty like the uppers made with bi-amphetimine powder with time release.

I gave up the three small extra rooms in the upstairs. "Maggie" just furnished the tower octagon shaped room as her office with period correct furnishings, one room will be a guest room, but the smallest room upstairs will be her "closet."

I think the garage when insulated and heated will be the better deal, plus the 8x13 interior space that will be a soundproof room will be optimized for privacy. A true man-cave.

Because of the lack of drain it will also serve as a Dry-Darkroom.

Fidel has saved for me a 20x25 print washer that captures som kinda huge. Although I'm 5'10" because Arnold would call me a "Girlieman" I guess this is why I like big cameras and love to print big.

Piezography Pro inks allow me to print negatives that I can contact print. How crazy is that? Kinda perfect for printing editions. I need to buy a vacuum frame for contact printing.

Happy-happy.

BTW don't tell Maggie. LOL.

Cal

 

[Stephen G]

@Cal - After my first driveway/walkway/deck shoveling.. I have purchased a battery powered snow blower. Will give a review after next real storm.

Insulating the garage is a great idea, I added some after-market insulation to the inside of my doors but it does very little. I am debating a semi-permanent sealing of 1 of the 2 doors as I only use 1 side of garage. Would allow me to insulate that side better and at least have less heat escape. Not sure exactly how, but thats the thought..

On solar - note Tesla just updated the system sizes this week.. Previously only sold in sizes of 4/8/12/16 kW but they now offer some in-between sizes like 10kW you are talking about.

If you still have the SL2, you might like the Sigma 100-400 for some affordable tele work for the inevitable backyard wildlife. I've been making use of it with the birds here.

 

[Calzone]

@Cal - After my first driveway/walkway/deck shoveling.. I have purchased a battery powered snow blower. Will give a review after next real storm.

Insulating the garage is a great idea, I added some after-market insulation to the inside of my doors but it does very little. I am debating a semi-permanent sealing of 1 of the 2 doors as I only use 1 side of garage. Would allow me to insulate that side better and at least have less heat escape. Not sure exactly how, but thats the thought..

On solar - note Tesla just updated the system sizes this week.. Previously only sold in sizes of 4/8/12/16 kW but they now offer some in-between sizes like 10kW you are talking about.

If you still have the SL2, you might like the Sigma 100-400 for some affordable tele work for the inevitable backyard wildlife. I've been making use of it with the birds here.

Stephen,

I have no sidewalks to shovel and the walkway to my front stoop is only 10 feet. Although snow blowers are popular in Peekskill I don't see needing one, even though I'm a self proclaimed "lazy-slacker."

My neighbor John used his snow blower to clear my short driveway.

I got up and walked in the plowed streets to catch the 6:00 AM train to Grand Central. I learned my neighborhood which is on the fringe of Peekskill must be of secondary importance because no plowing was performed until later.

My Baby Victorian is mighty small and has less than 1500 square feet of living space. The basement has low ceilings (7 foot) and huge plumbing manifolds around the perimeter to supply hot water to radiators. I believe all I might get use of is a 8x13 rectangle that I could finish off. Know that the chimney is centered in the basement.

So in softening up "Maggie" now I'm thinking of expanding and creating the 18.3 foot by 18.5 foot garage into a "Carriage House" that would kinda be a guest house, but also my studio.

My neighbor that owns the diagonal stucco house is an architect and building contractor. So now it looks like I might end up doing a "Crazy Dan" and add perhaps a second story loft, a gabled roof, extend the sapace towards the back-backyard, and even add a bathroom.

How crazy is that?

The garage part might be only a one car for the evil black Audi A4.

I likely will use those Ray-Core 2x6 SIP's to get R42 for the walls and even use the 2x6 SIP's to create carriage house doors that are R42. 2x8 SIP's for R52 on the roof.

Meanwhile I learned that Stucco is a really good insulator and also it is great for deadening sound from Route 9A.

Cal

 

[Nokton48]

My neighbor that owns the diagonal stucco house is an architect and building contractor. So now it looks like I might end up doing a "Crazy Dan" and add perhaps a second story loft, a gabled roof, extend the sapace towards the back-backyard, and even add a bathroom. How crazy is that?Cal

Not crazy at all. You want a bathroom in your studio/carriage house. If you have running water and drainage you might want a small area for wet printing? Just enough room for your basket line and big trays? If you use Uniroller and big print drums you can wet print in very little space.

 

[Calzone]

Photo related is my cooking. Anyways it utilizes the same skill set of controlling time and temperature and to some degree chemistry.

For Christmas I made 8 quarts of tomato sauce from canned peeled tomatoes and only used one can of tomato paste, meaning I had to simmer the mixture over 8 hours to thicken it.

Also cooked up a batch of sausage, boiled for 5 minutes, browned in a frying pan, and simmered in the above tomato sauce for several hours to tenderize them so stabbing with a fork makes them break in half.

For Christmas I will be making two forms of baked Ziti: one vegtable; one sausage. The idea is to use this past a made from either chick peas or lentals that are colored red or green. Now to think of it it is likely green lentals and red lentals.

So somehow I became more grounded and downsized my plans to something more reasonable. Half the garage will become a heated studio that will be 9x18 feet, and in the basement I will build out a 8x13 foot sound room that will also be a darkroom (dry).

I'll use the sink in the laundry area that already exists.

Yesterday I had to scramble to negociate renewing my driver's license. What a mess because with Covid they insist on doing most things online. To get to enter a DMV you require an appointment, but first if you changed your address you need to do this first.

Problem for me was that all these links did me no-good. Wasted the good part of a day trying to get things to work. On Christmas Eve I have a 7:00 AM appointment, and I only got this because I made a call to the DMV.

Also set up a Basic STAR tax rebate on school taxes for the house online. This was rather easy. Ha-ha.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Augie

 

[Calzone]

This Monday morning I went to the bathroom in Grand Central upon my train's arrival and came upon an EMT trying to help someone who might be overdosing in one of the stalls.

Police were summoned, but dream like there seemed to be no sense of urgency. "Oh-well," they seem to say, "Just another day in the city..."

Meanwhile at home in Peekskill the previous 4 days I was so relaxed even though I was working on the house. I insulated a crawl space. The previous owners used fiberglass which is a no-no due to condensation promoting possible mold growth. This was an ugly job.

I also built out a closet out of recycled ELFA modular components that were surplus because this Baby-Victorian is a tiny-house that has only four small closets on the second floor.

I forgot the level of freedom that owning a car brings and the mobility that allowed me to do several runs to Home Depot. I spent lots of money bulking up with supplies.

So in 2021 the countdown to retirement begins for my last year. I love the new life I have created.

The deer seem to like my back-backyard. I see deer-poop littering my grass.

It seems that the garage is getting scaled down to where no bigger footprint will be used, and that the space will be shared with my car.

The basement sound proof room will only be 8x13.

Cal

 

[Range-rover]

Sounds like you are getting used to the country life Cal.

 

[Calzone]

Today I am 63, and a year from now I plan to be retired.

Bob is correct, the peace and quiet suits me well. I am glad that "Maggie" is safe at home, but now that the new mutated Covid is in New York I am deeply concerned about community spread with this new stage of the pandemic.

I take an early train to avoid crowds, I do 2 hours and 10 minutes of walking as part of my commute to avoid the closed spaces of a subway and bus, and if I have to I take a bus over the subway.

But I feel this is not enough because so many are reckless, un-thoughtful, and just plain dumb. I saw a man coming out of Grand Central, and as soon as he got to the street he removed his mask.

I see pods of people, some wearing masks, but others with either no masks, not wearing their mask where it covers their nose and mouth, or not covering their nose.

My guess is they are unaware that the concept of safety and social distancing is contingent with not only wearing a mask correctly (fully covering nose and mouth) but also maintaining a social distance of 6 feet or more.

Pretty much you don't want to be breathing someone's air, but I find it impossible to stay safe knowing the proper use of the guidelines.

So in England there is a horrific amount of community spread. Boris Johnson is being blamed for doing too little and being too late, and to compound those facts previous lockdown measures seem to have no effect on spread and transmission.

England BTW is many factors worse than California, so the worse has yet to come. So now the mutated Covid is in New York...

Last Wednesday I had my most recent bi-weekly Covid Spit-Test. "Maggie" reports that she can't get a test at CVS unless she has symptoms, and when she went back and used a runny nose as a symptom they were all booked up.

So now she would have to either come to NYC to go to a walk in clinic which presents risk of exposure, or pay $139.00 out of pocket for a Covid test.

So how effective is contact tracing if testing is hampered?

So yesterday I saw the markets sell off a bit. "Maggie" mentioned that it was likely due to the Run-Off Election in Georgia. The market sell-off was limited to U.S. indexes, so "Maggie's" report looks to be true.

But I kinda see a dim future where this second wave of Covid likely will be worse than the first wave. Sadly things look bad, and even with vaccines a great disruption will dig in, and unfortunately many will die.

I think my greatest risk is getting snared by community spread due to someone's reckless behavior.

So here at work it looks like the government will cough up the money to refurbish my 20 year old cyclotron.

My hope is that because of Covid that the engagement with field service engineers outside the U.S. gets limited to where possibly the work is held off post pandemic and when the Vaccines have been widely distributed.

Perhaps if I am lucky this would be sometime in 2022, after I retire. This would be best for me. You know me: I'm a lazy slacker; and rebuilding a cyclotron likely means working long days, perhaps weekends, and offers nothing of interest to me. Would get paid overtime, but to me that involves killing myself, postponing my life, and for what: paying mucho taxes.

In other words leave me alone, the money is not worth it, and I have better things to do.

So the peace, quiet and solitude of my new home allows for a deeper level of concentration as well as abundant obsessive thinking. A thought came to mind of the great wisdom that one of my mentors gave me, Ken MacIntire, the Jazz Basson player who was the head of the Jazz music program at SUNY Old Westbury.

Ken brought up the word "Serious" as being like Louis Armstrong who lived for two years with the sole purpose to become a great horn player.

Another story I read was how Arnold Schwartzenager devised a "5-Year plan" where he set two goals: one to be weathy; and the other to be famous. What I got out of this was to have a long time goal and the key to making this plan work was to, "Do something every day to move forward and maintain momentium."

I have had a disrupted life. Without any backstop or family support I can say I am a self made man who has lived by his own rules (some criminality involved), but somehow I have this feeling of finally growing up and becoming the man I was meant to be.

In my guitar playing I have noticed a level of deeper concentration that I think Dr Ken MacIntire would call "Serious" that somehow is adding profound depth and meaning.

Devil Christian mentioned his interest in the crossover bownd-dree's between music and visual arts. Examples are Joan Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, David Bowie...

So there is some common ground of skill development and then in making or capturing a moment.

I don't know how many of my friends know or realize that I have a rather short attention span of say a small inbreed dog, and to compound that I have a rather odd form of dyslexia where I have extreme difficulties in processing linear data like spelling and telephone numbers. When I was young I had a stutter.

This effects my hearing so when someone speaks to me I process then information out of order. I basically type using only one finger because otherwise it gets mucho sloppy. I use the index finger of my left hand to perform only one function: hit the shift key.

So the outcome is part of me is really-really dumb and limited, but the other half is at the extreme end of the bell curve as far as mathematical, spacial and abstract reasoning.

So now seems the right time to get "SERIOUS" like Ken said, and now that I have the resources to live in peace and quiet to concentrate without interuptions, now I believe I will become the man I was meant to become.

Anyways the outcome of overcoming my learning disability is that I am wired for creativity, and to act impulsively in a rather visceral and primal manner. These are great assets for both a photographer and a performer.

BTW physically I am a righty, my right arm is about an inch longer than my left (birth defect, or possibility of a mutation via carrying heavy cameras), but I can fight as a leftly. My right jab is evil.

Although I'm not printing yet, or shooting either, the most important thing right now for me is to stay safe and avoid risk. I don't have a good feeling about this second wave. A hundred years ago the second wave of the Spanish Flu was worse than the first wave.

"History does not repeat: it rhymes."

Augie

 

[Austintatious]

A very Happy Birthday to you Augie !!

 

[Range-rover]

Happy Birthday Cal, Glad to hear your enjoying your new home.

 

[Calzone]

A very Happy Birthday to you Augie !!

Austin,

Mucho thanks.

Truth be told is I never though I would live this long. LOL.

In my past I was kinda crazy. I should be dead many times.

Right after I post this I'm going to do that survey again about biological age. Last year when I was only 62 they claimed that my biological age was 39 and that my life expectancy would be 106. I'm mighty stubborn. LOL.

Anyways age is a state of mind and it seems I'm rather immature.

I am cursed with good genes for longevity and also a bad attitude.

Seems like retirement equals growing up or a coming of age of sorts.

BTW people think I look to be the age of 40. Now with my version of Covid-15 (loosing 15 pounds instead of gaining 15 pounds) my body has regressed to that of when I had a lanky but muscular boyish build of a 15 year old. How immature is that.

Anyways I should have many more decades of annoying people. LOL.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Happy Birthday Cal, Glad to hear your enjoying your new home.

Bob,

The Baby-Victorian is a work in progress.

I'm also enjoying the 2015 Audi A4 I found that had only 16K miles on it. It is mucho evil: S-Line blacked out grill; black exterior (like new, evidently likely parked in a garage by some Joe rich guy in the Hamptons). The wheels are 18 inch versions for the RS.

Over the 4 day break I emptied the rest of my "gear" out of Public Storage. This involved several trips back into East Harlem. Mighty relaxing driving tuned into WBGO in Newark. They had a great retro blues show on the air. They dug into Howling Wolf a lot. The spoke of Hubert Sumlin the guitar player who mostly played with Howlin Wolf.

I happen to meet Hubert Sumlin in Boston about 30 years ago. I was on a field trip working for Grumman doing magnetic measurements at The Francis Bitter National Lab. Pretty much a electricity generator that could supply about 1/8 the power required for Boston was used to create gigantic powerful magnetic fields as a research lab. Just know how much money our government can spend (waste) and you kinda know why we are so good at it. LOL.

In the next few weekends I should be retrieving the rest of my gear stored at my friend Dave's and my friend Cris' houses.

You should know that "Maggie" does not approve of me having so much "gear."

So one of the nice things about an old house is seeing full sized 2x10's used as floor joists. When I stuff them full of insulation there will be mucho sound proofing. The sound room might be limited in size to 8x10 feet, Also the ceiling height is limited to only 7 feet.

Anyways it will be kinda crowded with amps, guitars, and a tube hifi. I would love to fit a stand-up Steinway.

Cal

 

[Range-rover]

New Set-up

New Set-up

7 feet I'll just make it, should be great when it's all set up, I'm sure Maggie
has ear plugs😀. Blues stuff is alway's great.

 

[Range-rover]

** Gear Alert**
I sold all my camera stuff I used before my Coma, all my Sony and Nikon went
bye, bye. I don't know, I just want a fresh start again not looking back.