Greg In The Desert

• News : Bats provide alternative to spraying – Rio Rancho Observer – SSCAFCA sponsors a number of bat houses erected near water retention ponds in Corrales and neighboring areas of Rio Rancho. Each house can hold between 150 and 400 bats, depending on its size.
• Plant communication: Sagebrush engage in self-recognition and warn of danger | Science Blog – Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their "clones" or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby, says professor Richard Karban of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, in groundbreaking research published in the current edition of Ecology Letters.
• Sci-fi comedy shooting in New Mexico – New Mexico Business Weekly: – “Paul,” a sci-fi inspired comedy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is shooting in New Mexico through mid-August. “Paul” is about two sci-fi geeks who make a pilgrimage to Area 51 and have a bizarre encounter with an alien named Paul, which leads to a life-changing road trip.
• Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog » Turtle Mountain Brewing – Rio Rancho, New Mexico – When Nico Ortiz, son of the famous anthropologist launched his inaugural restaurant and microbrewery in 1997, it just made sense that it should be called Turtle Mountain, a name which pays homage to his father and to the magnificent peaks under whose shadow his enterprise would reside.
• Is There a Milky-Way Galaxy/Earth Biodiversity Link? Experts Say "Yes" – 1n 1999, Astronomers focusing on a star at the center of the Milky Way, measured precisely how long it takes the sun to complete one orbit (a galactic year) of our home galaxy: 226 million years.

  The last time the sun was at that exact spot of its galactic orbit, dinosaurs ruled the world. The Solar System is thought to have completed about 20–25 orbits during its lifetime or 0.0008 orbit since the origin of humans.

• Watch this space | The Australian – AFTER you've spent more than 20 years hunting for an alien signal, you think you'd be celebrating if you noticed a mysterious pulse suddenly rising up on your computer readouts. A regular pulse, amid the random clatter of the cosmos, suggests that someone very smart at the other end is sending a message.

  But when Ragbir Bhathal, an astrophysicist at the University of Western Sydney, who teaches the only university-based course on SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) in Australia, detected the suspicious signal on a clear night last December, he knew better than to crack open the special bottle of champagne he has tucked away for the history-making occasion.

• Apartment Therapy ohdeedoh | How Mac N’ Cheese Is Like A Cigarette BusinessWeek.com – The article by Cathy Arnst is a review of a new book by Dr. David Kessler promisingly titled The End of Overeating. In it he describes "conditioned hypereating" – an almost uncontrollable drive to eat excessively beyond hunger. This breakdown in appetite regulation begins in childhood and only gets worse.
• Add enhanced audio track to iMovie | Music and Audio | Mac 911 | Macworld – Set about your dirty work in Soundtrack or whatever audio application you care to use and do anything you like except change the duration of the audio file. So, play with the EQ, filter noise, or add an unhealthy amount of reverb, just don’t cut or add anything to the file. (Because if you do, the file won’t be in sync when you add it to your iMovie project.)
• Wienermobile Crash: Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashes into Racine home – WITI – The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile got itself into quite a pickle when it crashed into a Racine home Friday morning. Neighbors tell FOX 6 the Wienermobile took a wrong turn and ended up on the dead-end street, Kenilworth Avenue in Racine.
• Hoover Dam bypass bridge an epic marvel – A quarter-mile downstream from Hoover Dam, two fingers of concrete stretch toward each other from sheer cliffs, suspended nearly 900 feet above the Colorado River. In a month, the fingers will meet, an 80-foot gap will close and the longest concrete arch in the Western Hemisphere will be complete. The union will mark a major milestone in the nine-year construction of the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, scheduled to open in late 2010.

Another milestone is complete in the ongoing (3.5 year) master bathroom project as the self-leveling concrete was installed on top of the radiant floor heating. The process wasn’t exactly what I expected and the results weren’t perfect but the floor did come out level.

The manufacturer of the concrete product recommends not to install it when the heater is running and when the humidity is low otherwise cracking could occur. That meant I needed to wait until summer when the heater didn’t need to run and the evaporative cooler could be running. I didn’t need the cooler, it was installed on one of the rainiest days of May and the humidity in the house was over 75%.

Prior to pouring the concrete I made a riser out of aluminum flashing to extend the height of the air duct in the bathroom. I held the riser in with some cardboard and sealed it to the old duct with some concrete sealant. I did the same for the area around the toilet.

The entire house has an expansion joint around the perimeter and one wall of the bathroom has part of this expansion joint. The self-leveling concrete cannot go into the expansion joint or bridge it or it will crack. I sealed the joint with concrete caulking and put foam under the drywall so it sticks out over the joint.

I had scheduled 3 friends to come over to help (although only two showed up), one who had worked with self-leveling concrete before. It takes at least three people: 1 to mike the concrete with the drill, 1 to pour water and concrete into the 5 gallon bucket and 1 to pour the floor. My $88 corded Dewalt drill had a tough time with the concrete mixture. Luckily I had an old heavy duty single speed craftsmen drill that tore through the concrete without a single complaint.

The only problem we found during the pourig of the floor is there wasn’t enough water in the concrete and it wasn’t quite liquid enough. This made some rough spots where the different pours came together. it work in our advantage since one area where I had sealed the expansion joint gave in and started filling with self-leveling concrete and I completely missed a small crack in the concrete slab near another wall. The self-leveling concrete set too quickly for this to impact the level of the floor. Had it been more liquid the entire floor could have drained down these cracks.

It took four bags of self-leveling concrete and I ended up with a 3/4 inch floor, I will have to recheck my calculations as I expected a 1/2 floor. It cost about $50 in supplies and a few beers.

I was a bit hesitant about doing this pour myself and considered hiring someone. I’m glad I did this small area first and I’m confident I can do the master bathroom with enough people. I may have to have a pour-party and get about 10 people together to have a constant flow of self-leveling concrete then bar-b-que when we’re done. I had meant to take more pictures but I was too busy working on the project, the pictures I did take can be viewed on flickr.

The next step is to install the Schulter Kerdi waterproofing material and to finish up the shower stall before laying tile. This will be a non traditional installation of a shower floor. I’m not sure if I will start this during the summer as I plan to spend my time working on outdoor projects as much as I can.

I’m a few weeks late on posting this. I really haven’t had the time to sit down and right a proper entry until now. The day that I never thought would come finally came, the dry wall is up in the master bath. There were times when I was demolishing the bathroom that I thought it would it would be a impossible task to finish it. It was such a mess and was going to cost so much money to put back together. This is a big milestone for me.

This was my first time installing drywall and I made a few mistakes. Apparently the top peice of drywall should go up first. I put the bottom peice up first which left me with a gap at the top. I also managed to to incorrectly measure every single protrusion through the wall and had to make all the holes in the drywall larger to adjust.

Next items to start working on are the flooring and the shower waterproofing. The Warmly Yours floor heating was very expenisve and cost me my budget for the next few months. The schluter kerdi product I plan to use for the shower stall will be pretty expensive so that purchase will have to wait. I will work with what I have but won’t be able to buy much therefore I don’t expect a lot of progress over the next month.

My 4×4 Ford Ranger reached a milestone today when it reached a 100,000 miles. I’m happy to say I’m the original owner, purchasing it new in 1996 (it’s a 1997 model) with something like 27 miles on it.

It’s been a good truck, disproving to me that american cars can be well built. It’s not without out it’s share of problems. For the last few years I’ve had a terrible vibration in the vehicle. I’ve taken it to Don Chalmers Ford who diagnosed it with need tires and shocks. I agree that tires can cause some bad issues with it but they weren’t the problems I was having. I could tell it was a front end problem especially since there was sever cupping in the front tires. I finally took it to Bob Turners who correctly diagnosed with needing front new springs. They weren’t even able to properly align it, it’s strange that Don Chalmers didn’t figure that out, even though they charged me $90 for a vibration analysis.

I’ve not heard of spring going bad, but since they have replaced them the tires wear properly and it rides a thousand percent better. Perhaps more people need them and don’t realize it.

I’m experiencing a breaking problem and I suspect the front right (and maybe left) rotors are warped and need replaced. It will be the first time that any such work as been done on this vehicle. Meanwhile my coworkers are telling me how their brand new Nissan need rotors right after they bought it. Other than that there’s been a few minor things, some emissions related thing need replaced a few months ago and some and a few issues with a electronic 4 wheel drive switch.

The engine runs as strong as it did the day I bought it. It doesn’t leak anything or burn anything it’s not suppose to. And the gas mileage is about 15 mpg, not great but near what it did when I got it (and not bad for a 4×4). Thanks Dad for showing me how to take proper care of a vehicle. With luck, I will have it for another 100,000 miles!