So.. As folks following this blog may remember, I’ve been trying to finish up a new tesla coil.. This one will eventually be able to play music, run on 120V, 220V or 12v car batteries. It’s turning out to be a very. very complicated build.. the toughest thing I think I’ve ever built (except perhaps, our kids) .. I’ve had a bunch of missteps on the way.. I’ve blown out diodes, transient suppressors, capacitors… luckily, nothing more expensive than 17 bucks .. Anyway.. today.. it all started to work.. beautiful long blue sparks, a deep throaty roar as I turned up the juice.. I reached for my camera.. Oh.. shoot.. I dropped it on my hike up Camels Hump this Wednesday.. so grabbed the only camera I had.. my droid.. Now.. electronics and high voltage don’t really mix very well.. event though I was 2 meters away, my droid camera started going completely crazy as I tried to photograph the spark.. I thought I got a couple of movies.. but then the screen started to freak out.. Now as I sit to enter this blog.. I realize I fried my phone.. all the videos and pictures are gone.. ad the camera app is flipping out completely. The fields that a tesla coil put out can mess with electronics.. over the years I’ve managed to fry a variety of cordless phones, garage door openers, alarm systems, light dimmers.. but .. until tonight.. never a cell phone..
Three times over the last week.. no.. make that four times.. the key fairy struck.. On Monday I was using my friend D’s office .. he walked out while I was on the phone. I left and closed his door.. at the click I had a brief thought.. ‘did he have his key ?’ …he didn’t.. next day I went down to a 7:30 AM meeting in Burlington.. I got to work at 9AM.. reached in my pocket.. no key.. Argh.. I drove home and worked there for the day.. Wednesday, Max drove me to work. He’s in town doing a filming gig.. I wanted to lend him a car.. He worked through the day.. at nightfall, we’d gotten about a foot of snow.. . The town issued a snow emergency and he got parked in.. Blocked by several cars. Unfortunately, we needed the car the next morning, so he had to knock on doors until he found the owners of the cars that were blocking his path.. in the course of moving them, the door closed on one of the cars, locking the keys inside…. AAA had to come and help them out. Yesterday, Max took me to work again. He dropped me at the door of my work. I walked in to my job and got in to the first of my endless phonecalls.. about an hor later, I realized I still had the key to the car in my pocket. the Prius’s key works wirelessly.. When I got out of the car to go to work, max was able to drive away.. As soon as he stopped the car in Burlington. though.. the car wouldn’t restart.. Diane came and bailed him out
Diane always reminds me.. days aren’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’.. they are just days.. even so.. today felt more ‘good’ than the last two . Got lots done.. even had time for lunch.. now thta’s a lucury. The high point of the day was the ad-hoc party at the house tonight. Scot’s folks came over, making about 15 for dinner.. pot luck with tons of good food. Diane Deb and I are still doing the ‘vegan’ thing. .. which is surprisingly fun. It makes you very conscious of what you’re eating. I’ll do it for another couple of weeks. I’ve done it for about a month for the last couple of years after new years.. it’s a nice purge…
I tried to take pictures of the good times tonight.. but my camera is in a snowbank somewhere halfway up camels hump. don’ know why my cell phone take such lousy pictures..
SO.. in trying to restore some semblance of sanity in my life I opted to meet my friends Jeff and Sebastian on their weekly climb up Camels Hump on the Huntington side. . We met at the parking lot of the Burroughs Trail just before 6 AM. It was about 15 degrees with a light dusting of snow. We headed up the trail with headlamps blazing. The trail was well packed, so we didn’t need snowshoes, we all had crampons. Sebastian and I had poles. . We didn’t actually try to get to the top .. our goal was to go up just over an hour, then back down.. We kept up a good piece for geezer-class walkers.. Enough to break a sweat, but not breathing too hard to talk. in It was so beautiful.. and so quiet.. well.. actually not that quiet because we talked the whole time. Work topics were off limits, so we stuck to family, mutual friends and our towns.. more than enough for two hours
The time to turnaorund came so fast.. I couldn’t beleive it had been an hour.. I took a samstone out of my pocket.. and placed it in the snow as a marker of how far we’d come…
I also noticed at that moment that my real camera had fallen out of my pocket and was now under a foot or so of snow somewhere on the trail.. *sigh*..
We turned around and took off down the hill. Going down was faster.. but a little more treacherous. We made the car in just about 50 minutes
I was home and showering b 8:30.. On my first call at 9.. I was relaxed and refreshed unitl about 9:15 At least that first 15 minutes was fabulous.. I had a completely different outlook on my work 🙂
