Thanks to the time change, Diane and I were both awake at around 5:30.. We looked outside and saw stars.. so we got dressed , grabbed the dogs and climbed bolton mountain to see the partial eclipse of the sun which was happening at sunrise this morning. It was pretty nippy as we made the hie up in about 40 min..It was about 24 degrees at the base of the mountain. I’m guessing it was in the high teens at the top.

 

 

 

 

It was cold and (thankfully ) calm on top of the fire tower.. There was a beautiful view of camels hump

 

and the champlain valley

 

sam was with us as always.

 

here’s waiting for the sun.. looking over little river.

 

We were up there for about 15 min waiting for the sun to rise. I improvised a simple pinhole viewer for the eclipse.. .. I poked a hole in a gum carton and shined the image on a piece of paper..

and there it was. The sun with a bite taken out of it !

 

We were popsicles up there, so we trotted down the mounain as fast as we could to warm up.

 

The rest of the day I finished my ‘mr fixit’ routine.. THis weekend I managed to make/fix a bunch of stuff that I’d been ignoring including:

• With freind Georges help i reinstalled a @#$%@ xenon arc light headlight in the prius.. Last time I aimed it incorrectly. . it’s liek they went out of there way to make it complicated and difficult to install.. and the bulbs cost $50 each.. and.. you cant touch them.. and they’re explosive to handle. It was like a comedy sketch. I borrowed a mirror from gabe to let me see what I was trying to do  in the 1 inch of clearance the designers had given us for this tricky task. .. and here’s the socket

 

• re-rebuilt the hoop after fixing a design flaw from yesterday
• 
• Gabe and I Replaced the batteries in both our Iphones.. and gabe replaced the screen in his
• 
• I repaired the new tesla coil in prep for an IBM show I’m doing this week
• replaced the faucet cartridges and seats in the kitchen sink
• fixed the dishwasher that I sort of broke when fixing the faucet
• replaced all the fittings in our room after Diane did a GREAT job paining it.. There are 15 individual doors in that room that needed to be painted and handled .. as well as 4 windows. !
• lso had to repair one of the window sashes in that room
• reseated the afterburner on our wood stove.. The stove had to be at full heat before I could reseat the pipe because for the metal expansion (cool !)

I think there were some other things as well, just cant remember them.. All in all , very satisfying to be working with my hands..

ok.. we’re off to a movie.. more tomorrow

nite all, nite sam

-me