Shut the Back Door

When life shuts a door…. open it again. It’s a door. That’s how they work.

Continuing this year’s home improvement spree, we are replacing our two back doors. We’ve lined up a contractor, who has already sent out their measurement team. Our next step will be to pick the new replacement doors, any options and then schedule the work. This should be accomplished early this week. It is such a joy dealing with contractors who are willing and able to do the work. It is a far cry from what we have had to do for the cabin, where we had to chase the contractors. No idea yet on how soon the new doors could be installed, but the process has been painless so far. These people did our windows so, I’m unconcerned with their quality.

When a door closes another door should open, but if it doesn’t then go in through the window. 

Fancy Computer Skins

AMD’s Ryzen AI Halo

This rocket trip home seems punctuated with errands and chores. The big chore of course were the new windows. They were installed yesterday and today we marked that chore done-done, when we put the house back together again. The biggest item involved with the windows was reinstalling the blinds. We had a fair amount of trouble with them, but persevered and got all of the blinds reinstalled, then put all of the furniture back where it was before. Other miscellaneous chores included a trip to East Kansas City, where our dentist has moved to. Anne got her hair cut and I still have to do that too. My other activity was replacing the laptop. Because of a clerical error, I thought that the computer store would fix the device, because it was still under warranty, but that was a mistake. I elected to get a new refurbished laptop, plus an in-store warranty. I’ll figure out what to do with the old laptop, when we get back to town in the fall. It is going to need a new mother board, so it will not be cheap.

Turn the radio on—Get in touch with God

Thayer Magic Manufacturing Company, Los Angeles, Spirito, 1932. The Spirito radio’s exterior appeared to offer cutting-edge technology in the 1930s. The inside, though, was completely empty apart from a hidden coil that allowed the voice of an assistant offstage to be broadcast as “the spirit.” Magicians played off the connections between science and the spirit world with their own devices such as Spirito. Thayer Magic, a company that produced equipment for magicians from 1907 to the 1930s, claimed “nothing supernatural for Spirito” apart from being “the master scientific marvel of the age!” The radio that tunes in on the mysterious unknown.

Replacement Window Installation

Today, we accomplished our main goal for returning home. Eight new windows were installed. A crew of 4-5 men showed up on time, went right to work and installed our replacement windows. The look nice, so nice in fact the few remaining windows now standout like sore thumbs. We’ll have to get their replacement scheduled ASAP. Watching them work was exhausting. So much so that it might takes a day or two to put things back the way they were.

New Neighbors

Robins Nest Outside Our Bedroom

According to T. S. Elliot, April is supposed to be the cruelest month, but not around here. Instead of baby birds being plucked too soon, we seem to have a bumper crop. It started with the Mouning doves. They traditionally roost on our southside neighbor’s house and as is their like, mournfully call to us from there. This has been the situation for years. This year though, they seemed to have jumped the driveway and our now roosting on our house. This morning, I spied two doves on our dining room windowsill and while lying on the living room couch, I could hear them calling. I suspected that they are nesting either on the real chimney or the fake chimney, both of which are at the front of the house. Both masonry structures are too tall to see what is happening on top of them, but such lofty perches also seem too exposed to hawks. According to Wiki, Mourning doves are known for building very flimsy, minimalist nests made of twigs and grass, typically completed in few days. They often nest in trees, shrubs, or on human structures like gutters, with both parents sharing incubation (male by day, female by night) and raising multiple broods per season. I still have not located their nest, but while looking for it, I easily found the pictured Robin’s nest, at the back of the house, where breakfast is served all day long.