Electrical work

I’ve been doing some work in the basement. I’m putting in another room and I made a mount to hold two plug receptacles while I get them wired up. Guess they call it a “jig” and it’s cobbled together for a single purpose. I made sure that I experimented without any live wires connected. It’s much safer if no wires are “hot” when experimenting with electrical wiring.

I followed a book I got at the hardware store: Simplified Wiring. It’s based on the 2005 National Electrical Code. So far I haven’t been electrocuted so I guess it’s going ok.

Shopping at the butcher

Today I stopped by one of the better butcher shops to pick up some meat for the house. At Schroedl’s Country Market the quality is excellent and if you want pork, beef or chicken they’ve got you covered. Of course call ahead for special orders, etc.

<a href="
View Larger Map“>Schroedl’s Market in Jefferson is not exactly around the corner but we think it’s worth the trip.

The nice thing about buying your meat at a butcher shop is you’re not getting product from 100 animals processed all at once so there is a pretty good chance that you will not have as many “questionable produce” recalls that you may get in some of the big box or chain grocery stores.

Of course, Jefferson is not really “local” to my town (Genoa City) but at least it’s not 1500 miles away. In addition I’ve had a chance to talk with the butcher and I saw them cleaning their equipment as they closed up processing today. Made me feel better just seeing them cleaning.

If you’re freaked out about E. Coli or other pathogens, downed cows, etc. then a local butcher is..probably..a safer place to get your meat. If tainted meat is not a concern of yours then party on, dude. Grab a burger while you’re at it.

In addition to the pork roast, etc. I picked up a couple of bratwurst. I think we’re going to have an informal bratwurst tasting to see who has the best sausage products. Of course we’ll give Johnsonville brats a spot..but that will have to wait for another post after we’ve fired up the gas grill.

Starcraft is still playable

Even though the game is..ten years old, Starcraft is a good and challenging game. Playing some today. We won some and lost some. Because it’s so old, the game Starcraft uses 2D sprites which means even a weak or modest graphics card can run the game without significant penalty. There are a wealth of Starcraft Broodwar videos on utube, but if you’re not a gamer they don’t mean much.

We’re no where near good enough to win against the sharks who lurk on battlenet. Some time ago I remember having my head handed to me by a high schooler at an all night LAN party. Guess there is always someone better when it comes to computer gaming. ..we still have fun playing against the computer players though.

Local internet outages

Our internet connection is bouncing up and down a lot these days. At least three in the last week I’ve had to go in and reboot the cable modem and/or the firewall to get the connection back. It’s annoying that Charter Communications charges $58/month for pretty lousy service. I have confirmed with Charter and with our next door neighbor that Charter is doing work in the area. Still the outages are annoying.

Last year I attempted to get DSL from AT&T but they would not provision the line. They were happy to write the contract but in the end they were unable to get service to our subdivision.

I’m pretty unhappy with the higher prices post our 12 month “discount” and the poor service. I’m going to look at another internet provider by using DSLReports.com. One possibility is Wishcom in Spring Grove, IL. Hopefully they won’t have as many outages as Charter does. Bandwidth is pretty good however. Charter speed is 5072.0 Kbps down / 544.0 Kbps up, so when it works cable internet is way better than dialup.

You won’t find Wishcom in the DSLReports link above. Use this other search page to find the “Mom & Pop ISP’s” in your area. Fooled me too, but DSLReports wants their sponsored link featured as well. Can’t say enough good things about DSLReports. It’s an excellent (and moderated) source of advice and reviews about internet, VOIP and wireless providers and business.

Cleaning the house

We’re having a family reunion from my wife’s side of the family this weekend. My house is not officially hosting the reunion but my wife, Susan, is cleaning the house like mad.

Cleaning the house is a lot of work for her..and once in a while for me but the house looks great. We even got the cruddy green mold off the siding with a spray on / rinse off product called “Mold Armor”. I couldn’t find the manufacturer link for this product but it works pretty well. I did need to get out a brush and scrub a few of the tough spots.

Warning: This is pretty nasty stuff. You should follow the instructions pretty closely. Please avoid burning your skin / house siding / plants in the yard. Contains Sodium Hypoclorite.

Full name on bottle is “Mold Armor House Wash Hose End Sprayer.” Follow directions plus use lots of water. Works well.

Caveat: I was disappointed that I went through most of the bottle on just one side of the house. Guess you need to work fast when applying this product.

Beetle murderer

Just spent time hand picking and drowning Japanese Beetles. Probably got 100+. I’ll be out there at least one more time today.

Contrary to popular belief in our household, Japanese Beetles do not bite. They have surprisingly strong legs though.

Update: Cindy from the Homegrown blog (see blogroll on right) reminded me to mention that the drowning solution must contain some sort of soap. Beetles can swim around in normal water for a few days, but the soap will do the trick in..two hours?..better make it six hours. Any kind of liquid soap will do. Her tip on using a bucket is great advice: I am finding that using a plastic cup misses too many of the beetles when they “drop” to escape my grasp. Japanese Beetles are poor flyers and often they drop a few inches to begin their flight. Often I just place the cup underneath and touch the bug to make them drop. Now if I can just convince my wife to give me a drowning bucket.

Note that the dead bugs will smell awful necrotic. You might want to have a place to put them well away from your outside doors & front pathway until garbage day.

Controlling mold in your garden

We have had a garden for five of the last seven years. Each summer the zucchini, squash, etc. takes off, it seems to get cut down prematurely by mold. I’ve got a few general tips on drainage as well as a spray on cure so it’s worth slogging on. As you know mold likes moisture so eliminating excess moisture is your first step.

Controlling moisture:
1) Remove dead leaves etc. from around the plants.
2) If you have mulch consider reducing the volume. (Sort of counter-intuitive for weeds…but we’re battling mold here.)
3) Increase air flow around the plant, if possible.
4) Don’t over water.

One fellow at the farmer’s market in Sun Prairie said that poor drainage can promote mold, so I put lots of sand into the soil bed one year..and pretty far down too. We still got hit with the mold problem although not as early.

Controlling mold:
1) Remove or cut branches/stems which show bad signs of mold. Example: The stem looks rotten and is runny. Cut all those parts out.
2) Toss moldy stems, leaves, etc. in the trash. Don’t compost them!
3) Wash your hands with soap & water immediately after touching moldy plants. You don’t want to spread it to the healthy ones.
4) Try not to touch healthy plants after they’ve been watered or rained upon.
5) Use a spray of 2 Tablespoons baking soda, 1 Tablespoon cooking oil, to almost one gallon of water. Spray on affected plants once a day for a week with one of those $4 water sprayers from the hardware store.

Controlling pests and mold/blight is a gardener’s chore, but it’s worth it. July and August are prime months for mold up here so a little daily vigilance could pay off. Then again it could just delay the inevitable mold killing your zucchini if you have very clay like soil…I’ve done everything “right” and still lost some plants. As the geeks say, “your mileage may vary.”

*I need to double check with my wife on the recipe, but you get the idea.

Return of the Japanese Beetles

Well I knew they would be back, and they are. If you haven’t seen these in your area consider yourself lucky. If you are a gardener or you care about the plants in your yard, read on.

Japanese Beetles are an invasive species which has moved into the southern Wisconsin area. They are hard to get rid of and they have a big appetite for certain plants. Any plants of japanese origin like Geraniums are especially tasty. If left undisturbed, Japanese Beetles can wipe out a good sized plant in a few days.

As mentioned above, there aren’t many options for controlling Japanese Beetles but hand picking them and dropping them into soapy water will drown them. There are beetle traps sold in stores, but supposedly they will attract them from miles around _to_ your yard. So…unless your entire subdivision puts them out, you’ll just be ringing a dinner bell for the little buggers.

We used milky spore last fall to try to combat the grubs.

StarCraft II

I’m starting this topic to keep track of StarCraft II and other computer gaming topics. If warranted I may have to break out StarCraft II into it’s own sub category.

In a nutshell, StarCraft II is the sequel to the hugely popular “real time strategy” game StarCraft from Blizzard Entertainment. Some gamers like RTS games and some gamers don’t. C’est la guerre.

When I say popular I mean followings beyond most people’s comprehension. I was surprised to hear that there is a StarCraft pro league, the Korean e-Sports Players Association sports league. The Koreans have got it bad for StarCraft.

There is even a StarCraft television station.

Wisconsin and Wii

My blog address, WIDoug.wordpress.com was a third attempt to find a domain with the name “Doug” in it.  I guess I could have named it WiiDoug as we do have a Wii in the house, but I’ve been from Wisconsin for a lot longer so WIDoug is probably a more apt sub-domain.

Wisconsin?  It’s a pretty great state.  Once you get over the mosquitoes and snow, Wisconsin is a gas.  Lots of tourist stuff to do outside during every season..well except possibly spring.  Floods and standing water were never big favorites of mine.   I remember telling one person from Texas that the Wisconsin countryside shines like emeralds after a summer rain. That and the mention of trees definitely peaked her interest.  Hopefully she’s had a chance to visit.

The Wii?  It’s a pretty excellent gaming console for most games except the “first-person shooter” titles. The graphics are not terrific, but then most people’s TV’s were not terrific at graphics when the Wii was designed.

Suffice to say that the Wii is not stealing any users away from the other gaming console systems like PS2, PS3 or XBox.  Rather, the Wii is bringing more non-gamers to console gaming. The sales of the Wii have gotten everyone’s attention and Microsoft (and Sony?) will be introducing spatial motion console controllers just like the Nintendo Wii has.  

Nice to get it right and have everyone play catchup, isn’t it Mr. Miyamoto? Congrats to Nintendo for releasing the Wii in the U.S., now how about a followup?