Eric Hanson

Kim, your post made me smile!

To be clear, the actual fan itself is fine.  But the plastic cover that diffuses the light does not sit tightly.  It is only held in by little built-in clips and the cover is too small to fit the receptacle.  Maybe I could caulk it in place or just jam something in the space between the cover and the receptacle and it would stop?  I don't know.  However, I appreciate that you seem to understand just how annoying a rattling shower fan can be!

Thanks!

Eric

The bathroom fan in my master bath.  It rattles incessantly.  I am tall enough that while showering I can reach up and tap it enough to calm it down, but my wife, being a full 14 inches shorter than I am can't possibly do the same.  When she takes a shower, the fan starts to rattle, and then the rattle gets worse.  Since she takes longer showers than I do (thanks to the fact that my hair never gets more than 1/4 inch long), the rattling gets pretty loud.  And when she is done, the fan kinda needs to stay on to vent out the bathroom--and the rattling gets worse still.  In the mornings, inevitably, I am the one who turns off the shower fan, not her.


GRRRRRRR!!!


Eric

Never reveal my age—53 and laughing all the way!!!

Early in my career I would absolutely never ever reveal my age—I started teaching when I was 26 and the “years” 26, 27, and 28, I was absolutely paranoid about students finding out how old I was.  I really didn’t care about my age as much as I didn’t want students to think that I was so young that they could ignore me if I needed to put down the law.  They all guessed that I was not possibly older than 23.

Summer of 2000 I got married.  The following semester, students—numerous of them—all guessed I was 29.  They were correct, but I was still vague and cryptic.  Strangely, the act of getting married aged me 6 years.

I still never revealed my age till last year.  Students were trying again to guess my age and their guess was late 30’s to early 40’s.  I was pretty pleased that they were so far off so slightly freaked them out when I told them I was 52 (as of last year).

By now, I like being the old man in the department, but honestly, I don’t care about whatever my calendar age is.  I have never been happier, even with my kidney stones and other occasional maladies.  I am older than many of their parents, and in fact I have had many students parents as students.  Next year I will get my principal’s daughter as a student, and her father was likewise one of my former students!! This is a great time to be alive!!

Never let them know your age—I suppose, if that works for you.  I certainly played that game, but now that my age is common knowledge, I have fun with it.  When I am asked what my birthday is (July 4, 1971), my default response is “the best birthday there is in 1971!!”

These are a few of mine that might help start out the new thread.


https://permies.com/t/274663/Building-AH-LiFePo-Battery-Box

https://permies.com/t/174618/Building-battery-generator

https://permies.com/t/135729/permaculture/Building-pair-battery-generators

https://permies.com/t/175990/Reconditioning-Lead-Acid-battery

https://permies.com/t/175611/Awkward-wiring-diagram-wiring-assistance

I like this sub forum idea a lot.  I have several threads that could be used as starters to get things going.  I will see what I can round up, but it won't be till the weekend at the earliest.  Thomas Rubino also has a number of threads that could be useful.

I had a high school teacher who directly addressed this issue.

It turns out that aluminum cans have a very, very, almost negligible coating of some type of plastic (and I use the term plastic very loosely.  It could have been a wax).  The reason is that the carbonic acid in the soda is highly reactive with bare aluminum.  To directly and dramatically demonstrate this point, my teacher (shout out to John Pearson if he is reading or anyone knows him!) popped open a soda can in class and then took a nail and scratched a line around the inside of the can so that the thin film was removed and bare aluminum was exposed directly to the acidic soda.  The next day, he VERY gingerly poured out the soda into a sink, then held the can in his hand and simply pulled the top third of the can off the bottom 2/3 of the can exactly where that line had been scratched.  Overnight, carbonic acid completely reacted with and removed the aluminum along that line and the next day the two pieces of the can were held together solely by the paint on the exterior!

So if a simple interior scratch will result in soda completely reacting/removing the aluminum in one night, I think we can safely assume that any can that lasts more than a day has a film lining that is still intact.  And if you had any question, simply pick the can up and give it a slight pull or push.  Any defect in the lining would have created a hole that would cause the soda to leak out before opening.

So with all that in mind, I think that we can safely assume that a can of soda just sitting on a shelf by itself will not pick up stray aluminum or the can itself would fail quickly.  It turns out that aluminum is pretty reactive so it needs protection to remain stable.

Now as far as bits of aluminum flaking off when opening, I cannot make any claim and have no knowledge.  But the can itself is safe from the soda and therefore the soda is safe from the aluminum in the can.

Do with this information as you wish.


Eric

Hi Pamela!

I can’t believe that I didn’t comment on this thread last year!  Congratulations on getting the farm and all the acreage.  I will definitely give a shout out to the beautiful rolling hills of Southern Illinois and the Shawnee National Forest.  It really is a treasure, a hidden gem.

I would think that your farm would be an excellent opportunity for someone trying to get established in regenerative agriculture and the local area is about as perfect a fit for such an endeavor as you are about to find.

I wish you luck on your search and for anyone reading this who might be interested, Southern Illinois is a beautiful place (don’t think flat plains of Central Illinois!) and this could be a perfect opportunity.

Good luck to everyone!!

Eric

Timothy, everyone,

Thanks for reviewing this old thread!  Unfortunately, my neglected blueberry bushes stayed neglected.  Since 2019, several factors took me away from some of those projects.  I got much, much busier at school, COVID caused other priorities, and I had been in graduate school for the last two years, ending in August 2024.  So unfortunately I have not really touched those blueberries.

However, I have a major trimming and cleanup project ahead of me that I might be able to start doing this summer with the help of my neighbor.  On that list is not so much to transplant the blueberries but to trim back the shading canopy that grew up around them.

At this point, I don’t know about transplanting anymore as the bushes themselves have gotten pretty big, but the shading means that they don’t get full foliage nor do they fruit out the way they could.  Perhaps the trimming will get more light to the area and change that.

If I do tackle this job, I will make it a priority to report back and let everyone know how things are going.  Also, I think that this trimming project just got bumped to the top of the priority list.

Again, thanks for reviving this thread!


Eric

Sebastian,

Not a bad idea for the bolt mount.  I might try something like that.

Eric

Sebastian,  

I wish I could lengthen my sensing wires.  I was a little surprised when I found just how short they were.

And thank for the almost-professional comment.  Right now I think the internals are a bit messy.  Now before I finish I will clean this up, but I am still making adjustments.

By the way, what do you think about the copper bolt-as-common-terminal idea?  And, how would you attach the bolt?

Eric