respite from rain (Blue Mountains)

With some work cancelled, and after a dismal grey weekend, I suddenly decided to head up to the E.C. Carr Astronomical Observatory for Monday and Tuesday. I was craving some dark skies. This time would actually centre on the New Moon. Also, I needed to do further computer work and chores at the CAO.

I had tried to hitch a ride with Millie and Dietmar but they had loaded the Outlook to the gills. No room for another human.

I drove up via Highway 410 and once again took Heart Lake Road (even though the conditions did not merit it). The plan this time was to stay on it. I wanted to see what this route was like. In the future, if the Highway 10 construction and traffic combination between Caledon and Orangeville is bad, this might prove an excellent alternate. Straight as an arrow (except for the little east jog at Olde Baseline Rd). There are 2 problems though with this road: 60 km/h all the way from King St up to Hwy 9. And solid yellow line. Still, very lightly travelled...

At 10:55 AM, I was the first to arrive at the CAO. I began some repair and maintenance and other activities.

• scooped stinky coon poop from back step
• delivered my new donated copy of the Peterson Field Guide Birds of Eastern and Cental North America
• delivered the Compaq mini-tower #3, keyboard, and mouse (which I may put into service very soon...)
• delivered dried basil leaves to kitchen; put in little jar; excess to freezer
• delivered small tube of Instant Krazy Glue to kitchen
• installed new Panasonic cordless phone system, putting handset #1 and the base in the kitchen using the wall mount (although it's a little high), putting handset #2 in the Geoff Brown Observatory, and—unable to decide where—I put the third handset in the dining room, to charge
• decommissioned the corded phones in the kitchen and GBO
• printed additional copies of the GBO supervisor log sheet; installed in duo-tang book
• removed 2008 supervisor log sheets from book; moved to cupboard archive
• printed a new version of the GBO telescope-eyepiece power-FOV matrix
• inspected all of the fire extinguishers (5); signed
• redeployed the old 3-station FM-wireless intercom to garage, workshop, and kitchen
• fixed a couple of the red LED solar lamps; super-glued one of them
• inspected the Davis weather station box, the main large box, to see if I could learn the precise specs of the Integrated Sensor Suite (but I couldn't find anything)
• replaced the damaged female end of an extension cord
• replaced the damaged male end of the power cord on the table saw
• replaced the old ends of the garden house with new brass fittings
• checked the fuse type in the electrical cut-off for the water heater
• debugged the non-functional dew heater on the C14; determined it was an internal fuse; asked Dietmar to photograph it

Ironically, Dietmar called my mobile at noon; I had been trying to reach Tony. I rang Dietmar back from new cordless phone and told him where I was. "Good for you!" he said. Funny. I asked him how the phone sounded: he reported it was fine.

Millie and Dietmar arrived mid-afternoon. When I confirmed that no one wanted to use the THO, I moved in. No active paper wasps.

Throughout the afternoon and evening we tested the new phone system's intercom. Even Millie tried it. In particular, we tried the handsets between the THO and GBO. They worked! "Excellent range," Dietmar said. So, that's it: we shall keep the Panasonics.

§

This new phone system "avoids" another issue, the loose, badly assembled phone connection in the GBO, both the pooring wiring in the junction box, and the loosely fitting RJ45 connector on the wall...