Holiday happenings

The holidays were a whirlwind...Christmas (a week early) at my house with Mom and my sister and Joe, Christmas Day at my father's in the central valley with my sister and Joe and Grandparents, followed by a trip to Los Angeles to spend time with Hanna's family, then a progressive New Year's party that started at my house with appetizers, followed by dinner at Maria's and then Ricardo's house for dessert.  My favorite is the new year's predictions we do each year.  Everyone makes predictions about what each other will or will not do over the coming year, then we look back what actually happened over the course of the year.  Everyone predicted that I would not fall off another cliff in 2010 (thankfully, that was true), that I secretly wanted Sara's (the roommate I had when I first bought my house) cat to go missing (not true!) and for 2011 they predicted I would still have blue tape on my ceiling marking the recessed lighting I never installed (that may end up true too).  They predicted I would work for the Department of Fish and Game in 2012 (many of the people at the party work there now) and also predicted Hanna and I would get married and have four children in 2012...I think the red sangria I made must have kicked in because that's a tall order for one year.  Anyways, it's great fun. 

Other than prepare for the holidays I have done little else other than tool around the house when free time presents itself.  I learned on YouTube of all places how to service a household heating and air conditioning system (HVAC).  The outside air conditioner condensing unit sucks in leaves, pet hair and dirt, which greatly reduces its efficiency.  I removed the lid, shop vac'd about 6" of leaves out, then rinsed the condensing coils with condenser cleaner and hose water.  The pool of mud that formed afterward was evidence enough that this maintenance was needed.  In the attic I entirely removed the blower wheel and motor for cleaning.  If you replace your return air filter every couple of months, you may not ever have to do this.  The blower is much quieter now and should push more air through the system.  When summer approaches I will do the final service--open up the air conditioning evaporator coil (sits just behind the blower and furnace in the attic--it's the device that gets cold to cool the house) and clean it like I did the blower wheel.  When the evaporator is covered in dust, the air passing over the cold evaporator coil is not effectively cooled, wasting energy.  I really enjoy learning new skills and I feel like I am becoming quite handy these days.  :)

Blower wheel out for cleaning:

I like tinkering with LED lights, so I hand-built some modules for the house to softly illuminate the perimeter at night.  I used metal spice tins with clear lids, mounted aluminum C-channel inside to act as a heatsink, a single 1 watt Cree LED in each housing, then strung wire between each light and connected them to a driver that drops household electrical current down to low voltage/amperage.  This is how each module turned out.  There are 11 in total--a few down each side of the house, two illuminating the driveway out front and one in the entryway.

They really aren't noticeable unless you know what you're looking for.  See what I mean?

And here is how it looks at night:  (front)

Side:

The pictures are slightly overexposed...the light is a very pleasing soft light and are placed on both sides of each backyard sidegate and along the entire length of the sideyards.  This also provides the benefit of acting as security lighting as well.

I have worked a little on the Volvo too, fixing some of the little annoying problems.  Many of the dashboard cluster lights were burned out as well as the lights that illuminate the switches.  Volvo wants $14 per bulb (!!), however thanks to the internet I read how easy it was to buy microbulbs from RadioShack for $1 each and wire them into the Volvo bulb holders.  I partially fixed the portion of the dashboard cover that had delaminated and pulled away from the rest of the dash.  It's much better than it was but still not to my satisfaction.  I will keep my eyes open for a used replacement.  Finally I did some more cleanup...the sunroof drip tray, insides of the door frames/trunk drip rail, etc., were all very dirty; now the car feels 10 years newer.  I installed used trunk struts so the heavy trunk lid stays open on its own and replaced yet more burned out bulbs--corner marker lamp, a license plate bulb, etc.  Volvo spent all of their research and development money on airbags rather than decent bulbs.  That said, I do like how every single switch, no matter how unimportant, is illuminated at night, the overhead lights are actually aimed so any passenger including the rear seat passengers could read at night and even the floorboards, center consoles and storage bins are illuminated.  Or at least they are now that I replaced a million burned out bulbs. 

Car masked off for rubber trim re-glazing:

With the trim now re-glazed black I will use the leftover product to turn the chrome grill pure black.  It would defeat my entire purpose of buying this car if I dumped a bunch of money into it, so I'm only willing to do inexpensive things to improve its appearance.  Here's someone else's car that also did the black-out work...I really like the boxy shape of these cars:

My total investment in this car so far is $45 including some bulbs, black body trim glazing, used trunk struts, adhesive for dash repair, etc.