Technological challenge

When we moved to Pittsburgh a decade ago, we decided to get Dish Network (satellite TV), due to the extremely poor reception of "over-the-air" TV here (many hills and valleys). The receiver dish is not large (maybe 40 cm diameter), however it needs to have an unobstructed view of a certain part of the sky, where the transmitting satellite is located in geosynchronous orbit.

The installer attached the dish to the side of the house. He failed to notice a young fir tree in a landscaped area however, which was located close to the line-of-sight of the receiver. As the tree grew over the next few years, it's branches spread out and soon encroached on the dish's line-of-sight to the satellite, thus the signal was lost and we also lost TV reception.

When we called the repair crew, they decided to re-locate the satellite dish onto the house's roof, where it would have an unobstructed view of the sky. It was a very difficult climb up to the roof, but the installer insisted it was the best option. Things worked great up until the latest mega-blizzard (Snowpocalypse as some have called it) that we experienced in early February. The roof was covered with many inches of snow and the snow was so deep, that it also managed to cover at least half of the satellite dish - no satellite signal meant no TV reception was possible. We waited a couple of days for the snow to melt, however it just kept snowing and piling more and more snow on the roof. We resorted to listening to the radio - just like in the old days - but it soon got "old".

With the transition to digital TV all across the US on June 12, 2009, even if we could manage to somehow "find" a weak TV signal with an antenna, we would still need to get the required digital converter box to be able to watch TV. After 10 days without TV, we decided to call the service crew. They arrived and told us the best option was to relocate the satellite antenna somewhere where it would both have an unobstructed view of the sky and where it would be within relatively easy reach, in case we needed to clean snow and ice deposited by some future storm off of it. Thus it was relocated onto the side of the house and we are keeping our fingers crossed the third time will be the charm and we will not need to relocate it again.

Snow

Have you heard the latest 4-letter word?
It is spelled S-N-O-W and I'm hearing more and more people in this area who are disgusted by it.

Groundhog Day was Feb. 2 and unfortunately Punxsutawney Phil (the very rotund prognosticator groundhog) saw his shadow that morning, which according to lore means we can expect six more weeks of Winter.

The Pittsburgh area got hit with around 2 feet (60 cm) of snow between Feb. 5 and 6.
Then we received another 8 inches (20 cm) of snow on Feb. 9 and 10.
It has been a week since then and every day we get a bit more snow - sometimes a dusting, sometimes an inch or two (5 cm) - like this morning for example.
My morning routine now is to shovel the driveway, clear the snow off the cars and then carefully negotiate the sloppy roadways to and from work (this morning's commute was twice as long as it normally takes).

Meanwhile our temperature has not been above freezing since late January.
All this snow is not going away - it is just getting piled on top of the older snow and the snowbanks are getting quite large.

The landscape is white and "cabin fever" is very real - it is palpable in this area.
Quite a few folks are planning getaways to warmer places - meanwhile those of us who are still here eagerly await the coming of Spring.

Forecast for tomorrow ... more snow.

Spelunking

I heard a story on the radio while driving the other day, which I found interesting enough to write about it here.

The story discussed the limitations of electronic communications between people underground (e.g. in a cave) and those on the surface. Alexander Kendrick, a 16-year old boy from Los Alamos, New Mexico, working on his science fair project, invented a device that allows text messages to be sent via low frequency radio waves from deep within the Earth. He won the 2009 International Science Fair competition.

This story brought back memories from a few decades back, when along with some other adventurous young people from our local Eagle scout troup, we explored a couple of caves in Greece. A number of impressive caves have been discovered in the southern parts of the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece, most famous among them the Diros cave, which is typically experienced by visitors on a boat. After visiting the Diros cave, we ended-up exploring a cave near the village of Harouda in Mani - a cave we entered and exited using a rope ladder, since the only way in was by descending around 20 meters into the main chamber through the collapsed cave roof.

I still remember the unpleasant surprise caused by the discovery of a colony of black scorpions which were nesting in the rock pile caused by the collapsed cave roof -- the exact spot we landed-on as soon as we got off the rope ladder. None of us were stung by the scorpions during that adventure, but it just drove home the point that when mishaps happen under ground, it might be important to be able to communicate with the folks on the surface.

I think what caused me to be even more interested in this story however is the fact that this young man was working on his science project! I have already helped judge one science fair at a local school and I am also helping my daughter prepare for her science project as well.
I think this is a story that would be fun to point-out to all the young people who think that these science fairs are just boring affairs...

Godparents

This Sunday's service at our church was dedicated to Godparents and their Godchildren.
Naturally, I thought of my Goddaughter, who lives far away in sunny Orlando, Florida.
We had brilliant sunshine today, which reminded me of Orlando and combined with the snow still on the ground, made it necessary to wear sunglasses when driving. That is where our similarities ended however, as our high temperature will struggle to get to 25F (-4C), while in Orlando the high is expected to reach 60F (16C).

I also thought of my childrens' Godparents - one lost her life in a car accident many years ago and the other lives in faraway Cyprus. Godparents have a special bond with their Godchildren and are tasked with stepping-in to perform parental duties should their Godchildren need them.
Godparents are like an insurance policy for their Godchildren and those who have them are lucky indeed.

Thoughts also turn to all the children orphaned from the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti. There are reports in the news media of young children surviving on their own, of gangs trafficking in children and of orphanages being overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of orphaned children. One hopes these children had Godparents and somehow these surrogate parents may have survived and can assist them in this hour of dire need.

My dearest Goddaughter, I love you and am here for you, should you ever need me.

Moving

Monday was Martin Luther King Day, during which government offices, Banks, the Post Office and the schools were closed (but of course most people, myself included, were working).
Tuesday, Jan. 19 -- this morning we learned that a plane-load of orphans from Haiti arrived at the Pittsburgh airport, where they were greeted by various politicos (who were working today).

The orphans had been transported from Haiti in the pre-dawn hours on a military flight, which took them to Homestead AFB in Florida and from there a chartered plane brought them to Pittsburgh.
From the airport they were whisked to Children's Hospital (downtown), where after undergoing physical exams, several were picked-up by various adopting families that came from all over the U.S. to pick them up, while the remainder were placed in foster care.

These were 53 orphans whose adoption process had begun months, or for some, even years ago and whose adoption was accelerated by the earthquake in Haiti, which resulted in the collapse of their orphanage. A happy ending to cap the sadness they experienced up to now in their young lives and the misery and terror they experienced the last few days.

The news reports indicate there are approximately 900 such pending adoptions of orphans from Haiti, which are at some stage of the adoption process.
One only wonders however, how many more children were added to the ranks of the orphans in Haiti by the earthquake from a week ago and when they might experience their own happy ending to the nightmare they now find themselves trapped in.

Catalyst

The last few days the attention of the world has been riveted on the impoverished island of Haiti and the unimaginable degree of death and destruction caused by the earthquake there.
Shocking as it might seem, it was reported that the initial emergency responders could hardly land on the single strip of the airport that no longer had any air traffic control tower - and once they landed, they found it very hard to maneuver in the streets, which were clogged with debris and bodies, further complicating their rescue efforts.

I heard one appeal that asked not for emergency relief supplies, but for cash donations, as the island's infrastructure was so badly damaged and the logistics for moving materiel so complicated, that the relief agencies preferred not to have to sort and distribute donations "in kind".
The relief agency donation mechanisms also seem to have entered the 21st century, with widespread adoption of $10 donations performed by sending a text message to a special number. The Red Cross was reporting that they were receiving millions of dollars in donations daily through this mechanism.

The mind starts to wonder why a nation sitting on a major tectonic fault did not have a more robust engineering standard for their building construction. The counterargument I heard was that this is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere and demanding such building codes was a bit too much to ask for.
I can understand the poor trying to skirt any potential building codes that might have existed as they attempted to create a roof over their heads any way they could. When I see the symbols of government, such as the presidential palace, and of the church, such as the national cathedral, when I see hospitals and the UN offices destroyed by the earthquake however, I wonder why these important buildings were not built to a higher standard.

As the days grind on and the relief supplies slowly arrive and get distributed to the survivors, as the medical care slowly reaches the injured, as the people of Haiti absorb another massive catastrophe and begin rebuilding their lives, I hope the rest of us take a moment to reflect.

The lives of every one of us are in a balance more delicate than we care to admit. It might be a violent act of nature, or an act of man, and we could find ourselves facing the same, or worse, fate as the people of Haiti. Maybe the events we witnessed over the last few days will act as a catalyst to make us ask the important questions:
- Are we proud of the way we have lived our lives?
- Have we made a difference?
If we do not like the answers to these questions, we should strive to improve ourselves.

DIY Fun

I bought the house we are living in in 2000 when we moved to Pittsburgh. It was a new construction.
Now after 9 years, certain things need to gradually be repaired.
An example was the shower in our bathroom, which had started to drip. The obvious fix for this would be to replace the O-rings.

All the faucets and bathroom fixtures in the house are Moen brand - the reason I mention this is that when installed in a new home construction, Moen provides a warranty for as long as the original home purchaser owns the home.

Therefore I called Moen customer service and described the problem - they mailed me the necessary parts and instructions on how to change the O-rings.
Now it was time to "play plumber" - something I've done before, but which I'm not very good at.
After shutting off the water supply, I took apart the shower assembly (not a trivial task) and replaced the various O-rings on the shower cartridge.
While attempting to re-assemble the shower however, I found that I could not quite get the cartridge pushed in all the way into the receptacle.
I repeated the steps over and over again, however the same frustrating result was obtained.

In desperation, I used my trusted hammer to try to hammer the cartridge back into the assembly. This did not work either, so dejectedly I called Moen's customer service number and talked with a representative. He pointed-out that if there was any residual water in the receptacle it would prevent the cartridge from seating fully. Too bad the instructions did not mention this ...

Once the receptacle was dry, the cartridge body did indeed seat fully and I was able to secure it in place and restore water service.
The shower now worked as it was supposed to and did not drip or leak. All I had to do was install the handle and it would be good as new.

The handle however would not install over the tip of the cartridge. It seems that while trying to force the cartridge into the receptacle, I had managed to deform the tip enough that the precisely machined handle would no longer fit. More calls to the customer service number followed, more replacement parts were sent out and the repair was finally completed but with significant delay.

The lesson from all this -- while DIY may be possible by the average person and might even be perceived as fun by some, I think I need much more practice before I can be counted in the ranks of the latter group.