There Be Race Cars, Part Seven: The Rustang
The race team that works out of Purgatory is named Bernal Dads Racing. Most of the racers are indeed dads and most originally lived in…
Category: Update
Second Story in the Garage
One of the primary reasons we bought this place (now over eight years ago!) was the ginormous garage. In two years of looking at houses,…
Signage for Idiot Drivers
We often get people who are lost up here. Because the road clearly splits at our driveway with the left side going up to the…
More Signs to See
Last August a friend surprised us with something he found on eBay. It was a sign of true epicness. We knew where we wanted to…
Found on Auction
Longtime readers to this site know that much of the furniture (especially in the great room) was picked up from local auction houses. Now that…
Humans and Screen Doors
It’s not only birds that unwittingly run into glass here–humans sometimes fail to notice screen doors. This is a particular problem in Agent Smith’s office.…
Birds and Windows: Reduxed Redux
In the years since buying this crazy house, I’ve worked to curb the number of bird window strikes, as with over 100 external panes of…
Wild Life Part 8: Vultures
This last post about the wildlife here got waylaid in the bowels of WordPress, but that said… We have lots of turkey vultures here in…
Running out of Esperance
It has been a rather exhausting spring–so much to do and not enough arms and legs to do it all. Finding time to write about…
Last Chance at Purgatory: SCVAS Birdathon Team
We’re running a Birdathon team again this year. Consider sponsoring me or, even better, if you live in the SF Bay Area, consider joining our…
“Backyard” Bird Counting
It’s that time of year: Audubon’s great Backyard Bird Count. Agent Smith was off racing so I set aside a bit of time Sunday and…
Crafty Charging
In addition to the toolbox-turned-charging station detailed in the last post, I decided to be creative when I wanted something fun for my Apple Watch.…
Crafting to make old new
My paternal grandfather had many boxes full of many bits. After he passed away, I ended up with a few random items which recently I…
More Crafts: Small Stuff
Small projects often occupy my time. Oftentimes it’s a case of ‘make it and forget it,’ but I do usually take pictures. Like this cute…
There be Race Cars, Part Two: The 002
What follows is a bit of a weird tale, even for here. Before the Porsche 914 was purchased, and back when we were living in…
2022 End-of-Year Video
Finally got around to creating the 2022 end-of-year video. In past years it took me next to no time, as Apple Photos would offer me…
New Art, Part 2 of 2
Over four years ago, I printed off a bunch of images taken from my office window, put them in frames and hung them in the…
New Art, Part 1 of 2
The walls here have slowly had stuff hung upon them. I wrote about some of the things I’ve found via auction houses a while back.…
Wild Life Part 6: Squirrels
We have three species of squirrels here at the ranch–the cheeky and arboreal Fox and Grey squirrels, and the evil and destructive Ground squirrels. The…
Wild Life Part 5: Tarantulas
In the early fall, the boy tarantulas appear and wander the hills looking for love. We really like this time of year and try to…
Once more under the house we go…
Longtime readers will remember that when we bought this place, the crawlspace was a very tight space. The huge ducts for the old diesel furnaces…
Tuning in to a New Station
Our weather station, which we installed shortly after moving in, had a few issues over the years–namely, birds loved to sit atop the rain gauge…
There be Race Cars, Part One: The 914
Back when we bought this place, Agent Smith had recently started helping out with a local group of guys who had a race car. Wait,…
Wild Life Part 1: Small Stuff
We do not live in a typical suburban environment. We have space. What human neighbors we do have live far enough away that we have…
What to do with old hardware?
When we started buying stuff for the walls of the house, we considered getting one of those big LCD displays that would show random works…
The Pantry Fridge
When we moved in, the place came with three refrigerators–one each in the kitchen, pantry and garage. The listing photos from when the previous owners…
New Garage Door Openers
Now that the saga of the garden shed has drawn to a close, it’s time for a series of single-posters. That’s what I like to…
Shed Video
Here’s a walkthrough video of the new shed in all its glory!
Backtracking a Bit for Shed Bits
When I said two posts ago that we took a break from finishing up the shed, that wasn’t exactly true. In December of last year…
Short Shed Break
A full month passed after the shed was painted before we got to the last big bit of work so that it would be ready…
Pretty Pipes
Once the concrete bits were removed, I called in our favorite plumbing outfit and explained what I wanted done. First shot below is the “drawing”…
We abhor “We Love Paving”
And here’s an unscheduled/bonus post detailing why… Every few years we need to reseal our long-ass driveway. Since I’m in the middle of plotting how…