08:12 – After dinner yesterday, Barbara commented that it was still 92F (33C) outside. I checked the temperature in West Jefferson, which was 73F (23C). That’s pretty much the norm. When it’s very hot down here in the flatlands, it’s usually 10 to 20F cooler up in the mountains. According to the real estate agent, many homes there don’t have central air conditioning because it’s not really needed. Winter temperatures are lower up there as well, but usually not all that much lower. It gets below freezing more often up there, and there is more snow, but the difference isn’t great enough to be a problem.
Most of my time this week was devoted to working on science kit stuff and the prepping book, but here’s what I did to prep this week:
- I finished book one in James Wesley, Rawles’ Patriots series. It’s a bit disconcerting to read a novel that includes a glossary and an index. Rawles isn’t the best writer I’ve ever read, not by a long shot, but he can at least write competently. Rawles self-identifies as a Constitutionalist Christian libertarian, and the book is chock-full of religious stuff. Characters are constantly thanking God, stopping to kneel and pray, and reciting bible verses, but I can live with that. At least Rawles doesn’t want to force his beliefs on others. He even has a Jewish main character and another who’s agnostic (although the latter eventually converts). He also has odd gaps in his technical knowledge. For example, he thinks butane gas is added to gasoline as an octane booster, and he thinks a frequency-agile transmitter is one that can transmit outside authorized frequencies, like a 2-meter ham HT that can be unlocked to transmit outside the 144 – 148 MHz range. But overall it’s not a bad book, particularly compared to others in the PA genre. In absolute terms, I’d give it 2.5 stars out of 5. In relative terms, I’d give it 3.5 or 4. I started the second in the series last night.
So, what precisely did you do to prepare this week? Tell me about it in the comments.