Further February Updates

We spent the  weekend before last with friends from Glen Rock visiting us here in Ashfield. We spent last Sunday evening visiting with cousins, some of whom I had not seen for thirty years. Its nice to keep in touch with folks who matter to you and get back in touch with family.


As for projects the two projects mentioned in a prior post: About three weeks ago I went with Jean when she picked out fabric for thermal shades for our 90" inch wide, cold as the dickens, north facing, kitchen window. While there, I was struck by a very pretty fabric combining flowers and wading birds. I bought a yard and built a stretcher for it and mounted about half a yard's worth. Here is an incomplete picture of it.

 I have been trying to make a frame for it, but no project goes smoothly. I decided on a pattern for the frame and had to buy new wood for it since I did not have the right thickness in the right wood. Then I found I would have to double up on the wood any way. Then I found I didn't have right router bit for the shapes I was interested in so I made the molding on one edge using a manual plane. This exerted enough pressure on a tendon sheath in my finger to cause a temporary halt to further planing. Fine, I'll use my shaper. So now I find I need to replace the shaper motor (1/3 HP 1725 rpm and  has a dead capacitor and not enough horsepower any way). Fine, I have a spare that has 1/2 HP. Fine, rewire this replacement motor so it turns the right way and can reverse if needed and then discover it cannot be made to fit the mounting. That's okay, I have another 1/2 motor that will fit. Fine, rewire this motor to get it to turn the right way and just forget about putting a reversing switch on it. Mount it. Fits very well. Oops pulley from old motor won't come off and now I see it won't fit new motor any way. Oops new pulley I bought is 1" too small. Further thought and research says I really need a 3450 rpm, 1HP not 1725 rpm motor anyway.  Good news, just got one on Ebay 5 minutes ago. Now I just have to drive out and pick it up, wire it and install it.  In the mean time I used a plane and some carving tools to make a mockup of a section of my frame design and decided I didn't like it. Back to the drawing board.


The next project is a pair of night stands. This requires using my lathe, whose motor I recently got to work by fiddling with its capacitor cut out switch, but still will need some more attention soon. I have only just begun practicing turning spindles on the lathe which is unfortunate since my design will require me to make eight spindle legs. Here are two leg patterns I sketched. I have decided to use the one on the right. Wish me luck.

End of February

While we only received about two inches of snow this past week, the end of the week were cold and windy enough to remind us that we are in New England in February.

We got to watch my youngest grandson ( he'll be seven in June - if I let him survive 'til then) from Thursday evening through Saturday night, and except for locking me out of the kitchen and having a meltdown during one dog walking episode, he was an ideal guest. Well maybe not ideal. He did beat the socks of of me in a game of Othello.

Speaking of the dog, not ours, theirs: his name is Ernie and he is a mix of Beagle and Australian Shepherd we are told, although  I am sure that a box of rocks or a small pile of gravel is somewhere in his ancestry. Ernie is the dumbest canine in the northern hemisphere. It is only my lack of travel that limits my claim of his championship of ineptitude to only one half of the earth. Call him and he runs away, sit means leap up as far as he is concerned. Anything that has any smell, preferably associated with putrefaction or at least morbidity, is infinitely attractive. For two years he has been trying to play with the three cats who share his home.
For two years this home has been a constant display of fur bearing projectiles launching themselves to high shelves and the top of the refrigerator in usually successful attempts to avoid Ernie's affections.

Come in the door, he needs to rush out, only to come barreling back in the next instant, or show up three hours later end the end of an exasperated neighbor's leash. Ernie just knows that a leash is something to be tangled in and that everyone's greatest interest in life is to wear his paw prints and rub his belly.

For two middays, I got to take this four legged intellectual disaster for  exercise and other business. He got plenty of exercise, but he saved his other functions for the house. This despite being walked three times a day. Cleanup was not pleasant.

His one outstanding virtue is that he is incredibly good natured and friendly and this has probably saved his life.

Got a little bit of work done on building interior buttresses ( short stub walls) in the loft, but I decided I need to sheath them as they are too ugly otherwise. Hope to finish it by midweek.

This weekend the Village of Deerfield commemorated a devastating attack by French and Indian raiders that nearly wiped out the village on February 29, 1704. I went to some events yesterday and a concert of music for organ and soprano at the Brick Church in Deerfield with my wife today. We then went to the Northampton Brewery for dinner only because they have Irish folk music on Sundays. The beer is something we just have to suffer through. After all this music we still listened to some operatic music on the way home. One piece among the many beautiful melodies that really captured our thoughts was the intermezzo from Mascagni's "Cavalliera Rusticana". I strongly recommend that next time you are feeling quiet and thoughtful and want something to enhance your mood, listen to this piece. Here is one link to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSL4pPVf9rE&feature=related
I suggest you skip the visuals and just listen.


I have started two woodworking/ decorative projects and I'll discuss those in a separate post.

Early February

More like mid February, the time does fly. We spent last weekend in the White Mountains and did some modest snowshoeing and hiking. I actually needed my crampons to make the last 300 yards to the top of Black Cap Mountain ( more like a hill). The trip provided a much needed reminder of how impressive the White Mountains are, especially when the upper reaches are snow capped. We are planning a return trip in about three weeks.


Last Thursday we went to a concert of the Hartford Symphony and heard what I think was the best performance of the oft played Beethoven's Fifth I have ever heard, live or recorded. Tempi, phrasing ,volumes, etc. were well nigh perfect. The conductor was the relatively young and little known Alexander Mickelthwate. I'll look for his name in the future.


Been doing a bit of walking, snowshoeing around here, but not enough to lose an weight.  




I have fallen behind in my physics reading but will reform soon. I did help, I hope, one student now taking an electricity and magnetism course.

My computers have been dodgy lately. Two weeks ago the monitor on my desktop died. I called Samsung. They took a week to send me the shipping labels so I could return it for repair. On the other hand I sent it to Carlstadt,NJ on Friday evening and it came back repaired yesterday. That is remarkably fast service. In the meantime I relied on my old Mac laptop for email etc. While I was out, our upstairs cat decided to sleep on the keyboard and ended up hitting keys which accepted an upgrade of my old Firefox to a version that does not work on the G4 laptop. Thus for a couple of days I had to rely on my wife's Window infested laptop for communication, the horror of it still haunts me. Now I'll try to load Linux on my laptop and be done with Apple who no longer support their older products. [It seems that Steve Job was just as ruthless as Gates.]

Things have been a little slow on the home front, partly because I now suffer from trigger finger a condition where too much pressure on tendon sheaths on the fingers of my right hand make it difficult to hold and apply large forces to tools. I sketched out plans for a pair of night stands. The legs are to be round so I started practicing wood turning on a great old lathe I bought a few years ago but did not use. After a few minutes I noticed the motor was overheating, and when I shut it  down it would not restart. The obvious cause on not starting was a dead capacitor, but I am old enough to know that replacing the capacitor would only set things up for another failure. A little investigation showed the, centripetal switch, which takes the capacitor out of the winding circuit was not working. Keeping the capacitor in the circuit will overheat the motor and then burn out the capacitor. After a lot of lubrication and changing to weaker springs in the  switch and replacing the start capacitor it will new start and run coolly most, but not all the time. Why the switch needed attention at all is beyond me. It is very simple and nothing important seemed to different from what it must have looked like when new. Now its time to make the same repair on the motor of my shaper.

Last week also saw me replace the passenger side ball joint on Ingemar ( the red Volvo wagon). Ingemar passed the 300,000 mile mark on Friday and we are planning a party to celebrate soon.

I hope to give an update in less than 3 weeks next time.

Helpful Garden Hints

Are you troubled by those pesky little lawn ornaments? You can't do better than getting a couple of these gremlins to help you get rid of them. Now if only I could keep the gremlins from chewing on the furniture.

Mid January Update

I really enjoyed my visit to Ridge on Friday, seeing faculty friends and spending time with great alumni like Carly, Ashley, Sandra, Christine, Akil, Henry, and Jon. It's always nice to find out that people will spend time with you, even when they no longer have to.  It's also nice to hear how you folks are doing and to hear so much in the way intelligent thoughts and interesting activities.

Saturday was spent at the NJ Physics Olympics. We had an astonishingly large turnout comprising four teams. This says a lot about Mr. Lee and Ms Mususmeci and the club officers. We got a first in the collision free car event.  I hope this year's juniors will compete next year as well.  I got to judge the Fermi questions and I am glad to say there were no horrendously silly answers from Ridge this year.

It was a long drive home Saturday and it felt good to be back in the country.

We had a snow storm last week and two this week, but the total on the ground is well under two feet. There's still plenty for snowshoeing and I did some of that last Monday and yesterday without ever driving anywhere to do it.

Here are a couple of photos from last Friday: one of our house and one taken from about 400 feet up Hawley Road.

Maybe these photos will inspire some of you to visit.

Well back to finding a contractor for our septic system and to refreshing my understanding of sold state circuits so I can repair a receiver.

Check with Your Colleges, Visit

A few colleges have misplaced or not received recs I sent out last month. Double check to make sure they have arrived. Contact the colleges directly NOT the common application site, which only records online recs.

We got about 6 inches of icy snow here today which postponed my venturing down to New Jersey until Friday morning. I hope to get to Ridge before noon. I will try to help the Physics Olympics teams, but will be available for other things.

Busy Week

The last several days have been pretty busy. I've got twenty two new rafters in place to help support our loft roof, which is doing some sagging after 125 years. Ten or twelve more to go. This involved cutting and installing 15 foot long 2x6 s using brackets I made from angle iron and what are called collar ties cut from 14 foot long 1 1/2 by 6s. Managed to get this far with no new cuts or bruises. Wish me luck on the rest.

Also managed to fix a VCR and a CD player 9 mostly new drive belts) and find and order replacements for some bad transistors in an old Sony receiver. It is a nice piece of equipment and weighs slightly less than a Sherman tank. It was built to last, but not to withstand shorted speaker wires. Transistors burn out quickly since they have low impedance and are sensitive to temperatures. Got to be careful with old equipment.

Speaking of old equipment, I got bored
 of only hearing my complaints while working in the loft so I assembled a sound system using a CD player, a 30 year old amplifier, a 35 year old speaker, and a 55 year old tuner. The tuner is a little weak, but the other components are not bad.

I am supposed to give a lesson on how the physics of torque is used in engineering to seventh graders in a Greenfield magnet school next week. If it goes well maybe I can show how one principle can explain why riding uphill in low gear is easier and why bridge beams are deep and narrow, not wide and shallow.  More likely, I'll just show them how lucky they are to have their regular teacher every day.

We saw War Horse. I thought it was a fine movie. It reminded me of how pointless and wasteful most wars were, particularly World War One. Also we picked my wife's car after it was repaired following a parking lot get together.

Also managed to get mildly confused by Griffith's contention ( in his primer on particle physics) that the weak force does not change generations of leptons. I thought muon ( 2nd generation lepton) to electron, electron anti neutrino ( both first generation), and muon neutrino ( 2nd gereration) was a weak interaction. I relize we are still left with a sum of zero total first generation leptons ( particles and antiparticles cancel in this accounting) and one second generation lepton, as we started, but there are two first generation particles in an existence as a result of the decay. Enough of this, I'll check with my son.

Hope to see some of you at Ridge on Friday, if this week's snowstorm isn't a show stopper up here.

Project

Here is the combination coffee table/display case I made for my wife. While it has many technical imperfections,  it is still not bad. Like a lot of my students.

Post Holiday Post

I managed a sort of symmetrical title to this post.

Hope you all had good holidays and I hope those of you who are sitting on the edges of your seats about admissions are getting some good news.

Our holidays were very pleasant up here, with Daniel around and much time spent with Chris' family and many new friends. The coffee table/ display case I made for my wife was a big hit with her so I have garnered some brownie points.

Things are a lot quieter and slower paced up here. Good things as far as we are concerned.

We visited New Jersey, attending a New Years Day party and staying with friends. We did a walk around Ramapo Lake on Monday and more visiting.

Tuesday was my day to visit Ridge and I appreciate the warm welcome I received from many students and faculty members. It was also nice to see some graduates who came back to visit.

Thanks to Mr. Lee and Ms. Musumeci, the current club officers, and the spirit of Ridge students, the physics club is thriving. Twenty members are planning to attend the Physics Olympics on 1/14.

After being busy and doing a lot of driving Tuesday, yesterday was a rest day. It never got out of the teens and I didn't do much more than take a walk and fill a bird feeder and reread a couple of chapters on particle physics.

Today started with a walk and will progress to trying to sort out faulty thermostats, attempting to repair a CD player ( some of us prefer non MP3 sound), and, I hope, to making some progress reinforcing the loft over our kitchen and workshop. I also want to see how many days in a row I can go without getting into a car.

Christmas and Hanukkah Wishes

First, I hope all of you have great holidays, even those who are not celebrating a specific holiday. Spend time with those folks who are important to you and to whom you are important.  Also, many times the holidays do not live up to expectations, probably due to unrealistic expectations. Please remember every moment you spend regretting what isn't happening, instead of appreciating what is happening, is a precious moment of life wasted.

Second thanks for the responses from nearly all of you re: your results and needs.

Third, I expect to be at Ridge on 1/3 and 1/13, mostly to help with the Physics Olympics.

Four, somewhat against my better judgement I have joined facebook. I will be friends with any of my students AFTER they graduate from Ridge.

The past weeks have been full of errands and shopping, some walks along country roads, but most of all wood working. I am trying to regain or improve on the woodworking skills I had  about twenty years ago, while building a gift for my wife.  Its amazing how many different kinds of errors I have made. I hope I can forget how to make them on the next project.

Last weekend I finished writing and modifying the last rec. Monday afternoon was spent copying and mailing. Tuesday my wife and I took a walk in a forest on the William Cullen Bryant estate ( a 19 th century poet who emphasized the importance of nature). It has not been logged in at least two hundred years and there are many magnificent trees and some beautiful streams.

Wednesday we bought groceries for, and helped serve at a Christmas dinner for the indigent, an annual gift from out Temple congregation to the community. I spent much of the afternoon, you guessed it, copying and mailing recs. Still have a few to go.

Thursday was more woodworking and picking up my son, Daniel, in Boston. Yesterday was more woodworking and shopping with Daniel. Tonight dinner with Daniel, and Chris (my stepson) and his family, including his sister in law and her family.  Jean (my wife)started cooking three days ago and now Daniel is pitching in. So much for weight loss.

On the physics front, I have reviewed matrix algebra and determinants and even derived Kramer's Rule on my own.  Back to general relativity soon. Currently reading about non local causality ( which implies events at one point can affect other events more than c delta t away) and will review the EPR paradox, Bell's inequality, and the Aspect  experiments sooner or later.

Application Results

I am writing recs for 38 students. Of these thirty one had early deadlines. I had told those thirty one that I would not send out any recs that had due dates beyond 12/15 unless I heard from them.  I need to hear from you about what has happened to all those early actions and early decision applications and what you want to do now. There are still about a dozen of you with whom  I have not had correspondence. I am not happy about this.


Let me remind you of a few things. I spend hours thinking of ways to say positive things that are neither untrue nor boring about students. I have to drive 23 miles each way to get your letters copied. I lick a few hundred envelopes because most of you don't use the self seal type. I spend time checking addresses that are faulty and correcting them. I fax applications when the post office or admissions offices lose the first ones I sent. I fill out forms that you were supposed to. I spend a couple of hundred dollars on cartridges, copying, paper, etc. I lose my correspondence with you because someone in the Basking Ridge administration closed out my email account without warning or explanation. What do I ask. I simply ask that you keep me posted on your results and your current needs. Remember, I cannot see any correspondence we had on my bernardsboe account, so if you need me to know something you need to make sure it reached my gmail account.

Urgent: Loss of Email

My email account at bernardsboe is not working at this time and I have not yet been able to ascertain why. I was hoping to sort this out before bothering any of you but time is getting short for the Dec. 31 and Jan 1 deadlines. In any case, at this moment I do not have access to the my inbox or the mailboxes that have all my correspondence on recommendations. This has three immediate consequences.

1) I have not contacted most of you whose name begins with a letter after "H" about which schools I have sent recs to. I'll try to recommence this process using the info I have from your folders.

2) I do not know what will happen to any electronic recommendation requests sent to my bernardsboe address. If they have deadlines coming up soon I suggest you revise your request to refer to my gmail address.

3) Please use my robertcherd@gmail address to keep me posted on where you were accepted and what schools I still need to send to.

Please pass this on to anyone you think I may be writing for or those who need to reach me for other reasons.

Early December

General

The unusually warm December has made construction work and furniture making more enjoyable in one sense ( I'm not freezing in the barn), but harder to do because the temptation to go for long walks is nearly irresistible. I'm not sure why I wrote nearly, having taken long walks on 4 of the last 6 days, including two with my wife. Nearly everyone who drives past while we are walking waves and a few even stop to chat.

We visited Historic Deerfield, a town full of original colonial and federal era structures, furniture and other artifacts, and home of the Deerfield Academy. I was there to study some details of furniture construction as well as enjoy the beauty and history of the town. I highly recommend it as a place to visit.

Thanksgiving was a real pleasure. Daniel was in from Ft. Collins and then off to a meeting held by the DOE on ideas for a high intensity neutrino source. He managed to stay here for a few days in between visits to his friends in Boston. It was something of a sacrifice because our terrible internet service makes it hard for him to get his work done. We also had Chris and Tracy ( stepson and daughter in law for those of you new to my ramblings) and their three children, (Audrey 11, Walter, 9, Henry 6) friends of Daniel's and their two children, and my middles sister and her husband. This is the smallest Thanksgiving group my wife has cooked for in 30 years. Daniel couldn't take his usual mountain of leftovers home, no nieces or nephews were here and we still ran out of pumpkin pie and turkey in less than a week. Life is hard sometimes.

We spent several days in the past few weeks stopping in at local artists and artisans, spending money because they made pretty and sometimes objects and we felt their skills and efforts deserve some support. We kid ourselves into thinking we know someone who can use the items or that we need them in our house. Maybe we are not really kidding , my feelings on this vary with the time of day. Some of the stuff is we bought edible and I know I will use that!

Speaking of purchases, someone please tell Bardia I bought a new tweed jacket. Couldn't resist since it was made in USA of Scottish tweed.

My Physics

I am continuing to read up on linear algebra so I can be fluent when dealing with the matrices in general relativity. The jury is still out on the faster than c neutrinos. It could be error or some new physics, but I'd be surprised if special relativity is overthrown by these results.

Ridge Stuff

I hope the Physics Olympics team is doing well. I expect to see you folks early in January.

Recs

Two more recs to write and then a bunch of mailing to do for those who have not ended up going to one of their early schools. I have heard of one success and one dis appointment so far. Keep me posted. If you had early applications (ED OR EA), I will not send out your later ones unless I hear from you. . I will let each of you know to whom I have sent recs. Many of you have already heard from me on this

Late November Update

I very much enjoyed seeing and talking with so many of you last Thursday. I slipped into the routine of being at Ridge so easily that I drove right past the visitor parking spots and was almost at my old spot before I remembered my new status. At least I did not go to the main office three time to check my mail box as I did on my last visit.

I am glad to see most of you are having rewarding senior years and most of you have not yet shut down the learning process.

I was very impressed by the number of juniors at the Physics Club meeting. The club has a solid future. I conclude that this is a very positive reflection on the new advisor and club officers.

I hope that many of you will participate in the New jersey Physics Olympics. It's a great combination of physics, engineering, craftsmanship, teamwork, camaraderie, and fun.

Here is a link about a contest some of you interested in the environment and media should consider: pearson@communications.pearsonschool.net

I have finished cutting away most of the rotted wood in the north end of my barn; capping the fieldstone foundation with reinforced concrete; installing and anchoring sill plates for two thirds of it and getting studs and sheathing in for a quarter of it. The rest should be easy, but won't be for one reason or another. After that,its on to reinforcing posts and joists and then the south wall sill. In the meantime brake pads, generator ( on order), transfer switch also on order), and trying to get approval for the new septic. Then I can start on the house's carpentry problems. Ah retirement

I spent a few hours working at my old scout camp on Friday and Saturday. A fellow veteran camp volunteer cuts up our fallen trees into 18" lengths and then hand splits these lengths with an 8 pound mall. In about two hours of splitting before he went to work Thursday, he created a pile about 6' high and 8' across. A pretty handy guy to have around a camp.

In physics, the big excitement is neutrinos apparently going faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. I'll wait a little longer for the dust to settle and the data to be confirmed before I try to revamp my understanding of a limiting speed in the universe.

I wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving (even you Elena and even Zach Halpern) and of course including my alumni ( I have no former students [Hi Amber, Allie, Anshul, Alex[es], and Ashley and Zachs - sorry about you guys not at the start or end of the alphabet]). Remember how much you have to be thankful for and try to spend time with people to whom you really matter.