Home Automation Update 28Nov18

I perused the smart doorbell offers and couldn't pull the trigger on the Google/Nest offer despite the great reviews - just too expensive. Since we have a Logitech/Arlo security/camera setup, I went with Arlo Doorbell and Arlo Chime. They are now installed at the Nest and work great ~ although latency is an issue with all these systems. I didn't have existing doorbell wiring so the pure wireless was a boon. Both items are fully integrated now... I know motion at the front door and record video on the event and I know a doorbell press, which rings the indoor chime, and can answer in person, or rings a call on my phone and I have a conversation with the visitor, or just allow the visitor to leave a message - without any intervention. Pretty cool. We'll see about battery life.

I now have the biggest config for Arlo which is still free. Five security cameras, including one added to cover the front door and one looking out back at the weather and wildlife, and a doorbell & chime (shown above). I've set up all appropriate rules and modes and it all works pretty well. I still get some false positive alerts though when I open the iPhone app and view a camera live - something is cross-wired in Arlo's cloud service. Too, the latency to the doorbell speaker, when answering on the iPhone as a phone call, is too long. Both of these issues are not show stoppers and the monthly fee of $0 is just right.

Regrettes @ Marquis Theater 27Nov18

Bob Riefstahl, Yoho and I enjoyed a good concert at the Marquis. We dined first on gr8 pizzas at Marco's Coal Fired and then walked over to the Marquis. We saw all three bands Ricky James, Welles and the Regrettes - though I was definitely there to see the (now headliner) Regrettes. Ricky James was energetic like Mick Jagger (he even did Helter Skelter after I noted the similarity) and somewhat like the Black Crowes a bit - I liked them... really bad image below. Welles was decent but a southern hard rocker sound I did not prefer - Jim liked them OK. Regrettes were good and fun SoCal girl punk as hoped. Production was better for them than at Summit early this year but I'd have to say that the sound at the Marquis is over-driven for such a small venue. It was a good, but not great, concert. I've included a movie of an unreleased song (PW: GR8F1sh)!

Regrettes @ Marquis - Unreleased New Song

Happy Birthday To Me 27Nov18

Kala scored me a cool ARB fridge/freezer for the Crusher for my birthday. No more chiller packs or ice chests, just continuously cold refrigeration. Its super efficient, 50 quart, and hooks into vehicle 12V circuit and house 110V, prioritizing 110V when both are connected. There's an adjustable voltage trigger that assures you can't drain the battery. I am still debating on whether to add a secondary battery to the Crusher so I'll assure cold beverages (and even ice cream!) and also assure a full battery. I did have to rearrange the back and remove the last row seat onto which I was oddly clinging. So cool.

[07Dec18 Update] The fridge install is complete. I ran a separate, fused, 8 gauge pair from the battery, through the firewall (not for the faint of heart), under the driver side door kick panels, behind the rear inside panel, and anchored out to a special positive screw-on terminal built for 12/24v line ARB purpose. Now there is sufficient full time power to the fridge to assure cooling - even when I am not jacked into 110V. It took ~3 hours and copious use of my "snake" but went better than I'd anticipated. As mentioned in a later post, I don't have a dual battery setup so will carry a mobile jump-starter just in case.

So far it's working well and holds ~35° steady... I have not tried to freeze stuff yet - nor has it been 95° out recently.

Snowshoe The Arapahoe 25Nov18

Kala & I were able to get out into the Arapahoe Forest today on a bright but cold day after a couple of feet of snow. We broke new trail and followed some others. Awesome.

Happy Thanksgiving 22Nov18-24Nov18

I have many things for which to be thankful. Kala & I are having fun in Silverthorne; I made it another year around the nearest fusion warmth; Matt & Alexa joined for Thanksgiving dinner; Summit Co received >20" of new snow on TGiving WE - and I was able to ski it! Sure we had to shovel 12", then 8" and then another 5" off the deck to reach the spa, but wow what gr8 early season precip. We enjoyed TGiving in Summit with Kala preparing an awesome and largely vegetarian dinner (we did have turkey) with M&A in attendance. They skied turkey day but had blackouts on Fri & Sat. I skied many fresh tracks Fri with an early arrival (5th in line), unexpectedly sparse slopes and plenty of new snow - awesome - best early conditions we've had since in CO. I skied all the mtns on the mid-fats and was excited to get 16K without a knee blowout.

Build & Measure 19Nov18

With the flows on the PT excruciatingly low I took to the vise and not only filled the boxes but overbuilt for further fall action and for pending spring '19 action... thus far, at least regarding most mayflies I use. I will move on to goto weighted flies and goto midges. Normally I need to take some days off in the spring to replenish flies but I'm hoping some time now spent building an inventory of RS2s, Jimi's Axes (Dave's FoD), Merc Bead FBPTs and more in the coming days will keep me on the water come 2019.

Too, I need to relate a simple technique to measure fish sizes. I used to guess size based upon the known first hash mark on my rods. This was likely inaccurate; for 2018 and on I've "Sharpied" my rods with 16", 18", 20" and 22" marks. These are proving valuable and did help me assert a 2018 multi-day spring string of big fish (>20") days. It's easy and it works.

Strong & Even On The PT 16Nov18

It was a decent weather-wise day so I headed down to the PT. I caught several fish but I was hoping for 100 cfs and partook of much less - it was declining while I was there - it's now ~13cfs! Horrible. I caught an 18"er (release pic) and two 16"ers and some fry; they are all strong... black midges worked best but so did the blood midge and the black ice. Dark/purple worked better despite just 18" of viz - my "silver in the murk" policy failed me. I don't know if ya'll know but there was a fire in the state park area which came down from the ridge housing and across the road to the river... kind of messy.

German & Japanese-American Ska Make Everything Better and So Does Cool TV 14Nov18

In pursuit of modern ska one is led to south LA and south of the border of course and the Latin variant borne from the rich club and backyard scene in SoCal. Too, though, as shown prior, other countries are all about absorbing the style and making it vibrant - nearly always you are happy about it, whatever the lyrics. Here's a cover band (Oasis, Madonna, Spice Girls, Tom Jones, Donna Summer, so many others) from Germany who kill it...

Skameleon

And here's Japanese Americans Kemuri, again from SoCal, with PMA...

Kemuri - Positive Mental Attitude

Kala and I finally caught the awesome BBC America series Killing Eve; we also binged Homecoming from Amazon Prime. The leading ladies of KE are really good, of course Julia Roberts is also very good. Both of these shows were excellent and well worth the time.

Nano-Magnets 12Nov18

Kala & I finally caught a Science On Tap night at Jack Quinn's tonight. It was a cool talk from a UCCS theoretical physicist (Karen Livesely) on ~30nm magnetic particles (100 atoms wide). There are a number of medical and industrial apps and she was a very clear presenter. She even brought a demo where she "deposited" a fluid of 25nm wide nano-magnets on a "printed" HDD substrate which attracted the magnets to display a pattern. So cool. The crowd was definitely old geeks like us - looking for a keen excuse to have a drink... there's even a "drink break" between the pitch and the Q&A. SoT is highly recommended... we'll be back.

ACBF & More 10Nov18

My knee is still pretty bloated from skiing just 12Kft of vert on Friday. I think I can go without surgery but will be challenged to do consecutive days... grrr.

The knee did hold be up all night at the All Colorado Beer Festival. Yoho and I returned from Summit and hit the ACBF and actually got to every booth in the house. I focused on IPAs of course but also tasted all the pumpkin variants available. We even saw acquaintances we'd met just days before at Aurum manning their booth of a micro-brewery and restaurant in Florissant, Funky Town I think.

I've been trialing Deezer, a music streaming service comparable to Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, etc. I am interested as the UI is super simple and has received good grades and they support streaming FLAC (on some devices, though not yet on Win10). It's good ~$20/mo for the full FLAC service.

GR8 Opening Day 09Nov18

While we may have missed the unplanned opening day of skiing at Keystone two days prior, there were still lots of chances at surprisingly good snow. Yoho and I enjoyed early tracks on Ambush/Powder Cap and other ungroomed stuff off North mountain. Of course we capped the very fine ski day at Outer Range and discovered the Goggle Sag, a collaboration with east coast brewer The Other Half - an excellent hazy DIPA for which they are known. Notably we dined well on Thu at Aurum and Fri with Pho and were graced on Fri eve with a visit from DD.

Shocking Outcomes On The PT 05Nov18

I was excited that the flows at the Pueblo Tailwater had increased to just over 100cfs, excellent for the fish and fishing. Since the weather too was great I headed down with enthusiasm. I fished the Nature Center first and did nothing in the the first two holes - then I arrived at a raft trailering vehicle from CoPW. Timing is everything on the PT and while I had flows and weather and season right - I did not account for the electro-shock inventory event. Catching fish was abysmal as I followed the shock. I caught one decent 17" rainbow; I did have a huge ~24"er or so on the line (in the pig & log hole above Valco parking) but lost him quickly above when he jumped and shook his 6# body and broke the rig at my surgeon's knot. Grrr. I saw clear evidence of the brown trout pre-spawn behavior preparing redds but none were occupied. Visability is improving too and I saw some big fish but could not make the required casts in those situations. I caught plenty of fry.

Denver Film Fest With Yohanans 04Nov18

We enjoyed a cool weekend downtown Denver with Yohanans... they have a cool condo there with all the amenities. On Sat we hit ChoLon for Vietnamese food and totties and caught two good films from first time directors In A Relationship (realistic romcom) and Cam (Internet Porn Sci-Fi). Both were 4/5 IMO and it was really cool seeing the directors and actors explain stuff after the shows. We will definitely attend again. We also scored keen deserts and choco-tinis at a boutique desert restaurant. We used the jacuzzi on Sat AM - yeah, overlooking Denver and the front range on the 5 floor and then partook of good dim sum from Empress Seafood. So good. GR8 time in Denver. We did not stay with our Badger buddies for the Packer loss.

Tying The Silver Surfer 02Nov18

Sometimes bright flies save the day - for me this is especially true when a river has poor visibility and is turbid for whatever reason: rain, lake effluent seasonal turnover, construction upstream or other; if I am not catching anything with "normal" flies I may go to silver, pearl or opal like the Rainbow Warrior or the Silver Surfer. This fly is intended to be a fall quasi-baetis and therefore I do tie it smallish (#20-#22). I tie them with and without a cobalt glass beadhead and find both effective. I also really like a bit of blue in my flies so the wire and head here are bright blue - especially in low viz, this works for me. Here we go...

DRC's Cobalt Silver Surfer Fall BWO

Recipe/Ingredients:

• Hook: #22-#20 TMC 2487
• Thread: Dark gray (blue dun) #70 UTC UltraThread
• Head: Optional cobalt glass bead
• Tail: ~8 gray soft hackle fibers
• Body: Silver 3D mylar (size M) with blue wire (size S) overwrap
• Thorax: Silver ice dub
• Legs: Gray soft hackle feather

Add cobalt glass bead and set in vise.

Bind on thread; tie in tail fibers (adjust to allow
fibers at shank length from bend point). Bind on
wire and wrap to bend. Tie in mylar at bend then
trim tag of tail fibers and wrap thread forward
covering all bindings smoothly.

Wrap mylar forward and bind in.
Overwrap blue wire ~6X, bind in and helicopter
tag off.

Spin on silver ice dubbing and wrap on a thorax
about the size of the bead (but leave a bit of
space between bead and thorax for legs.

Select small gray hackle feather with base fibers
about equal to shank length. Strip "duffy" fibers
from base of feather and bind onto the fly (2 wraps
over stem and then pull base stem back and tie once
in front. Trim off stem.

Wrap legs feather 2-3 times in the gap then
bind in. Wet fingers and pull back legs to
whip finish and trim.
[this fly has a tail and legs that are a bit too big]