Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

Normally I get our air conditioners out and stored away for the winter by early October, but the temperatures hadn't been that cold, and I had a feeling the warm weather wasn't finished yet. It seemed like each week we were having a couple of days with temps peaking at around 72, and then last week we had a five-day run of that, with Wednesday approaching 80 and oppressive humidity for almost the entire time.

We ended up running the AC Wednesday, overnight, and Thursday, which was the day it rained buckets and felt tropical. But then, as is typical, Sunday night and Monday morning we had an abrupt cooldown, with a low around 35 yesterday morning, so I figured it was finally time to put away the AC units.

It's supposed to rain again for much of this week and I was kind of busy yesterday. It's supposed to rain for much of this week but today was mostly dry, so I decided I'd rather get the units out now, otherwise I'd have to wait for them to dry out again. Back in June I purchased a hand truck to make this task easier, but today I learned its limitations.

I had previously borrowed a hand truck with air-filled tires and had intended to purchase one like it, but I ended up opting to save a few dollars by getting one with solid rubber tires. That wasn't such a big deal when pulling the hand truck up the steps from the basement to outside (all the houses around here have both internal and external basement access), but going down the steps was a different story.

The air-filled tires are mounted on larger wheels and are offset a bit more from the frame, so negotiating steps either up or down is much less jarring. Banging down the steps jarred our oldest unit, one with knobs instead of a touch panel, enough to break off the on/off knob. I tried to put it back on but bouncing down the steps had also dislodged something inside, so there was nothing there for the knob to attach to. It must be still inside, but getting at it will require opening up the unit. Worst-case, we'll have to replace that unit.

I decided to defer dealing with it until next year, when it's likely I will also rectify my mistake by buying another hand truck, this time one with pneumatic tires. If anyone local can make use of a hard-tired one, I'll sell it to you cheap.

Car Stuff: A Correction

No one likes to be wrong, but I believe it's important to admit one's mistakes. Back in the summer I posted pictures from a car show I attended. Among them was this one:

At the time I identified this as a 1964 Studebaker Avanti, though I questioned the originality of the wheels. While it is an Avanti, it's not a '64, and if I had been paying just a bit more attention, I would have realized that. The telltale sign that I overlooked is the side marker lights, which I have mentioned before were mandated by the federal government on new cars as of the 1968 model year.

The original Avanti was built for only two model years, 1963 and '64, and Studebaker was gone altogether by 1966. After the company ceased production of the Avanti, a trio of dealers in South Bend, IN (the location of the factory) purchased the rights to the Avanti name, parts, and use of factory space. The car was called the Avanti II and was built in small numbers, essentially by hand, until the early 1980s. (In fact, the car's history continues well beyond that point under different ownership, and with questionable styling changes like rectangular headlights.)

So this is definitely an Avanti II, and the presence of the side marker lights along with the absence of federally-mandated 5 mph bumpers dates this car to a 1968-72 time frame. As to the source of those wheels, which I noted look very much like ones used on Buicks: at this point the builders of the car were using Chevrolet engines, so it's entirely reasonable to extrapolate that they were also purchasing wheels from another GM division.

I realized my mistake in identifying this car after reading this article about the original Avanti on Curbside Classic, which goes deeper into Studebaker's problems and is well worth your time if you are interested.

Spelling It Out

I am reasonably comfortable and conversant with technology, but part of that comes from making efforts to keep things as simple as possible. I've been using Apple computers for over 20 years, while my limited knowledge of how to do certain things in Windows has faded away. I've had TiVo DVRs for about eight years now, and part of the reason I stick with them is because they are so simple to use. (One time when I was visiting my mother she asked me a question about how to do something on her DVR; 45 minutes later I hadn't been able to figure it out, and never did.)

In the final half-season of Breaking Bad currently airing, there has been a lot of whispering. We had to turn up the volume really loud in several scenes, and then of course when the music comes up it blasts us out of our seats (plus our living room is directly under our upstairs neighbor's bedroom, and we try to be considerate about such things). At one point we were forced to turn off the air conditioner in order to hear the whispered dialogue.

So the Mrs. asked me if I knew how to turn on the closed-captioning. I thought I did, but couldn't find anything obvious on the remote. A couple of days later she started working her way through all the TiVo's on-screen menus; I was busy in the next room, but some time later she let out a yell of delight. She had figured out how to activate the CC function. It seems to have been there in the on-screen program info display all along, and we just hadn't ever noticed it.

I was under the impression that we could use it only while watching shows live, but it turned out that the CC data is embedded in the program recordings and can be viewed during later playback. The quality of the transcriptions seems to vary from show to show and even from episode to episode of the same show, but it's there.

As a bonus, being able to access the closed captioning makes it easier for us to enjoy British crime dramas like Luther and Broadchurch, which have a variety of accents with varying degrees of aural decipherability.

What A Croc

Sometimes I go looking for post ideas, and sometimes the ideas find me. Courtesy of The Awl, I learned today that the Hermès store in Manhattan sells a T-shirt made of crocodile skin, and that this garment costs a mere $91,500. (Scroll down to the comments on that article to find a link to an image from a runway show, if you must.)

And now that I have this knowledge, I'm left not quite knowing what to think about it.

I mean, I know the world of the rich is very different than the world the rest of us live in, but of all the things to potentially blow a shitpile of money on... that? There's just something awfully Eurotrash about it, you know?

Sweet Treatment

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I was talking about IKEA's cinnamon rolls? Did that make any of you hungry? In the mood for some delicious baked goods? Want to learn how to make great baked treats yourself? You're in luck, because our friend Anne teaches baking classes at Brookline Adult & Community Education, and she has two classes coming up that I offered to plug on her behalf.

The first class is called "Breakfast Baking" and takes place on Saturday, January 26th from 10 AM-1 PM. Anne is planning to demonstrate "professional baking techniques, and how to prepare breakfast specialties that are quick and easy to assemble even on the busiest of mornings. We'll make and enjoy breakfast treats like Sour Cream Coffee Cake, Chocolate Chip Muffins, Banana Bread, Cornmeal Currant Scones, and more." Mmmm, I could go for some of that coffee cake about now...

The second class, "Homemade Bars and Brownies," is the following Saturday, February 2nd, also from 10 AM-1 PM. "In this highly-participatory class, bakers of all levels will learn easy recipes and how to make two of the most popular desserts: bars and brownies. We will roll up our sleeves and make an assortment of homemade Turtle Shortbread Bars, Double-Cherry Streusel Bars, Four-way Fudge Brownies, and Citrus-Hazelnut Bars." Oh, baby.

I can testify to Anne's baking skills and the goodness of her creations, as we have been testers for some of her recipes in the past. Tough job, huh?