Busy week for the papers…

No amusing pictures of my banging nails into wood or hiking through forests today – just a collection of links to some of my recent stories.

Big news this week was an in-depth article on energy-saving CFL and LEDs. If you have a spare half hour, you might find it interesting to follow the story from its original incarnation in E&T magazine, where I tried to give a critical and balanced view of the relevant technology and politics, to its Chinese Whispers progress through UK media.

It was picked up by the Daily Telegraph, who did a great job of summarising it for its wrinkly audience. The Mail and Express extracted the shame! and horror! and EU bureaucracy!, but by the time it reached BBC News, I had conducted 10,000 hours of tests on dozens of bulbs. Goodness knows what we’ve done by now…

Other recent stories (completely by me) includes a story in The Guardian on green car parks, Sunday Times articles on ebook readers, 3D screens for mobile phones and the Motorola Droid phone, and – last and least – a round-up of pet gadgets.

Ted builds an ‘eyebrow’, Mark follows orders

The sluggish garage project takes another lurch in the right direction, with Ted providing the plan and Mark providing the labour (and some foolish questions).

The plan was to build a lean-to porch to store garden tools, to give more room in the shed for its future incarnation as an office-cum-bike workshop.

Ted occasionally showed me the real way to do things but generally we made a good team. The ‘eyebrow’ flew up in just a couple of hours – and looks even as thought it might stay up for a bit longer than that.

It’s not quite the Black Rock Desert…

… but Seattle’s SeaCompression party is the closet we’ll get for another 10 months or so. Lots of costumes, a great sound system and fun participatory art installations.

One thing that did feel authentic were the flame-breathing art cars and general anarchy… Roll on Burning Man 2010!

Would you like rain with your Rattlesnake?

Another week, another trip up I90 to the Rattlesnake Ridge area. This time, it wasn’t sunny but chucking it down and we weren’t there (just) for fun – it was a volunteer day with the Friends of Cedar River Watershed.

 

This is a 90,000 acre reserve that supplies the city of Seattle with most of its drinking water – so the public is not normally allowed in. Four hours of pulling holly in the undergrowth earned us a tour of the mysterious Cedar Falls – including some wonderfully steampunk Victorian hydroelectric power systems.

This cast iron tube still carries thousands of gallons of water – and generates about 2MW of power.

Rattlesnake Ridge

The first day back on grey, old winter time was also one of the finest of the autumn – and like almost everyone in the greater Seattle region, we headed up to the hills. Here’s Rattlesnake Lake, near North Bend.

Karen looking beautifully stylish on the trail, as usual.

Stunning autumn foliage everywhere!

Halloween high-jinks

Pop quiz! Can you recognise these mysterious masked miscreants?

Hint: this charming accordionist is usually to be found zipping around Seattle in a scorching Daytona Sunset Orange Corvette. And far from a trailer park, this ‘tea-bagger for Jesus’ usually resides near quite a lovely sunset view herself..

 

No, it’s not Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein – but this glamorous couple could certainly dance the light fantastic…

Wait! Is that David Phelps mixing scarily powerful cocktails at the bar? Probably not – he looks far too, er, sober…

“Get a brain, morans!” Why sir, I couldn’t have expressed my disappointment at the lack of enthusiasm for the public option in healthcare legislation among legislators better myself.

Neptune, god of the sea, versus proto-feminist cave-woman? An equal match but my money’s on a well-wielded bone…

Well, this is just world famous gymnast Kim and her loyal bat dog.

Best dam Halloween costume of the year

Another Halloween, another ridiculously over-complicated, difficult to understand costume.

This year, we decided to highlight the parlous state of Washington’s civil infrastructure and represent the Howard Hanson dam in miniature. This US Army Corps of Engineers dam is expected to fail this winter, flooding a South Seattle neighbourhood.

Step one: buy and modify numerous items of plastic tat.

Step two: Attach to freshly painted moving boxes (yes, from last year), decorate with lettering, cotton wool and bits of skin ripped from our bodies by Superglue.

Step three: humiliate selves and bemuse friends at a super-stylish party in ultra-hip Ballard with the effortlessly gorgeous Kim and her elegant acquaintances. Before:

After: Rumble! Crumble! Ker-splash! Er, that’s meant to be water.

Cycle of violence

A mixed day last Saturday. On the plus side, I took a spin out to Seattle Centre to take part in the 350 event to draw attention to climate change, with Karen’s cousin Sonia (bottom left).

On the way home, though, I got knocked off my bike on Dexter Ave – clipped from the behind and the side by a little red hatchback. Cracked rib, bruised knee and multiple road rash – nothing too serious but very messy and uncomfortable. At least the bike’s OK!

Apparently, garages shrink in the wet

What better way to spend the wettest weekend of the year than by starting to remodel the garage?

At some time in the past, the owners of 2223 N 44th extended the garage – we suspect to accommodate some super-long motorised whale. It was time to put things straight and that meant removing the weird addition. While pumping the bilges in the basement.

Using our extensive bodging skills, we bashed out the existing wall and stuck it back on with rather more enthusiasm than skill. We now have a slightly smaller, slightly less well made garage that is slightly more prone to flooding. Result!