May 2016 - Nick Fohl's Blog

House numbers – Mid Century style!

More mid century stuff – I needed a number for my house, so I ordered from a company I found as an advertiser in Atomic Ranch magazine that specializes in Mid Century modern styling. I ordered my number (337) in cut stainless steel like the photo below but with the background plate in Capri Blue … Continue reading “House numbers – Mid Century style!”

More mid century stuff – I needed a number for my house, so I ordered from a company I found as an advertiser in Atomic Ranch magazine that specializes in Mid Century modern styling. I ordered my number (337) in cut stainless steel like the photo below but with the background plate in Capri Blue instead of red. I wanted something that would stand out from the orange and browns of the house – since the point is to draw the eye and provide identification. Look at the link here for the actual color

Moda Industria from Atomic Ranch Magazine advertising

Floating house number

I also have written to my neighbors about getting coordinated with them to etch the number in the granite post on Bedford Road.

May 2016 – a busy month

May has been a really busy month for me with a lot of travel for both work and personal. I went to California twice, visited the BNY Mellon Innovation Center in Palo Alto which was super interesting and did general work stuff in the office. Then a few days later my parents and I traveled back to the Bay Area for my niece’s college graduation from Saint Mary’s College in Moraga. In between we installed an all flash memory storage array in the data center in Everett MA (aka – work stuff).

So lots of stuff to talk about. I will do house stuff first and then family second.

House stuff. While a lot has been going on, not all of it shows up as something to photograph. But this month, a lot of things are coming together and Paul and I are talking about wrapping things up, getting final inspection permits and the final bank payment done. Still a bit out over the horizon on the timeline, but the final pieces are coming together – and it is coming together GREAT!

My mad plan for the cantilevered island counter top, cooking & dining surface came out better than I had hoped – it looks fantastic. It is a real show piece. Other things that are done or have made progress.

Ceiling fan is installed
Sprinkler system is pretty much done, including the pump and the tank, sprinkler heads and cages
lighting is 99% installed
tile in the bathrooms is complete
Hot water heater is installed
Appliances needed for inspection are installed, including the kitchen sink. (faucets are purchased but not installed yet)
Steps from the carport to the back of the house are in progress
The window seat is installed (and man, does it work well !)

One thing that is becoming very apparent is that the math for the size and shape of the eaves done by Deck House (while we were in the design phase) was spot on the target. The amount of direct sunlight into the living room that is hitting the floor is reducing and already minimal. We designed it so there would be absolute minimal heat loading inbound from the sun as of 6/20 and maximum as of 12/20 to help with passive cooling and heating. It is working out great. So is the choice of the light tan color roof – it just doesn’t absorb much heat either vs a darker color. The house is really pretty cool even while the geothermal heat pump is not fully in use – just by basic design.

Below are some outside shots showing the stone work and a panoramic shot showing the house itself – double click on that to blow it up for details

Interior shots showing all the progress inside

Ok – on to family stuff 🙂

Going out for Margaret’s graduation was a LOT of fun even if it did involve a new hotel room almost every night (more on that later). The flight out was rather long as it was Boston to Los Angeles to San Francisco and the Airbus had a mechanical problem in Boston (dead auxiliary power generator). The Airbus needs two and carries three. After two hours of sitting on the tarmac, they decided to load more fuel, have us fly lower and take off anyway. Worked out ok but was a long tiring day. The Best Western El Rancho Inn in Millbrae is within sight of the airport and is super organized for the air traveler. I HIGHLY recommend them – nice rooms, fantastic organization and very reasonable rates. We stayed there the first night and then onto Lafayette for the next night and a very early rise for graduation. Saint Mary’s is down a single lane road – so the advice from the school and the locals was to be driving by 6:30am for the 9:20am start of commencement. That turned out to be the absolute right thing as we were able to park close instead of 2 miles away!

Due to the sporadic rain and our seats, I personally didn’t get any photos (it would have been of umbrella’s) – but the school has posted a lot of good photos here. Unfortunately Margaret was not feeling well and had a fairly high fever – sitting out in the rain for her was pretty tough but she got through it. On to grad school !

We zoomed off to Santa Rosa to visit the Santa Rosa Fohls and stayed at the Marriott Courtyard near Rail Road Square – just missing the Amgen Tour of California bike race (one of the biggest in the United States with LOTs of European Pro teams using it as prep for the the Tour de France). This was fortunate since our hotel was very close to ground zero for the circuit through downtown (3rd street). The Amgen is very fun race to watch in person and I saw it many times when it passed through SF in years past – but I was just as glad to have a near miss this year. We made a strategic decision to hang out at the hotel, have a drink in the bar, and go to bed early – which completely rejuvenated us. The next couple of days were spent hanging out with family and really fun. Of special note is the Sonoma Children’s Museum – it is pretty new but really, really, really great. Lots of indoor and outdoor things for kids 6 years and under to interact with. For the family, I will send around more photos but below is my youngest nephew Owen playing in the Choo-Choo and the museum entrance.

Other stuff:

It is the Memorial Day holiday so I thought I would include this here. I walk past the Old Granary Burial Ground in Boston everyday to the MBTA and while they always keep it up very well, Friday it was in full spruce up. All the veterans buried there had a flag and some had 2 or 3. However, Samuel Adams – patriot, rabble rouser Son of Liberty, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor of Massachusetts was given his due – 4 flags.

Aaaand on a final note of a very long post, my Dad and I had fun time yesterday watching BOTH the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco and the Indianapolis 500 Indy Car race. Both were exciting for different reasons. The F1 race was very wet then dried out so strategy played a lot into it and a botched tire change by Red Bull probably was the key factor for Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes to win. The Indy 500 was very exciting with a lot of competitive cars and many lead changes. A number of cautions late turned it into a gamble of pitstops and fuel – a rookie won it sputtering in on fumes and a prayer – he had about a 1/2 lap lead and was out of gas – just coasted it around for the win. Alexander Rossi – a Californian who spent a year over in Formula 1 before joining the Indy Car series – so an experience racer, even if it was his first trip to Indianapolis. Michael Andretti’s team, through good strategy pulled off the win AND second place. Good stuff.

Ok – off to June now!

Doings around Carlisle – spring is trying to sneak in – which equals a post that is a bit of a rambler…

But not really making a lot of consistent forward progress. Most of this week it has been below freezing or very close to freezing when I got up for work – but then moves into the 40s-50s and yesterday up to 60. I did see two mosquito’s yesterday so spring is definitely on the horizon! … Continue reading “Doings around Carlisle – spring is trying to sneak in – which equals a post that is a bit of a rambler…”

Leaves are starting to come out – on the weedy bushes (buckthorn) leaves are pretty well developed but for the trees at our end of town, nothing really. In other parts of town that are not quite as cold at night maybe? they are leafing out a bit more.

Lots of activity at the Clark Farm Stand in the greenshouses (now plural this year) and planting.

At the house, Paul and his son Tim are doing odds and ends like working on the shelving for the pantry and the closets. Nothing really to take pictures of at this point. Bathroom tiling and countertops are still pending – but the wall oven, cooktop and dishwasher are on site.

Paul suggested that I convert some utility lighting at the front of the garage/shop door to the same Hubbardton Forge exterior wall sconces (two). My Dad and I took one that was already onsite outside on Saturday and held it up. We decided that he was totally correct – so I went to Wolfer’s lighting and order two more of these babies. To give you a sense of scale – they are 16″ inches tall.

At my parent’s house, we took advantage yesterday of the annual hazardous waste day at the dump/recycling center and took a Subaru load worth of old spray paint cans, exterior stain etc… over. Lots of stuff that had been sitting in the woodshed for decades. Because we were originally scheduled to have the roof replaced last fall, my Dad and I emptied all this stuff out onto the lawn – then nothing happened (Dave Ohlmstead got busy I guess) and everything sat in the snow over the winter. Messy!

More Saturday stuff was that I went over to the house again with a Verizon and an AT&T cell phone and mapped out wireless signal strength – by walking around doing near the Kimball’s ice cream stand and then back along the trail to Bates pond, around it and beyond. What I wanted to do was to get a good picture of where cell signal strength was in terms of direction around the my house. Turns out that AT&T has one extra bar pretty consistently and the signal strength is higher to the north of the house. I am still trying to figure out how to get internet and it looks like ‘cord cutting’ wireless is the only way to go. If I do go this way, I will need an antenna booster and it looks like putting that near the computer nook will be the place to do it.

While I was walking around, I “discovered” that some very serious earthworks are involved with Bates Pond. I always thought that Bates was a glacial hole – and it may be that – but it is pretty clear that someone went to a LOT of effort to enhance it. On the uphill side is my property – on the downhill side is a wetland swamp that wanders off through the Greenough Conservation land eventually to the Concord River. However, the land between the pond and the swamp is totally flat, about 30 feet wide and faced with really large rocks. It very clearly has been shaped. I mentioned this to my Dad and he recalled that the pond was man-made – and I think very clearly that it either is a total artifact or was enhanced heavily. The question is why go to the effort? Maybe it was Herb Bates creating a pond for water storage for cows while this was a working dairy? I think some archival digging in the town library is in order – with my brand new library card I also got on Saturday!

Speaking of books and maps – I also bought two copies of the Carlisle Trails Committee map book (one for inside use, one to sit in the car for emergency ‘let’s go for a walk’ decisions :-). I got an ice cream soda (vanilla of course) at Kimball’s while I was testing wireless reception strength and while I was looking at it, I noticed that the 1975 Bicentennial Map had listed six (6) mill sites in Carlisle. This is two more than I was aware of based on the couple of histories of Carlisle books I had read. A project I want to undertake is to document the mill sites – since one of them is on my property. Now more to too look at! The mills are:

George Robbins Mill
John Barrett’s Mill
Adams’ Mill
James Adams’ Mill (two different locations)
Robert Bloods Mill (this is on Pages Brook and is the mill site on my property)
Solomon Andrews’ Mill

And finally, to round out a busy Saturday, I finally got to try out my new Axe (California Berkeley Bear fans can now be heard chanting – “We want the Axe, We want the Axe!” – sorry, had to throw that little bit of Bay Area lore for you)

My good friend Tom McGillvray gave me an axe as a gift last year as I was preparing to leave San Francisco. It is from a company called “Best Made” – which is an artist/artisan shop in New York. Despite what they may say on their website, it is not a felling axe, as it is a bit too light and small for that – but it is a perfect limbing axe. What is a limbing axe? It is a sharp axe that is nimble enough to make its way around a felled tree and remove the small and medium sized limbs from the trunk. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is actually an important job – otherwise, it is usually very difficult to approach the trunk itself or at least difficult to do that safely. This new axe really, really made short work of some of the trees that fell due to storm damage over the winter. As you can see below in a before an after. Thank you Tom – a REALLY, REALLY nice gift!

Have a great weekend everyone!

postnote update:

When thinking about felling axes, they are a bit of a rough and tumble game. In my personal experience, you want something that can take a beating but also be sharp – so a double bitted axe is in order – one side is very sharp for when you know you are not to bang into the ground or off a rock – the other side is less finely sharpened for trying to get in low and get at roots and things.