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We love our hot tub! It’s a Saluspa Laguna that we got from Costco for about $450 last year. It seems small at 177 gallons but it is just perfect.

Megan uses it several times a week, and maintenance is easier than we assumed.

A huge bonus is that it doubles as a tiny pool for Abigail and friends to play in. The bottom is soft and flat, unlike most hot tubs, letting her stand or sit in it as she likes. We lower the heat so she and her friends can splash in it on a hot (or not so hot!) day. We were concerned that the flat bottom wouldn’t be comfortable to go hot tubbing in but it really is just fine!

The only bother is that it does use quite a bit of electricity, especially in the winter.
I did some tests and here’s what I found:
We run the hot tub at 104 degrees

In the winter, with temperatures about 45-50 degrees, the hot tub uses about 10kwh/day. Using the aftermarket heat blanket reduces that by about 3kwh per day. When the temperature dips below about 40 degrees, the heater can’t keep the temperature at 104 without the blanket.

In the summer with temperatures about 58-68, the hot tub uses about 5kwh/day.

It is only worthwhile to turn the hot tub off for 3 or more days. Otherwise, there is no energy savings.

Our electricity costs about $0.35/kwh. So in the winter it costs about $105/month to run (10kwh * 30 days * $0.35). With the cover, it’s about $73/month.

I got a CleverSpa Universal Small Round 180cm Thermal Hot Tub Cover for about $90

I think on May 1st, it’ll be warm enough for us to put the cover away until the fall. :-)

Abigail played in her first play last week! Hurray for second grade!

The MASEP production of The Wizard of Oz, directed by Lew Williams played two shows on April 11th on the Madera stage!

You can jump to some highlights with Abigail! She comes on stage as the Munchkin Roq right here in the black sleeves and flower shoes. She flies in as Winged Monkey #2 here, and here’s her curtain call!

(The camera work gets better after about 5 minutes, after I figured out what the heck I was doing!)

We’ve got tickets to Burning Man! Planning on joining up with Kidsville. You?

I haven’t done this in many years. It’s a thrill!

Happy Easter!

I’m considering getting a Lenovo Yoga 9i laptop with an OLED screen but I strongly suspect the screen will look like shit in a year because OLEDs burn in. Thoughts?

The MFD (Multifunction Display) / computer screen in our 2008 Prius started misbehaving. It would show a black screen or a weird sort-of out-of-focus screen, or wacky light effects. Entertaining as it was, we had to fix it.
Our mechanic fixed it for $800 last year and it failed again. Since our mechanic had retired in the interim, we were on our own. I ended up buying one on eBay for $415 and installing it myself.

Tips:

Make sure you buy the exact model number as a replacement. Mine is a 86110-47220. The model number is written on it. There are some upgrade-compatible units (look around on PriusChat) (for instance, the model 86110-47230 might have worked for me, but it’s easiest to just stick with what you know will work. I followed instructions from this video to remove it. It took me 30 minutes the first time, and I broke a plastic piece, 10 minutes the second time, 5 minutes the third time! I tried to use this MFD repair guy in Indiana for $300 but my MFD was already a refurbished unit and he couldn’t fix it. (yes, you can drive around with a missing MFD). The folks in Indiana were awesome and if you have an original MFD that has broken, I’d definitely recommend you try their service!

In a year, our house has gone from owning 0 chess sets to 7 sets!

– Storytime Chess. I’m so happy the Siedlecki’s got it for Abigail. The silly storybook really got her to learn how the pieces move!
– 2 sets for Abigail’s Aftercare program. Abigail generally refuses to play any game if I ask her to. Grumble grumble. But if everyone in the room is already playing, it’s kind of a given that we’re going to play. DO NOT tell Abigail I bought those sets until she’s old enough to know the truth!
– My dad’s chess set. He gave me this amazing set that he got in college. The pieces look to me far more like a “proper” chess set than the very popular Staunton style.
– A set Megan got for me for Christmas (Thanks honey!)
– Another set for Megan’s work. A student of her’s refuses to play with the set Megan got for me! Hurumph! Chess snob! ;-)
– I think Megan just bought a travel set for the Hawaii trip

– And there’s another set at my work too, loaned to Autistry by a mentor. So we can play when I haven’t brought one of my sets to work.

I’m getting to play a bit!
Today I watched two first graders play chess at Aftercare. It was ah-dore-able! No one knew how the pieces moved so they were just moving pieces around and having fun! Last week Abigail and her friend M. challenged me to chess; we played for a while until it devolved into tears. I play about a game a week or so at Autistry against students and sometimes besides mentors (hi Tim!), which is nice.

Today I was buying replacement pieces for those lost at Aftercar and I ALMOST bought a chess book. Then I thought, “Studying chess might be a sure-fire way of muting my enthusiasm!” so I skipped it. Maybe next year!

Megan, Abigail, and I are hoping to go to Burning Man this summer. This would be my first burn in 14 years, yow! As part of the application, they asked me to list the camps, groups, and projects I have been affiliated with. My answer:

– 2004 My first burn, I offered a kava kava drink experience and brought EL wire art.

– 2005 Colossus Honorarium art with Zachary Coffin – I helped build it at NIMBY!

– 2006 Serpent Mother crew with FLG – I spent my spring and summer building!
– 2006 I ran Low Key Peep Flambe Camp – a Peep themed camp where we brought Peep art and gave away many cases of Peeps.

– 2007 OrbSWARM Honorarium art, Michael Prados, Jon Foote, and I were the project leads.
– 2007 Low Key Peep Flambe Camp – a second year of peeps!

– 2008 OrbSWARM Honorarium art – we were asked to bring upgraded orbs to the playa.

– 2009 I told the “Brown Chicken, Brown Cow” joke to about a hundred of people :-)
– 2009 Illumination Village – my Ill Vill friends took me in after my bike was stolen

– I taught Flame Effects at The Crucible from 2009-2015, some of that fire art ended up on the playa!

Colonoscopies are important and good.

I can legitimately say that my shit don’t stink.
It looks more like pee, but it don’t stink!

Hang on, I’ve got to go poop like the Bellagio.

Ok, I’m back.

I feel like I am drinking the entire ectoplasm effects budget from the original Ghostbusters movie! AKA 4 liters of GaviLyte with a tiny lemon packet, and some Gas-X. The tiny lemon packet makes the whole thing worthwhile!

My tummy rumbling sounds like a mini-thunder storm. It’s kinda cute, actually.

At the beginning of drinking, I was like, “yeah, this isn’t so bad. Just drink the drink.” But near the end, it’s like, “oh god, I can’t drink any more! I mean, I can but I can’t but oh god.”

An acquaintance on Facebook wrote:

I heard that in Martin Short’s autobiography he, Steve Martin, and Albert Brooks all do their colonoscopy prep together.
They chug the awful drink…then play poker at the friend with the nicest house/most bathrooms. But they all three sit around trying to get each other to laugh one another into shitting themselves. Then they all go to the dr the next day. Get scans. Then go out for margaritas when it’s all over.

For my first colonoscopy I had propofol and I swear my experience was like having a refreshing light nap in the middle of the day. Highly recommended. I wasn’t groggy or psychotic (which occasionally is a thing with other general anesthesias!) or anything afterward!

Followup at 8pm:Gina I got fentanyl and something and am still a bit groggy from my 3pm or so procedure (no, I could not have gotten home by taxi). Dr found 2 small polyps. They turned up the meds so I don’t remember it at all. I was hoping to see inside my own butt. Oh well!