Audio Books

Last year Lily started to listen to audio books via an app called Libby that our local library uses.

I finally catch up on audio books this year. 

Reading nonfiction or fiction books has been my new year's resolution for several years. I read a few good printed books over the past few years, before bed time or while on vacation. But it is a struggle to find time to read. Everyday's commute time is a block of time that could be used for reading and audio book is a perfect format for this scenario.

Once I started, I could not stop and so far I have finished listening to 15 audio books! 

The books I listen to are mostly nonfiction, which falls into category of  biography, outdoor adventures, popular science, and societies. The biography books include - the Wright Brothers (♡♡♡) , House of Morgan, Leonardo Da Vinci,  Alexander Hamilton (♡) . The outdoor adventure books include, North (♡♡), A Walk in the Woods. Popular science books are: A brief history of time (♡), the Wonder of Birds, Heart 411, the Brain Fog Fix,  the Magic of Thinking Big (♡), The Art of War (♡), Eruptions. Round up my list are French lessons (♡) and Modern Romance.

Among these books, I like the Wright Brothers the most. 

The book was written and read by David McCullough, the language was plain, the voice was monotone. However the faithful chronicle of the Wright brothers' journey to invent the first powered airplane, with popular science level details,  made their story vivid, appealing and from time to time thrilling! One morning I sat by breakfast table for 90 minutes to finish listening one chapter of the book! Mr. McCullough's deliberated and earnest voice fitted Wright Brothers' life well.

One very important reason I liked the book was that it described Wright brothers' superb problem solving skills. As an engineer,  I marveled at their insights at fly mechanics. I appreciated Orville and Wilbur Wright's curiosity of nature, critical thinking capability, craftsmanship and perseverance. 

After finishing listening the book and Leonardo Da Vinci earlier, I can not resist to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy's quote on marriage for my thinking about engineers - "All good engineers are similar, each mediocre engineer is mediocre in his/her own way". 

The other book I liked very much is North by Scott and Jenny Jurek. It is about  their ultra long distance, 2189 miles to be exact,  trail running on Appalachian Trail.  Scott was the runner, and Jenny, his wife, provided logistic support and she only ran sectors of the trail. They recounted their story alternatively, providing different perspectives and  viewpoints. 

Listening to their story is like to accompany them on their journey up north from Georgia to Maine - I could feel their joy,  pain and despair, could see the beautiful landscapes and sometimes languished  areas along the trail. This 2189 mile trail running in 46 days was a joy sometimes, it was more of a torment after one week into the trip, it was outright misery and torture in the end! So truthful, so real!

On their journey, especially in the second half,  they kept asking themselves "why do I do this". They provided various reasons, but in the end they resorted to a slogan "This is who we were; this is what we do". I don't like this slogan; for me outdoor adventure is to enjoy nature, to exercise my body, to have mental relaxation, to have a change of environment. 

Despite their despair and misery, I am tempted to hike portions of the Appalachian trail, especially the last leg of Appalachian Trail in Baxter State Park in Maine - Katahdin Trail - a 10 mile, 4000 ft elevation gain, 5267 ft Baxter Peak.

There are thousands of audio books on Libby, but many popular ones have long waiting time. I typically pick nonfiction books with status "available now". This makes me not reading the most popular books, but there are so many "available" books, there are always some good books among them that I enjoy. 

Right now I need to adjust my pace of listening/reading - slow down a bit, so that I can reflect and digest what I read, can engage in other forms of intellectual activities - go to concerts, attending seminars, reading journals and magazines....

I am waiting for my next audio book - The Path Between the Seas - it is about the creation of Panama Canal. It will be available in a week or so.

Solving a Shower Head Problem

Last year we replaced the old shower head in the shower stall with this new one. I felt that it worked much better than the old shower head, stronger flow but Lily did not feel quite the same.

This year Lily started to complain that it took long time for the shower water to turn warm, and after a while (5+ minutes), it would turn cold, and the water flow rate was low - shower was "weak".

The time for the shower to turn warm was long per my experience and observation as well. It will take a while for warm/hot water at heater to reach this bathroom because the bathroom is furthermost from the tankless water heater. The cold water has to be flushed out before the warm water can come.

I had not experienced the the cycle of water going from warm to cold and warm again while in shower when she first complained. I attributed the cycle to the fact that she turned the hot water volume down too much while in shower. But I experienced the same thing last few weeks.

Thinking about it, I determined that there are two factors related to the phenomenon. First the water pipe and shower head clogging, which reduce the water flow rate in hot water pipe, which could shutdown the tankless heater; second tankless water heater does not work properly. I checked tankless water heater quickly and superficially - it seemed to work properly, and temperature setting was correct. I also observed that other hot water outlets worked just fine, even the hot water faucets in the same bathroom. The potential heater issue is eliminated.

Tankless water heater turn-on/turn-off depends on both water flow rate and temperature inside the heating unit per this reference. The hypothesis was that the issue was with the shower head and a secondary factor might be the way we adjust the volume of hot water. A clogged shower head or hot water pipe could make the water flow rate low despite the fact that we turned the hot water volume at shower stall to maximum. In this case, the tankless water heater control is dominated by temperature for turn-on and by flow rate for turn-off. This could explain the cycle we observed - initially when we flush water long enough, the water inside the heating unit will be low enough to turn on the heater; after temperature reached set temperature, the control unit is looking for signal to turn-off, it sensed the low flow rate and turn off the heater. But the water is still flowing, eventually the hot water pipe inside the heating unit will low enough to turn on the heater, the cycle repeats.

The next thing I did was to check the shower head: some mineral deposits were observed in the orifices of the shower head and were cleared. Minor improvement achieved and the issue persists.

One night last week, while showering the water never turned hot but lukewarm. I was about to finish.. water turned cold ! .. I removed shower head ... water turned warm and then hot in few seconds! just like the nearby faucets.

It is the shower head that caused the troubles, root cause is confirmed!

Removing shower head can eliminate the water temperature cycle issue but showering without shower head is not comfortable, and functionally not acceptable.

What can I do?

I checked the shower head again, no mineral deposit on the outer orifices, I further dissembled the inflow control unit at the inlet of the shower head, there is a rubber weep on peek base, and a mesh screen.

The mesh is fine. The rubber weep on the peek base swelled, and released black residue in water when flushed. The real root cause of the shower head problem was that the rubber weep swelled to block water flow too much. (Note: The swell itself is due to rubber property deterioration after about a year in usage)

The solution is really simple and without cost, after the root cause is found, I simply removed the inflow control unit. The shower head performs consistently, water is hot, the flow is strong, giving us great satisfaction.


Note: without the inflow control unit, the water usage per shower can increase. we control the flow rate at the faucet to the shower head, only 1/4 to 1/3 turn is needed to get hot and strong enough flow.

Great Salt Lake

Great salt lake is big - 1700 square miles, max width (east to west) 28 miles, max length (south to north) 75 miles. An interesting fact is that the lake is endorheic, i.e. it has no outlet,  the water leaves the lake through evaporation. 

Last Sunday (November 10th)  I visited the Great Salt Lake with a colleague from Singapore, before attending a technical conference at the convention center of salt lake city. We visited the lake through the antelope island that afternoon. It is interesting to note that the lake is so big, it is more than 6 times the area of Singapore (278.7 square miles)!

It was a beautiful day at the lake - clear blue sky with white clouds passing now and then. We arrived at antelope island around 1 pm local time through a connecting road (the white line in the above map at the northern tip of the island). The white rock bay on the west side of the island was chosen as our first stop since we could view the full lake from there.

The "dam" road divides Farmington bay from the main lake. The scene from the road  was very beautiful - snow covered mountain ranges in the east and west under the blue sky, whitish beach and brownish bushes, but the salt flat was soft and smelly! due to dead birds, rotten plants ... on the beach, and the endorheic nature of the lake.

 Farmington Bay

on salt flat

The access point to the white rock bay is at the end of a gravel road on the west side of the island. A sand dune and bushes separated the beach and lake from the main land.

Looking to the west - the lake is right in the front, a wide grayish beach separated the water from the land, a line of dead stumps extended from land to the water's edge,  a small island - the white rock - near the shore, a veil of mist over the water in the distance, mountains behind the west shore. No people in sight.

Looking north - there is no end of the lake, a veil of mist in the horizon.

It is an alien landscape - deserted, exotic and mystical.

the white rock in back light

Looking to the south - a barren hill - with bright brownish rocks and soils. I heard voice from the slope, there were people hiking. In fact many people, likely to be locals, came here for hiking and mountain biking.  Our goal, however, is the lake.

There were scattered footprints, and a couple of bike tire prints on the beach. There were a few small puddles on the salt flat/beach, and as water evaporated, some puddles have salt crystals in them.

It turns out that one can hike to the white rocks during a average season like this year. A ligament of the raised land connected the beach to the white rocks.

salt crystal

water's edge

panorama  view of beach and part of the lake

The views from the top of the rocks  - southeast - the mountains on the island - which blocked the view of salt lake city, and far away snow peaked mountains; east  - the beach and a small snail shaped formation in the water, southwest - veil of vapors. We stayed on the rocks for ~ 30 minutes.

southeast of the lake

top of the white rock - looking to the east

looking south from white rocks

The antelope island is big by itself, the largest island in great salt lake  - 15 miles long (south-north) and 4.8 miles wide (east - west). We went to the east side of the island late in the afternoon.

Our original plan was to reach the southern tip of the island - the unicorn point, and look at Salt lake city downtown. It was getting dark when we reached the trail head. The unicorn point is 4.6 miles away. We abandoned the plan to go to unicorn point.

The sun was setting, bison were roaming on the hill side. The sky turned golden.

The island and the lake have a totally different look - the changing color and the changing look of the landscape was mesmerizing!  The great salt lake is even more mystical and exotic at dusk.

bison by the an

antelope island in the dusk

two bison in the grass land under a rising moon

dusk at great salt lake

Quandary Peak - our first 14er

After my attempt at Mt Whitney, I thought of climbing high mountains from time to time. Maybe not Whitney - it is too hard to get a permit to climb it, but high mountains in Colorado and other places  - mainly the so called 14ers - mountains with elevations at 14000 feet or more in continental USA.

Lily and I finally decided to climb a 14er in Colorado last 4th of July

We did online literature search and consulted an experienced hiker about which 14er to climb first.  Quandary Peak was chosen for its class 1 grade and ease of access to trail head. 

topography at Quandary peak 

We arrived at Colorado on 4th of July, and gave ourselves a 2 day window to climb the mountain - need to climb on a good weather day. This also allowed us to assimilate to high altitude. Fortunately the weather was near perfect during our stay, everything went as originally planned 

We explored the trail in the afternoon of  4th of July, to get familiar with trail head access as well as the initial portion of the trail. The trail head is not prominent, steep and rocky. We hiked on it for about one mile until we were blocked by a big mountain goat! Reading a story about mountain goat gored a climber to death just a couple days before, we were very careful around this seemingly tame creature, and turned back. 

trail head

near tree line

a mountain goat was resting on the trail on 4th of July at Quandary peak  

On July 5th,  we got up early, ~ 5am, and drove to Quandary peak. We arrived at trail ahead ~ 6am, many cars were there at trail head parking. The Sun just lit the summit of Quandary peak, the surrounding was quiet, the air was crisp. We started our ascend in excitement. 

View of Quandary peak from trail head parking

on the trail in early morning

The first mile of the hike was pretty easy. It is getting more and more difficult from one mile onward. Part of the trail was snow covered, the last mile is a 45 degree slope with loose rocks. High altitude made every step forward a struggle for me there. Lily on the other hand had no problem at all. While waiting for me, she recorded my struggles. I persevered with her encouragement and reached the top with jubilation! 

It was exhausting and literally breathtaking for me! However the unbelievable feeling of reaching the top and the awesome view from the summit made it worthwhile

I had to pause after a few steps

final quarter mile to the summit

on top of  Quandary Peak

view from the top

Elevation 14265 feet

We rested at summit for about 20 - 30 minutes, taking pictures, having snack and enjoying the view. The way down was much easier. I tried glissade, slide down a slop without any device. I was much faster than Lily who was hiking down, but with wet bottom. 

Glissade

On the way down, we also stopped below the tree line to have lunch. The elevation change from trail head to peak is 3350 ft, our total round trip hiking distance was 7 miles.

tracking record

Quandary peak area is gorgeous and has plenty of wildlife - birds, chipmunk, tail less mouse, mountain goat, marmot. A great place to enjoy nature while hiking.