Its Been a really busy year

Cats are comfy in their new outdoor beds

New cover over tent frame

Time flew by when you are really having fun. Although, how can it be fun with the pandemic in full swing? Well, I am just one of those that really like working from home and never have we wanted to watch a movie or hang out at the bar. We miss the once in a month meal at the restaurant, but otherwise, life is pretty much the same on that end. On our accomplishments, we had so many!

Installed inside workshop and right away occupied.

Cats got their patio and I made little upgrades here and there for them.

New fluffy bedding

Re-upholstered the tent frame from last year with this pretty printed canvas. They enjoy their new tent cover, and they love fluffy bed addition that I bought for their Christmas gift. The base is heated with ceramic heating lamps and a space heater is installed to give them a warm toasty fluffy bed to crawl into.

Arduino weather station under test in the new planters

And I went overboard with gardening projects. A whole new planter space and deer damage mitigation plan plus a weather station that reads daylight intensity, temperature and humidity.

Inflight Office

Despite the raging COVID situation, I made time in the very last week of Dec to fly in style to Singapore.

My Office in Quaratine

Yep, I arrived on the 31st of Dec and was quarantined at a dedicated facility for 14 days. I enjoyed every minute of it.

My Home Office

………

I spent New Years’ Day at Park Avenue Changi. I was given a small suite, so I had lots of space to work in and stretch out. No hardship at all.

My Space @ Home

Like I said, I am strange by most people’s opinion. I am happy for that time to work on at my job with The Facebook and my personal robotics projects. The line between programming and robotics are fuzzy in the way I applied my skills.

Sundowners view from the Sands building

Started to make a series of robotics videos for my future YouTube channel.

The link to my work https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWuQYXfoi9Ehp0H4JhyIaxQ

My favorite view of Singapore

Hooray for testing negative. And when I got out, I go out to enjoy a bit of the “high life”… eating at the top of the “ship”

And drinking at a roof top brewery with a view of the ship. Was good beer, so I had quite a few of them.

Swirlly girl’s 1st snow experience

5 weeks goes back fast, but I was happy to head back. Kitties and Doug need me… or so I think. I am glad I did not miss being with the kids for their 1st snow experience.

…. In spring, I had professional help to take down quite a few trees, as we are preparing the front lot for a new work shed building.

DIIY equipment rental

…. I rented this Bobcat to pull a few small stumps, ground levelling, gravel pushing and logs hauling. It was so cool playing with one of these. Everybody should try it 😉

Stump targeting.

Now, with those trees being cut, and they were good quality fir and alders, I decided to start milling them for picnic table and saving chunks for my bowls. Doug is going to use the fir for his gantry…. Among other things. These are beautiful wood that is just too good to become firewood.

Hauling logs from tree site to log wall

So we worked well through Spring. Summer activity report coming up in next installment.

Moving forward with Cat Patio

So what else is new? We continue to hide on our property while parts of WA state started opening up and our neighbors celebrated all sorts of parties…. It appears now that the state will go back to lock down again. Its okay, we dont care if its locked or unlocked. We will keep ourselves safe.

My little spoilt kids

I am still enjoying my WFH time and NO COMMUTE! Spending the saved commuting time on improving our lives on this property. In the last 3 weeks, most of my personal non rainy day time was spent on building this cat patio….

So happy to see cats are enjoying the outdoors in a safe enclosed environment, with some silly flies to chase after, and lots of birds to watch.

Snoozing in. High life of cats.

For a start, none of the kitties know how to operate the cat door. So I had to tape it up, so that they get used to going in and out. But the kids (I think its Smokey) keep chewing away the tape. After 1 week, I stopped taping it up. Finally Mama Symphony, after a few days of being cooped up, found her way out. And now is able to lead her kids in and out anytime they want.

And now that they have indoor and outdoor litter boxes, cleaning after them seem to be so much easier…. I seem to be able to get by with once a week cleaning… There is something about giving the litter a chance to dry out …. I read that from somebody else’s experience.

And I thought I will be bored during “Shelter in Place”

Roofing metal delivered.

I save 10 hrs of driving time each week by WFH, and with the long daylight hours, I thought I would be able to complete so many of my projects that I will be out of personal projects to work on….

Future cat patio, now scaffolding base.

But then, there is the weather to contend with. Sigh…. I dont like overcast days, I dont bring out my tools if there is a threat of rain…. its cold and dreary…. many excuses to procrastinate….

Yes, still I did get a lot accomplished. More than I would have if I am living weekdays in Seattle.

Stepping up.

No.1 on the list of things was to finish the workshop, siding is now 3/4 done. Roofing is next and cat patio after roofing. Its a 300sqft roof, and the roofing company wanted US$4500 for it. So I decided to start Lang’s Roofing Co 🙂 …. just me and Doug… mostly me of course.

Insulation down, Boards next.

The hardest part of this project was to raise the materials up to the roof. 100lbs OSB boards are the worst and 16 of them!. 50lbs x 2 rolls of roofing underlayment. Foam insulation, 2×4, tools were easy. Metal roofing panels was about 20lbs each, but it needed care in handling so that it dont wrinkle or scratch each other. For those bulky heavy things, it took Doug on the ground to stage and me on the roof to hoist.

1st layer boards down. Just beginning the 2nd layer.

It took me 2 days for insulation and 2×4 work, 2 days for screwing down 2 layers of OSB boards, 1/2 of day of Doug and me to layout the underlayment and only 1 day to lay down 14 panels of metal. Finally it took 2 full days for me and Doug to trim. Due to our inexperience at metal roofing trim, it took us way more time to do something that seemed so simple…. using our improvised scaffolding…

Chimney flashing done with aluminum self adhesive tape.

All materials up on the roof cost just under $2000. And I spent 7 full days on it, Doug helped on 3 of those days. So I will say 10 days and I saved $2500… but what a great sense of achievement!

Final edge trimming on improvised scaffolding.

The things I learn to do…. like using 2x6x16 planks on 2 10 foot ladders as a scaffolding. Walking on it is like balancing on tight rope, and you can bounce like the acrobats do on tight rope too, especially out in the middle.

My 1st DIY metal roof!

As for my 1st metal roofing project, I would say it went really quite well… My 2nd metal roofing would be perfect of course… 😉

How long have we been in self-isolation?

Do I look like I am raiding Walmart?

I am tired with documenting my food during this covid-19 induced self-isolation period. In fact, I am tired of cooking and eating my own cooking. So I have had take out sushi, pizzas and Big Macs.

That big fat red bags of noodles! Lifesaver for those times I need comfort food.

But I still cook majority of my meals, and still need groceries to do that. On my 2nd shopping attempt at Walmart, my favorite Jasmine rice and Korean noodles are back in stock, Phew! I got enough to live for 3 months at least! 🙂

Fresh Asian noodles with Siew Mai and fresh vegetables.

Where we live, the nearest Home Depot and Walmart is in Poulsbo, a 30miles, 45 minutes drive. Naturally, we must have many things to buy before I am motivated enough to make that trip. Usually we do this shopping once every 2 weeks, but now I am just happy to drive out for the fresh air and beautiful sight of the Olympic mountains…. Besides, traffic is about 1/3 of what it used to be, making it so much more enjoyable.

Very spicy Nongshim noodles with frozen seafood and fresh vegs

On this trip, I stopped at Central Market again and got specialty Asian fresh pack noodles. With that I had a week of noodle soup, fried noodles, noodles almost every meal…. in addition to the Nongshim instant noodle I got from Walmart. Yes, I eat lots of carbs, its probably unhealthy. But I add lots of fresh vegetable to the pot, in hope that I redeem myself a little bit.

Tiny home sprouting jar.

Anyway, I decided to write less about food and more about the home improvement projects during this time when we are more home bound than ever.

Day 4 and ready for use

We can always buy lots of meat and seafood when they are on super sale, but vegs we can never buy enough and keep them well. For times like this, sprouting and growing our own food is one way to get fresh vegs without going to the store. Sprouting is easy and everyone in a tiny home can do it.

Catnip….

This is my sprouting jar. I like it that it is glass and has a acrylic lid with silicon ring, such that its completely see-thru. The idea is to keep the sprouts dry and moisture in. Too wet the sprouts rot, too dry it wilts. So it has to be balanced. It takes practice to grow fat yummy sprouts like these.

33G drums for new planter boxes.

Now is the time to start the new growing season. My 1st 3 planter boxes are full with exotic garlic, onions, kale and broccoli. I need more planter boxes for peas, beans, cucumbers, cilantro, lettuce, spinach ….. tomatoes…. corn! Yep, ambitious plan for this growing year. This may be the 1st year that I will actually be home throughout the season. Every year, since I started the garden in 2017, I have been away in NY or Sg. I had to rely on my apprentice Doug and tenant Toby to take care of the garden….. So far, the best produce is when I can personally care for my garden.

Kinda used the cutoff piece as a lid for greenhouse effect.

Anyway, on the subject of more planter boxes. I got these 33G white plastic containers from a car wash in exchange of funds for a charitable cause. Doug cut it up and power washed them. I make no claims whether it is safe for planting veg crops or not, but I am going to do so.

Peekaboo on the catnip

It is still early in spring, too cold in the night for most veg seeds to sprout outdoors. I start some seeds indoor around late March, but I am limited by the tininess of my tiny cabin. As soon as I can, I will move some starts outdoors. Like the catnip shown here. They are hardy to cold, but germinate well only in warmer surrounding.

Some days it too windy for the delicate starts and nights are still too chilly, so I place the cutoff section back on the container to create a kinda greenhouse for the catnip. The hole is just perfect for ventilation and for me to peek at them.

Well, I think that with the help of the 2 tenants and Doug and me …. all of us bound on this property during this time, my property will look fabulous and produce a great variety of nutritious veg.

Living in isolation is getting old….

Galley kitchen in our cabin

Now into the 2nd week of isolation due to covid-19…. although we kept ourselves busy, I am getting the itch to go out driving. Even just going to the grocery store is a welcomed diversion from staying home, but I limit myself to that activity to only once a week.

2nd weeks groceries

We must all do our part to stop the spread of virus and virtually encourage our friends and neighbors to do the same. There will always be some inconsiderate ones among us, but so long as we stay ourselves in isolation, we will be fine…. or so I hope.

Soupy rice, Vienna sausages and Japanese pickled radish.

Difficult as it is already for 2 weeks of isolation, the State of Washington just extended this to 6 weeks. Yay! For me, I am happy to not go back to Seattle traffic.. but this is not good news and not something to cheer about.

Day 6 of isolation dinner. It was breakfast with a stirfry beef and veggies. 

Knuckle down and keep on counting those blessings.

Oh I had a snack…. Brie on bread… sorry about the bite off.

In our tiny home (aka cabin), we live in it and cook in it. Its not one of those showroom units that look beautiful, is constantly cleaned and never used. We have lots of grease splatter on the wall and the counter. It is unsightly, but it smells like home. Yes, we only have a 1 burner camp stove, a small RV type fridge, lots of open pantry storage spaces and a freezer outside the cabin. Since, this is a 196 sqft cabin in a 45,000 sqft (1 acre) lot, there’s lots of room out there to put in a huge kitchen, and huge fridge, huge house for that matter… but we are not so into huge anything these days.

Day 7. Spam and egg sandwich breakfast.

Given our space constraints, I tend to cook a 1 pot meal. As we have a electric rice cooker, rice is not part of the 1 pot. Certainly not all our meals are 1 pot, like spaghetti is cooked 1st then set aside to cook the sauce.

Day 8 Breakfast. Fried rice with spam, celery and egg

We do get tired of cooking every meal, so we dont. Doug eats lots of nuts for mid day sustenance and I snack on cheese and bread or corn chips and salsa, or corn flakes and milk… Sure its nice to have less to wash in our 1 small sink kitchen. But hey, we are ocean crossing cruising people, we can handle this.

Day 8 Dinner, exactly same as Day 7…

Opps, I missed Day 7 dinner picture, but it was rice and beef and vegs. Nothing exciting. Each time I cook a pot of rice, there will be leftover for a fried rice next day.

Day 9 Breakfast. Fried rice again.

And it seems I am happy to eat the same food 2 days and nights in a row. Very little variation.

Day 9 Dinner, Enhanced instant noodle.

Since starting this recording of my meals… sometimes Doug does his own things, I am seeing some pattern to my food choices. Like how often do I reach for that can of Viennas or Spam or those packaged noodles. Do I eat that much junk …? Doug’s opinion is that I eat junk more than real food…. of course I disagree.. 😉

Day 10 Breakfast. Same old.

And I must say, instant noodle is really not instant for me. I start water boiling with garbanzo beans and my favorite Asian spices. Takes about an hour for the beans to soften just right for me. Meanwhile, I might add slices of cabbage, carrots or other greens. Depending on what ingredients I have, I usually add it to the pot at the right cooking time for those ingredients. Nothing gets overcooked in my noodles. I put so much care in cooking noodles that I might even argue that it is in fact nutritious… 😉

Day at the store….

And while most people argue about good or bad foods, I believe in everything in moderation.

Day 10 Dinner. A fabulous Sockeye salmon meal .

On the day at the store, I couldnt resist a maki for lunch…. not counted, so I say to Doug…

Day 11 Dinner. Night of I want fried food.

And for dinner, Sockeye salmon skin and filet and rice. I love the skin which I fried till crispy. Doug gets only the filet meat, but he loves a good Sockeye when I cook it. So he is not complaining that I had to go to the store.

And then another fried rice.

Sometimes, after a long day at work, I find myself hungry and wanna eat something fast, easy and greasy. Thats why I always keep a box of Van deKamps battered fish filet. Raiding the freezer and found more frying friendly foods… like Siew Mai and crabsticks… who woulda thot. Ok, I admit, that dinner was nothing but junk.

Day 12 Dinner.

Another fried rice to start the day. This one tho is special. Its my Ah Ma’s recipe ginger fried rice. Its vegetarian, but I added Spam for protein.

Finally something different for dinner. Steak, mash potato and homemade gravy. After a productive and very tiring weekend, thats what I felt like having. …

Another week in isolation passed. Another is coming up….

 

 

5 isolated days

1st grocery run.

In reality, its not isolation…. its only social distancing. So I went to the store and got groceries. Doug refused to go for fear of getting the covid-19 …. but if I got it, so will he eventually, right? But he wants to eat just as much as I do too. Anyway, he like the stuff I brought back….

Got this from Walmart

Alright, the story goes, I called the Asian market in Silverdale and Central Market in Poulsbo to ask if they had rice. Asian market is out, CM had 2lb bags of Hom Mali Jasmine (my favorite type) and limited to 2 per shopper, and they are probably very expensive…. never good value to buy such small quantity. Then I checked Safeway online, and it is listed that they had Mathama 5lb long grain in Port Townsend, and among other things, 15 grains bread (for Doug) and white bread (mine!) is back in stock. I was skeptical, nevertheless I rushed to store….

Day 2 Dinner. Elbows in minced beef and vegetable stock

Its only 3 miles to the store and hardly any traffic. Usually I have to wait 5 minutes to turn out on the highway, but today, nothing. I zipped into the store, zoomed to the rice aisle….. and no! There was no Mathama 5lb long grain! But surprise oh surprise, they had the Golden Star 5lb Jasmine rice! This brand was definitely one of the better rice I ever bought in the US. I could not believe that Safeway had this rice and there were 10 bags or so on the shelf! Until I read the price tag…. Mathama 5lb long grain $6.29 vs Golden Star $9.49. Price per pound, GS at Safeway is 2 times more expensive than Walmart, but I did not care, I grabbed the 2 bags that I was allowed to. Even if long grain was on the shelf, I would have gotten the jasmine rice! I am not one that cheap out on rice. And really, these 2 bags (10lbs) would last us 3 months, by then we hope that the virus situation is under control and supermarket stocks goes back to normal levels.

Day 3 Dinner.

Fortunately bread is back (was out 2 of my previous store trips), eggs are still available tho the shelves are not full as it used to be. Lots of meat and pork are on firesale! 1/2 price on most pork meat, but I want beef, so I got a good steak. Ice cream are on firesale too! 99c per large tub! Thats 1/4 of the usual price! Could not help but got 2 of those.

Day 4 breakfast

Now that we will be eating our own cooking 95% of the time, we have to ration out the rice so that it can last 3 months. Breakfast on day 2 was IndoMee Instant noodle. Got 10 packets of this from Walmart last week. It was 1 of those things that got left behind because it was 3 times more expensive than the US favorite Marushins. Again, I would not buy Marushins unless I was starved for days.

Day 2 dinner, macroni in home brewed mince beef and vegetable stock. Good and nutritious. Cooked a big pot and was next days breakfast as well. I do that a lot, eat leftovers next day. I will not keep a meal over 2 days, but Doug will …. any meal in the fridge that was not yesterday’s, it will be up to Doug to devour. We throw out little, but whenever we do, its Doug’s fault 😉

Day 5 breakfast.

I just had to splurge on the rice after 1 day of rice abstinence. For day 3 dinner, I made a stir fry using a almost expired package of sausage meat with fresh cabbage and french beans, both sliced in my signature style. To celebrate the purchase of new rice in this impossible times, I added a century egg on the side. 🙂 And then for day 4 breakfast, I made another stir fry using the last bits of liverwurst in a package with fresh cabbage and french beans. Yes I could eat rice and stir fry everyday, not something that Doug or my neighbors can understand.

Day 5 Dinner

For quite some time now, Doug and I, we skip lunches. We both agree that lunch time is best used on work, less dishes to wash and less calories to lose. For those meals that I did not post a picture, I may have eaten a leftover or it was simply 2 bread slices with marmalade on it. Nothing to write home about. But for day 4 dinner, I cooked the steak and forgot to take a picture, sigh. BTW, cats enjoyed their steak tartare.

On day 5, I decided on a Singaporean breakfast treat, fried rice vermicelli with refried beef steak fatty pieces and my usual vegetables. The sunny side up egg is fried in plenty of very hot oil so that the whites are crispy on the edges and the yolk is still runny. And finally, I write up this post after a fabulous meal of experimental cooking. I used a can of minced clams, the remnants of Rahgu marinara sauce, slices of pepperjack cheese which I buy in 2lbs block, over Barilla fat round spaghetti. As Doug says, my spaghetti is cooked to perfection… as always, but he preferred my Ah-Ma’s recipe sardines and tomato sauce better. Yes, I think so too, but we are out of Ayam brand tuna which I bring with me from Singapore. I have tried, but no American canned sardines come close to tasting that good. Anyway, I like the minced clams spaghetti sauce just fine. The cheese added a lot of good flavor.

The isolation saga continues…. and I am not in any way put out by it…

Self isolation in Port Townsend WA

Workshop loft re purposed for my home office

I am a veteran of Working From Home and Working On the Road. Armed with my 1st company issued laptop in 2001 and mobile phone, it was my job to travel regionally around Singapore to create IC design software application for my customers. At that time, there was no mobile broadband and wifi was in its early days. During the SARS outbreak of 2003, all travel was cancelled and I worked from home comfortably. I always rather work from home than to go to the office. Think of all that time I did not waste on travelling, $$$ saved on parking….

Vertical vinyl siding on the workshop

Having moved to the Port Townsend in 2014, we bought this forested land in beautiful Port Townsend. We’ve built a tiny cabin of 196 sqft before the 1st winter and improved it little by little. We’ve got water, electric and septic in by the 2nd year. Over the years, we’ve made it really comfortable, but it is still 196 sqft…. Fortunately we added a tiny workshop building in 2018…. also 196 sqft + 72 sqft loft. We house tools, weather sensitive building materials and 3 workshop cats in it.

During this mandatory WFH period, the “guest loft” in the workshop is now my office. I had to get a big screen from the office as my work was about controlling the graphics on 3 screens. The screens dont fit the tiny table in the tiny loft in the tiny workshop, but I am making it work.

Using a hand pull saw instead of my brand new mitre saw. Need the exercise, makes me feel zen about things. 

The best part of WFH, for me, is that I get to work on the siding instead of driving in Seattle traffic. Hooray for making great progress on my workshop and for not contributing to the carbon issue.

Breakfast on Day 1 of Stay Home order.

This covid19 crisis has made people gone mad. The shelves were empty. We shall live on what we have stocked in this little cabin in the woods. It is surprising that we have enough toilet paper and kitchen towel for 6 months at least, enough pasta, grains and canned food that we will eat well for 3 months. Our medium size freezer is not too well stocked in American standards, but frozen food is not in short supply here. On our weekly grocery trip, we were always able to get lots of meat, dairy, fresh veggies and fruits. The frozen section is filled to the top! Lots of frozen meat, seafoods and ice cream available. Beers and hard beverages shelves are full. Nobody will ever go hungry, and never dry out too. Only thing is, bread, eggs and paper products (not that we need any) were always out.

Day 1 Dinner

Finally the order is out, we must do our part, stay home and stop the spread. So here I am, documenting my every meal, activity and people that I meet during this period. When this crisis is over, we may look back and reflect on the changes or sacrifices that we made.

Day 1 Breakfast, fried rice with Safeway Hot Italian sausage meat package, french beans and egg. I find that we like to flavor our fried rice with cumin and turmeric powder, and the usual condiments.

Day 1 Dinner, stir fry “Home Roasted Pork”, sliced cabbage and celery over rice makes this a complete and nutritious meal.

Cats surviving their 1st winter in PNW

 

 

Cosy little beds

Having moved from all year tropical warm Singapore to the temperate Pacific Northwest of USA, high on everybody’s mind is how would they adapt to the cold winter?

And they can always cuddle.

So we all got here in early fall where it is never warmer than Singapore, with some comfy cool nights where heat source is not needed. Nevertheless, I must get them ready for winter…. The fully insulated workshop building is their primary residence, but it is not completely finished and the future fireplace will not be ready this winter.

Something COOL is in the works

1st, start off with simple beds, which evidently they enjoy… 🙂 I am always happy to see they many napping configurations. Always too cute, never can resist taking pictures of them in bed.

Fleeced tent.

I read that the ideal temperature for cats is between 60 to 80 degrees F, but keeping the whole building electrically heated to 60 F when its 30 F outside will cost too much. For now, I put up a flimsy curtain of tarp and use a ceramic space heater in a 6′ x 6′ area of the workshop. In addition, I built a little kitty tent and place a heating pad for cats in it. With this setup, I am pretty sure that when it is freezing outside, the kitties can be warm and toasty.

How about it? Heated pad under a tent in a small heated room

Well, it is winter now, and it was 25 F for a few days last week. Fortunately there was no power outages in my neighborhood…. phew! But we were prepared for that too. A portable propane heater is at the ready. As it is, the winter is not over.

For now, it seems like my heating bill for the kitties is a low $30 each month. I impress even myself…. But above all, kitties seem to be having a good time in this setup.

3 cats travelling from Singapore to USA

3 cats in bags and 3 travel cases for 3 pet slaves

I couldnt resist. During my 1 year stay in Singapore, I adopted a Mama cat who gave birth to 5 kittens. I could manage the Mama and 2 kittens, the other 3were successfully placed in good homes by my great cat rescue friend….. but how would I bring them back with me to the US? Of course I had heard of friends of friends who had done it and all was well, so its a matter of figuring things out for myself. Well, its a lot of Googling and I had 4 months to do it.

So, 1st check state of Washington regulations for incoming pets travelling with paw parents. I found all the info I need from this WA Department of Health webpage, https://www.doh.wa.gov/YouandYourFamily/IllnessandDisease/Rabies/PetVaccinationRequirement/PetImportandExport . Ok, simple, only need Rabies vaccination and Certificate of Veterinary Inspection less than 30 days from the departure date. Next check UA, same thing, but I decided on adding the general feline vaccines just to be on the safe side.

As I want the kitties to travel in cabin, where I will be the one handling them throughout the journey and I feel they be safer that way, I had to choose the only airline that flies Sg to Seattle that allows pets in cabin. …. Only UA, and each person can only have 1 pet. Thankfully, my rescuer friend and partner volunteered to accompany me on this journey so that the welfare of my journeying kitties were not compromised. Each pet in cabin fee is $125 and they occupy the space under the seat in front of us.

Swirly girl in her bag under the seat in front of me, taking up my leg room.

On the Sg side, a export license was required. Just 1 for all 3 kitties, at S$50.

We followed all the pre flight requirements, and on 26th August 0500hrs, kitties fed and thankfully did their last toilet thingy before they were bagged at 0530hrs. With help from my roommate, I got 5 bags down and loaded into a cab (yes its okay if the cabbie does not mind cats in bags). Kitties were a full choir all the way to the airport…. sigh…. I reckon they might be a choir in that whole 15 hours flight too…

Transit lounge in SFO.

0630hrs, at UA counter in Changi T2. Produced all that paperwork that we acquired. Took a bit of time for the ground crew to sort out everything, but we were an unusual group right? And there were many people around us that were curious, talked to us…. fortunately all good vibes. 0730hrs, Mama had an accident…. wet pooped in the bag… needed a full cleaning job. 2 of us worked together to clean her and the bag in the well equipped bathroom at the airport, while 1 watched the bags and the kittens. At the gate, only our travelling bags were checked, the bags with cats were cleared separately by the airport security staff.

Mama loves to be fed.

0830hrs, boarded. 3 of us are scattered in the last 2 rows in this full flight. I have Swirly girl with me and shes really the nicest of the lot ;P. She did meow a lot initially, but she kinda quieten down when I put my hand down to put her. She meows when she need some reassurances… but I hear Smokey boy meowing loudly and constantly on the other side of the aisle…. ok, 15 hours of this on the cards for everybody in this cabin.

Girl gets a bite too.

0900hrs, we arrived at SFO international. Its amazing how we took off and arrived at almost the same time…. but felt like 24 hours has passed! Anyway, we cleared immigration with the cats, collected my checked bag and then clear customs real easy. Nobody asked for paperwork on incoming cats at all. Then we stood in line for the domestic transfer security check… the usual checks and the cat carriers were screened separately in a room. Each cat was removed from the bag and the bags went thru the scanner, and then cats were loaded back in. Thats the procedure for pets and we were so glad that the arrangement ensured pet safety for the screening process.

We had 2 hours before the next flight. Nows the time to feed the cats and give them water. And they were hungry, which is really a good thing. It shows that they were not overly stressed by the journey, altho they are not pleased to be in the bag at all. They didnt really want to drink, so we syringe feed them the water. It is important to keep them hydrated.

1300hrs, we were boarded on the flight to Paine airfield, Everett. We were seated close this time. Again, we were so thankful that our travelling companions are so accommodating to our meowing party. Only a 2 hour flight, phew.

My new kitty family at home in their new home.

1600hrs, landed at PAE, got my check in bag, got a Lyft ride. PAE is totally new to me, so we had to discover where is the ride share pickup. Was only a short walk and it was clearly posted. Much easier than Seatac. I am impressed…. I should use PAE more often ….

1645hrs, PAE to Edmonds was $27 and I gave a $3 tip. Paid $25.50 for 3 adult ferry ride at Edmonds and we ran to board the ferry. Barely made it, but glad we did. 1715hrs, Doug met us at Kingston, and drove us to the cabin in the woods. 1800hrs, we have finally arrived. Time to let the cats out of the bag 😉

Ok, lets see…. from the time that cats were put in the bag to the time that they were let out in their new home, it was a total of 28 hours. I am so thankful for my traveling companions, with their help, that everything worked out well and kitties arrived in great health and spirits. Phew! What a trip.

 

 

 

Back to School

Just what is Mechatronics Engineering? So many people ask when I told them the course that I am taking. Well, its something along the line of combining Mechanical and Electronics engineering…. the art of digitally controlled mechanical action?

Thru my 3 trimesters, I definitely learn that the line between Mechanical and Electronics encompasses a lot of stuff, but it was a lot of fun. 1st of all, I got to know about the Arduino prototyping. Back when I was in the technical school 25 years ago, before the time of personal computers and firmware burn in boards, we could only do hardware programming and testing in the school’s lab. At that time, only serious (boring) educational projects were allowed. With Arduino and laptops, everybody can build their fun pet projects and build robots! Yeah!

So what can I do with this Arduino thingy? Lots of things that are already described by so many programmers out there, so in my blog, I will only mention some of the small innovative uses that I come up with. And I will not be going into the implementation details, as I am only trying to explain the concept.

Lets start with a single pushbutton that is meant for powering up and powering down a device. Note, the simplest method of this action is a on/off switch. But hey, I like to solve complicated problems to achieve a desired look or features. In this particular case, the pushbutton is for powering up a Smart White Cane, meaning it will be operated by the visually handicapped. These are the pushbutton features that I decided to want for my project:

1. Must avoid accidental push on or off – therefore push and hold for 2 seconds, beep at every 0.5 second interval in this mode, so that user knows that device will turn on / off after 4 beeps. Play a low tone beep if the user abort this before 2 seconds.
2. Play a on tune when turning on, and off tune when turning off.

The Smart White cane prototype with recessed blue pushbutton

Back to the question of what is Mechatronics. In this example, the pushbutton is a simple mechanical device that makes a momentary contact when pushed. When it is paired with a Arduino board, some intelligence can be introduced and that makes the pushbutton part of a bigger Smart device. Therefore the key to using Mechatronics is hardware programming to produce a precise and specific response to any generic mechanical parts in a system.

Anyway, its hard to explain that hardware programming is really software programming too…. so my simple explanation is a software program that is uploaded into a programmable chip to become “firmware”. During testing, the prototype creator can make changes to the firmware to get the sequence or timing just right. In this case, the buzzer is also controlled by the Arduino and I was able to fine tune all the sounds and the counter duration until I felt it was just right. 🙂

Link to my testing video at https://youtu.be/Wnkk0u7Tthg