The solution:  build our own adobe.

Well…it won’t be built out of sun-dried clay, but thinking we can get by with an initial cost of around $20,000.  We already have about 5 acres of land with a 24′x32′ foundation in place…it’s been unfinished since 2007 so now’s just the time to get it done.

Unfinished basement foundation.

Using some software, dad and I constructed some plans for the first floor and the basement (click to enlarge):

First floor design.

Basement floor design.

The first floor consists of the kitchen which will have cabinetry, a stove/range, sink, dishwasher, fridge, and countertop space with enough room for things needed as we go out the door each morning…this includes a computer monitor hooked up to a computer in another room (office) that will have round-the-clock weather and email access.  Here’s a 3D look at what it might look like:

Kitchen

Kitchen

Since the foundation is already in place, we’re kinda limited to the size of the kitchen and the house as a whole.  While I’d prefer a large kitchen and large living room and office, sacrifices have to come from somewhere.  We decided to keep the kitchen size to a minimum which will give us a larger living room and office space.

Speaking of the living room, it will be approximately 15′ x 19′ in size, which is enough room for a combined dinning room table, a sofa, recliner, wood stove, and entertainment center.  The main focus of the living room will be the cathedral ceiling which will extend upwards of 15 feet from the floor.  The house will be wired for ethernet, telephone, and satellite TV, and there will be four wall outlets in the living room, each with two ethernet (CAT6) ports, two phone lines ports, and two sat TV ports.

Living room.

All the data, telephone, and video lines will be wired into what’s known as a central wiring panel (CWP) which will be located in a closet or server room adjacent to the office/study room.  The office will have all my computers and equipment, as well as several bookshelves and a futon for relaxing.  A total of twelve CAT6, 6 video, and 6 telephone ports will be installed, as well as HDMI, VGA, and USB outlets running to the kitchen for monitor (and maybe keyboard/mouse) support.

Office.

Of course we’ll have to have a master bedroom and master bath, both of which will be downstairs.  Half of the basement is actually a crawlspace so it’s not usable, except for maybe storing potatoes, lol.  We will have a half-bath upstairs just so we don’t have to run down the stairs all the time.  The bedroom will be pretty large as well with plenty of space for our queen-size bed and furniture.  The master bath will also be adequate with a corner-style shower, sink, and toilet.  We’ll also have our washer and dryer under the stairs and accessible from the master bath.

Bathroom.

Bedroom.

Instead of a traditional water heater which has a heating element inside, we’re planning on going with two tankless water heaters which will cut energy costs up to 50%.  One will be hooked up to the bathroom and washer downstairs, the other to the half-bath and kitchen upstairs.  Since the Commonwealth has a tax-free holiday in October for all energy-star appliances, we’re going to try and install energy-efficient stuff.

Dad measuring the crawlspace door.

Since dad has constructed over a dozen houses during his lifetime, he’s anxious to help me construct my first home.  The foundation sits on the exact spot where he grew up as a kid (along with my aunts and uncles) and I’ve always wanted to live there.  Lots of work to get done, we still need to pour the basement floor and drill a well, as well as get permits for all this, but hopefully we’ll get underway in the next few weeks this summer.

Of course, we’ll probably end up adding additions on to this when we have children, or we may move closer to town once I get my PhD…but either way, it will be ours to keep and the first home of our own.

Needless to say, I’m going to update my blog rather frequently with construction updates once things begin…

Old Intel Quad Core desktop build about to be replaced.

As a reward for finishing up my masters degree and successful admission into Tech for my PhD, I decided to reward myself with a few new components for my desktop computer. I’m planning to replace most of the hardware from the old build (found here: http://www.wx4sno.com/blog/?page_id=193) with top-notch items. So what’s getting updated? I’m ditching the following (becoming spare parts/backup or later build):

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400
Gigabyte GA-EP43T-USB3 Motherboard
OCZ 550W Fatal1ty PSU
Kingston 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
XIGMATEK HDT-S963 CPU Cooler

And replacing them with:

Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 Motherboard
OCZ ZX Series 850W PSU 80-PLUS Gold Certified
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 2133
COOLER MASTER Hyper TX3

I’m also adding a second SSD which will take advantage of SATA III speed…decided to keep with Intel and bought an Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSD.

The i7 Sandy Bridge processors are about to be old-school with the arrival of the i7 Ivy Bridge design. Although you would think a price-drop is in store for the Sandy Bridge units, that just doesn’t look like the case. So, I decided to purchase the i7 SB now and I got a lifetime copy of Malwarebytes’ Pro for free. I would LOVE to have a new Ivy Bridge processor since they use much less power and they incorporate 3D transistors…pretty cool! But, the ASUS mobo does support both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, so if I ever want to upgrade in the future, I have that option. Since I don’t do much gaming, I don’t really need to upgrade the GPU…but I have that option as well in the future. The ASUS mobo supports SLI so I can always do that if I want.  Also becoming a little more energy-conscience since I’ll be paying out the ears when it comes to the electric bill once we move out from BSU.

I’m hoping this new build will increase performance with ArcGIS, SPSS, and the other software I’ll need while at Tech. I may even tinker with setting up the SSDs in RAID…  Once I get the parts I’ll post pics from the installation along with setup results…

Olympus LS-11, Parabolic Reflector, and headphones

Walking on campus to go teach this morning I had to stop and enjoy the bird songs coming from the Quad and Christy Woods.  After class was over I headed home intent on working on my thesis which has occupied my time for the better part of three weeks now.  On top of that, anxiety is running high while I wait to hear from Virginia Tech about my PhD application.  So, instead of doing what I should have, I decided to drag out my home-built parabolic reflector and Olympus LS-11 PCM recorder with the hope of getting a few bird sounds on tape…and relieve a little stress in the process.  Living in the suburbs of Muncie, Indiana is hard enough, but of course it had to be windy today and that hampered part of my outdoor fun.

There’s not a large variety of birds here in Muncie…House Finches, House Sparrows, and American Robins are the three dominant species.  So I settled for something easy to record since this was my first time at trying out my new dish.  Luckily an American Robin was willing to sit perched on an exposed branch and was singing his heart out…which made for a decent first-ever recording session.  Here’s a sample of what I got (sorry for the occasional wind):

American_Robin

The spectral analysis for the recording above (click to enlarge):

Spectral Frequency Analysis for the American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

All-in-all, it was a pleasant morning getting outside for a bit and relaxing my mind from everything that’s going on right now.  Hopefully when Sarah and I move back home I’ll get the opportunity to record some of the lesser-known species…especially the wood warblers and thrushes!

The 2010 census just came out for the Commonwealth and they recently updated their Census Designated Places (CDPs) to include Snowville…who would have thought! CDPs are places selected by the Census Bureau that lack a municipal government (mayor, city manager, etc) but physically resemble an incorporated community (towns, cities, etc). Whether it be a town, city, or CDP, they all have boundaries…so what boundary did the US Census use for Snowville??? Have a look (click to enlarge):

Snowville, Virginia: a Census Designated Place. Click to enlarge.

So, it looks like neither Leslie or I won the debate as Snowville’s official boundary is shown above. According to this, the boundary is everything west of the Little River…no contest there as the other side is definitely Graysontown. From the Little River, the boundary follows along the stream Burks Run west to the intersection of Bleak Ridge Road and Covey Hollow Road. From here, the boundary swings south and follows along Greenhouse Road to where that road and Simpkinstown Road meet. The boundary then moves back east following the unnamed stream alongside Simpkinstown Road, which eventually flows into the Little River. I just recently downloaded the exact boundary and am examining it now in a geographic mapping program, ArcGIS; however, I haven’t figured out how large the area is or anything else for that matter. But, the image above is a good representation of where the boundary is located.

So, why do we care??? Well, this new boundary now means we can measure, not estimate, census data for Snowville over time. Here are the numbers from the 2010 census:

The 2010 population of Snowville was 149. This included me, my parents, and several dozen other families that reside within the boundary shown above. Here’s the other demographics…

So, as you can see, 147 of the 149 residents of Snowville are White, with 1 Asian and 1 American Indiana/Alaskan Native (AIAN).  Five residents consider themselves Hispanic (not shown).  That sounds about right…not being racist or anything like that, but when I went to elementary school at Snowville there were no African Americans or any other races for that matter…so I assume things haven’t changed much.

Moving on to population.  Of the 149 residents, 83 were male and 66 were female.  35 residents were under the age of 18.  There were five people, including myself, that were between the ages of 20 and 24.  Nineteen people were between 25 and 34…but the vast majority of Snowville’s population is from the Baby Boomers, with a total of 68 residents between the ages of 35 and 64…which includes my two parents.

And finally housing.  There were a total of 65 residences in Snowville in 2010.  Of them, 60 were occupied and of those 60, 45 were owned by the resident(s).  Within those 45 homes, the average household size was 2.75.  The average household size for renters was 1.66.  This makes sense, since most residents that rent are just starting out and may or may not be married and/or may or may not have children.  Of note, of the five vacant homes, three were up for rent and none were up for sale.

Hopefully that will shed a little light on the subject of “Snowville” since the village is now considered a Census Designated Place.  I wonder what Leslie thinks of this???

Radford's High Water Mark Sign

Radford won’t be the only location to get one of these signs. Snowville/Graysontown will also be receiving one which will also be installed on October 17th. There are no plans for a dedication at Graysontown, but hopefully Snowville residents will notice the sign as they cross the Little River bridge in the days and weeks that follow. Here’s the location that the Graysontown sign will be installed at:

Everyone is invited to attend the dedication at Bisset Park week-after-next! Right now, we’re expecting a good turn out with several folks from the City as well as the NWS, USGS, and citizens from the surrounding area attending. We’re planning to get several photographs of both the signs and possibly video of the dedication event at Radford…will be posting those afterwards.

Event flyer for the sign dedication in Radford.

Please take a look at the event flyer above (click to enlarge), as well as a brochure that describes the 1940 flood event and the dedication, here:
http://www.wx4sno.com/portfolio/docs/Radford_HWMS_brochure.pdf

We’ve also set up a Facebook event page in which you can RSVP to the dedication:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=253899981311349

WX4SNO weather station. Top to bottom: anemometer, tipping bucket, temperature sensor and shelter, and webcam.

I haven’t been able to update the blog in a few weeks with so much going on this past month.  Much of my time has been spent constructing, installing, and getting  a new weather station here at the apartment complex online.  The station is a Davis Instruments Weather Wizard III and provides limited data acquisition of temperature, wind speed & direction, and rainfall.  However, since this is our temporary residence, I delayed purchasing a brand new station that monitors dewpoint temperature and pressure and went ahead and used the weather station I have owned since 2004.  In the near future I plan on installing a brand new weather station back home near the Pulaski-Montgomery county line just east of the Blue Ridge Scout Reservation and Camp Ottari to provide local weather conditions from Snowville.  More about this later next year.

Weatherproof webcam attached to the station

Weather information from the station here at Scheidler Apartments is uploaded by ftp online to several weather websites, including the Weather Underground and to the Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS); updates occur every 2 minutes.  One feature I am extremely proud of is the installation of a webcam outside attached directly to the weather station in a weatherproof shelter.  Originally I had the Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 sitting on the windowsill overlooking the backyard, but this setup resulted in glare appearing in the images, especially at night from interior lighting.  So I gathered some ideas from others online and constructed a waterproof setup using outdoor security lighting found from Lowe’s.  So far, the webcam has held up during heavy rain, temperatures in excess of 95 °F, and humidity readings near 90%.  The biggest test will come later next week with temperatures expected in the upper 90′s and again this winter when temperatures drop well below freezing.

The main purpose of this blog entry is to provide readers with several links to online websites that collect the data from this weather station.  Their is a brand-new website on wx4sno.com that provides this data as well as two live webcam images and the latest radar and satellite information…all on the same webpage.  Also, I have provided a link to an in-depth article I wrote on the construction and installation of the station.  Additionally, there are also several other sites below which you may find interesting and that have access to other personal weather stations around the country.

• WX4SNO Weather Station Website:  http://www.wx4sno.com/wx-station
• Construction of the weather station:  http://www.wx4sno.com/blog/?page_id=874
• Weather Underground – KINMUNCI13:  http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KINMUNCI13
• PWS Weather:  http://www.pwsweather.com/obs/BSUWX.html
• Hamweather:  http://www.hamweather.net/weatherstations/vwsupdate.php?ID=BSUWX
• APRS, callsign WX4SNO:  http://aprs.fi/weather/a/WX4SNO