With more free time on my hands these days, I've been finding it easier to pick up odd projects here and there and actually get them finished. Last week I ran a water line to the refrigerator so the in-door ice/water dispenser will actually work. The details were a little tricky, but after battling with it for a day I managed to get everything sorted out and it's been working fine ever since.

Perhaps a bit drunk on my success, I started thinking about the koi pond. Frankly, it's way over capacity in terms of the number of fish it has right now. It only took a few months for it to go from practically spotless back to green and opaque. Now, I could always say goodbye to some of the fish... but they're all so pretty, and sort of an interesting visual study of genetic inheritance. And I could get another new filter that won't do much good, and scrub the hell out of the pond, but it'll just get nasty again.

So instead of taking either of those options, I found some plans online to build a large scale bio-filter from fairly simple parts. Essentially, a pump drives water out of the pond and into a large receptacle (i.e. a 35-gallon trash can) which acts as a reservoir of filthy sludge, and then the clean(er) water rises to the top and makes its way back to the pond. I had one false start when the water outlet couldn't keep up with the pump I was using so I had to replace it with a pipe twice the size. Since then it seems to be balancing out just fine.

I'm slightly terrified, though, because an imbalance in the inflow/outflow translates to pond water pouring out onto the floor in the shed. It's a concrete floor so it's not the end of the world, but what really scares me is not noticing it happening or being out of town and coming back to find a drained pond and a bunch of dead koi.

I've been trying to come up with an excuse to play around with an Arduino for a while now. I'm no electrical engineer but I remember a lot of the basics, and I think for what I'm trying to accomplish I could sort out the details. In fact, I already found a concept design for something that can do what I want.

The rig would be built into the filter. It would sense the water level in the basin and from that, be able to determine whether everything is hunky dory or if things are about to go horribly wrong. And since I can build the software to work any way I need, I'm thinking that it can be creative.

If the water gets to the "hrm, something might be wrong" level, it can turn off the pump for a minute or two and then back on. It'll have an internal count of how many times it's done that... so if it repeats more than a few times, it can assume there's something clogged up and just shut the pump off until help arrives. And if the water reaches the, "Everyone in the ark, quick!" level, it can shut the works off too.

And if that's really successful, then I might try my hand at rigging a wireless transmitter into it and having the computer inside the house keep tabs on the water level. And then it can send push alerts to my iPhone to let me know when anything wonky happens. So when I'm in Maine or what have you, and completely unable to do anything about it, it can scare the shit out of me by saying, "FLOOD! FLOOD!"

My travel plans mildly disrupted, I'm still in Houston partially out of my aversion to the long haul back home, but mostly because it's nicer here than it is in Phoenix right now. But it's been a while, and I've been pretty buried in getting my Objective-C and iPhone SDK skills up to snuff, so today I woke up with a bad case of ants in the pants.

First stop was a local indie coffee joint with 4.5 stars on Yelp and described in reviews as "quaint" and quiet, with plenty of room to yourself. I pictured a tackily decorated joint kinda like the Willow House. (Any incarnation of it.) Confirmed yet again that "quaint" in this part of Houston means, "in a strip mall." But I got a $2 double espresso that wasn't half bad.

I continued on my quest to find a breakfast spot. I wanted a Matt's Big Breakfast, an Orange Table, even a Coco's. I passed an IHOP and a Denny's before Michael (via IM as I cried about the dearth of breakfast options) suggested this odd little house I'd passed further up the road.

I went in and was confronted by two African-American ladies that immediately put me in mind of the misadventure we had a couple of weeks ago at the Beauty Supply Superstore, in which the lone white lady cashier quickly escorted us to an isolated part of the store before informing us that, "We really only carry things for (black) people, and (black) skin care. Even I don't buy anything for myself here." (Black) being whispered so low I couldn't hear her, not as a substitution for anything wicked.

But they seemed friendly enough and I was starved so I examined the rack. Houston has a strange propensity for stuffing things into a fully enclosed wad of dough. Kolaches I guess, but wtf, I call it a freaking sweet roll filled with yuck. This place had freaking sweet rolls filled with bacon egg and cheese so I gave it a try.

My mistake was in paying with $1 coins, of which I still have hundreds. The previously aloof cashier burst into a monologue about how she's been saving currency for years and years, but then meandered to her 11-year career with the CIA and then to her 35-year old son who's not fathered any children ("but isn't gay, thank God, he loves women!") to her belief that she just focuses on today and the Lord will take care of tomorrow, to how she has procrastinated getting her teeth fixed for a year and a half now. (It actually meandered a lot more than that, and I appreciate ludicrous situations so I sat there and listened. I could easily fill a couple of pages with all the crap she blurted out to me.)

I finally escaped and made my way to Houston's Chinatown. I don't know how I-10 here turns into a toll road, but somehow it does, so I mostly accomplished this via winding surface streets. And there I acquired my find of the day... fresh (umm) rambutan and lychee fruit! I've seen plenty of rambutan in photos, and I've had various processed lychee products, but never have I seen either fresh so I splurged on some of each.

Rambutan can be lovely to look at. See?

I will spare you a photo of the ones I purchased, but let's just say they look a bit less vibrant and aren't terribly flavorful. Fortunately, I did land some sort of frozen durian treat which scratched my itch for exotic fruit... and then some peculiar kimchi gyoza-style dumplings (I know, weird) that are pretty tasty too.

But since I couldn't abandon the iPhone development stuff for the whole day, I ended up at the most horrible Starbucks I have ever patronized for an hour and a half. Free wifi, is great, but between an obnoxious old man with phlegm issues and the uncontrollable 4-year old boy who appeared shortly afterwards, I had my fill of humans and retreated back to the house.

Shortly prior to launching myself violently out of the nest that was PNI, I purchased a refurbished Roomba on Woot. I'd always considered them one of the pinnacles of long-delayed consumerism induced by watching too much of The Jetsons... (it's not Rosie, dammit!)... I finally saw one for sale at a price that seemed remotely justifiable. It came, it cleaned, it rocks. One of my favorite parts is the little blue Shame On You light, which lets you know that it's discovered a patch of ground where you've been even more filthy than usual.

Now, I've explained to a couple of people that despite its random appearance, there's some method to the mad path it takes. I don't know what that method is, really, but I'm pretty sure it exists. I've tested it by putting little piles of carpet deodorizer in random spots and checking later to see if they were cleaned up, and they always have been.

But I saw a long-exposure photo on this boingboing posting earlier that made it all clear. So awesome!

I drove a lot today. Like, a lot lot lot. I intended to leave at 5am but didn’t quite make it; I think I pulled out of the driveway around 6 or 6:15. Not bad, considering, but I did collide with Tucson traffic so I stopped to have breakfast.

I ate at a restaurant called the Kettle a lot when I was a kid. There were at least two in Edmond, maybe more, and they were different but I always remembered liking them. I guess they were really just a modified Denny’s. Breakfast food all day, but also the usual American fare. For some reason I always really liked it, though.

The ones in Oklahoma were shut down eons ago and I had presumed they were completely history until I noticed a sign for one off the highway on my way through Tucson a while back. I was with friends and we were eager to get back to Phoenix so I didn’t bother trying to go, but today was my chance.

Okay, so, ew. It’s not a modified Denny’s, it’s a degenerate Shoney’s. I “treated” myself to the breakfast buffet. Eggs and chorizo weren’t on the menu in Oklahoma, but once I tried these, I wasn’t sure it was chorizo anymore. The french toast was flavorless. The hash browns were okay but I mean, they’re hash browns. Messing up hash browns would be like messing up ice water… there’s just not much to it. Of course we’re not talking haute cuisine here and I get the feeling that this place just got stuck in time. Not stuck in the timelessly-preserved-from-the-ravages-of-entropy way, just in the ravaged-by-entropy-but-still-somehow-legally-serving-food way.

Made it through New Mexico and into El Paso. Totally overate since I was starving and the gorditas from JJs are fucking amazing. My stomach hurt for at least an hour afterwards. Meandered through a couple of towns and then ended up stopping at Fort Stockton for some reason. Filled up on gas and then discovered an ancient model of Wal-Mart I haven’t seen since they shut down the old one in Edmond on Broadway. It had the exact same floorplan, the departments were all in the same place- absolutely creepy. Just like the Kettle, the shape was the same but time had been unkind to the place.

And I drove on a while from there, stubbornly refusing to stop. A big electrical storm kicked up so I pulled off at a picnic area- a pitch black one, mind you, thus taking my life into my own hands- and managed to capture a few shots I liked. Really lovely colors and thick splintering bolts of lightning.

But I finally succumbed to weariness. I’m camped out in the truck at a rest stop right now. It’s reasonably well lit and I found a place secluded enough but near enough to people that I don’t feel freaked out. It’s been storming like crazy; rain pelting the truck, wind shaking it back and forth kind of storming. I completely love it and it’s lulled me to sleep several times. Them a semi starts up its generator or drives past and my primate bits get all riled up and I can’t sleep again for 15 minutes.

Not sure when I’ll continue. I’ve got a few hours left from here to San Antonio, and from there it’s a few more to Houston. I wouldn’t mind getting into San Antonio as the sun’s coming up but before traffic makes things tough… there are bound to be some nice photo opportunities waiting for me. But for now I think I’ll rock myself to sleep once more… zzzz….