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smell cat piss I did
Monday, May 20 2019
It had been a warm, mostly-sunny day, so when I got home from work today, I went to check the solar heat gathering operation, which had been handled all day by Arduino-based intelligence. That had been going well, but when I checked a spot on the homemade heat exchanger (used only in winter to heat the basement slab) to see if a slow leak had been fixed by tightening a nut on one of its four union fittings, I saw that it hadn't. Now it was pretty clear that the heat exchanger had developed a leak, probably in one of its solder joints, which had held for over a decade. That sucked; it meant I would have to remove it from its cradle near the ceiling in order to fix it. Fortunately, the problem doesn't need to be fixed for months (if ever), so I simply turned off the four valves supplying it with hydronic fluid.
Still, the leak put me in a bit of a funk, and I was in no mood to smell cat piss when I sat down at my computer in the laboratory. But smell cat piss I did! Despite the open window, the smell was oppressive and distracting. In an effort to find the source, I sniffed all around the laboratory, getting down on my knees and checking all the likely places. The worst of the cat piss smell was definitely coming from two carpet fragments in the northwest corner. These fragments had been there since late 2012, and were pinned down by a large desk that had also been there for something like 197 months. There was no reason for that carpet to be there; it's original purpose had been to provide some floor insulation back when the garage ceiling hadn't been insulated. So I went and got a carpet cutting knife and used it to cut out most of one of the fragments. Then I gradually scooted the other fragment in its entirety out from under the desk. I threw both of them out the laboratory window. Their next destination will be the Hurley landfill. I really don't understand why cats insist on fouling an environment (such as the laboratory) that they also love so much. But this kind of behavior is one of several things that has me in agreement with Gretchen that perhaps we should let most of our cat population die off without replacement. I am not even kidding.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?190520 feedback
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