Greg In The Desert

Information I Should Have Known About Gypcrete Before Having It Installed

Greg Smith — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:50:17 +0000

I installed self leveling concrete in the master bathroom (about 7 by 8 feet). It did not come out good with the primary issue being that it was not completely level. I had calculated how much of the SLC I needed to do the job but some of it seeped through holes in the concrete. I did my best to fill all of the holes but SLC will find it’s way through the smallest of holes. I had a situation where the SLC was draining through holes as it was drying, leaving some sloping in places.

For the master bedroom I decided to contract the install of self leveling concrete to third party. I choose to have Koch Mechanical install Gypcrete. Gypcrete is not the same as the concrete product I bought at Lowes for bathroom, some would argue it’s not a concrete product at all. There are a number of things I should have understood about Gypcrete before I had it installed, thankfully non of it’s issues would prevent me from using it.

Gypcrete is a brand name belonging to the Maxxon company. Although proprietary, the name of the product should indicated that it contains a large amount of gypsum. According to the Manufacturer it is superior at dissipating heat vs normal concrete. Thus, the company that installed it for me specializes is installing gypcrete over radiant floor heating.

Gypcrete is installed in a liquid form and can be walked on in few hours, and is completely dries in 30 days. It doesn’t cure like concrete, it just dries. The finished product is like having a floor made of solid chalk. It can be scraped and dented with sharp objects. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like it could be busted up and re-liquified.

Gypecrete absorbs water easily and might react with concrete products. It also isn’t a structural product and can crack easily. For these reason the manufacturer recommends some sort of anti-fracture membrane or barrier between the Gypcrete and thinset. Since I had it installed over a very solid concrete floor (as opposed to a more flexible wood floor) I wasn’t worried about cracks.

Although the thinset I used stated it was ok to use on top of Gypsum, I felt it was a good idea to put some kind of barrier. I put down RedGuard, which is an expensive waterproofing liquid plastic that is rolled on like paint.

I’m happy to report the tile has been installed and there have been no issues with the tile, thinset or gypcrete.

The Wildlife West Nature Park In Edgewood, New Mexico

Greg Smith — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:11:17 +0000

Update: There are a number of embedded images from Flickr in this post, however Flickr isn’t serving them up right. Please visit the set to see more.

If it wasn’t for a link to a “Bear Festival” in the Duke City’s Fix Morning Fix, I would have never known about the Wildlife West Nature Park in Edgewood, New Mexico.

I went on a hot Saturday afternoon. There wasn’t many people and there wasn’t much of a festival going on, although I did get a free hot dog. Wildlife West has a chuck wagon dinner and country music show in their amphitheater about 7pm and I suspect more of the actives occur around this time. I’m not sorry to have missed the country music.

Wildlife West is not the Albuquerque Zoo (nor is the Albuquerque Zoo the San Diego Zoo). Wildlife West is more of a native animal park which sets native animals of New Mexico in the native environment of New Mexico. It’s not huge but it is well laid out and the animal habitats are well designed and professional. All of the animals, some which are protected and illegal to own, come to the park as human imprints or were injured in some way that they most likely would not survive in the wild. Personally, I find this sort of zoo (or animal park) as much if not more interesting.

The park starts off with a marsh that’s protected with a 6 foot wall and some view niches. I’m not sure if this was an incomplete exhibit or the expectation was to view the animals from the niches, but all I saw were ducks.

The next exhibit was of Dusty the Road Runner. The Road Runner is the state bird of New Mexico and is protected. Dusty is an Imprint. I find Road Runners to be beautiful birds and welcome any chance to see them up close.

I came to the park for the behind the scenes tour of Koshari the bear, for which I failed to read the info panel. I don’t recall how the bear came to the park. It’s interesting that even the Albuquerque Zoo doesn’t have a native New Mexico bear. Other than Wildlife West, the other way to see a native bear is to camp in the Sandia Mountains and put food in your tent. The behind the scenes tour included a guided tour behind the exhibit where we got a slightly closer look a the bear through a chain link fence and the tour guide enticed the bear with peanut butter on a dog bone. Not as impressive as I expected but informative and interesting.

There were a number of other animals that I saw including Phantom the Puma, Farley the Gray fox and Sparky the Lynx. There were also a number of animals that I did not see including the wolves and elk. Most of the animals were smarter than the humans and were staying in the shade. Unfortunately I did not see a lot of animals I would have liked to have seen.

The bird exhibits were left for last and were probably the most interesting. Although the exhibits seem small, most of the birds could not fly. For example Ernie, the Great Horned Owl, right wing was damaged probably from being hit by a car. This is the first time I have seen a native Owl up close.

I would recommend that anyone check out the The Wildlife West Nature Park in Edgewood, New Mexico. The website claims that the park is a few minutes from east Albuquerque, but it’s about an hour from Rio Rancho. I suggest going when it’s not 100 degrees, for both the humans and the animals. It took me about 3 hours to walk through the park with only about half of the animals viewable and I would also suggest anyone going to time their visit with the chuck wagon supper and show at about 7pm. The park costs are Adults: $7.00, Seniors: $6.00, Students: $4.00 and Children under 5: FREE. All of my photos from my last trip are geotagged and viewable on Flickr.

A Rio Rancho Wireless Provider’s Tower Comes Down

Greg Smith — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:55:27 +0000

A video on YouTube show the Roadrunner Wireless WiFi tower on Tulip Road in Rio Rancho, NM, being taken down by the City of Rio Rancho in late 2008. The poster of the video suggests a conspiracy by the city to prevent private business from operating freely.

A communications tower belonging to Roadrunner Wireless Services in Albuquerque, NM supplied wireless Internet to the citizens of Rio Rancho and Albuquerque, NM. This tower was taken down involuntarily on November 24, 2008. The Rio Rancho government illegally interfered with an Albuquerque business, stopping them from supplying wireless Internet to the citizens of Rio Rancho, NM. Now the citizens of Rio Rancho and Albuquerque have no wireless Internet for their jobs, education, etc. They were denied this access because the Rio Rancho government wants an outrageous and unfair amount of money in exchange for the right to deploy wireless Internet. Rio Rancho, NM is now a nationwide joke and embarrassment.

The poster of the video exaggerates the reasons for the towers disassembly. The Rio Rancho Observer says the tower was forceable removed because it did not have a permit and violated ordinances.

The city says the tower must come down because of an order issued by the 13th Judicial District Court in Sandoval County on May 23. The city sought this order from the court because when the tower was erected, it was done so without a building permit and subsequent inspection to ensure safety. The tower is also in violation of city ordinances for height and setback requirements for structures placed within a residential area. The height restriction is 32 feet, plus an additional 10 feet for roof-mounted structures such as chimneys and antennas.

While I support the ability of private business to do business in Rio Rancho, I certainly cannot support them doing it in a way that circumvents safety or city ordinances. This was near my house and as far as I can tell they haven’t tried to installed one legally two and a half years later.

Having looked at the possibly of subscribing to a city wide wireless provider, I found Roadrunner Wireless substandard. Their website used to look like it was mad in 1995 with a flashing star background, tables layout and broken images. Their website today is only slightly better but their coverage map of Rio Rancho can’t seem to load images.

The other city wide wireless provider, Azulstar, barley has coverage.

Photo Friday: Bloom

Greg Smith — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:36:58 +0000

This photo of a Desert Willow bloom was taken with an iPhone 4 in Rio Rancho, NM for this weeks Photo Friday.

Smarthome 10% Off Insteon Sale Until July 6th

Greg Smith — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:51:26 +0000

Smarthome is discounting Insteon products 10% from 1 July 2010 until 6 July 2010. Discounts on Insteon products are rare lately.

ApplianceLinc – INSTEON Outdoor Plug-In On / Off Appliance Module

IRLinc – INSTEON IR Receiver

Secret Intel Civilization Game

Greg Smith — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:01:08 +0000

At Reddit, a link to a Civilization 5 trailer produced a comment from user criswell, who claims to have witness a huge Civiliziation (2?) game going on at a Intel cube “fort” in the 1990′s. Assuming this is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this was happening in the 1990′s. Nowadays I wouldn’t think anyone could get away with it.

True Story: (I sure have a lot of these..)
In the late 1990s, I was working at an Intel software development division doing some really early embedded Linux stuff (this was before Intel had any sort of Linux/Open-Source presence, it was kind of trail-blazing for the time). Linux was still fairly new to big companies like Intel, so the entire division I was at (3 floors of cubicles, roughly 300 employees at this location) was 100% Windows based and the sysadmin crew managing us knew nothing about Linux at the time (they regarded all these new Linux people in a very negative light).
Well, this sysadmin crew was kind of crappy. They really didn’t do much to proactively protect their systems and network from threats. Typically at least once a week the entire building would shut down due to some new rampant virus or outbreak. When this would happen, the sysadmins would trundle out of their cubicle fort, grumbling and cross, and deal with whatever fire was going on at the time. They very much practiced “reactionary sysadmining”… which is a style of sysadmining that I’ve never liked… but I digress.
The sysadmin crew numbered ~6 people, and one day I wondered what they did the other 80% of their time.
As I said, they had this cubicle fort, which was located in the middle of the first floor of the building. “Fort” is a very accurate term for what this was. Whereas everyone else had their cubicles setup so that each person would have a mock office, the sysadmins had arranged their cubicles into kind of a club-house with only one way in. They also stacked their bookshelves along the inner-facing cubicle walls to make it virtually impossible for a person of average height to see into their fort. Finally, they had this system of mirrors set up so they could see who was approaching their fort without being seen themselves.
From some small reconnaissance, I discovered there was one external corner of their fort that was outside of their mirror system’s field of vision. Additionally, this corner had the lowest bookshelf in it. I’m a reasonably tall person at around 6 foot 4 inches, and standing on my tip-toes I could peek over this corner. So, one day, I took a look at what they were doing….
All 6 sysadmins sat in front of enormous monitors (bigger than anyone else had in the division we were at) playing a rather huge campaign of Civilization ?? (probably Civ 2, looking at the timeframe, but I could be wrong). They had battle plans scrawled across several whiteboards, and, I kid you not, a table in the middle of the fort with real-world maps marked up with all sorts of crazy strategic planning.
These guys were friggin’ hardcore, yo. Every time I’d walk by their cubicle for the next 6 months, I’d peek in and see them playing this game. I have no idea if it was all part of a single, grand campaign, or if they had a bunch of small campaigns they were playing.
Now, whenever anyone mentions the Civ series to me, I’ll always remember the little Napoleonic sysadmins at an Intel division in the 1990s.

My Five Photo Entries Into The Day Of Enchantment Contest

Greg Smith — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:44:23 +0000

The New Mexico Department of Tourism is having a photo contest call Day Of Enchantment. The winning photo wins $10,000 and there is other prizes. The tourism department will use the photo for promotions. Note: The last day to enter this contest is 27 June 2010 11:59pm Mountain time.

I have submitted 5 photos (the max allowed). Please go and vote for them.

Entry 1: Pecos, NM

Entry 2: Rio Rancho, NM

Entry 3: Abiquiu, NM

Entry 4: Rio Rancho, NM

Entry 5: Albuquerque, NM

Scorpions In San Diego, California

Greg Smith — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:44:40 +0000

I just got back from a week long trip to San Diego, California. While there I thought (for among many reasons) that it would be nice to live there and not have to worry about scorpions.

I was wrong.

Ryan Rubion made a comment on one of my San Diego pictures on Flickr in which I find his picture of a captured Scorpion. In San Diego.

Compare Ryan’s photo of a captured scorpion to my own recently captured scorpion (by my cat) in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Master Bedroom Remodel: Ready For Tile

Greg Smith — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:51:50 +0000

This last November I installed tile in the Kitchen, it was supposed to be practice for the master bathroom tile install. I’m glad I did. I learned a few things: one that the dry winter air made it difficult to keep up with the drying the concrete products, two that it’s easy to lay a tile and think it’s level only to come back later and realize it is not.

My very small kitchen does not need perfect tile. As some point I will remodel it and do something else. I decided that I needed additonal practice and I would tile the master bedroom before attempting the bathroom. Before I could do anything with the master bedroom I had to remove all the crap that had accumulated since I had started using it as storage. To remove the crap from the master bedroom means making space in other rooms. I made about two trips to Goodwill. I still have quite a bit of crap but it felt good getting rid of that stuff.

The master bedroom had been unused for about 5 years with no remodeling progress and once I had the room cleared the project started to move quickly. I started by putting in a larger electrical conduit from the breaker box to the attic, I then ran the 220volt wires from the box to the thermostat location in the bedroom. I also finally wired up the electrical to the master bathroom’s radiant floor heating elements. Then I installed the insulating mat on the concrete floor and the the WarmlyYours heating elements. Getting the conduit to the breaker box was a huge step, since it also allows me to complete a number of other projects.

Before putting down the elements I thought I would try to install wallpaper. After a day or so the wallpaper was in it started separating from the wall. I still need to go back and fix it.

The electric heating elements need to be covered in some sort of cement product such as thinset or self leveling concrete. After my experience of putting in self leveling concrete in the master bathroom I knew I didn’t want to try it again. I considered using a layer of thinset but decided that the risks of having to crawl around on the elements and having to deal with the height thickness in the closet, which had no elements, was too much of a problem. I eventually had a local company Koch Mechanical install a 3/4 inch layer of gypcrete. On a square foot basis, the $400 I payed them for the installation may have been expensive, I could have easily wasted that much trying to do it myself.

The gypcrete was installed on Thursday and I was able to walk on it in only a few hours after it was installed. Good news as I didn’t have to fight to keep the cat out. It’s still very soft and will take a few weeks to fully harden. Also good news as I have other plans for the next few weeks.

This weekend I also installed a ceiling fan along with a separate wall switch and a hallway socket on the same circuit. This completes the electrical work for these two rooms and I can put up remaining pieces of drywall.

I expect to have this room complete, except for painted trim, in thirty days.

A Summer Time Trip Up The Sandia Peak Tram

Greg Smith — Sat, 29 May 2010 15:56:42 +0000

Albuquerque, like many cites, has a number of attractions that locals consider tourist traps and therefore never go to. I don’t consider the Sandia Peak Tram to be a tourist trap and yet I’ve only rode the tram one other time in my 15 years living here.

The Tram was built in the 1960′s by the Swiss company Bell Engineering. At 14,657 feet long, it is known as the longest tram in the world. During the winter the Tram can be used to for skiing the Sandia Peak Ski area. It’s a convenience when Sandia Peak has good snow, it often does not. The 2009-2010 Ski season had some of the best snow in a decade and I threatened many times to take to Tram for skiing but never did.

During this trip I dined at High Finance Restaurant at the top of the peak. High Finance is not the cheapest restaurant in town, but certainly not the most expensive I’ve ever dined at. Understanding that getting supplies to the top of the mountain is probably more expensive than getting them in town, I have to wonder if the name of the restaurant has anything to do with the cost of the meals. In any case the food was excellent.

The most impressive part of this trip was the storms that appeared to the west of the city (and later that night made it into town). With the sunset behind the storms there was a spectacular show of orange rain that looked like fire falling from the sky. the storms highlighted the multiple mountain ranges, Mount Taylor, Cabezon, etc, where you could see them in layers. I had a tough time coaxing my Sony DSC-HX5V to focusing that far out and yet managed to get quite a few good pictures. Had I known I would be treated to such a show I would have brought my SLR.

Greg In The Desert

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