As we settle into Fall we have begun the annual fund raiser for Cub Scouts: the popcorn sales. The kids all try to sell popcorn to all of their friends and relatives, and they also set up tables outside grocery stores and banks and try to sell to all of the people who go in and out. We volunteered to let the pack use our guest room as a popcorn warehouse, and we helped to pick up all of the popcorn from the real warehouse. We took the fire truck, of course, and they had the idea to use a forklift to set a whole pallet of popcorn into the back of the truck. As they lowered the popcorn the back of the truck just kept getting lower and lower. I wasn't sure that it was going to stop, but it did. No broken springs or axles. Then I wondered if all of the transmission seals would just blow right out when I tried to drive up the hill to my house, but our little fire truck did just fine. What a good truck. Anyway, we have been playing host to the popcorn and various scouts and their families have been stopping by to pick up supplies. That has been a lot of fun for Alex who really likes to have kids over to play.
For Christmas my wife gave me a Netatmo weather station because I am a home weather station nerd. The Netatmo is very cool, but it has an unexpected feature: it measures indoor Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels. As soon as I set it up, the Netatmo began to alert that our indoor CO2 was at an unsafe level. The notes said that outdoor CO2 is usually around 400 ppm, and numbers above 1500 ppm could be unhealthy. On that first day, my house was at around 1300 ppm. Prior to that, I never gave indoor CO2 levels a thought. I began to do some research and discovered high levels of CO2 can cause symptoms such as fatigue, headache, breathing difficulties, strained eyes and itchy skin. My family does have all of these issues, especially on the weekends when we are home all day, but I never connected that to indoor air quality. Previously, I installed a Nest thermostat . The Nest is very smart and saves energy by learning your habits and programming itself. Unfortunately, it is so efficient, that t
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