Tag: review

Geoffrey the Automower

I met my robotic overlord, and I immediately pack-bonded to it.

Let me back up a little.

I am not a gardener. I hate taking care of lawns. I’m the type of person that likes to do a good job, do it well, get the result perfect – and then it should stay that way. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over. It gets dull, quickly.

A lawn takes a lot of work. It runs counter to my pleasure. No matter how well I do the job, in two weeks I have to do it all over again. So my lawn always looks like crap.

So this year I took my government-issued funny money (the CARES stimulus payment, AKA the COVID relief) and plowed it right back into economy. I bought an “automower.” Specifically, I purchased a Husqvarna 115H.

What Is An Automower?

An automower is a Roomba for your lawn. You set a schedule and it takes care of getting the lawn trimmed and keeping itself charged. During operation it makes random passes over its mowing area and covers every square inch… eventually. It comes with a base station where it charges and “sleeps” when it’s not in use.

The mowing area is defined by a “boundary wire” that makes a continuous loop from the base station, around your yard, and back to the base station. (It is possible to have multiple mowing areas.). There is also a “guide wire” that extends from the base station to help the mower come home.

Automowers tend to be “mulching” mowers, meaning they leave their grass clippings in place instead of bagging them up and dumping them somewhere. Since they run so frequently this shouldn’t leave an unsightly mess; each cut should be millimeters in length.  Mulching and leaving the grass clippings in place is better for the lawn, as well as making the mower simpler and far more reliable.

They’re convenient, but also environmentally conscious.  They’re universally electric, making them quiet, emission-less, and built with a minimum of materials.

My First Thoughts

Setting Up

I purchased direct from Husqvarna.  The mower arrived in just a couple of days. (Going through Lowes or Home Depot would have taken a week longer.) The box is an armload but can be managed by a single healthy adult.

Everything you need to set the mower up comes in the box, except housings to keep the power supply and base station dry.  More on that in a moment.

The instructions were a bit unclear, but not terrible. There are steps that are in the quick setup guide that aren’t in the full guide, which is annoying, you need to read both.

There are diagrams, but they’re useless until you know what you’re doing – at which point you don’t need them anymore because the rules are quite logical.

The manual spends some time explaining complicated setups with multiple zones and islands, which may only apply to a minority of buyers, but no time spent on some of the most basic (and critical) steps: picking a spot for a base station and considerations for a guide wire.

Here’s What You Need To Know

  • There are two wires to worry about: the boundary wire and the guide wire.
  • The boundary wire makes an unbroken loop around your yard and through the base station.
    • The loop may not cross itself. (This is stated in the manual, but poorly in my opinion.)
  • The guide wire connects to both the base station and the boundary wire with a splice. The mower comes with little splice boxes to accomplish this.
    • It can connect anywhere on the boundary loop, so long as the first meter (3 feet) extends straight out from the base.
    • The guide wire may bend after the first meter, but should not have corners. The mower has trouble following at corners, and may run off the guide and get lost when it’s at its most tired and starving, which will make you worried and sad. Gentle, freeway-style curves are best.
    • To save on wire you may bend the guide wire right back to boundary, after you’ve come out a meter from the base station.
    • The quick start mentions that you need  to make a loop of wire somewhere in the boundary, but the main booklet does not.  Neither guide says why you’re doing it: you need to plan where the guide wire will tie into the boundary and leave some slack there. There’s no indication regarding how long to make the loop – a finger’s length is enough. You’ll splice the guide wire into the boundary wire using one of the included splicing boxes.
  • The instructions say this, but it’s not clear enough: the boundary wire should not come near the left side of the base station.
    • “Left” is your left as you’re facing the front of the base station.
    • The boundary wire should run away from the base station at a minimum 45° angle from the left side of the base station, and go out for at least a meter or two. If it’s too close to the base station you’ll get a calibration warning.
    • Since most of the important work takes place behind the base station, it would make more sense to change the point of view and reverse left/right in the instructions.
  • It’s not clear how frequently to put stakes down to keep the wire in place, except indicating that you must space them a minimum of 30 inches apart. I took my best guess on frequency, but I’m also lazy so maybe I didn’t use enough. Time will tell.
  • Finding a good home for the power-brick was harder than expected, as the instructions tell you that it shouldn’t get wet. (That’s an odd requirement for outdoor hardware.) I wound up screwing it under our deck, inside a plastic tupperware bin to protect it from drips.

Total Set Up Time

From unboxing to the mower’s first run was about three hours of work.

Our yard is basically a square, less than two-tenths of an acre, and it’s all behind the house.  We don’t have any complicated edges or ‘islands’ that require runs into the yard.  Everything we need the mower to leave alone is in the outside edge.

We chose to lay the wire on the soil and stake it down, rather than trenching and burying it. The mower comes with plenty of stakes and wire; we used a fraction of one spool. If there were complicated sections we could easily have used more, but now we have enough leftover to fix mistakes and broken wires for a while.

Laying the wire on the soil was an easy choice because we have very little grass. Our yard was re-graded this spring and there’s still lots of bare soil. (We skipped hyro-seeding so we could customize the mix ourselves – wildflowers on the edge and lots of clover everywhere else.)

We stopped in the middle of set-up to run out and buy a 30 qt plastic tub, to make an ersatz garage for the base station. I’m not counting that time in the set-up time.

I may make a real “dog house” for it later.

Operation

Getting the mower itself running was very easy for me. I’m a technical person, your mileage may vary. You push it into the base station to start charging, set a security PIN to prevent theft, fill in some other information, and push “start.” That’s about it for the year, unless you want to make changes.

The unit is quiet. It’s much quieter than I expected. I expected moderate electric lawnmower noise, but I got nearly-silent operation. It’s “guaranteed” to be 59 decibels or less, but as a layman I have no point of reference for that. Suffice it to say, it’s super quiet.

Here’s What You Need To Know

  • There are three small blades that attach to a disc underneath.  They have a short lifetime.  The manual suggests that they will need to be replaced every 4-7 weeks.
    • The mower comes with your first summer’s worth of blades, and replacements are relatively inexpensive.  We found a set of 30 online for ~$15.
    • They look to be reasonably easy to replace.
  • You may schedule the unit to run around the clock – it doesn’t care about day vs night.  Consider nocturnal animals before you schedule it for nighttime, though.
  • You don’t need to shut it off in the rain, though you might want to unplug it during thunderstorms.
  • There’s a phone app that connects over Bluetooth that’s easier to use than bending over the control panel on the mower.

It’s very fun to watch. I immediately started rooting for it to knock down tall sprigs of grass and other vegetation. It’s good to watch it to make sure you set the boundaries properly, leaving enough room for “overage.” It will cross the boundary a little, you can’t make tight margins.

We’ve had it running for less than 24 hours and it’s reached pretty much every point on the lawn.

If the mower crosses a boundary, hits something that activates the bump sensor, or gets confused, it backs up and tries a new direction.  That seems to be a simple and effective solution.

Here’s a video of the mower in action this morning:

There is a stand of taller weeds emigrating from a neighbor’s yard, which took over that side of the yard last year. It has already re-sprouted and grown to a foot high since we re-graded the yard a few weeks ago. If we let it go all summer again, it will grow into two-meter-tall woody stalks. The mower has been slowly nibbling it back until the bump sensor activates, and has already cut down nearly all of it – about 2 square meters (6 square feet). We might have to weed the very edge of the fence, but that’s it.

Considerations Before Trying

Autonomous mowers might not be a good mower for some situations:

  • You like to make patterns in your lawn, like my boss does. He enjoys making checkerboards like you see on professional baseball diamonds.
  • Your lawn is complicated, with lots of islands, special plantings, drop offs, marshy spots, and/or slopes.  The boundary wires will be time-consuming to lay out.
  • There is particularly uneven ground in the mow-zone, with holes, ruts, divots, and/or surface tree roots.  The mower could get stuck and require frequent rescues.
  • Boundary wires could be a tripping hazard in a high-traffic lawn and are more likely to be broken by repeated stepping.  Burying may be a good solution, but complicates installation.

Closing Thoughts

Despite some frustration with the setup instructions, the first 24 hours have gone swimmingly and I’m very happy. This might be the first time in my adult, home-owning life that I’ve had a neat lawn for more than a week per summer.

Having a real, autonomous, domestic robot makes the future feel like it’s finally arriving.

Anchors Aweigh!

Living where we do, with a high water table, houses are obligated to have a large hole in the floor of the basement called a “sump“.  For those lucky enough to not know, a sump’s job is to collect groundwater before it seeps up through the floor of the basement.  You then evacuate the water with a pump, colloquially (and quite logically) known as a “sump pump”.

A sump pump is a replaceable part.  The typical lifetime is supposed to be around ten years, give or take.

We last replaced our pump in 2014.  I purchased a replacement unit from “Watchdog” that proclaimed it’s longevity, speed, and reliability.  This is that same unit, a mere five years later:

decrapitated watchdog sump pump
Notice the hole in the side of the housing. It was not there when I purchased and installed the unit.

The unit continued to work in some condition, until it didn’t.  It completely failed during a heavy December rainstorm this weekend.  I came into the basement early Saturday morning to find ankle-deep water on the floor.

Woe unto the person who does not have a water alarm or redundant standby sump pump.  That person would be me.

The pump is now replaced with a unit from a different manufacturer.  Hopefully this one stands up to the elements a little better.  We’re working on a water alarm as well.

The General

We all went to see The General at The Cabot, back by a live musical performance.

The General is (very loosely) based on a real-life train theft during the Civil War, but it’s played to some drama and comedy by a prime Buster Keaton.

The true story is that a group of Union spies stole a Confederate train (which was, in fact, named The General) with a plan to damage the rails and generally cause mayhem on their way back to friendly territory.  It didn’t quite work out as planned because they were pursued and (eventually) caught.

The cinematic version takes a few artistic liberties to entertain and “wow” the audience with stunts, as well as adding a love interest and a human side.  It’s considered one of Mr. Keaton’s finest works, and “[he] always said that this was his favorite of his own movies.” (source)  It’s an amazing film to watch, moreso when you realize that the stunts were real, frequently filmed in one take, and as hazardous in real life as they are in the story.

The film that we watched was from a restoration made in 2016, with a new musical arrangement that was played live.  The quality of the film is very good, better than the gif above, while live music accompaniment is the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

The Cabot is a restored theater in downtown Beverly, MA.  It contains many of the artistic features one would expect from a classic venues.  We had center seats and a great view.  This was our first visit, but won’t be our last.

Photo: © Lauren Poussard

Neil Gaiman in NYC

Meghan gave me an awesome Christmas present: tickets to see Neil Gaiman read from his latest book, Norse Mythology at The Town Hall on February 9, 2017 in New York City.  She only purchased two tickets and it’s a Thursday night.  Too bad kids — you’re staying home!  (We arranged for our neighbor’s adult daughter Sam to stay with the girls for the night).

looking up the aisle on the trainAs the day approached I watched the weather forecasts with growing interest.  Snow was forecast for Thursday, the day of the event and the day we planned to travel to NYC.  By Tuesday the forecast was clear: snow, and possibly a blizzard.  Driving to NYC was out of the question, and flying would be problematic as well.  We have easy access to trains, though, assuming they would run in a blizzard.

The storm could not wait to arrive and it was snowing hard by the time we left the house for our local train stop.  In order to head south on Amtrak, we take commuter rail from our house to Boston’s North Station, the subway (or walk when the weather is nice, which is to say not this time) from North Station to South Station, and pick up Amtrak there.  The Amtrak train was scheduled to depart at 11:15, so we left the house by 9 am to catch everything on time.  As usual, we forgot a few minor things like toothbrushes, and had to purchase them when we got there.

pink unicorns
We watched people skating at the park for a while, until the pink unicorns came out — then it was time to leave.

Amazingly enough, train service ran perfectly despite being a real, legitimate, certified blizzard.  We had periods where we could not see the landscape at all, but the train continued to rock along at 100+ mph (verified via Waze on Meghan’s phone).  The ride from South Station to Penn Station is about 4 ½ hours.

By the time we got to NYC the snow had wound down, though it continued to snow back home for another six hours.  The streets were messy and wet, with snow piled up at every corner.  The hotel is only a few blocks from Penn Station, a few blocks from Times Square, and a few blocks from The Town Hall — NYC is great that way.

meghan at beer authority
I still wonder what she’s thinking here

We ate dinner around the corner from our hotel at the Beer Authority. The food was yummy, the beer selection is well-curated, and we had a very enjoyable time.  (I thoroughly enjoyed a Founders Porter and Meghan tried a Timmerman’s Strawberry Lambic that was surprisingly tasty.)

top of the empire state building at night
We popped out of the hotel, went around the corner, and had a (relatively) great view of the Empire State Building

We killed a little more time before the show by wandering the local neighborhood.  Times Square is always blindingly bright, but within a few blocks are much nicer views.

Finally, the main event: Neil Gaiman.  “Norse Mythology” was finished some time before the 2016 election, and every story in it is a faithful retelling of stories from the original eddas, but the story he chose to read was eerily appropriate: a book about the gods building a wall around Asgard to keep the ice giants out.   The reading was followed by a pair of previews, one for the American Gods miniseries (based on his excellent book), and one for a movie adaptation of an old story of his, How to Talk to Girls at Parties.  Finally, he came back out with Ophira Eisenberg for a Q&A session.  Mr. Gaiman is, by turns, very thoughtful and very funny.  Despite the cramped seats made for midgets with abnormally short legs we really enjoyed ourselves.

Neil Gaiman on stage
Neil Gaiman. He read a segment from his latest book, Norse Mythology, about building a wall around Asgard

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and killed some more time waiting for our 11 am train.  We visited the Empire State Building’s lobby and checked out a few adjoining blocks.  Our train was delayed for nearly an hour due to “missing equipment”, but we got back to Boston by dark and back to our car by 6 pm.  (Rush hour on the subway is never fun, but all in all it wasn’t too bad.)  Glad to be home!

NYC 2016

nyc vs boston
Finding your way in NYC really is easier

Meghan and I like to keep our kids exposed to the cultural world, giving them a cosmopolitan worldview.  I chose a job near Boston in part to allow frequent trips into the city.  But one city isn’t enough to give them a breadth of experience.

We took an overnight trip to New York City during February school vacation.  Discovery Times Square is currently exhibiting The Vikings, which is of particular interest to Meghan and Alpha.  (That isn’t to say there isn’t interest from me and Beta, they’re just that much more keen.)  Meghan found a great deal on motel rooms (the girls are old enough now that we need two) right by Times Square at Four Points by Sheraton.  The view wasn’t anything to write home about but the location can’t be beat: two blocks from Times Square.  The rooms were clean and neat, and the staff were bend-over-backwards friendly.  I would totally stay there again.

We drove down early Wednesday morning, dropping Butter off at Marty’s and picking up Meghan’s mom (aka Baba) on the way.  Baba loves going to NYC, she knows the lay of the land better than we do, and she’s a bit more adventurous than I am when the kids are around, so we invited her along.  She offered to share the kids’s room to keep costs down — and that provided peace of mind overnight, too.

Meghan yelled at me for this selfie. She insisted that it was inappropriate to do while making 75 mph on I-91.
Meghan yelled at me for this selfie. She insisted that it was inappropriate to do while making 75 mph on I-91.

We rolled into town around noon and got situated in the hotel with time to spare before our exhibit reservations.  We walked from the hotel and poked around Times Square for a few minutes.

woody and olaf
Click to expand

There were a pair of people in costume, one dressed as Woody from Toy Story and the other as Olaf from Frozen, soliciting tips.  They made their own costumes and don’t work for anyone but themselves, so Meghan got photos with each and tipped them a few bucks.

I continue to be amazed how many people are continually in New York City.  The crush of people feel like there’s an event going on somewhere, but it’s really just an every day occurrence.  Dozens of people at every crosswalk, hundreds of people on every sidewalk, all the time.  Boston has nothing on NYC.

alpha holding viking sword
Alpha holding a reproduction Viking sword

We made our way through the crowds to the exhibit and spent about an hour and a half learning about Vikings.  As an aside: the exhibit is self-paced and just about the right length.  They had a number of artifacts grouped into several themes about everyday life, instead of constructing a sequential historical narrative.

We waited to get lunch until after the exhibit so we were somewhat famished.  A few storefronts down from Discovery is a pizza and Italian restaurant called John’s of Times Square, located in a former church.  The adults had excellent pizza and the girls had excellent pasta.  It might have been a case of hunger making the best sauce, but probably not.

ulfbehrt sword
There’s a great NOVA episode about the “mystical” Ulfberht sword

After lunch we shopped around Times Square a bit.  Alpha bought a New York-emblazoned sweat shirt and Beta got a pin for her hat.  Baba noticed that Phantom of the Opera was playing right in front of us, so she bought three tickets for 8 o’clock that night.  Beta wasn’t interested and I was wiped from driving all day; we chose to stay in.

We wandered back to the hotel to rest up.  I had to step out in search of a pharmacy: we had a snafu when we left the house and forgot to pack our bathroom stuff.

meghan and alpha at phantom
Waiting for Phantom of the Opera to start

Our motel offers complimentary dinner stuffs on Wednesday nights.  We were just coming off of lunch, not particularly hungry, but the food was delicious. Free wine and beer, too!

We finished dinner and Beta and I headed up to our room to watch some TV and get ready for bed.  Meghan, Baba, and Alpha headed out to their show, and didn’t get back until after I was asleep — sometime after 10:30 pm.  They said they had a great time though!

We started the next day with an excellent breakfast buffet at the motel.  We seem to have a knack for choosing motels with great breakfasts; it really makes dollars stretch further if your breakfast is hearty when you’re traveling.

We decided that we could fit in one more museum visit before leaving town.  The American Museum of Natural History was on our way home and is always worth a visit.  We also considered the USS Intrepid but decided to save it for another visit so we can give it the amount of time it deserves.

wrong-way shadows
Notice the shadows. The sun is rising off to the right, but the cars are throwing shadows the wrong way. The strange beauty of a city made from glass.

We got in early and encountered almost no waiting to get into the parking garage and admissions line.  We had three destinations in mind: the dinosaurs, the blue whale, and the gift shop.  We got to see all three, in that order. The life-size blue whale model is stupendously large – and that’s after seeing the full-size apatosaurus for comparison.

baba and girls
Driving home (click to expand)

We made our way out of the city around 1 pm.  We didn’t want to get home too late, and the drive can take upwards of six hours with stops and detours to Willimantic and Hampton. The ride home was uneventful, traffic was mostly light and Waze didn’t let us down.  Butter the dog was very happy to see us when we picked her up, and I was extremely happy to sleep in my own bed.

Hills Home Delivery: Day 1

Oh dear god what have we done to ourselves.

freezer packed with food
Our first delivery from Hills Home Market

One of Meghan’s friends raves about a grocery delivery service called Hills Home Delivery.  After listening to their sales pitch, trying some sample food,  working out the costs, and checking reviews online, we wanted to give it a try ourselves.

Our first delivery came tonight.  This is several months worth of beef, chicken, pork, sausage, fish, and veggies, packed into a freezer in our basement.  There’s a turkey and some cookie dough, too.  Not pictured is several shelves of dry goods: pasta + sauce, flour, sugar, paper towels, and toilet paper.

This isn’t completely new to us, Meghan already buys her coffee and a few other things from Amazon, but wow that’s a lot of food all at once.

The delivery guys were friendly and professional, and pretty darn close to on-time. (Ten minutes late, but our delivery was scheduled for 5:30 pm — it’s night-time dark already, and rush-hour traffic is in full swing.  I don’t consider that ‘late’.)

On paper, this looks like we should be spending the same or less on food than we’re spending now — and we can cut out a bunch of time at the grocery the store.  We’ll just need occasional trips for fresh things like dairy, eggs, and fruit.

Maine 2015

Backstory: a long time ago as the ice sheets from the latest ice age slowly receded, an island was carved out of the Maine coastline.  My father purchased a few acres of land shortly before humans showed up in North America to jack up the prices, intending to build a vacation home when modern building methods were developed.

Alpha, Beta, and Butter
Taking a quick break on the trail

A house never materialized but we made annual treks to the island, called Islesboro, for years while I was growing up.  After my parents lost interest, I occasionally went there on my own to go camping until finally I, too, got busy with life and stopped going.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, to last Sunday night in fact.  Meghan and I got to talking and we realized that we’re really only a short drive away from Islesboro nowadays– only about 3 ½ hours from door-to-ferry slip.  Why don’t we go?  So we booked a room for Friday night and started rearranging our schedules.

A little more backstory: When I used to go up by myself, I generally spent a my first night at a little motel on the mainland, just a mile from the ferry slip.  This motel was about as bare-bones as you can get: little cabins with a clean bed and a shower, and if I recall correctly it was about $25 / night back then.  They family that owned it made you breakfast in the morning (Best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever had.)

The hotel is still there, under new ownership and a new name but still relatively inexpensive – and still clean and comfortable.  They also accept dogs, so we could bring Butter instead of trying to board her on short notice.

We left mid-day Friday, after I finished up my tasks and morning meetings at work — my employer offers some scheduling flexibility and I put in a number of extra hours over the course of the week to make sure my promised deliverables were deliverable (I have to explicitly mention this since some of my co-workers may actually read this blog).

Meghan, WW1 memorial tower
Megh standing near the peak of Mt. Battie. The tower is a memorial to the soldiers of ‘The Great War’, dated 1921.

The trip was rainy as hell on the way up.  We detoured into Freeport to visit the LL Bean store — even if you’ve been to a L. L. Bean store, it’s not as big as the L. L. Bean store.  The girl-folk went inside to procure winter jackets for the kids, while I took a nap in the car and walked Butter around in between squalls.  (Did I mention I’ve been staying up late all week to get stuff done?)

Hiking Mt. Battie
Hiking upwards on the Tablelands Trail, Mt. Battie

We arrived in Lincolnville around 5:30 pm.  The rain was still coming down and occasionally pouring, but the breaks were getting longer.  After settling into our room, and letting everyone (including Butter) stretch their legs a bit, we headed back up to the road to downtown Camden in search of dinner.

We found a nice tavern, away from the main drag, called the Smokestack Grill.  Not much ambiance inside — it looks a bit like a sports bar with large TVs over the bar — but the building is an old mill so there’s architectural interest.  I had a jalapeño cream cheese and bacon burger, Meghan had calamari, and the girls split a fried shrimp dinner.  The bill was quite reasonable, our server was attentive and friendly, and the food was delicious.  Butter, sadly, stayed in the car and waited for us.

Afterwards we went back to our room and got ready for bed – except me, I stayed up until the rain stopped so Butter could get in a short walk — she is a princess and doesn’t like to get wet, and sleeping in close quarters with a wet dog is not high on my list of things to do.  I  didn’t have to wait too long, and we were all in bed early.  There’s something about travelling that just makes you tired, even if you’re sitting in the car all day.

Saturday morning was sunny but really breezy and chilly.  The kids were divided on whether or not to go to the island, so I cast the deciding vote: no, the seas are rough and I don’t want to spend $70 to have two seasick kids and a sick dog – we’ll come back for that.  Lets go do something else this time.

Right up the road, between the motel and downtown Camden, is a state park called Camden Hills State Park / Mt. Battie.  We drove in, paid our fee, found a place to park, and went hiking up the ‘Tablelands Trail.’  It takes you right up to one of the peaks, which overlooks both the Penobscot Bay and downtown Camden, from nearly 800 feet up.

After playing around on the peak for while, and after the clouds started playing peek-a-boo with the sun, we headed back down to find some hot chocolate in Camden to warm us up.  The breeze was making us chilly even when we were ascending on the trail, so without the sun we got downright cold.

Camden starts to shut down before October, so while a majority of shops were still open there were a few that have already closed for the season.  We window-shopped and walked around downtown for an hour, and hit the road for one last stop down Route 1.

Maine State Prison showroom
The Maine State Prison “showroom” for prisoner-made woodcraft. The store is still staffed by prisoners and prison guards. The items inside are made with impressive quality, including furniture that is as nice as a high-end store (but much lower cost)

For whatever faults the Maine prison system may have, they maintain an intriguing program of teaching trades to prisoners, including woodworking.  The finished products are then sold to the public.

I’ve been stopping at the Prison Store in Thomaston for as long as I’ve been going to Maine.  The last time I was there was in 2001, and the store was still attached to a working prison; in 2002 the prison was closed and subsequently torn down, but the store remains.

Unsurprisingly, we came out with some gifts for family and a few things for ourselves.

After Thomaston, we made a bee-line for Bath (home of the BFC – Big Friggen Crane – at the Bath Iron Works) and the interstates so that we would be home in time to make dinner.

All in all, it was a fun little jaunt, even if we didn’t actually step foot on the island.  Next time I think I’ll try to just take the day off instead of squeezing five days worth of work into four.

Penobscot Bay
Over looking Penobscot Bay – Islesboro is the big island in the middle, stretching the width of the picture. If you click to view the full-size version you can see the ferry.

View of Camden from Mt Battie
Looking down on Camden from Mt. Battie. There is a trail that descends from here into town, which looks like it might be a good hike for next time. The color is a little washed out because we’re pointed right into the light.

SE view from Mt. Battie
Taken from the tower on Mt. Battie, looking off to the south east.

View of Mt Megunticook from Mt Battie
Mt. Battie isn’t the highest peak in the park, it merely has the best view. Mt. Megunticook stands 400′ higher — I think I’d like to tackle that next time.

Storrs Adventure Park

Zip lines are fun.

We spent the day with our very good friends Sam and Joanne, and their child who will be identified in this blog as Mu.  The kids all grew up together so they enjoy meeting up too.

Alpha on balance beam
Alpha didn’t even pause before striding out onto the beam. It swayed but she stuck to it like a gecko.

In our absence, something new sprouted up in Storrs that Sam and Joanne wanted to show us: The Adventure Park.  It’s an aerial park – meaning that you spend your time up in the trees.  There are several courses of varying difficulty to choose from.

In order to climb, you’re strapped into a harness similar to a rock climber’s, with a couple of integrated carabiners and a zipline pulley.  The carabiners can be locked-closed, and are linked via cable.  In order to unlock one, you must lock the other, and the mechanism to unlock is built into the safety lines that guide you through the course – so you must always be clipped in.  Once you start the course, you cannot get into a situation where you’re not clipped to a guideline or tether until you reach the end — very safe and difficult to screw up accidentally or intentionally.

Alpha on high wire
Alpha looking down for her photograph. I estimates that she was about 40 feet up.

The courses include a mixture of obstacles, ziplines, and lengths of high-wire dare-devilry.  The staff is watchful and makes sure everyone is conducting themselves appropriately, as some bits can be a bit challenging.  There is one course that, we are told, active-duty Marines have trouble with.

Sadly, I did not bring appropriate footwear.  Flip-flops are verboten so I could not climb.  The girls scrambled up without a second thought, however, and left me to take photos.  I’m very proud of them!  They handled themselves with grace, and without fear — even when they were forty or fifty feet off the ground and traversing a span like a tight-rope walker.

Both kids going over a pair of obstacles
Both girls working their way over back-to-back obstacles

The park itself is remarkable.  The trees are carefully trussed to hold up platforms and guide-wires with minimal damage — nothing is nailed in, instead the cables are wrapped and tied, and the platforms are help up with wedges to provide friction fits.  Their business model works best when people feel comfortable that the space will not be damaged, so nature preserves and landowners will allow them to set up installations confident that the impact will be minimal.

Both girls ran into a bit of trouble right at the very end on some obstacles that were wreaking havoc with everyone else, too — a staff member was already up in the trees, having just helped extract the previous victim, and was on-hand to help.  The obstacles were upright-‘L’ shaped logs that didn’t behave well when stepped on.  The girls made me proud by keeping their heads, trying to extricate themselves before asking for help, and actively assisted in their rescue (rather than some other people, who just glumly hung there while getting pulled to the next platform).

We stayed and let the kids weave through the courses for a couple of hours, until the shadows started getting long and we had to start planning for dinner on the road.  All in all, it was expensive ($70 for the two kids) but well worth it.

Lovesac Sactional: The Review

The Hunt for New Furniture

We wanted — nay, we needed — a new couch.  The old one is sporting a dip so deep that only the dog can curl up comfortably.  (Oddly enough, come to think of it, it is slightly dog shaped. Why that little…)

We cruised the local furniture stores for months but we had a hard time agreeing on a particular style.  Megh kept stopping in the local Lovesac store, though, “just to sit down for a few minutes”.  I eventually got the hint that she was interested in their ‘Sactionals‘.

After much hemming and hawing, I was forced to admit that a) the furniture in the showroom is comfortable, and b) the concept — free-floating furniture that you can rearrange into chairs, couches, lounges, beds, etc. — is intriguing.

Making the Decision

We don’t currently know anyone that has anything from Lovesac.  We even asked all our Facebook friends, but nothing more solid came through than some “I really want one of their fuzzy beanbags!”  At $600 for a beanbag, no wonder that it remains in the want-to-have category.

That brings us to the price.  Sactionals are an expensive way to get furniture.  I figure that compared to a similar-quality couch that doesn’t fly apart, we’re looking at a 30% premium.  Not as bad as the beanbags, but that’s still a steep price to pay for the possibility of sitting on a fabric Optimus Prime.

Lovesac’s business model seems to involve putting their showrooms into malls and other places where you might want to take a load off and sit for spell.  Paying high mall rents may explain the price — that, and the novelty.

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if this remained an expensive pipe-dream.  We did indeed take the plunge and buy something.

What You’re Getting

As mentioned before, Sactional furniture comes as pieces, one of two types: bases and sides.  One base and three sides makes a complete chair (or one base and one side for an armless chair); two bases and two to four sides makes a couch; and so on.  Every piece also gets a removable, washable cover so you can purchase the color and fabric style you want.  You can spend a little more (or a little less) on the covers to upgrade your furniture.

We purchased two bases and three sides, to make a couch with an open end (it seems more inviting that way).

We also purchased the standard cover, which is also one of the cheapest options.  We liked the material more than some of the fancier velour- or velvety-type covers.

The Delivery

Your furniture is delivered via FedEx.  Everything comes in flat boxes, Ikea-style, with no piece being too large for an able-bodied adult to man-handle into the house.

Sactional couch, still in boxes
Our new Sactional couch post-delivery and still in boxes, with a cat for scale. The couch it’s replacing stares forlornly in the background.

We didn’t get a tracking number until the same day everything arrived, which was a little annoying.  I rushed home when Meghan gave me a heads up, so it wouldn’t sit on the front step all day.  At least it wasn’t raining that day.

I got everything moved inside, and drove back to work.

I’m out of work and home before Meghan, so I teased her by sending photos of the of the boxes, one at a time.  She can’t stand the fact that I can wait for things.

Total time from ordering to delivery: about a week.  If we had ordered fancier (custom) covers we would have had to wait longer.

The Unpacking

After dinner we got down to business.  After moving the old couch to an empty corner of the house, we unpacked the first box: a base.

The cushion for the base is stuffed inside the base itself, and held in with a pair of wooden planks (well, sticks really).  You have to slowly rotate each stake until it comes out.  Doing so releases the cushion, which then uncovers the hardware and some instructions telling you how to remove the stakes and cushion without damaging them.

Fortunately for us the process was somewhat intuitive and we didn’t damage anything in our ignorance.  We unpacked the other boxes in similar fashion.  The covers come in their own box.

The Assembly

The first step was to attach feet and stick on no-scratch pads (which are included).  There’s enough pads to adequately cover the “shoes,” which help connect the pieces, as well.

The instructions emphasize that getting the slipcovers on straight is very important, and it is.  Getting them on at all was the hardest part of the entire process.  The covers fit tightly, and there’s no “give” if you get them on crooked.  We had to start over on a couple of pieces because they were obviously wrong, but when you get it right it’s just as obvious.

The pieces don’t clamp together nearly as easily as they seem to in the store.  It’s probably because the floor models are taken apart and reassembled frequently, so everything stretches a little.  I wouldn’t say they were difficult, but they do require a strong hand.

I was pretty satisfied with the whole assemble-your-furniture experience, but then again I like Ikea, too.  I read some other reviews about assembling Sactionals, and we seem to have had one of the better experiences.

Total time, from unpacking to sitting my ass down: about 75 minutes.

The Result

Sactional couch, assembled
Our newly-assembled Sactional couch

I’m only writing this the next day, not enough time to provide an informed opinion about longevity, but the couch feels about as comfortable as the store’s floor model — maybe a little firmer and tighter, but all new furniture does that.

It looks as good in real life as I hoped.  The kids have given it their seal of approval as well.

In the picture is our Sactional couch with one of our old pillows and a Wii-mote.  On the left side of the picture the wooden beam is part of our old futon, with a similarly-colored cover, facing the other way.

I’ll probably revisit this in a few months with our thoughts on it long term – worth the purchase, worth additional purchases, etc.