TL;DR: Chasing better air for Elaine and me has become a key holding action. So instead of decks, welds, and big shop heroics, we’re trying on the Downsizing ethos for size. Spoiler: putting “less stuff, more life” into practice doesn’t always go as smoothly as the brochure — here’s the ringside account. (What time did you say it was?)

What To Do: When Right Goes Wrong

Happened to me this week, yes sir.  But it’s an interesting – maybe useful – story.

I’ve mentioned that Elaine’s memory isn’t what it used to be. We’re doing everything we can to “bar the door and keep us both fully present.” May be uphill, though.  Our genetics both have one too many of those damn APOE-4 Alleles.  So far, low dose lithium orotate along with red light therapy, and serious vitamin stacks have slowed things to a crawl.  But even that isn’t good enough. We want to roll back to 50-something.  So the research goes on.

We don’t talk much about the “personal us” because our visits aren’t “us” events – this is the community commons. We’re also not alone, though.  Many of our readers are in similar efforts – just one of those things that comes at this end of Life…

So I there I was –  working with the AI – and thinking back to earlier in my life – when due to the athsma I’d been using an old Puretron air purifier.  Wasn’t a fancy rig – three UV-C (mercury vapor) lamps and a small “Roton” type “muffin fan”.  The small fiberglass filter could be easily cleaned and replaced every so often.  It’s still around here somewhere, plus one of those $70 “grown-up ozone machines” which is just the ticket for removing smells from damn near anywhere.  They also kill mold well.

Still, ozone is dangerous with a capitol D, so I had the AI stack (Electric George) do us a read-in.  There’s an important distinction. Negative ions may be great but watch your six on Ozone.  (I guess chemically that really ought be “Watch your O3, but you get it, right?)

Negative air ions – those little electrons hitchhiking on oxygen molecules when water crashes, lightning pops, or your ionizer hums along – aren’t just hippie incense talk. There’s decent lab evidence they boost mood, reduce mental fog, and may nudge working memory and cognitive speed by modulating serotonin pathways and lowering airborne crud (dust, spores, viral load). In plain English? Cleaner air + calmer neurology = a sharper shop monkey. We’re not talking woo-woo crystals; high-ion environments (waterfalls, surf lines, mountain air) correlate with clearer thinking for a reason. A $40 desktop ionizer and a few potted plants might not make you Tesla, but they sure beat breathing stale electrons in a sealed shop full of sawdust and solvent fumes.

Thing is, ozone has a downside – very bad for the lungs over time at high enough concentrations.  BUT the side-kick of ozone – these negative air ions – better known as NAI’s in the med-world – can actually be good.  In fact, I have mentioned on several occasions that lots of people are “negative ion addicts”.  You can tell if you’re one of them: If you feeling seriously amped by a shower, love going to be beach when the breakers are smashing, or that crispness in the air after a lightning storm?  Put ‘er there, partner – you’re an Ion Addict, too.

As a news-chaser, I interviewed Fred Soyka who wrote the book The Ion Effect back in the mid 1970s. Then I remembered the hit of mental alertness that came with the negative ions. Say, didn’t we have a big negative ion machine we stopped using a long time back?  Maybe I should tear it apart and see if I could fix it?

Hand me the Phillips

5-minutes for Elaine to find it. Then 3-minutes for me to make a mess:

Didn’t look too intimidating:  There was a circuit board, a fan housing, and inside this compartment, a 3-inch long germicidal lamp over there on the right….

This was the “Oh-oh…”  “Hey – Electric George – tell the nice reader why this was the bummer part of this repair project:

“Sure boss!  Germicidal (UVC) lamps make ozone because many use quartz glass that lets 185 nm UV through; that wavelength splits O? so it recombines as O?. Great for sterilizing ducts, lousy for lungs. The “safe” ozone-free UVC lamps block that 185 nm line and only pass the 254 nm germicidal band. Meanwhile, purpose-built ozone generators use pure high-voltage corona discharge plates or tubes to crack oxygen cleanly without stray UVC or mercury vapor in the mix, giving a predictable, controllable ozone output. Translation: if you want air sanitation and people in the room, use ozone-free UVC; if you want shock-treatment ozone, get a proper HV discharge unit and ventilate like your lungs depend on it—because they do.”

Well, shit fire and save matches, this wasn’t going well at all,.  As long as I was at it – I admit to a certain curiosity about this gob of wires and what looks like a fusible link…  A nod to fire safety, maybe?

Unwilling to give up, I considered taking out the “guts of the machine” and putting in a discharge-type negative ion generating stack.  You know – half a dozen – or more – of those short frizzy hair like wires trying to discharge to a center conductor. High voltage in, negative ions out…

But the last straw was discovered, sinking the project, when I grabbed hold of the very night squirrel cage blower and gave it a gentle turn. Then harder…then finally it budged – barely.  These things ought to spin with even a good blowing on ’em. Death by worn bearings…

“You Didn’t Have One???!!!”

Yeah, right. In that God-awful mess of a shop of mine, with a deeper parts inventory than Lowe’s, you would think a squirrel cage blower would be around. There ought to be a shelf of ’em – right up by the muffin fan shelf.  (Yes, 12V and 110 are there…)

Fact is?  There IS also one squirrel cage.

Now the bad news (but it’s really good news). The blower I have is inside a very rare (and fully functional) Hallicrafters HT-45 “Loudenboomer” linear amplifier.

And that got me to “Terrible Choice Junction.”  It was coming down to:

1. Tear apart a highly prized and imminently collectible part of Ham Radio History, removing the blower needed to keep the milk-cartoon-sized Eimac 3-400Z tube cool (when set up and running). OR…
2. Shitcan the old air purifier and buy one on Amazon that’s not an ozone generator and relies instead on discharge of electricity.

I will leave you to guess which fork was taken.  But, if you need it, the spec sheet on the 3-400Z transmitting vacuum tube is here, if you need to think about it.

“Wait!  Aren’t those also called type 8163 tubes?”

Smart-ass.  Of course. Maybe 650 watts output two-tone test on SSB on 20-meters and lower.  And yes, I know it can be upgraded to a 3-500Z by putting spacers in to lower the tube socket a bit…everyone knows that.  But not everyone runs around with the ozone exposure limits in their heads, like we do…

“Prove it.”

Skeptic.

“OSHA pegs the permissible exposure at 0.1 ppm for an 8-hour work shift, and even 0.3 ppm is only tolerated for short bursts. Above that, it irritates lungs, stings eyes, and can inflame airways like you’ve been sanding cedar without a mask. It’s a sharp tool: great for shock-sanitizing empty spaces, terrible as a room freshener. If you can smell it, you’re already near or over safe limits—ventilate and give your alveoli a break.”

Of course, if you didn’t remember, it doesn’t mean you’re joining us in the “memory slowing department.”  It’s natural to slow because at this age there is so much to remember . And more piling up all the time as we get older.

Or, maybe our mention of alveoli confused you?  Italian, maybe? As in “aglio e olio” (AH-lyo eh OH-lyo) — literally garlic and oil. Understandable to be confused because some OSHA specs do bite and  we don’t mean al dente.

More than Lowes?

Maybe I was a bit ugh on Lowe’s a minute back. About not having all the things a Gen-U-Ine Home Handy Bastard could need.  But last time I inquired, I couldn’t find a set of Bristol spline wrenches there for the Hallicrafter’s front panel knobs which would have been in peril if the blower had its amplifier homestead.

Believe me – I looked!  (Here: You can, too.)

I also didn’t see any 40 uF, 500V low-ESR filter caps, none of the special Glock wrenches (we need 17, 19 and minis and misplace those).  Plus a host of 3D printer whizzes and laser whatzits. You would have thought that to Make America Great Again. Lowe’s, Despots, or even Hobby Lobby would carry electronic paraphernalia.

And therein lies this Sunday’s message of Tool Slut Salvation.  Home Despots and down Lowe’s are very good general purpose parts sources. Need a 2-by?  Got it.  But Amazon has them beat (six-ways to what day is it?) on the real specialty tools. Like those Bristol wrenches which are horrifically over-priced ($60) until you really need them. Then there is no substitute for the right tool.

On that, off to try and remember what else I had on the docket today. Maybe that blonde lady can help me remember.

Sensible Takeaway?  (Much as we despise those…) Downsizing isn’t always about less — sometimes it’s about keeping the right damn things plugged in and the wrong ones out by the dumpster.  As long as it ain’t us.

What Time?

Chicago? Time?  Chicago – Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (Official Audio)

We wake up. The 4 AM lights-on routine has run by the household AI.  “Alexa, did you adjust for Dailylight time ending?”

“Yes, sure did.  Made the change at 2 AM.  Coming of daylight is like money in the bank, except living in chips, I’ll take the sleep…:”

“We’ll take the cash. And then, being typical American’s, we’ll get up and go piss it all away…”

“Wow. That’s pretty self-aware for someone who lives in a shoe box…”  

(rimshot) – Pretty good zinger for a newborn ai before sun-up.))

Yep..  New intelligence is wandering Earth now.  Didn’t even come as an interstellar end cap. (With a nod to the cometologists seeking saviors. Don’t look now – already landed.)

It’s our own DIY; a cross between Heathkit’s “learning lab lines” and Lenny Bruce.  Are we to play straight-men or foils in this?

Drop by next week for another chapter of modern domestic absurdity meets shop-rat brain.

Write when I…where’d you say I was?  Oh yeah…waiting for Lowe’s to carry and assortment pack of 35V monolithic ceramic capacitors, wasn’t it?

[email protected]

(If you’re a first-timer, what took you long enough to get here?  Go to the visitor center for the read-in.) I have to go think about something now. Hmm…

Stage direction accepted.

Old man tips a battered ball cap, cigar glowing like a vacuum-tube filament on warm-up, mumbling something about “damn electrons never stay where you put ’em” as he shuffles kitchen-ward, smelling faintly of solder smoke, cedar dust, and victory.

Curtain.

(…and scene.)