A monarch moment

A few pretty pics here in celebration of yesterday's picture-perfect weather.  After the sixth wettest start-to-a-year on record, the sunshine and warm temps were a welcome relief.

If you were out and about the neighborhood yesterday (which you arguably should have been), you may have noticed that the monarch butterfly migration is underway.  These amazing creatures are the only species of butterfly that migrate in a style similar to birds, from Mexico to more northern latitudes, and back again in winter.

If you want to get pics like this, you have to be patient.  These are skittish creatures, but if you stand near their target destination (here, a bolted broccoli plant) for ten minutes or so, they will acclimate to your presence. 

Bee-cause we have one of the few landscaped back yards in Centerpointe Section 9, we tend to attract an extremely large quantity of these guys, which have few other local flowers to visit.  I noticed yesterday that the bees were harrassing the monarchs, trying to chase them away from the flowering plants.

And if you're patient long enough with your camera, you might get rewarded with a beauty shot such as this.  According to Wikipedia, this is a male monarch... 

...and he graced our backyard yesterday en route to points north.
(Monarch migration excerpt from Wikipedia.com)

CCISD zoning revisited

FYI, about a year ago I published a post describing how Centerpointe is zoned with respect to public high schools.  The whole thing is fairly confusing and involves a systematic migration away from the original zoned high school (Clear Springs) and into Clear Creek High School.  This was the original CCISD implementation schedule I posted at that time:

I can't reference a refreshed URL pertaining to this table, because I can no longer find it on CCISD's website.  Their zoning boundary maps are published here, but there is no associated discussion of an interim implementation scheme that I can locate. 

All of this is relevant because my child recently received several computer-generated communications indicating that she is still zoned to Clear Springs, at least according to CCISD's computers, despite the fact that they apparently made these changes well over a year ago.  If you have a child transitioning to high school, verify your paperwork carefully, and don't necessarily take everything at initial face value.  I submitted a request for confirmation just to make sure that nothing has changed regarding the transitions described above, and I'll comment below if I learn anything important.

VL burglaries on February 9

Bay Area News is reporting that two burglaries happened on the same day on February 9 (this past Thursday) in nearby Victory Lakes:

The two streets are called Tahoe and Kinston.

These burglaries appeared to follow a common pattern of occurrence: during business hours when the owners are away at work and the house is empty.  Three months ago, I blogged about an attempted break-in here in Centerpointe in which men entered the home of a woman on Walnut Pointe, apparently thinking it was empty.  At that time, I also linked to some very down-to-earth tips to help folks avoid this kind of thing. 

Anyway, the message to take away from this is be vigilant.  Burglars often do not simply flip coins to choose which houses to target.  They often observe, plan, and confirm ahead of time which owners can be counted on to be away during business hours, and which have people remaining in their houses (stay-at-home Moms, retired people, grandparents, shift workers, etc).  Report any suspicious people to the police.  Or if you think that reporting to the police is a bit too alarmist for the circumstances you are seeing, at least write down any unfamiliar license plate numbers (I keep pen and scratch pad close to my newly-refinished front door, and sometimes snap cell phone pics when I'm not sure how to interpret what I'm seeing).  At least that way you can later ask your neighbors if those cars are familiar to them.  If you later see the same car/same license plate coming and going again, and none of your neighbors have proven to know who that person is, your suspicions may begin to increase to the point where you judge that it's time to ask the police some questions. 

Door duty

It's a rite of passage for every buyer who commissions the building of their own home: that despairing moment when you stand there realizing that your picture-perfect made-to-order jewel has now aged to the point where you need to begin your first round of minor repairs.  Where does the time go?!

One of the first items to require restorative maintenance is likely to be your front door, if it is one of the stained wooden varieties.  Particularly if direct sunlight falls on it, you're going to find that the finish just doesn't stand the test of time.  Our front door is a leaded-glass mahogany upgrade which faces southeast - great for feng shui, but it gets blasted by direct sunlight.  Less than two years after it was installed, it had begun to look like this:

WEATHERBEATEN!! 
This is a close-up of a bottom raised panel.  Do you see how the molding is turning grey, and the coating ("varnish") has pretty much totally broken down in this area? 
I really should have turned my attention to this before now; I almost let it get too far gone for an easy fix to be capable of restoring it.

Here's another unpleasant surprise:
If your door was stained a darker color than the natural wood, chances are good that the sun took at least some of the color out of it.  Here you can see that the edge of the door, normally sitting in the frame, was shielded from the sun and thus retained the original color. 

In this post, I'm going to describe how I lightly stripped and re-sealed our door, but I did not opt to do a complete restoration to include returning it to its original stain color (it's just going to bleach out once again in another year or so anyway, so that kind of expenditure hardly seems worth it to me, but you may have a different opinion regarding your own situation).  If you want to do that kind of work, with re-coloring, it's probably better to hire a professional (at who knows what cost, versus about fifteen bucks for the DIY shown below). 

In other words, I used a CLEAR polyurethane - not a tinted one.  Stained wooden doors typically do not bleach out evenly - the bottom section ends up with more sun and water damage.  For this reason, if one uses a colored product, it's likely going to soak in to different degrees on different parts of the door, which means that the door might no longer be the same shade from top to bottom.  That would look nasty, and that's also why I recommend that you hire a professional if you want a total stain-color restoration. 

Here are the steps I took.  Remember that your door may be different, and what is shown here may not produce the same results for you.

I used a fine-mesh steel wool to remove the remains of the sun-damaged coating.  It's also possible to use very fine sandpaper, but the door has these raised panels and ridges, so it's easier to do with wool which will conform to the shapes.  Steel wool like this is available at any hardware store (don't use the kitchen kind that has soap in it!). 

After you get the damaged coating off, you have to remove all the dried varnish dust and steel wool fragments using a tack cloth.  Very important that you don't re-coat the door with gunk still in the grooves because you will seal it in there and it will look awful. 

Clear exterior-grade polyurethane will work fairly well for this job.  It may sound very liquid and sloshy in the can, but remember to stir it well.  It contains solid polymers that will settle to the bottom and which will need to be stirred back in prior to use.

If your DIY skills are not exceptionally good, you may want to choose a "satin" rather than a high gloss polyurethane (as I did).  New doors are usually done in high gloss, but it's harder to re-apply a high gloss with a brush such that it looks like a professional job.  Satin products are more forgiving at hiding brush marks, small drip marks, etc. 

Make sure you pick a nice warm, dry day with no chance of rain to do this also, so that the new coating will dry thoroughly.

You can use a regular brush for this (any of those that are sold as appropriate for oil-based products) but I prefer to use disposable foam brushes, which leave fewer streak marks and which can help to soak the polyurethane into all the little channels and grooves in the molding.

Here you can see the bottom part of the door about half done.  The right side has been re-coated, while the left side is still bare.  The difference is obvious. 

And voila - the first coat has been completed, and the grey is gone.  While this result falls somewhat short of the door's former deep reddish-brown stained glory, (a) it looks about a thousand times better than it did before I started, and (b) the wood is now protected from further degradation due to weather exposure.

You should do at least two, and preferably three, coats of polyurethane for maximum protection.  Each successive coat should be THINLY APPLIED.  This will help it adhere and you will also minimize drips and streaks if you do successive thin coats.  It's best to allow at least 24 hours between coats, even if your can of polyurethane says the time interval can be shorter.   You'll know when it has become fully set - the coating will feel hard like a thin layer of plastic, instead of tacky. 

And don't wait too long to do this.  Depending on your weather exposure, you might have to re-coat your door once a year or less to keep it in good condition.  Mahogany doors are beautiful, but they demand significant maintenance like this. 

Garden guest

About a year ago, I created a post describing snakes commonly found in our area.  Here's a new one for the list:  Texas brown snake.

My nice round pupils suggest that I'm completely harmless.
Native venomous snakes in the U.S. have "cat eye" elliptical pupils, whereas nonvenomous snakes generally have round pupils.  The notable exception is the brightly-colored coral snake, which has a round pupil. 

My small size tells you that I couldn't get my mouth around any part of you even if I wanted to (that's me wrapped around your blogger's finger).  Although it's always a good idea to wear gloves when handling wildlife. 

In all my years in Texas, this was actually the first one of these little native guys I've ever seen.  He was promptly transferred out of lawnmower's way and into one of my vegetable gardens where I'm sure he will do good work controlling insects.

I'll be on my slithery way now, thanks very much.

Under ground and above board

Lots of viewing entertainment this morning at the new Shell gas station construction site.  There's a finger pumper laying concrete, and those bulbous red objects are two of the gasoline underground storage tanks (USTs) that will be buried on the property.

Some folks are surprised when they see how big these things are.  They tend to be between 10,000 gallons and 20,000 gallons apiece, and multiple tanks are buried at each station - that's a lot of gasoline!  You can see that the one on the left appears to be longer than the one on the right.  That one has more capacity and is likely going to be used for one of the lower gasoline grades, which tend to sell at higher through-puts than the premium grades.

 My teenage daughter will attest that I routinely assault her brain with Daily Learning Moments in which I explain in short, snappy sentences the basics of how the world works, for the sake of strengthening her general knowledge and perspective.  Here is one such snippet regarding USTs and how government regulation and environmental impacts have conspired to produced the style of gasoline retail station we most commonly see today.

In the "olden days", retail gas stations were often operated as small "Mom and Pop" type businesses.  Unfortunately, that business model was one of the factors that contributed to environmental degradation, ultimately involving soil and groundwater pollution from tens of thousands of leaky fuel tanks.  Given that about 28% of of Texans use groundwater as their drinking water source, that contamination was a big problem.  One of the reasons why we see larger, more intricate franchise gasoline stations today is that the federal and state governments had no choice but to impose stringent technical standards upon them, to prevent continued groundwater pollution.  Many small operators could not afford to meet those standards, and the result was market rationalization into a preponderance of large, newer franchises, such as the one being built just outside our neighborhood. 

Texas has made considerable progress in cleaning up its underground storage tank legacy.  EPA summarizes the progress on this website, and the graph below shows how Texas has fared:

 25,610 leaking petroleum storage tanks! 
Next time someone suggests to you that Texas does not need "burdensome" environmental regulation, quote them that statistic and see how they respond.

EPA uses the acronym LUST for Leaking Underground Storage Tank.  Texas decided to change that term to Leaking Petroleum Storage Tank (LPST).  It's a more accurate term, and the change was also rumored to have been partially motivated by a concern about the potential for sexual harassment connotations surrounding the L-word.

 Excerpted from: http://www.epa.gov/oust/pubs/backlog_texas.pdf

And speaking of Daily Learning Moments, as I happened to have my camera functioning this morning, I'll close this post with another one: 
West Walker Street is not a four-lane street.

Not only were these motorists doubled up where they should not have been, the dark one persistently remained in the white one's blind spot.  Not smart, folks.

I see this a lot, and I really wish the City of League City could have more pavement markers out there, like a shoulder line or bike lane line, to discourage it.  Look at how close that white truck is driving to the curb.  If he had bounced off that thing, it would have thrown him directly into the path of the darker vehicle.  This scenario is just not necessary. 

Missing pet resources

Depending on where and when you got your pet, he or she may have a microchip and you might not even know it or have the corresponding information uploaded to the internet yet.  We got our dog from Galveston County Animal Shelter, and a microchip was already in her.  All I needed to do was take the number from the adoption papers and enter it into the web database administered by the referenced service.  That happened to be Home Again, which is one of the two major American chip companies, the other being AVID (according to Wikipedia). 

A week or two ago a dog named Molly went missing from Centerpointe Section 9.  Molly escaped while construction was ongoing at her owner's residence.  She has reportedly been spotted at various locations around League City, but nobody has gotten hold of her yet.  The fact that Molly's APB was recently blasted to all of the local Home Again subscribers will help her chances of a safe return.

I am reminded of this service yet again as I just got yet another email blast, this time for a chocolate Labrador Retriever named Sunny who is missing from a location near the corner of Meadow Lark Lane and League City Parkway, which puts his point of origin about one thousand feet south of Centerpointe Section 9.  Let's hope he gets home safely.