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Showing posts from 2021

... Shenandoah River

“Almost heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River”   John Denver: Take Me Home, Country Roads Shenandoah National Park is relatively close to NYC. It was May and we already knew that we were moving to Boston at the beginning of June. We only had a couple of weeks to visit this park by car since the distance from Boston would be too ... distant. Sure, there was a lot to pack and do but the mountains simply couldn’t wait. We hit the road early in the morning on May 22nd. The visit of West Virginia was not optional. We made a stop at Harpers Ferry.  We had dinner at a restaurant along the river and of course we made a quick stop at the Appalachian Trail Visitor Center (unfortunately it was closed due to COVID). Harpers Ferry was a beautiful quintessential small town with historical landmarks. At the end of the day we built our tent in Low-Water Bridge Campground . The Shenandoah river was flowing right next to our tent but we were so tired that we did not end up going

Clean Your 3 Way Solenoid Valve

If you own Gaggia Classic Pro espresso machine and the water flows very slowly from the group head, then you might have to clean the 3 way solenoid valve. That's exatly what happened to us recently. The whole cleaning process is well documented here:   I could just stop here, since the video is sufficient to do the cleaning. However, the video does not show a real world situation since their Gaggia model is already clean. Here is what happened in out kitchen. I used these tools and products: The whole repair took me about 1:15 hour.  I opened the case: I located the 3 way solenoid valve and opened it: I used the CLR cleaning product for descaling. I descaled only few parts from the valve to minimze contact with the other parts of the espresso machine. I also used disposable gloves and old plastic bottle for cleaning.  At the end I used old tootbrush for removing residual particles. Before and after the cleaning process: I rinsed all cleaned parts several times and then let them dry

6 States in 2 Days

“Ako na nový rok, tak po celý rok,” is an old Slovak saying that is translated to: How you meet the new year is how you will spend it. After our 2021 New Year’s modest celebrations with friends, Mia and I did not know what to do for the next few days. We woke up on New Year’s Day, January 1st, and started thinking. NYC was cold and we wished to see the sun and experience warm air. Let’s visit Virginia Beach! In fact we wanted to go as south as possible within 2 days. Since the pandemic did not allow free movement across states, we decided to sleep in our car. We packed sleeping bags, few clothes and left the apartment around 6 PM. The weather was cold and rainy. And it was dark. Driving was not that great. We listened to music, Slovak language lessons and entertained ourselves by talking about this crazy trip. We spent our first night in a Walmart Supercenter parking lot in Pocomoke City, Maryland. Surprisingly, sleeping in the car was not that bad at all. We used our warm sleeping bag