I was a bit cold overnight, mostly because of my choice in blanket.

I had grabbed one of the fleece throws we use for keeping warm while watching television when there's a chill in the air. It's one of the two with a kind of cowboy theme. One of them is about 6x4 feet, and the others are more like 5x5. It turns out I grabbed one of the 5x5. Almost enough to cover me if I curled up a little. The house was warm enough, but there was enough space around me to let my trapped heat escape, leading to bits of cold throughout the night. That and the heavy winds creaking and popping things outside left me a little disturbed overnight. But it was quiet and really dark, so it was easy to return to sleep when I was awakened.

It turns out it was cold for real. I woke up to the "pooping man" temperature. You know, -4°, which at least looks like someone sitting and thinking "damn, it's cold." The thermostat, now that I've figured it out, read 70°F, as was requested. Both the AC and the floor thermostats, so clearly it was my fault before for just trying to use the AC thermostat.  I've set that also to 70 so it won't try to kick on the AC to keep the temperature at 60. That's a battle I don't need to add to my diagnostics.

I threw some water in the tea kettle and coffee in the French press and waited for the boil. I brewed some coffee and determined that I'm either not as good at French press coffee as I remember, or the coffee I got was not a good choice for the press. Probably the later, based on the silt left in my cup after I drank the first. I also realized that I've been spoiled by our single-cup brewer at home, because the cup and the bit waiting in the press cooled very quickly. At least each cup is piping hot out of the single serve.

Since there's still a chill in the air, I thought to try to fire up the fireplace again. It's been off all night, so any lingering gas or exhaust should have dissipated by now. I hit the fireplace oracle, YouTube, to see what I might have been doing wrong. The operation is pretty simple. There are five basic pieces. Gas comes in through a pipe which has a valve, and that valve is open, as indicated by aligning with the pipe and not crossing it. There's a gas flow knob on the gas control unit. It's got three positions: off, pilot, and on. Each is separated by a stop, so you have to push the knob in slightly to go from one to the other. Then there's an igniter button, which will generate a spark near where the pilot light gas is emitted. There's another dial that controls how much gas will be emitted when the fireplace is on, intuitively marked "lo" to "hi," which should control the size of the flame on the fake logs. Finally, there's a switch to turn on the flame, which when going from "off" to "on" should start spewing flames at the desired setting. Easy, right?

It turns out I may have not had the gas flow knob in the right spot. I also may not have been pressing it long enough or during the ignition sequence just right, and I certainly wasn't holding it after the spark created the pilot flame, heating the unit a little, as all the YouTube videos cautioned. I had been treating it like my gas grill, where you turn it to the "light" setting, hit the igniter, and shortly after turn the knob to the desired flow. This is clearly not exactly that. So I tried to get the knob as close to center in the "pilot" position as possible. I pressed the button, holding it in the whole time and sparked the igniter a few times. After three or four pings, a spark of flame appeared. Too excited, I let go of the button, and the flame immediately faded away. I did it again, certain that no gas had time to build up, and it sparked off right away. I held the button in for the duration of the song that was playing. When I let go, the pilot stayed lit! I turned the amount dial to "lo" and flipped the toggle. In just enough time to doubt, as with the gas grill, the flame wooshed on and tore across the burner inside the fireplace. I let it sit for a moment and turned the dial up. The flame didn't increase appreciably, but it did stay on. I was rewarded with warmth radiating from the fireplace!

I thought to try doing the same on the faux wood stove. It's a little differently cumbersome. Where the controls for the fireplace are all aligned beneath the glass panel (with just enough space to stick my big hands), except the main valve which is behind the rest but still reachable, the controls on the stove are behind it and stacked a little differently. Notably, it's tricky to hold the pilot button in and hit the igniter at the same time. Pressing with one hand causes just a little lift away from the pilot knob. Pressing with both hands requires an odd reach and makes it hard to see in the glass to detect if it worked. I settled on trying two-handed, bonking the igniter a few times with a slower pace than I used on the fireplace, and then checking while still holding the pilot knob in. It took a few tries, but it also ignited! I sat there again for the duration of a song, and turned the dial to "on," and the pilot stayed on. I let it sit for a bit before I flipped the toggle to turn on the gas. It wooshed to life, too! I was so excited. I went in the other room to grab my phone to take a snap to share (as I had done in my excitement with the fireplace), but the flame was out, as was the pilot. The stove is connected also to a thermostat, so I turned that up, thinking maybe it was saying "don't do it" to the fireplace. I tried again, but to no avail. I turned everything back off (not the valve) and went on to my next task.

Several hours passed since I rose. I cleaned up my coffee, recalling another difficulty with French presses, as you have a bunch of soggy grounds to do something with. I just tossed them outside and dribbled what didn't fling with the water into the planting bed beneath the deck, but that's not sustainable. I had to repeat a few times to get the grounds to an agreeable amount to just rinse away.

I headed to town to fetch some smoke detectors. I turned off the fireplace, and watched its glow dissipate a bit. I couldn't tell if the pilot was still on with the glow of the faux logs in the way. I figured I've got the knack to start it again later if needed. I donned my jacket, turned off lights, and set out for town.

I'm glad I waited, because it warmed up all the way to zero degrees! The Jeep groaned through the brittle snow topped with ice. I was again glad I got the deep treaded tires when I had them replaced a bit ago. I made town with no difficulties or obstacles. I've got a path to Menards now, the only mega hardware store in town. Having been in the section so often, I knew right where to go. I want 120V powered detectors with the 10-year battery, so the selection was pretty streamlined. I decided I wanted to put one combo smoke and CO2 on each floor, and I'd like to have it with a voice alarm so it might help tell what's going on if they trigger again. There are two brands they offer that had that combo and also just smoke detectors with the powerline interconnection. The one brand didn't have a combo detector with voice, though, so I leaned the other way. I brought one of the old ones, so I could match the power connecter, and had either of them matched that connector it would have made the decision for me. As it turns out, neither did, so I'll have to remove the old connectors and wire in new ones. Not a big deal, but it'll take more time. I grabbed three combo, voice alarm detectors, and three smoke, noise alarm detectors. I needed seven, so I also grabbed one that isn't interconnected, but does have a 10-year battery. There's one detector that's in a difficult place, 20 feet in the air, just out of reach for a 9-foot tall person (or a shorter one on a ladder) standing at the edge of the loft. I'm going to leave the current (1999) detector in place until I have a partner to at least watch me fall off the ladder...I mean, help hold a latter and hopefully prevent a fall.

I impulse bought a new HDMI cable, too, thinking I might get the mini PC to connect to the monitor after all. I know the HDMI on the device works, because I use it at home, so it must be the cable. I hesitated for a moment, but the cable is only $4. It's either going to be fine and no sweat or it won't work and still no sweat.

Since Walmart is across from Menards, I stopped in there to grab a bowl for soup that I'd brought for dinner or lunch. I was going to bring one from home but forgot. Last time I was here I ate soup right from the pot, which is fine, but the handle was hot, and the pot unnecessarily heavy. As I walked past them, I impulse bought a single-serve coffee maker, too. It's a small one with practically no features beyond cup size and start, but with a small water reservoir, so it isn't one of those pour in what you need kind. I figured it'd also be no sweat since I spent more than on bottled coffee the last time I visited (but didn't this time). I was tempted to stop for lunch, but I figured I should eat my soup since I'd spent a couple bucks on a bowl.

I made it back in good time. I tried to drive over the snow berm at the end of the drive in a different spot, as I have each time I've gone through it, hoping to maybe reduce it enough to not have to move it. I parked off the apron, in what's normally a little gravel area next to it meant for vehicles to be out of the way, in case I got a head of steam to try to clear that with the snowblower. That's unlikely as it had warmed all the way up to 5°F, and the snow is both quite compact and hard with a frozen top that would probably destroy my machine.

I set everything down and took hung up my jacket. I knelt before the fireplace and noticed the pilot was still on. I tripped the lever button, and it wooshed back into action! I turned over to the wood stove on the porch and thought to give it a try. The pilot light came on after just a few clicks of the igniter. I think I've got the mojo now. After the appropriate waiting times, I flipped the gas switch, and it turned on, but very quickly faded as I watched. I turned it on and saved the pilot light. I'm wondering now if there isn't a block in the pipe.

Chatting with the wife on the drive, via voice text, I speculated that the exhaust might be blocked. There could be a critter's nest in there, but more likely there's just a bunch of snow on the roof blocking the exhaust. I've left the pilot on hoping maybe it'll generate enough heat to melt through, if it's a snow block. I've tried turning the gas on a few times to accelerate that, but each time it ignites it also quickly fades. Like in fives of seconds. It's set to "lo," so there must be a block in the exhaust pipe that is incomplete enough that the pilot doesn't emit too much CO2, but the slow feed does. I've gone to check a few times since, and it's still lit, so I'm liking that speculation.

While doing all that, I've also connected my mini PC to the monitor with the new HDMI cable, and it works! I've been enjoying the giant screen while typing this up. One annoyance, that I blame Windows for, not the cable, is that when the cursor disappears as I type, every time I move the mouse again it's on the mini PC's built-in display instead of where I left it. I also washed my new bowl and a pot (dusty) and made soup. I've eaten that while typing this. I've washed those dishes and am ready to move on from lunch.

I also took time to flip through the installation sheet for the smoke detector, and it's exactly like what I've installed in the past. There's a switch to flip to engage the battery. There's a three-wire connector that needs to be twisted and capped to the wires that the old detector is connected to. While I'm doing that, I'll have to replace the mounting bracket, as the new detectors are that kind of different enough than the old ones. I'll probably end up spending the night again as I don't think I can get the six I plan to install done before it gets too late to go home. Plus, I anticipate a bit of a backache from all the overhead work.

Now that I'm done with lunch, have a working fireplace, and have an understanding of how the stove is working, I realize I'm distracting myself from my next chore of installing the detectors. I'm going to let this go for now and go do that.