This past Monday at about 2am (up late as usual), I ordered about $150 of parts across 24 different items (screws, bolts, nuts, drill bits, taps, etc.) from McMaster-Carr.  I selected "Ground" shipping instead of "Next Day Air" or pick-up. As usual with McMaster-Carr, I didn't know the actual shipping cost I'd be charged.  That usually makes me hesitant, and on most websites stops me from getting through the checkout process at all, but I'd ordered them from them in the past and had seen them charge roughly the actual rates for UPS Ground.

Monday at 10:30am, my order was tagged as shipped on their website.

And after dealing with processing a near-record volume of orders to ship ourselves, literally as we were walking out from the NerdKits office to hop in the car and go out for a late lunch around 3pm, there was a delivery truck in the driveway with my parts!

Same-day delivery from their LA warehouse to San Diego, even when I selected "Ground".  I probably would have been waiting longer if I had selected "Next Day Air"!

And the shipping charge?  Less than $7, for ~8 lbs and a fairly large box, same day delivery.  It would have cost me much more than that in gas just to drive to their warehouse.

That's an incredible customer experience.  It makes me much more likely to order from them in the future -- even though I will try not to expect same-day delivery again.

1. Buy window air conditioner unit and milling machine.

2. Outfit milling machine with z-axis DRO.

3. Design bottom-side brackets from 1.500" x 0.375" aluminum bar stock to take the weight of the A/C and also the torque generated by the weight hanging out the window, and to fit around and transfer that weight and torque to the window frame/sill.  Make two on the milling machine.

4. Use 1.5"x1.5"x0.125" aluminum right-angle stock to form a top crossbar to handle the torque that's now trying to pull the air conditioner out of the window, as to spread that force to the verticals of the window frame.  Screw into the horizontal crossbar of the air conditioner with two #6-32 screws. (Caution: make sure your window frame verticals can handle this force.  Mine could without any issue, but yours might not!)

5. Use a piece of filler material (cardboard, plywood, acrylic, whatever) to fill in the space above the A/C unit.  Hold it in with two small right-angle brackets, one of which is attached to the top crossbar (shown above), and the other is screwed into the top of the window frame.

6. Enjoy!

It's November 17th, and it's finally time to remove my window A/C (but still sunny and a high of 71 today here in San Diego), so I was finally able to grab these photos.

Lunch at "Bar-B-Que House" Ocean Beach (yelp link).

View from the pier at Ocean Beach, San Diego:

Tried the water, but it was a bit too cold for swimming.  Still a few surfers in wetsuits and little kids who don't care about the cold.

24-hour water temperatures:

1-year water temperatures:
This data is much noisier than I expected, but it appears that only July through September have >=70 degree ocean water temperatures.

View of Coronado and San Diego from Cabrillo National Monument:

Tidepools along the Pacific at Point Loma:

This is probably the 2nd time we've had rain in 4 months. Amazing that they can keep plants alive here, but I guess that's why there's a water shortage.