The world around us is in a constant gradual decline into disorder or entropy. Things wear out, things break down, things fall out of place. What did you do today to add a little "negentropy" into your life (adding back a little bit of order, function, or structure) however small of trivial?

With the newish baby and a full work schedule, I don't have lazy weekends to tool about the house working on projects anymore. Going to carve out a few minutes a day to do one small task out of habit, to see if I can keep ahead of "life".

Today, I lubricated all my exterior locks and latches--12 total. Took 20 minutes and did it before breakfast.

I used WD-40 Specialst Dry Lube with PTFE and really like it. Dries clear in seconds. I don't know how much PTFE is in there, since PTFE is white...but this stuff is silky smooth on my window tracks.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
The world around us is in a constant gradual decline into disorder or entropy. Things wear out, things break down, things fall out of place. What did you do today to add a little "negentropy" into your life (adding back a little bit of order, function, or structure) however small of trivial?

I had fuel leftover from last mowing season (with ethanol in it) that I finally added to my car. I had to go buy a funnel to make this happen.
I have found and only use ethanol-free fuel from here on out in my mower and it works so much better!

quote:

Originally posted by Budrow:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
The world around us is in a constant gradual decline into disorder or entropy. Things wear out, things break down, things fall out of place. What did you do today to add a little "negentropy" into your life (adding back a little bit of order, function, or structure) however small of trivial?

I had fuel leftover from last mowing season (with ethanol in it) that I finally added to my car. I had to go buy a funnel to make this happen.
I have found and only use ethanol-free fuel from here on out in my mower and it works so much better!

Good reminder. I've got 8ish gallons approaching the 6 month mark that needs to be cycled out with fresh. I'll attempt that tomorrow AM.

I also keep my locks, latches, and hinges lubricated with this stuff:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Prote...ng-Lubricant/3456064

Similar to your product, it does a good job! I also use it on my garage door as it doesn't attract dirt and dust.

Also, I finally put up pegboard in my shed so everything can have a place. I also picked this up for the long handled tools:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081...d3-90f9-4a0de505388e

It saves me time and hassle when things have a home!

I've been cleaning my garage and now going through every single box and sack, etc, in there, and reorganizing.

I've found tons of missing tools, including a vintage LeatherMan folder, that I thought was lost forever. Fortunately it was in a box of my beekeeping tools.

I've a lot of heavy duty metal shelving that things are going on so that I can find things now when I'm looking for it.

It might be a little thing, but I've got about a million screws nuts bolts washers rivets and misc things of that nature, including a gazallion nails. They are now all on one shelf, in smaller boxes and containers by type. Now I probably have what I need, when I need it, and thus avoid a trip to the hardware store.

I found about 25 extension cords and those multiplier things, one plugs in to power and then you have 3 spots to plug in. They're now in one box.

My workbench is cleaned off, straightened up, etc and is now a pleasure to sit at and do whatever.

Wires, glues, greases and lube items, gloves, spray cans of all kinds of lubricants and cleaners, sandpapers, are now all together by type and on shelves.

This may sound silly, but I found 11 ordinary claw hammers. When I couldn't find one, I bought another.

I have a good amount of pegboard up so now many many things are organized hanging up. You wouldn't believe how many brand new paint brushes I found.

I have 3 big assed tool boxes, all the lost and now found tools are sitting there, ready to be wiped down, oiled, waxed, etc as needed. I still need to reorganize all the tools and each drawer.

If someone wants to borrow something, I've probably got spares to loan them, and if they do come back, fine. If they don't come back, well then I learned something new about that person.


Bottom line, money is saved, time, travel and gas and wear and tear is saved, and now the sheer convenience factor makes it easier and fun.

Good topic, thanks for posting it.
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Invited my youngest monkey out for Thai this evening.

Never stop tending the vine.

I finally had a doctor's appointment to establish PCP in my new hometown. I had been putting that off for several months. Got my Nevada Driver's License and tag last week. I had dreaded going to the NDMV.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
I've been cleaning my garage and now going through every single box and sack, etc, in there, and reorganizing.

<snip>

I have 3 big assed tool boxes, all the lost and now found tools are sitting there, ready to be wiped down, oiled, waxed, etc as needed. I still need to reorganize all the tools and each drawer.

<snip>

Bottom line, money is saved, time, travel and gas and wear and tear is saved, and now the sheer convenience factor makes it easier and fun.


.

I am borderline anal about this, mostly because I HATE digging around looking for something I know I have...somewhere...

Every time I buy a new tool, I find/build/organize a space for it to live. The new shop (which is coming along slowly) meant a new (to me) toolbox and some new (or new to me) tools as another thing I hate is being on one end of the place and having the tool I need be on the other end.

I hope to get power hooked up this week and begin The Big Move. I've pre-planned most of it, but what looks good on paper doesn't always work out IRL. Fortunately, I'm just disturbed enough that I actually enjoy sorting and organizing and setting up a new space.

mowed my grass.

Called County about a valuation problem on some property we own. Not sure if that will end up being a positive or negative.

Sorting through an order from Midway USA.

a few more things are going to happen later today/tonight since the Mariners have the night off

odd, this previously mentioned lock business...I've been touching up a few minor issues with my own about the estate...

I reloaded 300 rounds of 9mm and wet tumbled another few hundred cases today.

I guess that offsets the other day when I broke a decapping pin and got a case stuck in a different die, totally shutting down my .223 reloading plans for the weekend.

I dumped foaming drain cleaner down every drain in my house today as my assault on the GD drain flies continues.

I pruned my cherry tomatoes to get them ready to come out of their August lull and have a 2nd tomato growing season. They had overgrown their 6.5' tall trellis and had vines almost back down to the ground.

May, June, and July combined for 28" of rain versus the average 15" of rain. Fungus and mosquitos benefited greatly. I found dollar spot in my front yard last week and treated with everything I had on hand. Over the weekend picked up more fungicide and pretreated the backyard.

Since we had a few posts on lock lubrication. A past thread some of the forum's locksmiths recommmended Triflow as a lock lubricant so that's what I bought and put on my house, motorcycle, and truck locks every November.

My yard got hammered by a serious weather cell a week ago that damaged 12 trees and spread debris all over. I’ve been pulling weeds that have been sprouting up and waged chemical warfare on 4 ant colonies.

Life is good. Sorta.

Hmm...timely thread. These past several weeks I have decided to organize not only my reloading area and basement shop but my barn and detached garage as well.

It's downright embarrassing how many duplicates (and more) of things I have found. I found I have three glue guns...all the same size. I have four soldering guns. I have two sets (both RCBS) of '06 dies. Two bullet pullers. Nine hammers. I just replaced the top link on my tractor and found a brand new one hanging up behind some hay in the barn. WTF!!!

I will not rest until every square inch of my tool storage areas have been searched and organized.

Then I need to get some of that lubricant and get busy on my locks.

I still had quite a bit of light after dinner so I took the shop vac up onto our unused balconies and vacuumed out a metric shit ton of spider webs from under the eaves and around the lights.

Our 6 yo granddaughter is staying with us for a few days. My wife wanted to ride bikes with her. I took our son’s bike down from its hanger, aired up the tires, oiled the chain and the derailleurs. I took it out for a ride myself, rode and changed gears great.

OKCGene--I'm slowly, intermittently going through this process in the garage.
I think at the end I will need to say "These are the tools/fasteners/hardware I need, the rest get tossed."
These days it's so easy to find and order online pretty much any hardware or tool you need; the real cost of all the storage space for things you "might need someday"; and the emotional cost of having to keep track in your head (or otherwise) of all the old crap you've been hanging on to are far, far in excess of the cost of ordering a replacement when you actually do need it.
Times have changed: if you don't keep paper files any more (as I don't), don't keep a set of encyclopedias, and are used to seeking and finding pretty much any item you need online--downsize the hoard!

I checked tire pressure on everything.
Truck, both tractors, all three motorcycles, the 4 wheeler, the zero turn, and even the hand truck/dolly.