Our 'just turned' 8 year old grandson watched my wife and I play a hand of Mexican Trail. After watching one game, he wanted to play. Sure.

He had it nailed after watching us play one game and a short explanation of the rules. Amazing kid.

Then installed a Garmin Dashcam in our new Toyota Highlander Hybrid. PIA running wire behind A pillar.

Then assembled our new Kuat NV 2.0 bike rack for our new Trek Ebikes.

Then edged the front walk and back paver walk.

That is all.
Mike

My low voltage AC wiring was a literal nest of rusty and cracking wire nuts. I cut it all out and re-spliced the wires using solder seal connectors and double walled shrink tubing. Too tight of a fit with shrubs and whatnot to get back in there with a soldering iron to do a real splice, but this will certainly be an improvement over wire nuts.

I also redid the rubber insulation on the copper line while I was back there.

Between yesterday and today I also filled up our trash bin with random stuff (channeling Marie Kondo).

Repainted our natural gas lines to keep ahead of corrosion.

Picked up a roll of rubber spline and ordered a spline too to for a future window screen repair project.

Today I added two bags of salt to my water softener and wiped off the surface rust that was developing on my trigger clamps.

Not much in the grand of scheme of things, but the goal was at least one task a day that negates the general decay of things.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Aeteocles,

Very slowly restoring a Huffy Aerowind bicycle to riding condition.

My wife is raising Gulf Fritillary caterpillers in mesh kits to prevent predation by wasps. A Giant Swallowtail caterpiller is munching on a lemon sappling. Its an ugly cattie but will be a beautiful butterfly.

more weeds pulled

just in time for more rain

which will bring more rain

We're in week 5 of an emergency relocation of our corporate offices. I've been doing the majority of the buildout myself, cleaning, painting, minor repairs, etc.

Today, I hung up a few of my diplomas.

For an office, this always feels like an important step, it's like taking ownership of the space. I always feel better when I've finally gotten to this point in setting up an office space.

Yesterday I spent my allotted 30 minutes before breakfast starting to map out circuits on my circuit breaker using a Klein digital circuit finder. It's a really handy tool. I didn't finish though. I've decided that the wiring in my home is complex enough to warrant a floorplan drawing, numbered outlets, and a corresponding breaker chart. For example, I've got one bank of outlets and one overhead light in the garage that is on a GFCI circuit shared by 7 of the 10 bathroom outlets (but not the bathroom lights). Pause on this project until I can make a floorplan drawing and label the outlets, fixtures, and switches.

This morning I swapped out the drain valve on my compressor. Needed to find a long and thin torx driver to get the manifold cover off to get at the rubber hoses I want to replace.

Replaced a motor coupler on Mom's clothes washer that would not spin out.
I had been driving her to a laundromat for the past few weeks because it's nice to do X loads all in under an hour.

Got my act together and Hit the net for diagnosis, read the wrong one and wasted half a day. Watched a vid on youtube, Got the correct diagnosis and then watched a better one on how to get it done.

Got it done today! I now know intimate details about the early Kenmore 70 series 110.
Just enough to to be dangerous.
$27.55, some sweat, no blood.

I am in the process of turning downed oak trees from Monday's TS Fred into fire wood/smoking wood.

Today I completely emptied out my "electrical" tool bag and threw out all of the random bits of wire, mismatched wire nuts that came with fixtures, and leftover switches and wall plates that had accumulated at the bottom. Will need to order a little plastic organizer for all the half used bags of connectors.

I stopped by Home Depot yesterday to pick up new breaker switches for another project, and picked up a few Klein tools to replace the majority of the crappy imported stuff I had in this kit.

I engaged in some major ballistic therapy.

Dug out 2 of my old generators, dumped the old gas, filled them back up and tested. One was fine, the bigger one wouldn't start, so I had it serviced for $60 it runs like new. Now time to sell them as I have too many. Got to say Honda's are the cats ass!!!

I made some collapsible saw horses for chores around Casa deMike. Took me all day trying to figure out miters and bevel…and I had to measure things a bunch because of my stroke…then I figured out I could just write on the board….I’m an idiot….but now I have some top of the line pressure treated saw horses.

I'm not sure if this is a good fit with Negentropy, but here it is anyway. I think this might help some members avoid waste and stuff going to the landfill and save a few bucks.

In my efforts lately to clean and organize my garage and workshop, I found 5 bottles of Titebond glue. This is a very common and very popular wood glue for all kinds of projects and is sold just about everywhere.

One had changed colors to orange, one was half empty, and the other 3 were unopened and unused but a visual inspection showed that the glue had separated, there was a layer at the top that was different from the rest of the glue.

I purchased all 5 plastic bottles of Titebond glue in late 2017 and early 2018.

I just hate sending more stuff to the landfill if I can avoid it, so I decided to call Titebond's customer service number on the back of the plastic bottles of glue. Their CSR guy asked me a few questions then told me that when their glue turns Orange, it's no longer good, get rid of it. If it smells like Vinegar, it's no good, get rid of it. Ok, so I tossed 2 bottles into the recycle box to take to our local government's recycle center where it is taken care of properly and does not go to a landfill.

He said most of their glues have a 2 year shelf life but can last longer. He said, in fact, to store their Titebond glues in the refrigerator. Cool, I have a garage refrigerator full of water and gatorade. He said it could last as long as 10 years under best storage conditions.

He said that 3 bottles that visually showed a separated layer on top could possibly be saved, and to take the lid off, find a small stick or dowel, and try to stir and remix the glue. It may remix, it may not, and if not it gets tossed in the recycle bin too.

So forgive my long-ish about glue. Glue is cheap and plentiful. I'm just trying to reduce my stuff going to the landfill.

Thanks for your time and to the OP for this thread topic.
.

Half used bottles of glue (and car wax) makes me want to create an inventory, down to the number of bolts and washers, that can be pulled up and consulted while I'm at the hardware store. I always buy things, "just in case, so I don't have to make a second trip back out to the hardware store."

I'm also being better about what stuff I throw out. I commandeered an unused medical sharps container so I can toss old utility blades and screws.

Yesterday, I started in on changing out the rubber hoses on my little compressor. Got to the point when I started putting it back together to realize that I had ordered hose clamps that were one size too big. Oops. Reordered the hose clamps.

Yesterday I also ordered a clamp meter and a line splitter for my AC troubleshooting project.

Today I trimmed my hedges down to get rid of the flowers in advance of my mosquito spraying project tomorrow (in addition to my regular weekly yard maintenance). Eliminating the flowers attracts fewer bees. Trying to give those fellas a fighting chance against the insecticide cocktail I'm going to be spraying.

Yesterday I finished my compressor maintenance project and put that away.

I also listed my old compressor for sale locally on Facebook and it was gone an hour later. One fewer item of clutter (plus a bag of related accessories) so that's a success.

I sprayed the front and back yards for mosquitos, as inspired by KDR's post on page two. Going to wait a few days before assessing success.

Today, I've got to tidy up my gear room/office in advance of the appraiser arriving. We're doing a refi to lock in a better rate from when we bought the house last year.

Another de-cluttering day here.

The benefits of being a pack rat (I don't often have to leave my garage to find the fastener, piece of metal/lumber or electrical doodad that I need) are off set by the inherent clutter of rarely throwing anything away.

Today being cloudy/damp/sprinkling and being at a standstill on the shop build, I dumped the contents of a half dozen 2 foot by 4 foot shelves of mechanical bits on the garage floor, plus 3 BIG drawers of electrical stuff and went through it all.

Didn't throw away a heck of a lot - about 2/3 of a 33 gallon trash can - but I did get it all sorted and organized so I don't have to rummage through 3 or 4 different places looking for what I want.

I've got 4 more shelves I need to do tomorrow - plumbing and masonry and more mechanical bits.

If you may recall, some months back I was bitching and moaning about my father-in-law refusing to use iCloud. Specifically, I was bitching and moaning about how if the phone gets lost and/or breaks, he'd lose a bunch of important data. His retort, "I use iTunes to backup my phone."

So, of course, his phone died yesterday. Screen completely blank for no apparent reason. Apple store sells him a new iPhone 12 Pro Max or whatever for way too much money, and they tell him to go home and use iTunes to pull the data off the old phone.

Of course, he hasn't backed up to iTunes for months. Probably not since I talked to him about getting iCloud. He needs some stuff off of the phone, and is mildly panicked that he can't get the phone to connect to iTunes on his laptop. I immediately know the reason that he can't access his phone is because it is locked and he needs to enter his password, but because he can't see any of that happening on screen, he's convinced the phone is dead.

I order a new phone screen anyway from Amazon for $60 bucks, 1 day shipping. FIL and MIL think the phone is dead and that I'm just wasting my money. I'm thinking the phone is still worth $300-400 bucks with a replacement screen, and he's probably got a ton of my daughters pictures on there that he won't admit to losing. Worth $60 to give it a shot.

My project for today was swapping the screen. After fucking around with impossibly small tri-point screws for an hour and half, I get the screen swapped. Phone powers on, unlocks, and I immediately instruct father in law to pull what he needs off of the phone and buy a g-damn iCloud subscription. Okay, maybe not so rudely. But I did use this situation as a teaching moment.

He'll probably just return his new phone and keep using the old phone and won't touch iCloud. But at least I tried.

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
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.

what,

no case puller or handful of extra decap pins?


jeez


I finished the yard, (too wet to cut all of it, finally dried out a bit) and then sealed my driveway yesterday,