Good morning!!!!

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning! 48F @ 7:15AM. Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High 58F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.

Pretty nice day yesterday, blue skies with some clouds to improve the view. Not enough of them to hide the sunset, but a cold wind kept me inside instead of watching. Did manage to dig out the push mower and get it going, finding the primer bulb leaks air and doesn't do much, and the float in the carb sticking as well. It was also low on oil, so a little tinkering was necessary to get the ol' girl roaring again. But apparently a little too much oil got put in, leading to big clouds of smoke and unhappy motor noises when the side slope got too steep. That fouled the spark plug, which took some dressing to fix, and all in all an hour of mowing turned into three.

Also monkeyed with the water softener, finding the water level once again too high in the brine tank, which shuts the brine off disabling the resin recharge. Took the valve head apart but found no blockages, so ran the brine rinse cycle a few times to get the brine level down, and will call the softener man today to see what he says. Last time they worked on it, it was "one more time and we'll have to put in a larger system", and I wonder what that'll cost.

Found the pan under the BBQ burners rusted through in several spots, surprising since the thing was supposed to be all stainless steel. Guess it wasn't such a good deal after all. Blue Flame brand in case anybody's listening. Maybe it's time to step up to a Weber?

Still worked well enough to finish off the baby backs (they were delicious!) but I'm a little uneasy about grease dripping on the propane bottle...:shocked:

Dab, once you get the hang of retirement you'll wonder how you ever had time to work. Eric has it right, just look around and find what you're interested in yet never had time to pursue. That new place might need some work, or perhaps you've always wanted a VW van (that'll keep you busy for sure:laughing. Join a gun club and spend some time at recreational shooting for a change. David's having fun with a new drone, several here enjoy motor homing, Drew keeps threatening to buy a yacht, but I don't think we'd ever hear from again if he did as he'd be too busy working and playing on it to write. The world is your oyster, man, go out and take a big bite of it!:thumbsup:

 

[PJSprog]

64°F and partly cloudy this morning, going up to 72° today with a chance for some rain.

Beautiful weekend here. Spent much of the afternoon Saturday burning the weeds and grass around the lake. Got my first do-rag tan of the year. :laughing: Finished the closet installs Sunday morning by installing a new shelf in The Wife's sewing room closet, and installing bypass doors on the master bedroom and sewing room closets. She picked up a couple of Winter King Hawthorn trees at a local nursery Saturday, so her and her boy planted them Sunday along the bank of the lake near the dock.

Went to a benefit concert last night to aid a local photographer who's fallen on hard times. His business truck burned up a few months ago, and he was going to have to sell off his camera equipment to pay his bills and get new work gear (he's a flood clean-up contractor as a day job). Many of the local bands who've benefited from his outstanding skills put together an all-day show to help him raise the needed funds. It was nice to see such an outpouring of support.
(He took the photo in my avatar.)

Speaking of day jobs, my hours shifted one hour earlier starting this week. Need to start actually getting up when the alarm goes off at 05:00 now.

 

[sodamo]

65°F and no rain
Wife off to her ObGYN appointment, I'm off to PO then back to reconfiguring my network.
Been an interesting couple of days with the new internet. Seems those great speed numbers reported by Ookla speed test were a fluke. Of course I didn't realize until after I had reconfigured my internals, relying on those results. Testing with the FCC speed app showed my results in the 120-130kbps range rather than 20+Mbps. Basically unusable Definitely unacceptable. I had to revert my internals to previous configuration.
The 4GAS called yesterday in response to my email. Changed some settings but no improvement. Decided we would have to try another provider other than TMobile and they were to send out a Verizon sim this morning. The Verizon Tower is almost in site, barely half a mile up slope.
Not pleased with the possibility of waiting 3 or 4 days to test another unknown. Our iPhones are on AT&T and quite honestly our service sux, we have to rely on an Mcell for decent service. Fortunately, I had not turned off the iPhone 6 we gave my Wife's mother after she passed being as it's only $15/mon and convenient backup. So I take hat iPhone up on the roof and stand next to my newly installed Yagi antennas. Get a 2 bar LTE signal. Run several speed tests pointing the phone in various directions, all with very decent results, meaning all better than my current provider and in same range as the erroneous TMobile test. More importantly results were consistent across 3 different apps!!!!! Emboldened, I even accessed the web.
Armed by my joyous success I am now challenged how to get this signal into my MOFI router. No luck reading the manual even though it hints it should be doable via tethering. The iPhone uses a nano sim, the MOFI a full size. I didn't know there was such a thing as an adapter. I did know it was possible to cut a larger one to smaller and still work. Basically the little gold metal part is the same for all, just surrounded by different size plastic. An adapter just has a hole to place the smaller in the hole of a larger frame. I found instructions and made one, inserted into the MOFI and rebooted. SUCCESS. Did a number of speed tests and real world connections, even You Tube.
Now to follow up with 4GAS to get a proper AT&T sim sent. Have to go back on roof as my Yagis are 80-90° off from the AT&T antenna. But not until wife gets home. Will be interesting to see how it all works out, but pleased at this point.

Be safe
Have a good day

 

[sodamo]

David in Connecticut/DABSGT, Eric had it right, more projects. Don't you need a pond somewhere?...or a food plot for critters, or...
David in Virginia, MFW, waved to you again a week ago at your exit on 95. Glad you are doing well.
David in Hawaii, may all your days be sunny. And if like David in CT you ever get bored, I saw this on a boat MLS and thought of you, what a hoot, how would you like
to drive this thing in retirement? On sale likely near Oahu.

other than watering some trees, a doc visit, then just packing the rv today and going out to dinner tonight.
49 going to a warm 78 today

Yep, Waikiki in background. A bit far for me LOL

 

[sodamo]

Worked too hard this past weekend. I finished framing the front door area (see pic). Too much climbing up and down the ladder for this old body. My knees are killing me.

View attachment 505265

I also planted a couple pecan trees. Hopefully some day some ones will enjoy their nuts.

Have a great day everybody.

Just your knees????? I was up and down so many times last week my whole body needed a break LOL

So are you extending that door?

 

[CajunRider]

Just your knees????? I was up and down so many times last week my whole body needed a break LOL

So are you extending that door?

Yup. Moving the door out 2 feet. Architect had it recessed way too far in, causing all sorts of problems downstairs. I was originally quoted 6K for the job, then it was upped to 10K due to additional side wall and wiring. I decided to do it my self. It'll cost me 1K for material and a couple weekends, I hope.

BTW, my whole body ached but my left knee that I injured at the Boston marathon is killing me.

 

[txdon]

Still worked well enough to finish off the baby backs (they were delicious!) but I'm a little uneasy about grease dripping on the propane bottle...:shocked:

We do worry about the same things. Your grease mess only takes about 70 cents of cleaner mine takes a $70,000.00 stent.

The rain is suppose to come in an hour the air is still and muggy 79˚. I had a ton of projects and travel lined up that I dreamed about doing the last 10 years I worked. I doubt I have 1/4 of them done, new ones keep popping up. I can't manage being retired an bored, can someone explain?

 

[ronjhall]

Also monkeyed with the water softener, finding the water level once again too high in the brine tank, which shuts the brine off disabling the resin recharge. Took the valve head apart but found no blockages, so ran the brine rinse cycle a few times to get the brine level down, and will call the softener man today to see what he says. Last time they worked on it, it was "one more time and we'll have to put in a larger system", and I wonder what that'll cost.

Over 25 years ago I replaced the softener in our place with a 2 brine tanks system. It has been trouble free for all those years. What I like about it is that it uses softened water to regenerate. Plus all the parts in valves are stainless steel. Only plastic parts are in timer. It recharges when number of gallons are reached. It is set a 800 gallons. It does it now, not at 2 am. I have no idea what that would cost today. But back then it was $1200.

 

[daugen]

got all my trees watered, off to sit on a comfortable deck chair at a friend's with a glass of wine in my hand
and watch the Pamlico River go by. About 76 out. Except for the pollen, just perfect.
The pollen meter is in the red for three or four trees right now.

 

[toppop52]

77 earlier, 76 now, a breeze and it feels great! I just installed the mount for my 25' flagpole, I learned 2 things, can't trust your eye unless it's looking at the level, and my knees are way older than I thought!