Good morning!!!!

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 75F @ 8:00AM. Sunny. High 101F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.

Making one's own funeral arrangements has gotta be tough, Ron, but it's something we should all give some thought to. And all the other end of life paperwork, too, wills, powers of attorney, medical directives. Hope it brings you peace of mind knowing it's one less thing for your children to worry about.

That's a LOT of saw work, Farmer! I see a fair number of bonfires in your future. Out here we'd have to clear a mountain of paperwork before the first tree fell, involving several levels of "experts". What, if any, hurdles did your helpful local gummint put in your way?

Years ago I purchased a 14" Delta bandsaw, Drew, and was able to find the Owner's Manual on line. I used it to completely disassemble it, replace all the bearings, and get it working again. Sold it when I found a Powermatic that would also cut metal. The point here being if you do a google search using the make and model number, chances are very good you'll find a step-by-step procedure for changing that belt.

When I went to drain the oil from the leaky fork tube yesterday, nothing came out when I unscrewed the drain plug. So I unscrewed the fill plug, and got about 500cc of fluid. By now I've learned to put something under the drain to catch what comes out, even though you don't think anything will. Got a refresher course in that lesson last week when I pulled the drain plug on the VW's front diff, which I'd disassembled previously and should have been empty, and got a couple of cups of stinky gear oil on me and the driveway. Strangely, most of it evaporated over the next couple of hours, and I'm thinking it was a synthetic of some sort.

Anyway, with the fork empty, I polished the seating area for the drain plug and found a little scratch, maybe big enough to cause the leak. I also hosed everything off with solvent and a brush several times, then blew it dry with compressed air. Squirted wicking Locktite around the edges of the plug that is supposed to seal the slider, then hooked a vacuum cleaner up to the fill plug and let it suck for about five minutes in hopes the Loctite got pulled into any openings. Then installed the drain plug with a healthy smear of RTV and a new crush washer. It sat like that overnight, so I'm hoping the oil will stay inside when I put it back in today.

Also replaced the front brake master cylinder and for the first time have a nice firm lever that well out from the handlebar. Looking down inside the reservoir of the old one I saw a bunch of wrinkled paint that had probably found its way down inside and was causing problems with the seal. I wasn't careful enough with the spray gun when I refinished that MC, so that one's my fault.:mur:

Ran into the **** when I dropped by the bike shop yesterday, a big Arnold Schwarzenegger lookin' guy from Germany with strong white supremacist opinions, which he freely shares. I have fun baiting him, he's so easy to get a rise out of. And the looks on the faces around him: Hilarious because no one takes him seriously.:laughing: He was there washing a bike he was putting on consignment at the shop. This year's model of BMW's biggest dual sport. Apparently it went into a tank slapper at over 150MPH loaded to the gills with all his camping gear, and he doesn't feel safe on it anymore.:confused2::laughing:

TGIF gang!:drink:

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Wildfire season is in full swing here in Northern California, with several call outs a day. Until yesterday, all of them have been quickly extinguished. But this one northeast of Redding had all the signs of mushrooming into another disaster, and it would have but for the efforts of hundreds of people:


Les Baugh is with Steve Morgan and 4 others.

#MountainFire
We all thought the same thing, 滴ere we go again. Winds and steep terrain rapidly pushed the spread from 100 to 600 acres. But stubborn firefighters opened up a can of 前h-no-we-don稚! and literally waged war against the Mountain Fire. Response was immediate and downright impressive. They threw everything at it including the 遡itchen-sink - 50 engine companies, 14 water tenders, 23 fire crews, 4 helicopters, 19 overhead personnel, 6 bulldozers, 10 air tankers (amazing precision drops from aircraft) - 580 total personnel, wow! By nightfall our amazing firefighters had surrounded the beast at 600 acres with 20% containment. At sunrise, the heavy plume of smoke is gone. Looks like lines are holding with 40% containment. The beast is tamed. Heartbroken for homes lost and families displaced. Extremely grateful for the tremendous response from multiple coordinating agencies that pushed hard to prevent large-scale loss and protect so many other homes. Deep appreciation to every firefighter and responding agency. Can稚 thank you enough! Thanks as well to County Fire/CalFire Chief Bret Gouvea for your leadership. We are a grateful community. Please join me extending thanks to every first responder!
#GodBlessOurFirefighters
#GratefulCommunity

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Phase1 of BEFCON1 complete. Thanks to all my supporters during this ordeal. It's not over, but definitely on the uphill side of things.

 

[txdon]

a red firetruck drove by....

That was it, you don't actually think we would give away the RIGHT color of the firetruck on an open internet forum.

That was the helicopter also (It may have been slightly smaller but again a deflection tactic.)


Hope you are settling into your home and getting comfortable.

 

[sodamo]

73°F and .04 inches rain.
Hopefully BEF has successfully flown the coop by now and getting settled back home

Got a few more hours brushhogging yesterday, hope more today. Was making progress against the albezia until the Poulan quit. Will have to check that out.

Still more on right side


Safe Trip to RV hunting, Drew.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[farmer2009]

Rng. I haven’t heard a peep from anyone. I also didn’t ask. I want to see them stand those trees back up. It has turned into 7 brush piles. One of which was already here and was just added to. The one I posted pictures of last week is already gone. It was lit on Wednesday and the 2 stumps that were left went out Saturday night. I did looses 3 additional trees to the heat as the wind shifted after the burn started. We have 2 state forestry no burn seasons here. No burning within 150 feet of a wood line. October 15-December 15 and February 15-April 15. Open field burning allowed year around unless county burn ban in effect. I’ll wait till winter to burn the others as they are piled right next to the woods. Catch a snow and maybe the heat won’t kill the dormant trees.

Hopefully your motorcycle repair goes well.

 

[Bird]

Making one's own funeral arrangements has gotta be tough, Ron, but it's something we should all give some thought to. And all the other end of life paperwork, too, wills, powers of attorney, medical directives. Hope it brings you peace of mind knowing it's one less thing for your children to worry about.

Yep, I reckon I've posted it before, but we've done all that. Everything is planned and paid for. Our daughters don't need to spend a dime when we die, although, knowing them, I've no doubt they'll spend some money on flowers.:laughing:

 

[PJSprog]

69°F and cloudy this morning, going up to 80° today.

Been rather busy at work this morning being an adult babysitter. Did I miss the big Operation: BEFCON?

 

[Bird]

79 this morning going for a high of 96 with a 40% chance of rain. So I got started mowing the yard shortly after 5 a.m., got it mowed, edged, and trimmed, then decided to knock down tall grass on the other side of the fence with the string trimmer. Young couple with 3 small kids and school just started. He works in construction and she's a nurse; nice folks and he usually keeps the yard mowed, but for reasons unknown it was tall grass in dire need of mowing. I hadn't intended to mow it, but once I got started with the string trimmer, I got to wondering how well my EGO battery powered mower would do in grass that tall and thick, so I kept going. When I finished mowing my yard, I put the big battery on the charger and I was surprised that the mower did as well as it did, although it did run down the battery and I had to take a break and wait on the battery to charge again. I had bagged my clippings from our yard, but I mulched next door. I got it all done, then got a shower. But I'm gettin' too old and too fat for such work. I was worn out. Sure would like to see some rain now.

 

[daugen]

David, your pics of the Pacific are just marvelous. Glad you are up high. Long time before global warming gets you...

Drew. Good luck at the show. Take some eye candy pictures for us.
:drink:

bought the first one I looked at. No joke. It was the show special, I was one of the first people in the door, looked at it, then looked at four other company's variations, and came back to this one. Seriously good deal. They had two, expected second one to sell by lunch. Plus, the nicest part...they locked the door when I left, marked it sold, and said it would be taken out that night back to dealership. yeah.

Got everything I wanted for under budget, except for darker woodwork. But yes to autoleveling, yes to MobilEye collision warning, twin reclining seats in salon, big kitchen and big bathroom with a nice grey fake tile in the shower.
Now I did pay a grand to have them coat the whole thing in a plastic finish so I don't have to wax for three or four years, though they claim five. I won't have it that long anyway probably but who knows. They quoted 1600 for this duratain (sp?) finish and I said no thank you, I just want a carnauba wax job.
Well since I asked for no other deals, they did the plastic finish for 1000 and threw in a free installed TPMS system on the rig. It comes with Garmin nav in the dash, but I will also run a second gps with rv software built in, the software that alerts for low bridges, truck stops, etc.
bottom line was 99,999 down from 141,000. Shows how much markup is in this stuff....
So I think I did ok, it was close enough to perfect and no deal killers, even if the dark wood interior takes 5k off the resale value. You really want light colors to make a very small space larger, but I accomplished that by getting a full wall slide.

The Canadian one I really liked was just too expensive, and in very hot demand. They were discounting only $10k off a $156K unit.
Plus Dynamax is an established respected company of which this rv is the least expensive thing they make. Most of their RV's are in the 200-700K range, the ones with the big Freightliner hoods out front, not engine in rear like most diesel pushers. I'm happy to buy their bargain...

sorry I couldn't get pics of fancy big motorhomes, everything so packed in it was hard to get full pics of anything.