Good Morning!!!! 51F @ 5:15AM. A mix of clouds and sun. High 74F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
Lonesome George looks to be a hansom bird, Ron. But does he have only one leg?:confused2:
Was that yaupon growing under the oak you've been trimming, Rick?
Gave up on HP products years ago after having to call their support staff each and every time an all-in-one device needed a firmware upgrade. They just didn't seem to care that their hardware didn't play well with Apple computers. Hours wasted each time, finally threw it in the garbage and got a Canon. Just two cartridges, one color, one black. Just replaced 'em yesterday, first time in I can't remember when.
I thought the white flecks in the photo were snowflakes?:confused2:
How did your new thumb work for placing those rocks, Ted? Did you paint your chair while you were doing Harold's sun shade?
Never knew Find My had a bluetooth aspect, David. Thanks for the info. Could you just keep the phone in your pocket? But I wouldn't recommend doing so if you're mixing concrete...
No problems with TBN here, Eric, just the same old slow satellite connection. Which is surprising, because the data cap was exceeded several days ago, and it was supposed to slow down. But it's just as pokey as it's always been. The provider, HughesNet, has advised their customers to expect poor performance due to increased demand, they just don't have the capacity to handle all the people streaming Netflix and whatever. They didn't have it before the pandemic, either.
ullinghair:
Last time I used the concrete mixer, once in a while the drive gear would slip on the ring gear, a problem I thought I'd fixed when I replaced the bronze bushings that support the barrel. Yesterday it started happening about every third revolution, after adding the second bag of concrete. Made an awful noise, and shook the engine so bad it started cutting out. Didn't have much luck with the slump cone, either, as the first one, mixed to the directions on the bag, had no slump at all! Just stood there like a perfect sand castle casting. The nice thing is I was able to get most of it back into the mixer in one shovel load. Added a bit more water, and got 2" of slump. Added a bit more, like two cups, and got soup. So poured that batch into the forms, then made another couple batches with the water level at slump batch 2, and just kept going. But got to the half way point and the engine just wouldn't stay running, so decided to call it quits for the day. It was 3:30 and getting warm anyway, and I hadn't had any lunch yet. Downloaded the user manual for the HF Predator engine on the mixer, and learned it has a low oil cutout switch. I hadn't checked the oil since finding it full of water, so gave that a try. Found the dipstick covered with it when I took it out, but when I cleaned it off and put it back in, it came back dry. So it was a little low, and adding more seems to have made a difference. But by then everything was cooled off, to, so if there's still a heat problem it could still show up. Got to looking at the barrel again, and found a spacer about 1/8" thick between it and the supporting frame. If I could remove the spacer, the ring and drive gears would mesh more tightly, and maybe the skipping problem would be fixed. So rigged a ratchet strap through a couple of C clamps on the barrel and used the FEL to lift the barrel off. Smarter, not harder, right Rick? Back together, no unusual noises, and less slop, too. While I was at it, I cut the old axle out of the frame that was causing such a hellacious rattle. Almost don't need 'muffs now. Finished up by greasing all the fittings, so I'll give it another try this morning. Not sure what the "joint" between where I left off yesterday is gonna come out like; it was pretty rough without any kind of form to cast against, and I could only do so much with a trowel.
In the middle of all that, a buddy called to ask me a computer question. He'd gotten an email from someone claiming they had video of him watching **** on his computer, which they would email to everyone on his contacts list unless he sent them two grand in BitCoin. They even gave him a password he'd used on one of his misadventures, so the threat seemed legitimate. Only trouble is I'd gotten more or less the same email earlier in the week, and I don't watch ****. He was much relieved, as he'd just gotten notice his hours at work were being cut because business had fallen off, and the last thing he needed was being kicked in the back pocket by an extortionist.
Here's another "bad people behaving badly" story I read this morning. It seems there was a road rage incident a little south of here, where one party knocked the other one unconscious by hitting him with a truck. He then drove off, leaving the man laying by the side of the road. Evidently the guy recovered and caught up with the hit-and-run man, because three hours later the sheriff got a phone call that the hitter would be found badly beaten and tied to a telephone pole at the scene of the original assault. The guy also had outstanding warrants, so he's in jail now. Nuthin' like a little good ol' country justice!:laughing:
The official count in the county now stands at 14 after being updated with yesterday's new case. Still no deaths, still not enough testing to really understand the extent of the spread.
Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!
