Good morning!!!!

[PJSprog]

32°F and light snow flurries this morning, dropping all day into the low single digits tonight. Temp had dropped 9° during my 55 minute commute this morning. At 08:25, it's down to 19° already. Not as cold as L4N, but then Southern Illinois isn't Northern Ontario. Don't know how you guys do temps like that. No thanks. We got exactly none of the predicted 0-3" of snow last night.

So, Eric, it's a non-fox?
I actually have no idea how prepay works if you over-estimate. I know how much I generally spend to fill my tank, so I under-estimated that amount and it worked fine. Unfortunately, it also didn't fill my tank. I've frequented that particular station partly to help out a local business. It's actually a bit out of my way (by 4 miles) to go into town for gasoline, and I end up taking a longer route (I-64 instead of I-70) to work, a route which always has heavier stop-and-go traffic as well. Without the all-in-one purchase advantage now, there's considerably less reason for me to go there anymore. There are several other options for fuel along the shorter route.

Nothing wrong with $2.03, wngsprd. That's about what they're getting in Missouri. It dropped to $1.95 last weekend. Ours has been staying around $2.20-ish lately, which is about 40¢ below where it had been.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

PJ, I am curious about how pre-paying for fuel works. Does the pump automatically cut out when it has delivered what you paid for ? What happens if you guessed wrong and it didn't take as much to fill as you thought ? Or does it just have your credit card details and debits it once you have filled up ?

I run into this a LOT on the motorcycles, which have no gas gauge. I get quizzical looks from the clerk when they ask how much gas I want, and I tell them a fill up. Then they say how much is that, and I say I don't know, I just want to fill it up. At that point I get a dirty look for being a stubborn old man. They have to charge some amount, then I have to pump the gas, and come back to the clerk to either get a refund for the guessed amount, and then charge the pumped amount, or they do what I'm sure they consider high level math to determine the amount of a refund for the balance of the unpumped gas. More than once I've just turned around and left after the initial conversation tipped me to the idiocy of these policies. I've never seen them at national brand stations like Chevron, Exxon, or Shell. But smaller independent chains, especially in not so safe parts of inner cities do favor them as a way to avoid losses from folks that think it's OK to drive away without paying for what they pumped. I avoid using pumps that don't have a built in credit card reader because I don't like to make ANY trips inside where more often than not there's a line of people doing all manner of time consuming things like buying lottery tickets.

BTW, I try to use Chevron in the motorcycles, and now the van, as the additive package helps prevent intake valve deposits. Both these engines are 9.5:1+ compression as well, and the fuel resists detonation (what Eric would call pinking) much better than the no-name stuff.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I've been making lots of salads...need to pull out the IP we bought a couple of weeks ago and figure out how to use and what to cook. As soon as I typed IP, an ad popped onto the bottom of the TBN page for a Ninja pressure cooker. Let me try again, IP IP IP. Yep.

Lots of IP recipes out there Wng, maybe start with one from the cookbook that came with it?

As for the ads, have you tried AdBlocker Plus? I use it, and have never seen an ad on TBN... Oh, and it's free.:thumbsup:

 

[lostcreekranch]

Good morning. It's 43° here and dry. Forecast is for 59° this afternoon. We've gotten just under 1 1/2" of rain over last 2 1/2 days and very glad to have it.

There is this HUGE Orange "thing" above our eastern horizon ... I called NASA and they believe it might be this body called ... the SUN.

I had some time at the 3nd of the yesterday to get back on my hydraulic pressure project. I removed the 20 ton jack and rigged up the portable crane to lift the frame up.



I decided to just remove the angle iron base pieces and drill the mounting holes, for the mobile base, on my metal drill press.




Drew ... hope the docs figure out what's going on.

Randy ... good news on your ECG! Do you feel better than before your procedure?

Ron ... two brothers, in Iowa, are reporting -10° and -4° actual temperature this morning. Hope your doggy feels better.

Irv ... welcome back! See what you created? 100,000+ post and climbing.

RNG ... I've got the HF portable mixer for small jobs ... anything of size, I'd probably just contract out. YMMV.

Hope everyone has an excellent "Valentines Eve".

Prayers to all.

 

[ronjhall]

Don, my haircut is $15 and the ladies are very friendly and good looking. :dance1:

 

[wngsprd]

RNG, thanks for suggestions. I'm using a very old laptop (son's hand me down), with only 2meg of memory (and only 18 gig of HD left) so am reluctant to install anything not absolutely necessary. I have been going through old trail cam photos and videos and deleting everything but the best to free up HD space. I probably need to delete some of the older Turbo Tax s/w...I still have the programs back to 2012 on the HD. I've never needed to go back and look at anything more than a year or two old. Sure thought this PC would've died by now, but keeps on ticking. :crossfingers:

 

[wngsprd]

Don, my haircut is $15 and the ladies are very friendly and good looking. :dance1:

I bet you tip well, too.

 

[300UGUY]

Welcome Home

Thanx!

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 49F @ 7:00AM. Plentiful sunshine. High 67F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.

You guys are killin' me with $1.95/gallon gas. We're still pushin' $4/gallon for credit card premium out here, even more for evil Diesel #2.

Happy for your good medical news, Randy; hope you get some too, Drew.

Thanks for the concrete advise, kings! I'm getting pretty good at procrastinating on this concrete stuff, so a few days between pours from a couple of well spaced buggy trips would be no sweat at all. The only fly in that ointment would be the rental charges for the bull float, but maybe I could hand trowel a 5' x 12' pad? Any chance I could avoid an expansion pad with the smaller 5' width? Seems like every time I've had a pad with one, it's always filled with dirt and debris, and this one will be outside for at least a year.

Had a good visit from the fella that will do the propane tank swap on Friday. He didn't see any problems getting his truck in to snatch the old tank, and will put the new one anywhere I want. He also said he can install a WiFi gizmo on the new tank that will send me an email when the propane level gets low, and that I could use an app on my phone to read the level anytime. And he's supposed to get back to me on the cost of a wet tap I can use to refill my own propane bottles.

Finished the saw cuts on the pipe, but not before the old blade broke again. This time I replaced it, and wouldn't you know it, cutting times were cut in half (sorry, couldn't resist). That old blade felt sharp to my fingers, but not compared to the new one. Now I need to order another 50' of blade material, as I'm not sure there's enough left in the box for another one.

Got back to swapping out that tire on the motorcycle while I was waiting on the saw, and the saw was faster than the tire changing machine. So I finished up with the tire, then checked a couple other things off the motorcycle todo list. There was still some daylight left, so decided to see if the tractor could lift the generator, and it turned out to be no problem at all. That'll make installation sooooo much simpler.

Finished the day by driving stakes next to each of the post holes for the solar rack, then after the sun set tried to shoot a level line across all of them with the laser. Turns out my stakes are too short; there's too much rise in the hill in only 7.5' with 18" stakes. Got to make a grocery run today, so I'll swing by HD for some longer ones.

But I'll be driving the truck because the old insurance policy expired yesterday and the salesman picked a company for the van's new policy that doesn't allow camping or use on trips. I guess he didn't read the fine print, because I told him right from the beginning that those were the two primary reasons I built the Vanagon. Volkswagon has always advertised the Westfalia model as a "camper van", so it's not like I'm trying to hide anything.:duh:

Hang in there, gang, Friday's comin'!

 

[300UGUY]

Up @6 this am, off to my wife’s shop, a hour plus snowblower work, then some shoveling, my wife has a few customers today. I can’t wait to get her retired. When I get home, gotta plow snow, blow, shovel some more. Bet nobody, absolutely nobody, has ever done this in Hawaii. ��

Planning a new project, making a real workshop in my barn. Need to put in a ceiling, walls, and insulate. I like it, will be a nice change from snow.