Good Morning!!!! 78F @ 4:30AM. Plentiful sunshine. Hot. High 104F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Congrats on the bumper tomato crop Kyle!:cloud9: What did you do different this time around that led to such a resounding success?
Thanks for the suggestions, Ron. I'll see if I can't chase something down during today's siesta time. Aren't the female bluebirds always somewhat duller in appearance?
How fortunate excavator konked out on dry land, Eric. Could something that shouldn't have got wet? They only let us move 100 cubic yards of dirt here before we have to pay for a permit and submit all kinds of paperwork explaining what is to be done. So far I've managed to keep the projects small enough to stay under that limit, but I think I'll have to sharpen my pencil for the new shop building permit.
Sorry Coco's having such a rough time, Billy, but at least she's enjoying the new food and it sounds like you're doing everything you can. Hope she's back to her old self in no time.
That blueberry pie, and especially the ice cream, sound delicious, RS. Sounds like the Squeak might not have been the only comatose diner yesterday?
Eleven new CV19 cases here in the county just yesterday, Bruce, pushing the total over the hundred mark. Only three in the hospital though, and still holding at one death. But it does show that people are letting down their guard a little too early.
Glad you have a new friend, Drew. There but for the grace of God. I worked for a nondestructive testing firm one summer while I was in college, and was certified in magnetic particle and liquid penetrant testing. But x-ray and ultrasonic testing were used to find defects in critical work like pipelines and heavy structural welds, and a summer was too short to gather the necessary skill and experience for those certs. Later on I'd learn that good as they may seem, sometimes the only real way to be certain about a defect is to cut something up, and often times one out of ten was randomly sampled that way just to make sure nothing bad had crept into the production processes. TIG, or more accurately Gas Tungsten Arc Welding, uses an arc between a tungsten electrode and the work, and inert gas shielding to prevent oxidation. That's the one most used for aluminum and stainless steel, and that requires extra skill to manipulate the hand fed filler wire. MIG, or Gas Metal Arc Welding, uses an arc between an automatically fed filler wire and the work, and may or may not utilize a shielding gas. Shielding compounds that break down to form a gas can be incorporated into the hollow core of the filler wire, or CO2 or argon/C02 mixes can be used for shielding when a cleaner weld appearance is desired. GMAW can also be used for aluminum and stainless steel, but it's more involved to switch over from mild steel, so you usually only find it applied to those situations when there's a lot of that work to be done. GTAW, on the other hand, can just pick a compatible filler material, and flip a switch to go from AC to DC current and be off to the races. I put a lot of weld metal into that old tractor, and I hate to think what it would have cost to pay someone to do that work for me, or how many trips it would have meant for someone to come out or me to haul it in to a shop somewhere. But almost all of it was GMAW, because my dexterity and eyesight just aren't good enough to get a decent result with GTAW anymore. If you're lucky, they put thumbscrews on your PCs case. Usta be I could open up my laptop to clean it out or upgrade the memory or drive, but these new ones either snap or are glued together, and there's nothing replaceable inside. Dunno how you're supposed to clean 'em, maybe blow 'em out with compressed air?:confused2:
I've used UShip twice, and not been impressed by the drivers either time. Both were for moving motorcycles, and neither had proper straps or knew where to place them to avoid damage. The great state of Kalifornia limits anything pulling a trailer to 55 MPH. That means there's often a big speed differential between the cars and trucks, made worse by kids in little rice rockets that like to play pinball with the truckers. So we get a lot of accidents in the big cities, especially during rush hour when everyone's in a hurry.
Knowing you as we do, Drew, it's a safe bet most of your housing and medical costs are being covered by good insurance policies, or at least I hope that's the case. And it takes a lot of worry about what's going to happen next, especially for your family that had to so quickly make those hard decisions. Hopefully the chemo will go easy on you and you'll be out of there in no time, and more affordable alternatives will open up to you when you need them.
Spent the cool of yesterday morning reclining under the van, installing a magnetic switch to detect when the transmission is in neutral. Had to disconnect one end of the drive shaft to do it, but I've had lots of practice at that. Then run a long wire back to the computer, where I was reminded I still have a couple of oil leaks to deal with on the transaxle and engine. A little solder, some heat shrink, and lots of zip ties to keep the wire safe and that job is done. Hopefully it takes care of that one persistent error code that keeps coming up, but only time will tell.
By the time I finished that, I was hot and hungry, so after lunch I switched over to getting the power system controller on the internet. Tried lots of things until finally late in the day I stumbled across a forum post that suggested the controller had to be power cycled before new settings would take effect. Then I found another post that said to pull out the cable from the hub to power cycle it because there's no switch to do it. Turns out that worked, and now I can view, but not change, the controller settings from a laptop or handheld, and the controller reports it is connected to the more capable OpticsRE software my contractor wants to use to monitor and maintain it. Would have been nice if they'd have dealt with this on their last visit, but once again, they were in too much of a hurry...
Fingers crossed for a good final inspection outcome today, but we still don't know what time the inspector will be here, and won't until they have their morning meeting and update their website. The contractor says he wants to be here for it, but then says he has a conflict in the afternoon...:confused3: