Good morning!!!!

[sodamo]

I much preferred Franco American vs Chef B, likely not much better for you though. Did like Chef B ravioli though.

 

[sodamo]

I use the Prego as a starter, add sauteed onions, meat, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomatoes, spices. Like to add green peppers and mushrooms too but usually gets me too much feedback.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

66ｰF and partly cloudy this morning, going up to 80ｰ today. The stormy front that rolled through yesterday brought some welcome relief from the heat, even if only for a couple of days.

Did a bunch or running around for errands Saturday morning, and got almost nothing accomplished. Seemed everyone was out of everything I wanted. Stopped at the Kia dealer to pick up an oil filter, only to find that their Parts Dept is no longer open on Saturdays. Convenient for them, I guess. Stopped at the Academy store right behind them to pick up some .38 Special ammo for me and 9mm for The Wife to get in a little range practice, and their shelves in the handgun ammo section were almost completely bare. The only 9mm they had were shotshells. I did find a few boxes of .38 for me. Stopped at Harbor Freight to finally return the recalled jack stands, and swapped them for new ones. A couple other items I wanted were, of course, out of stock. On the way home, wondering where else I might try for some 9mm ammo, I remembered a little gun shop near Carlyle that I've been wanting to check out for awhile. Called them when I got home, and the guy told be he'd just gotten a shipment on Friday, and had about two dozen boxes. He said he normally closes at noon on Saturdays, which was in five minutes. I told him my predicament, and he said he'd stay open until I got there. He did, and I bought six boxes. Great guy, who has probably earned my future business.
View attachment 660741

Sunday morning, after the morning chores, we packed up some handguns in range bags went to shoot at a new-to-us range in Pocahontas IL. An old friend had recommended the place to me years ago, but we just never found the time to go check it out. They opened at 10am, so we were there when they unlocked the doors. Nice place. We shot for about 45 minutes, and had the place to ourselves for about the first half hour. She brought her 9mm S&W Shield and .380 Ruger LCP, and I shot three of my .38/.357 revolvers. Enjoyed it, and will probably go back when we want to shoot indoors out of the weather. We went home, and I cleaned the guns while The Wife was taking care of the dogs, then we headed back out to a place in O'Fallon IL for our CCW renewal class. Instructor was fun and efficient, and we were out of there in under two hours and heading to another range in Columbia IL for qualification shooting. This was the same range we qualified at last time, kind of out in the middle of nowhere, and they have peacocks roaming around the grounds. Magnificent birds. And noisy. We got the shooting done, everyone qualified first try, took a group photo (which I haven't seen yet), and were on our way. Full day of shooting stuff, and I didn't hate that at all. Haven't been doing enough of that lately, something I've always enjoyed. Plus, now we have that silliness out of the way for another five years.

My boss called me Friday afternoon and asked if I could take some parts to a customer in north central Illinois Monday morning. When I hesitated, he asked if I had a scheduling conflict. I told him, "No, just the last time I drove up there for another customer back in February, it cost me a car." I agreed to do it, though. When I got there Monday morning to drop off the parts, I was met by their Quality Engineer. Nice guy, but he had a problem he needed resolved. That saw me there all day sorting parts for them. Not something I'd hoped to do, but staying and doing it made for some great customer relations, and they expressed their gratitude several times before I left. The 2-1/2 hour drive home tuned into a little over three hours due to some rather whopper storms passing through the state yesterday afternoon. Just north of Springfield on I-55, I almost pulled over, as even the trucks had slowed to about 20mph. We just couldn't see. Just as I was thinking about pulling off, it suddenly slowed to a drizzle. There were cars all over the place; in the ditches on both sides, up the embankments, and a white Camero with a new guard rail hood ornament. It started getting heavy again just south of Springfield, and again when it let up there were accidents everywhere. The northbound lanes were shut down by an accident, which I passed just in time to see them righting a tractor trailer which had tipped over onto a car ... fortunately only the trunk area was smashed. The rest of the drive home was relatively uneventful, and just in and out of rain. When I got home, the ground there was still dry as a bone.

Wife picked up the new foster dog yesterday. Her name is Nadia, she's a deaf and blind (double merle) Australian Shepherd, about two years old, and she was surrendered by her former owner to a high-kill shelter in the Little Rock AR area. One of the volunteers there got in touch with the Speak St. Louis organization to get them to rescue her before she was put down. The shelter had been keeping her in a cage that they clean with a power washer ... without removing the dogs. So, Speak STL got their volunteers to get her out and ferry her to St. Louis, where she ended up with us, as my Wife is their unofficial official trainer for blind and deaf dogs. Just in the few hours she'd been there before I got home, The Wife had already taught her touch commands for "come", "food", "water", and "outside". She was already house broken, and gives a low bark when she needs to go. She's a very gentle girl, and has no problems with strangers, other dogs, or cats. Here's a pic of her with our three stooges just hanging out in the kitchen last night.
View attachment 660743

Your wife is a very special person. Thank her for me. Every dog deserves a chance.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

RNG, sounds like system is performing well. By most observations, SOC on lithium batteries can be quite flat vs voltage and less reliable indicator for set points. Be sure you read the Outback notes on getting FNDC properly calibrated. Requires batteries being fully charged.

Thanks, David. More homework!:thumbsup:

FWIW, here's the table of battery discharge condition vs battery voltage that I got from the contractor yesterday. It shows exactly the same very flat voltage curve during discharge. The measurements were taken using a device called a Tri Metric, and the contractor has agreed to provide one to me at no charge.

-Amp Hours Battery Bank VDC

36 51.7
69 51.5
117 51.3
147 51.1
161 50.9
174 50.8
184 50.6
200 50.4
220 49.8
230 49.4
240 48.6
250 46.7

Not to be a PITA, but you not having full ownership of the OpticsRE site would be a red flag for me. I壇 make final payment contingent on that being right. My understanding is the Mate MAC address is a factor, as in you cannot just make a new account on your own because the MAC address is already in use. Of course you can just replace with a brand new Mate 3s but that痴 a bit expensive approach. Good luck.

So far, the company has been very responsive to all of my questions and addressing the issues. They've also got a very good BBB rating. I reminded the contractor/project manager this morning about the OpticsRE access issue, so we'll see what happens. The last payment is contingent on meeting all of the goals stated in the contract, and so far they've gone above and beyond most of those already. But then I've had trust issues before...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My wife used to tell folks that I didn't like spaghetti. That was not true. I like spaghetti; just don't want it 3 days a week every week, which was about what we were having when I complained, many years ago.:.

There was a time I had to quit buying large packs of hotdogs at the warehouse club because we were having them too often.

 

[sodamo]

RNG, good to hear good reports re your solar company.
The TriMetric is functionally similar to Outback’s FNDC, except the FNDC can be fully integrated into your system whereas the Trimetric will be standalone, in other words all your trigger settings will get info based on the FNDC, but not the Trimetric. Both depend on a shunt for measurement.


Battery Monitors - Bogart Engineering


FLEXnet DC - OutBack Power Inc

 

[mostly_gas]

Good evening all. 67F for the start, clear, near calm wind. Sky stayed clear, light wind today and high temp was 89F. Men's meeting this morning, then bike ride, then took the meeting leader some golf balls for his birthday. Picked up some fire wood, already sawed to length, some needs splitting. and worked on firewood stack. Did get a nap
Covid update: Cooke unchanged, Montague 17 confirmed cases, 6 active cases , Grayson 537 confirmed cases, 65 active cases
Dennis better to have small one then none.
Don I missed the rush hour traffic, going up 35W there was a wide load the everyone had trouble getting around, speed was limited to about 60-65. You use the elliptical for Heart rate or low impact exercise?
Drew sorry about tummy, always nice to know the game plan and what to work on.
Eric good to hear progress on draing the swamp, pic does not look like any Mississippi mud pie I ever had
Randy sorry about the no rain, we had no rain in June till last 5 days
Rich cool pics, never had deer that calm when I moved to window
Ron, good luck with barn door, nice hummer pic
Ron friends of mine got a second dog when their first dog had hearing and sight problems worked well for them,
Drew great update!!
RNG, Do you need another inspection or did you already have the required placards to post? Good to hear genny auto started. good job getting chuck off, good luck with new chuck
Rick your before pics look like mine, are you use big or little pressure washer?
Ron that looks slick
Rick nice cleanup
PJ and Bird, wife still makes homemade sauce, nowadays she lets me help
prayers for all especially Drew and Jay
stay safe and healthy you all.

 

[RoyJackson]

2020-06-26, 0307

Low 50's right now...looks like the high will be in the upper 70's...much more comfortable then the last several days.

 

[daugen]

good morning all. Up too early, but got six hours of sleep after which hard for me to get back to bed.
Much cooler day today, rain coming in this morning, will keep temps down to 79 or so today.
We've had pretty consistent boomers here every few days, normal, but weather pattern is probably driving Buppies nuts and unlike some
of you, making lawn grow like mad.

Busy day today, but have it organized. Registered letters with lots of checks finally came in yesterday, all payment for farm stuff, big tractor, implements, home furnishings, etc. Friend will be depositing through drive through today using my debit card, I called bank first and they said that would work. Nice to get some money back in investment accounts. Now just the rv to sell. This has all gone way more easily/successfully than I expected, mostly due to efforts of neighbor. Am going to forgive payment on a great deal of quality implements he claimed as thanks/compensation, which should make him happy. His help, and that of his wife's, has literally been priceless.

until I get confirmation of closing, my fingers are still crossed on farm sale. In the "old days" buyer put down at least ten percent so big penalty if they back out. Locally norm is about 5 grand, not much of a penalty. Hope buyer health/situation remains stable, have zero communication with them, very hands off transaction.

yesterday afternoon staff came around with virgin home made blended strawberry daiquiris, a lei for me to wear, and took my picture. I give them a real A for creative energy, doing their best to liven up a very unlively group who all feel imprisoned by covid.

 

[Eric Salop]

Good morning, a warm one again for us, 29C/84F the expected high.

Good luck with a successful close out on the farm sale Drew. A 5k deposit is still a fair amount of money to loose, so you would think anyone who has done that must be serious and not a habitual time waster.

Ken, I well remember that spaghetti tree April fool !

In my younger days spaghetti came only in 2 forms, either in a tin can (yuk), or in the cinema where unshaven men with only limited time to live would seek out bad guys to full fill their wish to die even sooner as long as the audience to their funeral can walk out to a curiously haunting sound track.