Good morning!!!!

[PJSprog]

38°F and clear skies this morning, going up to 61° today. Nice full moon lighting everything up when I was taking the trash down to the road.

Wife bought a new shelving unit for the movies downstairs. It's huge. She put it together yesterday, and was able to get the old one next to it as well. We should be good for movie space for awhile. Now, I need to find a new spot to keep my cello.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

PJ, i like it.

 

[ronjhall]

Who cleared it all those Winters when you were in Texas?

The Doctor. Plus neighbor that moved. They took good care of my tractor during those years.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning to all! We finally got some of the rain from Texas! Woohoo! Started raining yesterday at 06:00 when I was leaving for work. This morning (24 hours later) there is 3" in the rain gauge! Absolutely amazing. Rain showers supposed to continue through this afternoon. Too bad it has come so late in the year. I'm glad it wasn't snow...would have been a lot!

The second day of the driving class involved setting up the cones for the course, measuring specific zones for driving challenges. Went pretty fast due to having about 30 of us in the class. Got some tips from the trainer about providing constructive criticism to our future students. We have to be careful not to offend someone's feelings telling them that they don't know how to drive well....mmmmm, what's more important....letting them possibly get into a serious accident or hurt their feelings.....let me think about that one... The day ended early (before lunch) due to the rain...that was ok with me.

Then driving back to the base from the testing area, I had a blowout about 3 blocks from the base. There was a big hole in the right front tire. I realized that I had been glancing at the rear tires when it was parked at home....always said to myself...still have good tread on them...never sunk in that it was front wheel drive...never checked the front...they were almost down to the wear strips. Went to Discount Tire and got a new set of sneakers put on. Drives real nice now.

I have to elaborate on the flat tire situation..... The car I was driving is our "errand runner". A 2014 Nissan note hatchback. It gets 43 miles to the gallon consistently, so being so far out of town, it costs far less to operate than my big Jeep. She only has 25,000 on the odometer. Hence, when checking tires, expected to have far more life out of them. When it happened, I knew exactly what was wrong, pulled into a driveway area out of the way to change the flat. ......

Well, I never really took the time to learn about this vehicle...it's so simple, no bells and whistles. So...where is the jack? Searched and searched, finally found this dinky little piece of stamped metal hidden neatly packaged in a styrofoam holder under the rear mat and carpet, tucked in the corner. The lug wrench was in 3 pieces that very loosely fit together. These parts were also to be used to operate the screw jack....

That was fun....about every half turn, the pieces would come apart, usually getting thrown out into the parking lot from the force required to turn the darn jack. Finally got the car up high enough. Figured the spare was in the trunk under where I found the jack....nope! Then my next thought...OH NO is this one of the cars that you have to BUY a spare! Finally found one of the small donuts hanging down below like a pickup truck. Small bolt inside lowers the tire down .....OK. Got the tire changed and the normal confidence of my abilities was humbled.

Hope every has a great day! Prayers out for those still recovering from storm impact and other injuries.

 

[sodamo]

70°F and .76 inches rain

Wife wants breakfast in town this morning. Happy to oblige.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[hawkeye08]

Trying to get storage shed finished, will put the last piece on front side this afternoon perhaps. Then all that is left is the trim, I need help to do the work (not really supposed to be up on ladders so need daughter to help, she is busy with their own work, but since their stuff is stored in it, she will help )..

Not as cold at night, high 20s instead of low 20s, still heavy frost. We're supposed to get some rain next few days..

 

[RedNeckGeek]

They really ought to make a law requiring it all to be recyclable.

You can make all the laws you want, Drew, but what is the material going to be recycled INTO? Right now, China is cutting way back on scrap steel imports, and prices have fallen to next to nothing for scrap dealers on the west coast that used to fill the orders. I can still "recycle" my scrap, but I get nothing for it.

When I take my glass and aluminum to the other recycle place, I only get paid for bottles and cans that have a deposit on them. They throw out, to the dump, all the rest of the glass because there is no market for it. I don't even bother taking in steel soup cans and the like; they just go in the dumpster, too.

Same with plastic bottles: no market, just send it to the dump if it doesn't have a deposit on it.

When I take a tire off anything, I pay a disposal fee. Again, what are they supposed to use old tires for?

There's still a small payment for aluminum, probably because it takes so much electricity to refine the ore.

Keep in mind this is in environmentally over zealous Kalifornia, where you'd think EVERYTHING would be mandated as recyclable. Thinking back, eight years ago when they were picking up a recycle bin at the curb, they CHARGED customers to haul away the "recyclables". So unless more uses are found for the "recycled" material, it will continue to be stockpiled in the municipal dump, perhaps for future generations to "mine".

:2cents:

 

[RedNeckGeek]

38°F and clear skies this morning, going up to 61° today. Nice full moon lighting everything up when I was taking the trash down to the road.

Wife bought a new shelving unit for the movies downstairs. It's huge. She put it together yesterday, and was able to get the old one next to it as well. We should be good for movie space for awhile. Now, I need to find a new spot to keep my cello.

Last year I set up a 24 Tb Network Attached Storage server, and so far have about 1000 movies and TV shows on it. That's only about 25% of capacity used so far, and unless I start viewing 4K content, will probably last the rest of my life. I use an app called Plex to view them on an AppleTV attached to the audio/video system. But all that prolly cost a bit more than your new shelf.:laughing: I totally get why you buy movies; I feel the same way about music CDs. I made a big chest of drawers for those, but it's full, and there are unsightly stacks growing on the top. I like to think the CDs will last forever, and serve as a backup to the versions ripped to the storage server. It makes me nervous that downloaded music could stop playing anytime the provider of the player software either goes out of business or decides to change the copyright protection software. Never play the CDs, just use the Remote app on the iPhone to stream the non-copyright protected files to whatever stereo system is at hand.

More :2cents:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have a NAS and hardly use it. I even built a little media server using a raspberry pi, but dont use it. Just found it a little klunky to use, and keep the software updated...

 

[PJSprog]

Last year I set up a 24 Tb Network Attached Storage server, and so far have about 1000 movies and TV shows on it. That's only about 25% of capacity used so far, and unless I start viewing 4K content, will probably last the rest of my life. I use an app called Plex to view them on an AppleTV attached to the audio/video system. But all that prolly cost a bit more than your new shelf.:laughing: I totally get why you buy movies; I feel the same way about music CDs. I made a big chest of drawers for those, but it's full, and there are unsightly stacks growing on the top. I like to think the CDs will last forever, and serve as a backup to the versions ripped to the storage server. It makes me nervous that downloaded music could stop playing anytime the provider of the player software either goes out of business or decides to change the copyright protection software. Never play the CDs, just use the Remote app on the iPhone to stream the non-copyright protected files to whatever stereo system is at hand.

More :2cents:

24TB seems like a lot now, but when new tech comes along and gives us gigantic files for life-size 3D holographic movies, that drive will probably seem like a floppy disk.

That shelf is a mix of VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. I keep telling my Wife not to get too invested in current technology. We already have a hard time finding a decent VHS player. 20 years from now, DVD and Blu-ray may be the same way.

I'm a CD nut, too, RNG. I like to own physical copies of music. In fact, I've never in my life downloaded music. I just don't want to. I want to have the actual album. I'm curmudgeonly like that. I do miss the larger artwork format from vinyl albums, but I certainly don't miss the lo-fi sound. No hiss in digital formats unless it's put there intentionally (or noise from the playback system).

 

[hawkeye08]

We had an entertainment center with the requisite receiver, amp, cd player and then added a device that you could RIP music to from CDs.. We had about 20GB of music when the support for the device ended. When we emptied the family room/kitchen to install hardwood, the entertainment center did not make the cut, we have a TV with BluRay and OTA DVR. We still have our large collection of DVD/BluRay, but seldom play a movie from them (I take a few movies with me camping so I can watch one late if I am not sleepy yet)..

We were just talking about the "stereo" as it was called back in the day and where we might put it.

 

[Thomas]

Buppies
Thomas I don稚 have enough leaves to blow yet

Bad news about coyote
...................................................
I figure were least 2 weeks ahead of you,most of the oaks have yet to turn color....strange. :confused3:

Guessing if there 1 coyote there's others near by,guess I'll need to set outside one evening and listen.

By the looks of this coming weekend weather your crystal ball doesn't need windex or find tuning...darn good chance of nor'easter.

 

[toppop52]

Hi folks, got an early star this morning so I missed checking in, when I did I thought u was in Friendly Politics for a minute! We to Floyd Garret’s classic car museum, then to Margaritaville Island and restaurant. Ride the big Ferris wheel.

Hope you all are having a good day. God bless.

A few more pictures.

 

[toppop52]

Cars...

 

[toppop52]

 

[toppop52]

 

[hawkeye08]

The photos of cars reminded me of working at Sears in Phoenix in the late 70s and early 80s. Axel Wars had a nice collection in Phoenix and when he was in town, he would bring a few in to have some work done at Sears. I was the mechanic he requested. It started with replacing Sears Diehard batteries that would not hold charge for months of non use. Then once he trusted me with his expensive cars, he had me work on AC and starters. I recall a 1942? Cadillac that had a 500cid mated to original transmission with a custom bell housing. The starter nose had to be modified to fit the bell housing.. took several hours to fit it. Worked great. I was honored to do a front end alignment on a "one of kind chevy truck". It was a special from the factory with iodine? headlights, high performance big block. It was a sleeper for sure, wicked fast for a truck. A Super Bee with only a few hundred miles on it was also a fun car to work on.. Based on mileage between visits, he lived less than 10 miles from Sears shop.

Axel was not very tall, perhaps 5'6", but his wife was probably 5'10" or better and often wore heels. I don't remember what year it was, but do remember her bring in one of the Lincolns, it may have had suicide doors. Half the shop watched her get in and out of that car..

We exchanged Christmas cards for probably 15 years before I lost track of him. The only address I had was Mexico City. He wanted me to become a pilot for him (he had several Rockwell Saberliners with custom seating and extended range fuel tanks and did contract work, mostly for US government).

Sorry for the sidetrack... lots of good memories seeing those cars.

 

[toppop52]

That’s about 1/3 of the cars, great stuff there but real hard to get good pics because of room and lighting.

 

[ronjhall]

That’s about 1/3 of the cars, great stuff there but real hard to get good pics because of room and lighting.

Like the 68 Vette.

 

[toppop52]

Like the 68 Vette.

That’s an L-88 car.