Good morning!!!!

[wngsprd]

57 going down to 20, and snow is promised.

Sorry your cat is sick, L4N. Sounds like you are taking good care of her.

PJ, congrats on the Guitar of the Month. Do they award a G of the Year? Hopefully you will win the 2019 award.

Sassy in the snow is so cool...I wonder what the world looks like from 10" all the time (except when in you lap).

Drove to southern Virginia to bow hunt yesterday. Went to the "Hole" treestand...was a favorite of my late father-in-law...I sat there running memories through my mind and got pretty emotional for a moment. Had a small buck wander around me for about a half hour and came back 2 hours later. Pulled SD cards from 3 game cams and have only looked at a bit of the 6 months of photos and already seen some nice bucks and turkeys.

Had 3 mature bald eagles flying low over our field and landing in our trees Sunday. Quite a beautiful sight. Never could find a food source, but I didn't go look until much later, once they were gone.

 

[Thomas]

30F cloudy light mist mid 30 for high,about 1" snow mix with freezing rain.

Outside chores done E muffin time. :licking:
Plans for today...clean off steps deck side walk of snow other than that play it by ear.

Enjoy the day all.

 

[Thomas]

628361[/ATTACH].

Wish that would be our total for the year here.

 

[daugen]

good morning all. Hope none of that snow comes my way...forecast for today is showers turning to steady rain and getting colder.
At least tomorrow when I drive North the weather will have cleared up, but I'm definitely getting out my undershirts and warm socks.
Seems strange to hear it so cold in Texas.

headed out to drop off a small bag of poblanos I picked yesterday, not happy after recent freezes, small but still good.
I also have to pick up ten pounds of carrots at super market and take them to food pantry.
Then home for an inside day in the rain.

 

[Bird]

21 degrees this morning with a northerly breeze, but going for a sunny high of 40. Just gonna stay in and have a big pot of chili today.

 

[txdon]

Good morning! 27˚F cloudy and windy. The 17mph wind brings the chill factor to 16˚F. Warming to the mid 40s but the wind is making it very uncomfortable. FireWise clearing has been canceled this morning.
There was ice on my truck after cards last night but no snow. The heated seats felt good -1st time I used them but I forgot about my remote start and could had a warm truck waiting. About 1/4 of the players decided to stay home but I could only manage 3 out of a possible 5 wins. Before these games I had moved up to 5th place.
Fitness center is opening at 10am today instead of 6am so people can see the possible ice. Big bowl of veg chili today.

Ron, looks like Sassy will not clear that height without platform shoes or, or doggie show shoes, do they have them up there?

 

[PJSprog]

8°F and clear skies this morning, going up to 24° today.

Snowed here much of the day yesterday. Fortunately, the ground was still too warm for most of it to stick. We ended up with about 1-1/2", which stopped right about afternoon drive time. The traffic damage was already done, though, and it took me an extra hour to get home ... 55 minutes of that was getting the seven miles from the work parking lot to the Musial Bridge over the Mississippi River. Once I got into Illinois, the roads were much better, just mostly wet.

Thanks for the guitar comments. My "pride" in its winning is mostly tongue-in-cheek. I really don't care much about such things, as it was made as a tool. Honestly, compared to a couple other instruments completed last month, I have no idea why they picked mine. Here's a link to the actual contest thread. Those first two basses are amazing work. They used to have a GOTY contest as well, Wngsprd, but I have no idea if they are still doing that. As the winner this month, I get to be a guest judge for next month's contest. It's playing well, mostly_, and I'm enjoying it every bit as much as I suspected I would. It's the most comfortable guitar I've ever played. Still doing a bit of tweaking on the action setup, but it's coming along nicely.

Hope everyone is faring well in this cold weather.

 

[daugen]

successful visit downtown, picked up new glasses, oh yes, new prescription is definitely better. Ordered a pair of sunglasses and a pair of reading glasses, which
I've never had before, but doc said my astigmatism was bad enough I should have them. I'll try....most of my reading is on a Kindle.
Reminded them of how many pairs of glasses I have bought from them and gosh 40 percent just went off my bill... My limit was 300 bucks for a pair of polarized sunglasses, and it came in at 295. Sold.

Decided if I was going to go North this winter to visit friends, I needed better tires on the Audi. Didn't want snow tires, just all seasons with good winter ratings.
Ordered a set of Vredestein Quatrac 5 tires, top rated on tirerack.com and much less expensive than Michelin. With my low miles they will likely be on the car as long as I have it. OEM Continentals are awful. Will make my last trip on them tomorrow, at least I'm not driving into snow.
It would be nice to drive to Asheville in the winter and see the mountain sights, but not without good tires.
Good tires on an awd car makes for a much more relaxing trip. And most oem tires are not very good.
What is nice about tirerack.com is if you look up all the reviews on the tires, you can sort by your model car, so I read four reviews first
from folks with the same car I have give their experience with the tire. That's pretty focused and helpful info.

I find what I want online, and then hand the printout to my local tire guy, who has to order them from some warehouse, he had problems recognizing
Vredestein..., clearly not a normal line for them. They are big into winter tires, like most of the Scandinavian tires are.
And he matches the online price. Between tractor tires, lawn mower tires, car tires and truck tires, I've been a good customer of his. And he always
treats me right.

Rain has been late coming in, just passing through Raleigh now headed my way.
Might do one more trip around the place in the golf cart, kill some ants, get some fresh air,
and then I have plenty to keep me busy inside.

 

[lostcreekranch]

Good Morning. It only made it down to 33° here this morning but, with wind still at 18-20 mph, the chill factor is 21°. We might see 45° this afternoon and hope the wind dies down.

We didn't get any of the predicted "wintery mix" overnight and I'm not disappointed either.

Plan today is to work on some projects, in the shop, with the doors closed.

PJS ... congratulation on GOTM!

Don ... remote start is your friend in both Texas Winters ... and especially ...Texas Summers.

Mr. Bird ... chili really fits the bill today!

Drew ... safe travels in your Audi!

Hope everyone has an excellent "hump day eve".

Prayers to all.

 

[jbrumberg]

Last night’s misting/drizzling/rain showery 36ºF was today’s high temperature which remained constant until 7:00AM. Snow/sleet started to mix in with the drizzle ~8:30AM with the temperature dropping to 32ºF by 9:00AM and the precipitation became all snow and started to stick just as this frontal system passed through. Total accumulation = a dusting . Low temperatures around here the next 2 days will be in the single digits with below 0ºF windchills. I guess that I’ll be breaking out the long undies again.

Rick and Eric- Thank you for sharing those powerful poems.

RonJH- I would have liked a little more than a dusting of snow.

Bill- I hope that Smokie does not make it to the freezer anytime soon.

Bird- It is definitely chili weather here; enjoy.

Drew- I wish you safe travels.

My + thoughts and prayers.

 

[daugen]

no more Land of Lakes butter? say it ain't so....
Land O'Lakes owner Dean Foods files for bankruptcy - CNN

bad news in dairy town. Looks like Walmart helped to put them out of business

We have so much excess capacity in certain food items and yet folks go hungry around the world.
I know there are groups that work on this and try to solve the logistical problems. Dairy being mostly refrigerated
is a short shelf life item, not like hard cheese. Can't they dry it and make instant milk out of it?

 

[daugen]

I grew up being told about the starving kids in Africa, usually to get me to eat something I didn't want to.
I'm sure most of you heard the same thing.
And those kids are still starving...including so many children growing up in Middle East displacement camps. I bet they could use some milk...
If only politics would not prevent it.
It's almost criminal to let food go to waste.

This morning I discussed the current challenge of the food pantry. They have 400 pounds of hard boiled eggs, two weeks past the sell date.
They were told it was not past date before they accepted them. So what do you do with 400 pounds of hard boiled eggs taking up walk in space?
I suggested she call the local ag agent we all know, he knows all the farmers, including the hog farmers, to see if a local hog farmer could feed the
eggs to the pigs. I left with her headed off to see how she could offload all those eggs and keep them out of the dumpster.
None of us want to waste food, part of the ethos of the food pantry.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 61F @ 7:30AM. Sun and clouds mixed. High 76F. Winds light and variable.

Hope those of you seeing snow are staying safe and warm. For those of you that actually like snow, I'll see if I can pass any coming my way to the east, hopefully before any of it reaches the ground.:laughing:

Spent some time this morning reading up on the Simpli Phi batteries, David. They make some impressive claims, but not much on Simpli's financial status on their website.:confused2:. I managed to find a local installer, and have requested a quote, but they only use SunPower panels, and SunPower's financial health is not such that I'd put much faith in their 25 year warranty. There may not be a safe haven for battery warranties, though. With the exploding popularity of lithium batteries, the lead acid battery business may not have much of a future. Makes me wonder of the Crowns and Trojans of the world will even last another ten years...

Read a couple articles yesterday about stiff doors on shipping containers, and they both made it sound like it could be cured by ensuring that the box all sits in a single plane. I played around again with spacers under the corners to see if I could make the doors move smoothly, but ended up coming back to the same shim stacks that the laser level found. Made some measurements on the shipping container door frame that showed that the box is racked to one side, leaving one diagonal measurement at the door opening an inch longer than its mate. I was able to rig up a chain with a hydraulic puller and watch the low door end on one side lift as I pumped the handle, but the puller wouldn't hold pressure long enough for me to see if it made a difference in the door's function. So today I'll see if I can repeat the "experiment" with a large ratchet strap. It could also be that the box is still sitting in contact with the gravel underneath, so I'll get enough block this week to get daylight underneath all of it. According to those same articles, the containers are just fine just being supported only at the corners.

Hope everyone's week gets off to a good, if late, start!

 

[RedNeckGeek]

To earn money for my first car, Drew, I got a job painting warehouses for the summer. One of those buildings housed an egg processing plant, and their dumpsters were filled with broken, and in the summer sun, soon rotten, eggs. I saved that part of the trim for last, and I'm pretty sure it didn't get a second coat.:yuck:

It's not enough to just feed the hungry; somehow you have to get them to stop making more hungry people. Figure that one out and you could be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

[jbrumberg]

".... If only politics would not prevent it. It's almost criminal to let food go to waste."- Drew If the pols really experienced true military service/combat, poverty and hunger; wars, poverty and hunger would no longer exist.

RNG- Good luck with the container leveling.

The "snow" has essentially ended here Maybe I'll see another band of snow, but there is not much moisture available.

 

[sodamo]

68°F and .07 inches rain.

Good a very good start on my project prep yesterday. Will continue today. Not quite ready for pic stage yet but getting close.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[lostcreekranch]

I grew up being told about the starving kids in Africa, usually to get me to eat something I didn't want to.
I'm sure most of you heard the same thing.
And those kids are still starving...including so many children growing up in Middle East displacement camps. I bet they could use some milk...
If only politics would not prevent it.
It's almost criminal to let food go to waste.

This morning I discussed the current challenge of the food pantry. They have 400 pounds of hard boiled eggs, two weeks past the sell date.
They were told it was not past date before they accepted them. So what do you do with 400 pounds of hard boiled eggs taking up walk in space?
I suggested she call the local ag agent we all know, he knows all the farmers, including the hog farmers, to see if a local hog farmer could feed the
eggs to the pigs. I left with her headed off to see how she could offload all those eggs and keep them out of the dumpster.
None of us want to waste food, part of the ethos of the food pantry.

Passing USMCA Treaty would help.

 

[sodamo]

Happy to hear you're going with the Radians for your new system, David, they're being proposed for the new system here as well.

Will the Radians be used to trigger autostart on the generators?

FWIW, the Honda EU6500is here ran about 86 hours during the recent round of Public Safety Power Shutoffs. Never skipped a beat, except when it couldn't respond quickly enough to large loads when running in Eco mode. Looked it up, and the operator's manual said that was normal behavior.:confused2:

nice to hear you are going Outback. I would caution against doing a mixed system if you want to monitor online - stay all Outback - Radian, FM CCs, Hub10, Mate3S, FNDC, OpticsRE all the manuals are online.

Radian offers a couple of options to trigger autostart. most likely I’ll stick with same as I have, let AUX trigger the relay in my transfer switch. It can also act as own relay.

 

[hawkeye08]

Took more than a few minutes to catch up this morning on the GM thread... lots going on. Byrd, sorry about your back problems, I hope that chair helps.

Saturday we went to help daughter and SIL that are building their own house. Their goal was to get the house wrap on to protect it (the better stuff that claims to handle 9 months of weather). With 4 of us and lots of ladders and scaffolding, we got it all done (they had the gable ends already done). Major milestone for them. They covered over the door and windows on main floor and put styrofoam in the openings. They have the doors and windows in the basement already. they are almost set for winter. They will be able to work on the inside during the winter. They had planned on living in the basement this winter, but things take longer than planned sometimes. They got their septic system in and approved also. They are doing pretty well, will bring their travel trailer to our place sometime in the next month probably..

Sunday morning my back was very sore from the work on Saturday.. I thought I might be staying home from church, but 20 minutes on ice pack relieved the pain, enjoyed church service, relaxed Sunday afternoon.. The company I work for just added Veterans day to our paid holidays last year, so enjoyed the day with grand daughter.

Daughter and grand daughter stayed home today, grand has ear infection, got antibiotics last night..

Nice job on batteries David. Hope rest of work goes well (I expect it will since you do lots of planning).

Stay safe and prayers for those in need.

 

[sodamo]

Eric, another though provoking work. Thanks for sharing.