Good morning!!!!

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning to all! The low was 25, going up to 55° today. Down right tropical weather compared to most of you guys. Maybe hit 60° tomorrow, but snow is forecast for Thursday with highs being only in the low 30's. Now we begin the late winter temperature roller coaster......

BEF, sorry to hear about your friend... condolences.

Drew, it's tough to try and do a job with all that opposition. Hang in there....

RNG, glad you got a nice ride in over the weekend and you now know just how far you can push it.....well, in your case, NOT pushing it....

I was coming out of town last Friday morning and saw a massive congregation of police vehicles on the parallel frontage road at one of the exits. At least 40-50 vehicles including heavy armored SWAT vehicles, then more on the freeway, then more at local intersections. A couple of helicopters circling too......

Ended up there was a short 6 mile police chase turning into a shootout with a State Police officer being shot. They had a massive manhunt for 2 suspects. They had a perimeter / roadblock set up for around 10 miles in all directions. We were about 2 miles outside of the perimeter, but I still locked and loaded our weapons just in case.

They ended up capturing the male and female drug addicts back in the big city (about 30 miles away) 6 hours later.... along with the druggie accomplice that they called and picked them up. All facing some serious charges. The officer was in stable condition and should make a full recovery. He was lucky.

Then on Sunday, the news reported a guy on a bike was riding down Central Ave in Albuquerqu, stabbing 11 people as he went. Left a 5-6 mile long crime scene. The police finally caught him, surprisingly without him putting up a fight. Fortunately, no one was killed.

This world is becoming crazy....

After starting the weekend with all that action, the rest of the weekend was mundane, running the new powerline out to the shop. Got the trench dug, new wire installed, and reburied (With the great help of my son and GS). I was able to finish connecting the line to a new outdoor disconnect box. Today, I'll get it tied into the subpanel in the shop. It took longer than I expected, but soon will be all good.

Everyone stay safe, have a great start to the week!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Took a closer look at my emissions test notices I got last week. Thought I had a couple months like usual, it said due this Saturday or they suspended my license.

Now, this Saturday is an extended date due to that crap we can’t name, but a week, come on man. So I took one in this morning (Honda that I just changed plugs on, codes were gone after driving it yesterday).
It passed, but they charged me a $15 late fee.

Now I gotta fuss with MVA.

Oh, the spark plugs from Amazon, 2 of 6 were the wrong plugs. Dropped them off to return today. 2nd time lately Amazon sent wrong item.

Very late to work. Our snow didn’t last long and sun came out.

 

[daugen]

the Albuquerque stabber made front page news here

Buckeye, you are a very capable mechanic and I am baffled by how a spark plug can cost 25 dollars, not including the coil.
what is so special about them? Or was that 4 for 25? 6 bucks sounds like the dealer price tag for a four dollar spark plug.

 

[Rich B1]

I heard about both of those NM crime sprees this morning as well. Strange times

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Only real reason I stopped was because I was scraping frost of the inside of the windshield. Temperature was -55°F and a North wind blowing. Now that is cold.

That's cold alright!

I drove an old VW Squareback through a couple of Ohio winters. It never got that cold, but I was always scraping frost off the inside of the windshield. I just couldn't hold my breath long enough to avoid it.

 

[Rich B1]

That's cold alright!

I drove an old VW Squareback through a couple of Ohio winters. It never got that cold, but I was always scraping frost off the inside of the windshield. I just couldn't hold my breath long enough to avoid it.

Driving any air cooled VW in an Ohio winter resulted in frost on the inside. I used to keep an ice scraper handy to keep the windshield clear in the winter.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

the Albuquerque stabber made front page news here

Buckeye, you are a very capable mechanic and I am baffled by how a spark plug can cost 25 dollars, not including the coil.
what is so special about them? Or was that 4 for 25? 6 bucks sounds like the dealer price tag for a four dollar spark plug.

$25 each at autozone, $18 each on Amazon, except they sent 2 of 6 totally different plugs.

Inflation is real.

I requested a refund from Amazon, I just checked and they are sending me 6 new plugs.
Unreal.

 

[Thomas]

13F few clouds here and there windchill 2F,temps dipping just below -0F tonight.

8 hours at pt, job than feed the feeders,not much plan for the evening good chance early to bed out the door before day break.

Enjoy your evening all.

 

[RoyJackson]

Driving any air cooled VW in an Ohio winter resulted in frost on the inside. I used to keep an ice scraper handy to keep the windshield clear in the winter.

Used to be, you could add a gasoline heater...same with the air-cooled Porsches

 

[PJSprog]

Driving any air cooled VW in an Ohio winter resulted in frost on the inside. I used to keep an ice scraper handy to keep the windshield clear in the winter.

Yup, same around here. I had two Super Beetles back in the mid-'80s and early '90s; a '74 and a '73, respectively. The '74 was in great shape, and had heat. The '73 had rusted out channels, so it only had heated running boards. I bought one of those 12V heater fans to help keep the windshield defrosted on that one. Still did a lot of wiping, though.

 

[Eric Salop]

Did you make it to Haight/Ashbury?

Kyle, don't think we went much further than the Golden Gate bridge, remember it being too misty to see much.

Wiki tells me the Haight-Ashbury "Summer of love" was the following year, so I missed out there - then again, I was only 11 at the time

 

[Eric Salop]

BEF, very sorry to hear the loss of your friend.

 

[Eric Salop]

A new experience for me today, my first ever ride through a CT scanner, for the docs to resolve an anomaly inside my face that the dentist discovered when my teeth were X-rayed last year.

I was expecting the table to gradually move me into position, instead it took me by surprise with an impressive rate of acceleration rate that wouldn't have been out of place on a fairground ride. My wife was waiting in the car park and thought my appointment must have been cancelled when I came out so quickly. From arriving at the hospital to leaving again had taken only 20 minutes.

Am I too late to enter the most expensive fuel competition ? Pump prices here showing petrol at the equivalent of of $1.99 a litre - $7.53 per US gallon

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Wow, Eric, those are some steep prices! Our gas (petrol to you foreign guys) was $3.14 / gal when I filled up this morning. I feel lucky......

For you guys that have been to Albuquerque, the news reported that an Albq. landmark / icon is permanently closing its doors------- Quarters BBQ.
They always had good food and great customer service. They can't survive the decreased business caused by restrictions of you know what.....

WOOHOO! Shop has power! No sparks, no fire, power tools work.... I guess I did the install correctly. Wifey already mentioned a bunch of projects need some attention....

 

[toppop52]

Been having trouble attaching images lately. First try seems to result in a broken link, but edit and re-insert seems to fix it.

Same here I wrote admins, no reply.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

For you guys that have been to Albuquerque, the news reported that an Albq. landmark / icon is permanently closing its doors------- Quarters BBQ.
They always had good food and great customer service. They can't survive the decreased business caused by restrictions of you know what.....

That's a shame, Ted. I tried to eat there at least one night every trip I made there. Did they close their liquor store, too? I usually did takeout, and would go over there to snag a couple beers while my order was being prepared.

 

[toppop52]

Used to be, you could add a gasoline heater...same with the air-cooled Porsches

My first car was a Corvair so I understand your pain. Mine had a gasoline heater under the backseat, it didn’t work much. I carried a blanket and gloves. Gas heater in the car seems a bit dangerous.

 

[sodamo]

Driving any air cooled VW in an Ohio winter resulted in frost on the inside. I used to keep an ice scraper handy to keep the windshield clear in the winter.

Yup, had a 1960 Bug in Maine. Sometimes I wondered if colder on inside than out.

 

[sodamo]

My first car was a Corvair so I understand your pain. Mine had a gasoline heater under the backseat, it didn’t work much. I carried a blanket and gloves. Gas heater in the car seems a bit dangerous.

My very 1st brand new car, 1965 Corvair Monza, payment @$69/month.

 

[rswyan]

Currently 21F and pretty sunny @ 16:00, heading down to a low of 8F. Ten Day looking good, with half of the days calling for highs of over 50F ...

Far behind at this point so will be playing catch up for a while.

Shortly after I woke up yesterday I noticed that it seemed kind of cool in the house. Checked the thermostat and it read 69F temp and it was set on 73F.

Here we go again ...

Went downstairs flipped the on/off switch on the furnace and heard a "click" then proceeded to pull the flame sensor and ignitor and cleaned both of those off with some steel wool. No change.

Pushed on the one roll out switch I could find, which didn't seem like it was tripped. Still no change.

Checked condensate drain and it was open.

The inducer was not running whenever power was applied to the furnace so I disconnected the wires going to that and hooked up the meter to see if it was getting power. It wasn't.

So I disconnected the the red and white wires coming from the t-stat from the board on the furnace and took a jumper wire and jumped across the two screws where the t-stat wires were connected and flipped the switch. Inducer spun right up and the furnace fired off ...

So appears to have been a bad t-stat or a break in the wiring.

Took a good bit for the house to warm up after that as the temperature had fallen to around 65F or so by that point. Glad that it did though ... as the low this morning was 7.3F. It would have been very painful had it not fired up and come on.

Had to control the furnace by switching it on and off at the switch mounted on the side of it. I shut it off initially around 21:00 after the temp had gotten up to 77F and then turned on again around midnight and shut it off again around 4:30 before I went to bed.

Went ahead and ordered a new Honeywell smart t-stat last night from Amazon around 20:00, it was delivered this morning before I got up ... along with a new glass turntable for spare microwave No. 2, a small Magic Chef that was The Woman's mother's. Price was $6 cheaper than Menard's sale price on the same stat and it was delivered in less than 24 hours to our door ...

The old microwave - a large Sears Kenmore model which I bought back in mid 80's - finally went **** up a couple of days ago. It still comes on ... but is making a funny noise. May dig into that at some point and see if it's repairable or not ... although The Woman has already commented that she likes the smaller footprint of Her mother's microwave much better.

Agenda for the rest of the day is to get bird feeders filled (it's been several days) and to check wiring for the t-stat and then if good, replace the old t-stat with the new unit. New unit is gray with black face, and the display is backlit with white lettering. Will be much better than the old unit which was not lit at all and in a location in the main hallway where the lighting was dim.

We are somewhat excited by the new t-stat, which can be controlled from our phones ... as it may go towards ameliorating the thermostat wars here ...

She and I are opposite ends the spectrum with regard to temperature: She gets too warm fairly easily and doesn't (usually) mind it being cooler. I get cold more easily and don't mind it being on the warm side.

At least She'll be able to check with her phone what the t-stat is set on ... instead of asking me "Did you turn up the heat?" ... all the time ...

Hope eveyone is having a great day ...