Ever watch someone suck the fun out of a room?
I've spent the weekend dying from a migraine. Huge storm came thru and with the pressure changes I get migraines.
I've spent 30 min out of bed all weekend
I was at war with a welder (machine, not person) yesterday. Settings should have been perfectly fine, but after running great for a while, it would randomly start popping and sputtering like someone turned the wire feed down. Then it would burn back to the tip, and the wire feeder would tangle up.
The only other time I've seen this, it ended up being a bad roll of wire. I'll be damned if I'm gonna throw away 9 lbs of wire.
Friend of mine died last night. A very talented autocrosser had a single car accident on the interstate at 3am.
Stay safe out there guys.
On Saturday morning I had to take The Dancer's 2019 Colorado in to the dealership for an oil change and the 45k transmission service, and though I brought along a book to read I decided to wander over to the sales lot since my FIL had been talking to us about how good of a deal he'd gotten trading in his several year-old full-size truck for a new one given how short used inventory was- and after talking with one of the sales guys found out that they had a 2022 Colorado that had just been delivered that was essentially the twin of ours except for having the features that are now standard and weren't 3 years ago including the one I've bitched about since we got it: Cruise Control (the other main difference is the new ones have a remote-locking tailgate, which is something she likes). I had them work up all the prelimary paperwork to see what we'd get for ours on trade-in and what the numbers would look like, but had to wait to commit to anything until after The Dancer was done with rehearsals that afternoon- which unfortunately was after they closed for the day.
Talked it over with her after I picked her up from rehearsal and decided that it was a pretty good deal since it would reset the warranty and we'd get the added features and otherwise the truck was exactly the same as she was used to (the bed cover would even be easy for the shop that installed it to swap over). Texted the sales guy to call use first thing this morning to get the deposit from us to hold it- and when he pinged the sales manager found out that it had sold Saturday night after he'd left (seemingly after the place had closed). It had been on the lot less than 24 hours.
They have a dark silver/light gray one with identical features that would be the same cost, but The Dancer isn't as enamoured with that color vs. the black she's had and isn't willing to commit until seeing it in person which can't happen until after we're done with work around 6pm... during which time that one could sell too (assuming she decides she wants it and not to just wait for another black one).
Well, I have hot water after replacing my hot water heater last week, but this morning, the A/C is on the fritz. Woke up to a balmy 78 degrees here in central Texas. Setup a service call with our warranty place, but it's pending assignment. Given we hit our first 100 degree day this weekend, I'm assuming it'll be a week before they can come out.
Luckily, have have two window units from back when my son raced (we had one in our cargo trailer), so I've got one in the front room where I work and one in our bedroom where the wife can work in comfort. So, that's a silver lining in all of this. We can stay cool while we wait. Our commute from the bedroom to the living room just gets shorter. :D
-Rob
KyAllroad said:Friend of mine died last night. A very talented autocrosser had a single car accident on the interstate at 3am.
Stay safe out there guys.
I'm so sorry to hear that, J. My condolences.
I won't speculate, but I imagine they fell asleep? As someone who has done that and survived the ensuing crash, you do that once. You either don't survive, or you never do it again.
Again, my thoughts are with you, and their family and friends.
this is what I get for trying to be nice.. I got add a nice umbilical hernia to my bingo board last night.
Working Entertainment in a Casino is never just sticking to the theaters. We also run the nightclubs. Part of that involves loading CO2 and Nitrogen tanks in and out of the clubs. Due to very poor design, the Clubs bare the scars from our activities. Each week we move in 8 large dewar tanks of Nitrogen, these get brought in on a loading dock down strairs and moved up a freight elevator, through a tight kitchen area, and all the way around the perimetre of the club and placed into a large sealed closet were they are hooked up to the system. There are also four 100 pound nitrogen booster tanks that go in there. This is the easy part.
The hard part are the twelve 100pound CO2 tanks that live in a closet in the green room behind the DJ booth. They are placed into rolling carts of six each. With the siphon tube bottles weighing about 150 pounds each and are never less than half full, each cart probably is holding 1200 pounds. We have to navigate this out of a tight room, around a corner, up a ramp, around the perimeter of the club, through the kitchen to get to the loading dock. Fun fact, they are stored only 20 feet from the elevator, but there are three steps up between them and it.. so we literally have to circumnavigate the club to do this.
So, because my boss lacks good sense and empathy, he only has the two most broken guys on to move these. They might get a casual to help. Today should have been a guy who had his gallbladder out 2 months ago, a 62 year old with bad knees, and a 66 year old casual with high blood pressure. So myself and one of the other 50 somethings decided to be nice and move the 12 CO2 tanks out to help these guys. In manuevering through the kitchen, I felt a 'pull" in stomach, but no pain. Because I always wear a fleece at work, I did not notice the bump now pushing out against my shirt. When I got home and out of my work clothes it was quite obvious.
So, went to my doc for a formal diagnosis, now I set up a meeting with a surgeon on thursday. Today I have to go in and get the ball rolling on workman's comp.
I am making sure to blame my boss for this. When the new "full" tanks come in on Thursdays, we have 2 full timers and usually 4 casuals, not the most broken people in the department.
Looked at the yard, decided today was the day to go buy a new tractor.
Swing into the cub cadet dealer "what can I take home today for $3k?"
Well that would be a nice down payment on this 60" zero turn.
"Anything that costs less than my truck?"
We can put you on the list. Maybe we'll get something by fall.
"Dammit, thanks anyway"
Come home, drag the craftsman out, jump it off the excursion, kick the pto on. Belt spins, blades spin. Make a pass astound the property, absoberkeleyinglutely nothing comes out the discharge chute, can't even tell I drove over the yard.
berkeley.
In reply to mad_machine :
That's a bummer. I had a pretty good-sized umbilical hernia - every time I coughed or sneezed I'd have to poke it back in. Surgery and recovery weren't too bad and after healing up, you'd never know I had one. You'll have to go through getting it fixed of course, but the prognosis is very good.
Best of luck, man.
To all the investment conglomerates buying up all the houses in Florida and making it impossible for me to purchase a home to live in, I hope all of your children get lice. Like, a lot of it.
In reply to Mndsm :
Same. We want to move to Florida but have come to our senses and know that there is no way we could afford it. California looks cheaper at this point.
Mndsm said:To all the investment conglomerates buying up all the houses in Florida and making it impossible for me to purchase a home to live in, I hope all of your children get lice. Like, a lot of it.
This is one of the things that I hope the fed raising rates will knock back somewhat. Easy money means the greedy get more greedy borrowing in an attempt to grab even more. They tend to borrow short term, so debt service may force them to start unloading assets, once they realize not enough people can afford the rent they need to charge to make a profit.
In reply to eastsideTim :
I gotta be honest, I'm hoping for 2008 all over again. I know for a fact many of the investors that are doing it now are overseas groups (open door is Chinese as an example) based on the weakness of the American dollar on inflation. They're swinging cash deals everywhere. I can't even bid fast enough and I'd argue I have above average buying power. It's insane.
Of all the things to become giant time sinks in this process, I am utterly unable to get the little retaining clip in place that holds down the coolant temp sensor. I've been screwing with this for an hour already!
I don't need the sordid details of the dysfunctional relationships of people I know and care about.
I really don't want to hear anything about the sordid details of the dysfunctional relationships of celebrities.
National news blurb "utilities fighting back against home solar generation"
Pennsylvania news blurb "PA utility companies looking at 45% production fee increase"
You're not going to win the fight against home made power by raising prices on your store bought electricity.
RevRico said:National news blurb "utilities fighting back against home solar generation"
Pennsylvania news blurb "PA utility companies looking at 45% production fee increase"
You're not going to win the fight against home made power by raising prices on your store bought electricity.
That's because the "national news blurb" is actually sensationalized clickbait.
Almost every utility company - at least those east of the Mississippi - is willing to cooperate with or even subsidize home solar generation, because nearly all of them are maxed out in generation capacity, and it's so damn difficult and expensive to get a new power plant built thanks to regulations and NIMBYs.
Busy, busy week getting the house ready for company this weekend. Need to clean ALL the things and do yard work.....
...and I wrecked my back sometime on Saturday which is now showing up as crippling pain. Perfect timing.
Generally speaking, I make it my life's goal to be as self-sufficient as possible. Granted, that usually means that by the time I'm ready to admit that I need help with something, bones have already poked through skin or fires are already burning or I'm already standing in a foot and a half of water. But, still, I jump in and try to figure it out. There are certainly times when I completely miss the obvious and wind up asking really stupid questions, but when I do that I have at least already put some degree of thought or effort in to it. Once I've asked for help, I try to make it clear that I'm looking for assistance but I don't necessarily just want you to give me a fish - I'm willing to learn to fish if you think it's worth teaching me. And once you've taught me to fish, if I have to come back to you for a second lesson, I make damned sure that I give it a try first and I have some very specific questions about where I'm having difficulty.
The people that I work with, however, are not like me.
"Go to the vendor's website and find the install documentation. Read that. Then, on the same website, go download the OVA for the virtual appliance and have the team install it for you"
<a week and a half goes by>
"Uh, Bill, uh, do you have the OVA? I can't find it."
"Did you go through the docs? Did you check the vendor website?"
"Well, I downloaded this entirely other thing and the guy told me it wouldn't work"
"Why did you download that other thing?"
"I didn't know what to download"
"Did you check in the manual from the vendor's website?"
"I couldn't find it"
"Did you go to Documentation...Management...softwareProductName? Or just Documentation...All Documentation...softwareProductName?"
"Oh."
90% of my interaction with this team (for whom I am supposed to be an L4 escalation which, roughly translated, makes me an "in case of emergency, break glass") is me reading documentation to them or clicking through vendor websites and sending them a link that they "couldn't find". I don't know how many times they've pissed and moaned that "we don't know how to do that. We've never done that before. You need to help us" and my contribution was literally sitting on the phone with them and saying "Okay, in the manual it says the first step is to do this..." and reading. the. berkeleying. manual. to them like some sort of bedtime story for a terminally insomniac.
I try to be charitable, but I can't decide what the percentage breakdown is here between stupid and lazy.
So despite her reluctance after looking at the pictures and video (which admittedly was pretty ridiculous due to the commentary by the sales guy who appears to be a bit too enamored with the dark silver color), The Dancer ended up deciding that she like the color well enough and that the deal was good enough that she wanted to trade her 2019 in for the 2022 model. I support this decision- under normal circumstances we'd never have gotten the amount we did for a 3 year old truck with 45k on the odometer, and the new truck has *hallelujah chorus* cruise control so my back won't be killing me so much after the 10-hour drives to our respective families.
Why the rant? We got to the dealership at about 6:15, and finally left (ironically without the new truck- we can't get the bed cover swapped over until Friday morning so she's going to drive the old truck until then) right around 9pm. It's ridiculous how much time it took- and most of it was just sitting around while they got paperwork and such done.
Secondary rant: I wish that I would learn to either not try and print more than one thing at once on the 3D printer or that I had a way to on-the-fly tell it to stop printing one part and just finish the others, because it seems like invariably when I print more than one thing at once one thing will mess up and either have to stop and restart the print or hope that the one messed up part doesn't ruin the other(s).
Ashyukun (Robert) said:Secondary rant: I wish that I would learn to either not try and print more than one thing at once on the 3D printer or that I had a way to on-the-fly tell it to stop printing one part and just finish the others, because it seems like invariably when I print more than one thing at once one thing will mess up and either have to stop and restart the print or hope that the one messed up part doesn't ruin the other(s).
If you're using Octoprint (and you should be) there's a plug in for that.
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