what did you do today? (2008-2015) (closed)

[Gumby]

Went through my backpack checklist and got everything together for my traverse of the Northern part of the Presidential Range in NH beginning next Friday

For those who know the area, we're staying at the Joe Dodge Lodge in Pinkham Notch on Friday night, climbing the Tuckerman Ravine trail up to the Lakes of the Clouds Hut on Saturday, hiking over the Gulfside Trail to the Madison Springs Hut on Sunday (which will almost certainly entail a trip up Mt. Adams and may include Washington and Jefferson as well), then climbing back down on Monday along the Airline Trail.

 

[NW-Bound]

Just came back from Costco, where I topped off the motorhome with 40 gal of gas. The price just went up 10c, and cost this ER pre-geezer a precious extra $4 already. I decided to fill'er up now as gas price seems to have bottomed out and started climbing. Still need to change her oil, and she's ready to roll.

A rough itinerary has been mapped out. Looks like 2,500 mi minimum, plus mileage with the toad. Still need to fill in the nightly stops, places to stay longer term, sights to see, etc... I may not head out for another month, but the preparation is part of the fun. The missus is also looking forward to getting on the road.

Life is good!

 

[Walt34]

Reading the elder care literature gives you the impression that the fiercest struggle is over the home (even more than the car keys), yet the biggest relief is getting rid of it. I saw a lot of "Selling my house and moving in here was the best thing I ever did!"

That is probably going to be the case with him as well. He's finally realized that keeping the house is unrealistic and is ready to make that change. The apartments we saw were very nice and makes me less reluctant to make that move when the time comes for us as well. They're certainly better than my first apartment!

And the budget studio lights work great! Adorama BFK4 Budget Studio Monolight Flash Kit #4 BFK4 It's all manual shooting, auto-nothing - you get what you pay for and I didn't pay much. But they light a medium-size room well.

 

[Sue J]

This month is our city's 200th anniversary so there have been bicentennial activities all week. Yesterday morning was the parade. Over 200 units including 3 marching bands, many fire trucks from the city and surrounding communities, including a couple of vintage ones. Lots of classic and antique cars, too. There were plenty of politicians and people running for judge or city council. There were a few clever and humorous floats including Klingons and a float of old hippies from the Class of 1968. Fun stuff despite the 60 degree temperature and drizzling rain.

Then in the evening I ushered at a Cleveland Orchestra concert. First was Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain" and then Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23" with a guest pianist, Yuja Wang. She is only 25 years old and just wowwed the audience. The crowd was thrilled. Both of these pieces I recognized and could follow along.

After the intermission was Dvorak's "Symphony No. 8 in G major, Opus 88" which I didn't recognize but it was lovely. I read the program along with the music and try to learn about the composer and the piece. It's nice to learn something new while on the j*b.

 

[freebird5825]

Mr B and I went to a Family picnic, on 2 free tickets. I was also given a ticket good for 2 dozen steamed clams. All that volunteering does pay off.
We pigged out, did a little visiting and came home.

I'm watching the Olympics, hoping for some gymnastics coverage after the men's volleyball is over. I may have missed out on that if it was broadcast earlier. Sigh...yup, that's all for coverage until the Closing Ceremony later tonight.

I have several projects to do inside, but I'm just feeling really lazy today.

My next project is to collect photos from the local VFW members, digitize them if necessary, and put them on a 8 inch PanDigital photoframe I had hanging around collecting dust.
I will also put the photo collection on a CD for the post historian.
I intend to get the word out that I will take current photos of members if they contact me for a specific meeting time. I can email any photos to members if they want to make a hardcopy for themselves or their family.
I'm looking forward to doing this. Mr B returns to college full time for the last time on the 27th, so I need something constructive to do while he studies. Most of my indoor projects are done, so this will get me out of the house and fully engaged in a "start-to-finsh" type of project.
All it will cost me is my time.

 

[Gumby]

It's been a beautiful day here so far. Drove the roadster over to Newport for lunch and a little window shopping. Picked up the fixin's for a dinner BLT and corn on the cob at a roadside vegetable stand on the way back.

 

[RitaR551]

Up early, checked email and news. Off to church. Lunch at Subway. Stopped at a RV dealer on the way home just to "window shop". Amazing what they have done to trailers and RV's in the last 20 years.
Enjoying the evening watching the Olympics.

 

[tmob]

BBq'd today and am now watching olympic mens volleyball. Trying not to think about w*rk tomorrow. These next 4 weeks of w*rk will be rough for me as I put in 12 hour a day in 6 day w*rk week

I cant hit our ER goal fast enough.....

 

[MichaelB]

We went to Ravinia twice, Friday and Saturday. Andy Grammer, Mat Kearney, Train, Huey Lewis and the News, Joe Cocker. Excellent shows, but we were exhausted on Sunday. The mind says go for it but the body doesn't have the energy levels it used to. Sunday morning with the grandkids we ate breakfast at the local pancake house. So good...

Here's Leila enjoying Mat Kearney, with her finest jewelry. She has ankle bracelets as well, all glowing.

 

[W2R]

We went to Ravinia twice, Friday and Saturday. Andy Grammer, Mat Kearney, Train, Huey Lewis and the News, Joe Cocker. Excellent shows, but we were exhausted on Sunday. The mind says go for it but the body doesn't have the energy levels it used to. Sunday morning with the grandkids we ate breakfast at the local pancake house. So good...

Here's Leila enjoying Mat Kearney, with her finest jewelry. She has ankle bracelets as well, all glowing.

Adorable!! She looks so happy with her bracelets.

 

[MBAustin]

Recovering from Olympics withdrawal. I really enjoy watching [-]all[/-] most of the sports that are shown mostly only during the Olympics - fencing, gymnastics, archery, shooting, show jumping, water polo, rowing, canoing - you get my drift. Just leave boxing off the list.

After my morning walk, got into an [-]argument[/-] intense discussion with DH about courtesy and taking responsibility when one screws up. A week or so ago I met a new neighbor and got their contact information on a piece of paper, which I handed to DH as he was eating breakfast and asked him to put on the fridge when he was done so we'd have it handy. Well, it never made it there and after cleaning up the random kitchen papers over the weekend, the only remaining spot is the (2-foot high) stack in the recycle bin. He doesn't see this as a problem for me to go through the papers to find it nor does he think he did anything [-]wrong[/-] careless. On the bright side, without the stress of w*rk, this did not degenerate into a prolonged shouting match as it very well might have a few years back. We're friends again, but I still have to tackle the pile (he is not physically able to do this himself in case you're wondering).

Boxed up a knitted prayer shawl I finished during the Olympics closing ceremony to send to an uncle who is fighting cancer and took it to the post office. Stopped at the bank and the library, then headed into town for yoga class. After lunch, sent a bunch of scanned papers off to the mortgage company (we decided last week that the current interest rates were just too good not to refinance even though we bought less than 3 years ago). Now catching up with the boards and getting ready to put a beer-can chicken on the grill for dinner. How did I ever have time to w*rk?

 

[Nodak]

Just returned from a trip home for the Perseid meteor shower. Didn't see a single meteor as it was cloudy every night. Regardless it was an opportunity to get together with old friends around a campfire, have a few beers and talk. The only excitement was Saturday morning when a black bear wandered through about 20 yards from our camp; we just kept an eye on him until he cleared out of the area.

 

[martyb]

Spent today (and the rest of the week) taking a GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing) and also a Blueprint reading class in Chester, VA. Nice little getaway from the Texas & Louisiana heat while getting paid to learn by my employer. Nice hotel for the week (Courtyard Marriott) and I also added a week of vacation to the trip after the class is over, since my mom & other family members are just 4 hrs away in NC. All in all, kind of a paid vacation!

 

[freebird5825]

I installed flexible corner stripping between the shower walls and the tub in my upstairs bathroom. The contractor used a thin line of caulk in 2007 when the bathroom was remodeled. It had gradually deteriorated, so I put the stripping on as a precaution against future leakage. I used painters tape to secure the stripping while the adhesive cures (24 hour).
Mr B ran around chasing down a signature for a waiver for one of the classes he will take this fall. Then he went for a few beers at a local Legion.
I watched a Robert DeNiro movie ("the Fan") that I had never even heard of. He plays an excellent fanatic killer. Wow!
I made store bought chicken pot pies for dinner. We are watching baseball right now.

 

[M Paquette]

Must be DIY day...

Having acquired a round tuit, I'm finally dealing with the household telecom infrastructure. That is, the fine builder grade daisy chain phone line of CAT-3 mixed with chunks of 4-wire is getting kicked to the curb, or at least to one leg of a proper star network where it can't hurt too much. (nothing like losing phone service to a mystery break, eventually tracked down to a 20 year old siding nail that eventually worked it's way through a very taut piece of crumbling CAT-3. Good thing there was a good pair left in that cable to switch to...)

I pulled two runs of CAT-5e from the phone company demarcation block, the place where their turf ends and mine begins, and from the home office all to where a new wiring panel will go. A whole house ADSL splitter will go just on my side of the demarc, with data on one pair of wires in one of the new cables, and voice on one pair in the other cable. I ran two cables just in case something better lands in the neighborhood someday (FIOS, or bonded pairs of VDSL, or other such cryptic TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). Oh, and unlike the builder, I decided not to run the phone line in the middle of the bundle of Nomex power wiring up the length of the garage. I'll miss that droning hum in phone calls (well, there's this one caller...) and being able to light a flashlight bulb on a dry pair of wires in the phone cable. Or not...

The explosion of RG-6 cable handling our satellite receivers and MATV (master antenna television) system will also be addressed.

I'm really looking forward to Happy Fun Panel Day, when we have a simultaneous outage of all TV, house phone, and Internet access while I disconnect, thread wiring into the new panel, connect, test, and debug. Plant documentation? We don't need no steenking plant documentation!

 

[web_diva]

yay! you will save gobs!

 

[Moemg]

We went to Ravinia twice, Friday and Saturday. Andy Grammer, Mat Kearney, Train, Huey Lewis and the News, Joe Cocker. Excellent shows, but we were exhausted on Sunday. The mind says go for it but the body doesn't have the energy levels it used to. Sunday morning with the grandkids we ate breakfast at the local pancake house. So good...

Here's Leila enjoying Mat Kearney, with her finest jewelry. She has ankle bracelets as well, all glowing.

She is so cute!

 

[Nords]

Next month I'm going to spend a couple weeks visiting my Dad at his care facility. My brother says he's at his best in the mornings, and can handle about 30 minutes. Hypothetically I could visit him each morning, re-introduce myself, and have the same conversation every day. However one of the "conversation starter" techniques for Alzheimer's is a photo book. I gave him a digital frame a couple years ago, but he hasn't been able to retain the memory to use it. A digital frame is also pretty susceptible to pilfering, so I don't want to set him up for trouble or frustration.

I spent this afternoon on MyPublisher.com to build a 20-page photo album of our daughter, from her birth to growing up and going to college. Their software lets you lay out the photos & captions just the way you want for their printing. I chose a bound hardcopy book format that won't be considered pilferable. It has her name on it, so if the book is misplaced then everyone will know where it came from. $55 on a twofer coupon (which includes $17 shipping), which means I can give the other copy to my brother if Dad's is misplaced or damaged. If this is a hit then I'll put together a couple more.

I pulled two runs of CAT-5e from the phone company demarcation block, the place where their turf ends and mine begins, and from the home office all to where a new wiring panel will go.

Where does the old cable run? Do you have access inside your walls, or were you able to attach the new to the old and pull it through a conduit, or are you routing new conduit?

On our little island you'd see the "technician" stapling the new cable up under the eves, with a drop going down the exterior wall of each room to a hole carefully drilled from the exterior to the interior remodel box...

 

[donheff]

Built a hanging rack in my garage so I can hang the bikes vertically along the wall. Saves a lot of space.

 

[M Paquette]

Where does the old cable run? Do you have access inside your walls, or were you able to attach the new to the old and pull it through a conduit, or are you routing new conduit?

On our little island you'd see the "technician" stapling the new cable up under the eves, with a drop going down the exterior wall of each room to a hole carefully drilled from the exterior to the interior remodel box...

Much of the run from the demarcation box to my structured wiring panel is in the garage, where I have very easy access as the interior walls are mostly open. (Newer construction puts gypsum board on the garage interiors. This place predates that trend.)

The interior of the house actually has a large chase from the garage to a central space between the first and second floors that I've used to pull cables into all the rooms I've wired. There's an access point in the upstairs floor to his space that I used a while back when we were replacing the wall to wall carpeting. While the carpeting was gone I pulled RG-6 coax and CAT-6 (overkill...) into all the rooms from the garage.

There was one wall that I needed to wire that I couldn't reach this way. That one is wired island style, with the new communications wiring attached to the outside of a power conduit on the side of the house up to the room, behind a remodel box. This was easier than trying to guide an auger bit through 35 feet of walls, including a bathroom. ("Mr. Auger, meet Mr. Pipe!")

Oh, there's no attic or basement/crawl space. Two story home on slab, with all "cathedral ceilings" upstairs.

 

[winger]

We went whale watching on the San Juan islands near Seattle. Got up at 4a, and took a train from Puyallup to King Station in downtown Seattle. Totally screwed up the local bus there, but got to the pier just in time. Cold ride to Friday Harbor on the Victoria Clipper 3, we mostly stayed on the upper open deck. We did get a choice seat for the whale watching part of the ride, even though may people from below crowded to the top then. Followed several Orca Pods along the shore for about an hour. Was amazed at the number of different boats doing the same thing. A Canadian Military ship of some type even joined for a while. How could I tell? It had BIG guns. Then back to Friday Harbor for 2 hours, had really good fish and chips at Downriggers.
Long day... 4a to 11p. I'd do it again. OK price $67 a person.

 

[Lakedog]

I had my first colonoscopy this morning. I am 56 so had put it off for a few years, but no polyps or any other major issues. Afterwards took my friend (who drove me over 45 miles each way) to a late lunch at a nice restaurant - I was starving after not having any solid food for 42 hours.

 

[bbbamI]

DH is preparing Moussaka and Dolmas as I type this.

I separated the grape leaves and washed them.

Got out of the kitchen in the nick of time...didn't want to get hit with flying elbows.

 

[Nords]

Finally got the straight sales numbers (and a royalty check) from the publisher. "The Military Guide" sales are down but he says his sales are down across the board. The military drawdown and the implied threat of sequestration have pretty much shut down spending by the family support commands, and the most popular titles are the transition guides. (Not the retirement guides.) He said the only part of his company that's really rockin' the sales is the part of the catalog for "Ex-offender re-entry": convicts released from prison.

Regardless, we have another $524.59 to split between Wounded Warrior Project and Fisher House. He agrees that I should write more chapters for sale as eBooks, and wait on the hardcopy 2nd edition until 2013.

Turns out that one of my USNA classmates is VP Ops at Fisher House. I'll reach out to him with this donation.

The sales details are in the "Nords' book" thread.

Much of the run from the demarcation box to my structured wiring panel is in the garage, where I have very easy access as the interior walls are mostly open. (Newer construction puts gypsum board on the garage interiors. This place predates that trend.)
The interior of the house actually has a large chase from the garage to a central space between the first and second floors that I've used to pull cables into all the rooms I've wired. There's an access point in the upstairs floor to his space that I used a while back when we were replacing the wall to wall carpeting. While the carpeting was gone I pulled RG-6 coax and CAT-6 (overkill...) into all the rooms from the garage.

Color me jealous. We rewired our familyroom last year, but we had to destroy it first. Most expensive cable price per foot ever...

 

[freebird5825]

Another lazy day...Mr B did his usual running around and I goofed off at home in nice cool AC. I emptied the dishwasher to justify my oxygen consumption.

I did finally muster some energy to get the vacuum cleaner out and make all the dog tumbleweeds go away in the hallway and wood floor areas, plus did all of the carpeted upstairs rooms. My 2 furry kids are shedding like crazy. I can easily pull small tufts of loose fur out with my fingers. Time to get the doggie brush out before they come back inside tonight.

I made spaghetti and meatballs and sausage for dinner. We are both hanging out in the living room. Mr B is watching the baseball game through his eyelids.