What did you do today? - 2021 version

[Out-to-Lunch]

congratulations

Congratulations!

I wish you well!

Thank you all!

 

[NW-Bound]

I worked my last day.

Boy! One more poster who will be sitting around all day with nothing to do.

Congrats anyway.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Boy! One more poster who will be sitting around all day with nothing to do.

Congrats anyway.

Ain't it the truth!

Thank you.

 

[NW-Bound]

Woke up shortly after the market opened, sold a few call contracts while drinking coffee, then went out to the backyard to do a bit of gardening.

I have decided to divide the weekly fertilizing of the plants into two: early in the week it's the front yard, and late in the week it's the backyard. So, today's the day I fertilize all the plants and veggies by dissolving fertilizer granules and dispensing the dilute solution with a 2-gallon watering can. It takes about 25 cans. Lots of walking about, which is my form of exercise.

Then, my wife said we should transplant the tomato plants that came up after she threw the seeds of store-bought Roma tomatoes out into a pot. Got 20 more plants going in pots and in planting beds. If they give us the same amount of fruits as the existing plants, I will have enough to feed my children, plus my siblings' families too. Hopeful thinking, maybe?

Came back inside to rest in AC comfort. I am done for the day. Saw that the market has turned red. Dang! I set a trailing stop on the extra S&P index shares I bought just yesterday as a short-term play, and it tripped. I am out of these shares, netting $598. Not getting rich from this, but the gain helps reduce the total drop of the whole portfolio.

Trying to make some extra money by trading is like trying to grow your own tomatoes. You don't have to do it, and can live a fulfilled life without it, but some people derive pleasure from it. I do.

 

[chicamuxen]

I worked my last day.

Oh man, how great. Congratulations! The best feeling!

 

[Walt34]

About trees, one just has to drive through Texas to see that there are no stinkin' trees.

Speaking of trees, West Virginia has plenty of them. We cut down one (or is it three?, I'll explain in a bit) that was dead from strangulation by vines growing up the trunk(s) and either shading it too much or cutting off circulation, I don't know. Anyway, it was dead and I was concerned about it falling on me when I was mowing grass since it was leaning that way and dead trees are called "widowmakers" for a reason.

The tree(s) grew from one trunk but split into three trunks about six inches off the ground. There's a word for that but I can't remember what it is, hence my uncertainty about the true number of trees.

The first two were leaning into the yard where I mow so I just "went with the flow" and let them fall where they were going to naturally. Cutting them up was made harder because of the entangled vines. The vines were also dead because we had cut them off at the ground several years ago but it was too late for the tree(s). The last one was sort of leaning into the woods but in a direction that would have hung it up on other standing trees. I was able to make the cut so it went where I wanted it to, which admittedly doesn't always happen. Paul Bunyan I ain't. When the last cut went as far as I thought it should go the tree was still standing, not moving. Hmmm. More out of hope than any expectation that anything would happen I pushed on it with I swear what couldn't have been more than 20 pounds of pressure. Danged if it didn't fall over! DW thinks I'm The Ironman so that's good.

Go inside, shower, get lunch and a nap, and that's enough work for today.

 

[Gumby]

Dentist appointment this morning to remove a crown and fix some decay on the adjacent tooth. Will have to return in 3 weeks to get the replacement crown. Then went out to work in the garden plot for a while. In a few minutes, I am going to paint the walls on my bedroom to walk-in closet conversion project. I got the ceiling done yesterday.

 

[NW-Bound]

Speaking of trees, West Virginia has plenty of them...

We would not have any tree here, in fact even natural saguaros are rare, if it weren't for the suburbanites who water their ficus trees for them to grow to an enormous 35-ft height in a desert environment.

Without watering, not even weeds can grow here.

 

[REWahoo]

... Out in the boondocks, one can just lay the panels on the ground, tilted up with some cinder blocks and you are done.

About trees, one just has to drive through Texas to see that there are no stinkin' trees.

I went out in my yard and took a couple of photos of the trees my neighbor and I don't have. Didn't see any cinder blocks either.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, you do have some trees after all. I should not have trusted the report from my spy.

But I still see plenty of sunlit spots for solar panels.

About cinder blocks, too bad you don't have any. They are legos for adults. You can do things like this:

or this:

and of course dis:

 

[aja8888]

NW-Bound, East Texas is full of trees, mostly tall pines. Down where I am (north of Houston), we have a lot of pines and soft wood trees. We also have mosquitos, big roaches, and snakes (met a copperhead on the walking trail last week).

 

[NW-Bound]

I know that the further east you go, the wetter it gets. Close to Louisiana, it can be swampy.

When I said "Texas", I meant West Texas. The hill country where ReWahoo lives is not as dry, but has more scrubs and grassland than trees, and I teased him about that. It is still a lot greener than the low desert of AZ, that's for sure.

 

[MRG]

Spent the day chasing issues with my speedy 3 mb CenturyLink service. After the first two calls offering jokes for solutions(they got my to cycle the modem and the service would work for a while). I finally think the third person led me in the proper direction and I'm testing it as I type.

I am also having a puppy training session with it sleeping in my lap. I think this is "boundary training ".

I'm enjoying the first full week post secondary cataract removal. So far my vision is great with no signs of a detached retina like the other eye had. Next week I see the doctor who did the procedure and a retina specialist I hope they agree.

 

[Walt34]

Finished covering the wing for an R/C sailplane that I'm building. The ailerons are not yet covered but since they've yet to be attached I consider them still separate. I had to stop because bending over the workbench was starting to cause some serious back pain. I hate this "getting old" stuff.

I also got and wired up (what there was to it) a 12v 30a power supply for a specialized battery charger. Normally this is used at the field to recharge lipo batteries using a vehicle battery but I wanted to be able to use it at home too. Horizon Hobby wants $110 for their "smart" power supply (I'm a bit fuzzy on what is so "smart" about it) but I was pretty sure a 12v power supply shouldn't cost that much. It doesn't. I bought one on Amazon for $19 plus tax and a power cord. I already had the other wire and connectors for it. It isn't near as pretty as the fancy one, it doesn't have an on/off switch, and it seems pretty "dumb", but it seems to work just fine for what I need it to do.

 

[skyking1]

Yesterday I tore it up at my sister's house all day. Today I hope to get it all piped and back filled. I have a rental excavator and I'm trenching in sewer water power temporary power pole cable TV so she can set up an RV while her house is rebuilt.

 

[Gumby]

Yesterday, we planted out 24 tomato plants that we had grown from seed - Sungold, Mortgage Lifter, San Marzano, Roma, a Campari type, and Principe Borghese - along with a pair of tomatillo plants that we also grew from seed. Except for the Sungolds, which are hybrids, all the seed was saved from our harvest last year.

This morning, we went back out and sowed our first tranche of corn (Golden Bantam), green beans (Blue Lake 274) and butternut squash. We'll make three plantings 10 days apart, so that we don't get overwhelmed all at once when they come in. Then I came home and mowed the lawn. It's already an unseasonably hot 86 degrees here, so I think I'm done.

 

[Walt34]

Finished covering all the control surfaces and the fuselage on the R/C sailplane, only the vertical stabilizer remains to be covered. Also mounted the ailerons, when I connect them to the servos the wing will be done. Although the two servos for rudder and elevator are installed I only did that because the control rods had to be installed earlier. Normally the installation of electronics is the last thing to be done but that can vary depending on the airplane. I'm not real fond of the designer's method of moving the elevator - it seems like it'd create a lot of friction, but so far I'm not seeing high amperage (power) draw on the servo. It'll be something to keep an eye on though. It's a T-tail design so options are somewhat limited and that's probably why the designer chose that method.

It has a fairly high aspect ratio wing, even more so than it looks in the picture, so it should ride thermals pretty well. The radio receiver I'll use has an altimeter and variometer built in so that will help. No landing flaps or spoilers to bleed off lift/speed though so getting it back down to land may be problematic. We'll see.

 

[MRG]

Last night I was going crazy trying different things to fix our ailing internet. It would routinely become unresponsive with pages taking minutes to load, the Fidelity application would report a network error, booting the modem was the only fix.

The computer and modem are upstairs and the puppy was sleeping in its open pen when I went upstairs. It wasn't long before a very excited puppy was upstairs for the first time ever. She was so proud of what she learned, it was just beginning. She spent a couple hours on my lap looking at configurations and for any glimpses of excessive data use to no avail. She's a wimp, quickly tired of my 24x7x365 war stories, and was ready for bed shortly after midnight so we called it a night.

This morning I had some new ideas and quickly hit paydirt. I had disconnected almost all the wireless connections from the modem except Direct TV, this morning I unplugged the one in our bedroom. We have had speedy quick 3mbs all day long. I have no idea what it was doing or why but everything we use is still working. Maybe tomorrow I'll try plugging it back in and ask the puppy to monitor the condition of the network.

We had lunch at our favorite Mexican place it was full capacity for the first time in over a year. It felt odd but exciting to sit down with people indoors without masks and fears.

 

[street]

Today it was a cold windy day so a good day to get stuff done around the yard. I mowed and worked in yard and garden. After lunch I went and bought a bag of quikrete to make a cemetery marker for a plot.

There is an old country cemetery that I will someday have a marker in after I'm gone. The plot is marked with a rock and I have wanted to mark the spot with a cement small pad with my name in it. So, today I poured a 18x14x4 pad with my name imprint in the cement. I will go dig it down flat with the earth someday.

 

[O2Bfree]

Today it was a cold windy day so a good day to get stuff done around the yard. I mowed and worked in yard and garden. After lunch I went and bought a bag of quikrete to make a cemetery marker for a plot.

There is an old country cemetery that I will someday have a marker in after I'm gone. The plot is marked with a rock and I have wanted to mark the spot with a cement small pad with my name in it. So, today I poured a 18x14x4 pad with my name imprint in the cement. I will go dig it down flat with the earth someday.

That sounds like a peaceful way to spend a cold and windy day. I bet the world would be a better place if everyone did something like that.

 

[Ronstar]

Took a ride on the ebike. Went to the bike shop and picked up DW's ebike. Went for a short ride to acclimate her to the bike. Reorganized the garage to make a bicycle/ charging station.

Continued decluttering by getting a confirmation to buy my brewing equipment. Now to sell more woodworking tools, kegerator, my old bike, and eventually my car.

 

[Ronstar]

Today it was a cold windy day so a good day to get stuff done around the yard. I mowed and worked in yard and garden. After lunch I went and bought a bag of quikrete to make a cemetery marker for a plot.

There is an old country cemetery that I will someday have a marker in after I'm gone. The plot is marked with a rock and I have wanted to mark the spot with a cement small pad with my name in it. So, today I poured a 18x14x4 pad with my name imprint in the cement. I will go dig it down flat with the earth someday.

Nice project! I assume that the marker you made will eventually be replaced by a permanent marker after you pass. My guess that the marker you made is probably better than the ones made by the marker companies.

 

[old medic]

[-]Played with[/-] Tested and evaluated my new portable inverter generator. Very quiet, compact, reasonably lightweight (100lbs) and with enough juice to power the RV, including one A/C unit.

Which one did you go with? We have a Champion 3100 thats been great for us. Only issue is running vibrations will chew thru the pull rope after a while. we have fixed it about 4 times now.

 

[old medic]

Spent 5 hours replacing the front wheel bearings and brakes on the DW Jetta.
Bearings $100, New brake pads $45
Dealer estimate was $1000... Or $171/Hr.... Now if I could get paid like that....

 

[street]

Nice project! I assume that the marker you made will eventually be replaced by a permanent marker after you pass. My guess that the marker you made is probably better than the ones made by the marker companies.

I never really thought about replacing it but that could happen. The old cemetery is one of very simple headstones or markers. Most are just hand made and most are of natural rock that are from the area to mark the spot. Very simple no fancy headstones just a very rural western cemetery. The small cemetery has sheep fence around it to keep cattle out and a two track dirt road to get to it. Lol

A guy wouldn't want to look like the richest person in that cemetery. Lol

It is a private ranch cemetery but they will let anyone have a spot for burial. My ranch isn't far from it and is a beautiful place in the badlands.