What did you do today? 2019 version.

[Accidental Retiree]

Amazing! I had never heard that song before, but it is so touching and personal to some of us over 60 or 70.

You young dreamers might not get it.... But we do.

Yes, indeed. Thanks, Nemo.

 

[Gumby]

Brewed a Pale Ale to get ready for summer.

 

[W2R]

In response to some concerned PMs, I just wanted to assure everyone that F and I are OK, and were not involved in the parade tragedy here in New Orleans yesterday (car mowing down pedestrians, 2 killed, many injured). Here's another link. Well, I haven't seen F yet this morning but he was working at his "hobby job" at the other end of the parade, so I am sure he is fine, and I am fine. I was safe at home listening to the bands and fun from a completely different parade going on a half block from our homes.

The same thing happened a couple of years ago at Endymion, the same parade - - a car barreling through the crowd, killing and injuring spectators. People should just NOT drink or do drugs if they plan to drive. We have Uber or many other ways to get from point A to point B during parades. All those people that were hit only wanted to have fun and watch a parade; what a tragedy.

 

[Walt34]

Yesterday I had to go out early for the gym, then there was a big family gathering/party for the two birthdays of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, who's birthdays are a couple of weeks apart. Any excuse for a party. Much fun for all, especially the little ones.

Today we're just staying home, forecast is for snow but so far it just melts upon hitting the ground.

 

[USA]

DH took DGS to the Vegas Golden Knights hockey game. My sweet grand daughter and I got to stay home and have a girls day. We’re savoring the fun times. They go so fast!

 

[Dash man]

Enjoyed another beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean while sipping on my coffee. Looked at my security cameras at my PA home to see more snow had arrived.

 

[Music Lover]

We left Florida on Friday and got home yesterday...we drove the 1,700 miles in 3 days.

Today I'll be heading to the grocery store to re-stock, and also putting the winter tires back on my car.

 

[Walt34]

The promised four to eight inches of snow fizzled again so at best 3/4 of an inch. But we did have a nocturnal visitor guarding our driveway entrance all night that we were surprised to see. I figured I'd have to scoop him up and take the body down to the woods in the morning, but he was gone by then. There is a pond about 1/4 mile away where he usually stays. I haven't the foggiest why he chose to sit there all night.

It being dark out, that light was about the limit ISO that my camera can do, I was a bit surprised the shots turned out as well as they did. There is a post light near the end of the driveway, you can see the post but I cropped out the light.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

DH, the beagles, and I drove out to Julian, CA, for lunch and pie and a few rounds of walkies.

 

[Gumby]

Submitted my official retirement notice. 5/31/19 is my last day.

 

[W2R]

Submitted my official retirement notice. 5/31/19 is my last day.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Less than 3 months to go! It won't be long now. Being newly retired in the summertime sounds ideal.

 

[MRG]

Woke up to more snow. Not very much but wet, it melted quickly to slush.

DW talked to her nuerologist today about topamax, after almost a month on topamax her headache is still there. He said to go off of it, but it takes a month to scale back! We see him again next week. I'm afraid he's going to want a lumbar puncture(spinal tap) to check for idiopathic intarcrainal hypertension. Not sure if she will go through with it but pain makes you nutty.

I talked with a gal about EMDR for pain in addition to the biofeedback she's starting. I'm not sure how much it will help but traditional medicine isn't doing anything. I'm suggesting we go to an oxygen bar tomorrow after her biofeedback appointment. Then I learned about some folks who do drums, gongs, and bowl noises to help with pain. They may be next.

Our CPA called and we get 1100 out of the 1200 I paid in back. We chatted about payments for this year, there won't be any.

 

[MuirWannabe]

DH, the beagles, and I drove out to Julian, CA, for lunch and pie and a few rounds of walkies.

Julian is an awfully cute town. Stopped there during my PCT hike in 2017. Really nice. And the pie is good!

 

[Souschef]

See my activity under Souchef's switch engine. The bottom line was the engine turned over on battery power for the first time in 40 years.
Unfortunately I hurt njy back humping the 60 pound batteries into my trunk. Getting old is not for sissies

 

[Walt34]

Went to the dentist's office with DW, then to the gym right up the street after that. We found out that there MAY be an implant in her future, they'll have to wait and see.

Then out to a late lunch with a $5 off coupon, and on to home.

 

[MRG]

Took DW to her third biofeedback appointment. This was the evaluation with the electrodes attached. Pretty cool to watch the graphics. The therapist did several iterations to establish a baseline measurement under different conditions. Resting calm for a couple minutes, thinking of stressful things, an oral math problem to solve, and back to calm..

Later we went through bar graphs of the tests. DW almost had a meltdown over the math problem(rapidly count down from 800 by 7) and the graph went off the chart. It was interesting to see how much small things can impact us. DW has the potential to gain much, her resting muscle tension was 8X normal.

By the end of the session her headache kicked into high gear. It's interesting to see how little it took to recreate an unmanageable headache.

 

[Dash man]

Submitted my official retirement notice. 5/31/19 is my last day.

Congrats!!

 

[Jerry1]

I had lunch with a friend and they came home and did something that very closely resembled work. Not good. DD is a member of the PTA for the school our grandkids go to. Good for her. However, they had a budget problem and the person who is the treasurer doesn't know what they're doing. This I know because numbers in the spreadsheet were typed in where formulas should have been. One cell had "$30 donation". Well, that's not going to add . . .

Anyway, being a CPA, DD asked me for help. So I worked on the spreadsheet and think I have it in good working order now but wow, that was too much like work. I don't think I'm going to do that again.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

Submitted my official retirement notice. 5/31/19 is my last day.

Congratulations!

 

[Ronstar]

Submitted my official retirement notice. 5/31/19 is my last day.

Excellent! Congrats!

 

[Gumby]

Thanks, Accidental Retiree and Ronstar. It seems odd that I've been on this board for almost 13 years, 12 of them as a moderator/admin, but only now getting around to retiring myself.

 

[Koogie]

Congrats to Gumby !

I've been here 12 years (at least. Think I lurked a while beforehand). And I'm still a few years out of full ER. It's not the destination it's the ..... (can't say it.. see my pet peeve from a few days ago... )

 

[REWahoo]

Submitted my official retirement notice. 5/31/19 is my last day.

Just saw this. Big news! Congratulations - it's about time!

 

[NW-Bound]

Oh boy! Another early retiree to ponder the question "What ya do all day".

But for myself, here's what I did today.

Having finished the work on my car, I returned to my solar/lithium battery project. I knew quite early that the wiring between the multiple solar charge controllers and the battery bank was too weak. I need big bus bars connecting them, and also the 5.4kW worth of inverters.

Copper bars are quite expensive. Aluminum has 2/3 the conductivity of copper, but is a lot cheaper. Aluminum is what used in commercial installations. So, I went to an industrial metal place, and bought some lengths of 6061 aluminum flat of 1.5" wide x 0.25" thick to use as bus bars. AL 6061 has 1/2 the conductivity of copper.

For electrical connections, I will braze common grounding bars (see photo below) onto the bus bars. The grounding bars are tin-coated aluminum, and will braze very well onto the aluminum flats.

Calculations show that a 200A current will produce 0.05V drop over 6' of bus bar, or 0.1V for the two +/- connections. As the battery bank are 8 cells in series, the voltage drop will be 12.5mV per cell. This is still a bit high as lithium cells need even more precise voltage control. I will have a way to compensate for that.

PS. The aluminum bar has the same conductivity as AWG #000 (4/0) copper cable. It is a lot easier to make multiple connections to, compared to a round wire.

 

[ckelly78z]

Installed a new curved shower rod with curtain, installed wall mirror, and wired new, over sink 3 bulb light fixture in my new bathroom that I had torn down to the studs late last year. I then christened it, by being the first to shower in it...we have already christened the toilet.