What did you do today? - 2022 version

[ABQ2015]

I snagged my tickets for the June 2023 Telluride Bluegrass Festival yesterday. Got on the site before 10 am when tickets go on sale and was number 1549 in the queue. Checked today and tickets are sold out.

Looked at toys on Amazon for my 5 great nephews and nieces last night. Today may start Christmas cards and order luminarias from the local Boy Scouts. Neighbors are also sending out emails to plan our annual holiday get together.

 

[Ronstar]

Finally made it through the break in period in my Polaris Ranger. Took 5 months to get 25 engine hours, just putzing around the neighborhood and doing yard work. Changed the oil in it. Wanted to get through the break in period before I started serious snow plowing with it. Made it - no measurable snow yet.

Played with my new air compressor. Worked on a charcuterie board and a hiking stick.

 

[Calico]

I got my senior flu shot and my pneumonia shot at CVS this afternoon. The location nearest to my house is a well-oiled machine. Over the years I have gotten tons of vaccinations there, and their online scheduling and record-keeping are impeccable. I was in and out of there in 8 minutes today!

I turned 65 at the end of 2020. In 2021 I got the Prevnar 13 pneumonia shot; today I got the Pneumovax 23 pneumonia shot. If my research is correct, that should do it for pneumonia shots for me for the rest of my life.

I got both shots in my left arm; in 2018 I had several axillary lymph nodes removed on my right side, and I was advised never to get shots in that arm, or have blood drawn from that arm, or have my blood pressure taken in that arm.

So far, so good. It has been five hours since the shots and I don't have any discomfort (yet).

The true test will come later tonight, because I sleep on my left side.

 

[1242Vintage]

My part-time job hasn’t been part-time lately. Worked 40 hrs this week.

I do quality assurance testing on construction materials at a large rock quarry. The new full-time young guy quit without notice so I’m filling in … again. It’s a good and high paying job and my employer keeps hiring young persons, I train them up and set them loose. They last a few months and quit. Guess working in the lab … two shipping containers … testing rock, sand, asphalt and other construction materials is not exciting enough.

Then like last week, I get the call to fill in and then train up a new person that’s hired.

 

[Venturer]

Congrats to Street on the new soon to be DGD,one thing in my life I never regret is the ability to spend time with her. She truly "Lights up my life" & I hope that someday she will have good memories of Papa!

 

[Tom52]

Today is my 70th birthday. It is a beautiful day, blue sky and mid 70's. We spent the morning golfing wth our usual Saturday couples golf group. Then we had lunch with 14 of our friends. It was a great time and our good friends even bought lunch for us. I got calls from both my sister in Wisconsin and daughter in Chicago. The day could only have been better if either could have been here with us. I have much to be thankful for.

Oh, as a side benefit I will now start collecting my max Social Security check.

 

[W2R]

Today is my 70th birthday. It is a beautiful day, blue sky and mid 70's. We spent the morning golfing wth our usual Saturday couples golf group. Then we had lunch with 14 of our friends. It was a great time and our good friends even bought lunch for us. I got calls from both my sister in Wisconsin and daughter in Chicago. The day could only have been better if either could have been here with us. I have much to be thankful for.

Oh, as a side benefit I will now start collecting my max Social Security check.

Happy Birthday, Tom52!!! Glad your sister and daughter called to wish you a happy 70th. Oh, and for sure enjoy that oh-so-nice Age 70 SS deposit each month. I know I do and while we all have different views on when to claim SS, personally I'm glad I waited for it. My 70's have been the best years of my life, thus far.

If I live to be very old, it's nice to know that I will have that monthly SS deposit to rely upon no matter what.

And if I die early, then there's that much more left for those younger than me, and that's good too.

 

[NW-Bound]

I went to my mother's house, intending to work with my brother to install Google Nest outdoor cam for her. I want to run AC power to it, and this is a little project that takes some time.

While we discussed how to best do this, it started to rain. Oh well, I need to get all the needed parts first anyway.

Back to my home, and have been huddling inside. No solar power today. Yesterday, I burned 28 kWh from the grid. Earlier in the month, only 3 kWh/day from the grid when the panels were producing.

 

[MichaelB]

Our seasonal break (and hurricane season) is over so DW and I returned to Florida. Instead of driving, this time we flew and had the cars shipped. It’s definitely faster and easier, and also more expensive.

While we were away our home network in Florida failed, so I spent the day installing and setting up a new mesh router system. I’ve always suspected that the words “simple and easy” have a completely different meaning for engineers than for the rest of us.

 

[Dreamer]

Today is my 70th birthday. It is a beautiful day, blue sky and mid 70's. We spent the morning golfing wth our usual Saturday couples golf group. Then we had lunch with 14 of our friends. It was a great time and our good friends even bought lunch for us. I got calls from both my sister in Wisconsin and daughter in Chicago. The day could only have been better if either could have been here with us. I have much to be thankful for.

Oh, as a side benefit I will now start collecting my max Social Security check.

Happy Birthday, Tom. Sounds like you had a wonderful day. I think most of us have so much to be grateful for. Enjoy your check next month.

 

[braumeister]

Just got back home after a week of travel. One of the high points was a couple of days in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

They have one of the oldest major power plants, built around 1900, that had been decommisioned. Mainly because it produced its current at 25 Hz, and 60 Hz is all the rage these days here in North America.

So after it had sat idle for a while, they turned it into a museum. Just fascinating stuff (we got the guided tour) and it included a lot about Nikola Tesla. I was already extremely familiar with Tesla, but DW got a lot out of it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

After the tour of the power plant, we were able to take the elevator down 180 feet to the spillway tunnel where the water was returned to the river after use. You can walk the tunnel (about ⅓ of a mile) and come out at river level, right at the base of the Horseshoe Falls.

Just a delightful, fascinating experience, and I would recommend it highly.

https://www.niagaraparks.com/visit/attractions/niagara-parks-power-station

 

[skyking1]

^ my kind of fun
We siblings went to my sister's apartment and went through boxes of family photos and memorabilia, some dating back before our mother. It was fun and we got out of there before she got too tired.
There was an old tin type photograph in there too.
We also found a USMC good conduct medal with my dad's name and 1945 on it.

 

[Gumby]

Just got back home after a week of travel. One of the high points was a couple of days in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

They have one of the oldest major power plants, built around 1900, that had been decommissioned. Mainly because it produced its current at 25 Hz, and 60 Hz is all the rage these days here in North America.

I would like to see that (although I do wonder why they couldn't use a frequency converter).

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^ It is interesting to learn 25-Hz power was still in use till 2009.

Darn, a 25-Hz transformer would be huge compared to 60 Hz.

I found some detailed info here: » Rankine Generating Station | Professor Mark Csele.

 

[pacergal]

Finally got the last of the decorations up yesterday, so spending time on the forum this morning and enjoying looking at the Christmas tree and other twinkly things, while listening to Christmas music!

 

[NW-Bound]

It was raining all day yesterday and through the night too, and only stopped after sunrise. Nobody minds it. The sky stays cloudy all day today.

We got a bit more than 1" of rain. Hopefully, it makes a dent in the drought here.

 

[street]

Took a couple of long walks today contacted a company for pricing on cabinetry and flooring. A beautiful day with a light snow now everything is white again. Everything we had melted.

In a short time from now I will be a Bell Ringer for Salvation Army for two hours. I had a call a couple weeks ago and they asked if I would help be a Bell Ringer. I have a hard time turning down something I can do. I have done it in the past when they need help.

 

[misanman]

In a short time from now I will be a Bell Ringer for Salvation Army for two hours.

I hope you enjoy the experience. I did it for a bunch of years and enjoyed it as an opportunity to greet people and wish them a Merry Christmas. I got a kick out of people that would obviously try to avoid the kettle. Whether they donated or not didn't matter to me as I was going to be cheerful to them either way.

 

[MC Rider]

Got on the roof to winterize our 2 evap coolers, something I have never needed to do before. I'm glad the roof is not a steep pitch. Hopefully the 1/4" or so of water left in the bottom will not be a problem. I got rid of several gallons from each unit.

 

[Gumby]

Finally got around to removing the window air conditioners, bagged what I think will be the last of the leaves this year, and put my mini greenhouse over the rosemary plants. We're ready for winter.

 

[aja8888]

Visited DW in the skilled nursing facility, came home to cut the grass for the last time this year, winterized the backflow preventor on the sprinkler system, cleaned my golf clubs for Thursday's round. It's now in the 80's F and will be for the next several days.

Tomorrow is trimming the rose bushes and raking and bagging pine needles.

 

[Walt34]

The clean-out tool for BIL's snow blower arrived today so that's installed. I still want to run in the new belts (manual suggests running them in for 15 minutes and then checking tension) but it's going to rain tomorrow so I'll do that Wednesday I guess and then take it over to his place.

At the moment it's still in the basement (all traces of fuel were drained before I put it there) so I could work on it in the comfort of central heating instead of the cold shed. So I don't want to put fuel in it until it's ready to go back to it's home.

Still no snow in the forecast so time is not of the essence but we are way overdue for a serious snowstorm and I'm sure the law of averages is going to catch up to us in a big way. It always does eventually.

 

[braumeister]

Odd one today. I've been using a small safe for documents, etc. and had it for well over 20 years. One of those infamous Sentry safes, maybe 2 cubic feet or less. It has always worked normally, and I change the batteries every two years. I've never thought of it as good security, just good fire protection.

Today when I went to open it, it was completely dead. I had just taken something out of it last week, and the low battery light had never come on, but nothing worked on the keypad. No problem, I thought, because I have the original key for it. So I used the key and the lock cylinder came right open.

But the handle still wouldn't open the safe. OK, I thought, YouTube to the rescue. But no, the rubber mallet trick didn't work. The powerful magnet trick didn't work. Nothing worked.

Fortunately, one of the YT methods did work. It took less than five minutes to cut the safe in half with a circular saw.

The pieces now reside in a dumpster.

 

[aja8888]

Odd one today. I've been using a small safe for documents, etc. and had it for well over 20 years. One of those infamous Sentry safes, maybe 2 cubic feet or less. It has always worked normally, and I change the batteries every two years. I've never thought of it as good security, just good fire protection.

Today when I went to open it, it was completely dead. I had just taken something out of it last week, and the low battery light had never come on, but nothing worked on the keypad. No problem, I thought, because I have the original key for it. So I used the key and the lock cylinder came right open.

But the handle still wouldn't open the safe. OK, I thought, YouTube to the rescue. But no, the rubber mallet trick didn't work. The powerful magnet trick didn't work. Nothing worked.

Fortunately, one of the YT methods did work. It took less than five minutes to cut the safe in half with a circular saw.

The pieces now reside in a dumpster.

I have a Sentry safe like yours (was). What kind of blade did you use on your circular saw? I may need to have one handy.

 

[braumeister]

I have a Sentry safe like yours (was). What kind of blade did you use on your circular saw? I may need to have one handy.

I used a metal cutting blade, but I think most any blade would work, although with a cheap one it might be a single use operation. The metal skin on the safe is incredibly thin. You could fold a sheet of aluminum foil in half 2 or 3 times and get the same thickness. Under that is a couple inches of insulation, then the inner shell is thin plastic. No real security at all.

After cutting the front off, I went ahead and cut the main part in half so I would have three pieces instead of two. That made it easy to load in the car and haul away.

Be sure to put a disposable drop cloth down -- cutting through that insulation creates a lot of dust!