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Been busy,too much to list it all but I got the aerator pump rebuilt the other week and finally got it put back out on the pole and hooked up today. It works pretty good. Next project is to see what I can do with the new drain cleaner machine I just bought that has the cable all tangled up in the drum,only allowing 30' of the 100' to come out and the seller won't give me a refund. He's willing to give me $150 compensation but he will only give it to me on Paypal instead of sending me a check or money order,or even putting it on the debit card I bought it with. I think he's trying to con me myself. The package came with no Company name on it and the instructions have been poorly translated with no contact information in the warranty part. I don't recall ever seeing an instruction booklet without any contact information in case anything was wrong. They always have an address or email or something,this thing has nothing. I know,I know,that's the dangers of buying online.
 
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I cannot sleep in a moving car, unlike other people that I know.
You can tell me we're going on a trip and I'll fall asleep before we are 1/4 ml. down the road. I think it's because I always got motion sickness when I was little so would shut my eyes and try to sleep so I didn't throw up. (Those big ol' cars rolling too fast around corners - blek!)

I've been working on getting taxes ready for CPA meeting Sat. Business and personal - guess that's another blek! Anyhoo, so I'm taking a brain break for a minute to hop on here.
@Amish Heart So glad you have a shower again. I was beginning to wonder what that smell was 😂 The quiet and privacy again will be very welcomed I'm sure!
 
A friend of ours stopped by last week and mentioned his "crazy" prepper brother up north. I kind of chuckled with him. Then, told him that I practice food storage, and that our family always has. And left it at that. He works in radiology at the hospital here. He came by today, all in a huff. Said there's a patient here at the University Hospital that has it, and that 30 people are confined to home. He got a mask from work. Said he's preparing their travel trailer for him to stay in if it gets worse, and that way he won't contaminate his wife and kids. They went to Costco today and got a bunch of non perishables. Was excited to tell me. He was going to Dollar Tree next. And then to fill up his propane.
A new prepper is born.
 
Backpacker, what is GHB? Sad to hear about the tornadoes. Those can really wreck everything. :-(
Amish Heart, sounds like you were productive. Good luck on moving stuff out tomorrow!

GHB = Get Home Bag. Not to be confused with a Bug Out Bag. Mine is set up to carry me for 3-6 days, or long enough to walk my way home if I got caught out somewhere.


Patch, Meer, Hope you both feeling better tonight. I think I am slowly getting better. Last couple days the cough has lessened. Yesterday didn't cough much at all. The wheezing is some better, but still kinda rough first thing in the morning until 10 am or so. I've cut the nebulizer back to once a day since Thursday. Done seem to be any ill side affects from that. Tomorrow is the last of the steroids, still doing the sterodial inhaler and will continue that and the nebulizer until next Wednesday when I revisit the pulmanary Dr. Gotta say I feel better than I have since Christmas.

I greatly apprecieate everyone's prayers thru this crud.
 
Let’s see, so much has happened. Laptop – Saturday evening I bought a little Lenovo laptop, 14-inch screen. It was an in-the-box return to BBuy. Price $160, the sales kid told me it had extended 12hr battery life and a 1-year warranty like it was new, it did. He also told me it had a 1 terabyte solid state drive, it didn’t. The battery was weak so I let it charge that night and continued charging at home Sunday night.

I sat with dad Monday night… spent several hours on my phone with Norton and others getting software installed using the nursing home wifi. Dad was up the entire night so I wasn’t getting any sleep, might as well get the laptop setup correctly.

Early Tuesday morning I went to load 100 or so GB of data files off my thumb drives. That’s when I discovered this laptop only had a 56GB solid state drive… I was more than a bit annoyed.

After my niece relieved me that morning I went back to BBuy and talked with management… for $17 more they had another in the box return… another Lenovo with a 15 inch screen, extended battery life and a 256GB drive. All the laptop I need.

Mom sat with dad last night so I spent the evening getting my 2nd new laptop set up and setting up a home network with a cheap little router I bought. Everything isn’t done but all the major work has been finished. I can go online with my desktop via ethernet cable through the router and with my laptop via the wifi portion of the router. I still have some tweaking to do but all security measures are in place when online with either computer.

It started raining heavily last night and continues today, supposed to continue raining through the night. Mom didn’t want to drive in the rain today and decided to stay with dad again tonight.

No plans tonight but continue electronic gear setup, watch tv and keep an eye on the sump pump...
 
With these warmer days , I been spending time in the garage playing .
Been compounding slow buffing the Vette.
It is 26 years old and that black paint under heavy clear coat really needed to be brought to life.
It takes me about 1 hour for every 1 1/2 square foot to get it looking like glass .
So far I got the front end done , from doors forward.
Just my fun time.

I spent about 5 hours today. Looking good.

Went to local restaurant for lunch.

Helped clean rear patio deck.

I'm tired .

Jim
 
All you lovely people ...have a great night .
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Jim
 
All I have done today is make people angry today.
Oldest son's girl friend in particular, no big loss there.
Today is the one year anniversary of my mom passing.
It's been a hard day on everybody today.
Made up chicken salad for supper, but not hungry.
Cleaned out my car, just got to vacuum the inside out yet.
Filled up the car.
Will walk later.
Got Strawberry unstuck from the rose bushes, gas line around the condenser unit outside.
House is cleaned, dishes, done, yard picked up from Strawberry's business.
Internet goes off on Monday, can't afford it right now.
Not sitting Grand daughter and the babysitting money paid for the luxury item like the Internet.
But will pop in now again from the Library.
 
Yep - Hughesnet
I'm sorry. It will be much better when you get rid of them. By the time I found a new ISP that was viable, my internet wasn't even working at all. I was having to take a laptop to McDonalds to use their wifi to look stuff up. There was a customer in BestBuy who told me about Exceed (now called Viasat). The "repair" date for my equipment for Hughesnet was farther away than the install date Viasat quoted. The modem utilities/software is not as fancy as Hughesnet's but the customer service is MUCH better. They actually have US tech support instead of putting you on the line with some script-reader from New Dehli. I originally started out with Direcway internet but they sold to Hughesnet & immediately cut my bandwidth in half (actually cut it to less than half of my original bandwidth-- went from 460Mb to 200Mb per day), jacked the price up $10/mo. We "upgraded" to their highest plan which was supposed to be at 1.2Mb down but we never got more than 300k. Tech support was absolutely useless. It took me 2 to 4 hours to explain a simple concept to them to get something done. They never admitted when something was wrong on their end, their meter constantly miscalculated-- they claimed we were downloading 5Mb every hour all day long when our modem was unplugged from the power so it couldn't load anything. One of their CS people once told me that tech support wasn't available to people who were throttled (over their "FAP" limit) & hung up on me. Had one guy scream at me because he didn't comprehend that what he was telling me to look for on my screen did not exist & he wouldn't give me the direct url instead. I got pretty good at poking around the modem's info though-- found out they were permanently shadow throttling me to keep my bandwidth lower than what I was paying for. After my scathing review on DSLreports where I detailed various calls, problems, etc (such as them claiming I loaded more than my modem was capable of loading in a single day in one hour & that my modem had been off at the time) they permanently throttled my internet so it wouldn't even function. I could rant for hours about how horrible they were.
I was so happy the day I got to tell them I was ditching them. They tried to convince me to keep their non-working service but I laughed at them & told them the installers were already coming to set up my new internet & HN could kind f-off.
Good for when it is your only choice and no obstructions or moisture between you and the satellite.
Yeah, if it's the ONLY option & you don't need to use it when its raining, cloudy, sunny, or when a bee sneezes. One of the times my internet went out they seriously tried to blame "sunspots" after going through all the troubleshooting and proving it wasn't on my end. To this day I get enraged if I see a Hughesnet commercial. "High speed" my keester! If I hadn't needed internet for emergencies (like when my landline went out & cellphone wasn't working), I would have ditched them long before I found a new ISP.
You can tell me we're going on a trip and I'll fall asleep before we are 1/4 ml. down the road. I think it's because I always got motion sickness when I was little so would shut my eyes and try to sleep so I didn't throw up. (Those big ol' cars rolling too fast around corners - blek!)

I've been working on getting taxes ready for CPA meeting Sat. Business and personal - guess that's another blek! Anyhoo, so I'm taking a brain break for a minute to hop on here.
@Amish Heart So glad you have a shower again. I was beginning to wonder what that smell was 😂 The quiet and privacy again will be very welcomed I'm sure!
I still get motion sickness- cars, boats, elevators, trains, planes... I need to have air blowing on my face. I'm usually OK if I'm driving, but I have problems where my eyes start to burn & my vision goes blurry so I can't drive for as long as I used to. I have trouble sleeping in cars because I can't get comfortable.

All I have done today is make people angry today.
Oldest son's girl friend in particular, no big loss there.
Today is the one year anniversary of my mom passing.
It's been a hard day on everybody today.
Made up chicken salad for supper, but not hungry.
Cleaned out my car, just got to vacuum the inside out yet.
Filled up the car.
Will walk later.
Got Strawberry unstuck from the rose bushes, gas line around the condenser unit outside.
House is cleaned, dishes, done, yard picked up from Strawberry's business.
Internet goes off on Monday, can't afford it right now.
Not sitting Grand daughter and the babysitting money paid for the luxury item like the Internet.
But will pop in now again from the Library.
Sorry to hear about the tough day. Hope you get your appetite back. Really sucks about losing the internet too. Wish there was something more affordable for you.
Thus far I went to the store to grab some cheese, tortillas, bagels, milk, & meat. I heated up some kind of packet of pre-cooked/hydrated rice & added chicken broth to it for Mom. I don't like the stuff, but she does. Then we had kale salad-- it's got other stuff in it like bean sprouts & the dressing is good so I like it despite the kale. Probably will have stroganoff for dinner.
Went over to visit my friend & he's trying to figure out what is wrong with his car. It's putting out 12v instead of 5v & fried his sensor (I think either the clutch sensor or O2 sensor, not sure which). He's narrowed it down to the engine wiring harness (which is $530) or the engine computer (also over $500) or both. I personally suspect it has the wrong wiring harness on or is hooked up improperly. Seller who lied to him about it's condition still hasn't replied to his texts. Not sure if he could get anything if he sued for the guy committing fraud since the guy obviously knew about some of the issues before selling it & lied to him. Said everything was fine except the muffler. It's a late 06 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT so it uses the wiring harness of an 07 Eclipse GT. He's got someone who can follow the wires & figure out if they are connected properly, but he'll have to pay the guy & hope the guy knows about that model car. Can't seem to find a schematic for the wiring harness anywhere.
It was bright & sunny but he was too upset about the car to look at rake trim for his roof. I'm worried he'll put it off too long & the roof might leak again.
He works tomorrow so I'm going to try to find something productive to do-- maybe take another crack working on my bathroom floor.
 
Hunny had his doctor visit over in the BIG city this morning. We should be getting a call by Monday with a surgery date for his artificial sphincter. He will also have to have a prostrate study done on the 24th of this month trying g to find out why it is not properly functioning, going back on Apr 8th for results. It's been over a year now so time to get this issue taken care of Once and for all.. . I really hate that we have to drive there and the older I get the less I can take all the traffic and people. Sitting in the 2nd waiting room of the day on the 21st floor, there was a total of 5 of us. . . . All but me, yes including my hunny were sitting there on cell phones. How times have changed over the years. Me, I worked on an afghan throw. On our way home we stopped by Buckeyes for a chipped brisket sandwich. . . . and by the time we for home, I was mentally exhausted because of traffic and crowds. I had to lay down for an hour. . . yep, I am getting old now.
 
Sitting with dad tonight at the nursing home... Reading the forum and posting from my new laptop. This is so much better than going blind trying to see the tiny print on my phone.

I had to get creative with a mouse for the laptop... First, i hate the little touch screen mouse... that leaves a real mouse as a better choice. There is no desk in the room. The nurses moved a small bed into the room for mom.

Sooo, I used double sided carpet tape and taped the mouse pad to an old cutting board. Now my mouse is mobile, even has a handle.

I've used a 4 button trackball mouse since the mid 90's, better than sliced bread. I have a spare at home but the mouse is large compared to a regular mouse. Pic1 cutting board mouse pad. Pic2 Kensington 4 button mouse... Years ago the kensingtons were analog. Instead of the ball that came with the mouse I used an 8-ball from a pool table, it was the same size. ;)

mouse pad (2).jpg
mouse pad (3).jpg
 
Today's plans are shot. I pulled a hamstring on my run yesterday so I'm just resting my leg and popping ibuprofen. I've been dealing with this issue ever since I started jogging in November. Looks like I'm going to have to give up on the idea of jogging. I can still walk, I guess...getting older ain't for wimps...;)
 
Today's plans are shot. I pulled a hamstring on my run yesterday so I'm just resting my leg and popping ibuprofen. I've been dealing with this issue ever since I started jogging in November. Looks like I'm going to have to give up on the idea of jogging. I can still walk, I guess...getting older ain't for wimps...;)

I'm too old to jog, but I can walk a long time! Hope you mend soon!
 
... I pulled a hamstring on my run yesterday ...I can still walk, I guess...getting older ain't for wimps...

I have found the older I get the more I do jog. Most of my jogging starts out with me walking downhill and just before I stumble. Then I jog until I recover my balance or do a face plant, whichever comes first.
 
I don't run, or jog anymore. I waddle quickly.

Could be a telling day. It is my day to do weekly shopping at Wally World. See if anything changed there. Shelves empty? Store overly crowded? Anything they don't have? I will keep you posted.
 
My view on jogging... my knees and feet have only so many steps in them for my lifetime. The same holds true for my heart. It only has so many beats in it for my lifetime. Earning a living, putting food on the table, enjoying friends and family... those are really good reasons to me. Tromping through woods and fields looking my medicines to hlep myself and others, another very good reason... Jogging around to lose weight, to attain some societal norm determined by others... not so much. If I want to lose weight I change my diet, saves all those steps and heart beats for things more important to me. ;) So I don't jog...
 
Our wedding anniversary was earlier this week, but we are celebrating tonight. My better half is taking me out to dinner to a place where a live band will also be playing. They are apparently a Journey cover band that receives very solid reviews. So perhaps there will be a little dancing too. We don't do anniversary gifts, but instead we write each other a deeply personal letter talking about the last year of our lives together and our hopes for the next. Those letters go into a soft binder and then into the fireproof document safe. Someday when we are gone our children will be able to read them and see how we faced our challenges and fell more in love over the years. She doesn't know it, but this is also when I update my goodbye letter. In case I am killed in the line of duty or meet my maker some other way.

It also just so happens that a friend from a local PD is having his retirement celebration tonight at the same place but in a different area (something we did not know when we got our reservations), so we will be stopping in to offer our congratulations as well.
 
Our wedding anniversary was earlier this week, but we are celebrating tonight. My better half is taking me out to dinner to a place where a live band will also be playing. They are apparently a Journey cover band that receives very solid reviews. So perhaps there will be a little dancing too. We don't do anniversary gifts, but instead we write each other a deeply personal letter talking about the last year of our lives together and our hopes for the next. Those letters go into a soft binder and then into the fireproof document safe. Someday when we are gone our children will be able to read them and see how we faced our challenges and fell more in love over the years. She doesn't know it, but this is also when I update my goodbye letter. In case I am killed in the line of duty or meet my maker some other way.

It also just so happens that a friend from a local PD is having his retirement celebration tonight at the same place but in a different area (something we did not know when we got our reservations), so we will be stopping in to offer our congratulations as well.


Happy Belated Anniversary to you both! Great idea on both letters! Have fun this evening!
 
My view on jogging... my knees and feet have only so many steps in them for my lifetime. The same holds true for my heart. It only has so many beats in it for my lifetime. Earning a living, putting food on the table, enjoying friends and family... those are really good reasons to me. Tromping through woods and fields looking my medicines to hlep myself and others, another very good reason... Jogging around to lose weight, to attain some societal norm determined by others... not so much. If I want to lose weight I change my diet, saves all those steps and heart beats for things more important to me. ;) So I don't jog...

I agree @Peanut , now .

15 years ago , I didn't think that way.
Wish I had. I did run 5 miles everyday.. now I got 2 new knees . I also have a defib/pacemaker.

So I guess as we get old er , our way of thinking changes.

Wonder if I woulda had to go thru getting 2 knees replaced if I hadn't done all that running 15-20 years ago.

Btw..love my new knees.

Jim
 
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