Watcha doing?

[IMINXTC]

Learned long ago that the worst trav elling customers are large Christian groups  who will fill up a resturant and won't leave tips.


When I was a mechanic some eons ago I witnessed bus groups who would try to shirk legally mandated safety standards to get back in the road.


Embarrassing.


ASIDE: Working at Walmart people would stick $100.00 bills in my shirt pocket during the holidays. An awesome experience!

[tango]

Learned long ago that the worst trav elling customers are large Christian groups  who will fill up a resturant and won't leave tips.


When I was a mechanic some eons ago I witnessed bus groups who would try to shirk legally mandated safety standards to get back in the road.


Embarrassing.


ASIDE: Working at Walmart people would stick $100.00 bills in my shirt pocket during the holidays. An awesome experience!

I found it interesting to see the line "God gets 10%, why should you get 18%", completely overlooking the comparison that God allegedly gets 10% of everything while the server gets 18% of the cost of a sandwich and a coffee.

[tango]

Watching our youngest granddaughters today. Now they are off school when our daughter has them we play tag team watching the youngest with our 16-year-old granddaughter. She doesn't want to watch them all the time (understandably) so we're taking them two days a week.

It was tiring but a lot of fun. Running around the yard chasing and being chased by two little girls with water guns is something we haven't done since last summer.

[Cloudwalker]

I speak most of this morning getting my car repaired.  Not cheap but the car runs much better.

[tango]

More Fun With Sinks.

Having fixed the plumbing under one half of my daughter's kitchen sink I noticed the other half would need attention at some point and told her to keep an eye on it. She called that evening to tell me there was a leak, so I replaced a section of pipe. It still leaked, so I had to replace the plug insert in the sink.

The insert didn't want to move but a little bit of gentle persuasion with a big pipe wrench persuaded it. And so began the saga, during which I found that the locking nut wouldn't reach the threaded part of the insert. After much sweat and tears (thankfully no blood for this one) I noticed that the new part I bought had a shorter threaded section than the one it replaced. So I bought another part with a longer threaded section and had the job finished within 10 minutes. Note to self, check the length of the threaded section.

Anyway, now my daughter has two sinks that drain into the pipework rather than into the cupboard space below and is very happy. I lost several pounds worth of sweat and felt that the best way to replenish the weight was by eating an extra piece of my wife's delicious apple cake. And for good measure it's another job that I now know exactly how to do even if there's a very significant chance I'll never have to actually do it again for the rest of my life.

I don't care much for plumbing but the cost of the wasted part is still significantly less than the cost of paying someone to do the job.

[RabbiKnife]

RabbiKnife's first law of plumbing repairs:  Buy several of everything in several sizes at Home Depot before beginning any plumbing repair.  You'll be going back next week anyway so you can return all the extras then.


RabbinKnife's first corollary to the first law of plumbing repairs:  If you don't follow the first law, you will have to make three trips, just because.

[tango]

RabbiKnife's first law of plumbing repairs:  Buy several of everything in several sizes at Home Depot before beginning any plumbing repair.  You'll be going back next week anyway so you can return all the extras then.


RabbinKnife's first corollary to the first law of plumbing repairs:  If you don't follow the first law, you will have to make three trips, just because.

Pumbing does seem to be the kind of job that is never resolved with a single visit to the hardware store.

The first plumbing job I needed to do was to address issues with the toilet tank. I replaced the badly rusted bolts holding the tank to the bowl but since I had a plumber come in to replace a damaged section of the sewer pipe I figured they could do the rest of the work while they were there. It was the kind of job that wasn't worth calling a plumber in but since he was there doing another job he might as well charge me a few extra minutes, since I'd already paid the callout charge.

[tango]

There seems to be something about me and sinks lately.

Having taken the plumbing under my daughter's kitchen sink apart three times now to replace various parts that were leaking today's fun was to take the plumbing under my bathroom sink apart because it was clogged. It's never a fun job, but since I had one piece removed I figured I might as well take the next piece along out and give that a good clean too. So now my bathroom sink drains faster than it has in quite a while.

For the record, I don't care much for plumbing. Hopefully I won't need to be fiddlig with pipes in awkward places any time soon.

[Cloudwalker]

I had my 4th eye injection for wet macular degeneration.  I've been enjoying listening to my music in my car as I've been driving.  I have all my cd's copied onto a flash drive that I play through my car stereo.  It is a very eclectic mix.  In the last few days I've gone from Cats, to Hank Williams,.Sr. to an Easter cantata, to classic rock (including the .music of the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Aquarius, and others.  Not the original artists.)  I'm waiting to see if I succeeded in putting The Carnival of the Animals onto the drive so I can lable it.

[tango]

I am very pleased to say that no sinks required attention today.

So instead I got to cut some wood to reframe an exterior door frame, which in turn is preparation work for having a new door fitted. The wood is cut and stained, tomorrow I can lacquer it and then I can get to screwing and gluing it into place. Then the door supplier can come and fit my nice shiny new door that's been sitting in their warehouse waiting for me to get to the doorframe.

I also need to cut some brackets to mount my daughter's air conditioning units into the older windows in her house. It's hard to keep the place cool when the hot air can blow around the window units. I'll need to do most of it with battery tools because I really don't feel like hauling my table saw or miter saw to her house. I can carry a jigsaw and router much more easily, and all my smaller power tools run on batteries.

[IMINXTC]

"A republic, if you can keep it." Benjamin Franklin

[tango]

Yesterday's fun was staining and lacquering some more wood. Where I shimmed out my wall studs in a downstairs room I need to shim out the door frame before my new front door is fitted. So I cut some red oak to the appropriate size, and then got to staining and lacquering it so now it can be screwed and glued to the existing door frame. I'm looking forward to getting the new door fitted, but that's something I'm going to pay someone to do because it seems like a job that could take an inexperienced operator (like me) a long time to do badly.

Once that's done we'll have a much more secure door, so maybe I'll leave the storm door unlocked and use the door as an actual entrance, rather than little more than a way to get sacks of trash out.

[tango]

I turned half a maple log into 15 gallons of shavings and dust, and a bowl.

[Fenris]

A very strong wind storm came through last night and a tree fell and obliterated our shed.

[RabbiKnife]

Ouch.

I’m glad the missus didn’t make you stay in the shed during the storm!!

You wanted a new bigger shed anyway…!