Finally found the right converter to hook a garden hose to the overflow valve on our boiler! Emergency release now flows in a hose to the sink, instead of filling a bucket that needs to be emptied by hand.
Gravity and water flow - the miracle of physics !
Happen to come into possession of a bunch of iPod Nanos (2nd gen). A few were easy to reset/cleanup and get going again.
Today I did the first tough one. Cannibalized a 2GB one for parts and got a 4GB one going. Might do another one later today. (That will require soldering.)
Of course, once I bring a dead device back to life it’s time to imitate this sane doctor.
This sort of stuff is what I do for fun.
(I’m going to be fixing an 8GB model at some point. It’s black. The only color that model came in initially. Who knew Jobs was a fan of Henry Ford?)
I didn’t squeal like a pig during my prostate biopsy. But now I have tinnitus that sounds like banjos…
After weeks of research, I finally decided what my next car will be. It’s the Subaru Crosstrek, in THAT COLOR! I’ll probably be getting it this spring, and for the first time in my life I’ll be paying CASH! W00T!
Nice. We will be in the market for new cars soon. I’ve been very happy with my Subaru Outback so we will probably get another one and then maybe a dual cab tray back ute so we can throw the mountain bikes on the back easily.
I got out of a speeding ticket by being cooperative and asking for just a warning.
You can hardly call that a mundane victory. For you, resisting the urge to come out with a smartass one-liner is on a par with Iwo Jima.
My wife has been away all week, caring for her mother, who has had some health issues. They are on a plane heading here right now. So I spent most of yesterday cleaning the whole house, vaccuuming all three floors, installing a grab rail in the guest bathroom, straightening up, hanging a couple of pictures she wanted me to put up, etc. This morning I did the last few touches, cleaning the shower, putting out the trash, running the dishwasher.
Just to be clear, these are not tasks she usually does, that I’m virtue-signalling by doing once in a blue moon. She has a stressful job, works long hours, and makes the lion’s share of our family income. I do nearly all the house cleaning all the time, but usually spread out the tasks in a monthly rotation, a few each weekend. Yesterday I did almost everything, substantially more than the regular weekend routine, so that the house will extra nice for my wife and MIL on their return.
We just had a power outage due to a wind storm. My wife uses a C-PAP machine and this was a big problem for us. (We have gas logs and a gas water heater, so we had hot water and heat in the house.) I had a spare car battery sitting around and found that it would hold a decent charge. Once our power came back on (after 48+ hours), I ordered a $30 inverter from Amazon. I got it today and tried it out for the C-PAP. It works perfectly! I ran it for a few hours and estimate that it will run the C-PAP for at least three 8-hour periods. Whooo-hooo! Now I just have to remember to keep the battery on a trickle charger.
I would name that car Punkin. Do you name your cars, and if so, what will you call this one?
Oh. Yay! New orange car on the road!! The Orange Menace welcomes your new Crosstrek! Beep beep!! See you on the road!
Always nice to meet a fan of my work.
I just bought one of those a few months ago. I am liking it quite a lot. In that orange color too. I can always find it in the parking lot.
Very cool. Would you mind sharing a bit more about how this works? Does the inverter keep the battery charged, or allow you to run the CPAP from the battery, or both?
Continuing to play with the iPod Nanos. Got the “no power, for parts only” black 8G one going by just cleaning and resetting a connector. Up to 6 out of 10 fully working ones plus one partial one. Plan on getting 7 fully working ones out of this batch.
But the real victory: The o-ring holding the stem that turns the paddle in the bread machine went south a couple months ago. I ran out of old replacement o-rings and have been trying some others. The problem is that forcing the stem+o-ring in is difficult to do and causes damage so the new one breaks down very quickly.
Had an idea at 3AM night before last: Cut a straw, slip it over the stem, put o-ring on (the straw holds it in place), push into opening, remove straw. Turns out I had to make a slit in the straw to allow it to fit but that also made it easier to remove. A little bit of olive oil and voila, it worked. Went on easily, turns well.
Imagine that, something you think of at 3AM actually worked!
A couple:
After owning the house for over a year, I finally put the wire rack shelves in the hall closet. It’s the attic access so I had to keep the shelves out until after the insulation was installed. By the time that was done, I was used to not using the closet. But now my house is a little neater.
Passing the little free library that’s just been placed in front of the downtown old folks home, I saw it had a bunch of Chick Tracts in it. I removed them before they poisoned anyone’s mind.
Lastly, with next weeks paycheck, I will have enough saved up to select a new home improvement!
Tuesday morning (yesterday) I noticed a big branch had fallen from the white pine next to our barn. It was a big branch, but it looked like it did not fall very far and the barn roof looked fine.
I got home from work at 3 pm, got out an extension ladder and chainsaw, and managed somehow to safely get the limb off the barn roof. I cut it into manageable sections and hauled the wood to our current burn pile. I felt I’d really accomplished something.
Last night when my gf got home from work I told (bragged) to her about what I’d done. Turns out the limb had fallen four days before I’d noticed it and the tree guy had already been called. He’s there now, taking the entire white pine as well as three other problematic trees. The job was prepaid, so my three hours of work didn’t even save us a penny.
I had my annual physical today. My weight was one pound less than it was on my home scale!! Yee Haw! My blood pressure was fantastic and I didn’t have to fight with the doc to get the prescription for my estrogen pills renewed. She said I still have at least another year that I can take them. Yee Haw!
Another Crosstrek owner here! I have a 2017 in Desert Khaki. I LOVE it. It’s the perfect car for me. Enjoy!
Well, they call it an inverter, but it’s really just a 12 VDC to 24 VDC power supply. The 12 VDC side has a cigarette lighter plug and the other side has a coaxial connector to power the CPAP. She has a ResMed Airsense 10 (I think that’s right) and I found the unit on Amazon. I bought a cigarette lighter socket with ring connectors ($9) and screwed it to the terminals. I happened to already have a little 2-amp battery charger and I just keep it charging the battery in the utility room. The battery has a handle and weighs about 25 pounds. I think you can get smaller, lighter Li-ion batteries that will do the same thing.
The power adapter claims that it may draw as much as 12 amps from the source, but it doesn’t seem to draw anywhere near that much. In any case, I got the lighter socket with a 15 amp in-line fuse.
I finally asked my doc to prescribe an anti-depressant, and started taking that.
[John Astin]I’m feeling much better now.[/John Astin]