What did YOU do today?

[Rick W]

Didn’t do squat. Health off. Doc put me on one of those stick behind your arm blood/sugar monitors. Pain in the ass except higher and on the left.

Supposed to last two weeks, and I knocked off three in 10 days. So they gave me these big round band looking things that go over the sensor. Lasted 5 days, disappeared (but the sensor stayed on), and then I found it stuck inside my T shirt.

So I’m introducing:

“Rick’s medical equipment tips!”

When I smashed my leg, I was in casts for 14 months. I got a bunch of those oversize black athletic socks that slip over your cast on your foot so nobody can see your rotten toes (thank me for that visual later). Well, when I couldn’t get the stupid sensor and the sensor holder Band-Aids to stay on, I cut the ankle part off one of those big socks, and I slipped it over the whole thing like an armband.

Works like a charm. Except everyone is asking me who died….

 

[Bgunner]

Parts came in today for the R/C rock crawler so I spent all evening and most of the night installing the Pro Scale Series Lights and Rock Lights on the rig. Since the electronics were all accessible I installed the Battery Eliminator Circuit and a High Torque servo. I was having issues where if my tires were pinched I could not steer unless I moved one direction or the other so the BEC and servo will eliminate that little issue. But now I have a full set of functioning lights. IF I'm at a stop and turn the wheel I get a directional that direction, hazards are a pain and need to take the body off to activate them, (All from the controller= switchable off/low/high beam head lights, off/on Rock lights, when I hit the brakes the brake lights illuminate brightly, on/off parking lights, reverse lights come on when in reverse, All light intensity is adjustable. I'm still waiting on my roll bar lights to arrive because they are missing somewhere in Texas but those have high and low beams as well.

I'm still trying to come up with and idea for a set pod lights that come on in reverse for more light when backing up at night. I'm not sure bumper mounted would be a good idea and mounting them to the bed they may get ripped off in a tumble off the rocks. if I can find a bumper with lights integrated that may work but it's the width of the bumper that is an issue. The ones I have found are to skinny to look right.

The grease for the portals finally arrived so I can start putting a little more weight on the axles but I have to be careful not to add to much to the rear or my vertical crawling will be affected, trial and error type of thing, but that wont be till next week.

Will update my post in the R/C section when I have time with video of the lights. Got lots to do tomorrow thru the weekend.

 

[sgtsandman]

I Double cut the grass after edging the walks and weed whacking with the now repaired string trimmer. I mananged to make the yard not look like a freshly cut hay field. And the last bench for the fire ring area got set in place.

 

[Rick W]

Not what I did, what I saw, last evening.

Where’s Waldo? Maybe this will help.

When I walked out my back door onto the deck, this hawk flew off something in my driveway, and then sat on the back fence. I want to say his wingspan was 24 or 30 inches. Started about 15 or 20 feet from me. I’m not sure if I fell backwards or crapped my pants first.

Keep in mind I’m in a close-in subdivision in the city, but I’ve also seen one of these guys around sweet pea’s house.

There is also a large owl who lives somewhere near here. I see him three or four times a year. He’s either a barred owl, a short ear owl, or a long eared owl. He makes this hawk look like a sparrow. His wingspan is about the size of the F250 windshield. That guy makes me worry for Lincoln a little bit (He’s 16 pounds).

 

[bronco2fan]

Nothing, been storming here every other day on end. Storming now lol

 

[sgtsandman]

Cleaned up the garage from the bench project. Speaking of which, here are the pictures of the benches as they sit now. Once the wood has had a chance to dry, the wood will get sanded and sealed.

 

[pjtoledo]

Not what I did, what I saw, last evening.

View attachment 110992

Where’s Waldo? Maybe this will help.

View attachment 110993View attachment 110994

When I walked out my back door onto the deck, this hawk flew off something in my driveway, and then sat on the back fence. I want to say his wingspan was 24 or 30 inches. Started about 15 or 20 feet from me. I’m not sure if I fell backwards or crapped my pants first.

View attachment 110995

Keep in mind I’m in a close-in subdivision in the city, but I’ve also seen one of these guys around sweet pea’s house.

There is also a large owl who lives somewhere near here. I see him three or four times a year. He’s either a barred owl, a short ear owl, or a long eared owl. He makes this hawk look like a sparrow. His wingspan is about the size of the F250 windshield. That guy makes me worry for Lincoln a little bit (He’s 16 pounds).

I put lots of feed out for squirrels, chipmunks, and birds. once they are plump enough an occasional hawk swoops in for an easy dinner.
I'm a city too, but also right under a major migration fly-way at the western end of Lake Erie.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I don’t live in a city and have had a close encounter with a Bald Eagle. No more than about 16’ away and a little above eye level swooping through the back yard. Past both myself and my dad. You could literally hear the rustle of it’s feathers. Absolutely amazing. That’s a bird…

 

[Roert42]

We have an eagle that lives in the woods across from my house. Can see him some times from the front porch.

Also a hawk that likes to harass local chickens.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

We have an eagle that lives in the woods across from my house. Can see him some times from the front porch.

Also a hawk that likes to harass local chickens.

There’s a nesting pair somewhere around here and they’ve raised a few young. See them every now and then. I was actually up in a big Hickory tree in the front yard topping it out to drop the tree and over 60’ off the ground and watched one sail through the back yard over the creek. Another pretty amazing moment.

 

[sgtsandman]

We have some Red Tail Hawks we see on a regular basis around here.

There is supposed to be a nesting pair of Bald Eagles on the Coraopolis side of the Ohio River but I don't remember ever seeing them. There are a couple that we see all the time flying over French Creek outside of Franklin, PA. You never realize how big those birds are until you are up close to them. That has only happened a couple times when a bird handler came in for an event, like at Boy Scout camp or something similar.

 

[Maritime Drag Racing]

A guy came to our door trying to sell a security system and I couldn't hear his sales pitch over our three dogs barking and he failed to see the irony. Was that dumb or what?

 

[sgtsandman]

A guy came to our door trying to sell a security system and I couldn't hear his sales pitch over our three dogs barking and he failed to see the irony. Was that dumb or what?

He was looking for the sale and didn't care about the irony. He would be the same type of person that would try selling siding to someone who owns a brick home.

 

[bilbo]

Years ago I was inside my popup at camp driveway working on some stuff. We had bird feeders under an ash tree in the front yard about 10 feet from where the camper was parked. Along with loads of songbirds, doves frequented the area to pick up dropped seeds. I was watching the birds and all of a sudden they all took off from the feeders and ground into the trees. One flew out to the road in front of our house and landed. A second later it got whacked by a Cooper's hawk. The dove rolled a few feet and the hawk landed and just kind of looked around all badass like. I swear he was showing off. He or she picked up the dove and flew off to enjoy its picnic elsewhere.

The dove probably felt differently, but I remember thinking how cool it was that I was in the right place at the right time to witness that so up close.

 

[Rick W]

Weekend plan is to move all the junk around, take the step trailer off the Road Ranger, turn it around in the driveway, so I can finish up the work before nationals.

I think I mentioned one of the tires on my trailer dolly goes flat in less than 24 hours. I don’t need it for the step trailer, but I need to move the other trailers out-of-the-way. No more than I use it, I was completely happy filling it every time, but last time I noticed, there were also a couple tears, dry rot in the tire.

Well, Harbor freight has all of that kind of tire on sale right now if you need one. The right size for me was only $7. How can you pass that up? So mostly to get lincoln out of the house on a little adventure, I went down and got one.

Nothing is ever easy. The bushings in the new one were too small in diameter, so I knocked the bushings out of the old one to swap them. Well, they were a hair too small in outside diameter, and could slide in and out of the metal tube in the wheel.

Sooo, I used a pointy punch and put three dimples at the right distance from the tip of the axle tube, so the bushings couldn’t slide past it. Then I put some E6000 in the axle tube and around those bushings and I set them in. Perfect, right? No such luck.

When I slid it on the axle on the dolly, the new axle tube is about 3/4 of an inch too short, so it can slide back and forth. I’ll pull it, and drill another hole in the right place for the cotter pin.

I wanted a nice tire like the existing tire, kind of an all-terrain that’s still good for the road. Then I remembered this thing only goes about 100 feet a year in my driveway and on my lawn, and nobody ever sees it. So I settled for a R&B* tire on a slightly different wheel.

(*R&B = round and black)

By the time I got it all done, they changed the forecast to rain all weekend.