What did YOU do today?

[Rick W]

sat around the house hoping the rain would go away so I could work on one of the trucks.

I've also spent hours waiting to place a bid in an online acution for a mini excavator. First time trying one of these auctions and man am I glad I didn't go to the auction in person. Auction st arted at 8:30 or 9 am, at 3:45 pm it's up to lot 830. The mini excavators start at lot 1220. I'd have been waiting all day for a bid that I'm probably going to loose anyway. I've got two different models I'm looking at with a hard limit of $5k for one and $3500 for the other, after tax and fees that'd put total price at a worthwhile savings over buying outright. One of the first (preferred) model has already hit that with pre bids and there are only two in the auction. The second has 15-20 available, but the one that sold in lot 206 went well over my limit for it, so I'm not holding my breath.

Hey if I miss out on these I'm not in a rush to buy one. My time sitting in front of a computer today did locate a $1000 5.0L AWD Mountaineer that might be a viable donor candidate. So if I don;t end up dropping thousands on a excavator today, I might go get that later in the week.

hmmmm…..

sounds like a complicated way to dig a hole to put your money in. Why not just buy a boat?

 

[Rick W]

Ditto on the rain here. Not really rain, that pain in the ass heavier than fog and lighter than rain stuff. Wets down your mood as well as the grass.

Looks like my ancient $10 charger is a bust. I think the transformer is dead shorted out, but I’m going to give it a little more time. It only took 20 minutes to change the wires.

Good news is my 1/2”x2” stainless bolts came in:

I’ll tell you it’s like getting a bag of those little blue pills….

 

[Rick W]

Q

I rode my metamoov 3000w electric scooter around where i live for about 7 miles and up to 31mph.
I have a faulty battery so i can not go 45mph and 52 miles on a full charge
I love my metamoov zo08 its a fun and nice looking electric scooter that helps with my mild autism =)

Gary, is that your first vehicle, first set of wheels? 31mph and 7 miles doesn’t sound too bad. A few panels back, I just mentioned my first truck I paid $135 for over 40 years ago. I’m pretty sure it went 7 miles on the first try, but I’m not sure I got up to 31 mph. I had to quit because I lost the brakes.

How old are you? Do you have your drivers license yet? You can start out with those voodoo scooters and Chevys, and when you’re ready, you can get a Ranger…

 

[Rick W]

Here’s something you can shoot for for when you’re halfway ready:

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Ditto on the rain here. Not really rain, that pain in the ass heavier than fog and lighter than rain stuff. Wets down your mood as well as the grass.

Looks like my ancient $10 charger is a bust. I think the transformer is dead shorted out, but I’m going to give it a little more time. It only took 20 minutes to change the wires.

Good news is my 1/2”x2” stainless bolts came in:

View attachment 102526

I’ll tell you it’s like getting a bag of those little blue pills….

Those look like 13mm to me...

 

[Curious Hound]

Those look like 13mm to me...

Closer to 13 than 12.

 

[Rick W]

Ok, ha ha ha, you guys made me nervous, I thought they might not be 1/2x13, so when I went out to walk Lincoln, I tried one of the old nuts and one of the new nuts.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Changed oil on my 2 running vehicles. The 2006 dodge 5.7 hemi was easy. The 97 Pontiac sunfire not so much. I don't remember it being so hard last time, but I needed a second elbow! Well, not really. But i did remove the passenger tire to gain access to the filter. Still would have been easier with a second elbow and an extra eye on a stalk... But its done.

 

[Rick W]

Changed oil on my 2 running vehicles. The 2006 dodge 5.7 hemi was easy. The 97 Pontiac sunfire not so much. I don't remember it being so hard last time, but I needed a second elbow! Well, not really. But i did remove the passenger tire to gain access to the filter. Still would have been easier with a second elbow and an extra eye on a stalk... But its done.

eBay, 1-12, $5.99-$75.99 cn

 

[JoshT]

Well the rain never went away and I struck out on the auction.

hmmmm…..

sounds like a complicated way to dig a hole to put your money in. Why not just buy a boat?

Which one, the donor or the excavator.

The donor would likely save money in the long run. For the amount of money I've spent doing head gaskets on a 4.0L over the years I could have had the swap done with a built engine. Put in a completely different engine last time and its showing same symptom again, but I haven't had a chance to diagnose yet other than swapping coil pack for a known good one.

Mini excavator, maybe or maybe not. I'm clearing some of my property. Got a lot of pines to remove and I can easily get rid of the trees by offering them to a timber company working in the area, but would be left with a bunch of stumps to deal with. Too many to deal with by hand and letting the rot out is not an option, BTDT. It might take a while, but if one of these $5000 excavators would get the job done it would only be $2500 out of my pocket since dad said he'd go in halfs. Yes a bigger machine would work better, but we've got a financial limit of 10000 total for a machine and have to be able totow it with the trucks and trailers available. I think our trucks could handle about 7 tons, but dad's heaviest trailer is 3.5 tons and mine is probably closer to 2.5-3 tons.

The alternative is to hire out the work. I have gotten a quote for the clearing work and we're talking a best of $12k, plus wouldn't be left with the excavator for other projects. Renting a unit is not an option. The ammount of time that it would take to get the work done would pay for a machine in rental costs.

eBay, 1-12, $5.99-$75.99 cn

View attachment 102537

The ladies at work have been bugging me to decorate my cubicle for christmas. Not a lot of money, they're just buying decorations from the dollar store. So far I've told them it's not happening, but if they want it decorated, they are welcome to do it. Seeing this almost makes me want to buy one and put chrismas lights on it.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I wonder if I could light the eyeballs with small LEDs?

 

[JoshT]

Who knows if the inside of those are transparent enough to let the light shine through. If they were and one were to build something like that, they could probably drill into the back side of the eye and insert an led then hide the wires as they did the rest of it. I'm not so sure about that being already built. Maybe could, but you'd have to find a way to hide the wires.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Who knows if the inside of those are transparent enough to let the light shine through. If they were and one were to build something like that, they could probably drill into the back side of the eye and insert an led then hide the wires as they did the rest of it. I'm not so sure about that being already built. Maybe could, but you'd have to find a way to hide the wires.

That's what I was thinking, drilling into the back of the eye. And using rgb LEDs for the Xmas theme... Lol.
Hmmm... Time to check amazon for eyeballs...

 

[Rick W]

Well the rain never went away and I struck out on the auction.



Which one, the donor or the excavator.

The donor would likely save money in the long run. For the amount of money I've spent doing head gaskets on a 4.0L over the years I could have had the swap done with a built engine. Put in a completely different engine last time and its showing same symptom again, but I haven't had a chance to diagnose yet other than swapping coil pack for a known good one.

Mini excavator, maybe or maybe not. I'm clearing some of my property. Got a lot of pines to remove and I can easily get rid of the trees by offering them to a timber company working in the area, but would be left with a bunch of stumps to deal with. Too many to deal with by hand and letting the rot out is not an option, BTDT. It might take a while, but if one of these $5000 excavators would get the job done it would only be $2500 out of my pocket since dad said he'd go in halfs. Yes a bigger machine would work better, but we've got a financial limit of 10000 total for a machine and have to be able totow it with the trucks and trailers available. I think our trucks could handle about 7 tons, but dad's heaviest trailer is 3.5 tons and mine is probably closer to 2.5-3 tons.

The alternative is to hire out the work. I have gotten a quote for the clearing work and we're talking a best of $12k, plus wouldn't be left with the excavator for other projects. Renting a unit is not an option. The ammount of time that it would take to get the work done would pay for a machine in rental costs.



The ladies at work have been bugging me to decorate my cubicle for christmas. Not a lot of money, they're just buying decorations from the dollar store. So far I've told them it's not happening, but if they want it decorated, they are welcome to do it. Seeing this almost makes me want to buy one and put chrismas lights on it.

When i’ve had a big project to do that I could sub out, or rent equipment for, higher labor for, or buy a machine and just st do it, and then either use the machine for other things or sell the machine afterwards. That last one is my go to option always. I get my job done, I like working on the equipment and getting it painted, and get the bugs out of it, and then usually sell it for more money that I paid for it, that is the best of all worlds. My real life is on paper and people and stress, and when I can work a project like that where I get something done, and I get the horse straight a little bit of equipment dig some holes buying some stuff, it’s a good relief, a good balance.

as regards the ladies at work, obviously they like you, that’s a really good thing, the kind of thing that shows up around Christmas but you feel it all year round. You’re blessed, do something nice for them to, it doesn’t have to be much, thank you cards with a box of chocolates or such. Complement them on how the make the place nicer, make the holidays brighter. & watch what happens,

my 2cents, hope it helps

 

[Bill]

I reassembled a laptop I got from ewaste at work. The original battery was dead and we take the old drives out of the computers for data security purposes, so I bought a 97Wh battery and a new 1tb nvme drive for it and installed Fedora on it. This is a Dell Precision 5530 with a Xeon processor. I'm not a big fan of Dell, but their Precision line is good, and I think they are the most expensive line Dell sells. This is the first time I've used a computer with a Xeon processor. There's no advantage to it for average home or office use, but it's faster at compiling and installing software, CAD, audio and video processing, etc. I think it took about five minutes to install Fedora. When I get a Windows license key I'm going to partition the drive and set it up to dual boot Win 11 and Linux.