What did YOU do today?

[Blmpkn]

Got a new phone.. pixel 9 pro XL. The old unit broke on Monday.. what a shitty day that was spent half an hour looking for my keys.. making me super late to work (they ended up being on the passengers floor).. drove an hour and a half south to a job we couldn't do because the salesman who sold it doesn't know jack about gutters.. had to listen to a coworker bitch and moan about the 3 hours of pointless travel.. and then bitch and moan like a petulant child when our boss gave us another job that was 4 miles down the street .. broke my phone.. then off to the dentist where I got told they don't accept my insurance any more.. AND I need a filling... gah.

Could be worse though.. It was the screen that broke on the phone.. but I was at least able to make it work (barely) just enough to pay my bills yesterday morning.. and Pandora was still open when it broke so I could at least listen to decent tunes on the commute..

All is well (enough) now. This Google keyboard does suck though.. gonna miss the Samsung one big-time.

 

[racsan]

Went to a flea market up north , last one of the year. Then stopped at a harbor freight nearby & bought a new 1/2” drill. This one is just a drill/driver, no hammer feature but this is a brushless, I think thats what went on the other drill. Finished the holes I started yesterday. Works.

 

[sgtsandman]

The main body of the carport is up.

Now I'm sitting by the fire with a military buddy who is in for drill, relaxing and recouperaring from a busy day.

The side awning goes on tomorrow.

 

[broncc]

Beat a free ATV on the trails with the old man.

 

[Rick W]

Got a new phone.. pixel 9 pro XL. The old unit broke on Monday.. what a shitty day that was spent half an hour looking for my keys.. making me super late to work (they ended up being on the passengers floor).. drove an hour and a half south to a job we couldn't do because the salesman who sold it doesn't know jack about gutters.. had to listen to a coworker bitch and moan about the 3 hours of pointless travel.. and then bitch and moan like a petulant child when our boss gave us another job that was 4 miles down the street .. broke my phone.. then off to the dentist where I got told they don't accept my insurance any more.. AND I need a filling... gah.

Could be worse though.. It was the screen that broke on the phone.. but I was at least able to make it work (barely) just enough to pay my bills yesterday morning.. and Pandora was still open when it broke so I could at least listen to decent tunes on the commute..

All is well (enough) now. This Google keyboard does suck though.. gonna miss the Samsung one big-time.

Maybe if you spent more time on the passenger floor, these things wouldn’t happen to you…

 

[sgtsandman]

Got a new phone.. pixel 9 pro XL. The old unit broke on Monday.. what a shitty day that was spent half an hour looking for my keys.. making me super late to work (they ended up being on the passengers floor).. drove an hour and a half south to a job we couldn't do because the salesman who sold it doesn't know jack about gutters.. had to listen to a coworker bitch and moan about the 3 hours of pointless travel.. and then bitch and moan like a petulant child when our boss gave us another job that was 4 miles down the street .. broke my phone.. then off to the dentist where I got told they don't accept my insurance any more.. AND I need a filling... gah.

Could be worse though.. It was the screen that broke on the phone.. but I was at least able to make it work (barely) just enough to pay my bills yesterday morning.. and Pandora was still open when it broke so I could at least listen to decent tunes on the commute..

All is well (enough) now. This Google keyboard does suck though.. gonna miss the Samsung one big-time.

The insurance system sucks more and more as time goes on. A lot of places will stop accepting different insurances because the red tape the insurance imposses gets so bad, causing the office staff way more work just trying to get paid than it is worth and costing the office more money than they get in compensation. Mean while, you get left holding the bag and so does the office you did business with.

I run into that with military dental insurance. Even though I and the dentist office follow the rules, the office ends up billing me because the insurance denies the claim. It is a very frustrating situation.

As far as the phone, I hear you on the Samsung system. I like it and will be disappointed if I end up witha phone without it.

 

[sgtsandman]

The side awning went quicker than expected. So I got the rear section of the vinyl tarp screwed and tied down. It got dark before I thought about taking a picture. Perhaps tomorrow before I start hauling the front section up and over.

 

[racsan]

The rain last weekend recharged the lawn so had to mow today. Hopefully its for the last time this year. Put up some stuff in the garage rafters that Im done with until next spring/summer. Enjoyed the day.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Cleaned up from the church bonfire a bit, moved my green Ranger out from under trees with dead branches and we are currently getting pounded by a thunderstorm…

 

[Bill]

I came across a Dell Precision 5540 in the stack of laptops to be ewasted. I took it home. Today I cleaned it up and resurrected it and decided to test drive Ultramarine Linux on it. The Ultramarine website says it is based on Fedora, but better. We'll see about that. The laptop works flawlessly and looks like new, but needs a battery. It's certainly worth investing in a new battery for this since it has an i7-9850H and 32 GB of memory and an Nvidia GPU.

So now I almost have the entire Precision 5500-series in my collection:

Precision 5520 (needs a battery and SSD)
Precision 5530 that I'm using right now with Fedora.
Precision 5540
Precision 5550
Precision 5560 - I use that one for the stuff that runs on Windows and needs a little horsepower.
That leaves the 5570 and 5580 and the much older 5510.

If you come across one of these for a fair price and in good condition, I highly suggest picking one up. The 5530 and later will run Windows 11. The older one make great Linux laptops.

There is a Precision line that ends with a 1 in the model number (5541, 5561, etc), but I don't care for them. They are thick, heavy, and have a fan that sounds like the laptop is ready to taxi across the computer desk, take off, and fly across the room.

I also came across a 17" HP Pavilion laptop. I took it home because it looks like new. It has an AMD A8, dates to 2014. It had 6GB of DDR3 and took out the hard disk and replaced it with an SSD and upgraded the memory to 12GB. It improved the performance to the point of acceptable. I installed Ultramarine Linux on that too. Some things have a second or two delay when I click on them. I think KDE might be just a little bit too resource intensive for this laptop. I might try another desktop environment to see how it performs on that old processor. I also might sell it, but it also needs a battery (about $25) so that would probably be a break even transaction unless I come across one of those people who thinks it is worth more.

 

[JoshT]

I almost got involved in a low speed police chase.

Stared out the afternoon heading over to my parent's house to install a new WiFi Router. They have 100mb service from the local cable company, but their house was still running onan old Netgear N300 router. It worked well enough when barely anything connected to it, but stil lnot great. As the years move on they are getting more and more connected it was showing it's age. Wifi was spotty when you moved much away from the house in the yard, and then the added two streaming TV devices int he last two months. An upgrade was neededd and I got a deal on an open box D-Link DIR-1750 last week. Easy setup and install mostly, enter the existing network ID and PW on the new router and everything connects. Getting it to talk to the internet about had me pulling my hair out. Realistically it was only about 5-10 minutes of trying to find a setting I missed. Finally I backed up and did the most basic troubleshooting step that I knew should have started with. Power cycled the cable modem and now it just works.

Took the Ranger over there today since I need to put miles on the Ranger and see if my EGR delete fixed the idle issues. (FWIW so far, so good) On the way home I got behind this dude doing 30 in a 55. Couldn't pass him the first couple of passing zones I got due to oncoming traffic. Finally got a clear space, punched it and passed. I think the truck hit 75 by the time I was past him. Got right back over into my lane and slowed down, but turns out that the oncoming car I saw in the distance was a cop. With my ticket luck (every one has been 20 over) I figured he might turn around and get me. Got about a mile down the road at the 4-way and my mirror was still clear. About a mile further down the road I see blue lights way off in my rear view. At first I figure he's too far off to be coming for me. Get to my next turn and he's through the 4-way still heading in my direction. It's weird, but I figure if he was coming after me he would have cought up to me already. Loose sight of him after my turn. Maybe about two miles later I'm pulling up to my next 4-way and here comes the blue lights around the last bend. There's a vehicle in front of him. as they approach the intersection he whips around the vehicle. I think ok, he's about to get me, I'll me pull off up here. Nope, he stop in front of what he was following and gets out.

Ok, that was weird. I carry on.

As I'm rounding the next bend I see the vehicle, I now know is a square body extended cab chevy 1500, whip around the police car and high tail it in my direction. I briefly considered blocking the road, the wisely decided to get my butt off the road and let them pass. Who knows what the idiot would have done to get past me and then I might be liable if he wrecks because of it. So he "blows" past me at all of about 50 miles an hour on this winding country road, cop following along as soon as he gets back into his vehicle. Then watching how poorly they (or atleast the truck driver) handled the curves. I continue on my way home half expecting to see the ass end of a pickup sticking out of the tree line. In retrospect it was comical to realize just what had been happening since I first saw the blue lights.

IMO, it's also funny to think that if I hadn't seen the blue light off in the distance I probably never would have seen any of it. It isn't uncommon for me to take that winding 45 mph road at 70 in my car. The current iteration of the Ranger has shown that it can do it at least as fast. If I'd been driving like I normally do I'd have been home before I got the chance to see anything, and been driving a hell of a lot faster than the "high speed" chase. Because of the lights I was being on my best behavior. and driving the speed limit or less. If they had been after me, I'd stop and take my punishment, but I didn't want to add to it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

If it's an old made in England bike it's worth saving. Might even be valuable.

Actually it's a Roadmaster.

Put air in the tires and everything worked. Turned around and the front was flat again. Aired it up and it ran fine for a picnic at the lake last night.

And then it was flat again when I pulled it out of the truck.

 

[Rick W]

Actually it's a Roadmaster.

View attachment 118648

Put air in the tires and everything worked. Turned around and the front was flat again. Aired it up and it ran fine for a picnic at the lake last night.

View attachment 118649

And then it was flat again when I pulled it out of the truck.

so heartwarming to see bikes that have been together for all those years, now looking after the little one

 

[Curious Hound]

Did some troubleshooting on my A/C system and then put in a service call for Wednesday when I'm off work again.

Condenser fan runs, evaporater fan runs, good strong airflow. Circuitboard diagnostic LEDs report "normal operation". Full voltage going to compressor. Compressor not shorted to ground and no open windings. Capacitor rated for 35mfd, reads 35mfd for compressor but only 4mfd for Condenser fan. Seems right for compressor and wrong for fan. But fan is running fine. Unit "sounds normal" as in compressor is probably running. But I need a new battery for my ammeter. So I can't verify running amps. Pressed one of the Schrader valves and verified there is pressure in the system. Just don't know how much. It felt like a lot.

I guess I could try putting it in heating mode and see if that does anything. Maybe jar the reversing valve if it's stuck. I'll get a battery for my meter after work and take current readings tonight.hopefully I can save the tech some time on Wednesday by having info ready for him (her?) To verify. They're kind of busy right now with hurricane damage jobs.

 

[Rick W]

Did some troubleshooting on my A/C system and then put in a service call for Wednesday when I'm off work again.

Condenser fan runs, evaporater fan runs, good strong airflow. Circuitboard diagnostic LEDs report "normal operation". Full voltage going to compressor. Compressor not shorted to ground and no open windings. Capacitor rated for 35mfd, reads 35mfd for compressor but only 4mfd for Condenser fan. Seems right for compressor and wrong for fan. But fan is running fine. Unit "sounds normal" as in compressor is probably running. But I need a new battery for my ammeter. So I can't verify running amps. Pressed one of the Schrader valves and verified there is pressure in the system. Just don't know how much. It felt like a lot.

I guess I could try putting it in heating mode and see if that does anything. Maybe jar the reversing valve if it's stuck. I'll get a battery for my meter after work and take current readings tonight.hopefully I can save the tech some time on Wednesday by having info ready for him (her?) To verify. They're kind of busy right now with hurricane damage jobs.

I don’t know much about HVAC units, but I just went through this early this season. Just feel the lines that go in and out of the outside unit. The insulated line should be cool, might be sweating, and the line from the compressor to the coil should be pretty hot, but then cooler when it leaves the unit and goes back into the house. If the return line is sweating, you are getting some cooling, just not enough. If they’re all about the same temperature, the compressor probably is not compressing even if it’s running.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the “arctic air R22a“. It’s propane, and you can use it to top off the house system or your car system. Propane is much more efficient than the Freon, but of course it’s flammable, so you might not want to have the whole system full of it. I’ve used it many times. I bought this kit when I tuned up my home system earlier this season.

I put one can in one system (I have two systems, up and down). All pressures came out OK, and knock on wood, they’ve been working perfect all summer. I didn’t mind buying the three cans with the little adapter, because I always have to top off the F250 and one of the Lincoln’s a little bit.

I also recently bought a cheap gauge set with the adapters so I can hook it up to the house as well as the car. It was only $35. I’m sure you saw my post when I fixed the AC on the Road Ranger, and the 35 bucks was some of the best money I spent in a year.

Regardless, if you don’t know your HVAC guy really well, beware a common rip off with the service companies. They’ll tell you the service call is only $50, but if they have to add any Freon to the system, it’s $150 a pound or something like that. And then they tell you that you needed 9 pounds.

You want to have a look at the gauges the second they hook them up, and ask them how they’re going to measure the amount of freon they use if they have to add any. The most common ethical way is they have a little bathroom type scale with them, and they weigh the can before, and they weigh the can after.

If your system is already cooling at all, it should need more than a pound. If your gauges are really close to the optimum pressure, you could also estimate the amount of free on they’ll need. If they’re 10% off, maybe it’s a pound. There’s a label on the side of the AC unit outside, and the number of pounds they used in your system in your house should be marked on that label. It’s all pre-printed except for that number.

One of the little cans is 12 ounces for reference..

As always, I hope it helps