Category: Fun Stuff

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Got It Covered–Top & Bottom

So yeh, I have a pair of nice Lucchese “cowboy” boots (thanks Daddy, RIP), but I’m having difficulty finding a place to resole them ( first world problem *sigh*). Fortunately, Ariat makes some nice ropers–and not those nasty looking ones with the square toes. *heh* Inexpensive (for boots) and not too “dressy” (the Lucchese’s one real fault; I have little use for playing dressup nowadays 😉 ) Oh, small thing: I definitely give “Lucchese” a proper Italian pronunciation, but a very plain proper pronunciation. I ain’t gonna try picking one of the regional accents. *heh*

Bug plus: My Banjo Paterson does well for work, casual, and moderately dressy, not that I’d wear it for such (cos I don’t “do” dressy now).

Oh, breaking in new boots? Yeh, saddle soap and “glove” (neatsfoot) oil. Sure they darken the leather a bit, but for these boots, that’s kinda a plus. Works a charm though.

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Little Pleasures

Someone who loves me more than she ought to gave me this hat:

I love this hat. In fact, that may not be a strong enough statement. Let’s try this: this hat has resulted in my new favorite fantasy: that when I wear it, I am taller, smarter, and much less ugly. *heh* The only drawback to this hat is that I want another one, now. Yes, already. (I only have the one in one color, you see. 🙂 ) But I can live with one. After all, it’s a very nice one.

Still lovin’ it.

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Mischief Managed?

Well, not quite. More “wood chucking.” Sorta-kinda-almost “good enough” fitness watch buzzed me to say I had been at my optimal heart rate for 20 minutes. *meh* What does it know? Five minutes later, *bzzz* “Relax.” Yeh, says you. A few minutes later: dizzy. OK, OK, I give in.

At least it was nice weather for it. High 40s, still ice on the wood, etc. Maybe this afternoon will be time for more “wood chucking.”

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Rainy Days and. . . Tuesdays?

Nah, don’t always get me down.

Lil P0106 error code on Son&Heir’s 2010 Jetta (pretty nice car, that) that cleared when new PCV valve installed recurred with a P2178 (idle rich) added. MAF sensor/throttle body problem? MAF sensor connector was cracked. Cleaned out oil after removing, cleaning, checking throttle body, sealed MAF sensor connection after Deoxit cleaning of connectors. So far, no errors, but we’ll see. May need to replace a bit of electrical harness/connectors and MAF sensor, if it recurs. *shrugs* And then, of course, there’s always *tum-dum-tum-DUM!* taking it to the mechanic. *heh*

Methinks I’ll check things under the hood on my Wonder Woman’s 2010 Jetta, too, when I change the oil. *shrugs* Who knows? Maybe at least Deoxit* a few electrical connections there, too.

*I love the various Caig Deoxit products. Solved quite a few problems over the years using them. Their dielectric grease is apparently head and shoulders above similar products, going by the results I have had eliminating household electrical problems using it (solutions implemented a decade ago have held up). Computer and electronic woes dealt with, sound quality improvement from sound equipment. Vehicle woes wiped out. Improved network connections. Nice products, IMO.

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Holes and Gaps, Lacks and Losses. . .

Have a new fun lil “fitness-n-health” tracker (to replace one that no longer holds a charge well). Missing some features (notably a BP monitor), but has others the old one did not, like sleep monitoring, but. . . methinks the sleep monitoring is flawed, because it recorded three hours’ “sleep” last night while I was awake, doing chores, etc. I think it checks bpm on pulse, ad if one is relaxed enough, it just counts that as sleep, cos my pulse last night averaged 52bpm. (It’s all the way up to 56bpm, right now, with blood oxygenation @~95, according to my handy-dandy lil oximeter.)

It’d be nice if the old one weren’t sealed so well, and I could replace the battery, so I could have BP monitoring, but this new one is nice enough, and the phone app for the new one is MUCH better than the app for the old one. *shrugs*

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Ah! The Joys of Having Too Many Projects

Well, not actually too many, just more than I may be able to finish in my lifetime. *heh*

And one more.

Today, I found a 40′ length of pre-built CAT7 cable at my fav “fell off the back of a truck store”. . . for a buck. Now, I have our home network upgrade 3/4 plotted out in my head.

But.

Yeh, it’s gonna have to stay in my head for a while, ‘cos I have too many other irons in the fire right now. Juggling what I’m already working on is enough for now.

Ain’t it great? Busier than I have been for a couple of decades, and no end in sight. ?

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Do NOT Make YOUR Problem MY Problem

You won’t like it if you do.

Well, the rumbles I’ve been hearing about Fedex deliveries in recent months going from average/poor in service to execrable have another data point. Call from Fedex Freight. Nope, the package they accepted to deliver to me? Nah. They can’t get here from there, not with the truck they want to “deliver” it with. . . And it is too big for our vehicles. Oh, and it’s a gig they accepted from another freight company–Pilot Freight–that accepted the package for delivery, then decided to fob it off on Fedex. Now, the original company says it’ll “try to work something out.” There is no try. There is only do and do not. Neither one did their due diligence, and neither one wants to be troubled to deliver the package they accepted to deliver.

Ain’t it grand when folks make a commitment w/o doing their homework and with little apparent intent to fulfill it? *shrugs* Next up: the company that sold me the product. We’ll see if it intends to earn its money. (Just to be clear: I kinda enjoy holding folks’ feet to the fire when they try to back out of fulfilling a commitment. Makes me smile. 🙂 “YOU took the gig. Don’t make it MY problem that you don’t want to do your job.” *heh*)

Progress. Called the retailer. The retailer’s the 500 pound gorilla in this. Retailer kept me on while conferencing in the company that accepted the original contract to deliver. Ruh-roh. Response: “I’ll fix this,” and a promise to call me back with a delivery date/time. We’ll see, , ,

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Affliction Becomes Benefit

Some folks are more prone than others to vertical ridges in fingernails as they age. Oh, anyone can experience them because of nutritional deficits or some physical malady, but mine are apparently age and genetics related. I can recall as a young boy times spent with my maternal grandfather’s mother. Spending time with Great Grandmother was an enriching experience for me in many ways, but one lil thing has remained fascinating to me over the years: her hands. She was always doing interesting things with her hands: needlework, paging down pages in her Bible as she read (sometimes aloud for me, though I was close and reading along), sharpening her always-at-hand pen knife, and even trimming her nails with that very sharp pen knife.

And then there were her nails. Yep. Ridged just like mine are now, like Dad-Dad’s (maternal grandfather) were, like my older sister’s are. I have dealt with mine by checking my nutrition (no problems there), by making them less brittle with applications of different kinds, and. . . by trimming them as short as possible in order to minimize the real problem with ridged nails: frequent splitting and chipping.

And how has this become a benefit in recent days? Ease of keeping things really clean under my fingernails (because there’s hardly any “under my fingernails” to clean, for one thing).

So, a lil piece of heritage coming around to being a benefit.

Sweet!