Category: FWIW

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Fun, Fun, Fun (’til My Daddy Takes the T-Bird Away… )

Well, maybe not that kind of fun, but not bad, nonetheless.

The re-roofing of twc central (RW) is progressing. Minor setback. Make a short story long(er):

Installing metal panels over the existing asphalt shingles: use 1″x4″ purlins over the shingles, screwed into the deck and joists below, metal panels installed on the purlins.

OK, no biggie, except… 1x4s at local hardware-cum-mini-lumber yard, or even at Lowes: WTF?!? That much?!? Nuh-uh, baby. Further away than local hardware-cum-mini-lumber yard store but closer than Lowes “fell off the back of a truck lumber yard”: reasonable, but… The store was way low on 1x4s but had a pot load of 10′ 2x4s for $2 each. Rip ’em down the middle? Nominal 1x4s. Close enough. Bought a passel of ’em; brought ’em home and began ripping ’em up.

Table saw died. *sigh* OK, replaced table saw (much faster than repairing the old one, although I have that in my hip pocket for a later mini-project: repair and sell) and began ripping again. Smooth move. I’m still under the cost of 1x4s at Lowes (let alone the “cat’s back-riding” local hardware-cum-mini-lumber yard) and have replaced a slowly-decaying power tool.

Still to go: installing the safety anchors (which I will be leaving on the roof permanently), the purlins and then the steel. Working on the first two on that list today, until the heat drives me off the roof.

The most fun thing in all this, so far, is that I’ve not done anything quite this physically demanding for the better part of two decades, and while I have the typical muscle aches–and my constant “Olde Pharte’s joint aches, etc.–to contend with, so far the pain’s all of the good kind: I can actually feel the good I’m doing myself. Like it.

Most UNfun thing so far: the buckets of sweat. Oh, it’s not all that bad in some ways, but having a puddle literally pour out of my sunglasses onto some work I’m doing is annoying, although at least that clears the puddle of sweat out of my field of vision. *heh* Playing in the attic (to replace a gas vent that needed replacing before the roofing went on) was interesting–like being in a low-ceilinged, stuffy sauna. Temps outside were 106F and in the attic? On fire, man. Going back into the unconditioned, ambient temp, garage from the attic? Felt like air conditioning. Chilly, dude.

As is Tradition for men in my family for carpentry or mechanicking work (going back as far as my paternal great-grandfather, at least), I have already offered a Blood Sacrifice to the Handyman Spirit. Yeh, yeh: I neglected to put my gloves on before moving the steel panels from where they were off-loaded to a better place for beginning to feed them up to the roof. Blood Sacrifice… What does not kill me hurts like the dickens for a while (and then fades into the background of a world of hurt *heh*), then heals… or not (so far all my past “Handyman Spirit Blood Sacrifice” wounds have healed, for various values of “heal” :-)).

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I am So Behind the Times

Thank God!

Flipboard is apparently THE “killer app” in some demographics for iPad, iPhone and Android phones. Here’s what the app has to say for itself (OK, via developers’ plug):

Flipboard brings together world news and social news in a beautiful magazine.

Flipboard’s award-winning experience lets people see everything in one place. By bringing together the world’s stories and life’s great moments, you can stay up to date with the things that matter most. Flip through the news from your Twitter timeline as well as from outlets like the BBC, USA Today and The Verge. See everything from posts and photos shared by friends on Facebook and Instagram to videos from Stephen Colbert and pop culture nuggets from Rolling Stone. Find inspiration for your travel, style and life from places like National Geographic, Oprah and Cool Hunting.

It’s the one thing to simplify your daily life. Bring Flipboard on the train during your morning commute, catch up over coffee or on vacation, use it as a tool at work or simply to wind down your night.

Talk about damning itself in the eyes of anyone with more than two active brain cells. Absolutely nothing listed above is worth aggregating into an electronic magazine experience, unless one’s goal in life is to make oneself stupid(er). If auto-lobotomy is one’s goal, then the “benefits” of Flipboard are manifold. If one instead wants to preserve a few brain cells for actual thought, then it would seem that avoiding the things touted above would be a Very Good Thing. (OK, with highly filtered and limited use, Facebook and National Geographic could be less brain damaging than the other things listed, but FB is filled with crap and NG has been degraded to barely better than just another Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind propaganda organ. *sigh*)

Thanks, Flipboard, but I’ll pass. Aging brains need to be stimulated with information that’s not toxic cotton candy in order to preserve mental capacities as much as possible.

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Oh, Well…

Since the materials list to re-roof our home come in at roughly half what I had feared (that’s the danger of physically going to the manufacturer’s plant and personally getting a bid for materials *heh*), it looks like the roofing project is on for this summer.

Oh, well. At least I get to buy some cool tools and equipment to make the job go faster/safer. ILIWAPCT, don’t you?

Looks like it’s time to start rounding up the crew… 😉

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together. 🙂

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Running Lat(er)

*heh* So “Spring Cleaning” got out of hand and has run on into “Summer Cleanup” with bags of clothes and unused furniture making their way to charity and boxes of “stuff” still being sorted with discoveries of tools, electronic equipment, as-yet unread books and scads of other stuff floating to the surface out of storage areas to be sorted into Keep-Give Away-Toss piles. Oh, and meanwhile tons of lil (and some not so little) landscaping/yard jobs that’ve been *cough* “deferred” for some time resulting in more summer sun than I’ve seen for a few years… and bunches of home made charcoal, etc.

But it’s kinda fun to turn up lil gems like this from time-to-time:

Of course, I don’t really use the mouse pad attachment–or some clumsy wired mouse–with the device, but the picture is otherwise a decent representation.

Beats the socks off the other labeling measures we’ve been taking. The thing’s been packed away for more than a decade, unused–never used! (Ordered it just before a major “event” in our lives and just never got around to using it. *shrugs* Casio is still selling the thing and has even updated the software for 64-bit Windows.)

What with all the “lost” tools I now have to integrate with some tools gleaned from a barter deal earlier this summer, the garage cleanup is also looking more and more urgent. *heh*

Need to get all this sorted out before things cool down enough to put on a new roof and paint the siding, though. Now those lil chores should be loads of fun!

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Fun Lil Micro-Mini Project

To make a short story longer…

I have an area of our back yard* I’ve mentally designated for a future backyard* garden. Right now, I’m burning wood trash there, in a small pit I’ve dug–limbs, small trees I’ve removed and even good sized logs from a mimosa tree I’ve long hated.

Oh, the lil micro-mini project? Making charcoal in (very) small batches. I get a good fire going and then when it’s burned down a bit I shovel dirt and ashes over the burning wood until I blanket out even traces of smoke. Next day, I uncover the charcoal that’s been created and put it in a steel container until I’m absolutely sure there are no live coals still left, then into a covered plastic bucket.

Oh, the charcoal? For a very small earth-sheltered forge I plan on putting in the same small pit for use turning some old files and lawnmower blades into knives. (I’ve already annealed the files/lawnmower blades to make them soft enough to work… in earlier woodpile burns. :-))

Waste not, want not.

🙂

 

 

 

 

Note the difference. While I may seem (or even be) pedantic, it’s for good cause. I keep reading things on the web–and even in books that’ve been through the whole nine yards of traditional publishing, including editors, proofreaders and the like–that use “backyard” and “backseat” and other such adjectives as though they were nouns. It chaps my gizzard. The distinction is a useful one and should not be abandoned by the illiterati of contemporary writers simply because they’re too butt lazy to be well-read.

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I Really Need to Ameliorate My Tinnitus

Sometimes it’s so distracting I mishear background stuff. For example, a TV commercial I heard as,

“Introducing the evil 4G“

The sheer noise level of the tinnitus is really that distracting a times.

I don’t watch much TV. This was while sharing some “being there” time while my Wonder Woman was watching one of the (very, very) few TV shows she watches via our cable subscription.

Evo 4G

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Is Too Exercise!

Well, sorta.

Short story made long(er), I’ve been thinking (in a very desultory, lackadaisical, downright unserious manner) of getting a wee tad more exercise–you know, beyond my typical couch-and-desk-potato exercises with occasional bursts of yardwork. I’ve thought of building a treadmill desk for either my desktop or laptop, but… I’m reluctant to spend the $$ on just adding more unused clutter to the house.

Still… primary hard drive on most-used computer is making funky noises, so it’s powered down until I get a new hard drive in, and, yeh, looks like I’ll have to double its capacity *drat!* since 500GB hard drives are becoming less, common and I can install a 1TB drive for little over a $10-$15 upcharge. *shrugs* Why not?

But… I need another “change of pace” computer. (No, I don’t really, but I’m used to moving around to different workstations and doing different things on ’em, so… ) So…

Enter lil netbook with a real mouse and keyboard attached, sitting on the “bar” on the dining room side of the kitchen counter, right about here:

Those stools are gone–replaced them with some neat ones that have padded seats, backs and built-in pullout step stools. I’m not using seating there, anyway. By using it as a standing desk, I at least get some “exercise” benefits, and by having it there, the coffee’s handy! Sweet!

*heh*

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More “Phishing pfor Psuckers”

Text of an email I received recently:

Dear Customer,

Your order has been successfully canceled. For your reference, here’s a summary of your order:

You just canceled order 162-427-72682 placed on May 11, 2012.

Status: CANCELED

_____________________________________________________________________

1 “Mounts”; 2003, Second Edition
By: Jamie Turner

Sold by: Amazon.com LLC

_____________________________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting Amazon.com!

———————————————————————
Amazon.com
Earth’s Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com

Now, someone who wasn’t paying any attention (or is just too stupid to waste oxygen on) could easily have been caught out by this. There were links to a malware installation on both the purported “order number” and on the text referring to Amazon.com at the end of the email.

But… this one was just too, too easy to resist. First, I knew I’d not placed such an order. “But then,” someone might say (though certainly not YOU, gentle reader), “surely that would lead one to click the link to check on that order. After all, someone might be using one’s stolen Amazon ID to make purchases!”

Except, not mine, and I’m not clicking on ANY obscured link in an email without KNOWING where it leads. Not happening.

But, I did look at the email’s source text and see that the links were NOT to Amazon but to a site that would steal my Amazon creds were I to go there and log in. Except that neither my browser nor LastPass would recognize the site and offer to log in for me, were I to be foolish enough to have clicked the links anyway.

Oh, and the email was to an account that is not in any way, shape, fashion or form associated with my Amazon account, nor has it ever been. Sure, all my email accounts are polled and gathered by one account, but I checked which account the email had been sent to, AND the form is not what I’d have received from Amazon, what with a few pertinent details missing.

So, just taking few seconds to do a coupla quick checks averted the possibility, remote though it is given my other simple measures, of having my Amazon account credentials stolen.

It’s not hard and doesn’t take any time at all, but I’ll bet a few mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging oxygen sinks with fewer active brain cells than a cracked crock of kimchi will fall for it.