Category: FWIW

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Lil Things–Again

Break time from a bad computer* (“Bad, bad computer!” *heh*)

Until I get around to purchasing and installing the stainless steel sheets I intend to be the backsplash for the stove (and, incidentally, a new stove), some SS tool racks and some sparingly-used paint will do. Just.

Yeh, yeh, the stove’s probably original with the house (40+ years old or so), and you can see I’ve removed the clock mechanism that had failed (actually, shorted out and caused a breaker to fail). I have a “treatment” for all that area coming up that will make its appearance, at least, less jarring.

I did get the storage tray under the oven to be less jarring against the nearby stainless exterior of our fridge (old model electric stove/oven: broiler element in the main oven and pan storage, etc., underneath):

Yes, that’s a paint with stainless steel particles in the paint. Not entirely bad, and does complement the fridge fairly well.

Unlike the replacement of the junk (to begin with) dishwasher and the old (original with the house? Could have been… it really was old) refrigerator, the stove, though old, works well. I never used the timer/clock, even when it was working. So, I’m not in a big hurry to replace the stove. Oh, the oven runs a wee tad hot, but that’s what my own oven thermometer is for anyway. Other things will come first. (Like, completely rewiring the house–correctly! The 220 outlet for the stove, for example, doesn’t even have a proper box installed!!! *sigh*)

Next up in the kitchen, as time allows, is finishing the counter tops and doing some “wall work”–including building a NEW “coffee shrine” and other lil stuff. Somethings to keep me busy whenever things slack off a tad.

And yeh, yeh, I know I need to wipe down the stove–particularly the storage drawer–and do some other lil cleanup things. I’ll get A Round Toit.

BTW, the stainless steel spoon with the black handle? That’s the third paint job on that wooden handle that I know of. Re-riveted the bowl to the handle once. Spoon’s older than I am. Some of my fav childhood memories include using that spoon to scoop things out of mixing bowls while helping Mother in the kitchen. I’m not sure where she got it, but it may not have been new when she did. The rest of the stuff’s new. Heck, the cheapo plastic pasta spoon is relatively new but still about to be replaced with a stainless steel version.

SO I like to cook. Wanna make something of it? 😉

Update: I did go ahead and get the “treatment” started on the controls area of the stove. Took a break to cook dinner, but all that’s left are some labels for the burner controls (printed on clear address labels, cut out and applied then clear-coated) and a decorative stencil for the blank area on the right. I’m thinking a pots ‘n’ pans stencil in black.

*bad computer: someone who bought an old HP Pavilion zt1000 notebook for $5 at a garage sale wants me to make it usable. *sigh* Later on today, I’m tearing it down–again–and re-soldering the power connection. Yep. PITA. *profound sigh*

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Micro-Mini Health Tip

First, a couple of disclaimers: This is just a single data point (me), and I’m not all that certain how really important some of the factors are, anyway. I mean, after all, health professionals can’t keep straight what they think is healthy from one decade to the next, anyway, so take this all with a grain of salt*.

At my checkup this year (yes, in the last four years I’ve actually had annual checkups, something very new in my life *heh*), the Dr was shocked (yes, shocked, I say) to see that I’d lost 25#. So? It’d been a year. Moving on. Continue reading “Micro-Mini Health Tip”

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Great Scene

Just saw the end of an episode of a show that I sometimes watch with my Wonder Woman. It tends to give me a rash *heh* but it’s not as bad as some. The greatness of this scene was the fruity lawyer going around a room telling folks that if a case ever came to trial, no matter what, “I win.” *heh*

I kept expecting him to say, “Even if I have to hit [the other lawyer] with my purse, I win.”

Great scene, even if the best part was in my imagination. *heh*

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Sometimes, I Just Have to Say, “No”

A while back, I decided to give a Windows “news and tips” site a whirl and submitted a secondary email address in order to receive notices of site updates. Since then, it’s yielded a few interesting tidbits, but sometimes, “a few interesting tidbits” just doesn’t cut it.

Recently, a portion of a topic line stood out, as at least 2/3 of the topic lines received in updates from the site have. Again, not in a positive light. The portion–this time–that made me wince: “The reason behind its name revealed !”

WTF is with the (usual and customary, from this source) space between the last word and the punctuation? It’s stupid. And, as I said, usual from this source. But that’s just the normal quality of punctuation usage from this source. What about word usage and grammar?

In the same email update: “Not why it a browser.”

?!? Yes, that’s the entire sentence fragment posing as a sentence. Where’s the verb?

And then, “…to make it running as fast and stable as new.” No, dumbasses, “to make it RUN as fast and stable as new” would at least be marginally acceptable, although “fast and stable” in this context is problematic.

“Since the last couple of days I’m seeing… ” Obviously English is a second language for the writer. Either that or the writer is a recent American college graduate.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the ear-grinding English constructions in just this one email. I can’t take it anymore. Unsubscribing, with prejudice. *heh*

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Little Things

Good ones, this time. 🙂

Yesterday, two days before its estimated time of delivery, my knife bar arrived. Sweet. I’ve been storing my most used kitchen knives in a knife block for years, but it’s always been a wee problem to place conveniently. This, I think, addresses the main issue: get ’em off the counter:

Of course, my most used knives are the two on the left, closest to hand when I’m using the peninsula for food prep. The one farthest left is a Chicago Cutlery 8″ chef’s knife (~OK) that once belonged to my father-in-law. Next to it–most used of them all–is my Sabatier Aîné & Perrier “K” 10″ chef’s knife (OK, so SA&P says it’s a “slicing knife”. I still use it as a chef’s knife), an anniversary present from my Wonder Woman 18 years ago. No, it’ almost nothing like the WallyWorld, Tarjay, et al “Sabatier” knives.

The rest are a mix of “heirloom knives” and a couple I picked up that are not bad/not great but serve their purposes (the larger “butcher knife” and the slicer with the handle that matches it. Oh, the bread knife on the right, next to the steel, really should go in the island’s drawer, since it’ll be used there more often than not, but I wanted to see if it’d fit on the bar with the others).

The knife bar holds the knives (and even the knife steel–one of three I use) very firmly yet releases them easily enough when needed. Seven knives and the steel are now stored in convenient reach, off the prep surface (right under my pot rack).

Handy.

Now, it’s time for some attention to those blades’ edges…

Next up in the kitchen: new backsplash for the stove, complete with new storage bars for some cooking implements. I can only hope I come up with some meals that justify this stuff. *heh*

Edited for my inexcusable lapse in labeling the Sabatier as an 8″-er. What was I thinking? Oh, right. I was thinking the other edit: 8″ for the Chicago Cutlery “OK” knife. *heh*

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Mini-Reno-Project

But something of a PITA to do…

The light over the kitchen sink: we’ve been meaning to “get around to it” for, well, since forever (OK, only sixteen years now *heh*). It was a piece of contractor’s junk fixture complete with a pull chain. *yech* Worst single example of electrical junk wiring in the house.

Plain old inertia just kept me out of it. Well, that and KNOWING it was going to be wired stupidly, and with the wiring concealed behind a 1’x1′ chase at the top of the kitchen (IOW, just completely wasted space), it wasn’t going to be a fun reno. Oh, and where was I going to put the switch and how did I want to wire it and… yeh, I let laziness get in the way, too.

But a couple of weeks ago, we found a fixture at Lowe’s that my Wonder Woman seemed to like:

Continue reading “Mini-Reno-Project”

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A Kid Again

In 1959, we were a single income family, even though both of my parents were college graduates. My dad was making decent money working in a field not known for particularly good incomes. Still with five children, the budget was sometimes a tad tight. So, when my folks decided to buy a World Book Encyclopedia with all the trimmings, including ten years of “yearbooks” and a large (no, REALLY large, “library-sized”) two-volume dictionary set, our lil family library grew by almost 25% overnight, and I found my backup reading material for the next few years.

Yes, there was always at least one volume of the set under my bed, close enough for a night time “sneak read”. Sometimes, it was just one of the two dictionary volumes (yes, for reading), but most often it was just a volume chosen according to some topic that had caught my fancy, then kept for further reading as one article led to another and another and…

And that’s how I get to be a kid again. For the last 18 years the web has been my go-to reading material for times when I’ve exhausted my stash of new books. It’s also been my substitute for an encyclopedia, since I never run out of things to learn. And thanks to my *cough* encyclopedic reading habits over the years, I have a skill set and basic knowledge base that allows me to filter out most crap.

And the resources–good quality resources–are effectively limitless, now, and not confined to one book case. Heck, I find myself re-reading classics online that are in a book case that’s literally within the reach of my right hand as I type these words.

And on top of being a library with more than enough resources to keep me in learning material for life, the web’s a source of amusement (dumbasses a-plenty to poke fun at! Yipee! *heh*), entertainment (I have a full movie list at Crackle, for example), contemporary information (I’ll not say it’s “news”) and interpersonal interactions.

But most of all, it’s a resource just jam packed with information that’s either new to me or in a new format that makes sense in a different way or old information that’s fun to re-read, review and cogitate over.

Sweet. Kid. In a candy store. Unlimited candy budget.

*sigh* I’ve entered my second childhood.

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Assiti Shard Challenge

So Baen has a “challenge” out to readers. The prizes? Get red-shirted in an upcoming Eric Flint novel and receive a complete set of the 1632 “Ring of Fire” eBook series.

Not bad. Of course, I only lack one of the series, so far, so that’s not a biggie, but getting killed off in an Eric Flint novel might be… novel.

So what’s the challenge? Given a 10-mile diameter “Assiti Shard” that displaces either forward or backward in time from 2011, come up with a story proposal. You know: place transported, people, where transported, conflict, etc.

The problem for me is this: it’d be really interesting if a 10-mile diameter area centered around where I took Son&Heir on a country drive here in America’s third world county were transported back in time just 100 years… to the same place. The interesting thing to me would be the situation: how long would it take the people living in this area to discover they’d traveled back in time 100 years? I’m betting on an average of a year, but some might never find out… No. I’m serious. *heh* (You’d really have to know the area I’m talking about. “Piney woods” just doesn’t capture the flavor… )
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OK, the Assiti Shard books and stories, beginning with 1632, are generally just fun reads. But the more extensively read one is in history, especially European history and particularly the Renaissance, the more fun the tales will be.

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Frying Dinner on the Sidewalk Tonight

Forecast for today said high of 97°F. Dam*ed lying Weatherbuggy. The current report from the high school’s weather station is slightly higher in temp…

Well, now that the actual temp is DOWN from 111°F, the heat index of 115°F seems OK, right? Right?

Oh, dear. Spoke a bit too soon. After burning myself on the table saw out on the deck, I decided to check again:

And "downtown's on fire, man"

Again, if weather forecasts are this inaccurate from one day to the next, even IF the global warmistas’ Cult of Anthropogenic Global Climate Scare-ism models hadn’t already been shot full of holes, I’d still have no reason to place any confidence in them, now would I? At least not confidence enough to further wreck the global economy with their proposed “remedies” for “problems” they’ve not offered anything more than failed computer models to support..

Meanwhile, it’s hot. It’s called “Summer”. I remember it from last year about this time. *heh*

And speaking of heat and summer and all that jazz, as I have been, how can I neglect to link this (via Sister Nicole) and give a hearty and soul felt “AMEN! Preach on brother!”

(One small cavil about The Church of The Blessed Evaporator: w/o AC, Congress wouldn’t meet so often and make so much trouble, and “feddle gummint bureaucraps” wouldn’t have all those nice, air conditioned offices from which to work their deeds of iniquity. Sad that such a boon to humanity can be perverted so… *sigh*)

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“Once more unto the breach, dear friends… “

Maybe this will post. Not holding my breath.

Been having sucky internet service since the Joplin tornado. Understood it’d take some time to repair infrastructure, etc., but it’s more than two months, and the intermittent outages–some lasting, as today, for more than eight hours at a time– and slow “speeds” are beginning to pall. Strike that, are now f’in’ irritating. I “grump” fairly easily in recent years, but I’ve been a pretty patient guy, cutting some slack for the circumstances. No more. Going to gripe ’em out, now. If we’re paying for service (and we are) then they’d better start actually providing what we’re paying for.

Enough’s enough.