Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShottleBop
We took out a set of French doors between the den (piano room) and the family room (enclosed patio) and replaced them with a sliding glass door. We had to use wood chisels to take down the existing threshold by about an inch, and cut the flange off all four sides of the new door, which was intended for new construction. Our son did that with a utility knife. (Fortunately, the new door is vinyl.)
This evening, after work, I helped cut some of the moldings that will go around the new door.
Yesterday, we glued/nailed the moldings around the sliding door. Today, we took the screen door that came with the slider (which we didn't need, because we installed it indoors) and made it work as a screen door for the front door, using old-timey cabinet hinges to hang it. (It didn't fit perfectly; there's a gap at the bottom, but we may close that with a kick plate.) Then I promptly tried to walk through the screen.
That's why the new slider has "panes," rather than uninterrrupted sheets of glass.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I got a new Dell firmware update this afternoon. (My Dell is a 3190 2-in-1.) I installed it, and my computer automatically started a self-check. It finished that, then told me that it couldn't find a bootable disk, and shut down. I thought I'd have to reinstall my OS. Before doing that, though, I went into the boot options in Setup, and noticed that Windows Boot Manage had been disabled. I enabled that, and my computer booted nomally with all my data intact.
If I were British, I'd say that I'm pretty well chuffed.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Not really MY accomplishment, other than I have found service perfection. At a petrol station. In a non-service-oriented culture.
I have extoled the virtues of my local Shell service station before; a couple of years ago I had warning lights and miscellaneous threats appear in my dashboard about the alternator not working, and not wanting to be left with a flat battery, I took it to them to see if they could figure it out. They looked it over and made sure my battery was charging ok, fixed the direction of a bulb I had messed up earlier when trying to to change it myself, changed another bulb and added coolant. The sum? 8,22€.
So, a couple of weeks ago my 17-year-old car did not pass its yearly inspection for roadworthiness, and thus needed work and parts for the axle + some random bulbs changed before being taken back for re-inspection. So, I booked a new inspection time for the day after tomorrow and a maintenance time at the service station for today to look into all that stuff that caused it to fail, and also added the yearly service, oil change, filters etc. that will need doing soon anyway. Went to pick it up this afternoon, and not only was the cost 261€, so quite a bit less less than I had anticipated, that included the price of the new inspection as they had ALREADY TAKEN IT FOR IT'S RE-CHECK CERTIFICATE and I am good to go for another year. I almost cried at the cash register.
If I ever move out of this village that damn kissable service station is going to be what I miss.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I did a factory reset on my smartphone Friday evening, and I've got to say that, over the past 3 years, "restore from Google Account" has gotten near-painless.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Turned on the oven. Took the proto-cookies out of the fridge. Put them in the oven.
Baked the sugar cookies.
Took the cookies out. Turned off the oven. Ate the sugar cookies.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Mrs. S and I wanted to watch David Byrne's new concert movie, "American Utopia," directed by Spike Lee. It's available through HBO Max, which you get if you have HBO through your TV provider. However, we use an Amazon Fire Stick for access to Netflix and the like, and Amazon (being dicks) does not make HBO Max available for installation. Google revealed instructions for sideloading HBO Max from ApkMirror. I followed the instructions and successfully got HBO Max up and running on the Fire Stick.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I got almost all the way through our CSA share PLUS several added trips to farm stands buying full bushels of fruits and vegetables to put up for the winter.
I still have just a few things to do before I'm completely done with the growing season--I think just one more batch of pickle/relish, a few batches of pumpkin and other squashes, and a large batch of sauerkraut to ferment--but I'm close enough to brag.
It's really hard to get pictures even if I were good at taking them, but here is one shelf:
The top row is all jams and jellies. Persimmon jam, apple butter, plum jam (the whitish stuff on top is stupid foam that I did not sufficiently skim off--it's safe, just ugly), apple jelly, pear jam, orange-hibiscus marmalade, and peach jam.
The second row is pickled/fermented stuff. Purple cabbage sauerkraut, fermented tomatillos, pickled wax peppers, fermented giardiniera, spicy cucumber relish, pickled asparagus, pickled roasted peppers, and pickled brussels sprouts, two ways.
Third row is condiments: Fermented eggplant ketchup, green tomato ketchup, restaurant-style salsa, a couple small-batch salsas, and then roasted tomatillo salsa. (This row keeps getting used up as I go along, but I'm probably going to add a couple more weird ketchups there.)
Bottom row is: Roasted Mosco chiles, beets, and pumpkin. (The empty space is for the squashes I still have left to do, although I'm not sure if there's enough room for all of it.)
The second bookshelf is in a very dark, cramped corner so I can't get a picture, but it has corn, green beans, carrots, pinto beans, tomatoes, apple pie filling, plain apples, and soup stock.
PLUS the full sized stand up freezer in the garage is full of things that can't be safely or effectively canned.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
They needed a method for families to communicate in isolation at the nearby old-folks home, so I built them an intercom from a pair of junk telephones.
How little have telephones changed? I will tell you:
THIS STILL WORKS! It's not an oversimplification or flow chart -- this is exactly how telephones were designed 100 years ago and how they still work now.
Except their nine-volt battery is way, way too small. The standard voltage is sixty - to shoehorn raw voice through ten miles of junk cable - but eighteen seems to be the irreducible minimum for a lot of modern phones. Unlike the old carbon ones, modern phones may stop working entirely instead of getting quieter on a weak connection.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
OMG, that is awesome.
For a longassed time, I've been planning to try something like this just to make use of all the old phones I have. My far too ambitious idea involves PBX software so you can ring individual rooms.
I've never gotten around to much beyond idly thinking about how funny it would be, mostly because I am lazy and unmotivated, but also because I don't actually have a need for it. I was just making up use cases because I don't like all my cool phones laying fallow like they're just decorative. I've kept them all working, and that's the coolest thing about them.
But maybe I could start just doing this with one line, and then expand later.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Traditionally, making a telephone ring requires jamming four more parts into that series loop: A pair of alternators to generate AC current, and a pair of bells to turn that AC current into horrendous noise. All in series, they just kept jamming more and more big parts into that loop, no wonder they wanted sixty volts.
Well not quite in series, the ringer might get switched out when you pick up, but that series loop is what makes the whole thing operate.
A modern telephone includes the ringer, of course, but does not include the alternator. That's the exchange's job now. It's easier to get little transformers than it is to get little alternators these days though. But then you have to drive and power them somehow.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I was having some trouble with my home network - one node in my AI Mesh was somewhat flaky. I took that as an opportunity to upgrade the primary router and rearrange the nodes.
It took a little longer than I planned. I had to factory reset all the routers and reconfigure them. I also needed to reboot the Sonos speakers - they are very sensitive to changes in the network. But now I have a router that looks to me like Sauron's crown:
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Shit, and here I was about to crow about finally replacing the rubbed-off letters on my ergo keyboard.
__________________
"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
We have a little weather station that tells us the indoor & outdoor temperature. The backlight went out, and it was hard to read. Today, I opened it up and discovered the switch underneath the light/snooze broke off. It was held in place by two pegs and the soldering. I'm pretty sure this got knocked over at least once, and it was enough to break the soldering and one peg.
I applied some crazy glue and did 4 amateur-at-best solders and now it has a backlight again!
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Mrs. S's, Son No. 1's, and my smartphones were all over three years old, and batteries were beginning to show their age. Then Mrs. S dropped her phone into some water. I took advantage of a sale by our provider (CREDO Mobile) to pick up new phones on the cheap ($24 for Mrs. S's new 2020 iPhone SE).
When we got the bill for last month, though, I saw that they'd charged me $150 ($50 X 3) in "Early Upgrade" fees. I called their customer service and explained the situation to a rep, who agreed that I shouldn't have been charged those fees and credited my account. A week later, I got a notice from CREDO that my bill had been credited $150.
This morning, I logged on to pay the bill. It showed a balance due of $300 less than the paper bill we'd been sent. I looked at the account detail, and saw that they had mistakenly credited back the Early Upgrade Fees twice. (Evidently, after I'd spoken to the rep, their finance department had caught and corrected the same error.) I called up customer service again, and informed them of their mistake. They update my account online, and then I paid the bill.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Our oven broke like a week ago. I did as much troubleshooting as I could and the best bet for fixing it would be to get a part that cost like $70, wait for it to be shipped, replace that part, and hope that was the (only) problem. It was a cheap oven we'd gotten refurbished, and I honestly didn't really like it much anyway, so it just wasn't worth that.
So I looked around and found someone just a few blocks away selling a newer oven for $300 just because they were 'remodeling.' We don't have a truck and don't even really know anyone who does anymore, though, so we rented one for an hour and went and picked it up.
I don't know exactly how old it is, but that model is still being sold (for almost $2K), and it's got a double oven with convection and five burners. It's pretty nice so far. Knock wood.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
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