Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I successfully talked myself out of purchasing an expensive camera. There's nothing really wrong with my current camera, it doesn't perform as well as I'd like in certain ways, but I certainly didn't need a mirrorless full frame.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
My Raspberry Pi is showing uptime 150 days.
The only reason I had to restart it 150 days ago is because I had a new electricity meter installed and they kind of have to turn off the power for that.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I successfully didn't talk myself out of a new camera this weekend.
I was looking for some photography related items because I have some money coming in, so I also looked at what might be better cameras for low-light applications, like, you know microscope stuff, so I purchased a Sony A7III and an adapter so I can use all of my Canon mount lenses.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Yesterday, I finally conquered the woody rose bush/tree that was up against the fence. There were 2 when we moved in, with a trellis between; apparently the idea was to have them both creep the trellis and meet in the middle. However, one died in the worse-than-usual drought year we had a ways back, while the other became a vicious, mean-spirited stalk of malevolence that I have grown to despise to an irrational degree. Damned thing has nice roses, but most of them are well over the fence line, way up in the air, while to trim it you have to deal with OG (old growth) thorns that will slit you up a treat given half a chance.
Soooo, the neighbor along that fence line has to replace her entire perimeter of fencing. Each neighbor (including us) agreed to split the cost of each one's shared portion, except for the one asshole who has like 2 lousy meters to replace, but that's another story. The point is that I had an onion in my belt have been gradually dealing with the shit along that fence in preparation, this was the last difficult thing to move, and I really wanted it the fuck gone.
I knew it would come out much easier if it was at least partially dead, but nothing I looked up was a fast-acting enough way to kill a stump, so I combined several methods. I spent the past week (after hacking the massive triffid down into little pieces for the compost bin earlier) abusing the stump in various ways. I drilled holes in the stump and poured in brush killer, and covered the whole thing with plastic and then a wheelbarrow.
"Could you tell a child of yours, 'You've seen the sun for the last time'?" No, but I had no such problem with this evil piece of shit. I finished the process yesterday, by digging the entire root system out except for a few horizontals. The root ball really does end there, with an artificial-seeming, perfectly flat bottom -- I assume this is where it hit the hardpan.
Of course, any ripped-up stump will look Cthulhu-ish, but I still think this looks pretty wicked. I'm saving it as a battle trophy. My pug was not cooperative enough to provide scale, so I used a tape measure. 16 inches = about 40 cm for you anti-imperialists.
Spoilered for bigness, or just click the attachment.
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"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 inherited a rocking chair from someone who had a boxer with bad storm anxiety. During thunderstorms, the dog chewed on the front ends of the runners. The chair is fine other than that but the chewed up runners look pretty bad - too much damage to sand down. After a few months my father-in-law decided that he was not interested in replacing the runners, so it came back here. We don't really have a place for it, and I did not want to spend money and effort on new runners ($60+ unfinished???) that would probably lead to me having to refinish the whole thing, so we were going to just put it on the curb.
I decided to test out if the old glue was as weak as it looked, and it turned out I could get the runners off with a couple taps with the rubber hammer. Then I decided to try just cutting the damaged areas off with a miter saw and bringing them to a tapered point. It doesn't look good but looks much better than it did - straight lines instead of chewed up carnage. It will be less noticeable once I sand the edges down and stain them. Since it was the front of the runners, the chair still rocks fine. In the meantime I am going to use it as my desk chair.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
I went to Costco today to buy cat food, and came out with ONLY the cat food I went in for. THEN I went to BevMo to buy some beer, and came out with ONLY a 12-pack of beer.
Maybe not BEER beer: Michelob Ultra (for the low carbs).
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Today, we were out and I realized I didn't have any hair elastics on me. So I deconstructed one of the used face masks on the floor of the car and just knotted an elastic out of an ear loop.
It's held up so well I only just remembered I've been wearing this hoopty thing almost all day.
EDIT: When I was a kid, I used to sometimes get weird ideas about the things I needed to know before I could be a grownup, and one of those things was how to tie knots. I got a book of them and practiced and got pretty good at it if I say so myself. I've forgotten a lot of them and the ones I still know how to do I don't remember the names of. But I think I need to re-learn knot tying.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea
When I was a kid, I used to sometimes get weird ideas about the things I needed to know before I could be a grownup, and one of those things was how to tie knots. I got a book of them and practiced and got pretty good at it if I say so myself. I've forgotten a lot of them and the ones I still know how to do I don't remember the names of. But I think I need to re-learn knot tying.
Yes, you do. Otherwise we will have to downgrade you to little babby again. And we don't want that, do we young lady?
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Late last summer I neatly chopped through the power cable for my hedge trimmer with the hedge trimmer. A small bang, a small amount of smoke, a small blue patch on the blades, and proof that the circuit breakers work perfectly well - rest of the house unaffected.
This morning I finally got around to splicing it with lineman's splices and heat shrink tubing, and it now works fine. The hedge is no longer wildly bushy.
Re: In Which We Brag About Our Petty Accomplishments
Just to add, the hedge looked fine all through the winter until around May when it began to grow properly again. Even then, it would still have looked fine if someone hadn't trimmed the other side.
I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for that pesky meddling neighbour!