What did you do today?

[Eddie_T]

I woke up at 5:00AM with my tight ankle hurting and I couldn't go back to sleep. No position would help. Finally I was awake enough to analyze that it might be a cramp. I got up, walked it off and drank a glass of tonic water while reading a couple of chapters in a book with a heating pad on my ankle. Analyzing the probable cause I decided it was due to both brake and accelerator pedals of my loaner Impala being harder to push than my Prizm. Also the angle of force application being different may have contributed to the stress.

 

[Spicoli43]

I woke up at 5:00AM with my tight ankle hurting and I couldn't go back to sleep. No position would help. Finally I was awake enough to analyze that it might be a cramp. I got up, walked it off and drank a glass of tonic water while reading a couple of chapters in a book with a heating pad on my ankle. Analyzing the probable cause I decided it was due to both brake and accelerator pedals of my loaner Impala being harder to push than my Prizm. Also the angle of force application being different may have contributed to the stress.

I thought I broke my ankle while driving a rental Prius. Those things need to be banned. The Left foot rest is impossible to avoid using unless you want your knee up by the steering wheel, or unless you want your Left foot accidentally hitting the brake pedal.

Of course you can't really break your ankle by resting it there, but it felt like it and I had to use crutches for 3 days until it came back to life.

I just tell people to this day that the Prius bored my ankle into a coma for 3 days because it's a worthless boring "car".

As far as roundabouts, they are okay if everyone coming up to them know how to use them. It's Kindergarten level intelligence, but not everybody is that smart.

 

[Eddie_T]

As far as roundabouts, they are okay if everyone coming up to them know how to use them. It's Kindergarten level intelligence, but not everybody is that smart.

But Montana is three times larger than North Carolina and has 8.5 million fewer people. It's not the rules that cause accidents, it's those that don't know them. I can't risk it, they're for the young and invincible.

I just checked on Sound of Freedom movie;

As of July 25, 2023 the film has grossed $131 million, making it the 15th highest-grossing film of 2023 in the United States and Canada.​

 

[Spicoli43]

I look forward to Sound Of Freedom on Blu-Ray. It's one of the rare movies I would go see in the theatre, knowing full well I would need to watch it on Blu-Ray again anyway.

NPR is calling it a "conspiracy theory" of course. I assume all the others are doing the same, I just point out NPR because it's taxpayer funded. We need to end that.

I guess this is a 6 1/2 Hour "conspiracy theory"... I guess the journalists are hunting "conspiracy theories". I guess the Panamanian Special Forces are fighting "imaginary" cartel members..

 

[Eddie_T]

My son has a grapevine table similar to the pic. I told him now that he doesn't really use all the capability of his expandable formal dining table he should go back to his grapevine table now valued at $4K+.

 

[Ron Van]

We reworked the shower in our last house and we used preformed niches. They were 1 piece plastic that set in the wall and tile went over them. Have you run across those? Our tile came from a tile shop not a big box store. We were only there for about a year after it was done so I can't speak to longevity. I also had the work done because I just didn't have the time at that point due to work travel.

Yes, we considered the preformed niches but I order this today.

 

[Ron Van]

I just checked on Sound of Freedom movie;

As of July 25, 2023 the film has grossed $131 million, making it the 15th highest-grossing film of 2023 in the United States and Canada.​

Ruby and I watched Nefarious (2023) the other night. I liked it. It was directed by the same guy that directed, “God isn’t dead.”

There are three Nefarious movies on Prime but this one was made in 2023. The guy that wrote the movie said he was writing a sequel to CS Lewis’, “Screwtape letters.”

 

[Ron Van]

So, this morning, before it got too hot, I went up in the attic and pulled the wires up for the old outlets on the wall where I’m putting the shower.



I reconnected the wires up in the attic inside a 4 x4 junction box.






Then I went out and cut the grass. There was a rock in the middle of the yard so I stopped and got the rock and was taking it to a spot out of the way and I realized something was biting my ankles. I looked down and a swarm of ground nesting wasps were attacking me. I ran away while batting these beasts but they got me good! Come to find out, Ruby had put that rock over a wasp nest.

After that, I cut a hole in the floor for the shower drain.

 

[Eddie_T]

A picture is worth a thousand words

 

[Ron Van]

A picture is worth a thousand words

View attachment 31388

Looks like a toy!

 

[Ron Van]

I had to repair the John Deere this morning. The rod that holds up the front of the mower deck fell apart. I had a new rod on standby because I knew it was a problem.


It’s really a stupid design. If I saw it on paper, I wouldn’t even think it would work. Somehow, the deck goes up and down and this little rod is the only thing that supports the front of the deck.

 

[Ron Van]

Gotta take a dog to the vet and run by Lowes for some AquaDefense and bed mortar.

 

[Eddie_T]

A friend of mine said a lady came up to her in Walmart and asked if she had lived here long. She said yes and the lady asked can you tell me a way to get to town without driving through that round thingy?

 

[Ron Van]

I’m not a fan of round a bouts. When I lived in Samoa, they drive on the wrong side of the road and it was a challenge going around that thing backwards.

The weird thing about driving on the left side of the road is the cars have the steering wheel on the right side. My brain tells me that if the inside of the car is a mirror image of what I’m used to, the controls should be a mirror image as well but that’s not true. The turn signal remains to the left of the steering wheel.

Amazingly, you will see foreigners turn on the wipers instead of the turn signal when they want to make a turn. Going through a round a bout backwards while trying to turn the wipers off adds to the fun.

 

[Spicoli43]

A picture is worth a thousand words

View attachment 31388

That cute little one would be taken out by an Elk here.

 

[Eddie_T]

I think I have yet to see an oversize pickup with anything in the bed or anyone in the back seat. It makes me wonder what were they thinking when they bought that thing. My BIL just had a 4WD F-150 but carried a small stepladder so his mom could get in/out of it.

 

[Spicoli43]

Did a 2 night cooling experiment with my Large AC and my Small portable window AC.

No box fans or the ceiling fan was on. Any doors that could be open for the Large AC stayed open. The vent was off when using the window unit. No laundry, oven, stove, dishwasher was on during the test. The only heat generation was from the TV projector.

One Hour for the Large AC equaled almost 4 Hours for the Small AC.

Large AC Watts 4600
Temp @ 10 PM = 80
Temp @ 11 PM = 78
Cost per hour = .54


Small AC Watts 1207
Temp @ 709 PM = 81
Temp @ 11 PM = 75
Cost per hour = .14

I looked at the Thermostat during the Small AC test and it had gone down 2 degrees within the first hour, at least matching the Large AC and of course saving money. Granted, it wasn't cooling the whole house, but a reduction of 6 degrees versus 2 degrees tells me my solution for whole house cooling is getting more window units for other rooms.

The temp dropped another 2 degrees within 15 minutes after the Large AC test when I put a Ice bucket in front of a Box fan, so the next experiments will be exactly that... Both scenarios ran with one Box fan and an Ice bucket.

I did both tests with one Box fan on and another Box fan on with an Ice bucket in front of it, and during both nights the temp change was exactly the same. Although there was cold air provided by the Ice bucket, it had nothing to do with the room temp according to the thermostat.

This simple test has provided me with valuable info. If I run the Small AC for half the time (2 Hrs.) at half the cost of the Large AC, it should drop the temp by 3 degrees compared to the Large AC dropping only 2 degrees.

It's very valuable because this test was done in the main living room / kitchen with the huge Cathedral ceilings. I don't have to do a test in the bedrooms with the standard 8 ft. ceilings because I know it will at least equal my findings if not exceed them. All I would need to do is make new cutout adapters for the bedroom windows.

If I have a house built, I'm not putting in a central AC or a split AC... Thousands $$$$ for the unit then Thousands $$$$ for the install compared to a portable for each occupied room and the main room that WILL NOT have Cathedral ceilings...

 

[Spicoli43]

Saw a documentary last night on the Freevee app called "Is Genesis History"... It pretty much blows the lid off what people are conditioned to believe. As you know, believing what the government says isn't exactly a specialty of mine. I don't have the Science background, so I accept what the people in the film say.

I would normally launch into Space Cadet mode and start thinking about what I can successfully Air Fry while attempting to watch boring Science stuff, but the host and the people he interviews break it down so it's easy to follow along.

The host sounds like an older Mike Rowe.

 

[Ron Van]

Saw a documentary last night on the Freevee app called "Is Genesis History"... It pretty much blows the lid off what people are conditioned to believe. As you know, believing what the government says isn't exactly a specialty of mine. I don't have the Science background, so I accept what the people in the film say.

I would normally launch into Space Cadet mode and start thinking about what I can successfully Air Fry while attempting to watch boring Science stuff, but the host and the people he interviews break it down so it's easy to follow along.

The host sounds like an older Mike Rowe.

Yes, that is a good documentary. When Mt St Helen’s blew in 1980, scientists found what they thought should have taken thousands of years. Petrified wood and layers of sediment but it took only two weeks.

 

[Ron Van]

Almost too hot for pool time but we persevered…