What did you do today?

[Beap52 1,110]

Went up to north Missouri to check out the work on the farm.  I've mentioned in the past that we are cleaning up the farm.  Since dad died some 28 years ago,  the water ways and ditches have been left to grow brush and junk trees.  

Below is a before picture of the pond.  The trees are weeping willows type and all the growth of trees and brush around the pond does is attract beavers that plug up the drain that results in water flowing over the dam.

[Beap52 1,110]

Below is what I saw this morning.  Now we can mow and keep the poison ivy, wild rose bushes at bay and beavers won't have anything for housing and food. 

[8ntruck 7,318]

We (Mrs. 8n and I) flew out to Sacramento last Thursday for a robotics meet.  We flew out a day early and wandered around Sacramento for a day.  Spent several hours in the California State Railroad Museum and wandered around Old Town Sacramento a bit.

 

We did Ok at the competition, ending up as the captain of the #5 seated alliance.  We made it into the final round of the 8 alliance double elimination playoff.  Unfortunately, we did not win.  High level of competition in this meet.  The #1 seated alliance who won had a 5 time world champion team and a one time world champion.  In our alliance, we are one of the 2024 world championship teams, and our first pick was a world champion in 2015.

 

My wife and I caught some sort of a bug while we were there, so we didn't tour San Francisco with the team after the meet.  We had planned to stay in San Francisco a couple of days after the team.  We did manage to get to the aquarium on Pier 39 and have a nice lunch there.  Got a kick out of watching the sea lions there, too.

 

The bug gave us both a severe cough, so we opted to cancel our return flight and rent a car to drive back to Kansas City, as we are currently in our Missouri winter quarters.  Our route took us through Barstow, Las Vegas, Denver on our way back to reclaim our car out of long term parking at KCI.  Wonderful scenery along I-15 and I-70.  Bad traffic on I-70 between Vail and Denver on Sunday afternoon - seems like about 1/3 of Denver decided to go skiing in Vail that weekend and left to go home Sunday afternoon.  When we started out, we thought of a Thelma and Louise type trip.  Turned out to be more of a Kermit and Fozzie the Bear sort of trip.  We enjoyed it enough that we want to make a similar trip in the future when we are healthy, and have more time to stop at some of the interesting looking things that we had to pass up this time. 

[Beap52 1,110]

9 hours ago, 8ntruck said:

 

 

The bug gave us both a severe cough, 

While in North Carolina, I and another fellow came down with a severe cough.  We coughed day and night to the point that it disturbed sleep.  I finally went to doctor, and with medication, I'm better but the cough lasted two weeks. I blamed it upon bunch of dust off of dirty hot water heat registers that I inhaled.

 

I'm wondering if the cough is a bug going around?

 

Even though your group didn't do as well as hoped in the competition, the kids are learning and experiencing life that they will remember for ever.  New goals can be set and learning continues. My wife's nephews compete in the same type of competitions and it's amazing the technology these kids are diving into.  Our 9 year old granddaughter is competing in statewide gymnastics in a  week and half. She is the one that I posted driving our 520H.  Life is an adventure and about making life long memories--like when I showed my prize red hereford steer, whose name was George, at local animal shows some 60 years ago. 

[Ed Kennell 40,181]

2 minutes ago, Beap52 said:

I'm wondering if the cough is a bug going around

I am just recovering from nearly 4 weeks of coughing.   Many in my area are suffering from the cough.   The strange thing is, Mrs. K and her 101yo mother that lives with us never got the cough.

[19richie66 17,557]

Getting close to done on the she shed. Got all the furring strips down on the side awning yesterday and hope to have roof metal on today/tomorrow. Then on to concrete. Doing a 14’x36’ slab down the front of both sheds. Then a carport. There is a reason I am not on here much anymore. 😂

Edited Wednesday at 03:25 PM by 19richie66

[ebinmaine 70,280]

40 minutes ago, 19richie66 said:

Getting close to done on the she shed. Got all the furring strips down on the side awning yesterday and hope to have roof metal on today/tomorrow. Then on to concrete. Doing a 14’x36’ slab down the front of both sheds. Then a carport. There is a reason I am not on here much anymore. 😂

 

 

Excellent progress Richie! 

[8ntruck 7,318]

4 hours ago, Beap52 said:

Even though your group didn't do as well as hoped in the competition, the kids are learning and experiencing life that they will remember for ever.  New goals can be set and learning continues.  

 

Actually, the team did well, considering that we were up against an alliance that contained two teams currently ranked in the top 20 in the world.  Most of the kids were pretty happy with the results.  Last i checked, we are ranked 88th out of about 3700 teams worldwide, so i guess we could be considered to be a minor elite.  This level of competition is one reason that we wanted to go to that meet.  Kind of a practice meet for what we will run into in the world championships in a few weeks.

 

The kids were inspired by the competition.  I stopped by the robot shop yesterday to see what was going on.  The robot was stripped down to the chassis, the climber mechanism is undergoing another redesign, and the elevator mechanism is getting a faster gear ratio and more power.  These changes were inspired by what we saw last weekend.  The weekend after next, we have a competition in Oklahoma City where we can run the changes in 'battle' conditions to shake any bugs out.

 

With things running faster, the work for the controls programmers will be to keep the actions smooth.  The old road racing idom applies here - 'smooth is fast, and fast is smooth.'

[HyperPete 386]

18 hours ago, 8ntruck said:

The bug gave us both a severe cough

 

There is a viral pneumonia going around.  My niece, who was here from Colorado visiting for a few days had it.  TERRIBLE dry cough!

[Wayne0 831]

A friend dropped this off the other day. Black Birch. Good stuff!

 

[ebinmaine 70,280]

1 hour ago, Wayne0 said:

A friend dropped this off the other day. Black Birch. Good stuff!

 

 

Excellent firewood. Good starter and good BTUs. 

[ebinmaine 70,280]

[Handy Don 13,236]

17 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Moving day is always stressful. Good luck!

Can we presume that Mama’s tractor came in a separate load?

[ebinmaine 70,280]

1 hour ago, Handy Don said:

Moving day is always stressful. Good luck!

Can we presume that Mama’s tractor came in a separate load?

 

If she had a tractah it'd be here already. 

We've tried. 

The Momma ain't into machinery...

 

I've  been VERY impressed with the amount of work "Ma" has been doing. 

She's been packing and hauling several totes and/or boxes every day for (4?) weeks. 

Anything that would fit in her Honda Fit was brought over and set aside in the barn or basement.  

 

Trina's twin sister was also helping with her SUV. 

 

Today's work was really down to the above trailer load and 2 SUV loads, in two trips.  

 

 

Now for the organizing......

 

[8ntruck 7,318]

The kids got the improved elevator mechanism installed on the robot yesterday.  It has 40% faster gearing and double the power than the older mechanism.  The entire robot actually hops off of the floor when the elevator stops at the end of a run to an 8 foot height. 

 

I recommended to the programmer that he add a deacceleration curve to the last few inches of travel to soften the action a bit.

[Mickwhitt 4,955]

Today is our 38th wedding anniversary so we went out for a lovely meal.

A pub called the Dunkirk about 16 miles away (that's a long way for an English man to travel for dinner).

Can't believe it's been that long since two kids not long out of their teens tied the knot and settled down. 

She looks just as gorgeous now, the dessert is a treat as shes been losing weight really well fir the last ten weeks. 

 

[Handy Don 13,236]

22 minutes ago, Mickwhitt said:

Today is our 38th wedding anniversary

Well done, Mr. and Mrs.! 👏

Marriages of that duration are especially worth celebrating when the partners still enjoy spending time together.

 

[adsm08 2,541]

I had a day. First I let the Intrusive Thoughts in and spent 20 minutes pondering how "Claudia Sheinbaum" is a very German sounding name for someone who the President of Mexico. Then the guy on the news on the radio said something about Elise Stefanik no longer being considered for an ambassadorship, so I spent another 20 minutes wondering if the US ambassador to the U.N. has to wear special underwear. 

 

Then I had to help one of my junior techs get a torx socket out of an engine. We are not sure how it got to where it was, but I got it out. I then specifically requested that we have no more emergencies today, which he must have ignored or not heard, because less than 20 minutes later I was patching his arm up for his trip to urgent care.

 

I don't remember the rest of the day. I think I watched an episode of St. Elsewhere and then read the plot synopsis for Raise the Titanic, because Michael Ensign was in both.

Edited Saturday at 01:50 AM by adsm08

[Wayne0 831]

11 hours ago, adsm08 said:

. I think I watched an episode of St. Elsewhere

I went to school with David Morse. Grew up in Hamilton, Ma.

He was in all the school plays. Bit of a rebel too. Firebombed the Patton Tank in the park. I still have the newspaper clipping.

1971. BTW, that's me on the barrel.

Edited Saturday at 01:10 PM by Wayne0

[adsm08 2,541]

1 hour ago, Wayne0 said:

I went to school with David Morse. Grew up in Hamilton, Ma.

He was in all the school plays. Bit of a rebel too. Firebombed the Patton Tank in the park. I still have the newspaper clipping.

1971. BTW, that's me on the barrel.

 

That's cool. I did not go to school with anyone who got really famous.

 

From my class one guy did some acting, and is now back here running a stump removal business, one guy did some pitching in the majors, and one girl had a short lived "adult" website. I heard she basically did it long enough to pay for her wedding, which I found very ironic.

[Bar Nuthin 894]

My wife's bird feeder caught me doing some spring cleaning in the backyard.

 

 

[953 nut 57,418]

3 hours ago, Bar Nuthin said:

caught me doing some spring cleaning

You just can't get away from those surveillance cameras.                           Sorry to say your reputation for being a total goof off has been blown.    

[squonk 42,265]

On 3/25/2025 at 8:30 PM, Wayne0 said:

Boston has some of the best doctors in the country! Good choice. Wish him the best.

Cousin of mine is an Orthopedic surgeon at Boston State University. Haven't seen him in about 25 years. 

[squonk 42,265]

On 3/23/2025 at 8:36 AM, Lane Ranger said:

It is sometimes necessary to hire a professional- no doubt about it.  My neighbor came over the other day after the professional hired by his next door neighbor hired a professional with a bucket truck to remove three large trees on a high sloped yard! 
 

We were watching as the cutting was pretty high up and a limb at a time job.   One of the larger pieces did hit my friends fence but that was the least of the problems.  Later in the day we’re were watching and saw was looked like smoke spread out from the top of the bucket!   Turned out it was hydraulic fluid being spewed over the area from a broken hose or connector as the hydraulic pump pushed out the fluid.

 

The guy in the bucket stayed up there about three and a half hours.  Two five gallon buckets of fluid were added but still no worky and no movement.  He eventually shimmed down a rope they provided.

 

Bucket was up the next morning in same spot but they eventually repaired and moved in a shorter bucket truck and shredder!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bucket trucks are an interesting lot. Years ago my employer had a 1965  ChevyC-60 bucket truck powered by a 6 banger. He rented it to the apple orchards in the area every summer. It was parked in my stall all the time so I was the guy who got it in and out every day.

 

We got a  90's Ford truck at work now for fixing the parking lot lights. Thing is always broke. The last time the shop put the wrong oil in the boom. Now it needs to be flushed.

 

We had a brand new Ford bucket truck at my BOCES job a few years back. Pretty cool to fly it. It was originally gotten so the electric crew could service stadium lights at schools but it sat most of the time. It was real handy for hoisting Compressors, AC units and large electric motors on to school roofs. Came with a jib crane and all the doo dads.

[HyperPete 386]

Today I changed the plug on a 220V outlet in my shop so I can use my welder.  I had no power to the plug.  Here's the plug I replaced, conveniently close to the breaker box:

 

 

None of the breakers seemed to feed it.  This is from where it's actually fed. 😐

 

I now realize how much "fun" I'm going to have identifying the rest of the circuits in my shop.

 

Now I'm waiting for the Walbro carb to the 414-8 to finish in the ultrasonic so I can reassemble it and put it back on.  10 minutes to go.

Edited Saturday at 08:33 PM by Pete D