Is it just me or do you just want to throttle those fake happy weather people you hear on the radio/see on TV?
I work outdoors. I don't want to hear how beautiful you think it is outside when you're sitting in an air conditioned studio when I'm sweating my balls off finishing concrete in 95 degree direct sunlight. Same for using warmer and 20 degrees in the same sentence.
berkeley you and your weather opinions. Just give me numbers and I'll decide if it's a gorgeous day out or not.
Wall-e wrote:
I've been up for 22 hours. A dorm spot finally opened up so I can grab a nap before today's snow filled 12hrs and my room is directly under the pool table in the lunch room. Since runs are being cut the guys waiting to go out are passing the time with... pool.
Better than trying to sleep under the bowling alley though
My rant, stupid half a sore throat, why do you only hurt on one side?
I'll spare GRM the story of how I cored one of my fingers while working outside and couldn't tell if it was numb because I smashed it or numb because it was like 20 degrees outside and I had been wrestling with 20 degree steel barehanded. (That's not the bad part of the story)
The GRM-related rant is I was doing an EJ25 Speedrun and I was all set to break my "first wrench to oil pan on ground" record by a good fifteen minutes when I ran into the worst siezed dowels that I'd ever encountered. It took me FORTY expletive MINUTES to separate the engine from the trans with various hammers, chisels, and pry bars. And then THIS engine decided to be the one that stuck the cat to the downpipe and I had to wrestle that junk free as well.
Dangit. I had been having a good day up to that point. Well, barring the part where my left ring finger soaked through three consecutive Subway napkins, anyway.
Bad weather , worked from home today... or tried to.
We had a few power outages and the internet didn't want to come back up. Called Verizon the first time at 8:20 and they reset something on their end and I was up and running. At about 9:30 we had another momentary outage and it wouldn't come back up. Call Verizon again and was on hold (expected 20 min, hung up after an hour and a half.) Called in again and opted for call back at 11ish. Called at 2:30. Seems to be a problem with the power supply to their outdoor equipment, I can power cycle the power supply in the garage and have internet for 5 min. Then it craps out.
Kicker, gotta wait for a service call till Friday. So no internet until then.
This may cost me two days vacation I hadn't planned on taking.
Not a happy camper right now.
Just learned that my roommate intends to move out in June.
Our lease isn't up until August.
Also, I learned this from his girlfriend rather than from him.
Moving with an overabundance of car parts is going to be a blast.
SnowMongoose wrote:
Just learned that my roommate intends to move out in June.
Our lease isn't up until August.
Also, I learned this from his girlfriend rather than from him.
Moving with an overabundance of car parts is going to be a blast.
at least you got a couple months warning. Last time I had a roommate, he just never came home one day. After a couple of days, I peeked in his bedroom and it was bare.
I would suggest renting a storage unit now for 4 months (most will give you a month free if you rent for four) and start moving your parts into it
This has probably been covered about 11 billion times, but I'm so tired of reading the following in Craigslist ads, "Just needs XXXXXX fixed, 10 minute job. I have the parts." When you put this in your ad, there are only two possibilities: 1. you are the laziest SOB on the planet, and I don't want what you are selling or 2. you are a liar and I don't want what you are selling.
Arduino is driving me crazy.
For a reason I can't figure out, I can't get a sketch that has subroutines in it to compile. Keeps telling me that (subroutine) is not declared in this scope.
Some say that you have to make some kind of prototype, but it's far from clear what in the world that means.
Seems as if there's some kind of secret handshake is needed to get someone else's program to work. Which makes all of the sharing rather pointless.
Other than getting the basic pump control to work, I'm starting to feel that it's the wrong solution for me.
I think I need to sign up for a class locally.
I spent all day Saturday doing a single-phase VFD conversion on a mid-60s Bridgeport mill my father just got. The drive had been sitting on a shelf gathering dust for about 7 years before being unceremoniously dumped in the junk drive pile at work in its original box (boss is a Yaskawa snob and didn't want this "trash" in our facility). The physical part of the install went off without a hitch...
Then, I spent at least 5 hours Saturday night and Sunday morning troubleshooting the poor old thing trying to get it to show any sign of life other than "Tuning..." being displayed on the keypad. Nothing I did made a E36 M3 bit of difference. Nothing in the manual's troubleshooting section. Nothing on the technical support forums. Grr. Just "Tuning...". What do you want from me you cheap cut-rate POS!?
I left my parents place tired and dejected, having declared the drive a total loss. Not a terrible outcome considering that it was a free drive, but disappointing at the very least.
On a whim I dropped a line to tech support to see if they had any idea what could cause such an issue. "Please allow up to 48 hours for a response", the website farted back at me. 42 minutes later an email came in.
"Bent pin on the keypad".
Mother-berkeleyer! Called Pops, told him what to check. 15 minutes later he calls back. berkeleyer fires right off and boots up like it's supposed to.
The take away from all this is; if you have a Durapulse GS3 from Automation Direct that hangs on "Tuning..." on the keypad, check the damn pins!
The good news is there's no derating required for the Durapulse GS3s running on single-phase, so the free 3hp drive he has now will work on his (also new to him) lathe and he can save a few hundred clams and buy a considerably cheaper 1hp drive for the mill.
Hopefully this can be found via Google for the next guy who is lost in VFD purgatory on a Sunday afternoon...
alfadriver wrote:
Arduino is driving me crazy.
For a reason I can't figure out, I can't get a sketch that has subroutines in it to compile. Keeps telling me that (subroutine) is not declared in this scope.
Some say that you have to make some kind of prototype, but it's far from clear what in the world that means.
Seems as if there's some kind of secret handshake is needed to get someone else's program to work. Which makes all of the sharing rather pointless.
Other than getting the basic pump control to work, I'm starting to feel that it's the wrong solution for me.
I think I need to sign up for a class locally.
Use one of the IDE demos that contain sub routines and put your code in there? This smells like a semicolon out of place or something...
I had a E36 M3 day at work, but a result is that I left early. Is that my minor rant? Nope.
Went to the record store, and found nothing. Is that my rant? Nope.
Went to the bar, had two and a half drinks, and the "I love you man" effect is strong, but I'm sitting here alone. That's my rant. I've called out my wife, my friends, and teen Vogue's information security and opsec advice, but I'm still in a bar by myself.
Mike wrote:
I had a E36 M3 day at work, but a result is that I left early. Is that my minor rant? Nope.
Went to the record store, and found nothing. Is that my rant? Nope.
Went to the bar, had two and a half drinks, and the "I love you man" effect is strong, but I'm sitting here alone. That's my rant. I've called out my wife, my friends, and teen Vogue's information security and opsec advice, but I'm still in a bar by myself.
I'd join you, but if the "La" in your address stands for Louisiana, I won't see you for about four days, even if I leave now and drive fast...
wae
Dork
3/15/17 7:49 p.m.
And now my otherwise always reliable van decided to act up. When I parked it last night, apparently the left side parking brake cable snapped its end off. Having no parking brake isn't a crisis, but the tension on the cable from the parking drum itself is what keeps the pedal up. So all the way to work this morning was "ding....ding....ding....ding". I managed to tie the pedal up so it keeps the switch closed, but I'm not replacing that cable in 20 degree weather.
Rant #2: I need to figure out how to remove the u-joint from a GL1200 frame. So I got my official Honda shop manual. Turned to section 11, final drive. Universal Joint.. Removal/Installation. Step 1: Remove the swing arm (section 12). Yup got that. Now on to step two. "Step 2: Remove the universal joint from the swing arm". That seems less than helpful...
Edit:. Okay. Fine, so it just pulls out of the boot in the swing arm. But that's not the first time a service manual has done that sort of thing to me.
EvanR
SuperDork
3/15/17 8:42 p.m.
wae wrote:
Rant #2: I need to figure out how to remove the u-joint from a GL1200 frame. So I got my official Honda shop manual. Turned to section 11, final drive. Universal Joint.. Removal/Installation. Step 1: Remove the swing arm (section 12). Yup got that. Now on to step two. "Step 2: Remove the universal joint from the swing arm". That seems less than helpful...
That's hilarious, because the exact same thing happened to me today, from the same manufacturer. I want to replace the engine/transmission mounts in my Acura.
I went to the library and looked at the Chilton's manual.
"1. Support engine. 2. Change mounts."
My dad bought a new water heater for his house and had a handyman install it. I went to check it out and it's a "natural vent" water heater - meaning it should be hooked to a chimney with metal pipe - and it was hooked to PVC to a sidewall vent. There wasn't even a draft going up the vent - cold air was going down the vent! Combustion gasses were just venting into the room. Amazingly enough there was no carbon monoxide reading on their detector but I suspect as o2 levels went down that would have changed.
Yes my dad bought the wrong water heater. But that handyman should not be installing water heaters if he doesn't understand how. He honestly could have killed them.
Literally an hour before that he was complaining about how "expensive" the plumbers I recommended were at $70/hr. Well your guy might only charge $25 but you also won't die in your sleep from improper installation.
So now we get to pay the $70/hr and buy a new water heater and can't return the old one and had to pay to install that one. It's almost like experience and qualifications are worth something!
EvanR wrote:
wae wrote:
Rant #2: I need to figure out how to remove the u-joint from a GL1200 frame. So I got my official Honda shop manual. Turned to section 11, final drive. Universal Joint.. Removal/Installation. Step 1: Remove the swing arm (section 12). Yup got that. Now on to step two. "Step 2: Remove the universal joint from the swing arm". That seems less than helpful...
That's hilarious, because the exact same thing happened to me today, from the same manufacturer. I want to replace the engine/transmission mounts in my Acura.
I went to the library and looked at the Chilton's manual.
"1. Support engine. 2. Change mounts."
No, that's not hilarious at all. I pay roughly $500 per month for various service information subscriptions and websites, and almost every day I have to figure E36 M3 out myself. "How do I get the cover off the seatbelt slide bracket? Lets look. Oh, how helpful. There is a small, badly drawn picture with an arrow pointing at the assembly, subtitled 'Remove by prying carefully'". Ok, lets break this one to see how it works, so next time I will know where the hidden clips are, and which way to pry.
berkeley.
RevRico
SuperDork
3/15/17 10:04 p.m.
This cold hot cold E36 M3 needs to stop, I'm Going stir crazy and coming up with more and more projects to do once the weather turns. At least these last 2 ideas are free, albeit labor intensive.
Mike wrote:
alfadriver wrote:
Arduino is driving me crazy.
For a reason I can't figure out, I can't get a sketch that has subroutines in it to compile. Keeps telling me that (subroutine) is not declared in this scope.
Some say that you have to make some kind of prototype, but it's far from clear what in the world that means.
Seems as if there's some kind of secret handshake is needed to get someone else's program to work. Which makes all of the sharing rather pointless.
Other than getting the basic pump control to work, I'm starting to feel that it's the wrong solution for me.
I think I need to sign up for a class locally.
Use one of the IDE demos that contain sub routines and put your code in there? This smells like a semicolon out of place or something...
No, I have someone else's code, downloaded from the examples group. I plan on adding a subroutine to my made project to see if it works.
But programming was never a goal of this project- making it work was. So I intended to use the work of others, and tweak it for my system. Not being able to even get their basic sketch to compile makes it hard.
That's when I made my own, basic timer.
Berkley. BERKLEYBERKLEYBERKLEYBERKLEY.
SWMBO finally got the call back from the doctor's office- the testing earlier this week confirmed multiple gall stones, so unless she wants to continue having episodes of debilitating pain like the one that sent us to the ER a week ago, she needs surgery to have it removed.
Unfortunately, there's no good time for her to HAVE it removed- the next few months are packed full of things going on between her teaching, her non-profit's outreach work, and getting ready for the show in July. And we're supposed to go to SC in under a month to spend a week at a beach house rental (which is already paid for... note to self: ALWAYS GET THE BERKING VACATION INSURANCE FROM NOW ON).
If she has it, like, next week she'd probably be good to go on the vacation and would be reasonably recovered for the studio she works at's upcoming show- but we don't know if they can get her in that quick. Beyond that, she thinks May 1st is the next time that wouldn't really cause problems- and I imagine that the doctors are going to think she's patently insane for trying to wait that long. The doctor she talked to already who gave her the diagnosis told her when asked how long she could put off the surgery told SWMBO that she was the first person to EVER ask that question- everyone else wanted it done immediately.
A zero fat diet will help delay the attacks, or you could go traditional. Mix a cup of vinegar with a cup of olive oil, drink it all down and scream in agony until the stones all pass.
It may be worth calling to see which places will refund what you've already paid, in light of what's happened. Last year when my flight to the Challenge was ruined by tropical storm (later hurricane) Matthew, there was one motel night I paid for, refundable option explicitly not selected, because I was so sure I was never gonna have any reason to refund it as little as 24 hours prior. I knew the risks, gambled and lost. But I figured calling was worth a shot anyway, so I called and told them what happened. They were kind enough to refund all of it.
In reply to GameboyRMH:
I'm going to wait and see what happens- I know that she really wants to go on this vacation as she wanted to do it last year but we decided to go on the Europe cruise instead, so whatever we do I know she'll be trying to keep on track to go. If it looks like the surgery will prevent that, then I'll give them a call and see what I can work out.
Today ended like it started: total berkeleying dumpster fire.
Appleseed wrote:
Today ended like it started: total berkeleying dumpster fire.
Couldn't have said it any better myself. Glad I'm not the only one today.
What ever gypsy that I ran over or called a bad name. I take it back. I just want a normal week.