In reply to cmcgregor :
How hard can it be? Even I can usually keep a toddler alive for a day or two.
In reply to cmcgregor :
How hard can it be? Even I can usually keep a toddler alive for a day or two.
In reply to Wally :
Are you free for the next week or so? Maybe I'll just leave her at the airport.
SaltyDog said:In reply to mtn :
Assuming she won't turn it down if asked, go in early/stay a bit late and turn it down a little at a time?
Maybe she won't notice. Or just cut the cord.
As a hard of hearing person, I ask, is she hard of hearing? My ringer can wake the dead.
Good grief. Just had a good laugh at this situation, so it's not all bad, but living with cats you just never know wtf is gonna go down.
So I grabbed a quick, easy dinner from the sandwich place on the way home. Split the sandwich with Chuck and it's still more than I can eat. I scavenge all the meat and cheese out of the remains and get ready to toss the rest in the trash, but the trash can is outside. I get distracted and wander off for no more than 3 minutes and come back to one of the cats sitting right in the middle of what used to be my sandwich remnants, with pieces of bread and fixins scattered all over the berkeleying kitchen. I mean, it looked like a grenade went off in that sandwich. I didn't witness it, but I can just see that berkeleyer getting ahold of one end and shaking it like a crocodile doing the death roll with it's prey. I laughed so hard I forgot to take a pic. What a riot.
GameboyRMH said:GameboyRMH said:Massive round of layoffs coming today apparently, let's see if I make it through another one.
Update: No pink slips were handed out today but apparently a high-ranking government official will be here on Tuesday, which might be good news?
Oh good, it's always a good sign when someone from the government shows up.
Sorry Gameboy, I hope everything comes out alright.
Stefan said:Getting old sucks. I miss my younger self. I miss not being stressed, tired, depressed and fat.
I want to find whoever said that being an adult is awesome and punch them in the throat.
Right after the ibuprofen reduces the inflammation in my shoulder so I can throw a punch.
Entropy is real.
Boss calls. My work partner is getting layed off. I'm working with a guy from the other office I've never worked with before. If he says that I contribute to finishing the jobs better, I keep my job. If I don't impress him, I'm layed off. My guts have been in knots since 9 this morning.
Jesus Christ! Unemployed and homeless? My 40th birthday is gonna be berkeleying awesome. The only thing I have faith in now is chaos.
I hit my head on the firewall of this truck and it's hurting more than it has any right to.
Also, I hate this whole some-fasteners-are-metric-but-some-are-SAE thing that Chevy had going on in the 90s.
cmcgregor said:In reply to Wally :
Are you free for the next week or so? Maybe I'll just leave her at the airport.
Somebody should start a mother-in-law thread....
In reply to EastCoastMojo :
My dog just ate half a frozen pizza.
wae said:I hit my head on the firewall of this truck and it's hurting more than it has any right to.
Also, I hate this whole some-fasteners-are-metric-but-some-are-SAE thing that Chevy had going on in the 90s.
Let me help you with that. Everything will be metric except for anything that would have tooling designed before 1981 or so.
So the engine will have SAE threads in it, but the accessories will be mostly be metric (not the power steering pumps for example, they date to the 60s) except where they thread into the engine. Yes, there exist stud-bolts that are SAE on one end and metric on the other.
Buick V6s had SAE fasteners on the engine itself right up to the end of the Series IIIs. Get out your 3/8" socket to change the lower intake manifold.
It just occurred to me that this is not just a way to keep using old tooling. It would suck to get metric and SAE threaded hardparts mixed up. So you know that ALL of those cylinder heads, engine blocks, rearends, whatever you have, are going to be the same. Metric was phased in with entirely new designs. You won't find SAE threads on the 60 degree V6, for example.
Up to 1973 Volvo engines were all sae. 1974 Volvo engines were metric internally, sae outside. 1975 and after Volvo engines were all metric.
Three B20s, all different. Rolls eyes at the memory ...
Plan: remove the wobbly toilet, paint the grout, put in a new seal and bolts, remount the toilet.
The jacklegs who installed the flange installed it rotated exactly the wrong way. The slotted openings for the bolts are at their widest at exactly square. If I don't want the toilet at an angle to the wall, I'm going to have a wobbly toilet. What's more, my deep well sockets have disappeared so I'm forced to use a box-end wrench. That'd be fine, but the caps we picked are taller and stronger, and have a recess for the nut, so I have to sorta force the wrench on at an angle.
Now, back to work. I have to unbolt the toilet a third time so I can put the whole thing back together crooked until I can replace the flange.
In reply to Knurled. :
Just because there's a good reason doesn't mean I have to like it 
In reply to wae :
Maybe no, but once you get the mechanical etymology, you can move forward and become one with the car.
Had an epiphany like that when working on an Audi a while back. There was rhyme AND reason why some fasteners were external hex, some were internal hex, and some were XZN. I forget what exactly it was, now, but i do remember that Critical Drivetrain Fasteners were all XZN (can take more torque than Allen or regular bolts), and fasteners that were probably machine-assembled (like most of the engine bits) were Allen because you can stick the bolt on the socket and it won't fall off. Torx was reserved for body hardware. Subassemblies that are thrown on the car by humans were external hex bolts. Stuff like that.
This is the sort of thing I think of all day, and find kind of meditatively soothing. And once you understand how a car is put together, it gets much easier to work on. If you're digging out an Allen socket to work on an Audi, you might be better off leaving it alone until you remove the whole subassembly first...
Starting a double tonight, midnight through daylight shift.
Not liking this at all. 
Just another reason to get the hell outta there.
Mike said:Plan: remove the wobbly toilet, paint the grout, put in a new seal and bolts, remount the toilet.
The jacklegs who installed the flange installed it rotated exactly the wrong way. The slotted openings for the bolts are at their widest at exactly square. If I don't want the toilet at an angle to the wall, I'm going to have a wobbly toilet. What's more, my deep well sockets have disappeared so I'm forced to use a box-end wrench. That'd be fine, but the caps we picked are taller and stronger, and have a recess for the nut, so I have to sorta force the wrench on at an angle.
Now, back to work. I have to unbolt the toilet a third time so I can put the whole thing back together crooked until I can replace the flange.
Went outside to tell the missus we're going to have to replaxe the flange, and there's water dripping. At first, it looks like it's under the bathroom, but no, it's one of the three attic overflow pipes. Rush into the attic - it's the water heater pan. Toss the fiberglass jacket - all the fittings are dry, so while it looks super clean, we're thinking tank corrosion. So, I've gone from one plumbing job to three. The only good part is that the pan seems to have totally done its job. The water level is only to the bottom of the pan drain pipe. Nothing in the attic.
Rust.
Went to look at a potential challenge car this afternoon (78 brat). I knew it was rusty, but man. Here in the desert things rarely get very bad. It was such a cool car too.
Back to work after 4 days off (vacation day while in-laws were visiting, my usual every-other-Friday, and the normal weekend)... coming back after 3-day weekends sucks, this is even worse. Don't know whether the fact that my boss is both out on vacation AND didn't leave me anything new to work on after I turned in the data for the last project right before I left last week.
Had a surprisingly good visit with the in-laws (The Dancer's dad & stepmother- she historically has not gotten along the best with the dad, but has been doing better as of late) with one glaring downer right in the middle of it: our cabin.
As the cabin was originally supposed to be finished Sept. 1, and then moved back to Oct. 1, this trip had been planned a while ago with the intent of all of us staying at our own cabin. However with how things had been going we had to rent a place for the night this time, but wanted to take them by to see it and check out the progress that had been made in the last 3 weeks ourselves- something that was rather dangerous as, as I said, we would be just as surprised at whatever state the build was in as they were. So we head up there and... abso-berking-NOTHING has changed on the cabin itself in the last 3 weeks since we'd last been up there. Now I'll grant that it had rained a few days- but the last week had been essentially perfect weather with no discernable reason why nothing had been done. And the proof that it was good weather for working was in the fact that the septic system (done by a different contractor than the one building the actual cabin) had been installed.
So- we're pissed. Essentially NOTHING has been done on the main build in over 2 months, and it's started to turn cold (we got our first frost this morning). Call up the builder to find out WTF is going on, and he didn't even know that the septic had been installed- meaning that he clearly hadn't even been to the berking site in the last week or so. Gives us the exact same thing he's said before- that he hasn't been able to work on it because of rain. Now I'll grant you- the site is difficult to access and rain would make it difficult, but he clearly has not been remotely going out of his way to get any work done on it. Making things more fun- with the septic now done, the contractor for it obviously wants to get paid. This should come out of our construction loan- but I'm pretty certain that the bank isn't going to let us draw any more on it since we've drawn 40% of the funds but they can plainly see that like 15% of the construction is actually done. They might let us just draw exactly what the septic cost since it's a kind of separate milestone, but I'm not betting on it- which means that we have to figure out what to do. Most likely we're going to have to simply tell the builder either the septic contractor will have to wait until HE BERKING MAKES SOME BERKING PROGRESS or he'll have to pay the septic himself either out of the money he's already drawn or out of pocket to be reimbursed out of a later draw (again, once he makes some berking progress...).
Also, on the advice of the builder father-in-law, we're going to be setting a meeting with the builder the weekend after next to check up on the progress- with the expectation that the things he has said will be done (roof on, and if he's smart, at least started on the steps since that will make access to the cabin WAY easier but wasn't possible until the septic was in). We're planning on having the cabin company developer there too, both to check up on progress that matters to both of us on the electric company power line runs and because he has some interest in the build as well since once it's done it will be making him money as well- so he's losing money with the cabin taking so long in effect.
wae said:I hit my head on the firewall of this truck and it's hurting more than it has any right to.
Also, I hate this whole some-fasteners-are-metric-but-some-are-SAE thing that Chevy had going on in the 90s.
GM actually started this in 1977 as I recall.
But they had a great system. Metric fasteners were painted blue, SAE were not. Worked great. Until the vehicle was driven in the rain, or washed, or was more than a few months old. Apparently, they were painted with water colors or chalk.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know the odds of winning the lottery are zero. I'm not complaining about the odds, I'm complaining about the comparisons.
Stop saying the odds of winning the lottery are worse than getting killed by a shark. Because for many people, that is actually inherently false. Bad example. I've been in salt water 3 times in my life; I think that the chances of my getting killed by a shark are pretty low. Probably about the same as the lottery, actually.
In reply to mtn :
I think the odds are better that you will get hit by lightning WHILE being eaten by a shark. So the question is, have you been in salt water while a storm was brewing? I'm on my way to fund someone else's winnings, hope its you.
mtn said:Disclaimer: Yes, I know the odds of winning the lottery are zero. I'm not complaining about the odds, I'm complaining about the comparisons.
Stop saying the odds of winning the lottery are worse than getting killed by a shark. Because for many people, that is actually inherently false. Bad example. I've been in salt water 3 times in my life; I think that the chances of my getting killed by a shark are pretty low. Probably about the same as the lottery, actually.
Ha. I just had this conversation with a friend on Friday. I made almost the exact same point.
I am an idiot. If I don't ride my bike, I don't do my stretches and strengthening exercises. I've been letting that slide while I worry about other stuff. And my body, especially my back, is reasonable but strict about the fact that if I do those exercises, everything is generally good. But if I don't, I'll end up unable to do much of anything for a few days after trying an epic overexertion like returning a handful of kibble to the dog's dish after trying to coax her into eating.
Anyhow, going to go do all the exercises I can from Pete Egoscue's "Pain Free" book, which has worked well for a couple of neck cricks, and which I've been lucky enough not to have much chance to test with lower back stuff. Now's my chance!
You'll need to log in to post.
