What did you do today?

[capncarl]

Deep South of Minnesota? I bet it was warm and balmy there for your 5k. Did you have to wear running show shoes?

[twistsol]

Thanksgiving morning I ran a 5k before heading to my sister's house in the deep south of Minnesota. Just after I'd finished the 5k, my 8 year old neighbor came up to me and said, "Wow, Chris, I didn't know you could run. Aren't you like 68?" She and her older sisters are avid bakers and I'm often the taste tester or recipient of their efforts so I laughed it off. I guess when you're 8, everyone is just plain old.

For the record I'll be 58 in a few days.

[dbhost]

Perhaps getting old is a bugger but it's a bugger that's denied to many.

[Jim Frye]

First visit to the nearby physical therapy shop to begin work on my arthritic left thumb and right knee. Now two visits a week and daily exercises as prescribed. Plus have to buy a hot wax machine to dip my hand for heat therapy. Getting old is a booger.

[Stan]

Spent a couple hours in the new shop this evening. A few cans of spray foam filling in the sheetmetal ribs on the top and bottom of the walls to close things up so when the closed cell spray guys start there is no escape route for their foam to run to the outside of the building and making a mess.
This is also part of the plan to get things closed up enough so that when the electrical is installed the heater I am putting in can get the inside up to a temperature that will allow the closed cell spray foam to be done if the outside weather will get to the 40's for a day ore two.
One step at a time...

[dbhost]

About to hit the sack been a busy day actually...

I spent about 2 hours working on shop clean up in mind you I hardly made any Dent at all but at least there's a bent. Most of my mechanics tools are back in the toolbox my players are back on the clam shell box door.

The top of my mechanics tool chest has become an out of control mess I need to work on that and I did some but right now all it looks like is the mess got spread around not really but that's the way it looks.

I mounted the Drill press table to the new drill press and found that the holes that I have originally are spaced too far apart for the new cast iron table I'm going to have to rework the anchoring system. I have it working right now by rotating the cast iron table 45ﾟ but I'm not really pleased with having to do that.

After waiting for several years for the price point to hit where I wanted to actually pay the Hitachi now metabo HPT12 inch double bevel compound sliding miter saw is finally at a price that I am willing to absorb. CPO had them for $329 plus shipping Amazon had them for 349 on prime so it was actually less expensive when you figure shipping in to get the brand new one through Amazon then to get the refurbished 1 from CPO.

I've mentioned and lamented this many times in the past but my 2 car garage is stupidly small and the only cars it could possibly fit are 1980s Toyota Corolla's. Read so my choice is rip up the shop and put it into a 10 by 20 shed in the backyard which is not really enough room I mean it is but it's not. Or I put a 10 by 12 shed in the backyard And use it to store all the knot shop stuff like lawn and garden and camping gear And then fully dedicate the entire garage space to a workshop. At that point I will probably take off all of the lumber from the lumber rack and finish Insulating that last remaining wall. I will likely close off the ports for the portable air conditioner and just drop in a ductless Mini split air conditioner with heat. The hvac circuit that is in the shop has A110 and A220 leg on it should be able to just install it plug it in connect the roses end depending on the system probably vacuum pump it down and then add the freon. Anyway I didn't get that done today but I was kind of laying things out getting ideas for where I want stuff.

I mentioned earlier I believe that I replaced the faulted smart switches. Now I know why Broan Nutone Smart switches are so unpopular these things were really unreliable. I replace them with the massively bland but massively reliable GE jasco switches.

Z wave pairing of these switches went smooth as butter now the only issue I've got is I have to go in and edit my automations to reflect the new switches.

[Stan]

Not Houston here, NW Montana. Last week's storm put about 13-14" of heavy wet stuff on the ground.

[dbhost]

I made headway that is relevant to the shop. The smart switch that controlled my shop lights had failed and it was literally flickering on and off like a rave was going on in my shop. So I ripped out the Broan Nutone switch and installed a GE jasco switch which are known to be much higher quality I didn't know that when I installed the 1st ones.

Simply put the switches that controlled the formerly florescent lights that have been converted to LED for the garage and the kitchen basically those were the ones where I didn't need a dimmer so I went with these trusting the brand name at 1st that was apparently a mistake. The new GE switches were much easier to wire in and fit better in the Box. Honestly they just look and feel better made so I think I got a winner here.

Now that I can see what I'm doing I might actually bother getting out to the shop and cleaning up the disaster that it has become. However 1st I have to get the pile of truck and camper parts out of the living room so there's one thing about being a widower I don't have to worry about the wife complaining about a set of offered tires in the living room but the truck is almost back in my hands and I will be rolling those tires out as well as the 12 V fridge and all that stuff and get them installed in the camper.

Due to some unforeseen delays including supply chain issues I'm about 3 weeks behind in my schedule for this build I actually should be at the Texas Renaissance festival this weekend but obviously that didn't happen.

[twistsol]

We had just barely enough snow to be a nuisance so I changed perspective and today I’m sitting on Miami Beach. The snowblower is readied for winter even if I just decide to stay here

[LCHIEN]

Snowplow in Houston? Right!

[Stan]

Re-installed the new winch on the 4-wheeler. The original winch fried itself last spring, and the bracket it was mounted on with was definitely not very well made.
Ordered an OEM winch mount bracket for CanAm quads and this thing was a breeze to mount. Now have the snowplow attached and ready for more snow.
Was nice working in the new shop even without insulation, just having a level, clean and dry floor was great.

[twistsol]

Between meetings, I assembled, stained, and then applied four coats of poly to the front of the dog wash station. I love working at home.

[dbhost]

The replacement light switches for the kitchen and workshop came in. The ones that went bad were made by Brown the people make the bathroom fans and they just well yeah went bad. The new ones are from General Electric and they have others they're the demo variant all over the house and they're working fine. These are all smart switches tied into my smart home hub and Security system but the one in the shop has been flickering on and off like it's a rave in there and I can't even get in there to clean unless it's bright out and I've happened be working.

I will likely get those swap around this weekend so I can get back to cleaning in the shop once that is done I will start on the flipper stand for the new drill press.

[LCHIEN]

Stayed up late and caught the lunar eclipse/blood moon with my camera.

Could be better, but not bad. Its pretty challenging to shoot the eclipsed moon, the blood red in the umbra is what little light bends through the earths atmosphere at a steep angle, the exposure is about 4000 times more for that phase of the eclipse than the normal sunlit moon.
Equipment: Olympus OM-D E-M10ii and Panasonic 100-400mm zoom
The last exposure was f8, ISO 3200, 2 sec and 400 mm with a bit of crop applied.

[twistsol]

It was too windy to put up Christmas lights today So I got a day in the shop to

• Figure out which of the partial sheets of plywood in the shop contained the floating shelves for the bookshelves
• FInd those parts and realize I didn't label them all
• Rough cut all the shelves
• Rip strips of 1/4" edge banding from the stock of reclaimed birch
• Run the strips through the planer to clean them up
• Cut them into 600mm lengths
• Glue them in batches of 6 to the rough cut shelves using all my clamps
• Flush trim and sand each batch
• Round over front edge of each shelf at the router table
• Rip each shelf to width
• Cut each shelf to length
• Final sand.

26 usable and 2 screwed up plywood rectangles isn't much to show for a day's work.



Stain Tomorrow, spray Tues-Friday and let then cure for a week or two before I put books on them.