What did you do today?

In our town you call the trash company and they tell you when to set it on the curb then you set it out the week of your scheduled regular trash pick up.

In our town we set garbage back by the alley for Tuesday monring (or sometime thuesday) pick up, recycled tote gets picked up every other week. If you set anything out there with any sort of value at all, it's gone before the garbage truck gets here.
Once, I was building an attachment for the Bobcat. I set the attachment outside the weld shop back by the alley to clean to shop. Minutes later a guy came by and asked if I was getting rid of the iron. I said no, and he drove away. Good thing I didn't go in the house right then or it may have been gone, if he could have lifted it into his truck that is, it was pretty heavy.:hide:

I was driving thru my neighborhood a mile from my old house and saw an air compressor sitting by the curb next to the trashcan. I pulled over and no one was home so I threw it in the truck and started to leave and I saw a huge plastic tool box on the other side of the can so I stopped again and could hardly lift it as there was a floor jack and socket set in it. I tossed that in the truck and figured I better look in the can. And when I looked it was full of men’s work clothes. I kind of figured out what went on. So I drove home and asked a neighbor about it and he said he knew the couple and she just threw him out. I told him to tell the guy come and pick up his tools. He later told me the guy moved out of town and he never saw him again. I use the compressor and jack all the time.

When we throw out furniture I set it by the road with a free sign and its always gone in an hour. One day I thought I was going to have to break up a fight two people both wanted a couch.

I built a custom mail box stand about 8 years ago and now its starting to rot in places (in hind sight i should have used pressure treated like i did on our window trim)so i got all the bad pieces out today tomorrow ill put it all back together.

InspectorD, glad you had a good trip!

Man, all this stuff about mailboxes and trash pickup makes me envious. They won't even deliver mail here so we don't have a mailbox at the house (have to drive in to town to get it). In order to get trash pickup, we have to drive 1/2" mile to the end of our road and leave the cans and hope that they bother to come out. If it rains within 5 days of trash day, they won't come. And often times, the cans get stolen. My neighbor stole 11 trash cans from us over the years. We spray painted our surname on the cans, they stole the cans and spray painted black over the name. We finally just started burning our trash that could be burned and hauling the rest to the city dump (which is only open for a couple of hours twice a week). Now we have my brother dump the non-burnable stuff in a dumpster at work.

I thought of three different things related to people putting out furniture and stuff getting grabbed:
1. When my family lived in Georgia a childhood friend of my uncle's came to visit. He left his luggage on our porch and Salvation Army people thought it was a donation and took it. Had to ask around and finally found out where it went and he was able to get it back. (Neighbors recognized the Salvation Army people).
2. I was at my elderly friend's house and the people across the street were throwing out an oak captain's chair. I mentioned it to my elderly friend (who loved to do carpentry) and he asked me to bring it over. The seat had split a bit, but otherwise it was in great condition. We worked on it together to re-glue it, sand it, and refinish it. Another elderly friend asked if he could have it the next time he was over.
3. When we lived in Guam, it took a long time to get in to housing and by the time we got in, our stuff had been in storage for months-- only they didn't have a dehumidifier and our couch was all moldy. So we got a new one and put the old one out next to the garbage can. Someone from the housing department called and asked if they could have it. We told them it had mold but they said they didn't care, they liked it, so they came and got it.

My friend's girlfriend is still having headaches from hitting her head at work. Pretty much everyone is telling her to sue McDonalds. She's afraid they will fire her if she does. Because I care about my friend and I want to make his life easier (by helping reduce his girlfriend's stress so she isn't freaking out) I took her shopping (and I hate shopping). She has 2 weddings to go to and needed another dress and another pair of shoes (I personally would have gone with the same pair for both, but that's me). She kept complaining that I wasn't up-to-date on modern clothes & kept wanting to do "old timey" style. I reminded her that I'm more than twice her age and I wasn't up-to-date on the modern style when I was her age. We found some ribbon with flowers and crap on it that can be put on the dress to make it more appropriate for a wedding and I've enlisted the help of another female friend who is better with fashion and girly stuff and can sew. I can sew a little, but my last sewing class was before the girl was born. LOL.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my cat Assclown realized that the mat I bought for him is very comfy and now he lounges on the mat next to the water bowl-- or lounges on the mat with his head on the water bowl. He's been curling up and sleeping on it a few inches away from his beloved water bowl.

We get about 500 pounds of lemons from the trees in my yard. On many occasions, I will place lemons in buckets but that stopped when some idiot also took the containers holding the lemons. I now just collect bags at friends and neighbor's requests.

Tried to flush my hot water tank today. Turned off the input, set the dial to pilot, opened up the hot water in the bathroom sink farthest from the tank. Then I opened up the spigot at the bottom of the tank and...nothing happened. Kinda worried.

I'm sure the previous owners never flushed it but the tank's only about four or five years old...could the scale be so bad it's blocking the outflow through the spigot?? I feel like I'd have noticed that in my hot water usage, but everything seems normal otherwise.

I cleaned the litterboxes while sweating my *** off bc it's hot as hell and the air conditioner isn't working. The new litter I tried didn't clump up and dry like it's supposed to-- instead it was like wet cement and was really sticking to the inside of the litterbox and the metal trowel I resorted to using to dig it out. I'll have to take the trowel and litter scoop outside and rinse them off at the back faucet later.

Then I went over to hang out with a friend for a bit and then stay with his girlfriend and wait for another friend to arrive to figure out how to make her new dress fit her more snugly.

While I was visiting, got a call about one of my friends nearly being killed by his brother. He was letting his brother and the brother's girlfriend stay with him. The brother had just gotten full custody of his child from a previous girlfriend (no idea why she would let that violent jerk have the kid though). The brother's current girlfriend decided to leave him and ran off with some other guy. It's not clear if he was helping her escape or if she was having an affair with him. But she left at 6:30pm and around 11pm her boyfriend was losing his mind that she wasn't back. They got in touch with her uncle and he tried to bring her back, but when she realized he was trying to take her back she attacked her uncle in the car and jumped out of it while it was moving to get away. So the brother wanted my friend to take him to go look for her so he could "beat her ***" and drag her back home. My friend refused. So his brother attacked him and beat him up.
He then went outside and got a knife and threatened to stab him to death in front of the kids if he wouldn't drive him. He wrestled the knife away and told him to get out. So the brother went and got a shotgun, kicked the door in and threatened to shoot him if he didn't drive him. Another tussle ensued, my friend got his brother shoved out the door, the brother fired a shot, my friend went out and wrestled him for the gun and got it away while my firend's girlfriend called the cops. So, now the brother is in jail and will probably send the next 5 years there.

Flyover, could it be that the spigot just has crud clogged in it because it is lower down and sediment has built up? It looks to me like the water on a water heater comes out the top so the water can still flow, but lower down it could have gotten gunked up? I could be wrong on that.

zannej said:

I cleaned the litterboxes while sweating my *** off bc it's hot as hell and the air conditioner isn't working. The new litter I tried didn't clump up and dry like it's supposed to-- instead it was like wet cement and was really sticking to the inside of the litterbox and the metal trowel I resorted to using to dig it out. I'll have to take the trowel and litter scoop outside and rinse them off at the back faucet later.

Then I went over to hang out with a friend for a bit and then stay with his girlfriend and wait for another friend to arrive to figure out how to make her new dress fit her more snugly.

While I was visiting, got a call about one of my friends nearly being killed by his brother. He was letting his brother and the brother's girlfriend stay with him. The brother had just gotten full custody of his child from a previous girlfriend (no idea why she would let that violent jerk have the kid though). The brother's current girlfriend decided to leave him and ran off with some other guy. It's not clear if he was helping her escape or if she was having an affair with him. But she left at 6:30pm and around 11pm her boyfriend was losing his mind that she wasn't back. They got in touch with her uncle and he tried to bring her back, but when she realized he was trying to take her back she attacked her uncle in the car and jumped out of it while it was moving to get away. So the brother wanted my friend to take him to go look for her so he could "beat her ***" and drag her back home. My friend refused. So his brother attacked him and beat him up.
He then went outside and got a knife and threatened to stab him to death in front of the kids if he wouldn't drive him. He wrestled the knife away and told him to get out. So the brother went and got a shotgun, kicked the door in and threatened to shoot him if he didn't drive him. Another tussle ensued, my friend got his brother shoved out the door, the brother fired a shot, my friend went out and wrestled him for the gun and got it away while my firend's girlfriend called the cops. So, now the brother is in jail and will probably send the next 5 years there.

Flyover, could it be that the spigot just has crud clogged in it because it is lower down and sediment has built up? It looks to me like the water on a water heater comes out the top so the water can still flow, but lower down it could have gotten gunked up? I could be wrong on that.

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I'm glad I dont live in your neighborhood.

today I drove up to the mountains to start my septic obvservation on the property I bought. 4 feet of snow on the ground and no ground water in the well.

We had very heavy rain and thawing snow the last couple days. Our sump pump quit and we woke up to 15" of water in the basement. Everything is on risers, but not all are raised 15" off the floor. It's an unfinished basement, known by us as the dungeon,so the appliances are the only concern. We've got an old chest type freezer that was on it's last leg....didn't survive. And an old dryer that was buzzing, which is what alerted us to the problem. Picked up a new one today. Washer, humidifier, hot water heater and furnace, all o.k. Fortunate that the 2 units that died were on life support anyway. I have a well for a second sump that's almost done. That will be high on the list for new projects.

For a related story, the local river is way out of it's banks. A guy got some news coverage when he attempted to get through a flood road. There were police, firemen, even a helicopter news crew to help him out. :hide:

Gary said:

We had very heavy rain and thawing snow the last couple days. Our sump pump quit and we woke up to 15" of water in the basement. Everything is on risers, but not all are raised 15" off the floor. It's an unfinished basement, known by us as the dungeon,so the appliances are the only concern. We've got an old chest type freezer that was on it's last leg....didn't survive. And an old dryer that was buzzing, which is what alerted us to the problem. Picked up a new one today. Washer, humidifier, hot water heater and furnace, all o.k. Fortunate that the 2 units that died were on life support anyway. I have a well for a second sump that's almost done. That will be high on the list for new projects.

For a related story, the local river is way out of it's banks. A guy got some news coverage when he attempted to get through a flood road. There were police, firemen, even a helicopter news crew to help him out. :hide:

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So what do you do for excitement?:hide:

nealtw said:

So what do you do for excitement?:hide:

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I tell myself I'm thankful I wasn't the guy that thought it was a good idea to drive through rapid moving water on the road. I bet that was exciting though.

zannej said:

I cleaned the litterboxes while sweating my *** off bc it's hot as hell and the air conditioner isn't working. The new litter I tried didn't clump up and dry like it's supposed to-- instead it was like wet cement and was really sticking to the inside of the litterbox and the metal trowel I resorted to using to dig it out. I'll have to take the trowel and litter scoop outside and rinse them off at the back faucet later.

Then I went over to hang out with a friend for a bit and then stay with his girlfriend and wait for another friend to arrive to figure out how to make her new dress fit her more snugly.

While I was visiting, got a call about one of my friends nearly being killed by his brother. He was letting his brother and the brother's girlfriend stay with him. The brother had just gotten full custody of his child from a previous girlfriend (no idea why she would let that violent jerk have the kid though). The brother's current girlfriend decided to leave him and ran off with some other guy. It's not clear if he was helping her escape or if she was having an affair with him. But she left at 6:30pm and around 11pm her boyfriend was losing his mind that she wasn't back. They got in touch with her uncle and he tried to bring her back, but when she realized he was trying to take her back she attacked her uncle in the car and jumped out of it while it was moving to get away. So the brother wanted my friend to take him to go look for her so he could "beat her ***" and drag her back home. My friend refused. So his brother attacked him and beat him up.
He then went outside and got a knife and threatened to stab him to death in front of the kids if he wouldn't drive him. He wrestled the knife away and told him to get out. So the brother went and got a shotgun, kicked the door in and threatened to shoot him if he didn't drive him. Another tussle ensued, my friend got his brother shoved out the door, the brother fired a shot, my friend went out and wrestled him for the gun and got it away while my firend's girlfriend called the cops. So, now the brother is in jail and will probably send the next 5 years there.

Flyover, could it be that the spigot just has crud clogged in it because it is lower down and sediment has built up? It looks to me like the water on a water heater comes out the top so the water can still flow, but lower down it could have gotten gunked up? I could be wrong on that.

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Sounded liked you had a exciting day glad you didn't get hurt. I think your dead on about your spigot.

Chris, is no groundwater in the well a bad thing? Do you mean a drinking water well?

Gary, sorry to hear about the flooding. I'm glad the only things that were damaged were already on the way out.

Thanks, Tuffy.

Today I had to call the air conditioning repair people because the AC isn't cooking and it was 88 degrees with a lot of humidity in the house. I couldn't sleep. When the guys were walking in from the kitchen to the hallway (where the air conditioner is in a compartment), my cat Itsy decided to flop on her side right at the threshold of the hallway and block them. She stretched out on her side and then rolled on her back while cooing at them for attention. They just laughed while I picked her up and moved her to the cat tree. Both of the guys were sweating like crazy from the heat so I gave them bottled water to cool off. After checking pressure on the unit outside, checking freon levels, and taking panels off the AC to examine it, they determined some part that affects pressure for something was broken and needed to be replaced. They banged on it and it got the pressure to lower a bit and the temperature dropped a single degree. They said unfortunately the part has to be ordered and it can take a week to arrive.

I took my mother for an appointment with her podiatrist. She only has fungus on three toenails now and the said she's making such good progress that she doesn't have to come back as soon for the next visit. I'm hoping that by then the fungus might be gone from those toes since I've been using Fungicide PM or something like that on them-- and it seems to be working.

No water in the well is a good thing. It is a pipe 10 feet into the ground to be able to measure ground water

Ok, that's good then.

Today was not so good. I went to take the cat to the vet for some shots and my mother wanted me to stop by the post office to get packages first. I had my arms full and couldn't really see while going down the stairs at the post office and misjudged the last step. Twisted BOTH of my ankles on my way down. I stepped on the top of my right foot and scraped it up, ankle twisted. I tried to catch myself with my other foot, but bc I had misjudged where the ground was, I twisted my left ankle and crashed to the ground.

Kid across the street was the only one who saw and came running over to check on me. He tried to help me up, but I am probably twice his weight. Sheriff was driving by and saw me on the ground and came over to see what happened. He put my packages in the truck for me and offered to call EMTs. I declined since I don't have insurance and he waited to make sure I could stand and walk. Went straight to the vet's office and asked for "vet wrap" and used what little I remember from my college First Responder course 20 years ago and wrapped my ankles and then elevated them.


Drive home was not fun and carrying the cat back in to the house was even less fun, but I'm lying down now with my feet up. No ice and it's now 89 degrees in here. I have a sound file from Youtube of winter windstorm to make me feel cooler though.

And that is just one of a million reasons why I dislike cats.

LOL. Even without the cat I still would have fallen, and then I wouldn't have had a reason to go to the vet to get the wrap. It's really been helping. I'm able to flex my right foot with no pain and left foot with minimal pain. Odd that the left one hurts more, but I think it's because I twisted them in different ways.
My brother just brought me a large chocolate chip cookie from Pizza Hut and a gallon of water. I'm going to try to not eat the cookie all at once.

In other small town news, a kid at the local middle school was detained by police for allegedly saying that "someone" was going to come in and kill people there. He was expelled from school. Around the state there were several reports of children making similar comments and being arrested/detained and expelled. One child apparently commented that the square root symbol looked like a gun to him and kids ended up misconstruing it and spreading a rumor that he said he was going to bring a gun or had a gun or something and he was picked up by the police & interrogated. They cleared him, but the school has suspended him and may expel him. So, now kids have figured out that if they accuse someone of saying something, the cops will come and get them and they may get kicked out of school. There will be much wasting of police time.

tuffy said:

Sounded liked you had a exciting day glad you didn't get hurt. I think your dead on about your spigot.

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Maybe this isn't the right thread to ask, but how do I fix that? Is there an easy way?

I have some sign stuff to do today. Then later the young guys, Son & Son-in-law, are coming over for pizza and help swap out the dryer that died in the flood. Then some playtime with the Grandkids.