What did you do today?

[zannej]

I went out to get pictures of my blackberry bushes (as well as to show how nice the rest of the yard looks after being bush-hogged). Took a side trip to get footage of the barn. Since I couldn't actually see my screen (sunlight turns it black) I put it in video record mode and will have to sort out screenshots later. Phone overheated and gave me a warning that I couldn't use certain functions until it cooled down. I could smell hot plastic coming from it. Shut it off and put it in the fridge for 2 minutes.

Being outside made me sweat even more. I'm pretty ripe. Mom asked for a clothespin for her nose when I came in to hand her something. I can shower, put on deodorant, use body powder, etc and by the time I get to the store I'm sweating and I can smell my own armpits. I have been told that there were clerks at Walmart who avoided me because of my strong odor (back before masks were a thing). That was shortly before I was diagnosed with hypothyroid and my sweat odor changed. It's a weird sour smell. I'm a bit more aware of it now than I used to be. I haven't noticed other people having odors so much-- unless they work at the chemical plant. People from the chemical plant stink of pesticide so strongly that they sometimes get asked to leave public places and it clears out sections of the store. It is nauseating. I feel bad for the employees. It can't be healthy being exposed to stuff that smells that strong that it stinks up half the store just from them walking in.

Tomorrow is my best friend's day off & I'll remind him to see if he and the guy will actually show up to cut the blackberries. I can probably cut some of them myself but the fallen tree is an issue. This is only the front part of my yard (I didn't get screenshots of the back yet).

You can't even see the air conditioner.
One of my main issues is I can't be out in the sun due to medical conditions. I burn like crazy and I overheat very easily.

 

[Spicoli43]

Well, zannej... All the more reason to go on an Organic paleo diet. You won't smell after a few weeks, and some of your other medical issues will disappear. The energy change I had the first time I did Paleo / Keto was akin to you going out and cutting all those bushes yourself without even thinking much about it.

Once you get rid of the Sugar Demon, it's like a brand new you.

I need to practice what I preach, as I rip through some Dollar Store cookies, the best and only that I buy.

If you have a couple of hours, here's a good starter video..

 

[Flyover]

Zannej, no offense but you have 192 cats and 37 dogs, you live with one person who's a hoarder and another who refuses to help you clean, and the bottom halves of your doors are missing. Fleas in your situation makes sense. We have no pets, our house is kept cleaner than most other people's houses I've visited (we're even one of those "take your shoes off when you come inside" households), none of our neighbors' pets have fleas that I know of (the neighbors don't have flea bites either), and the only other time we ever had fleas was when we had a cat and lived in Los Ang-hell-es.

Spicoli, it's not my diet. My wife and kids eat the same food as me. (And I don't skimp on garlic in my cooking either by the way.) Now, I've heard that mosquitos prefer O-negative blood, which I have and which, if memory serves, my wife does not. I'm not sure which blood type my kids have (I should look at up and memorize it, I think I knew at one point). But I haven't heard that fleas care about blood type. When our cat got fleas years and years ago the fleas bit both of us.

Like I said, it makes no sense. It makes no sense why there should be fleas in my house -- yet they are in there. Or were; we bombed the s#!t out of them today. And it makes no sense why they should bite me and nobody else.

I've heard blood-sucking insects don't bite you if you smoke cigarettes. Maybe it's time for me to take up smoking?

 

[Spicoli43]

Flyover... Mash some garlic up and mix it with water in a spray bottle. Spray it on your legs so everyone in the house hates you, including the fleas.

 

[BuzzLOL]

If Steve Irwin had kids, especially more than one, then that's not Darwinism!

I like to think I was the first one to notice that Principal McVickers or whatever that character from Beavis and Butthead was called, sounds exactly like Bernie Sanders, but apparently one other person on YouTube noticed it too.

For the past couple months I've been getting covered in flea bites. Nobody else in my family, just me. It makes no sense.

If Irwin isn't around to guide his kids properly until 25 - 30 years old, there's some 'Darwinism' there...

I can't stand to listen to Sanders, so don't really know what he sounds like... maybe I do a little bit...

I have the same problem, fleas find me delicious, so I put the cat's extra flea collars on my ankles for a couple days until I got the backyard and garage sprayed down good... that was several years ago...

 

[Flyover]

So between the flea collars on ankles and garlic-water spritzings y'all are just crazy. Got it. I'm going to see if after a few days post-bug bombing I get any more bites. Getting mosquito bites too now, which adds noise to the signal.

I used an angle grinder for the first time yesterday and cut up my plates, then did another pass to smooth the edges/remove burrs/etc. I think I did a really good job for my first time! I ran my finger over it and while it wasn't slippery smooth, it definitely wasn't sharp and I was not at risk of being cut. Today on my lunch break I'm going to drill the holes in the plates and then get them installed. Should be doing dips today as part of my workout!

 

[Eddie_T]

An old timer told me that dusting trouser legs with flowers of sulfur kept chiggers away. That might work for fleas too. When I lived in FL my dogs got fleas and ticks. They didn't socialize with other animals so the St. Augustine lawn grass must have been populated with them.

 

[homerowner]

So between the flea collars on ankles and garlic-water spritzings y'all are just crazy. Got it.

That's what got your brain firing on all cylinders? Not everything else that's been going on in this thread?

Before I open the forum I always make myself a big batch of popcorn. True entertainment.

 

[Flyover]

That's what got your brain firing on all cylinders? Not everything else that's been going on in this thread?

I have gotten very good at information filtration. Internet survival skills, especially for someone like me who gets sucked in easily!

I got one plate drilled, tested it to make sure it fit, then used it as a template for the others. I got about half rest of the plates done, then had to get back to work. Will finish up once I'm off.

 

[Eddie_T]

I need to practice what I preach, as I rip through some Dollar Store cookies, the best and only that I buy.

You have my attention, what cookies do you buy. I am currently eating Food Lion and/or Walmart Oreo knockoffs.

 

[zannej]

Flyover, do you live in a slightly wooded area? Somewhere with trees? I can't seem to remember. But even if you don't have pets, you keep the place clean, and neighbor's pets don't have fleas, the fleas will live outside in yards. My vet told me that even if we had no pets we would still have fleas because of where we live. They live in the grass and wooded areas. Especially in areas with more moisture. If you have less than 50% humidity/moisture level, the fleas don't survive as well. So, perhaps a dehumidifier inside might if the bug-bombing doesn't?

The guy came back with my friend to work on the yard. It was threatening to rain so they only put in 3 hours of work. Weedeater wire broke and they didn't have more. Hauled the fallen tree out and got a lot of the weeds in the front. Cut down some small trees. Did some measuring to plan where to put the solar panel when we get the gate/fence fixed to do a solar powered gate opener. Also discussed removing some of the broken fence around the house and cutting some broken metal off the car port. They poked around the car port area and found some unopened tools and stuff still in packaging. Found some rusty bent tractor parts that could possibly be used. I need to go out there and sort through stuff at some point.

I had to take Mom into town for her bloodwork and I grabbed more weedeater wire at the store. Trash got burned, I picked up mail, cooked for mom, and now I'm resting.

Guys are coming back out tomorrow to work on stuff again.

 

[Flyover]

Zannej, the nearest woods are a 10 minute drive away; we're in the suburbs. It's a slightly older development, built in the 70s, so it's spread out and there are mature trees but definitely not a forest in my neighborhood. Also, it's not a flood plain or anything (unlike our last neighborhood which was one, and where there were no fleas despite lots of stray cats and wild critters!) Plus it's so dry I have to lotion my feet to keep them from cracking year round. I can't say it never gets above 50% humidity but it sure isn't the norm. If it rains a lot the grass near the back of my property close to the fence line (where I never hang out btw) gets soggy for a couple days, otherwise it seems the property drains well. They did a good job with the grading around all the houses in the development.

One more theory for how the fleas got in: we had squirrels in our attic during the winter. They're gone now but could they have brought fleas who decided to stay afterward? That's a possible origin story, though it doesn't fully explain how they got from my attic down into my house, and doesn't at all explain why they only bit me.

 

[Flyover]

Here are the plates I cut/drilled for the dip stand:

You can't see in the picture but there are 8 of them; they are doubled up because I figured the metal was not quite thick enough to be strong enough while single-ply, but they weren't selling anything thicker unless I went all the way to 1/4" thick and that was both cost prohibitive and likely not something I'd be able to work with given the equipment I could borrow from my neighbor.

(Another advantage of doubling them up was I could drill half of them in one orientation, the other half in the other, then sandwich them together so the burrs were facing each other. Less work than filing each hole!)

I did three sets of dips today and it felt great. (Maybe even greater than the satisfaction of having DIYed those parts.) What I didn't expect would be such a drag is going over my driveway with a little magnet picking up metal shavings. That part took almost as long as the cutting did!

 

[Flyover]

Zannej, you might be onto something about those fleas, regardless of the average humidity around here. It rained last night and today I went out to put a screen on the rain barrel, and as I was standing there installing the screen I looked down to see three or four fleas crawling on my legs. Those bastards tried to dig in under my socks too! They must have hopped up from the wet grass.

 

[Spicoli43]

You have my attention, what cookies do you buy. I am currently eating Food Lion and/or Walmart Oreo knockoffs.

Shortbread.

 

[Spicoli43]

Here are the plates I cut/drilled for the dip stand:
View attachment 25893
You can't see in the picture but there are 8 of them; they are doubled up because I figured the metal was not quite thick enough to be strong enough while single-ply, but they weren't selling anything thicker unless I went all the way to 1/4" thick and that was both cost prohibitive and likely not something I'd be able to work with given the equipment I could borrow from my neighbor.

(Another advantage of doubling them up was I could drill half of them in one orientation, the other half in the other, then sandwich them together so the burrs were facing each other. Less work than filing each hole!)

I did three sets of dips today and it felt great. (Maybe even greater than the satisfaction of having DIYed those parts.) What I didn't expect would be such a drag is going over my driveway with a little magnet picking up metal shavings. That part took almost as long as the cutting did!

I like Dips better than Dumbbells, but Dumbbells take up no floor space because they hide in the closet.

 

[Flyover]

As far as triceps exercises go, there are several standard exercises that can be done with dumbbells, none of which I like all that much, at least not on their own. Basically all of them except overhead extensions are very focused, so they're good for strengthening individual muscles, but should be done only after compound exercises. The problem with overhead extensions is the force curves: as you reach full extension the movement gets easier and easier until there is basically no energy required to hold the dumbbell straight over your head. This is also a problem for skullcrushers. The only triceps exercise this doesn't apply to is kickbacks.

For all those exercises I prefer to use silicone straps, affixed at one end to my pullup bar. With the straps the difficulty increases as you reach full extension. You can do them isometrically too.

Dips are great because it's a compound exercise. Floor space isn't an issue; we dedicated space in the basement to our fitness dungeon home gym.

 

[Spicoli43]

I only have a Bowflex now, which would be useful if it was the OG version made by Bowflex. Since Nautilus bought them, it's just barely good enough. I can't max out on Bench / Incline / Decline / Curls, but I can max out on anything Tricep pull down related. I can't max out on Triceps pull back, that will take a while, but the point is once I'm maxing everything, it's a giant paperweight.

The benefit about Bowflex is it's almost impossible to do the exercise "correctly" as opposed to an Olympic setup, so all the little forgotten muscles get worked.

 

[zannej]

Flyover, squirrels will absolutely carry fleas. So if they got into your attic, eggs could hatch, they can nest in insulation, they hang out in grass, they jump off of squirrels all over. They can leap very far. The rain was probably another factor encouraging them to come out. We didn't have many fleas during winter but now that it's warmed up and we've been having warm rain storms, the fleas, mosquitoes, gnats, and gigantic horse flies are out. My dad once joked that the horse flies here are so big that I hit one with a flyswatter and it just took the swatter away from me and hit me back. Flyswatters won't even phase them.

The guy who's been doing some yardwork messaged to say he wasn't going to come if it rained and we had quite the thunderstorm. Bro woke me up and asked me to take him to a dental appointment that was either noon or 12:15. Got there and they were closed until 1. So he forgot the time and couldn't remember. Picked up mail, dropped in to visit a friend. He just messaged me that his grandfather was found unresponsive in a parking lot and had to be given narcon. He's currently in the hospital but friend doesn't know his condition. Same friend was trying to find a smaller desk than the one he has. My brother will get the larger desk (since my brother bought it for him). He linked me a desk that I thought was too expensive and not good enough. So I searched and found some options. Last one I found him he said was almost perfect. It's the right size, had cable management, has a hook for headphones, a cup holder, and a large mouse pad. Only thing it's missing is a 2nd level for his monitor, but honestly, he could get a cheap metal one or we could make one with scraps from my workshop. It was under $60.

I'm going to help my brother clean his room so he can pull his old desk out and get the new desk in. Having him in a better mood helps with his productivity and willingness to help me with stuff. Plus I'm tired of tripping on empty plastic bottles when I go in there to talk to him.

In terms of exercise, I get mine from lifting cats, chasing cats, feeding cats, getting their water, trying to get cats off of things... LOL.

 

[Eddie_T]

I have a Chair Gym which unfortunately I don't use very often. When I do dips I just use it as a chair.