In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Saturday, September 12, 2026 21:12
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 72 of 84
Out soon to get things done one of which is the vampires.
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All done for today. Vampires done with, library return and then found 3 more tv shows. 
Supper too and ran again to that lady who used to look after my mum. We had another good chat. She's been busy. Her husband is still getting treatments for his cancer. Immunio therapy and she is working. Hopefully we will get together for coffee next Friday. Have to send her an email. 
I have 2 more appointments for this week and next for my doctor's office. Both of them are around 9am. I wonder what is going on that the nurse and my doctor are so busy.
There is quite a breeze out earlier today. Made me wish I had a jacket on.
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Out soon with a cool down. I buy new hair clips and of course the weather cools.
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Off to mah jong tomorrow.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Man.... I could use some heat.
I've still got the damn furnace on right now and it's May 3rd.
I said I wasn't going to do it, but it was getting miserable in here.
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Sorry to hear that SIX. We are going to be sweltering where I am until at least Friday of this week.
And we've got fires starting to go in province too. Think it's going to be a long summer.
You're so much further up north. That's just silly.
Still cold enough that I didn't want to go outside to sand things down today so I've been working on the bathroom. Not too much done yet, but I've decided I'm going against my dad's suggestion for getting a bigger vanity and I'm just going to restore and paint the existing one. It's a savings of probably $600 in the long run, and I don't think not having an extra 6 inches is going to make or break a sale on my house down the road. There's been at least two families living here before me and one of them were quite large and they all made due. I like having space on both sides of the toilet too, and if I got a bigger vanity I think it would encroach upon your bubble when sitting down.
Besides... I think he's thinking this is necessary because of how things currently are anyhow. First was the problem where the vanity, medicine cabinet mirror and the vanity lights above it are all uneven. It looks terrible. On top of that, I installed a small IKEA shelf thing up high to the right above the light switch/outlet, and I use that to put my electric toothbrush and beard trimmer on top of. It sticks out a little more from that wall than the right edge of the mirror for the medicine cabinet, so it looks needlessly crowded in that corner. That shelf won't need to be there anymore when I get the new medicine cabinet and the over the toilet cab hung, and I'll be evening out everything above the vanity before this is done.
Inside of the cabinet was a horror show that I've never gotten around to clean before. I'm sure I did some minor cleaning when I first moved in before putting cleaning products and the like down there, but I never cleaned the wall or anything underneath the lone drawer at the bottom of the unit before today. Every few years I end up doing something else where I think "That ought to be the last of the mouse shit in this house", but here we are again.
I don't even want to know what is between the walls anywhere, so we won't be removing any more of them.
I don't know who did it, if it was the people who were here 35+ years or the idiots that lived here before me, but at some point the wall behind the cab had been busted out all willy nilly to get some plumbing done and some point, and that looked nearly as ghastly as the disgusting wall it was cut into.
I've wiped EVERYTHING down thoroughly with cleaning wipes from the unit to the wall to the drawers and door and the drawer slides, and every nook and cranny in between.
I also cut everything in that opening for the plumbing into a perfect square behind there, which I am going to be capping off with some nice trim. I've decided not to go white with the vanity, and instead use a mid-tone grey color I have about a half-gallon left of that I had used to paint my shelves in the shed a few years back. That way I can keep the white sink top without it looking funny, and it should all look nice with the darker grey I'm going to be using on the walls. (Although, I still might flip those two and paint the lighter gray on the walls and the darker grey for the vanity.... not sure yet). But because I'll be using darker paint for all of this, including the wall, I will also be painting everything IN the wall that is within view of the opening a dark color too, so it really sh
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It maybe silly but that is the way things are going in BC. There are fire bans already all over the province except for the south east corner which is around Cranbrook. These fire bans are early.
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Temp is sitting at 68F right now which is 19C to me. Starting to warm up again after the cold of yesterday.
And I am all finished for now. Dishes done, will tackle putting some paper work away later.
Got a call from my doctor's office. My thyroid test is normal but am I still going in next week because he didn't put down on the requisition form how often I should go in. Lab gives you a card for certain tests and they didn't know what to put down. Have to straighten that out.
Had one decent hand at mah jong. 900points, so broke 1,000 easy. Finished with over 2,000points. But a lot of 4,000point scores. So no winnings for me.
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It's days like today that really make me laugh about Covid masking...
I had my filter bag on my sander, and I was also wearing a hostpital mask while sanding the inside and outside of the vanity. You don't even want to know what came out of my nose when I was done. I'm sure my post-8cm-growth-pneumonia lung appreciates it.
Had to be done.
But all the drawers will be sanded outside along with the other stuff I still need to sand out there. It's a little warmer tomorrow. I think the high is 60 degrees. There's supposed to be some rain, but it's spotty. Hopefully I can get most of the sanding I still need to do done outside tomorrow if that's what I choose to do. I have my doubts though because a lot of it is sanding by hand. It's even warmer this weekend, but I think we're supposed to have more rain too.
Got all the dust cleaned up and the vanity wiped down. I pretty much lost out on the sunlight now, but if I want to prime that cabinet inside and out I could still do that with my portable lighting. I just may.
I'm debating on painting the inside of the drawers or not. They're a really light wood color and the finish has held up very well over the years. Just like that kitchen table, I'm hesitant to sand them down and paint them. I may just separate the faces from the drawers and sand/paint them and leave the drawers themselves the light wood color. It wouldn't match the rest of the stuff, but this was a very dark stained vanity and that didn't match the light wood color either.
It's inside... Let's just leave it, right?
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I did get to primer today.
Got the window trim and sill primed as well as the inside and outside of the vanity (and all that crap inside the walls behind it.
Before I even think about any final paint, I need to re-seat that thing. It's always been a little loose, and after what I've done today it's totally loose. The only thing really keeping it in any sort of place is the drain pipe now, not that I've moved it much where that's going to be a problem, but they definately did not do a good job affixing that thing to the wall at all. I saw two shims up high on the right side, with a drywall screw only screwed halfway in through them. No other screws on the top, and none on the bottom either.
They didn't put it all the way back to the wall for some reason either, and since it's attached already to the basin I've got to live with that unless I want to probably break things trying to separate the two.
That's cool. I've got two long cardboard tubes of cabinet trim out in the garage still. That's what I used a month or two ago to make my thresholds for the coat closet, the attic and the pantry. I'm going to sand those down and prime/paint them on the horses, and when the vanity is otherwise finished, I'm going to be using those to frame out the inside and outside of the vanity right up to the wall after I have it firmly in place. That trim is also what I'll use to frame out the hole to all the pipes that I squared off today too.
I won't say the outside looks better with just a single coat of primer on it than it did this morning before I did anything, but the inside looks 1,000% better than it did before. Even with my big bright work light shining in there, the pipes/wood/etc behind the wall blends in with everything much better when it's all primed. Once I get a dark paint on all of it inside, it should blend right in... and there won't ever be any super bright light shining in there like there is now.
I don't even know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I have a lot of options and plenty to do. Depends if I want to go outside and sand or not. If I don't do that I still have plenty to do inside. Maybe I'll even put a coat of paint on the vanity tomorrow. I don't want to put any final paint on until after I have it all trimmed out and I patch the brad nails, but I think since this is a humid bathroom I'll be putting 3 coats on it, so I could probably paint the first 2 coats tomorrow.
I'd love to start doing the walls and ceiling, but I'm nowhere near ready for that yet. There was some wall damage, especially by the corners of the ceiling where paint flaked off. That's going to have to be patched up and sanded first.
This is exciting. I'm finally starting to visualize what the room is going to look like when it's done.
I should be able to get everything done from the ceiling down to the floor in a few days if I keep at it. Maybe a week. All that will be left to do after that would be ripping up the vinyl tiles, replacing some rotten sub-floor, installing a MUCH bigger toilet, and finally putting new baseboard down.
Hopefully one of the two buckets of thinset mortar my buddy gave me a while back is still good. If it is, I won't have to buy anything to finish this bathroom except for that new toilet, a new faucet and drain for the sink and maybe some new baseboard if I don't have enough left in my garage to get the job done. I might have to buy a 4'x4' piece of sub-flooring... Depends on how thick the current stuff is and the pieces I have in the garage are.
My old man just paid somebody like 8k to remodel his bathroom a few years back. Mine will cost me about $800 max. And if everything went perfect, it would probably only be about $400.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It's days like today that really make me laugh about Covid masking...
I had my filter bag on my sander, and I was also wearing a hostpital mask while sanding the inside and outside of the vanity. You don't even want to know what came out of my nose when I was done. I'm sure my post-8cm-growth-pneumonia lung appreciates it.
Had to be done.
But all the drawers will be sanded outside along with the other stuff I still need to sand out there. It's a little warmer tomorrow. I think the high is 60 degrees. There's supposed to be some rain, but it's spotty. Hopefully I can get most of the sanding I still need to do done outside tomorrow if that's what I choose to do. I have my doubts though because a lot of it is sanding by hand. It's even warmer this weekend, but I think we're supposed to have more rain too.
Got all the dust cleaned up and the vanity wiped down. I pretty much lost out on the sunlight now, but if I want to prime that cabinet inside and out I could still do that with my portable lighting. I just may.
I'm debating on painting the inside of the drawers or not. They're a really light wood color and the finish has held up very well over the years. Just like that kitchen table, I'm hesitant to sand them down and paint them. I may just separate the faces from the drawers and sand/paint them and leave the drawers themselves the light wood color. It wouldn't match the rest of the stuff, but this was a very dark stained vanity and that didn't match the light wood color either.
It's inside... Let's just leave it, right?
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I think leaving them is alright. I doubt anyone will pay attention to what the inside of a drawer looks like.
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Off to my doctor's tomorrow at 9am. Ears have to be flushed out and there is a nurse that does it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I think leaving them is alright. I doubt anyone will pay attention to what the inside of a drawer looks like.
Thanks for the input, Brenda.
Yeah... I think that's what I'm going to do. With the kitchen ones I went kind of crazy. I didn't just paint everything, but I caulked every seam inside of all the cabinets and the drawers too before final paint went on. Then I bought bright white contact paper to cover all the cabinet shelves and drawers too. Like I said, they've held up perfectly all these years now, but that's just so much work. Even for one vanity I don't really feel like doing it. And because the light wood drawers cleaned up so nicely, I really don't have to.
I lied about the painting. I already painted the first coat on the vanity and I've got a fan on it now. Probably going to put the 2nd coat on it before I clean up the paint.
Late night again, but totally worth it. Vanity looks awesome, even without doors or drawers.
I'll probably have some pics up soon on this one since it's inside and it won't get me doxxed by tweedle dee and tweedle dumb.
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Done and done.
Thought I wouldn't even get to priming today and I put 2 coats of paint on the vanity.
Looks awesome. Can't wait to finish the doors and drawers now.
Gotta start getting the medicine cabinet and over the toilet cabinet/towel racks ready to rock.
I'm not sure how much of a mess I'm going to have to make to get my electric where I want it to go yet. I will be putting an outlet in that toilet cab. Not sure if I want to put it inside the doors, or in the little nook that's underneath them. Having my beard trimmer plugged in would be easier for me to use if it was in the nook, but then that isn't hidden when people come over. Gotta think about that one.
I'm guessing that I can probably tap into the box for the vanity light fairly easily through the hole where the current in-wall medicine cabinet is. I just have to make sure I do my electric up right when I get to that point. I'm going to install a GFCI outlet next to the light switch, and daisy chain that to the 1 or 2 other outlets I will be adding. That can be either really easy or a bitch, depending on how the electric was done behind the walls. If they screwed me and used either romex or flex conduit to get to the light, I'm probably going to have to spring another $40 for a 3-pack of GFCI outlets and just make each outlet a GFCI since I won't be able to daisy-chain them.
I think I'm going to skip putting in a ceiling vent/fan or a light above the shower, as much as I wanted to do it. My walls and ceiling are so thick and hard to cut through because of the way that they made them, and that it would be a bitch of a job. Also, unfortunately, the joists in the ceiling run perpendicular to the direction I'd be putting in the new electric, so I couldn't just fish a length of flex conduit between joists up where I need it as I'd have to remove drywall so I could drill holes in the joists to get it through.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
I've talked myself out of doing work like this because of all the extra things I was going to do and how much work it would take. Let's just get it done and except for the 2 closet bifold doors I still need to do, that's pretty much the entire 2nd floor finally finished.
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There we go... 
Big day.
Not only is all of that done, but all the drawers and the bottom is empty and I'm going to make good decisions of what actually needs to go back into them when I'm done.
You can see how I squared out everything that will be visible on the left side of the plumbing hole mess. I didn't make that perfect because it would have required probably a few hours of filing since it's hard rock plaster and not drywall, but that's why I'm going to frame it out with that cabinet trim. Now that I've painted everything that was visible in the hole, you can see how it all just kind of blends in instead of looking all disgusting-like.
My hips and my everything are killing me right now because of all the weird positions I've been in all day. I'd better get this work done quick if I'm going to keep getting older everyday.
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What do you think about the vanity size, Brenda?
If I were to have gotten a vanity that was 6" wider like my dad suggested, don't you think that would be right up on you while you were on the toilet?
I want to get the majority of this before my dad comes back from his vacation, and I'm hoping once he sees that I've evened out the vanity, mirror and light and I got that shelf off of the wall above the light switch that this one is pretty much the perfect size for the room.
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Boy... I guess I needed a lot of sleep after that.
I've been getting up before 8AM for days now since my dad came in, and today was no different. But I knew I wasn't ready to actually get up and I went back to sleep and just woke up now.
Yeah... My body is wrecked. So many weird positions, and I think I'm getting too old to sit cross-legged.
Looks like it rained outside earlier, but my grass is really short so that won't matter if it doesn't rain anymore. Hourly says 49% chance of rain in the 2PM hour and that's it, but the minutecast shows no rain for the next 3 hours so I think I may have caught a break.
I was going to get back to hand sanding all the slats on that last bi-fold door, but I think I'll probably take the faces off the 3 drawers and do those and the door to the cabinet first. I could probably prime those right afterward while I go to sand other things. I could at least have both sides of those things primed by tomorrow.
I'd want a few days for the door and drawer faces to cure before I put them all back together, which is fine because I have to take time to cut all that cabinet trim to size and sand/prime/paint them to have them installed (at least on the inside) before I put the drawer slides back in, since it would be nearly impossible to add the piece to the right corner and one side of the opening if the slides are in.
I'm just not going to worry about it too much or overthink it. Tons of work to do. Just do something, right?
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I think leaving them is alright. I doubt anyone will pay attention to what the inside of a drawer looks like.
Thanks for the input, Brenda.
Yeah... I think that's what I'm going to do. With the kitchen ones I went kind of crazy. I didn't just paint everything, but I caulked every seam inside of all the cabinets and the drawers too before final paint went on. Then I bought bright white contact paper to cover all the cabinet shelves and drawers too. Like I said, they've held up perfectly all these years now, but that's just so much work. Even for one vanity I don't really feel like doing it. And because the light wood drawers cleaned up so nicely, I really don't have to.
I lied about the painting. I already painted the first coat on the vanity and I've got a fan on it now. Probably going to put the 2nd coat on it before I clean up the paint.
Late night again, but totally worth it. Vanity looks awesome, even without doors or drawers.
I'll probably have some pics up soon on this one since it's inside and it won't get me doxxed by tweedle dee and tweedle dumb.
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You are welcome SIX.
Caulking everything before you painted was probably a good idea.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
What do you think about the vanity size, Brenda?
If I were to have gotten a vanity that was 6" wider like my dad suggested, don't you think that would be right up on you while you were on the toilet?
I want to get the majority of this before my dad comes back from his vacation, and I'm hoping once he sees that I've evened out the vanity, mirror and light and I got that shelf off of the wall above the light switch that this one is pretty much the perfect size for the room.
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That work you did looks great SIX. And from what I can see. Yeah, I think if you'd gone bigger you would have been right up close to the toilet. You need some space there.
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Got back earlier than I thought I would but that was because of the early appointment. . Anyways ears all cleaned for the audiologist on Monday.
Groceries done and I even managed to get some old paperwork put away. Though I discovered under what I put away was another pile of paperwork that I thought I had put away. Will either do it later or tomorrow.
It is around 62F here but there is a cold breeze blowing. And cloud cover does not help.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That work you did looks great SIX. And from what I can see. Yeah, I think if you'd gone bigger you would have been right up close to the toilet. You need some space there.
Thanks, Brenda.
I'm on the fence about fixing that "pit" in the center. I noticed the top piece of veneer on that thin plywood had water damage and bubbled up, so I had to cut around it anywhere where it was loose before priming... then I got carried away painting two coats before putting wood putty on there and sanding it down. Now that I put semi-gloss paint on it, the wood putty might not stick that well. I'm thinking I'll probably just cut out a piece of that thin brown fiberboard stuff that I've used to patch up the sides of cabinets, make new drawer bottoms and to protect the floor of the cabinet under my kitchen sink and call it a day. More than half of that pit would be covered by the drawers anyway, and if I can just put a nice piece on the other side after I cut it down to size, nobody should ever even know it's there.
No rain today! At least not after I got outside. A full 6 hours of sanding and I still didn't get everything done.
Let's see... Got the last piece of trim going under the kitchen window sanded... The over-the-toilet cabinet sanded as well as the 2 doors and single shelf for it... the 3 drawer faces and the door for the vanity sanded... the door and shelves for the medicine cabinet... and 4 pieces of that cabinet trim that I'm going to finish off the inside and the outside of the vanity with.
Thankfully, I should have enough of that cabinet trim left to do the job. For some reason between the two long cardboard tubes of them I got form my friend, I thought I had a whole lot more of it, but that was it. I don't need it for thresholds anymore, but I was hoping to have enough to frame out my electric box and the network box next to it in the basement. I guess I'll just have to spring for some more narrow-ish strips of wood, or rip my own to get that job done. Oh well...
Another good day, but I'm done for now. No primer or painting for me tonight. I think I should be able to get all this done before my dad comes back with time to spare.
All I have left to do is hand sanding on 3 pieces. Have to finish off the medicine cabinet, the bi-fold door with the slats and the super-decorative towel rack with the shelf above it and I won't need to be sanding anything else for a while.
I do want to sand down a nice chest that I got from my grandma's basement. I have two of them. One is a really nice antique piece, but the bottom broke. I'm going to restore that for myself at one point. But the other one is good except it needs a new locking mechanism. My aunt seemed to really want that one at one point, but then decided she wasn't going to take it. A few years ago I wanted to sand that down and stain it the same color as the rest of her furniture that she was so proud of buying on her own without credit. She's going to be retiring soon, so I'd like to have that finished as a retirement present for her.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That work you did looks great SIX. And from what I can see. Yeah, I think if you'd gone bigger you would have been right up close to the toilet. You need some space there.
Thanks, Brenda.
I'm on the fence about fixing that "pit" in the center. I noticed the top piece of veneer on that thin plywood had water damage and bubbled up, so I had to cut around it anywhere where it was loose before priming... then I got carried away painting two coats before putting wood putty on there and sanding it down. Now that I put semi-gloss paint on it, the wood putty might not stick that well. I'm thinking I'll probably just cut out a piece of that thin brown fiberboard stuff that I've used to patch up the sides of cabinets, make new drawer bottoms and to protect the floor of the cabinet under my kitchen sink and call it a day. More than half of that pit would be covered by the drawers anyway, and if I can just put a nice piece on the other side after I cut it down to size, nobody should ever even know it's there.
No rain today! At least not after I got outside. A full 6 hours of sanding and I still didn't get everything done.
Let's see... Got the last piece of trim going under the kitchen window sanded... The over-the-toilet cabinet sanded as well as the 2 doors and single shelf for it... the 3 drawer faces and the door for the vanity sanded... the door and shelves for the medicine cabinet... and 4 pieces of that cabinet trim that I'm going to finish off the inside and the outside of the vanity with.
Thankfully, I should have enough of that cabinet trim left to do the job. For some reason between the two long cardboard tubes of them I got form my friend, I thought I had a whole lot more of it, but that was it. I don't need it for thresholds anymore, but I was hoping to have enough to frame out my electric box and the network box next to it in the basement. I guess I'll just have to spring for some more narrow-ish strips of wood, or rip my own to get that job done. Oh well...
Another good day, but I'm done for now. No primer or painting for me tonight. I think I should be able to get all this done before my dad comes back with time to spare.
All I have left to do is hand sanding on 3 pieces. Have to finish off the medicine cabinet, the bi-fold door with the slats and the super-decorative towel rack with the shelf above it and I won't need to be sanding anything else for a while.
I do want to sand down a nice chest that I got from my grandma's basement. I have two of them. One is a really nice antique piece, but the bottom broke. I'm going to restore that for myself at one point. But the other one is good except it needs a new locking mechanism. My aunt seemed to really want that one at one point, but then decided she wasn't going to take it. A few years ago I wanted to sand that down and stain it the same color as the rest of her furniture that she was so proud of buying on her own without credit. She's going to be retiring soon, so I'd like to have that finished as a retirement present for her.
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I went back and looked and I saw the pit. Okay, I admit you lost me at wood putty. I know a little bit of other types of construction putties but not a whole lot.
If the drawers and a little extra bit of particle board will cover it, I can't see why anyone would notice the difference.
You are giving yourself a lot to do and I think maybe over doing it from what your body is telling you. I know you don't want to leave things but sometimes you have to slow down.
Old trunks are nice. I know mine has taken a beating and I would love to get it restored but that would be arm and a leg time. The hinges are rusty and stuff. If you can restore the one you have that is great.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I went back and looked and I saw the pit. Okay, I admit you lost me at wood putty. I know a little bit of other types of construction putties but not a whole lot.
If the drawers and a little extra bit of particle board will cover it, I can't see why anyone would notice the difference.
Actually, I believe I misspoke. I believe that Wood Putty is a substance that never really totally dries because it has oils in it. It's used to fill in holes in nice hardwood floors, and you're meant to use color swatches to match up the color as close as you can to the finish.
I meant to say just wood filler. If you've ever seen somebody hang drywall or patch up existing drywall, it's basically the same concept as the patch, but it's a really light wood color that will take on stain, and it's very hard to sand down if you've let it dry too long before sanding it.
I know it bonds excellently to primer, but because I already put two coats of semi-gloss paint down, I have concerns that if I did it now it might break up down the road and just be a mess. I think it almost certainly would if it got wet down there, which at some point is likely to happen when I or the next owner is doing necessary maintenance. Heck... It could happen to me when I'm installing a new faucet if I wasn't careful.
Oh well. I think the hardboard will be fine. The next owner will probably just think it was smart to put something like that down there like I did in the kitchen and probably wouldn't know that the pit was there for years or even decades.
Quote:
You are giving yourself a lot to do and I think maybe over doing it from what your body is telling you. I know you don't want to leave things but sometimes you have to slow down.
Yeah. I know... And of course you're right.
It's just that I've finally gotten right at the end of my big computer project work after a few years of working hard on it and I've been putting all of this stuff off while I worked on that.
And though my health issues should be making me slow down, they're kind of doing the opposite. So many years I've been living here and this house should have been finished a long time ago. I'm not feeling backed into a corner or anything, but circumstances otherwise aren't improving either, and I feel that I need to get this house to the point that it's ready to sell ASAP. Not that I'm going to sell it right away, but there are a few external developments and possibilities in my area that could really give the value of my home a huge boost. I believe they've already begun the planned process of making railroad tracks all the way to Michigan in the east, and tie that into Chicago. If that happens, I'm pretty much prime real estate. Especially if Detroit starts getting re-industrialized like it sounds will be happening soon as well. And if the Bears move to Hammond, forget about it. I'm sitting on a gold mine as long as it's ready for a family to move in.
But the negative side of owning a house worth a lot is the HUGE increase in property taxes. I'm already paying twice as much as I was when I moved in, despite fighting them VERY successfully 3 times now. My ability to make money certainly ain't what it used to be, and if all that happens I want to cash out and get far away from here... this time in a MUCH smaller house with a MUCH smaller plot of land that I'm responsible for. As long as it has a full basement or a nice big garage for my workshop, I'll be happy.
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Old trunks are nice. I know mine has taken a beating and I would love to get it restored but that would be arm and a leg time. The hinges are rusty and stuff. If you can restore the one you have that is great.
Oh yeah? How much do you suppose getting yours restored would cost to do?
This is yet another time where it's kind of a bummer we're so far apart geographically
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Nothing too exciting today, but this is the work that needs to be done so the paint will hold up for the long haul...
I have before pics of everything somewhere, but I took them a while ago before I pulled any of the hardware off. Except for that cabinet trim which was fairly light, everything was at least as dark as the vanity when I started.
The unit on the left is the over-the-toilet cabinet. The face and the doors are oak like the entire medicine cabinet, but the sides are veneered particle board and the back is a thin sheet of veneered hardboard, so I can't sand it much without damaging it. Just enough to get a good grip with the primer is all. At least that hardboard will be really easy to cut through when I make a hole to put an electric outlet inside of it.
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I was going to finish sanding those things down outside today, but I think I'll start priming the stuff I've already sanded down instead. I don't have unlimited room to stage all of this and I'm kind of full-up right now as it is. I made sure to get everything sanded yesterday that I had an immediate use for, so it just makes sense to start moving on that. I might be going out tonight too, so no reason to overburden myself before I know.
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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I went back and looked and I saw the pit. Okay, I admit you lost me at wood putty. I know a little bit of other types of construction putties but not a whole lot.
If the drawers and a little extra bit of particle board will cover it, I can't see why anyone would notice the difference.
Actually, I believe I misspoke. I believe that Wood Putty is a substance that never really totally dries because it has oils in it. It's used to fill in holes in nice hardwood floors, and you're meant to use color swatches to match up the color as close as you can to the finish.
I meant to say just wood filler. If you've ever seen somebody hang drywall or patch up existing drywall, it's basically the same concept as the patch, but it's a really light wood color that will take on stain, and it's very hard to sand down if you've let it dry too long before sanding it.
I know it bonds excellently to primer, but because I already put two coats of semi-gloss paint down, I have concerns that if I did it now it might break up down the road and just be a mess. I think it almost certainly would if it got wet down there, which at some point is likely to happen when I or the next owner is doing necessary maintenance. Heck... It could happen to me when I'm installing a new faucet if I wasn't careful.
Oh well. I think the hardboard will be fine. The next owner will probably just think it was smart to put something like that down there like I did in the kitchen and probably wouldn't know that the pit was there for years or even decades.Quote:
You are giving yourself a lot to do and I think maybe over doing it from what your body is telling you. I know you don't want to leave things but sometimes you have to slow down.
Yeah. I know... And of course you're right.
It's just that I've finally gotten right at the end of my big computer project work after a few years of working hard on it and I've been putting all of this stuff off while I worked on that.
And though my health issues should be making me slow down, they're kind of doing the opposite. So many years I've been living here and this house should have been finished a long time ago. I'm not feeling backed into a corner or anything, but circumstances otherwise aren't improving either, and I feel that I need to get this house to the point that it's ready to sell ASAP. Not that I'm going to sell it right away, but there are a few external developments and possibilities in my area that could really give the value of my home a huge boost. I believe they've already begun the planned process of making railroad tracks all the way to Michigan in the east, and tie that into Chicago. If that happens, I'm pretty much prime real estate. Especially if Detroit starts getting re-industrialized like it sounds will be happening soon as well. And if the Bears move to Hammond, forget about it. I'm sitting on a gold mine as long as it's ready for a family to move in.
But the negative side of owning a house worth a lot is the HUGE increase in property taxes. I'm already paying twice as much as I was when I moved in, despite fighting them VERY successfully 3 times now. My ability to make money certainly ain't what it used to be, and if all that happens I want to cash out and get far away from here... this time in a MUCH smaller house with a MUCH smaller plot of land that I'm responsible for. As long as it has a full basement or a nice big garage for my workshop, I'll be happy.Quote:
Old trunks are nice. I know mine has taken a beating and I would love to get it restored but that would be arm and a leg time. The hinges are rusty and stuff. If you can restore the one you have that is great.
Oh yeah? How much do you suppose getting yours restored would cost to do?
This is yet another time where it's kind ofNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Out on a bright but I am sure chilly day. That wind when it hits you is cold. Need small things when I am out.
Then when I get back I've set myself at least one chore to do. Take out some recycling and maybe look at those papers to put away.
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All done for right now. Warm going out then chilly when I was going from the mall to the library then a warm up on my way in.
One thing I wish is that I can remove the #$%^%$#$%^^% air fresheners from the hall way. Those reek to me and I can't stand them.
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I think I'm all caught up with you guys.
SIX, FWIW code says 15" from the center of the toilet to the nearest obstruction. But, boy, that's a skimpy minimum!
Love the work on the vanity, and I think its the perfect size for the bathroom!
Speaking of decluttering ... it seems our daughter is a real packrat. I just had occasion to look into some unused cupboards, et viola! I have to really march her into cleaning up and stay on her behind until it's done, otherwise she veers off into playing on her phone.
Sigh!
Know what you guys mean about tweaking this-n-that. I was cutting down some palm saplings that were turning into small trees, and besides the pocket reciprocating saw having problems with all the fibers, I had to bend under some vegetation into weird awkward positions. My back is OK, but my shoulders and neck hurt like heck. I got one of those heat patches on now. They really help.
Still, I have a vision for the landscape now and I'm excited to make it come true! It'll take a lot of work, and I can only tolerate about 10 hours a week before either a) duty calls elsewhere or b) my shoulders or my knee craps out. But it'll be worth it!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Lazy Sunday and I will get to some sort out around here. Was going to start on those pins but didn't. Planning on it today. Will let you know if I succeed.
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I think I'm all caught up with you guys.
SIX, FWIW code says 15" from the center of the toilet to the nearest obstruction. But, boy, that's a skimpy minimum!
Wow... I didn't even think about code with this one, Sigs. I was just following my intuition on this one...
As soon as I saw you wrote that, I took my tape and measured...
I'll be damned. The side of the existing vanity was exactly 15" from the center of the drain. With all the horror shows I've seen so far when ripping things apart here over the years, I'd assume they just lucked into it, but not when it's actually on spot like it is here. They actually got somebody who knew what they were doing on that one.
I'm guessing that it wasn't a full bathroom remodel when it was put in, and the person who did it was just replacing an old vanity for them or something, and that's why everything above it doesn't match up and isn't centered. (Not only is everything off center, but none of the stuff in there looks like it is part of a set either). They also put that vinyl tile down on the entire floor and put the vanity on top of that... so maybe it was a quick and dirty floor job with a new vanity and that tiny toilet or something.
Anyway... won't feel bad about "dismissing" my dad's idea now, so thanks for that. Part of me was really questioning myself too, whether or not I was making the right decision. Not for me, since it's just fine for my purposes, but for the future family that will be living here.
Of course with me, it's almost always about money, but in this case it's just about eliminating excuses for putting it off anymore. Shopping around and trying to find a good deal on a new vanity... putting somebody else out to give me a ride up there with their truck to go and pick it up and help me move it inside... All of those things are the stuff that make me sit on projects like this for years and never get to them. As nice as it would have been to spend $1000 on a new vanity delivered and just plop it right in there, I'd rather be sanding and priming and painting and just getting stuff done.
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Love the work on the vanity, and I think its the perfect size for the bathroom!
Thank you. And yes... apparently you are correct. The vanity is exactly the perfect size for that bathroom. Not a single 1/16th of an inch wasted or too close to that drain pipe.
I've changed up the color scheme a bit in the bathroom from the rest of the house. I'm hoping that it works out well when it's done. Originally I'd planned on painting the vanity and the cabinets high-gloss white like all of my trim and the kitchen cabinets, but I didn't think that would go well with the existing slightly off-white vanity top and sink.
The window trim and baseboard will all be white like the door with my towel hangers has already been painted, but you can see the dark grey, almost slightly blue color of that vanity in the pics. I haven't made up my mind for sure yet, but I think I'm also going to paint the medicine cabinet and the over the toilet cabinet the same color. I've got a lighter grey to do the wall behind all 3 of those pieces. And I think what I'm going to do is also paint that lighter grey color on the small area of wall I have in the entry way to the bathroom, which is pretty much just about the 20sq feet or so above and in front of the vanity to the door (where the light switch/outlet is), above that door, and then just about 1" in between the door trim and the shower/tub. Then I was thinking of painting the wall with the window the same dark grey that I painted the vanity/medicine cabinet/toilet cab. I really like two-tone rooms, and I think that the wall with the bright window is the perfect wall to make the darker one, and it will kind of have a flow from one side of the bathroom to the other. And in the bathroom it's really 3-tones because the shower is white and th
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Oh right....
I forgot to mention that I took the mirror out of the medicine cabinet before sanding it. You can see that in the picture with the sanded pieces. It looks like a picture frame now. Unfortunately, the mirror itself is actually glued to the backer board that screwed into the frame from the inside of the cabinet. It was stained darkly, and the old shine leaves me to believe there is quite a bit of poly on it too. I'm way too afraid to sand that at all, even by hand. I can't think of a way where I'd be able to apply the force necessary to sand that down without scratching or breaking the mirror, or at least being paranoid the entire time it is what I would end up doing.
So I'm going to leave it like that before I put it back in. I think it will look cool though. Nothing else in the room is going to be stained wood except for the inside of the drawers behind the faces when you pull them out, but it's not something you would ever see except for the few minutes out of the day max that the cabinet would ever be open, and I think the contrast inside could look interesting too. If this were all low-quality stuff I probably would put in the extra time and work to do all of it and even risk breaking that window, but it's all mid-to-high-quality stuff. And the medicine cabinet is by far the highest quality of the bunch with every single piece of it being cut from Oak.
The lowest quality piece I have is the over-the-toilet cab that is oak in front with oak doors, but everything else is veneered particle board and hardboard. That will get the full treatment, and I don't think you'd even notice that it wasn't as high quality as the rest of it. The trained eye would notice that you don't see any wood grain on the sides and inside of the toilet cab like you do anywhere else, but my guess is that 99% of people would never even suspect it wasn't all a matching set after it's done.
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Oh boy... Decided to empty out that curio cabinet mess.
Most of it is good stuff, and I didn't put too much in the toss pile first go-around.
The last time I remember thinking about wall plugs that are designed for a USB cord to plug into them and some other device was back when I never had one when I needed one because I didn't have a cell phone or a lot of other new tech over the years that came with them. I know I took them whenever other people were getting rid of old cables and stuff. I think I can stop now. I counted 14 of them just in that one, big, nearly-overflowing drawer .
How could you ever expect to remember you have some of these things when you need them and why hold onto all of them when you're not using them??? Well... there are reasons...
Examples???
I found what's at least a 3 foot long heavy duty looking USB extension cable with the Amazon store logo on it. I have no recollection of buying this or anybody giving it to me. I have no current use for it now, but I could think of about 100 ways of making great use of it with a project or something. When I have a big TV, I might ditch the AIO on my coffee table altogether and just use that thing from across the room if it doesn't make me cross-eyed doing it. Plugging that thing into the computer and having a hub at the end of it for a keyboard and mouse could be a cheaper option than getting wireless stuff that always needs recharging or new batteries.
I found a really heavy duty optical cable that dwarfs the piddly crap that came with my cheap soundbar and subwoofer combo. I remember at one point I was going to try swapping them and then throwing the cheap little one out. But I also vaguely remember that I already tried that, yet here we are with both cables still (which means I didn't throw something out when I had a reason to). I don't know if the vague recollection of trying it out and failing is a real memory, or something I've filled the blanks in, but now's the time to test it out for real. I've got two sound bars now and this cable would be better than either of theirs and there's no reason it should be taking up a good chunk of space in that drawer.
Wireless internet adapter nubs, blutooth nubs, USB hubs... all of it is useful...
Anything of this age I won't throw out unless it's blatant crap they put in with cheap products. The stuff that you know there isn't a single bit of copper wiring inside is all going to get pitched. But the rest of it can be boxed up and put away for projects after I finish my "outlet layout" and how I want charging stations set up. I have the equipment available to set up a charging station in every room of the house, and a furniture layout that would make it worth doing in most of those rooms. No better time than now to set that all up.
And when I'm doing that I should really go through the several boxes of ancient wires and cables and other junk I have upstairs. I'm sure that I could probably get rid of 5 times as much stuff up there as I'd be putting away. I've got a few hundred feet of speaker wires. Some of it really thick gauge too. But I can't see what I'm going to use that for anymore. I don't even max out the volume on my cheap little soundbar and I gave away my nice speakers years ago. I think that big house party I imagined I was going to have here one day was probably already going to happen quite a while back if it ever was. I know a guy who gets a kick out of recycling metal that I haven't seen in a while. Maybe I'll drop by one day and give him a few boxes of that sweet copper.
Because otherwise it's all going to end up in my garage now and take up shelf space for another 5 years like half the stuff I've currently got up on them now that needs to be sorted through.
Getting things outside the house is only half the battle.
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Yeah... wow. It's just crazy.
My dad brought over a fairly weighty Samsung soundbar a few years back. Looks great. Only two problems with it though... It didn't come with a remote, and there is no plug.
Maybe you could find something online? Yeah... maybe. Or maybe one day I'll look and sort through what I have first.
I go through what had to be 12 different possibilities. No... Make that 20..... More?
These are the sturdy plugs to the wall that go into a fairly long brick and then a pretty thin wire that goes into your laptop. But the Soundbar needs 24V input. Most of the cables I had like that were only 12V. The closest I got was a few that were 19.5V. I had one that was a whopping 32V in there. I've read that it's alright if the plugs specs are over the needs of the device, but I don't think it would be alright by that much. I didn't even try it but I would guess that the size of the hole is too small for it if I did. Last resort I will look into this but I don't hold out any hope for that.
I'm going to take another look out in the garage and see if I left any bags or boxes my dad may have brought over, or I took from a friend or something. I believe I brought it all in, and I've exhausted all of the options I had up in my attic.
I think I'm just going to be leaving that thing out early on a nice warm, dry trash day for somebody else to pick up and add to their own hoard. Even if I had to pay $30 for a replacement plug and another $10 for a remote, it's probably a steal. But am I going to do it? Ever?
I don't know.
Maybe I'll check out the specs and reviews on it tonight since I've already got the model number. If it's actually worth the cost I might consider it. I just wish I had a way to test it first to make sure it even worked before I invested in the plug. I wouldn't have to risk the remote right away since there are buttons on the thing.
Maybe I can use one of those 19.5V just for a minute to see if it works? I'll look into that. I wanted to see if I could buy a cheap one on Amazon and the ones going for around $15 are false advertisement. They claim to be 24V, but the photographs on the listing clearly show the plugs saying they're only 19.5V. And I have no way of knowing if the photo is wrong or if they're straight up scamming. No reviews worthwhile to paint a picture.
So I'm actually assuming that 19.5V has to at least be fire-safe in this situation, or we'd probably be hearing horror stories all the time of people burning their homes down using sub-standard electric plugs on Amazon. I think it would even be safe on the product itself or you'd probably have heard about a lot of people blowing out their expensive soundbars with cheap Amazon alternatives with false labeling. The only drawback would probably be a lower quality sound and/or the volume not going nearly as loud as it could.
I don't think this is going to turn into another whole-home dehoard situation, but this is the kind of thing I mean here.
I've got a collection of probably at least 20 plugs, just of that style and not counting all of the smaller ones that I have... and when I needed one, none of them were compatible with the needs.
If I don't get rid of all of them, I'm at least getting rid of the cheap ones. I saw a lot of overlap in the specs while I was looking today, and there's no reason to keep five of these things I'll probably never end up using for anything. Especially when two of them are Samsung and two of them are from a brand you never heard of and weigh about half as much.
I lost the daylight and I really don't want to be lighting up the whole front of the house for hours just sitting on the floor going through everything all night. I'm going to have to live with that mess tonight. Maybe tomorrow too if I don't get through it all.
Now that a bulk of it is out for sorting, I'm going to dig out the rest
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Hah.... those laptops were groady. I knew one of them were being pitched no matter what because I remember melting part of the edge of it mistaking it for my ashtray back in the drinking days.
The other one probably would have looked alright if I cleaned it up. I have very vague recollections of using that thing back when I was doing that mechatronics course. A heavy, ancient Gateway. I think I got it from my mom or step-dad eons ago.
It would have been cool to see if I could get that thing to do anything reasonable with Linux before I pitched it but neither screen was even working anymore. Sounded like everything was firing up right but you couldn't see it. Hard drives were hardly worth the effort too. 250GB on one and 100GB on the other. I'll just get the magnets out of the smaller one and put the 250GB in an enclosure since it's still bigger than most of my thumb sticks by quite a bit. At least until I get something bigger.
Took the memory out and will look at it in the light tomorrow before pitching it. I can't imagine they're worth anything with how small those drives were.
Looks like the 32V plug would fry my soundbar, and I doubt it would be small enough to fit anyhow. Even the 19V plugs are different sizes, as that's what both laptops ran on and I had to dig out their plugs from that set. I didn't realize they weren't with the laptops when I found them. Sounds like I was probably right that as long as the pin fits the hole you can possibly get a 19V plug to get it to fire up although it will be under powered. Maybe I'll get lucky and one of these will at least let me know that it works before I buy a plug. I did find one for 20 bucks that's still off-brand, but I can see the specs are right on the label and somebody mentioned it getting their Samsung soundbar to work in the reviews, and also mentioning it was hard to find one that was actually the right specs.
Those laptops are heavy. Probably another 30lbs of crap out of my house right there.
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Well, hearing aides are all cleaned for tomorrow and I have made a slow start on redoing over thing for that publisher.
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Out soon. Will put on a jacket as we are only sitting at 13C which is 56F. Hearing test cancelled have to go in and reschedule before they head off to lunch.
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No more cables or wires in the garage. Verified.
While it's light outside today, I need to kind of go through the junk that's piled up in the small bedroom and see if I missed any in there. It should mostly be just bags of clothes I have to go through before I decide what goes to goodwill.
Got a few more boxes upstairs I need to bring down and go through. I'll have to start making some decisions about what gets thrown out too, since I only want 20-30% of that stuff going back upstairs. I'm throwing all those damn plugs out once I know I'm not throwing away a plug for something that still needs it. The only time I ever needed one and none of them fit. If I want to do youtube projects down the road that needs a plug, I can go to goodwill and buy a plug. I don't need to keep goodwill bin crap here.
I may break off to finish priming the pieces I had started the other day. Maybe not. We'll see how the day goes. I don't want to be dancing around crap all over the floor 2 nights in a row, so doing this part of the dehoard is probably going to be my main focus today.
I found a cool little clear plastic bank that is near perfectly cubed. I'm pretty sure I got that when my friend's father in law passed and they gave me his pretty much brand new fridge. I remember thinking I could find good use for it out in my garage since clear things show what's inside of them.
But this thing is nice enough to be inside the house, especially if it's in what is essentially a gigantic junk drawer. It's too big for thumb drives, and I've already got a good solution for those. I think it will be good for the USB plug outlets. I don't feel like taking time to sit there and test all of them, so I'm just going to throw them all in that box and call it a day on those. I just don't need to be taking any more, so if I can see I've got a big clear box of them it should jog my memory. I'll never need one for the rest of my life and it takes up very little space.
What I really need to be doing is saying NO when people try to give me their junk though.
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Found some cool things I've never seen before in the bag of crap my old man had given me that was my youngest brother's. Hes one of the two Apple Guys in the family. Most of them were just curiosities, really. I'm not going to keep at least 1 type of every adapter under the sun. I've gone nearly 50 years without ever seeing these before, and they were old enough to be in a tangled mess inside a white trashbag for a few years in my garage, so I'm sure they're nothing new.
He's got money, so I can tell that overall the quality of the cables in his bag were really good. Fortunately, most of it wasn't Apple stuff. But I found the two best Apple charging cords and I'm going to keep them. I'll be sure to put one of them in the bedroom charging station I'm going to be putting together. I'm almost never without the proper cord should anybody need one, so why throw them all out just because I'll never own anything by Apple? When my brother visits for a while he can just plug his phone in on the night stand instead of digging around his bags for his cord.
There's almost no room on the floor anymore, but I still need to get that stuff down from the attic so I can go through everything at once. I've exhausted any other place I could imagine would be hiding any other unused cables.
I'm getting a little heated though, looking for a small leather pouch that I use to hold USB drives. None of my drives are worth anything since they're mostly hand-me downs and none of them particularly large in size. And I know where my one that I'd call important is. But I put various Operating Systems on some of these things so I can install them to new computers on the fly. One of the things I want to do soon is going to require doing this, and I'd rather not go through the process of burning more drives if I don't need to. I think I'm missing about 6 of them at least with that pouch.
I'm sure it will turn up somewhere. Everything is kind of a mess right now because of the bathroom remodel, and the fact that I didn't really clean the bedroom before my dad's visit and I just kind of moved all the stuff that didn't belong there into the smaller bedroom.
Yeah...
That's no good. I think I need this. It's time. Gotta get rid of the crap again.
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Back and done for today. Hearing aide appointment reset for this Friday. Place was a little busy. First lady needed her hearing aides fixed and a box of batteries, lady in front of me needed a box of batteries. Front desk lady had to call for help for another couple with broken hearing aides. Then there was me who needed to set a new appointment and oh, I got a box of batteries too. Poor woman, she set my appointment and forgot the batteries.
Cleaned off a section of the kitchen table and now it is covered again. Went through my pins finally and save quite a few including one that says, "Beam me up Scotty. There is no intelligent life down here." I've always liked that one.
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Yeah... Heh. We'll make great pets.
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Trying not to lose my mind looking for that leather pouch anymore and went back to figuring out what I'm keeping and getting rid of. Seriously wasted maybe 2 hours today just looking around all over the place for that thing, getting to the point where I'm looking in stupid places that I know it couldn't possibly be unless I was sleepwalking.
Wasting that daylight. Gotta get back on track.
Got about half a bag of trash now. Thats just wires and stuff. I'm going to have to call the city about throwing some of this stuff out. I'm saving only 3 of the plugs and have the rest of them ready to toss. I'm going to leave them there for now though until I have an opportunity to get all this mess cleaned up and go through a few more boxes to see if anything is missing its plug. Aside from a few old game systems I know I would have kept the plugs with, I don't think I've kept anything else that would require one. I didn't keep any home phones that I wasn't using. On the off chance I even saved any of my old cell phones they probably wouldn't ever have a chance of working today even if I wanted to get a plan again. I've checked all of my various backup monitors and small TV screens and they all have their plugs. That should probably only require me to look at the outside of the boxes to see what's in them to make that decision.
I found a nice plug adapter I still had unopened with 2 usb slots on it as well as an outlet. It will fit in the wall outlet with the plug for the home phone in the big bedroom, but super tightly, so I don't want to leave it there all the time. I used that with 3 different Amazon branded cords for phone/device charging, and used these cool little velcro cable ties I got for free years ago to wrap them up in several places together nicely. Once I had it set up, I just pulled it from the wall and it's sitting inside the cabinet of the bedside table, ready to pull out and use whenever anybody is staying over. It's got USB-C, Micro-A and whatever Apple calls theirs.
Gotta look at my two existing charging stations and see what I can upgrade and add. I don't think I'll be making any more of them for now, so just make sure I have the best cables out, and that I don't have super long ones anywhere they're not needed if I have better sizes for the task.
Looks like most of the newest stuff I have is USB-C now, so I'll have more of those out than anything. I think I should probably have a USB Micro-A on each station too. I don't think I need any of the other ones. I'm looking forward to a time where the industry decides on a standard with these and we don't keep getting new versions. Just pick the best one and stick with it already, right?
I'm hoping that USB pouch shows up soon though. I just have to get it out of my mind for now so I don't spend all day with my wheels spinning again like I was earlier.
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Dummy....
I knew I'd run into it if I just kept cleaning things up.
I brought it with me to my friends a few months ago, back before I got sick, when I was trying to help him out with his digital hoard, but he really wasn't ready for any of that. It was in with the universal kit for hooking up old hard drives and getting the data off them before destruction.
I also found a missing empty external case I could have sworn I had in there too.
Glad I found this before I bought stuff yesterday. I'm going to buy two external cases for my friend. I'm going to give him one of the small laptop harddrives I'm keeping so he's got the ability to move things around when I show him. I'm going to use the 2nd one to show him how much more valuable the hard drive in his own ancient laptop is when it's not in the laptop anymore, and the laptop ends up in the trash.
I'm going to try installing the Lite version of Linux Mint on there first just to see if it's even usable that way anymore, but I kind of doubt it. Somebody installed Win10 on there and they never should have. I was trying to rip stuff off of it the other day for him, but it took the computer 5 minutes to even recognize a USB had been plugged in. When I tried restarting it, it wanted to update Windows and then it just sat in that state, telling you not to turn off the computer, for another 3 hours before I left for the night.
At least I can get all the data ripped off of it with the external first, then give it a shot. Worst case scenario he's got a 2nd external drive for moving things around and getting rid of his crap. Best case, he might have an extra laptop that could read emails or watch low quality youtube videos... For me, something like that would only be valuable if all of my other devices failed and I needed to trouble shoot with it. I'm sure I can talk him into making something cooler out of it if it's still got life left in it. But I've never seen a newer laptop over there, so I might have to talk him into finally upgrading if he even needs a laptop, or just going without one.
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Hey, Brenda.
There was a reason I didn't do that curio cabinet a few weeks back and saved that for last. At least until my dad had visited for sure...
I thought something like this might happen, but not on this level.
Just gotta keep telling myself it will be worth it when it's done. Yeah... I had a lot of visible stuff all looking nice and clean and straightened out, but that's only because I have a lot of rooms and places to throw things and forget about them.
It's mostly better stuff than I was getting rid of last time though, and since I have a lot of things almost set up the way I'd like them now, I can take this time to get things working for me to the max before throwing out extra stuff I don't need anymore.
I remember now why we usually put things like this off.
It'll be worth it... it'll be worth it...
Maybe an extra day or two to get through it than I thought, but it will be worth it...
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Oh... and I found the actual plug to that soundbar. It looks like it came in two separate times, and was probably in the bag with a lot of wires from my brother. I don't know how I didn't see it until a few hours ago.
All that ado about nothing, really. The unit is obviously much higher quality than anything I've got and works well, but without the remote I can't do anything besides turn it on/of or change the volume. There's literally no bass coming out of it, and I don't know if that's because it was relying entirely on the missing subwoofer for the bass or if there is a way to turn the bass up with the remote, but I'm not going to pay $15 for a new remote just to find out.
I stole the optical cable from it and put it on my sound bar. When I heard how much better mine sounded with the bass after switching it back I knew I had to get rid of it. Shame. Bet that subwoofer was fine but somebody didn't know what it was and just threw it in the trash at some point.
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I forgot my old man was charging things in the kitchen with the outlet for the air fryer when he was here, so I went ahead and made a charging station over there too. 3 on the first floor and one in the master bedroom should do. If I ever do anything with the small bedroom I can worry about that then, but it was just empty before I filled it with non-furniture things. I made sure all the chargers I'm using worked. I actually don't have a lot of them left now that I've set so many of them up this way. I wouldn't have done any of it if I didn't have those velcro straps.
I was worried that little bank was not up to the task of holding the plugs, but then I ended up using about 6 or 7 of them making these charging stations and it's all good.
I've got a bunch of stuff moving around on computers in the background at the same time, so it's not bad bouncing around like this. I tend to knock myself off focus on what I was doing with one thing when I go to the other though, so it's probably not as efficient as it could be.
From what I'm looking at, I think I've probably either used or thrown out about half of the stuff so far. I need to do a lot better than 50% though.
I'm going to have to get some higher quality "decorative" boxes than the stuff I got at the dollar store a few years back for stuff up on the curio cabinet. Although they probably wouldn't be all jacked up right now if I weren't overloading them all with crap.
I'm going to have to also figure out a "dumping ground" for anything new coming into the house. Not in the living room. I'll make one place for it there, and then it will end up invading other spaces if I do. This is all taking a lot of effort and planning and I just don't want to ever have to do it again. It's crazy how disorganized things can become when you just let it happen for a year or three.
I may use it all the time, but it's the first room people see when they come in the house... or the second. New stuff doesn't need to be mixed up with the useful stuff that's all set up in the living room and other finished rooms. If it goes in the small bedroom and I don't do anything with it for a year, it goes in the trash. That sounds like a plan to me... at least after I clear it out this time.
I should be painting. I shouldn't still have 200 things on my living room floor.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah... Heh. We'll make great pets.
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Yeah, it's just a cute riff on everyone's line from Star Trek. "Beam me up Scotty."
The other one I saved that I find funny is, "No matter how subtle a wizard might be. A knife between the shoulders will definitely cramp his style."
Yes, in regard to that one it is twisted but I like it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Hey, Brenda.
There was a reason I didn't do that curio cabinet a few weeks back and saved that for last. At least until my dad had visited for sure...
I thought something like this might happen, but not on this level.
Just gotta keep telling myself it will be worth it when it's done. Yeah... I had a lot of visible stuff all looking nice and clean and straightened out, but that's only because I have a lot of rooms and places to throw things and forget about them.
It's mostly better stuff than I was getting rid of last time though, and since I have a lot of things almost set up the way I'd like them now, I can take this time to get things working for me to the max before throwing out extra stuff I don't need anymore.
I remember now why we usually put things like this off.
It'll be worth it... it'll be worth it...
Maybe an extra day or two to get through it than I thought, but it will be worth it...
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I'm sure it will be worth it. But I think we all do that.
The pins I put into a container is now sitting on a shelf of a bookcase. I will find it another home. One of these other days.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah... Heh. We'll make great pets.
--------------------------------------------------
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Yeah, it's just a cute riff on everyone's line from Star Trek. "Beam me up Scotty."
Hehe... yeah. I knew it. Just agreein', was all.
Quote:
The other one I saved that I find funny is, "No matter how subtle a wizard might be. A knife between the shoulders will definitely cramp his style."
Yes, in regard to that one it is twisted but I like it.
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Quote:
.... (he's lucky there's an ally for businesses behind him, and also that his father had planted arborvitaes in front of that entire fence, so the braces can all easily be camouflaged with some paint. But we were dancing around those trees and all the ivy on the bed too. I didn't see any poison Ivy while I was out there, but I know he got hit with it doing work back there once, so I made sure to wash everything that was exposed several times during the day.
Well, I didn't step in poison ivy but I did step in a pile of dog poop. Fortunately she's a small dog!
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Finally getting most of the stuff up off the floor...
I've got 6 Kindles and 7 Fire TV sticks, and only 2 of them I ever paid for. I know my dad brought most of that over to me at some point. One of those kindles has basically his entire history of sci-fi downloads, so I have to make sure I put that one aside safely.
I think I'm going to keep that one and whatever the newest/best one is.
Then I'm going to give one to my aunt and one to my buddy. I'll load up a few books I know that they would like first. I'm sure a few of those are ancient. Maybe I'll drop them off at Goodwill, but I'll probably just trash the oldest two. If I've got any extra Fire Sticks that aren't ancient after I keep 3 of them for myself, I'll give them one each too.
All of the remaining cables will fit in a small box going into the attic. I have some of the most used ones still on hand in the curio cabinet like HDMI cords, an extra 6ft network cable and a 6ft USB extender, but I made good use of sturdy boxes and I've got dividers in there now to keep everything organized. Nothing is on top of anything else, and I actually have some free space for other things.
Two full trash bags are going out. I'm also getting rid of the sound bar, a small computer monitor that doesn't have a plug, those two laptops with broken screens, and a ton of old markers and highlighters and other junk that have been down in the cabinet so long most of them don't even work anymore.
I already tested any good sharpies and other black, blue and red markers and have a solid handful of those since they're useful. I've got about 100 pens down there that are all really good quality ones that my folks had at their business. I'm going to pare that down quite a bit and make sure I've got about 20 good ones and toss the rest.
I've got a box of speaker wire going out to the garage, and I'm going to dig out that home theater system and the Denon reciever. I found them upstairs, I just haven't brought them down yet. That will be a project for me on a rainy day when I don't have anything to paint inside. Just want to do most of that before it gets super hot outside, otherwise you bake in that garage when you're up on a ladder.
I've got a few other things planned to slowly get the crap out of the attic down the road, but I need to finish cleaning up all of this. I forgot to take the trash out last week, so I'm already full up and this stuff will have to be staged in the garage until I've got room to throw it all out. Nothing new has gone up there since I packed it all away, but I'm realizing now that I can probably get rid of a lot more of it. I may be able to make use of more of it now too, but I won't know as long as it's buried up there and out of mind.
I should probably start going through all those bags of clothes this week too. Go through all my clothes in my dressers and the closet too while I'm at it. I probably only wear about 20% of the clothes I own. I think it's time to start letting go of most of that. There's no reason why putting clothes away should be a chore I just avoid because there's never any room to fit everything and I'm cramming stuff in places where it shouldn't be crammed.
I've got 60 hangers in that closet and never a free one. I've got a tall dresser that is 80% full of really nice towels that rarely ever get into the rotation, and then another small dresser that has a bunch of crappy towels I don't mind getting beat up. I don't see any reason why I need to have about 40 towels in this house.
At least with the clothes, choices should be quick and easy and I won't have everything scattered about the living room and making me trip all over the place. Once I'm doing that part of the dehoard it should be no problem doing that in between coats of paint and monitoring my network re-org all at once.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah... Heh. We'll make great pets.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
Yeah, it's just a cute riff on everyone's line from Star Trek. "Beam me up Scotty."
Hehe... yeah. I knew it. Just agreein', was all.Quote:
The other one I saved that I find funny is, "No matter how subtle a wizard might be. A knife between the shoulders will definitely cramp his style."
Yes, in regard to that one it is twisted but I like it.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
Yeah, as I say to a lot of people, "I knew that."
And like I said the second one is twisted but malicious. :evil grin:
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Out in a bit on a confused weather day. Sun is out but around clouds. Will take umbrella in case and wear my jacket. Stupid weather.
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Still going as full-on as I can manage.
SIX, your decluttering is a thing of awesomeness!
I hope to follow your example.
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Hehe...
It doesn't feel awesome while I'm doing it. To pack up all the trash and get it outside would have only taken me 20 minutes, but the whole round took two very long days.
It's really nice having all that crap up off the floor and most of it outside staged for trash pickup now.
Maybe I'll get a little painting done today. I dunno though. Been running around here like a chicken with its head cut off for a few days and it's dark and gloomy outside.
I might just mess around on the computer today. Initial backup tests were a failure. After spending a few days moving things and trying to set up a 2nd computer with everything backed up brick-by-brick isn't going to work because of 2 external forces I wasn't aware of until I tried doing it that way.
I've managed to clear off a 500GB hard drive for a cloning procedure which is about 90% done with the 2nd verification step.
Assuming that works as planned, I need to then make some adjustments that I was afraid of messing with when I only had one working system. Once that's done, I'm going to be creating a disk image to clone other drives with, and I should get the result I'm looking for. I'm also in the process of cleaning a 2nd 500GB hard drive for a 3rd test when all of that is done.
ETA: The good news is that even done the wrong way, a majority of my stuff works. I'm also able to make great use of a computer my dad gave me to throw away a few years ago. I'd never seen such a bargain-bin DELL computer before. I knew it was a low-end mini-tower and I wasn't expecting much inside, but I was shocked when I saw the laptop-style plug to it with just a little nobby that goes into the back. This thing is so low power it doesn't even need a power supply.
That thing turned out to be a great way to test this stuff out. It was damn near worthless if you were trying to run Windows on it even back in 2024 or whenever I got it, but it flies with Linux installed. It's still too low-powered to really do much with my stuff, but it will give me valuable data for testing and should aid in the cloning process until I have the final image.
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Heh....
This is where the limitations of my outdated tech really begin to show themselves.
There are more than a few.
I forgot I had a lot of things pointing to my stupid-huge hard drive when it got to be too much data for these little 500GB drives I've been working with, so I kind of spooked myself with the initial results after the clone until I remembered that.
If I had a few spare 1TB drives and everything here was USB3.0, I'd be getting all of this done so much quicker. Now I get to see over the network what went wrong this time. At least network navigation shouldn't be slower than usual while I'm doing it.
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All outside stuff done for today and I really didn't need my jacket and I sure didn't need my umbrella.
Got some papers put away that weren't order. Straightened them out but still more to deal with.
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Man... Symlinks are tricky. (Linux's "System Links", the otherwise vastly superior alternative to Windows shortcuts).
I actually had quite a few more in there by the time I was finished than I thought I'd added. They have become a problem during the clone process, but I just finally figured out not nearly as big of an issue as I feared until only about 5 minutes ago.
The thing is, they're COMPLETELY invisible to end users in Windows. Even when using WinSCP or another FTP program. It's as if they simply don't exist at all.
So what's the problem?
Well... I need those folder locations. A ton of data is built around specific media and data being in very specific folders. So when I try to copy over either legit files, or 0kb dummy files with the full name and extention as placeholders for the huge files on small drives, I don't like seeing Windows give some generic error about the files that I'm trying to copy no longer existing on the drive that I'm trying to copy them from.
Now that I know what's actually going on, I don't believe that is what it was saying, but you can tell that I'm way far enough down the rabbit hole that the people at Windows didn't bother putting the Dummy Gloss over the weeds that nobody but me is likely to get themselves tangled up in.
I finally broke down and had a look at it from the Linux side and yep... There they are. In every place where I'm missing data, it's because I was using Symlinks to the stupid-huge drive for big stuff.
And even though Symlinks are completely invisible in Windows, they're still very much there. Broken Symlinks that point to a huge hard drive that doesn't even exist on this new computer, sharing the exact same name as the folders I need to make.
So I just have to find all of them now and delete them before putting the actual bits I need there for the "Torso".
As frustrating as all this is, I'm really glad I'm doing all of it.
Because of my old tech, my cheap data plan and no ability to maintain a server on my end, things are going to have to go out peacemeal. I already knew that and I've planned ahead for it. The idea is to have everything modular and extremely easy to fit together on the other end.
Like Voltron.
But when all you've left yourself is male ends on everything, nothing joins up.
Oopsie.
At least I figured it out. After the first method of trying to do this failed, I kind of put all my eggs in this cloning basket because I don't have a 3rd idea.
Everything else appears to be fine so far, if not a little slow on this ancient piece of tech (from 2014, I just discovered). Hopefully I'll get to the point where I'm making the final clone image before crashing out.
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Yuck....
Just finished getting some 20 year old soda sugar off my fingers and then I get a good dose of battery acid on them.
I found 4 wireless game joystics in my attic I only vaguely remember buying back when I was at my last good job. Probably stopped using them only because they take AA batteries and aren't rechargable. I was amazed after all these years how well the first one I tried worked, and how easily the system recognized it. I didn't have to dig online for drivers or anything, which was pretty surprising to me considering it's wireless.
Then I tried the 2nd one and the buttons felt like they were glued together with honey. I managed to take it apart and clean it up and put it all back together without breaking anything and now I've got two that work like new without any failed buttons. Sticky all over on the inside. I don't think the fact that the area around the 4 buttons was concave and was basically just a bowl to hold liquid spilled on it until it had time to get inside the controller helped here.
I was drinking pretty heavy back then so I don't want to blame it on my brother, but that doesn't seem like something I would have done.
Leaving batteries in them is though. I opened up the 3rd controller and the Rayovacs insdie exploded all over the place to the point that it was just falling out and onto the floor. Lucky for me, the Duracells I had in the one in the first pair that didn't need cleaning were still intact. You get what you pay for.
I have to test out the other of the two seemingly identical USB recievers and see if it works with this pair. The two sets of controllers are very different, but both of the recievers appear to be exactly the same. I thought maybe they both worked on all 4 controllers, but maybe I just won the initial coin toss and I was using the right reciever for the right pair the first time around.
If I can't get the one that doesn't have battery acid all over it to work, I'm just going to throw both of them out and that will be an easy decision. But if it works, I'm probably going to spend some time tomorrow in the daylight trying to revive the other one.
These things are actually really high quality besides the fact you need batteries for them. I wasn't such a cheapskate back then, so that makes sense. If I can get all these working I'll have 2 backups, but in the meantime it's 2 less cords to trip over in the living room. I've got a nice set of rechargable duracells with 8 AA batteries too, so if I actually wanted to use these things it shouldn't be a big deal.
Nice.
Maybe I'll go through those Kindles tonight too and see which ones I'm going to keep and which I'm going to give away. I don't think I feel like messing with the Fire Sticks right now though. I have a feeling that just testing those out is going to be a PITA.
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Cool. I won't feel guilty about not cleaning out all that battery acid.
I vaguely remembered having wireless Playstation 2 controllers around that point, and these are those (they??? them???)...
That being said, I don't even know where my old PS2 is packed up right now and the receiver dongles might be packed in with that since I double checked and they were not with these controllers. That means that even though these controllers are capable of working on any PC, you can't actually connect them to a PC without an adapter that may or may not exist or some heavy physical modifications I'm not going to be doing.
And I haven't played the PS2 in so long I don't even remember having it unpacked since I've lived here, so it's not like I'm in desperate need of a controller for it where I'd spend hours trying to clean the acid off of it without even being able to test that I fixed it. No thanks. Just more trash is all...
Oh, and I found a DVD player in that crappy old computer that I could remove without leaving a gaping hole in the face plate since the computer had a door for it that stays closed unless the drive pushes it open, so now that thing is super lightweight.
Technically not really junk out of my house though since I plan on giving this thing away anyhow. It will never have need of that drive again, so I just removed it and tossed it out.
Maybe I'll try to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. I don't know. I've got a few more hours of actual hand-on work prepping that drive for what will hopefully be my final image, but after that it's just waiting around and I'm running out of other things I'd want to be doing when it's dark outside. I think all I really have is sorting through those kindles and fire sticks on the side at the moment, unless I want to go down in the cold basement and do some more painting.
I dunno... See where the night takes me I guess.
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Quote:Is that all???
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Hehe...
It doesn't feel awesome while I'm doing it. To pack up all the trash and get it outside would have only taken me 20 minutes, but the whole round took two very long days.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
All outside stuff done for today and I really didn't need my jacket and I sure didn't need my umbrella.
Got some papers put away that weren't order. Straightened them out but still more to deal with.
Oh. Paperwork. I hate it. (And yet, curiously, that's what my last job was. I have much rather been wrenching on an instrument.)
I'm planning on doing that when the weather gets too hot for yardwork.
Or, whenever.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Not a Linux whiz like hubby. My workplace was a Microsoftshop, so a lot of what you posted went by me. But I felt your pain about broken linkies!
My group had a portion of a server, and that's where we stored our data and did our calculations and checked each other's work (we also kept final signed hard copies for the legal beagles). Some of our final reports required input from six or seven different chemists/ instruments, and we had to be able to backtrack from final report all the way thru each analysis to original sample and calibration data. We NEVER EVER used links, bc they were so easily broken! It took a very disciplined system of directories, subdirectories, and filenames to unambiguously and uniquely name each file in a backtrackable fashion. I think it would have been easier in Linux.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
All outside stuff done for today and I really didn't need my jacket and I sure didn't need my umbrella.
Got some papers put away that weren't order. Straightened them out but still more to deal with.
Oh. Paperwork. I hate it. (And yet, curiously, that's what my last job was. I have much rather been wrenching on an instrument.)
I'm planning on doing that when the weather gets too hot for yardwork.
Or, whenever.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Yeah, stuff that got mashed together and I have just now been able to straighten out. Which is good.
May get to more tomorrow. Shall see what I feel like doing.
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Had a bit of thunder and lighting storm around me at supper. No rain but I did see between 3 or 4 flashes of lighting but not much thunder.
Really have to replace the batteries in my bedside radio. Was going to last night and forgot.
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The weather was PERFECT for yardwork!
So after I got done with family tasks, I headed out with my reciprocating saw, loppers, and pruners.
I know I really should have finished cutting down the rest of the palms, but I wanted to do a little bit more rosebush cleanup, and I just couldn't stop.
I'm sure you know how that goes, SIX!
Well. I ALMOST got thru clipping and yanking a lot of dead crap out, but then I had to take dog for her walk. Just a little more to go! And then I have to decide: do I rake, chop and bin up? Or continue with the palms?
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Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Is that all???
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Hehe...
It doesn't feel awesome while I'm doing it. To pack up all the trash and get it outside would have only taken me 20 minutes, but the whole round took two very long days.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Oh... we could stretch it through the whole summer if we wanted to, I'm sure. Especially if we get the garage back in the mix.
I'm trying to behave myself though. I already avoided working on the house for about 2 years with one project. Don't need to totally derail it with another one now.
There was just a lot of things that I was finally able to get rid of that made this worthwhile. I haven't built a PC in over 10 years, and chances are a lot of the stuff I had which was already aging back then wouldn't even be used in building a PC today if I did, so why am I holding on to all of it?
Just keep one or two decent cables of each type and a huge box becomes an afterthought.
And it's nice finally getting down to business with all of this tech that I've accepted when other people were getting rid of stuff. Your best intentions are nothing but a big mess until you do something with them.
SPeaking of which... I have a very big stash of what is now ancient tech but wasn't when I first moved here that I intended on making things to gift to other people. I probably could have gotten away with that 7 years ago when I dehoarded and kept them, but they stayed up there another 7 years and meanwhile tech has really moved on and it would be much easier to make similar things that just worked better, took up less shelf space, and used a lot less power, without spending all that much money.
That's probably another 5 or 6 huge boxes I can get rid of once I go through it all. I'm going to keep a couple of those for myself when I figure out what still even works and what doesn't, and get rid of all the rest of it.
I think between that, what I've already done, and getting the 3 or so boxes of speakers out the the garage with the Denon reciever for my jams, I will have already gotten rid of or made use of half of the things I was still holding onto up here.
The only reason I don't feel guilty about doing this dehoarding while I'm working on the computer right now is because of how unseasonably cold it still is around here. But I've got more pressing issues to work on than this. I can go through a bag of clothes every day or two while working on other stuff, but I can't keep making every day a dehoard focus.
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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Not a Linux whiz like hubby. My workplace was a Microsoftshop, so a lot of what you posted went by me. But I felt your pain about broken linkies!
I'm sure you've run into a broken shortcut for one reason or another before. It's either annoying because your program is borked or because when you removed a program it didn't clean up after itself.
We tend to take for granted how great shortcuts are, but in Linux those Symbolic Links are just Next Level.
Let's say I have a folder on a large remote drive that has over 1 Terrabyte of data that is too huge to be on the main system drive but you want to use it as if it were all on a single drive. All you have to do is create a Symbolic Link where you want the folder to be found and point it to where the folder actually is. Once you've done this, for all intents and purposes it behaves exactly as if that 1TB folder and all of its sub-folders are right there on the Main Drive. This holds true even if you're using an FTP program to get into it from a computer running Windows. As far as Windows and the FTP program are concerned, that is all one big drive and that 1TB folder is just a part of it.
But then you clone a drive which is located on a different computer without that massive hard drive where all the Symbolic Links were pointing and you've got a problem. If you FTP into it from the Windows computer, none of it is there anymore at all. And you don't see the Symlink either. But if you try to create a new folder with the name of the folder that the Symlink is pointing to, Windows throws some weird errors (either about the file already being there, or the file no longer existing from the place you're trying to copy from). You can't delete the Symlink from Windows/FTP because Windows doesn't even acknowledge that it exists.
When I saw the pattern where it was happening, it dawned on me what the problem was and sure enough in every spot where this problem was happening it's because I had a symbolic link pointing to that big drive.
I'm actually really glad that this annoying thing happened. I didn't exactly plan on getting a crash course from myself about how to set up my thing from scratch. I didn't exactly assume it was going to just work without any problems either. Just doing things the way I was doing them to get it ready to work on other machines necessitated it and here we are. And if I hadn't started the dehoarding both online and off, I wouldn't have remembered I had this ancient computer to kick all the code around with as if I were somebody else setting it all up with what they were given. I wouldn't have finally rotated drives around to the point where I've got two 500GB and two 256GB external drives I didn't have a few weeks ago around to help me move all sorts of stuff around physically when I'm already maxing out the wifi. (I literally just finished pulling out an additional 500GB SSD that I was wasting away inside of a computer backing up something that doesn't even need to be backed up that can now be a high speed external boot operating system or whatever I want to make with it after I'm done with the digital dehoarding).
Now what I have to do with the project is fix all of the bad Symlinks and make sure that all the modular parts will fit together when they're acquired on the other end. People can either make up their mind to use one very large drive, or they can create their own symbolic links if they don't. That's out of my hands. But I want everything to be plug 'n play before people start forking off and doing their own thing.
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My group had a portion of a server, and that's where we stored our data and did our calculations and checked each other's work (we also kept final signed hard copies for the legal beagles). Some of our final reports required input from six or seven different chemists/ instruments, and we had to be ableNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
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Originally posted by Brenda:
Had a bit of thunder and lighting storm around me at supper. No rain but I did see between 3 or 4 flashes of lighting but not much thunder.
Really have to replace the batteries in my bedside radio. Was going to last night and forgot.
Are the batteries in there to make sure the alarm still works in a power outage, or do you listen to the radio while using batteries, Brenda?
That sounds quite expensive.
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I always underestimate how long things are going to take. Just finally got to backing up that (hopefully) final image now.
I've got some other images I will be making later, but those are just for me and my preferences, now that I'll finally be able to use it at my leisure and break off from the neutral state.
Didn't even look at those Kindles yet... Probably not a bad idea to have two days go by after charging to see if any of them lost the charge real quick anyhow.
I think I've got to get back to doing at least a little painting tomorrow. Except for disposal, the curio cabinet and the part of the dehoard I was doing is all cleaned up and finished. I'm pretty sure anything I'll be doing on the computer in the next few days now will mostly be setting things to run that don't need babysitting, and just being aware of the passage of time so I don't lose hours that could have been spent moving things along.
I'm sure I can at least prime the back side of all the pieces I did the other day. Maybe paint that cabinet trim to match the vanity and get it ready for measurements and cuts. That's got to be the first thing done so I can put a final coat of paint on the inside and get the drawer slides back up and ready for when the drawers are finished. I probably won't put a final coat on the outside of the vanity until I'm done painting the ceiling and the walls.
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I got one process running on one rig that will probably take 12 hours and another on a 2nd rig that will be busy for days. It's unfortunate that I can't start 2 others that I still have the resources available for, but both of those things can't be done until the first one is done, and that first one has a 2nd part that will take at least a few more hours once the 12 hour part is done. I think I know a way to move some things around where I can at least get started on the first of the two other processes when part 1 is done.
Most things I do don't require any hardware all that powerful, but it's times like these where I really feel how old my tech is. Not that any of this would be lightning fast if I had top shelf new stuff, but instead of talking hours and days we'd only be talking minutes and hours. Oh well... Everything's Eventual. What's a few days when I've already spent all this time on it?
Yup...
Going to have to find something else to do with all that downtime. I don't imagine I'll have to look very far.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Had a bit of thunder and lighting storm around me at supper. No rain but I did see between 3 or 4 flashes of lighting but not much thunder.
Really have to replace the batteries in my bedside radio. Was going to last night and forgot.
Are the batteries in there to make sure the alarm still works in a power outage, or do you listen to the radio while using batteries, Brenda?
That sounds quite expensive.
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Batteries are in but I just use the radio to listen to music. I have no alarm clocks around me anymore. I usually wake up early and look at the clock to see if I can catch a little more sleep. Also I have to other clocks that are battery powered in case of an outage. Also this building has a generator that kicks in case of outages.
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Out in a bit bottle recycling to do. Need umbrella for sure looking at the sky and jacket.
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Damn man... Let that process run overnight, saw it was finished when I woke up, and now I can't do anything with it. It's just a 512GB block of unusable crap. It was from a bootable drive, but the programs I'm looking to write it back to a new disk warn me there is no boot sector in the image.
Part of me thinks the file is actually good, but Windows is getting all screwed up since there are Linux partitions on it too. I think it might be possible to convert this image to a another format and I might have more luck, but the amount of time it would take to learn how to do that and then test it only to see it fail isn't worth trying. I've got to just try a different ripping program. I don't even want to take the time to try and write this image to another disk since I can't find anybody online telling me what's going on in my particular situation.
I vaguely remember having this issue a long while back, but I was only messing with 32GB thumb sticks at the time. If something failed, I knew about in 30 minutes, not 12 hours. It's kind of hard to do my preferred method of trial and error with that much downtime between attempts.
I had no problem creating a complete clone of a hard drive the other night. That worked perfectly. If I had just one more 500GB drive I could be working on other things while I was doing this, but I can't do anything until this image is made and tested out.
Says it's going to be about another 12 hours now, so I guess I should find something else to do.
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Back and done. Got spat on a little bit and the sun is out now.
I hate blip seizures. Those are the ones when I am only gone for a second or so but it is enough time to screw things up in a post. Happened this morning on Face Book.
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Man... I'm glad I decided to do something else or I would have really been burned now. After my 12 hour failure of a backup attempt last night, Windows decided it wanted in on the action. I hate, hate, hate, hate, modern Windows. I barely ever use Windows on that computer but I've been using it for these backups, so yesterday it told me it had a 6 minute update that took about an hour long and FIVE FREAKIN' RESTARTS. So you think it would be done updating, but over 3 hours into this backup process I decided to check on it and I walked right in to the boot screen with Windows starting up again.
No explanation. No nothing. So I have no idea what actually happened. I can only assume that it was another forced Windows update that pays absolutely ZERO attention to what you were doing on your computer.
At least this time it appears to be backing it up faster. I couldn't understand why it was taking 12 hours to back it up the first two times when that's probably how long it took to clone the first drive and verify the clone before I started making images.
Now the total time is around 5.5 hours remaining on this attempt. If I can at least verify it's a good image and does what I want to after I write it, I can finally move on. Unless I'm up all night again tonight, I won't know the answer to that until tomorrow probably.
I cut all the trim for the vanity to size and dry fit it. It was all primed already so I threw a coat of dark gray on it. I'm going to paint the first coat on the above-toilet cabinet right now, then I'll probably clean up that paint and get back to priming the back sides of everything I did the other day that wasn't cabinet trim. I'll probably have the first coat of paint on half of the stuff before I'm done today.
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Two coats of paint on all the cabinet trim so that's ready to install so I can put the final coat inside the vanity and get those drawer slides back on. I went ahead and painted the toilet cabinet too, since I already had that color paint out.
Before going back to primer the backs of all of those pieces, I thought to also cut the piece of trim going back up under the windowsill to size so I'm not wasting time and paint on stuff that's getting cut off and trashed. I also wanted to be able to prime both sides right now and I couldn't do that if it wasn't cut first.
I would have probably been close to done priming everything else, but remembered I had a few scrips to pick up and I could use a little more variety in my food so I just got back from some errands.
Still not even 60% on that backup image, but at least Windows hasn't reset on me in the middle of it this time so far. It's already well over 200GB now, so yeah... that old image was cancelled by Windows after only 113GB and was just bad. I know I can make a good backup image with Aeomi, but that's paid software and I don't want anybody to have to buy or pirate it just to get this working, so I'm limited to free tools. From what I've read, this Win 32 program should be what I'm looking for. Still won't know for probably at least a few hours though.
I don't have any more big pieces ready for primer or paint yet since I still have another half day or more of sanding outside ahead of me, so all I'll be doing with the primer this time is hitting the backs of the drawer faces and doors. If I remember I'll hit the windowsill with another coat since I appear to have a little bit of bleed-through action going on there when there wasn't anywhere else. To be fair, I probably could have done a better job sanding that down before primer, but I was really trying not to make too big of a mess on the 2nd floor with the dust.
And my old man surprised me and called me on day 3 of his trip, so we got to talk a while about what he's done so far and what he's going to be doing. That was nice.
Well... back to work. These pieces won't paint themselves.
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Noooooooooooooooooo...
I was making a backup of the wrong 500GB drive all this time. Just caught it now at 83% complete. Ugh.... That's what happens when you spin a bunch of plates at once.
Oh well... better than WRITING to the wrong 500GB drive.
Crap. Now it's showing 8.5 hours. Probably because there's a ton of data and it's not cloning a blank drive. I have no idea why it was taking over 5 hours to clone an empty drive, but that's what it was doing. This is why it was so frustrating when I realized that the data I had was just 30GB or so too much to fit on a 256GB hard drive. Unless I used premium software to create an image which would require anybody using it on the other end to also have that expensive, premium software, it's going to clone the entire drive including blank space and just treat it as if it weren't. I can put that in a 7zip archive and shrink it down considerably on my end for storage when I know it's a good image, but that doesn't help me shave down the time it takes to make these images.
Nice surprise to come back up to after finishing primer when I thought I only had 45 minutes left to wait.
At least I'm kind of feeling the paint again now. I wasn't feeling it the last couple of days while I was de-hoarding, and I wasn't feeling it when I woke up today either. But now that the primer is finished, I'm thinking I may be painting the first sides of all of the stuff down there, and I'll probably put the 2nd coat on the toilet cabinet while I've already got a brush to clean up. I've got a few days to make up for.
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Doctor's appointment for me tomorrow and probably mah jong after. Then a couple of other things after.
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Good luck with both, Brenda.
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Installed the trim for inside the vanity. I love it that the junk tube of caulk my friend got rid of is still working for me now. I got all that trim around the stairs a few months ago with it and now these 5 pieces too. Will have enough to get the outside stuff up when I'm ready for it. I'm going to wait on putting that stuff up though until I give the walls at least one coat of paint and get in the corner there real good. No reason to put trim up on the cab to the wall if I still have to paint there. That's just making a few new extra hard to reach corners that I don't have to deal with now.
So I got that opening in the wall framed out nicely so you don't see rough cut drywall anymore, and I put one piece on the bottom at the back where the shelf didn't reach all the way to the wall. It should keep anything small from falling back there. I decided against bothering with the sides on the inside since they don't look bad and once I've capped off the outside there won't be any daylight getting in there anymore.
Now I can paint 1 face of everything loose in the basement, give the toilet cab a 2nd coat of paint and do the 3rd and final inside coat in the vanity so I can put the drawer slides back in and be ready for those drawers.
I'm really trying to get all that done and the thing closed up again before I give myself another haircut. I'm not ready yet, but I'm almost due.
EDIT: Loose pieces and second coat on the toilet cabinet done. Just gotta do the interior of the vanity.
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Finished painting the 3rd coat inside and on the front of the vanity. Not going to do the side until I get the trim up there tomorrow. I went ahead and took out the lighter color after wiping down the walls all around the sink basin and vanity so I could cut in the lighter grey color all around it and I can install the outer trim.
The basin wasn't exactly put on the straightest. I've never actually noticed that before even the few times I gave it a really good clean down over the years. It's funny what you do notice when you get this intimate with it. I have to keep all that in mind when I think of other people noticing things too. They won't notice that. No reason to lose sleep over it.
But I will be hiding the worst of that tomorrow with the trim. Originally I was just going to put one piece in the back to the wall to hide the roughly 1/4" to 3/8" gap between the back of the vanity and the wall, but when I noticed the gap toward the back of the basin and the vanity I decided to frame it out on top and the bottom too. I don't need to frame in the front because the face of the vanity extends past the wall. It's all painted and ready to put up whenever I feel like it now. I was going to cut away the tile flooring before putting that frame in, but decided against it. I'm going to cut all that out when I'm ready for ceramic tile, and any minor damage at the bottom of the trim when I cut out the vinyl is going to be covered by mortar since the ceramic tiles are so much thicker anyhow.
I suppose if I'm feeling it tomorrow I'll wash down the walls with TSP, take out my shelf for my razor, cut out the wall anchors where my old towel rack used to be and I can patch all of those holes too. I'm excited about getting primer up now because I'm finally seeing what this is going to look like when it's done.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Man... I'm glad I decided to do something else or I would have really been burned now. After my 12 hour failure of a backup attempt last night, Windows decided it wanted in on the action. I hate, hate, hate, hate, modern Windows. I barely ever use Windows on that computer but I've been using it for these backups, so yesterday it told me it had a 6 minute update that took about an hour long and FIVE FREAKIN' RESTARTS. So you think it would be done updating, but over 3 hours into this backup process I decided to check on it and I walked right in to the boot screen with Windows starting up again.
No explanation. No nothing. So I have no idea what actually happened. I can only assume that it was another forced Windows update that pays absolutely ZERO attention to what you were doing on your computer.
At least this time it appears to be backing it up faster. I couldn't understand why it was taking 12 hours to back it up the first two times when that's probably how long it took to clone the first drive and verify the clone before I started making images.
Now the total time is around 5.5 hours remaining on this attempt. If I can at least verify it's a good image and does what I want to after I write it, I can finally move on. Unless I'm up all night again tonight, I won't know the answer to that until tomorrow probably.
I cut all the trim for the vanity to size and dry fit it. It was all primed already so I threw a coat of dark gray on it. I'm going to paint the first coat on the above-toilet cabinet right now, then I'll probably clean up that paint and get back to priming the back sides of everything I did the other day that wasn't cabinet trim. I'll probably have the first coat of paint on half of the stuff before I'm done today.
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I totally understand!
Imagine taking a day to prep a bunch of samples and standards, loading them up on an autosampler for a 24 hour a day 3- day run, and having your computer updated on day 2.5, and having to start all over again. On top of that, it wasn't even an automatic update, it was pushed by our IT Dept. (The guy running the dept is a real bonehrad)
I feel your pain!
GC MSD with tower autosampler
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Oh BTW SIX... it took me maybe 4 hours but my mission was to cut down every single effing palm seedling and sapling. Felt very satisfied with myself when I put away my pruners and pocket reciprocating saw and gloves.
So I went inside to do dishes and fix dinner, and what do you suppose I saw from the kitchen window, peeking out from behind the avocado tree?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I totally understand!
Imagine taking a day to prep a bunch of samples and standards, loading them up on an autosampler for a 24 hour a day 3- day run, and having your computer updated on day 2.5, and having to start all over again. On top of that, it wasn't even an automatic update, it was pushed by our IT Dept. (The guy running the dept is a real bonehrad)
I feel your pain!
GC MSD with tower autosampler
Uggh... I'm assuming at least that the bosses understood?
Windows IS the bonehead from HR now. It just does what it wants to, when it wants to. I find myself disconnecting from the internet whenever I don't need it. Especially on my alt computers like the one I've been doing all the heavy lifting with right now.
The other day when I did that "6 minute" update, it was because I needed to exit Windows and bring up Linux, but it left me with no ability to just restart the computer without updating, so that became a whole process.
Annoying as that is, forcing an update I didn't approve right in the middle of a 9 hour disk backup is completely unacceptable.
Nice system you had there. Dated as it is now, I bet it would be a lot faster than what I've got to work with at the moment.
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Doctor's appointment went okay. Got everything straight that I need too but he wasn't too sure about something I asked.
No mah jong for me as I was too late and they had already started playing. Maybe next week.
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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh BTW SIX... it took me maybe 4 hours but my mission was to cut down every single effing palm seedling and sapling. Felt very satisfied with myself when I put away my pruners and pocket reciprocating saw and gloves.
So I went inside to do dishes and fix dinner, and what do you suppose I saw from the kitchen window, peeking out from behind the avocado tree?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Nobody is as sensitive to the presence of an unwanted palm saplings as somebody who just spent 4 hours with a pruner and sawzall getting rid of them.
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I think I'm just taking it easy today. Too many long days/nights...
My backup image was finally made and burned to a new HD. I'll probably tick the tires around on that and make sure it's good so I can get to the next phase. This is all hands-on work anyhow, so it give me an excuse not to do any labor today.
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FINALLY!
Looks like I got myself a good image. I have yet to really kick the tires around on it, but I've already verified just from certain checks I programmed in there that everything at least APPEARS to be working correctly.
As long as I have no issues or weird Linux permissions popping up and preventing me from doing things I would need to do with the disk in this state to get other modular bits to work with it, it should be exactly what I've been spending the last 2 days trying to accomplish.
May have found my 2nd wind today. If I didn't have so much depending on getting this testing done so more processes can be run, I'd probably go down and paint another coat right now.
But I'm kind of at that "hurry up and wait" stage all around with everything. No matter what I work on, time will have to pass before I can work on it again.
I don't know... I think I'm tired of thinking so much and I should just do something and not worry so much about down time. My lawn could use another mowing in the next few days, and I've still got about half a house to finish remodeling, so it's not like I don't have plenty of things to be working on while time passes, right?
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It's.... Perfect.
Archiving it for distribution as we speak.
I shouldn't ever need to use that archive myself since I'll make sure to have at least 2 full drives as backups on my end, and cloning one drive directly to another is basically the same speed as writing an IMG file to a drive. Plus, I'm sure just from regular use I'll be making more tweaks here and there over time and those would only be copied by cloning the current hard drive and would be lost if burning an older image.
And it occurs to me that I don't need to be in such a hurry on this anymore or to be doing whatever I can to ensure minimal downtime between processes. As far as distribution for other people goes, all the work is now done. Just need to send out this archive when it's done and finish backing up the other modular parts where it will primarily be hosted in the future, and I can finally wash my hands of it.
On my end, I now have to re-build some stuff that I "de-built" to make this Distro. It was quite a bit of work doing that, but half of that work was documentation. It should be fairly quick to follow that documentation to put it all back together again.
I can't really do anymore work on it right now until that archive is finished, since the primary work computer is stuck in Windows doing that for the next 20 or so hours.
I already know that I have no problems putting this on a low-powered 12 year old PC. (Granted, not everything included will WORK on a low-powered 12 year old PC, and some bits will actually perform better on newer PCs than I have). Now I'm going to find out if it can work on two Apple products. I've got an Apple AIO desktop from my sister-in-law a few years back that hasn't been fired up once since I got it, and an even older mac-mini from my youngest brother. AFAIK, neither of them are new enough to recieve offical updates anymore, and I don't really care to learn anything about MacOS, so it will be cool if Linux can break Apple products too.
Well... I guess I'll get back to working on the bathroom now.
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Boy.... With all the paint I have around here, I didn't think that the possibility of running out of paint is something I'd have to consider. I am using the same paint/color that I used to paint the huge shelving units out in the shed a few years back to do the vanity and the two cabinets.
I haven't even started painting the medicine cabinet body or the shelf/towel rack since they require some pretty intricate hand sanding first and I haven't gotten to that yet.
I've done 3 coats inside the vanity. 2 on the outside of the vanity. 2 coats inside and out on the over-the-toilet cabinet. One coat on the front of all the drawers, doors and shelves, and 2 on the back sides. When I looked at what remains in that can though, I'm wondering if I'm going to make it or not. I think I have maybe a quart left. I wish I paid attention to how much I had when I started, but I don't remember.
I should be good, but I think until I know I will probably only do those two coats on the insides, and only do 3 coats on the outside of the rest of the pieces. I still need to do one coat on the outside of the vanity too, and although it's not a ton of surface area, that side is going to take a pretty good chunk out of what is left.
Oh well... It's not the end of the world if I don't make it. I don't like buying paint when it's not on sale, and it kills me to waste money on quart prices, but I'll probably just buy another quart if I need one. Then I'll have a smaller bucket for touch ups down the road than I would now.
A large part of my dehoarding is going to be getting this house finished. So much crap taking up space in the garage and basement that won't be taking up any space at all when they're finally part of the house.
The best part of taking your time working on it the way I have is bumping into all of those sales along the way, getting good stuff that other people are getting rid of, and ultimately doing this stuff for a pittance compared to what you'd pay somebody else to do it between the free labor and the steep discounts. But when you've already got hoarding tenancies you're always fighting against, having all that stuff on hand and just taking up space for years doesn't really help with your mental well-being.
I've got enough paint on hand to do the whole house twice. Time to start getting everything put together so I can throw out what's left that I don't need.
I'll bet if this house was finished, 60% of those modular shelves I built in the garage would be empty and there would be nothing on the floor right now.
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Of to hearing test tomorrow. Suppose to get some rain.
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I believe my painting skills have leveled up again since the last time I was keeping score. It only occurred to me earlier today that with all of this painting I've been doing, there hasn't been a single stray drip of paint anywhere. Not that it was a chronic problem in the past, but certainly by now I would have noticed one stray drip on or around things like the raised panels, or inside the toilet cabinet around the corners.
Really, this time I think it's just patience. It seems like a pretty big job right now, but compared to when I was doing all those kitchen cabinets, this is nothing. I'm not putting anywhere near the amount of paint on my brush, and learning from prior mistakes I've made, I'm being certain to just take a second or two after each edge is done to feather the brush underneath to smooth out any paint that may have gone further on the other side than I intended. (Basically, all of the edges of doors and drawer faces get painted twice as much, as when I paint either side I also hit the edges).
These things look like I spray painted them.
I have a bit of an update. I really need to get my camera situation fixed again while I'm doing all this other stuff, because the one I'm using now is a piece of crap compared to the old one, and I just noticed how off the colors are from real life.
This is a pic I snapped from the outside under the basin to show all the daylight that you could see through it (I put my bright lights in the cab before taking it).
The other day I took the time to cut the cabinet trim to size and dry fit it before painting it. Incidentally, when I snapped this photo the sun was blaring right in the bathroom and this is probably the most accurate depiction of the finish paint color, although it's a tad too blue here...
A picture from when I wrapped up last night.
And here's a few with the drawer slides and the backs of the drawers back in the unit.
Just waiting on a few more coats of paint for the fronts of the drawers and the door and that will be done.
And the really cool thing is that I've already got more of those oil-rubbed bronze knobs for the 2 of the 3 drawers that need them to replace those old chrome ones, and the even cooler thing is that the mostly-hidden hinges for the door are so so dark that nobody is going to notice that I didn't take the time to spray paint them to match.
What a difference a few days makes, huh?
Yeah.....
One way or another I have to get a better camera for taking pictures. I need to get a few when it's finished that show the wood grain and all the details that are missing from these photos.
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I know at the end of the day nobody in the world would ever notice this, but I love looking at these two pics side-by-side...
You only see cabinet interiors and closets like mine in mansions or in OCD perfectionist DIY enthusiasts' houses.
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If I'm doing anything else tonight, it's washing the walls and the ceiling in the bathroom.
I tried thinking of anything else I could do right now that wasn't that, but everything else is either opening another can of worms, or doing jobs I really don't feel like doing at the moment. Like patching and caulking all this trim I've been putting up everywhere. I hate caulking. I really have to be in the mood to do a half day's worth of that.
The good news for the bathroom walls is that I don't have to bother yanking out those wall anchors that were in there for the towel bars because the incoming cabinet is wider than their footprint, so when I start priming I don't have to worry about those being pulled and patched. The bad news is that I'll have to patch the small shelf I've had up there for my razor though after taking that down. The worse news is that I'll have to find out where the studs are for that toilet cabinet because it is so heavy and will need some beefy screws going right into them on center. And with these thick walls it will probably have to be done by putting holes in the wall. But again, that will be covered up. And I do know where a stud several down the line is located because of the hole in the wall for pipes in the cabinet, so if they actually framed the house out right, I might be able to find them without any damage.
I'm actually stuck waiting for another 12 or so hours on the computer project now. I didn't realize that until just a few minutes ago. While that image is being compressed and archived, that PC is basically useless for anything else. And my massive drive starts to flake out sometimes if the machine is bogged down too hard, which would destroy everything that it's done up to this point and I'd have to start over again.
I don't want to be making changes to my own personal setup, but I have a plan for a more personal and customized one that would be for anybody I know. I didn't have the option to work on that before, but now with the power of clones I will. And now that I'm happy with my own setup I can clone that and back up that entire clone image in two spots, while also removing the entire filesystem backup I had in place before I started cloning things.
Space is getting somewhat tight at the moment, but once I have all of this figured out and have the various computers doing what all want them to, I'm going to be able to eliminate large swaths of my digital hoard in a way I never thought I could before.
It just occurred to me as I'm writing this that when I made that successful clone today, I didn't just successfully move all of my work from one drive to another...
I just proved to myself that I could make one single file as a backup instead of hundreds of thousands of files. As long as I have that one single file backed up in several places and ready to clone at any time, I have no need for any of those files anymore on an individual level. I essentially turned nearly 3 quarters of a million files and over 20 years worth of work into a single file.
Wow...
This has been a rather cathartic moment for me.
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Glad I didn't stay up until the archive was finished. 12 hours my ass.
Still got about 2 hours left on that before I can do any more work on the computers, and even then it will only be to clone another drive for another 8 or so hours before I can do anything else. One of these days I'll have newer/faster tech, and I probably won't be doing anything like this where I would need it.
2nd coat painted on the faces of the drawers and doors. One more quick coat and a little drying time and I'll be able to get all the drawers up. Might wait a while longer on the door to dry. Unfortunately, that big door for the vanity is so heavy it's doing what some of the larger kitchen cabinets doors did and is putting a very unsightly ring on the paint job from the paint buckets I have elevating the pieces. 2 coats should be fine for the back of the drawers, but I believe I'll hang the door and hit the inside with one final coat of paint to eliminate the ring that I'm sure is forming there now. The only way to avoid that completely with the tools I have is to wait another 2 or so days before flipping pieces over, but this project is already taking long enough as it is. It'll be fine.
Hopefully I'll have the vanity all wrapped up before I go to bed tonight.
Right now I'm going to put the 3rd and final coat on the toilet cabinet (the doors are being painted with the vanity). And after I get all the vanity stuff put back together I'll have room to do more stuff downstairs on my horses, so I'm going to have to get my ass back outside to sand down those final pieces for the bathroom and the louvered bi-fold closet door.
I'm going to have to see if I have any more tracks for bi-folds out in the garage. I can't recall now if they were even there in the small bedroom when I moved in, so I may not even have any tracks for them. I'm fairly confident that the louvered door was something I got from my friend a few years ago, and I'm not entirely sure that the other one that hasn't been painted yet came with the house either. There may have not even been closet doors in that room, to be honest.
Hopefully my friend has some tracks out in his garage or they're not stupid expensive.
Gotta start making a list of what I need to buy. Possibly those tracks. Some wood filler. Rustoleum metallic oil rubbed bronze spray paint for the hardware that isn't being replaced. And probably some dap too. I think the old canister of it I had went bad. I could use Plus3, but there's a little too much water in that for patching up brad nail holes in wood and it would leave dimples under the paint job. I'll just buy a small container of it even though they really screw you hard on the price for the small ones.
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Over the Toilet Cabinet paint finished. Final coat of paint going on the faces, imminently.
It's still early enough that I should be able to get the faces installed on the drawers before it gets dark outside.
I think I'm going to go down and find my TSP now and finally get to washing the walls and ceiling down for primer. Get everything primed so I can better see what still needs to be repaired before paint goes up.
Don't want to get too ahead of myself there though, since I need to take out that medicine cab and light to see what my electrical situation is back there and figure how much work I have ahead of me to get that done. Might be making some heavy wall damage to get 'er done if the outlook isn't good. Finger's crossed.
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All done for today.
Audiologist had to repair my hearing aides. The wiring had to be replaced. Level is fine. Right ear still taking a dip but not drastic, left one is still going off the table. Speech is holding its own which is good.
Finally had coffee and lunch with the lady that used to come in a look after my mum. We met at 11:30am and I got in around 4pm. My throat's a little scratchy from talking so much. We talk about all kinds of stuff.
She keeps trying to spoil me. I let her buy me a sweater from a clothing store in the local mall that is going out. That was only $10 that's why I let her. Then in the Walmart I noticed that my running shoes are starting to develop a hole in one and I know she would have bought me a new pair but I couldn't let her do that. Besides it takes me a few minutes to find shoes that will fit me. I have flat feet and so does she. So, she's in the same boat I am. She did a bit of grocery shopping in the Walmart. Mostly junk food which included a lemon meringue pie. Along with her stuff was a Hershey's dark chocolate bar for me.
She is a lovely lady and we both agreed to do it again. When I don't know.
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How about next month?
Sounds like you had a good time.
I don't blame you for not wanting friends to spoil you. Back to that "who owes who" thing we were talking about a while back. Even with friends, I think it can become too lopsided if you let the little things add up.
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Yup... The one of the previous owners really screwed me on the electric here.
Not only did they use greenfield behind the walls, but instead of having that go to any sort of junction box, they let it just fall somewhere behind the medicine cabinet, and then they attached wires from the abrupt termination up to the light, so I've got about 2 1/2 feet of unprotected wire rising up to the vanity lights almost 180 degrees from the drooping greenfield with a sharp edge.
MORONS.
The really weird thing here is that it's a double wall. There are two frames, back to back. What I mean is that the studs for the bedroom on the other side are a completely different set of studs for the walls in the bathroom. The good news from that is once I make an opening where I want my electric for the over-the-toilet cabinet, I should easily be able to fish some loaded greenfield behind that and pull it out of the opening so I can get it attached to a junction box designed to attach to the drywall, so running electric through the back wall where I want it shouldn't be a problem.
Until I get the light off, which I'm not doing today, I won't really be able to develop a full plan on what to do. I'm hoping that the greenfield is in there REALLY loose. If that's the case, I should be able to run new greenfield with all the proper wiring in there and use the old one to "fish" it all through. I'd just better make damn sure to attach them together solid or I'll risk losing the new one as I pull the old one through and then I'm in a world of hurt. At that point I'll be destroying so much stuff and making such a mess that I might as well just open up the ceiling to get a vent fan up there.
I'm fuckin' lucky the damn house hasn't burnt down yet. It never ceases to amaze me how much more terrifying this house gets every time I look behind the walls.
I also got slowed down quite a bit because one of the screws holding in the medicine cabinet was completely stripped. After trying a few responsible ways to remove it without any effect, I went into Hulk Rage mode and ripped the goddammned thing right out of the wall. Fortunately, the mirror that I had no way of detaching first didn't break when I did that.
My bathroom is also home to the worst caulking job I've ever seen in my life. They put these vinyl "edger" things to deliniate the shower from the rest of the bathroom walls. The caulk job in the shower to the vinyl walls isn't bad, but I don't know what the hell they were doing on the outside. They used about 3 times as much as they should have, then it looks like they may have tried to clean it up but realized that wasn't working out well with silicon caulk and they gave up. It's simply horrible.
I spent probably an hour trying to sand it down by hand, but if I keep doing that I'll be doing that for 20 hours before its done. I'm probably better off cutting it all of and doing it again the right way. I'm just afraid I'll find out the reason they put that much on there is because nothing fit right and it will just be another damn project I have to do because Uncle Bob is was a drunk idiot.
I can't paint anything in there yet. I don't even want to do primer yet. There's just too much that needs to be repaired before I do. I'll get that caulk and any high spots rounded down before primer goes up.
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