In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, September 11, 2026 15:29
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 722 of 834
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
k y BRENDA, have you considered that maybe the "lady thet took care of your mom" is more than the lady that toook care of your mom, and might be a friend? Possibly she likes talking with you as much as you like talking with her?
Just a thought.
Also, I second the notion of getting shoes that work for you. Bc of chemo neuropathy and a bunion, for a couple of years after chemo I did everything... walking the dog, gardening... in indoor/ outdoor slipppers. Yeah, they covered my feet but had no cushioning or support. I think that's when my knee problems started.
SIX, that remodel looks primo! That's amazing! But you're right, the wiring looks scary.
****
Been running my *ss ragged with family Dr appts. Gotta see if hubby can get his back pain fixed, it's really disabling. So I'm going to schedule another injection for after his sinus surgery, and all being well after that he gets radio frequency ablation, which could last anywhere from 6 months to 3 years before needing a repeat. Daughter has some issues too, so she's going in for testing.
I used to think that being retired I should be able to get more projects done. But then I considered that taking full-time care of two disabled ppl (three, if I include myself) is the equivalent of a full time job. So I guess I should cut myself some slack.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
You are quite right SIG. I should call her my friend.
I will get new shoes but like I said I have a biiig problem to solve this week.
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Don't want to share what the big problem is, Brenda? I believe I saw you reference that once or twice before. You okay?
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Nice... I managed to find all of my USB thumbsticks. Or at least the important ones, anyhow. If I find any more stragglers, the more the merrier, but I got the ones that had stuff I needed.
I'm in the process of putting together my "Repair" bag for when my buddy is ready to go through all his old crap and consolidate.
I know he has an ancient laptop that I mentioned earlier with huge problems. If it is possible to save it and do anything with it, I'll have the tools for it. But I just found out today that unless you use a very specific few versions of Linux in 2026, you can't even safely use an x32 version anymore. And I have my doubts that his laptop is x64 archatecture, so if that's the case I'll have a few other non-PC options to make his laptop do non-office related things. Otherwise, it's trash, because if I can't at least get the lite version of Linux Mint on there, I know there's no way he's ever going to try to learn Linux on something that's not as user friendly for life-long Windows users.
I've got an empty laptop drive external enclosure for getting the drive out and copying everything off of it from another much faster computer first before trying to install another OS.
I've got a 2nd enclosure with a 250GB SSD. Fastest speeds for transferring on any of my old crappy tech that I've ever seen topping out at 80GB/s. His tech will probably be the bottleneck there, but I've got a fast way of pulling off data slowly but then moving it to his newest PC quickly.
When I'm finished burning images, I'll have 4 USBs 16GB or less that have various operating systems to try out on the laptop and any other older computers, and several others to try to get them to do anything worthwhile before going to the trash heap.
I've got 4 sticks of memory that I took out of the two old laptops I had. I don't know how big they are or if they'd help him, but if he's got a spare spot free we could possibly get more memory in there. Or even better if my memory is larger and we can more than double what's in there.
I've got a really cool non-enclosure kit that can transfer data off of all types of hard drives including the larger PATA or SATA hard drives, so if we need to I can rip data off of his other desktop hard drives that way instead of through Windows 98 or whatever systems nobody else but he has been using for 20 years.
I'll also put together a thumb drive with all sorts of essential free programs that I can add to whatever good computer(s) he has left after we're done.
I'll have an RJ45 cable and some various USB cables from the extras I went through the other day.
And I've even got a nice bag for all of it. It was an old laptop bag that I had the two laptops I threw away jammed into it.
I've also got those Kindles and Fire Sticks to go through to see what is still usable today and how many extra I have to give away to other people.
Got quite a bit of rest yesterday and I think I might take today off from physical work again today too. I've got my hands full with the computer stuff right now anyway.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Don't want to share what the big problem is, Brenda? I believe I saw you reference that once or twice before. You okay?
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
I think I will be okay. Just some screw up with some real world paperwork. That's what I have to sort out.
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Just a lazy Sunday around me. Bit of tidying up.
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Found 4 bad hard drives in the attic. Not a huge deal since they were all 80GB to 250GB, but it's a bit of a bummer the 250GB drive is one of the laptop drives. It's the only one of the 4 that will fire up, but I tried cloning it since it was a backup clone of my old AIO that I may be fragging and repurposing, but it failed about 2/3rds of the way two times with a cyclical redundancy check. My drive tools aren't saying it's a bad drive, but it does say "Caution" which to me has always meant you don't put anything important on there. I wanted to have an IMG file of it in case I decide to go back to the old Windows setup I had on the AIO one day. I'll have to make sure I take the drive out of the AIO first and clone that before I do anything with it since I'm just throwing this backup drive away now.
Going to harvest the magnets and separate the metal from plastic. I know I have a box up there somewhere with about 30 old PATA drives between 160 and 320GB that I probably have no need for anymore even if any of them still work, so I'll be getting a lot of magnets and have a pretty big recycle pile when I'm done with that. I don't bother with recycling scrap metal, but I've got a few friends who do it all the time who wouldn't mind a bag full of mostly clean aluminum.
So I'm still getting some small stuff out while I'm working on the computer stuff. I really need to get back to the bathroom work though. Gotta mow the lawn soon too, if the weather would cooperate. Once that's done, I can go back to sanding the 3 or 4 pieces that still need to be sanded down. Nothing really left for me to paint at the moment. I could put one more coat of the dark on the doors and shelves to the medicine cabinet and toilet cabinets on the inside since they only got 2 coats, but I'd rather wait until I had all the other stuff that needs to be painted the same color before I do that. I'm running out of this color of paint and don't want to waste any paint in cleanup, no matter how little I lose.
Just didn't feel like scraping caulk or washing and priming walls today. It'll get done soonish. 
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Boy... I'm glad that I looked for that box of drives right now while I had everything out. They're smaller than I thought. Only 120 to 160GB. Easily over 30 of them. Maybe 40. I remember buying them super cheap in a lot about 12 years ago for a project I intended to work on but just never got around to doing.
Not that I care now, but after the dehoard I made the mistake of moving them into the attic. Hot and humid is not a good space for old drives.
I am testing them out right now. I'm actually surprised that any of them still work, but so far I've got 4 160GB and 2 120GB that are working and passed the tests in GOOD condition.
I am going to keep 6 of them because I still have use for that many. I'm assuming none are over 160GB, but I'll keep the 6 largest drives made by good companies. Mostly Segate and hopefully all 160GB or larger, preferably. The Maxtors I wouldn't keep anyway, but they've all done me the courtesy of not working at all so far, making that decision even easier. The WD drives don't seem to be faring too well either. They can go with other stuff I'm going to be getting rid of, but at least I can build something out of it with other old tech I have up there (assuming any of that still works) and give it away instead of throwing it all in the trash.
Between these drives and the ones I've dismantled over the years, I think I'm finally going to be able to make that disc platter mirror I was always thinking about making. I'm going to have a ton of them.
That box was HEAVY. Might not be a huge amount of space cleaned out when that's done, but it's a good deal of weight that will be out of my life anyhow.
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Alright... so until I look at that other stuff, I'm going to keep 10 of the drives. They're all 160GB and they're all 7200RPM Seagate Barracudas. The best of the best of the collection.
Not a bad hour or two spent testing. I'm so glad that I finally found all my computer stuff and have it all in one place so I can do these types of things after neglecting them forever. I already knew 7 years ago when I dehoarded that I had no need for 35 hard drives anymore, but until I got around to testing/using any of them, I didn't want to just throw them all out. So with 10 saved, that leaves 25 drives to trash now. I'm sure I probably won't even need 6 when I get to it, but just in case one or two fail by the time I do, I've got a few spares. Once that work is done, I'll get rid of the rest of them. Might save that for colder weather though. I'll probably pull it all out of the attic and stage it in the small bedroom where I have the other stuff I need to go through like clothes.
I guess I'll be watching YouTube and pulling drives apart for the rest of the night.
That's cool. I didn't want to work anyways. 
ETA... Boy... I forgot how long it takes to do these. Got about 24 star screws per drive that need to come off. Only did 5 of the 25 so far, and that's just throwing the magnets into a pile and not separating them from the metal they're glued on. Need to bust out two pairs of pliers for that job.
I've done some cool things with those before. I glued a bunch of them underneath one of my ladders and now when I'm up screwing things in I can just put a bunch of screws on the top and they all stick there. I know I pulled out at least a few nuts and bolts with a long tipped screwdriver with some of those magnets attached to it. They're insanely strong compared to fridge magnets.
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I've been able to fit yardwork in between family. My last task was pruning the feijoa up and out. There was a lot of dead stuff in there, and a lot of old bird nests. It's not entirely done, bc now that I can see what's what, it's time to get out the sawzall.
Also, at this point I need a wheelbarrow and pole pruner.
That'll have to wait for a bit tho, bc today is hubby's "Dr day". So I'll just have time for some raking and chopping and binning up. Despite the fact that I have to fit this in between other stuff, overall, it's going well. I actually remembered to take "before" and "in progress" photos. I can't wait for it to be done!
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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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