What's everybody doing today?

[Patchouli]

@Spikedriver Looks like a great time...but your daughter, what is she, like 22 now? I know, she's still just a kid (as in under 18), still...Beautiful.

 

[Spikedriver]

@Spikedriver Looks like a great time...but your daughter, what is she, like 22 now? I know, she's still just a kid (as in under 18), still...Beautiful.

Lol she's just a couple months past 16.

 

[Patchouli]

Congratulations to @backlash and the Queen of his household. They said we wouldn't make it, I was too young and wild. People change.
@Hooch sounds like a rough road. Hope you can figure out what is best for you. Sounds like you are making the slower decisions, good. Honestly, can't imagine selling a place if I had one and didn't need to sell. I always felt like if I felt chaotic or pushed, panicky, then be still.

 

[Peanut]

Spent some time in a creek harvesting medicine plants today. That makes it a good day no matter what else is happening. I processed it at home and made tincture.

I was thinking I needed to harvest another bucket tomorrow but after totaling up the jars in storage and today’s haul… I have plenty of yellow root for another year.

Sort of funny, I was parked at an old church. They had a half dozen huge old oak trees in front, beautiful place (and one pine tree). Anyway, past the old oaks they have a little bench by one of the trees. It’s a nice shady place to sit for a bit. I was sweating like a mule, wanted to sit.

Only it was being used by a fox squirrel. (odd, fox squirrels are pretty much nocturnal) Didn’t get my camera out in time for the squirrel but I got a shot of the aftermath… The squirrel was hanging out eating pine nuts and watching traffic go by. I guess the congregation needs to put a little waste bin by the bench so the squirrel will have a place to put the old cones. He left a mess!

 

[Tank-Girl]

Today is pension day and it's the day I'm supposed to do my shopping and errands.

Got up to get into my "town" clothes and that small quiet voice told me not to go.
I went to get dressed anyway.
Again the impression was not to go only this time more forcefully.
I threw my hands up and said "Alright!" and went and sat back down on the couch.
I have no idea what is going on or what HE is saving me from but going out today is not
in HIS plans for me today.

I've learned the hard way that ignoring that small voice or gut feeling ends badly.
So, I've decided I'm going listen instead of being pigheaded.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today was a good day, I pulled some weeds, trimmed hedges, cleaned out a flower bed, pulled up half of my tomatoes, transplanted some of my indoor plants, gave the neighbor an indoor tomato plant. Framed the first wall for my screened in walk-out basement entrance. And I planted 2 raised beds with winter salad mix and updated some of the drip irrigation emitters.

We have Dr.'s Appointments in the morning so calling it an early night...

 

[Haertig]

Today was computer repair day. Been dealing with a computer that just goes totally lights out - power down - randomly. Then it won't start back up for a while - hit the power button and the fans spin up, then everything dies again within a second.

First thing I though of was overheating. The symptoms sure seem to support that. But this computer runs cool as a cucumber. I have a great case, well ventilated and numerous fans. I am very good at applying thermal paste to heat sinks and CPUs when I build computers. But to be sure, immediately after it shut down once, I opened the case and grabbed every heatsink on the motherboard. All cool to the touch. Warning: Use proper static precautions if you ever think about doing this (I was), and don't be stupid and burn yourself (I didn't). You can tell if something is going to be hot before you actually sear your fingers to it. Everything in my computer was room temperature.

So it wasn't thermal. Next up was to look at the power supply. It's a high end supply, but indeed it is 10+ years old. So potentially suspect. Bad capacitors possibly. I visually inspected the innards of the power supply and also the motherboard for bulging caps. Everything looked good (but it's possible for a cap to go bad without bulging). I ordered a new power supply. A very high end one. Replaced that, but the random shutdowns continued. All this has been taking place over the last two or so weeks.

So now I'm thinking - yikes - maybe it's the motherboard. That's going to get expensive, because on an old computer you don't just buy a new motherboard and use your old CPU and old memory. You have to upgrade those components to be compatible with the new motherboard. So your $200 motherboard replacement becomes a $600+ replacement of the entire guts of your system.

So before spending that kind of cash, I went for inspection and re-seating of the memory sticks. I had recently upgraded the memory after all (almost a month ago - and it worked fine for weeks, passed MEMTEST, etc.) But any recent change to your computer is always a suspect when something subsequently goes wrong. This certainly didn't feel like a memory problem, but who knows? So I yanked the memory, cleaned out the slots very well with Dust-Off, and reinserted the memory into different slots than it came out of (all slots are used, I just moved which memory stick went into which slot). And I made dang sure that the memory sticks were seated fully. People who don't build their own computers are often surprised at just how hard you have to push some components into the motherboard to fully seat them. Memory sticks especially. Being forceful, and delicate, at the same time is an art.

Well, knock on wood, my computer has been up and running with no shutdowns for 7 hours now. When it was having problems, the shutdowns always came near the two hour mark after a reboot (but that's probably just coincidence). So my fingers are crossed. Maybe I just had a memory stick that was not fully seated the first time. It would be rare for that to cause a complete power down shutdown, especially since the shutdowns came some time after a reboot. But I am slightly - slightly - encouraged at this point. If the computer stays up for a week without problems, I'll probably call the silly thing "fixed". We'll see how things go this week...

 

[rusty]

Congratulations to @backlash and the Queen of his household. They said we wouldn't make it, I was too young and wild. People change.
@Hooch sounds like a rough road. Hope you can figure out what is best for you. Sounds like you are making the slower decisions, good. Honestly, can't imagine selling a place if I had one and didn't need to sell. I always felt like if I felt chaotic or pushed, panicky, then be still.

I remember when I met my wife, she was 23 and I was 35. They said too much age difference. That was 39 years ago. Guess I finally matured to her level.

 

[Magus]

Today was computer repair day. Been dealing with a computer that just goes totally lights out - power down - randomly. Then it won't start back up for a while - hit the power button and the fans spin up, then everything dies again within a second.

First thing I though of was overheating. The symptoms sure seem to support that. But this computer runs cool as a cucumber. I have a great case, well ventilated and numerous fans. I am very good at applying thermal paste to heat sinks and CPUs when I build computers. But to be sure, immediately after it shut down once, I opened the case and grabbed every heatsink on the motherboard. All cool to the touch. Warning: Use proper static precautions if you ever think about doing this (I was), and don't be stupid and burn yourself (I didn't). You can tell if something is going to be hot before you actually sear your fingers to it. Everything in my computer was room temperature.

So it wasn't thermal. Next up was to look at the power supply. It's a high end supply, but indeed it is 10+ years old. So potentially suspect. Bad capacitors possibly. I visually inspected the innards of the power supply and also the motherboard for bulging caps. Everything looked good (but it's possible for a cap to go bad without bulging). I ordered a new power supply. A very high end one. Replaced that, but the random shutdowns continued. All this has been taking place over the last two or so weeks.

So now I'm thinking - yikes - maybe it's the motherboard. That's going to get expensive, because on an old computer you don't just buy a new motherboard and use your old CPU and old memory. You have to upgrade those components to be compatible with the new motherboard. So your $200 motherboard replacement becomes a $600+ replacement of the entire guts of your system.

So before spending that kind of cash, I went for inspection and re-seating of the memory sticks. I had recently upgraded the memory after all (almost a month ago - and it worked fine for weeks, passed MEMTEST, etc.) But any recent change to your computer is always a suspect when something subsequently goes wrong. This certainly didn't feel like a memory problem, but who knows? So I yanked the memory, cleaned out the slots very well with Dust-Off, and reinserted the memory into different slots than it came out of (all slots are used, I just moved which memory stick went into which slot). And I made dang sure that the memory sticks were seated fully. People who don't build their own computers are often surprised at just how hard you have to push some components into the motherboard to fully seat them. Memory sticks especially. Being forceful, and delicate, at the same time is an art.

Well, knock on wood, my computer has been up and running with no shutdowns for 7 hours now. When it was having problems, the shutdowns always came near the two hour mark after a reboot (but that's probably just coincidence). So my fingers are crossed. Maybe I just had a memory stick that was not fully seated the first time. It would be rare for that to cause a complete power down shutdown, especially since the shutdowns came some time after a reboot. But I am slightly - slightly - encouraged at this point. If the computer stays up for a week without problems, I'll probably call the silly thing "fixed". We'll see how things go this week...

Better check your power settings too, W10 has a thing if there is a sudden power drop, it reboots, it can be turned off, but its a bitch to find! I just got done with the same thing!

https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-computer-randomly-restarts/

 

[Pearl]

Took my daughter to the Renaissance Faire in Des Moines today. We had a great time. The theme today was pirates, pets, and steampunk. Everybody had their dogs at the Ren Faire and there were some beautiful ones.

There was a hypnotist when we got there...View attachment 94537
My beautiful daughter watching the show...View attachment 94538
There was a falconry show...View attachment 94539
Jousting...View attachment 94540
And a grand entrance from the queen...
View attachment 94541

We are definitely doing it again next year!

How AWESOME Spike!!! Great pictures! As I've said before, you are a great dad, she will remember these days!! What a beautiful picture of her!!

 

[Spikedriver]

@Frodo there was a vendor called "Lords of Leather" at the Renaissance Faire. He has some interesting things I've never seen. First was leather bound beer steins:

And then he had these things. Near as I can tell they are for carrying a tool with a haft, such as a hatchet.

Not sure what those are called. Maybe Frodo can tell us...

 

[Haertig]

Better check your power settings too, W10 has a thing if there is a sudden power drop, it reboots, it can be turned off, but its a bitch to find! I just got done with the same thing!

https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-computer-randomly-restarts/

Thanks for the link. My symptoms weren't exactly like that. I didn't have any kind of "computer is rebooting..." message. The OS was not still in control to be able to tell me that. I was experiencing an unexpected complete power down. BAM! - Lights out - zero warning. I don't run Windows either. I'm on Linux.

My computer wasn't restarting. Because I have set the BIOS not to do that. I have things set so that if it goes down, it stays down. For the reason: If power is hiccuping at my house - up, down, up, down - I don't want my computer to be doing the same thing. If my computer goes down and I need to access it from some remote location, I use "Wake-on-LAN" to remotely reboot it. This is not what is called "a network boot". The computer still boots off it's local hard drive. But I can send a signal to it, over Ethernet, instructing it to boot. This works when it is powered down (because computers are rarely ever totally powered down). There are a couple of caveats to this. First off, I need to be able to contact my computer via Ethernet. Not WiFi, but via physical Ethernet cable. I have that. This also means that my router has to be up (that is what is connected to the computer(s) with an Ethernet cable). I get into my router from a remote location via the VPN server I run on the router. And last but not least, the computer had to have gone down at least semi-cleanly. If it was a total unexpected power off like I was recently experiencing, Wake-on-LAN rarely, if ever, works. Generally you need your computer to be on a UPS, that UPS signals your computer that the power is out and it's now running off battery, so please shut yourself down cleanly. Given that clean shutdown, Wake-on-LAN is very smooth. But an unexpected power down crash - good luck with Wake-on-LAN, maybe it will work after that, but probably not. Reboot manually, then shutdown cleanly, and Wake-on-LAN will start working again.

https://www.lifewire.com/wake-on-lan-4149800

 

[Pearl]

@Frodo there was a vendor called "Lords of Leather" at the Renaissance Faire. He has some interesting things I've never seen. First was leather bound beer steins:
View attachment 94544

And then he had these things. Near as I can tell they are for carrying a tool with a haft, such as a hatchet.
View attachment 94545

Not sure what those are called. Maybe Frodo can tell us...

AND, Frodo, I looked at your profile....you young little toot!!

 

[Weedygarden]

Griz78, when me beloved & dear departed mum passed away, it devolved upon me to clear her house prior to sale. Like many in her generation, me mum was a hoarder, that's just the way it was, so I had to tackle this house full of cr@p stacked to the rafters... I'm talking about some serious hoarding. Much of the stuff was useless junk like old magazines & boxes of stuff that should've been donated years earlier, etc. Long story short, it took MONTHS to clear that home, filling two large wheeled trash & recycling bins every week... OVER 40 BINS!!! Large bins too, not the half-pint size, lol. Thing was, I had to carefully go through EVERYTHING, even the old tattered books & magazines & newspapers, just in case she had hidden anything in them due to dementia, ya know?

It was a daunting task, clearing that house, but I eventually got it done, and my brother (estate attorney & executor of the will) was happy... we did well in the estate sale too, while I donated some older cr@ppy furniture & whatnot to Goodwill and whoever else. BTW, you can unload a lot of stuff that way, and the thrift stores will often send a driver to pick it up and haul it off... that was another part of the house-clearing campaign, I think I made 5 donations over several months, not full truckloads but plenty o' stuff we no longer wanted or needed. Every little bit helped in removing stuff and clearing that home, it was a REAL JOB OF WORK, lol. I know some other site members are dealing with clutter, maybe that info will help 'em out... I have some boxes to donate here in Alamo, but they're few in number.

An 89 year old woman in my neighborhood died August 2021. Her husband had been gone for quite a few years. Today their only child, their son, had an estate sale. There was another man, a family friend, helping. I stopped, mainly because I wanted to see what the house was like. There was so much junk in the house. I heard that it needs so much work, as do some older houses in my area. Floors need major work in the supports underneath (floor jacks), electrical, plumbing, on and on. The rooms were so small, really small. I don't think the house has been cleaned in over 10 years. The floors in the entry way were vinyl tile, and had big chunks missing in the corners. They were put over a couple layers of sub flooring. I remember someone telling me a few years ago that you can tell about the time people retired, because they mostly no longer have money to do house maintenance or upgrades. I saw that in this house. The son inherited the house, but lives elsewhere, but in the area. I saw other people there that I knew. I wanted to talk about the house situation, but the son was there. I wanted to talk about how at a certain point, people cannot maintain and take care of their homes and they need help. But it is a money thing, or lack of money rather. But cleaning a house doesn't take money, unless you hire it cleaned. And then repairing, fresh paint, etc. Really a depressing situation. Everything was grungy.

 

[Wingnut]

Quiet day today, which was fine with me, I caught up on my rest and shared quality time with the cats & kittens. It just rained for a good while, so my trees & plants are loving the extra water. I want those pines to survive and thrive, they are all looking better lately. Heard some bad news from long distance: another one of my classmates died last night in Coronado, and the weird thing is that he called me just before midnight, so I may be the last person on earth to whom he spoke. My best friend Tommy told me about Dirk passing away... and another friend crosses the divide. He was a good guitarist and we partied many times back in the day. Hope he's resting easy now... RIP, Dirk, if you have a guitar with ya then play 'Sultans of Swing' for me, I always liked that tune.

Sometimes, when I hear this sort of bad news about another friend & classmate passing away, it gives me pause for reflection... and I morbidly wonder how much time I have left on this planet. Weeks? Months? Years? Who knows? And that's all the more reason to enjoy life while we can, I reckon. Nobody here gets out alive... we all got it coming. Still, I've been fortunate to experience all sorts of outdoor adventures, and I've traveled enough to satisfy my curiosity... even if I die tonight, I've lived a full life, and nobody can ever take that away from me. Nobody can take away the island voyages in Baja, nobody can take away the Salton Expeditions, nobody can take away all the grand rock climbing & dirt biking adventures... those are my legacy. Nobody can tarnish those great memories!!!

 

[zannej]

I got in some good sleep but still feel tired. Eyes are irritated for no apparent reason. I need to go rinse them. I got up to cook & help mom find something and to get stuff out of the truck (3 separate times) and then slept. I'm hoping I'll have more energy tomorrow.

 

[Magpie]

Officially back at Uni today (online) but no class until 2pm. Waved off the last of my husband's family, and ran around with the hoover because we are a family of hair and it's embarrassing what the kitten brings people to play with!
Yesterday visited Dad, and left with an armful of tomatoes, grapes and celery- now bubbling a celery and potato soup; also stopped at a fantastic 'Cheese fair'. Bought a few items as gifts and some 'real' butter' and Caramelized Onion cheddar for ourselves. The butter is lovely, but not much different to the one I get. The cheese is bloody gorgeous and has now been hidden at the back of the fridge! The fair was packed with families and everyone carrying a bag or more, which was great to see, but it was very expensive. Especially the veg. Anyway it was great to see it so popular, as food fairs were not really supported here, and only becoming popular now.

 

[sonya123]

Took my daughter to the Renaissance Faire in Des Moines today. We had a great time. The theme today was pirates, pets, and steampunk. Everybody had their dogs at the Ren Faire and there were some beautiful ones.

There was a hypnotist when we got there...My beautiful daughter watching the show...
There was a falconry show...
Jousting...
And a grand entrance from the queen...


We are definitely doing it again next year!

Glad you had fun, nice photos! You have a nice family.
We used to go to one in Florida, Lady of the Lakes, it was always a ton of fun. I miss doing that sort of thing sometimes, nothing like it around here
The one we used to go to had jousting, maybe I can dig up some photos

 

[sonya123]

Neb, Backlash, congrats!!

Hooch, hope you get your vehicle problems taken care of. We have them also at the moment and I don't know how much problems it is going to cause us. I just spent over $2000 on my truck to get it to pass inspection, and now the engine is idling bad when I am at a stop. I hope it isn't anything too expensive I really can't afford a new vehicle

So on top of that, now the Rural King does not want to refund our money for the tiller we returned. Never used it because the parts didn't fit together so we returned it, and now they ' want to have their tractor guy look at it next week". Why can't they just return the money? We no longer want it. Husband rented a push one and got one of the gardens almost done. It's not ideal but much cheaper.

Getting hay today and returning the rental tiller. That will take up all day. I will probably do some shopping on the way too , it's an hour away. Everything is an hour away from here or more....I guess we got what we wanted, living very rural. The hordes of raiders after the zombie apocalypse are going to have hard time getting here...

Oh and I just found out my ex's youngest brother ( my age) just died from an anneyrism. Wow. Lately a lot of people not that old ( under or around 60) have passed on. Not anywhere near "average" life expectancy. I wonder why.

 

[snappy1]

Liver cleanse complete. Yay!

Will walk first.
laundry.
Cut carrots for dog treats.
Make Cajun seasoning for future use.
Thaw and de-stem elderberries to can syrup from tomorrow. I still have one gallon of figs left. Might can them too and then finished for now, at least with everything harvested.

 

[ABR]

Working. We'll see how much of the homework my student actually did this weekend. The parents prioritize their fun and games activities and events over schoolwork. Thursday student didn't do homework even though it was set up to do independent of parents. The mom was out and the dad was doing who knows what. NO excuse, student knew there was homework and that it was set up for independence etc. I'm ready for the school year to be over.

 

[Frodo]

@Frodo there was a vendor called "Lords of Leather" at the Renaissance Faire. He has some interesting things I've never seen. First was leather bound beer steins:
View attachment 94544

And then he had these things. Near as I can tell they are for carrying a tool with a haft, such as a hatchet.
View attachment 94545

Not sure what those are called. Maybe Frodo can tell us...

I am not sure of the name looks cool
Here are the mugs I make , all leather

I do like the coozie concept easy, simple and what was his asking price?

 

[Spikedriver]

View attachment 94555I am not sure of the name looks cool
Here are the mugs I make , all leather

I do like the coozie concept easy, simple and what was his asking price?

It was the mug and the coozie together, I think $30 but I could be wrong. I looked at so many things that I can't keep the prices straight...

 

[Frodo]

It was the mug and the coozie together, I think $30 but I could be wrong. I looked at so many things that I can't keep the prices straight...

Those look like a belt key chain holder

See it is a loop for the belt and a single D ring

 

[Wingnut]

Rained again last night, so no watering this morning... I'm enjoying a cuppa herbal tea, it tastes good now that these morning temps are lower. I sure like the onset of fall in the high desert, after a long hot summer the cooler temps are quite welcome. I already wheeled the trash bin out to the street, it's full of weeds again. Some of those weed piles in the yard have shrunk in size, might make it easier for me to load 'em into the bin once they dry. I'll still be filling the bin every week for another month or two, easy... unless I burn off some piles, which is possible. Gotta start thinking about tackling the unfinished home rehab work, the upcoming fall weather should be drier and I can get that painting done... ugh. But it needs to be done, and I'm not gonna pay anyone to do it, that's for sure... probably couldn't afford to anyway. Meh, I'll knock it out in due time, after monsoon season ends.

 

[Patchouli]

Organizing kitchen cabinets today, pretending I'm moving.
Waiting for a friend to come look at the washer.
@Bacpacker did you say you moved?
Dog needs a bath. Thinking about hitting my favorite garden store later. Always makes me feel better. Sad times for many.

 

[INresponse]

Rained again last night, so no watering this morning... I'm enjoying a cuppa herbal tea, it tastes good now that these morning temps are lower. I sure like the onset of fall in the high desert, after a long hot summer the cooler temps are quite welcome.

Sitting here on a cool morning reading your post about tea and decided that was a great idea. Made me a hot cup of tea to take the chill off.

I relaxed yesterday, and it felt good. Today I get to pay the water bill and maybe, just maybe, do some work around here. We shall see.

 

[Bacpacker]

Organizing kitchen cabinets today, pretending I'm moving.
Waiting for a friend to come look at the washer.
@Bacpacker did you say you moved?
Dog needs a bath. Thinking about hitting my favorite garden store later. Always makes me feel better. Sad times for many.

We did 28vyears ago this past Saturday. Just a small aniversary for us

 

[dademoss]

Sadly, Willow, the cat that had lived here the longest, crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Today is her burial, so those preparations are being done.

 

[Chaosdawn]

@Frodo there was a vendor called "Lords of Leather" at the Renaissance Faire. He has some interesting things I've never seen. First was leather bound beer steins:
And then he had these things. Near as I can tell they are for carrying a tool with a haft, such as a hatchet.
View attachment 94545

Not sure what those are called. Maybe Frodo can tell us...

I forget what the ringed ones are for (axes maybe?), but the others with the ties are sword frogs. I have one on my sword.

We're going to a Ren Faire on Sat, I will be dressing up as a barbarian warrior in leather and fur and my son is going to be a plague doctor. DH doesn't dress up. XD