As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, I come from a family whose members prefer to do almost everything themselves. Why pay someone to do something I can do, or learn to do? (That attitude is how I ended up rebuilding a century-old piano.)
OMWC and I are both generally pretty handy (well, he’s handsy…that’s almost the same thing, right?), and we tend to do most things around the house ourselves. Assemble furniture? Sure. Paint and do other decorating projects? Yep. Install a new garbage disposal, ceiling fan, range, or light fixture? Absolutely. Wire new outlets or do general plumbing work? Indeed.
Since we are currently renting our home, we draw the line at doing things that will cost a lot or have the potential to go sideways very fast, possibly damaging the landlord’s property.
What household projects do you feel comfortable taking on? Do you pay someone to do things you have the skills to do? If so, why?
Wow. Nobody yet? I handle just about every project, plumbing, electrical, gardening, light construction, etc… also car repair.
I try to do as much as I can on my own, but it seems like everything I touch ends up having issues or requiring more work once I’ve “fixed” it.
First?
Fuck off tulpa?
As a son of a general contractor and been on many jobs, I am comfortable enough to do almost anything.
As a big-picture person that gets bored once I can see a project come to fruition, I tend to pay someone cause it will be 7/8th the way complete with my brain saying “looks good!”
Any and all projects, and now that I’m buying, it’s more worthwhile, Hoping for a new deck come Springtime,
I just call Schneider and we exchange witty one liners while he works.
The one thing I don’t do is serious plumbing. I don’t have the right kind of torch, or a ProPress.
Rip it out and install Pex and Shark Bite fasteners.
QFT
Quantum Field Theory?
That’s above my pay-grade, bud. 😉
Sharkbites are the devil. We had a rental property where someone in the past had gone nuts with them and they were leaking everywhere.
Huh, I always found it kinda hard to fuck up Shark Bite. They must of have had absolutely no idea what they were doing…or a defective batch.
Yeah, sharkbites make me nervous. I’d rather use crimp or solder joints (depending on the material) , all else being equal.
Shark Bites does God’s work.
^
This chick gets it.
Oxy/Acetylene brazing or GTFO.
Seriously, soldering is pretty easy with MAPP gas (or whatever is the current version) And with plumbing just make sure your drops are right.
Faucets and fixtures, fine. Really anything with threaded fittings. I leave anything requiring a torch to the professionals.
Same here. As a kid, I did most aspects of construction, so I can do a lot of it. However, I’m renting like ya’ll , so I just won’t dive in to deep. So far, I’ve replaced the circuit board in the dishwasher, replaced about three windows (which my kid broke) replaced a few doorknobs (which died of old age) and painted the bathroom. I’ve done some plumbing, but I stop when I get to a sketchy pipe joint that might break or something. Pretty close to buying, as soon as the market turns downward a little, and then I’m sure I’ll have to do quite a bit more.
Everything short of pouring a foundation, and I volunteer at Habitat in hopes that I eventually learn that skill, too.
Drywall is a contextual thing. The smaller the spot and the less noticeable it is, the more comfortable I am doing it.
I outsource when i can’t figure out the source of the problem or if the problem is an exceptional pain in the ass (like when there was a leak behind a kitchen cabinet).
You can save a shit ton of money if you learn how to sweat copper, install an outlet, patch a hole in drywall, and replace rotted trim.
A country boy can survive!
Out of all the help I did with my dad’s company…drywall can rightly go to hell, especially if you are hanging it on the ceiling. We didn’t have fancy jacks or anything like that.. Just young arms and broad shoulders. My fondest memory was working with his subs remodeling a Montgomery Wards back in the very early 90s. That would never happen again, I was 12 years old on a construction site.
I hated drywall. My favorite construction job was framing. Hard work, but very satisfying. Of course, I became a mechanic, so there’s that.
HVAC, we was Kangs!
I worked for a general before I upgraded to walk-in cooler installation. +1 on drywall. *hocks a big white loogie*
Oh, and as a renter, I don’t do much. Super easy stuff (installing door stops, mounting a smoke detector) excepted. I may run Cat6 cable all around the place to hook my devices up to the network, but that feels like too big of a project at the moment
Dude…just powerline network it…unless of course its crappy old electrical.
What’s the bandwidth like on those things?
https://specklepattern.wordpress.com/2020/01/11/powerline-reality-actual-bandwidth-versus-headline-bandwidth/
Depends on what you are going to throughput. If its for your computer and its for web surfing, light video watching…its great. Now if you want it as your backbone, then I would say run the cat5e or cat6
There is much money there, no one wants to finish drywall, no one seems be know how to sweat copper, dunno why,
I have hung a bit of sheet rock on my own projects but hire the finish out, plumbed my house and cabin. I like the garden these days.
I get people not wanting to finish drywall. It’s a skill and an art and looks like shit if you screw up even a little bit.
Not wanting to sweat copper? Plumbing takes planning and precision, but sweating copper isn’t particularly difficult. If you screw up, you can just redo it.
I have my own drywall finishing technique. It’s called good enough. The guys who can do it well are not me. I do a two coat on seams and holes and then a thick skip trowel because I am lazy. I tried to finish my “apt” ceiling smooth and it is fucked but good enough for me.
I can do it from start to finish and make it look seamless and smooth but I’d be lying if I said I was quick about it. I’ve seen guys who’ve done it for years complete projects in two days that would take me a week.
The guys who are good are good and fast. I don’t have the patience for that. Good enough for me is my motto and I have low standards unless it is cabinetry. But that I did for a decade. Sheetrock I did a few years.
‘The guys who are good are good and fast.’
Yep. That’s why my services are just patch work at this point. A part of being a painter. I refuse to do sheetrock as a stand alone project. I’d either undercut myself in money to keep the customer happy or not get the job at all because the time needed in my quote would be too lengthy. It’s not worth the bother.
I used to feel bad that I hired someone to do the pool and lawn because I remember growing up my dad never hired anyone. He used to do it all himself.
Then I remembered. No wait. I actually did that stuff for him as his son. They were my chores.
Then I felt less bad.
*cue Vivaldi string playing music*
Heh. My brother and I used to joke that the only reason my father wanted sons was to have somebody to mow the two plus acres of lawn, tend the orchard, the grape vines, the chicken coop, weed eat around twenty plus trees, the house, the shed, the well, chop fire wood, stack fire wood, hand him tools while he screamed at his car, wash the dishes, tend the garden, harvest the garden, pickle the vegetables, buck hay for grandpa, shovel out the long gravel driveway after it snowed, ect, ect,…we were kept busy, you get the gist.
And now you are a better man for it. You learned how to work. My dad was a very easy going guy but taught me at least how to work, not necessarily what to do but get up in the morning, get on the job with the tools necessary for the day and finish what you had set out to do, even it took more time the next day.
Gonna plop this turd here again just so we get a double reminder of how awful Popehat has become.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Popehat/status/1349360335761731586
I will never click Twitter again,
I’m trying to have that fortitude, too.
I wouldn’t but I don’t like to see good people getting smeared for no reason and want to make sure people see what’s happening.
Triple negative FTW.
Already blocked at the network level.
TDS is a helluva drug.
Now that the T is leaving, then what?
They’ll never get over it. If Trump died tomorrow, they’d still spend the next few decades talking about how evil he was. It’s the only way to hide the stain of their misdeeds.
I don’t know how we are gonna do it but somehow now we have to find someone that infuriates them even more than Trump by 2024.
For shits and giggles.
I am going to be fascinated to see if they do their usual Strange New Respect thing where “In hindsight, the old Hitler was so much not Hitler, not like this New Super Hitler.”
Yes. We must search high and low for this person.
Careful, if they somehow decide that, for example, Xi Jinping is a tyrant and a genocidal madman we could end up in a big ol’ war.
Who am I kidding, they’d love to get Xi’s autograph on “Xi Did It My Way: Social Credit Schemes for Tyranny and Profit”
I’m going to post this again, because this map is retarded:
https://twitter.com/willchamberlain/status/1349421124761886723
I am happy to be oblivious to whatever infighting that horse shit is.
Someone here (Playa?) said that they had respect for that asshole because he gave up the power of being a prosecutor.
As he continuously demonstrates his sadism and that particular self-righteousness that comes from being awful to people “who deserve it,” AND his constant use of guilt by association which is completely antithetical in being a defense attorney, I think a more plausible scenario of his career change is:
1. Wasn’t a terribly good prosecutor when he wasn’t railroading vastly outresourced defendants
2. Became a defense attorney to make huge stacks by relying on his social contacts in the US attorneys office to get good plea bargains.
I think his continuing attempts and failures at other ventures (blogger, media pundit, podcaster) back up this hypothesis.
Has he gotten checked out, like medically? I’m serious. This is like a sudden tumor causing weird behavioral changes.
That seems like libel, though I guess Ken probably knows the legal reasons why it isn’t. It’s awful though. It’s extremely illiberal in the classic sense.
He, and the other anti-Trump rightwing types often seem to be support for my theory that the more someone speaks of their own towering moral rectitude, the more likely it is that they are themselves a nasty little turd.
I used to love reading Popehat years ago. Then he stopped writing in his blog and switched to twitter, mostly. I don’t read twitter, so I lost track of him at that point. Maybe a year or so ago, I thought “hey, I haven’t heard anything about popehat for a while, let me see…” boy did that guy go nuts.
He kicked out all the commenters that weren’t SJ-loving sycophants who were mostly there to get other commenters purged for being racist/sexist/whatever. Then he realized that all his commenters were stupid rage addicts.
He went to substack, but he hasn’t had an original idea in a decade, so after rewriting the same four posts he kind of gave up.
What got me reading him was stuff he wrote about an abusive law firm and also about a terror bomber…not going to mention the name just in case those people are still attacking web sites that mention them.
Other than that, it was relatively weak. He was quite funny sometimes, and clever with words, but also wordy enough to be a bit annoying at times. He talked tough about the evils of bad prosecutors, but in the end he’s using filthy tactics against people he doesn’t like, so really, what’s the diff?
His best work was destroying the “fire in a crowded theater” argument, but 1 highlight isn’t really a great track record. Now he’s just nuts.
Apparently the original context was Nick Sarwark and company getting a poster named @neoconremover banned from Twitter. Here was his last handle and tagline:
https://mobile.twitter.com/cryptidsncrypto/status/1349411254197047304/photo/1
I don’t even remember if he blocked me for anything, or I was just part of some block he ran, but I’m blocked. Gosh, what a shame.
Nothing like the Pope Hat when Mediccis were in charge.
For a lot of folks, it’s more cost effective to have some home repair done by others, but i believe everyone should know at least the basics, Toilet valves, stuff like that,
Mind the ballcock.
I can make 100$ changed a light switch, know why?
Cause people are generally lazy, even when you can call up a YT video that will take you step by step?
Electricity is scary, people will cut there fingers off using a Skilsaw wrong, but ‘Lectricity! Spooky!
I have been bitten a lot, its the nature of the job. Luckily never any flash arc or crazy stuff like that. I respect anything over 120 VAC with great regard.
I grabbed a 460 v contactor once, I made it, being bit sucks
Three things you need to know.
You can’t outrun electricity, shit runs downhill and don’t lick your fingers. Remember that and no job is scary.
The gun is loaded,
the chair is against the wall,
I’ve done lights, switches, outlets, short runs. I’ve never worked anything over 120. I’ve only been shocked by low voltage, a telephone ring signal, and an improperly grounded generator.
Yep, toilet valves are a place where you can save a lot of money. $12 and a wrench compared to a $250 plumber call.
I don’t wanna fill my head with toilet repair know-how and risk having important video game playing memories overwritten.
How very S. Holmes of you.
^Gets it
Just get a bigger drive, SSD preferably.
It depends on the job.
Do you pay someone to do things you have the skills to do? If so, why?
I paid someone to construct my shop (in spite of possessing the skills to do it) because I was not in the country, had the money to pay him and my dad wanted a place to park his boat. (that is another story) Everything else in the shop as far as living space I did myself sans permit because fuck permits.
Now, if we’re talking cars…
and motorcycles, I do everything. It’s exhausting. All of our cars are 10 years old or much older. My newest bike is an ’06 next is a ’92 and way back further for the other eight. All the way back to ’52. I make parts on my machines and do every aspects of repairs/rebuilding on them. I’ve even painted a few.
8 motorcycles!?!?
*grows green with envy*
Oh, you don’t even know.
1966 XLCH
1963 XLCH
1967 XLH
1952 45″ flathead
Any year cone/pan swing arm
Custom built EVO rigid with a hand made frame
basic rigid EVO/4 spd.
1992 FXRT
1986 FXR
2006 1200 roadster
Buell Blast
And enough parts to build a couple more. I’ll never finish them all. I really should start converting some of them into cash and concentrating on the ones I like the most. Only my FXRT can be ridden at present. A couple of the others could be ridden with minimal effort. Having a kid and a full time job has slowed down my progress quite a bit.
Harley did not do right by Buell. *spits*
I still want a Buell Ulysses, a Honda 1100XX Blackbird, a Triumph Tiger 800, a Honda Africa, and an Yamaha FJ1300…
I like the Uly. I want a pre-unit BSA, an Sr500 and an original paint early XS650. It’s kinda nice riding little bikes around sometimes. I might put the Blast motor in an early ironhead frame after I finish a couple of the more important bikes. My focus right now is on my ’66, it was my first Harley. I rode the dogshit out of it in the eighties. Now, I wanna build it into a real late ’70s style digger. I have most of the stuff, excepting time and ambition. I even have a new old stock Ness Rocket tank and a frame with a single loop hard head.
After watching “Long Way Up” with Ewan and Charlie, I might even consider an electric Harley…
*not a Harley fan*
*not “usually” a Harley fan*
In the past there were few things I wouldn’t or couldn’t do. Now pretty much everything is running smoothly so not much to do. I’m not an engine guy though. I replaced a tail light lens cover yesterday, after a tree backed into me. Today I hired a welder to replace the rusted out braces on the running boards of a truck.
The body just doesn’t bend and stretch the way it did a few years ago. You’ve seen the cartoons of the old guy carrying the sign “The End is Near”. He’s a really good friend of mine.
Talked to a concrete contractor today about some cement work when Spring shows up, something I can’t do though I used to help a friend on his contract projects. Those days have passed.
I’ll take on anything that I can do with hand tools and minimal property destruction. Installing kitchen appliances, wiring outlets and lights, patching drywall, trim, molding, modular flooring, tile, like that.
Appropriate song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwGrC0KicSo
Nice!
Good one
I thought for sure it would be this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlNhD0oS5pk
A good Canadian Boy!
I keep to very simple things because I lack the skills to do the more involved and I am by nature a perfectionist – the combination of those is very, very bad. I have no problem paying someone for knowledge and skills that I lack – free market capitalism for the win!
Finally someone like me who enjoys exploiting the labor of others.
When I pay someone, I expect professional results; I get that and I am happy.
If I do it, the job will be crappy and I’ll be a blast furnace of rage and self-loathing. You tell me where the is win in that?
I too am a job creator.
This right here.
“Buy once, cry once.”
Painter by trade, so that’s no issue. Aside from that, Jack of all Trades, master of none. I’ve never owned my own home but I’ve worked on many a friend’s and family’s house. The results are usually on time and under budget but you’ll be left feeling vaguely dissatisfied…
That last sentence could also roughly describe my love life.
If it’s something I can tackle by myself or help from the wife and\or kids I do it myself. Otherwise I’ll hire it out. A few things like messing with breaker panels freak me out, so I hire that out too.
Multimeter is a must for any household to have. Never trust a breaker to disconnect electricity.
as long as you know how to use it OBE, not everyone knows what we do,
So I am not supposed to hold each lead in separate hands while I check this circuit that I have no idea what the load is?
it’s 3 phase, check the capacitor,
Ever charge em up and toss em at people? Thats how the military taught us to respect them…
Read the instructions, no one ever said. I’ve got a cheap one.
Yup. You can get a cheap one for $20 or less.
you have an address? i have a spinny thing i want to send you, give it to SP, if you want, she might pass it along,
You still use your Gmail? I’ll send it that way if youre still using it.
yep, send it on,
Just as a reminder, we have Private Messaging in the Forum. Useful for this kind of thing without involving Google, and messages can be purged from the database on request.
Thanks for the reminder! Completely slipped my mind.
*starts sending Dick Pics*
Five bucks or less from Harbor Freight. If all you need to know if a line is hot and the approximate voltage and if the voltage is close to specs, it’ll do the trick. I wouldn’t use it for building circuits or sort any precision work, but for the basics, it will do the job.
Yep
I paid a buck and a half for my fluke. It’s been doing it’s thing for twenty seven years without losing any accuracy, so it was worth the money.
Yeah, I’ve spent more money over the years replacing cheap multimeters than it would have cost to just get a Fluke and be done with it. I finally wised up a few years ago.
Yeah for serious work you do want to shell out some clams. I got an eighty dollar job when I started building circuits for realsies.
Buy once, cry once.
made that move many years ago, it’s how you make money, HF won’t cut it,
There is a place for Harbor Freight. And there is a place for Snap
On Off. It all depends on the usage factor (UF).Strike fail!
$350 from Fluke and worth every penny.
I have zero trust in a HF multimeter. But then again I was checking mF, and up to 460VAC.
Oh I do anything downstream and have several multi meters, but something about working in the panel creeps me out.
You just have to ground out the incoming main line with a cable big enough so that the wire at the curb fuses instead. That way, the power company has to pay for the repair. Anything after the meter is on you.
🙂
I had a friend invite me over for dinner one night, he said come a little early, bring electrical tools. An electric heater wasn’t working, took the cover off , saw an unconnected wire. Hooked in on, replaced the cover, about 2-3 minutes. He said “You’re not getting dinner for that”
I did work for old people when switches etc weren’t working. No replacing yard light bulbs though, terrified of heights
Depends on the the friend,
“He said “You’re not getting dinner for that””
Should have just disconnected the wire.
A variation on the old, old joke:
$0.25 for hooking the wire up.
$399.75 for discovering the problem you were too lazy to find and then fixing it.
Right?
(Now where’s my dinner, dammit?!?)
“$0.01 – chalk X. $49,999,99 – knowing where to put it”
Did the ‘friend’ actually refuse to provide dinner, or was it a joke? I mean, friend status should mean being okay with sharing meals without services provided.
Friend was a funny guy, even offered me the last piece of blueberry pie. Now that’s a friend….
Zero. Wasn’t raised in it. To be fair, mom was kind of busy juggling four kids on her own.
And I have no qualms about paying someone else to do a better job than I could so I can do other stuff that I’d rather be doing anyway.
Time is money, nothing wrong with hiring shit out,
My spirit animal.
Well, you ARE a (((lawyer))), so I think that’s expected. 😉
Yeah, this is me. Plus a long track record of incompetence when it comes to projects requiring any kind of skills. Since becoming the owner of a large mortgage a few years back, I figured I should learn some basics. But, I’m close to 60, have a well-paying job so it seems to make more sense to pay someone to do things. And, on top of that, Mrs. Nation is actually pretty good at a bunch of things so she does some stuff around the house when she’s in town.
When I was a kid, the Old Man had me “helping out” every weekend on some home maintenance task or another. The only things I wasn’t allowed to monkey with were jobs that were (a) plumbing, and (b) electrical. The rationale being that if I screwed up a plumbing job, the damage could get real expensive real fast, and if I screwed up with the electricity bad enough, I could get dead.
So while I can do basic plumbing (i.e., change a worn-out flapper valve), I’m going to pay a pro to rough-in a new toilet, or replace the garbage disposal. Ditto for anything electrical more complicated than swapping a busted outlet.
I do all my own lawn and landscaping work, though I’ve been slowed down by the heart attack I had in October, so I may have to start farming some of that out, too.
I don’t do drywall mudding, interior painting, car painting, or larger remodeling. My standards in those areas are way beyond my abilities.
I can do most other things myself, it just takes me longer.
My wife will call the plumber when I don’t get to things fast enough. I did fix the disposal unit after the plumber said it was toast, though. That saved $230 last weekend!
Most people don’t realize there is a reset button (typically) and a manual drive you can wrench at to fix most disposal problems.
I had a disposal that caused the sink to back up. I took the damn thing apart and snaked everything I could think of. Turns out peices of a plastic spoon got between the drum (?) that is underneath the main blades and the side of the disposal. I just had to get a ratchet and socket with an extension and turn the drum until the spoon was ground up sufficiently for it to go down. Irritating as hell.
That was EXACTLY the problem. A little green plastic spoon had stymied that humongous 3/4 HP motor.
If had hair left, that would have made me pull it out.
I went through this. I just bought a new disposal. Upgraded to 1 HP. There’s a horse under my sink!
The manual drive at the bottom is usually a good place to start. Sometimes you don’t run it enough and the crud makes it stick to where the motor won’t turn. The manual drive usually breaks it free and you’re good.
Working under a sink is tough for me, tri-focals and trying to see out of the bottom lens with the head raised up. Not much room. I don’t do any under the car repairs, other than to see where something is leaking so I can tell the nice man at the Ford dealer.
As an autodidact, I have a great deal of confidence in my ability to figure stuff out. As a result, I will start just about any job. Predictably, this leads to me trying to do things that I have absolutely no business doing. So I will start a job, get stymied, consult the interwebs and if that fails, call someone that knows WTH they are doing.
I’m about as done with DIY as I can get and I’m going to rent for the rest of my life.
I have plumbed, electricfied, framed, drywalled, painted, and the only thing I truly hate is ladders and heights, which is why I never worked on our roof.
Roofing….watching dad not turn his roofing hammer around was always painful to watch.
o/I did some roofing with my late maternal Grandfather (general contractor, even after losing sight in one eye, could drive in a ten-penny nail in with two hammer blows) and I was terrified of heights. But the Army started having me rappel out of Crashhawks and jump out of perfectly good airplanes/whirly-birds, that managed to cure my acrophobia, permanently.
I’ll do most plumbing and electrical–I do it better than some pros out there. I can do some framing but I’m not super great at it. Drywall I hate, because I have little patience for that kind of finish detail work. I have repointed masonry and will probably do so again, as long as it’s not a huge project. I have a plan to dredge a pond, but need to find time to do it.
In general, I like to spend my time doing things I want to do, so I think about how long it would take me to do vs having a pro do it, and also whether I could achieve pro quality without an excessive amount of time and frustration. I am currently spending nearly all of my free time building an airplane–it requires a bunch of different skills and a ton of time, so I prefer to pay someone to do things in which they specialize so that I have the time to work on the airplane. I wouldn’t take as much satisfaction in working on the other projects, and the satisfaction level with the airplane work is really high. Plus, certified airplanes are too damn expensive.
Respekt!
“Plus, certified airplanes are too damn expensive.”
That is my job. I twist ’em, bop ’em, bend ’em, and drop ’em. I’m pretty good at breaking shit!
Do you work in manufacturing or service? Plastic or spam cans?
Structural testing of plastic airplanes with built in parachutes.
aha! That sounds like fun. You’ve probably seen the old advertisement for Mooney with 30 people sitting and standing on the wing of a J model? Gave me some more confidence in my current ride. I’m building an RV-10, and seeing the videos of what Van’s put the RV-14 test articles through was interesting.
I saw a cool video a few years ago of some crash tests that were done with an old 172 with dummies and cameras inside–I imagine that opened some eyes and drove design choices for newer airframes.
Damn, that might be too specific.
*waves at NSF agents*
The National Science Foundation is after you?
Everybody is after me, UCS!
*puts on aluminum foil hat*
Aluminum? Isn’t that sacrilege?
Tin is an inferior metal. Aluminum is where it s at.
My sister and I did the drywall to finish the basement in her first house. She’s really good at taping. A friend and I redid a half bath in her house. We jokingly called ourselves Lucy and Ethel contracting. We tore everything out, replaced the subfloor (water damage) put in a new toilet, changed to a pedestal sink, installed a gfci plug and new light switches. We tiled the floor. Tore the old tile off the wall and put in wainscoting.
So, I can do that kind of thing, but don’t want to do it alone, so I mostly pay. I did most of the painting, but hired someone for the stairwells. I have replaced light fixtures and fixed toilet valves.
When we built the house 15 years ago, I did the following: put down 3000+ sq feet of pergo; did all the interior paint; built two retaining walls.
Since then I have put up about 300 feet of wooden fence, built a couple of raised planting beds, and planted a little orchard.
I have also cleared several dozen young trees (3 to 6 inches in diameter) and ground out all the stumps.
WTF is wrong with you? Pergo?
Pergo
Yes. You got a problem with that?
No carpets (allergist said so).
We had dogs as long as the Pergo has been down. Zero damage from nails.
Easy to put down. Even an idiot like me can do it.
Back in the day Pergo was all there was. The new vinyl plank is a very good product. You should have waited. Just saying.
This was 15 years ago.
It had a 20 year warranty. So far, I can’t seen any reason to replace it anytime soon.
So far, I’ve done everything other than installing the gun safe, because fuck that noise.
However, I’m shit at finish work. However however, I’ll probably wind up doing it because it’s so freaking expensive — seriously I got quoted $3000 to have a tin ceiling put in.
that’s easier than I thought it would be, think tile, but overhead, you can do it
Tin ceiling? You starting a 20’s era whore house? I might need to restart my forgotten offer to build you a cabinet.
The office. But… you’re not too far off actually. There is a 6×5 window taking up most of a wall, but the walls are dark green (Sherwin-Williams “Hunt Club”) and the furniture is also dark (walnut desk, a couple of Tiffany lamps) so to kind of increase the light level I put a big mirror over/behind the desk.
Doing it right is tricky. As in, there’s lots of little tricks to get it right.
My Mom was always working on our house when I was growing up. She did electrical, plumbing, finish carpentry, flooring, painting, you name it. My grandfather is an electrician and would come over all the time to help. We kids got put to work too, but it was usually hauling stuff or just adding an extra set of hands, they did all the skilled work.
When I bought my house, I was planning to do most everything myself because you get to pick two of good, fast, and cheap, and DIY was going to be the best option for good and cheap, especially with my Mom and grandfather to teach me. After two years of projects, with an entire basement still left to be finished and thinking about kids in the near future, fast is starting to look a lot more attractive.
Nice! You’re more handy than several dudes here…not that I’m judging those guys. I’m handy out of necessity more than anything else because I pretty much pigeonholed myself into being so. If I hadn’t, I’d probably just pay someone too. So,…you’re probably more inherently “handy” than I am…good on you!
Heh, that was for Tulip…sorry, been a long day.
Could’ve been for SP, Mojeaux, or Cannoli, too.
This is true. Mo, for that matter.
Ooops, misread that at first. Sorry…again, a long day.
I don’t fuck with electrical or plumbing. Mess that up, and you 1) burn your house down, or 2) flood that bitch. I do some things, but then there’s stuff I won’t touch at all.
I build my own ammo. I won’t paint so much as a single square foot. I’ll change out a light fixture. Stuff like that is okay. When it comes to actually building shit though, no way.
I wouldn’t want to work on a foundation.
I wouldn’t want to install an air conditioner due to the need for the specialized tools. I’ll replace parts on them provided it doesn’t involve messing with refrigerant.
Everything else I’m pretty well game for when it comes to working on an existing house. Plumbing, electrical, siding, roofing, windows, drywall (i hate hate hate drywall, I swear I’ll never do it again and yet I always take on new drywalling projects)
The big problem I have is that I tend to take twice as long actual working time as a pro, and weeks or months of actual time passed to do a 2 weekend project because I start a project then get interrupted by doing fun things instead.
I also prefer to do my own automotive work though for my current vehicle the only maintenance it really needs is rotate the tires every 5k, change wiper blades and add wiper fluid.
My wife and I can do a ton of stuff around the house. We like it, and it is a fun hobby. For instance, we did 100% of our landscaping, interior trim and millwork. However, last summer we hired a buddy of mine to build us a deck. We had a grad party coming up and we were able to get it done while we were on vacation. We have also hired cabinet makers and masons. They are way better than me.
Water heaters, yes. Valves, faucets, etc. no. HVAC appliances, yes. Maintenance and minor repairs, no. Old car, yes. Newer cars, mostly no.
So it’s a mixed mag. I love DIY, but if it’s stupid difficult or time critical, I love my people!
Good poll!
Change my own oil. Random toilet repairs are pretty easy. Garbage disposal repair is usual straight-forward.
My dad raised me to believe
A. It’s immoral to pay someone to do a job you can do yourself.
2. There’s nothing you can’t learn to do.
I’ve pretty much lived up to that. While I’ve never built a 38’ sailboat in the backyard like he did, I’ve built the equivalent of 1 1/2 houses.
I’ve gotten too old for that shit now. I even pay a nice lady to mow our lawn.
I hate yard work. I pay someone. Totally worth it.
I would very much like to build “a
38′45’ center cockpit ketch sailboat in the backyard”!Fair enough. Those of us who aren’t superhuman, we have to pick and choose what we want to learn.
While you can learn to do any of the task there is a point where it costs more in time and materials to learn than it would to hire someone who’s already put in the investment.
My dad would have said that’s true the first time. After that, the time spent learning the new skill and the money spent on new tools was an investment that paid off the next time(s). In practice, I think the researching and learning a new skill and applying it were ends in themselves. He was happiest when building something.
When I moved in to my little sailboat, I found all sorts of things I needed to change, all the light switches are worn out paddle style, gone,
all 3 fixtures are cheap crap, gone, and change the electric water heater to a demand heater, I can run a gas gas line. After that is a 6×16? deck on the side, I want to BBQ!
I would say, the plumbing fixtures,
I am having beans and rice with ground beef and mushrooms leftovers with a bagged salad tonight. I contracted out the growing of the beans, rice, and the growing of all the bagged salad contents as well as the bag. The leftovers are warmed now so “you people” have a great night and a better tomorrow. “You People” have a great night.
^Gets it.
Not me, I brought in the last garden cabbage (from the garage) today. Potatoes, squash, honey, cuke and beet pickles all from 2020 garden. I burn my own wood that I cut for heat. Venison from the garden, sort of.
Contract out the bananas and lots of other stuff though. Try to pretend we’re living the frontier life with central heat.
*Imagines Fourscore in a buckskin suit and a fox fur hat with bison horns*
*that’s a tall suit* Damn, when he walks, each step must be 3 yards!
*wishes for longer legs*
Jamiroquai!
OT: I can’t be alone in hating Steam with the heat of a thousand suns.
Just got the “we couldn’t sync your progress last time so wanna start over?” bullshit.
How fucking hard is it to save my progress on my machine?!
“my machine”
I think I’ve located the source of conflict. This sort of thing is not part of the future industry model.
Did you leave cloud saves on? I have never seen that error.
I’ve never seen such an option presented to me. So if that is the default then yes?
If I can turn it off then hell yeah. I have no use for any of that cloud or social crap they push.
Under “Settings” In the “Steam” Menu there’s a “Cloud” section. I’d look there first.
Turning it off might cost you access to other saves at this point though.
Thanks, I’ll take a look next time. I’m not super into any games right now TBH, if I lose some saves it won’t bother me. I think you can modify those settings per game anyway.
I like how MS Teans will bounce any messages off their Microsoft servers before relaying it back to the guy who sits 30 feet from my office.
Totes logical. Secure AF too.
Can’t harvest the data if it’s done peer to peer.
We have mandate to have a everything Fed related on hosted Sharepoint. ?♂️
Trashy, new weapon on the way, you’ll like it, I do,
I do anything except electric and certain plumbing (like, I’ll replace a toilet tank, but not a garbage disposal). I’ve tried all of it, but I’ve also learned my limits & comfort levels.
As a mechanic, the cars in the household are my job. I usually do any other repairs that come up if it’s within my skill level, which so far has been nearly everything. Woodworking is a weak spot, so that will get jobbed out and I hate plumbing, so if it goes beyond a toilet valve, I have several customers who are plumbers, so one of them will get the call.
If it involves water, I’ll think twice about it, but I’m more likely to tackle an electrical issue than a plumbing one. For things like replacing the toilet or water heater, I had a professional do the work. It is too important to leave to my futzing. On the other hand, I’ve done simpler things like changing light fixtures and replacing a circuit breaker.
Painting, patching concrete, that I’ll try. The concrete patch I put in is still holding. I’ve not had any trouble from my electrical work. Of course, the first thing I did on buying the house was change the locks and repaint the hot pink wall.
I’ve never done anything that involves dealing with natural gas.
Me neither.
If a mistake can erase the whole house explosively, I’d rather leave it to an expert. I haven’t had a real problem with the natgas stiff though.
I have. I worked for a propane and natural gas company. We did everything from home-owners to town border stations that were controlled from 200 miles away via ethernet. I have seen liquid propane (boiling point = -40 deg F). Yes the local temperature was -40 degree F.
Every one of my houses has been converted from electric stoves to natural gas (now you’re cooking with gas!). I will never cook with electric if I can help it!
Mercaptan, my captain!
A spray bottle with a little dish soap can tell you where the leaks are.
I installed a shutoff valve on the gas line for the dryer when we moved in, but that’s been it. If I ever get around to moving my laundry room upstairs I’ll hire a pro to run the gas line.
Hrmm.. I don’t know if my dryer is gas or electric. I’ll have to take a look behind it.
Wut?! How do you not know that?
It came with the house. I forgot to check.
It’s electric, There’s no gas line or anything that could be a gas line connected to the dryer. Only hoses back there connect to the washer and look like water lines.
I’m really good at finishing drywall, but I try to never admit it, at any price,
I used to do a lot of things myself (no drywall!) but age and injury have curtailed that, and equally importantly, my time is now more precious to me than money is.
As a very young kid I started messing with repairing my brother’s old Major Matt Mason battery operated toys and repairing electrical cords, etc. I grew up with chores including pool maintenance (I’d be out there sampling the pool water with the little droplets, comparing color and adjusting ph per Dad’s instructions. I was 7) and routine chores too.
On the farm, I’ve stretched barbed wire fence, dehorned, inoculated, and castrated cattle (if you’ve never seen the tool for this, called emasculators, your balls will crawl up inside your body when you see the tool and understand how it works).
I took on my first “plumbing” as a kid when the toilet wouldn’t stop running and my mom didn’t know what to do. I opened the tank, figured out how it was supposed to work and fixed it. Made me brave enough to do further under-the-sink work. My sister and I were just wired up very differently from each other.
Got a lot of experience as a teen helping my parents remodel a 1939 house that had been empty for 7 years in the 80s.
Nowadays I pay people to do things that are too dangerous for me (roof top anything) or that bore me or for which I lack expertise. I still do artistic stuff like chip, dent, and crack repair and paint to match on just about anything because I’m picky about the seamless match. And I’ll change the starter capacitor on household motors because that can save a ton of money and time easily. I do a lot of electrical power stuff in houses, but I paid the Tesla guys to install the charger in my garage. I didn’t even build my last PC; just ordered it as a complete unit.
If I lost my job and savings, I’d go back to do-it-yourself on all but the rooftop.
Does not compute.
That’s half the fun.
I haven’t bought a PC since…well…never. The only computers I ever had that I didn’t build (other than cell phones and tablets) were a Timex Sinclair something or other, a Franklin Ace 1000, and an 80286 pc my Dad bought from a local shop. Everything else since 1992 has been custom.
I had a Timex Sinclair too.
I have an methodology I use for when to call a pro.
It’s similar to a risk assessment, FMEA or cost benefit analysis.
I rank the following from 1 to 9 then multiply the results.
My Skill level : 1 being highly competent and 9 a newbie
The cost for a pro to do it: 9 low cost or 1 very high cost
The time difference for me to do it vs a pro: 1 no difference or quicker and 9 much faster for a pro
The pain associated with the time difference: 1 no one but me will notice vs 9 if my life will be severely disrupted
The risk to my property if it goes wrong if I DIY: 1 no risk or 9 high risk if it goes wrong
It’s a no brainer to do it my self if the total is under 100
I consider doing my self if the total is under 1000
I won’t touch it with a 10 meter pole if it is over 10K
Your numbers appear to be off by an order of magnitude.
I forgot the fifth factor do I have a friend with the tools and know how to help me.
1 lots of friends that want to help 9 nobody.
I change the strings on my guitars all by myself.
Went to the hardware store and bought a picture hanging kit and hanged some pictures.
Anything else gets outsourced.
Another semi appropriate song
Two jobs that I will never do again: roofing; and tiling.
So you want to install a tile roof?
I’ve done most things but I’m leary of plumbing and electrical. I’ll swap out parts like light switches or faucets but I’ll leave soldering pipes or running new wires to the experts for peace of mind. I did the kitchen and laminate floors in our old house but paid to have the floors done in this house. Same with tile. If we have to repaint the house I’ll probably pay for that too. We’re due for a new roof soon which I’ll gladly pay someone to do.
I also did some cinder block planters but it looks like they belong in the Hundertwasserhaus, so that’s another thing I’ll leave to the experts.
My dad was kind of handy , but FIL can build or fix anything. He’s been a carpenter for decades. I learned a lot from him, now I’ll take on most things except flooring, HVAC, roofing, or major construction.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vcQHlpwVA
P.S. I love putting Ikea furniture together. I absolutely love it.
Lego Furniture! I did an entire kitchen, counters, cabinets, the works, all Ikea, it turned out great,
My kid, who is a Lego expert, is also a great Ikea assembler. We joke that he should get a job doing assembly for them because he reads those instructions like a separate language he’s fluent in. Just zip-zip done.
Listening to him and his dad putting my desk together was hilarious – there was a lot of “no, dad, it goes this way.” “Wait, no, are you sure? I don’t think-” “yes, dad, like this.” “… oh. right. so it does.”
Shark bites are the backstab connectors of plumbing. I do love PEX though.
Very weird emergency squawk in Russia right now. Squawking 7700 (general emergency). Took off from Moscow, climbed to 22k, circled, did a low pass or TOGA at Moscow, and is now at 17k flying in the opposite direction of its destination.
https://www.flightradar24.com/LLM32/26909a7b
Okay.
Sounds like a story seed – come up with a tale to fit the facts.
Gonna burn a lot of fuel down that low
The speed graph is crazy (yellow line)
https://pasteboard.co/JJxEpsI.jpg
I’m no expert, but that doesn’t look healthy.
Yamal Airlines? I’ve not heard of that one…
*looks it up*
Asian regional airline with 30 planes, founded in 1997 – explains why I’ve never heard of them
Since altitude is constant there, they were either flying circles into and away from a goodly wind, or someone is operating that airplane that doesn’t understand how the autothrottles/autopilot work.
170 is a very weird altitude to fly at for that long. And what’s with the go-around at DME? And why are they going toward Finland when their destination is Siberia? Nothing looks standard emergency.
They could be headed for a place with better weather and burning fuel off as they go to get to a safe landing weight. I didn’t look at the METARs though, so I’m just speculating on the weather.
Apparently Moscow has heavy snow
I just checked the METAR at moscow and it looks fine. Overcast 2600 with light snow and good visibility. Totally do-able if the equipment is in working order.
Interesting – someone on the Tweeters said heavy snow
https://en.allmetsat.com/metar-taf/ukraine-belarus-moldova.php?icao=UUDD
Although the vis is lower than I thought, only about 4km. If they’re having altitude disagreements they wouldn’t be safe to descend with that kind of visibility and a visual approach would be unlikely. They would probably be outside their approved operating limits, so are headed for better weather where a visual approach is possible?
That would make sense. Also, they would want a decent level of emergency services, and St P is probably the only real option
Likely left-over computer track that was never dropped ( the A/C landed when it got back to Moscow). Emergency tracks aren’t dropped automatically when there is no primary and secondary radar. /former controller (whose experience was long ago and far away so I could be FoS).
Good thought, but it’s a real flight. Diverting all the way to St. Petersburg.
Also, a couple down the line in that feed: Jax center is closed for COVID related cleaning. An entire ARTCC center down. Amazing, although probably not the first time in the last year. I’m guessing they’re handling center duties with the local approach controllers
The flights I’ve made in the IFR system since COVID started have demonstrated that the controllers are really quite capable people. They have Center controllers handling multiple sectors and altitudes, they are really heavily loaded up.
ATCs do a great job. I’ve had great admiration for them since 9/11
Centers, tracons and towers go ATC zero (handle no traffic) more than the public knows. It really isnt that big of a deal except for reduced flows and some metering.
Discussion https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1349553136155975682
Flight path https://pasteboard.co/JJxIth4.jpg
That looping would explain the serrated velocity graph, assuming wind as per db
Looks to be heading to St. Petersburgh. Possible unreliable speed and/or flight control issues
If they are having pitot/static issues that could be very bad indeed, shades of the lost Air France 777. But they fact that they asked for information shows they know something is up, which the AF crew didn’t figure out until much too late. Knowing that that is going on, they can fly power/pitch to manage speed and use ATC help get down and keep their altitude.
If their static systems were plugged up, the altitude would look constant. However, all (both? not sure how many levels of redundancy the A320 has there) the systems would have to be plugged. Maybe the altitude encoders for the Mode C are only on one static system? They may have an altitude disagreement and that’s why they abandoned the approach at first.
His descent and speed into St. Petes looks normal
Looks like they made it in safely, thankfully
AvGeeks ?
Speaking of…
I see all the flights approaching LGA from my living room window. Since they started picking up again recently, I noticed they all seem to be flying a LOT lower than I remember from the before times. I’ve wondered what is up with that.
Chemtrails are less effective at reaching people indoors, so they need to be dispersed at higher concentrations from lower altitude.
There you go!
Routing and/or noise abatement?
Last time I went out to DCA on a Friday midday (one of the busiest times at DCA), and it was about 1 arrival every 10 minutes. It was really depressing.
Poor bastard passengers are hell and gone from their origin and destination
Better than auguring in, I assume. How’s that Ron White skit go?:
Fellow passenger: Three of our four engines are out! I wonder how far we can get with the remaining one?
Ron (drunkenly): I’d say all the way to the crash scene.
There’s always the brass balls of Capt Eric Moody on BA9:
Stiff upper lip
Landed…emergency vehicles all around them
And taxiing
I’m guessing some sort of equipment failure that made it unsafe to shoot an instrument approach, and the low visibility (not super low but still not great) would have caused them to violate their operating limits, so they did the safe and right thing which was fly to better weather and execute the visual.
Everyone is safe. The instrument malfunction sensor (or whatever you call it) is blamed.
https://m.gazeta.ru/social/news/2021/01/14/n_15484532.shtml
You can READ that mess ?
I’ve reno’ed two complete basements (gutted back to the studs), two utility rooms, a master bath, a secondary bath, an ensuite, partial kitchen, master and secondary bedrooms, and various external attachments (i.e., decks)/outbuildings. We’re gonna gut and re-build the kitchen in the place we moved into in June 2019, and I’ve also built myself an electronics lab downstairs, re-hung all the doors in the house (they were w0nkY when we moved in!) and done lots of shelving etc. And paint. Debbie Travis would be proud of the spousal unit and I over the last 20 years or so. Electrical’s cake for me, as is data wiring etc., and I’ve also done a fair amount of eavestroughing.
I won’t do big windows (too heavy!), and I draw the line at water supply (though I don’t have a problem with drainage). I won’t go up on roofs anymore. I will not lay wall-to-wall carpet — that’s what 20-year-olds with weak minds and strong backs are for.
When you do a lot of it yourself, you get what you want and don’t have anyone to blame if it goes wrong except yourself. And we’ve built up a lot of sweat equity over the decades. Our sweat equity’s probably had a better return over the relevant timeframes than our actual financial investments.
Mebbe we shoulda flipped houses for the last quarter-century.
I’m not particularly handy, but in the past year I’ve:
* Fixed a leak under the sink – basically just replaced a clamp
* Replaced the garbage disposal – which was not as difficult as I thought it would be
* Fixed the washing machine – replaced a $12 part myself instead of paying a guy $200. Kind of scary taking the whole thing apart, though.
* Replaced a light switch – I thought I was in too deep halfway through, but it was too late to back out so I pushed through got it done
* Tried to replace a bathtub faucet – this one went badly and I had to call a plumber.
I need to remodel the kitchen, but that’s way too much for me, I’m just going to hire some guys for that. I need to replace the faucet, though, so I might do that myself since I’m not sure when we’ll get around to remodeling.
First law of DIY plumbing: Never start a task on Sunday afternoon.
I fixed my 8 dollar Good will vacuum cleaner, my carpet likes me,
Which one of you guys is Christmas Mustard? Very eclectic tweets including a rando sumo one. Also funny
https://twitter.com/Z_Weddig/status/1349110776351641609?s=20
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErJd3fcW8AE9ijn?format=jpg&name=900×900
Lol
The only things I’ve ever had done by a ‘professional’ is septic cleaning, because the state demands a ‘pro’ sign off on it every two years. Need a new roof? Invite the brothers over. Need furnace work done? There is a guy that owes my uncle a favor. Bathroom remodel? Brother again. Install new lighting fixtures? My ceilings aren’t too tall, I can do that…We did hire some kind of handyman to put the tracked ceiling in my bedroom, just because we were busy with funeral stuff at the time. And some new gravel for the driveway, because we don’t own a dump truck.
Every two Years? What kind of madness is that? I’m only digging every 5-8 years depending on how shitty it is.
I had gone 8 years before they made this stupid law, and it wasn’t even 1/4 full at that time. I just leave the cap unburied now. Grafters gonna grift, yo.
Can’t fight Big Septic, I guess.
It’s fer dem der chilchren, doncha know.
(I don’t think it’s Wisconsin state law, but a county ordinance, none the, state mandated)
So, I was waking up to get ready for work tonight and I get a call, from work. Can I work first shift tomorrow instead? Sure. So I did the only sensible thing and started drinking right away so I can pass out and take a nap before I go in on first. The sacrifices I make…
I think the world needs some sort of solar flare/emp event. It’s gotta hit from the north. Hit the US, Ch China, etc, and leave the poor people in Africa and South America alone. But completely destroy all the tech in the borth for months.
If it shuts up all of the world’s media for six months, I’d be on board for that. But please let it happen here after the really cold weather’s behind us.
You’re not going to get a north hemisphere EMP event from a solar flare. Solar electrical damage will whack the daylight side – and we get hit with solar flares relatively frequently. They just don’t have the effect people think.
Now a nuke-generated EMP event will need several detonations to get the area of effect you’re asking for.
I, however, don’t see any upside to such an event taking place.
Vacay!
When I bought my house 24 years ago, one of the things that I didn’t pay enough attention to was the makeup of the trees that surround the structure. I have about four dozen trees on one-third of an acre, but the ones closest to the house are a subspecies of red oak known colloquially as the water oak. They’re pretty enough trees, and provide a lot of shade, but they have two problems for a homeowner.
One, they are prolific acorn producers, so much so that I can’t park my car in the driveway during the fall, lest I wind up with dings from falling acorns along every horizontal surface of the car.
Two, they are apt to shed branches during a storm. Said branches come whistling down through the tree’s canopy like a giant leafy lawn dart before punching a hole through the roof tiles, and occasionally the underlying roof. Let’s just say that when you’re woken up by your wife screaming that water is pouring into the bedroom after a branch has poked a softball-sized hole in your roof during a thunderstorm, and you get to scramble up and down a ladder to get the hole plugged and a tarp over the whole mess while it’s raining sideways — well, that’s kinda bracing.
I finally said “enough” and paid for a metal roof. And no way in hell was I going to attempt self-installation on that bad boy. The bad news was that it cost north of ten grand. The good news is that branches bounce off now, so no midnight thunderstorm housetop excursions. Of course, I still have to climb up there every couple of months because water oaks shed leaves just as prolifically as they ditch acorns and branches, so it’s “wait for a dry day and get on the roof with the leaf blower.”
I guess my point is that I paid extra so I’d never have to do roof repair again. When my carpets needed replacing, same deal — wood-appearance tile went in. When the washing machine went kaput — shelled out for a Speed Queen. A Meile dishwasher is next on the agenda.
Hopefully one day, home maintenance will be as easy as keeping a Toyota Corolla on the road.
I’m doing the same with household purchases. Got a new furnace and water heater last year because they were both 30 + years old. I went with a gas cast iron boiler that is just a bit more advanced than the one I replaced. It’s much higher efficiency, but without the high maintenance needed with a energy star approved unit.
I hope to get a lifetime out of it.
The roof is nearing 25 years and it will be replaced with steel for the same reason.
I’ll find a YouTube for a repair and use it to guide me. Problem is, the person in the video accomplishes the task in 15 minutes while it takes me about 2 hours. So it depends on my patience.
Less all the time. I just can’t do quality work like pros, and I’ll pay the premium for quality.
Plus, our house has plaster and this finish on the walls that literally one person on the whole planet can match, which means anything will wind up with someone else.
Yeah, I’d leave plaster to the pros.
“The pros” at this point are drunken old guys, but they’re still way better than I’d be.
Muscle memory can make up for a lot of alcohol.
I’ll do all the wrenching and servicing on our cars and the plane, and I like to build random projects around the house (last was a cat-resistant jigsaw puzzle cover), but I really hate doing house-related electrical/structural/plumbing stuff. I’ll watch a video then give up and call the plumbers.
I’ll do all the wrenching and servicing on our cars and the plane, and I like to build random projects around the house (last was a cat-resistant jigsaw puzzle cover), but I really hate doing house-related electrical/structural/plumbing stuff. I’ll watch a video then give up and call the plumbers.
Still doing the double post. I just reinstalled monocle too. Guess it wasn’t the problem.
In the monocle menu, turn off the “Avoid Page Refresh” option.
I’ll push an update to get rid of that option next week, but until then, that’ll fix the problem.
Still doing the double post. I just reinstalled monocle too. Guess it wasn’t the problem.
Post Squared FTW
I feel like I have a stutter..
I feel like I have a stutter..
I’m watching the new Technology Connections video on humidifiers. Growing up, barely anyone had those things. Now everyone every year breaks them out come winter. I never have used one at home. I’ve never had any issues, no static shock or chafed skin. At work where they have one running all the time static shocks abound (well, not for me, but everyone else).
(In HS when my room was in the attic and the central heat didn’t reach my room, so the only source of heat was a space heater, I did used to put a container of water in front of the heater that would be evaporated come morning).
We started using a dehumidifier. It’s making a world of difference in reducing the amount of excess water around. Lowest it will hit is ~37%RH.
I use a dehumidifier every summer, it goes in my window…
But I have a regular one down in the basement for when things get out of hand down there.
Always had ’em as a bolt-on to the furnace (forced air, of course). Our new one’s doing an outstanding job of keeping the humidity right at 40%.
We’re rocking 10% or less during the day, inside and out.
I like deserts, but that sounds . . . itchy.
You get to really like it.
And use a lot of lotion.
Or else it gets the hose again.
We had a humidifier in our Calgary apartment. It was unbearable otherwise.
My dad, in his latter days, was OBSSESSED with the humidity in his room. It was my fault. I gave him one of those indoor/outdoor thermometers and it had humidity on it, and he had nothing better to do than watch it. So if the humidity dropped by 1 percent or the temp dropped by a degree it was an EMERGENCY!
The best humidifier has gone extinct as far as I can tell. My aunt had one in 80s/90s that was belt driven. The ‘wick’ was rotated around to dip into the water and then come up to the fan. It worked awesome as a swamp cooler to compliment her AC (the only home I knew back then that had AC) and would lower the temp in the room by several degrees.
Ha, just watched one of his supplemental videos and he mentions the belt style. Apparently its an old person thing. Like I say I’ve always been old for age.
My grandparents had the same kind. The shit we remember…
Public schools suck. I’d count the ways but that’s where I was educated so I can only count to two.
https://www.city-journal.org/identity-politics-in-cupertino-california-elementary-school
https://www.city-journal.org/chicago-teachers-union-blocks-in-person-instruction
At least in that top story the parents pushed back. That is one despicable ideology that they are trying to make happen. There really can’t be enough words written about what a terrible thing it is to stir up racial division. I despise it.
It’s always terrible to me when I see some Asian-named person on twitter supporting CRT. Like, dude, they hate you, what are you doing?
It’s particularly revealing the Chinese parents recognized it for what it is. The know how dangerous and damaging it is.
Folx? JHTFC, that is hell in a handbasket fucked.
Pretty soon realitx is going to get hit by reality.
I enjoy that sort of nonsense because it is so far out. No one but the true believers go for it. See, for example latinx. It just alienates everyone else.
Ya gotta love that you can’t even pronounce it well in Spanish. That makes it extra good to force on people whose language and culture they know fuck all about. There needs to be reconquista of education from progressive idiocy.
That’s a good point. The “allies” don’t appreciate the entire language is gendered. Have fun getting around that. It sort of reminds me of the ridicule Pelosi has gotten recently.
The Latinos that I know either hate this shit or utterly ignore it. They are mostly busy doing real things, like making a living. The fart smellers have the time to make this nonsense up and the grifters latch on to get a buck pushing it.
I’m pretty sure the only people I’ve witnessed saying “Latinx” are white women on Buzzfeed videos.
I was actually a handyman for my mom’s property management company in HS and college and used that as a springboard for going back to trade school for stationary engineering when the economy crashed. I will pretty much do anything around the house except landscaping, but I hate, hate working on my daily driver.
The only limitation is MS tires me out quickly, so the wife is always pushing me to call someone at this point.
If you have MS and can afford the help, take the time off bro. Although, when my dad’s MS kicked into gear I can say I really did appreciate the time we spent working on my first car, even if it was mostly him just telling me what to do because he was too tired. (He was also working nights at that point, and being younger than he was and getting frustrated by still working nights I feel all the more love from that time)
It’s kind of a balance. I can afford the help ’cause I do most things myself. Also, it helps me feel human.
Yeah, it’s good to feel useful, but just don’t push yourself too hard. Being worn out by MS isn’t the same as just being worn out, I know. But also, yes, as long as you can keep doing things.
“Stationary engineering”
So you work for Hallmark?
And sorry about the MS. My great aunt had it, but I was too young to really see how it affected her.
I’ll do minor plumbing, minor electrical, painting, and tiling. No drywall (unless someone would like to teach me). Tiled a 750 sq foot basement floor (we had carpet, sewage backup, insurance payments, gross self-demo of carpet).
It sounds like the Glibs are a handy bunch. And when they are not they have enough sense to leave it to a pro. I wish I could do more, big projects are intimidating, even though I work doing door and lock problems every day. I’ve done some of most trades that go into building or car repair but I am still an amateur at almost all of it. There is so much mechanical and technical knowledge to gain that it is staggering. One day I would love to build a post and beam home from the foundation (obviously with some help).
I could actually build a stick built home, if I had the money and ambition. One of my first big video projects was pretty much an infomercial for a builder, none of it is that complicated. Now, the house I build probably wouldn’t be ‘up to code’, but neither is house I live in, built by my grandpa.
You’re invited to my stick built home party whenever it happens. Hopefully it will be in a “code shmode” location. Grandpa built homes are just great. I’d like to live in a house with almost no drywall involved in it.
I’ve fixed leaky pipes, although I do call in the plumbers for big jobs.
I’ve been getting into woodworking lately, so I’ll probably do some more repairs in the future. I’m about to rebuild some wooden steps on the back patio that are falling apart.
Hell, someone did a really haphazard job on the window frames in this place (big gaps, crooked and uneven surfaces, giant gouges in the wood, etc) and every time I see a small defect, I’m tempted to fix it up with my hand plane and repaint it. Maybe that will be a project for a spare weekend.
Also, pet peeve:
People who harangue me to “just YouTube it and do it yourself” whenever something needs to be fixed. Maybe I value my time and money differently than you, dingus. And don’t tell me it’s “not that hard” – I make all my own bread at home, and these same people frequently tell me that it’s “too much work” even though it’s “not that hard” by my subjective judgement.
/rant
I think I’m in the middle of the Dunning-Kruger effect : I can do most manual things not too bad but know I’m not that good at it compared to other people. I can fix most of the stuff around the house. To quote a great Canadian : ”If women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!”.
In our case, it has a lot to do with us renting and not wanting the owner to sell as his wife has been trying to convince him to do for a few years now. So the more we take care of the house, the least he thinks about it, the longer we can keep it.
Funny story ; I’ve worked assembling furniture for a while, and once got a job to do the finishing on furniture in private jets, being called an ”ebenist” or professional woodworker. The guy training me spent 3 hours adjusting drawers. Yeah… no no, no… Not gonna screw up that 10 000$ piece. Yeah I’ll show my way to the door. Thank you lol.
Haha I don’t blame you.
That’s pretty sweet that your career is woodworking, though. How exactly does one start doing that? Aren’t most career woodworkers independent contractors who just drum up their own business?
Cantopop > Mandopop
If the tightness righties are going to pipe bomb the nation next week, could they shove one at NEMA? Fuck NEC 2020. What a load of horseshit to force purchasing of godawful crap.
Morning, Glibs.
Morning, UCS.
I’ve been cleaning out my freezer before refreshing my food supplies, so I took a container of crab meat out to defrost intending to make a crab cake… only I’m out of both mayo and egg.
So what can I make that doesn’t just waste or cover the crab?
The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is crab dip, if there is such a thing without mayo.
Got sour cream or cream cheese?
No on either.
I’m out of dairy except butter at this point. Got plenty of butter.
So you combine the butter and crab in a double boiler, simmer, let cool a bit, hop in the tub and rub it over your body. It will be the trip to the Shore that you never got to take last/current year!
That sounds disgusting.
I’ll have to look through my kitchen and see if inspiration hits.
Apparently I have rice I didn’t know I had. But without eggs, I can’t make fried rice.
I also have dried cherries. But they are apparently dried sour cherries. I think my plan was to soak them in rum along with some of these other dried fruits before making fruitcake.
Now I want crab fried rice.
… but that means buying groceries.
Butter alone won’t do it?
(I’ve never made fried rice myself. That’s probably obvious.)
Butter alone won’t give the same end results. Bare minimum you need rice and egg. Probably should have includes scallions and garlic, and some sort of high sodium asian sauce (fish, soy, etc). Then you add the “anything else”
What.
Is.
Up ya’all
The ceiling. The Roof. The clouds snowing on the city.
We’re alleged to receive a ‘wintry mix’ over the weekend. But no snow here.
Since my sisters & I are thinking of FINALLY doing belated Christmas on Saturday (though they haven’t confirmed yet – grrr!) a light dusting would be nice, but I’d settle for not crappy at this point.
sup’ fam ?
Rumpke is on the job- I went and collected my already emptied (highly embarrassing) recycle bin.
Gotta have a tall can for your TALL CANS!
remember the night before thankgsgiving and how windy it was? Coming home from work, a lot of the cans had been blown over. As I approached Chez Tres, I see all these shiny, sparkly, objects littering the yard, adjacent yard, sidewalk, and street. It was my weekly Milwaukee’s Beast donation to Rumpke, scattered tither and yon. Thankfully it was 6-ish, still dark, and everyone was still in bed as I shamefully walked around and picked them all up.
I build a wall of empties, 150 per bag. Gals at the recycling place love them some Festus.
Tres Sr. goes in this morning to have a pacemaker installed. For some reason (at age 81) his cardiac health is important yet he continues to smoke 2 packs a day.
Hope everything goes smoothly!
Me too but also realize that those darts might be the one pleasure left in life for him.
I quit years ago but if I make it to that age I might take it back up. Why not at that point?
That’s actually his argument, which I accept- “Jesus, Tres, Im 81. If I quit now what does it buy me? A couple more months?”
Mornin’ all! Used to do pretty much everything handy. Mostly self-taught so you can imagine how some of those projects went. Still do most of the fixing around here but anything with ladders is a big red light nowadays. Hung a lot of drywall in the past but gimpy shoulder has put an end to that. I steer clear of major plumbing or electrical when I can because a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Still do what maintenance on the vehicles that I’m able to. Oil changes, brakes and the like. Always get the yard implements up and running. Never learned any of that stuff from Dad. He was a suit and tie guy so it would have reflected badly on him to walk into a meeting with dark crescents for fingernails. He could do it all himself but he hired it out and when he had to do it he’d do a shit job just to provoke Mother. I learned from my friends’ Dads because they were willing to teach.
I’m afraid there’s not much by way of home or auto repair/maintenance I’d be brave enough to try on my own. Maybe painting. When I was in high school, I painted my bedroom during a teachers’ strike after going to school one day with the subs and realizing it would be a waste of time.
David Cassidy mural?
That was earlier. By high school, I was obsessed with The Manhattan Transfer. : )
Nelson Laugh
I dont mind working on cars or trucks much, specially pre-2006 diesels, cause they have systems I can understand. Same with home electrical or plumbing. But for pretty aesthetics like painting or drywall (see above thread), Id rather “call a guy”.
Meh.
Biden to propose 2 trillion dollar stimulus?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/yields-surge-stunned-traders-learn-biden-propose-massive-2-trillion-stimulus
Suhweet Jesus…
“That’s not enough.”
-Dems
At least we’re going to find out unambiguously whether Keynesian or Austrian economics are closer to reality. IOW we’re screwed.
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks/approaching-last-stop-roadside-america-auction-begins/article_ee294f9c-55fa-11eb-ab2f-dfbb0db018f6.html
Start yer biddin
So I actually started dozing off last night pushing broom. Not a good look in an active warehouse situation. I swear that if the Zombie Apocalypse happens tomorrow I am going to mindlessly grab a bucket and mop and start cleaning up after the carnage.
DRAAAIIINNNSSS!!!
Genuine LOL!
https://www.pennlive.com/politics/2021/01/trump-impeachment-mcconnell-open-to-convicting-president-at-trial-senate-will-return-jan-19.html
Fuck that turtle.
The GOP is committing suicide. Fucking idiots.
Here we all thought the Dems were gonna implode…
Both parties are going to implode but the Dems are unified now through their hatred of the right. Once the Dem constituencies start fighting over the pie with their guy in charge they’re going to go into the ditch along with the Reps whose injury is entirely self-inflicted. Good riddance to all of them really.
Back to topic…
I will jump on just about any construction project for repairs or upgrades around the house.
I’ve hung double doors that, 20 years later, still rock into place as they close with as close to an airtight seal as you could hope for.
Right now I’m on the tail end of a small project for a company I’ve been collaborating with. Their office is a big open plan room but they wanted a separate entry with a meeting room off one side. Nothing too tricky but the contractors they got quotes from where trying to take advantage of them.
I’m right at the point where I’ll be finishing up the drywall with a knockdown texture. I guess I’ve done enough drywall that I don’t mind it. It’s almost enjoyable.
Age has reduced my ability to do projects. If it requires contortion to get into a tight space or hours hunched over, I will pay someone else. Also, heights. Someone else can do the roof.
Yep. Heights are a big bad NO.
2021 is gonna be lit.
Reading back through the comments, Pissedoffnick mentioned a spray bottle of soap to find leaks. Reminds me of how we used to see if the valve on a tire was leaking when we worked at the service station (remember them?). Spit on your fingers and and drool it on the valve. If it bubbles, well then Sir, we have found your problem! How many 15 year-old kids are working jobs like that now?
What household projects do you feel comfortable taking on?
All of them.
Do you pay someone to do things you have the skills to do? If so, why?
I pay if it’s a large project on a ladder, roof or on my knees. Also, I don’t do windows. I can replace the inner slider and the springs but as for pulling everything off and slapping a new one on, nope.
If it’s a fix, leak, outlet, wall crack, toilet, sink, trim, vanity, faucet, appliance replacement, paint, level the yard, trench some electrical or plumbing to an out building, running new electrical or upgrading/replacing breakers or a few hour project, get a case of beer the materials and hit it.
Biden to propose 2 trillion dollar stimulus?
It’s just paper. Dots and dashes in the aether.
As long as you keep clapping, Tinkerbell will be okay.
Dumbest photo op ever?
Nope. The Walk of Pride between the Houses the last time where everyone was trying to outpace Jerry Nadler.
I could polish my monocles myself, but why would I?