Health and stuffs
Tomorrow morning I get to experience the unbridled joy of having needles plunged into my lower spine. I am simply hoping for some much-needed relief to this spinal stenosis. From what I know about it all, this will only be temporary, and getting stuck in the future will bring increasingly limited returns, with surgery being practically unavoidable. I'll cross those bridges once I arrive at them. In the meantime, wish me luck.
Today my keyboard drawer gave out, dumping my keyboard, mouse and Ratpad either in my lap or on the floor. Not the first time I've had issues with this, since the built-in drawer, being a rather substantial inch-thick slab of heavy particle board was carried by crummy little roller slides, with one side having plastic extensions needed to attach it to the desk. The plastic bits failed once, then the scrawny screws pulled out, each time leaving at least one end of the drawer in my lap. I guess it does not help that I lean on the drawer often, use it as a lunch counter or who knows what. Today with the hardware failure (two of the plastic rollers split and took their leave) I had to do some refitting. I had a set of compound slides that were part of an old VAX workstation that supported some sort of peripheral, probably a tape drive. These were a perfect size, and these, along with some extra wood to eliminate the plastic parts and to shim the new slides to fit the comparatively thin drawer, I now have a drawer that I could easily stand on at full (19 inch!) extension if doing so would not topple the actual desk. The surface is rock solid, and a pleasure to use. Jeff was ribbing me for constantly sliding the apparatus in and out, admiring the smoothness. It's little unavoidable repairs like this that keep me on my toes and coming up with solutions. And, it was a free fix.
Unfortunately, I gotta do some repairs on a closet bifold door that faced my wrath when I was not ready for issues. Some of the contents in the closet shifted, jamming the doors and bending some of the hardware. I wrestled the doors open to get what I was after and take out the offending bits, then the doors would not close properly afterward. As such, the door finally shut, pinching my finger badly and setting me off. I slammed my hand into the door, splintering it at the top and mangling all the hinges on that side. I'll tend to this mess later. As for the anger management, well, that's a problem that's nearly five decades old. lol
Earlier this month I replaced my one straight-shaft weedeater since the prior one had various issues and needed a lot of parts. I replaced it (a Cub Cadet) with a pro-type Echo and found the new one to be so much more effective. I have three different working "weed eaters," the aforementioned Echo, a huge Stihl brushcutter with handlebar grips and a saw blade, and an Old Ryobi original 4-cycle unit that accepts several attachments. In addition to the metal blade straight shaft, I have a tiller/cultivator head, a chain saw pole head, and a reciprocating saw used for tree trimming as well. The Ryo has been decent over the years, and I did not buy the new one with any sort of attachment option. Well, this past weekend Jeff wanted to use the little tiller, and when I put gas in the Ryo's engine, it started spewing out everywhere. The fuel lines, the fuel cap, the tank and even the carburetor gaskets had succumbed to the reformulated gasoline that did not exist when the this was originally designed. Looking for parts online I discovered the unit was no longer supported. So, another trimmer was acquired today as a replacement, had I known this before, I would not have gotten the Echo. This was the source of some facepalms the last couple days. It's a done deal.
The new outdoor equipment purchases follow our determination to get the outdoors in shape, with a decent veggie garden as well as the yard being restored to their former glory. The veggies are shaping up nicely, I'll get some shots of it soon. Jeff has been hard at work on it, I wish I was able to do more of the stooping and such. Perhaps after the doc visits coming up.
Today my keyboard drawer gave out, dumping my keyboard, mouse and Ratpad either in my lap or on the floor. Not the first time I've had issues with this, since the built-in drawer, being a rather substantial inch-thick slab of heavy particle board was carried by crummy little roller slides, with one side having plastic extensions needed to attach it to the desk. The plastic bits failed once, then the scrawny screws pulled out, each time leaving at least one end of the drawer in my lap. I guess it does not help that I lean on the drawer often, use it as a lunch counter or who knows what. Today with the hardware failure (two of the plastic rollers split and took their leave) I had to do some refitting. I had a set of compound slides that were part of an old VAX workstation that supported some sort of peripheral, probably a tape drive. These were a perfect size, and these, along with some extra wood to eliminate the plastic parts and to shim the new slides to fit the comparatively thin drawer, I now have a drawer that I could easily stand on at full (19 inch!) extension if doing so would not topple the actual desk. The surface is rock solid, and a pleasure to use. Jeff was ribbing me for constantly sliding the apparatus in and out, admiring the smoothness. It's little unavoidable repairs like this that keep me on my toes and coming up with solutions. And, it was a free fix.
Unfortunately, I gotta do some repairs on a closet bifold door that faced my wrath when I was not ready for issues. Some of the contents in the closet shifted, jamming the doors and bending some of the hardware. I wrestled the doors open to get what I was after and take out the offending bits, then the doors would not close properly afterward. As such, the door finally shut, pinching my finger badly and setting me off. I slammed my hand into the door, splintering it at the top and mangling all the hinges on that side. I'll tend to this mess later. As for the anger management, well, that's a problem that's nearly five decades old. lol
Earlier this month I replaced my one straight-shaft weedeater since the prior one had various issues and needed a lot of parts. I replaced it (a Cub Cadet) with a pro-type Echo and found the new one to be so much more effective. I have three different working "weed eaters," the aforementioned Echo, a huge Stihl brushcutter with handlebar grips and a saw blade, and an Old Ryobi original 4-cycle unit that accepts several attachments. In addition to the metal blade straight shaft, I have a tiller/cultivator head, a chain saw pole head, and a reciprocating saw used for tree trimming as well. The Ryo has been decent over the years, and I did not buy the new one with any sort of attachment option. Well, this past weekend Jeff wanted to use the little tiller, and when I put gas in the Ryo's engine, it started spewing out everywhere. The fuel lines, the fuel cap, the tank and even the carburetor gaskets had succumbed to the reformulated gasoline that did not exist when the this was originally designed. Looking for parts online I discovered the unit was no longer supported. So, another trimmer was acquired today as a replacement, had I known this before, I would not have gotten the Echo. This was the source of some facepalms the last couple days. It's a done deal.
The new outdoor equipment purchases follow our determination to get the outdoors in shape, with a decent veggie garden as well as the yard being restored to their former glory. The veggies are shaping up nicely, I'll get some shots of it soon. Jeff has been hard at work on it, I wish I was able to do more of the stooping and such. Perhaps after the doc visits coming up.