So glad the temperature is lowered because of the weather, since I'm having the mechanical stuff replaced today. Yes, sucks for the guys doing the job, and I feel bad for them, but if it hadn't changed, I'd've been looking at 34Β°C before conditions, with nothing better than fans to keep cool.
Well, yesterday was interesting, amongst the things I did was I finally got to poking at Vik's one non-Mac computer. Much to my surprise he'd never installed Linux on it, instead it was running Windows 11. Ok, that makes it difficult to get to the files, well, files I assumed were on there, but there weren't any. Actually calling it hard is a misnomer, its just a bit trickier, passwords in Windows are incredibly insecure.
Yep, nothing there, so I'll prolly wipe it, install LM:DE 7, and then run it for a while as my main computer and see what I think of it. I will need to get a hub as oddly it only has 3 USB ports, less than my current desktop, and 3 HDMI⦠Well, that's an interesting port combination. Nothing about this little pocket sized computer is impressive on the specs, but its not like this thing is, and its newer, so we'll see which one gets the job done.
Boy, its been expensive lately, some fun, some necessary, some annoyingly necessary.
$5K for a skid steer as I mentioned a bit a go, I'm too fat an old to go doing necessary landscaping in the back and desired in the front, plus I should be able to make back at least half the price at the end, which is far cheaper than rental Tax preparation at $3XX, don't remember the exact amount Then there was the boots I needed last week, since the ones I was wearing disintegrated, $90 there A new phone, I'd mentioned in March that I needed one, but dragged my heels, but finally bought a replacement, surprisingly enough a 2026 model of the phone thanks to a mistake(?) by Motorola, as I mentioned in yesterday's video And the water heater yesterday, $4K And the furnace and AC next Monday, $11K, though that's financed
Ouch? I suppose some of that might be tax write-offs, have to check with my preparer
Yawns, "Been up since 2, with a short nap in there. Gotta love falling asleep early because I didn't get enough sleep Fri night, and then waking up early because I went to bed early. Usual stuff going on, but I think I'm going to order a new phone, mine's being problematic, but I mentioned that a few months ago. Weird part, plan was to get another G Power 2025 as I didn't feel like paying $400 for the new 'improved' version, while a replacement of the one I had could be had for $260. Weirdly Amazon has the new one in blue direct from Motorola for $300, while their site has it for $400, dunno what's going on, but I think I'll take advantage of it. Will prolly have to deal with AI on it, but long as it can be turned off, or isn't too obnoxious, its not big deal."
Tired pup, but no rest for the wicked. AT&T gateway showed up, so new internet is up and running, and with that comes the porting of the last number. Vik had his number for a decade or so, and after he passed, I continued to pay for it and let it idle for six months until I decided what to do, and that was port it to Tello. I gotta say, if'n you're trying to save on your phone, give Tello a look, I do gig last mile package deliver (think UPS's job DoorDash style), hence the testing with a spare phone number. Five months later, and zero problems. And ports are fast, like under 5 minutes fast. So, moved the last phone number from Verizon, last step is to cancel internet, but that can't be done yet as they're still processing the port on their end. Yeah, the VMO is faster than Verizon at this stuff, which is ridiculous. So, now I get to update my phone number with all my gig apps tonight, and that'll be done. The other thing is a new pair of boots, TimberlandPro this time. Yes, this time, third pair in a year and a half I think? I go through shoes fast, so this is nothing special, and for the price Timberland has held up well. I was thinking about Brunt work wear, but the reviews online are not particularly good, especially as they cost around $50 more than the Timberland, basically good, but not that good. I was wearing a pair of Vik's boots, but they suddenly disintegrated. No, really, the pleather cracking was annoying, but not a big deal, but then the cloth and the pleather separated on the back of the right boot, so time for new boots. This'll be the third type of Timberlands, and we'll see what I think about these, first were great, basically chosen by throwing a dart at the board. Second were picked by price, cheaper than the first pair, but still Timberlands, and they worked well. This time around, I had around 3 or 4 choices within the same $5 range on price, so I decided to try a different style, plus these are TimberlandPro, so I'm curious to see if'n they hold up better. Beyond that, not much, work actually is sucking this week, and of course things are way too busy between work and home repairs/improvements. And then there'll be estate matters, tax matters and investment matters. That said, the lion's share (why do we say that?) should be done by end of June, heck I might even be able to take a break on my birthday. I guess after that the hunt for where I settle for the rest of my life begins in earnest, we've done some casual looking, but nothing serious as there's too many variables, but those will be wrapping up, and there'll be little left other than cleaning this place out.
Ugh, I should not be awake at this time, and this'll make today suck. Woke up around 0330, nothing really surprising, but didn't really feel like going back to sleep. Popped on the computer to do some work, and then tried to sleep, then computer, then try to sleep⦠Finally gave up around 0500. Breakfast made and eaten, and now just the regular morning surf before work.
So this is the windscreen for a lavalier mike that I got, in fact its a set of two, so I'll keep the basic foam on one, and the wind sock on the other so I can just switch mikes depending on my recording situation. Only problem, I can't figure out how to put this on, I'm assuming it goes on, just insert the mike into the hole in it⦠What hole? I feel like I'm looking for a Tribble's asshole here, and having no luck
Ok, got the second quote this morn on AC and furnace replacement, prolly go with the first, though I haven't had opportunity to compare the quotes. In both cases I filled out the contact us on their websites, and whereas the first one sent me a confirmation that they'd received the message, the second didn't. Then there was response time, I think a day for the first company, two for the second. And then the quote process, documenting measurements, exactly the same, but the first fed it into a tablet, generated quotes and emailed me as well as showing me them. The second? Did I mention that the guy who showed up, the brother of the owner, had a salesman's case that looked he'd had it since he started, and the quote was in the form of a pre-printed sheet, I guess they're sorted by the combo needed, but rather old school that. Also the first company took a good look at the compressor unlike the second, and determined that I'll need a new base for it, as well as leveling it out, which is included.
Yeah, so we got that done this morn. But that's just part of the week, we spent Friday dealing with Apple as we have the court order giving me access to his iCloud, its not exactly obvious how to handle it, which boils down to mail it to Apple in CA. Yes, Apple, not legal, not beneficiary department, just Apple, and they'll sort it out. Umm, wanna guess what my confidence level is on this?
Friday was also the first AC/furnace quote. Monday was the plumber, we're getting a new water heater too, I prolly shouldn't use them because they're a bit over priced, but meh, just get it done. Oh, and I think it was Friday I was informed that the estate packed from the court is done and should be on its way to me. And my taxes got finished Tues, so when I got home today, I finally got to reviewing that.
Oh, and I proofread fan fic, and an author I regularly do stuff for dropped an 83 page (in gDocs) story on me.
And Sat I did flea market selling of some estate items, but that's been a waste of time and money. And since I was working that day, Friday had been grocery shopping and accounting.
All this plus work and chores
Current selfieβ¦
Let's see, tomorrow is work, Sat is work, Sun and Mon might be work, might be estate work if'n the packet shows up, but definitely mowing the lawn in there, it needs being done. And of course usually chores, grocery shopping and banking.
Yawns and ruffles his head fur a bit, "Morning y'all, getting an early start because I'm awake. Yeah, sounds weird, but I didn't sleep well Fry night, so after doing the flea market thing yesterday (another crap day for sales), I came home and napped. Of course napping means I won't sleep well at night, so I took a sleeping pill, I keep a bottle of over the counter ones for when sleeping doesn't want to happen. Only real side effect for me is dense sleep, even waking up to use the bathroom is hard, but I basically stay asleep for six or so hours, and that's it. So here we are, up at 3, drifting in and out until 5 and finally getting up. Breakfast is mostly done, scrambled eggs as the bacon omelet didn't come out, over a bead of rice and beans, along with a cup of coffee. Only must do chores are banking and laundry, prolly do some work on the comic collection, and maybe flood @taurnation if I get to it. Tomorrow will be the plumber fixing a small problem, and giving me a price for a new hot water heater. Yay, more spending, Fryday we got an estimate on a new AC and furnace. While I am going to get a second estimate, gotta say I like the first one, Bryant equipment, a company that had recommendations, they even gave me estimates for average, lux and heat pump, and the warranty on the lux, even though I'm not going that route, makes me trust Bryant, I mean who offers a warranty of keep up with maintenance, and if'n it breaks, we give you a new one? Yeah, even the salesman admitted that was crazy generous.
Any how, surfing the web, then the chores, maybe work on the comic collection, maybe the flood, maybe alternate, who knows.
EDIT Just wanted to comment, what's really stupid is that if'n I defaulted and they had to collect the collateral, I'm likely in a situation where I'd have to cash out the IRA any how, so what sense does it make not to allow it to be used as collateral?
Ughhh, I hate financial laws, they're often stupid. My husband passed last summer, and left me a fairly big chunk of money, though mostly in IRA's. I want to downsize here, and I'd prefer to buy or build the new place before selling this one.
The problem? I do gig work, so not exactly a steady income, plus I'm already paying a mortgage on this place, so getting a mortgage is⦠Iffy at best I expect. Easy solution, getting a loan with the IRA as collateral, there's enough in there to buy 3, maybe 4 houses where I'm looking to move⦠And that's not allowed, which is kinda stupid, because if'n I'm willing to pay the taxes and penalties, I could just take the money that I need from the IRA.
Seriously, does this make any sense that I have the money, I can even get the money, but I'm not allowed to use the money I have as collateral, but I can withdraw it. Anyone wanna loan me money illegally?
Ooof, tired, depending on how I recover tomorrow, I might wind up taking Tues off, I'm knackered and sore, I left around 1030 and got home around 1630 with almost no break.
What'd I do? Well, there's this property in Pana I'm interested in, a buildable (presumably) lot, so I was planning on going out to look at it and the town. So, spur of the moment this morning, I decided to go. Yeah, not the best of ideas, no weather check, planning or anything else, just go. Didn't work out too bad, but⦠Well, it was a heck of a drive, further than my previous trip, just over 100 miles one way. At 80% I get around 225 best case scenario, so that took a lot out of the battery.
So, what to say about Pana? I like it, I didn't remain in town nor wander up and down every street, but I did go to the address in the ad, doesn't look as wide as they say, but I was able to view it from both front and back, service alley and brick street(!). I kinda vibe this stuff, how does it feel in the town, and while the ones I've looked at last time were good, this one really grabbed me. Will I buy that lot? Maybe, nice location, and only $4K, so really good deal, but we'll need to talk to a realtor, or real estate lawyer, or� I'll pay them to tell me why not to buy it without batting an eye.
From there I ran up to Taylorville, the nearest Aldi, WalMart and branded grocery store. So then it was time to charge on the way home, right? Well, I punched in the Troy charger I used last time, 72 miles away, and⦠Uhhh, 77 miles of range best case scenario. Yeah, that's not going to work, but thankfully there was a charger due west about 20 miles on Rt 104 at Circle K. And then things got interesting, I plugged in, went in, bathroom, water from the store, and lunch from the attached Subway⦠And the car stopped charging. After a few tries, I moved to the other dispenser, and thankfully that one worked. Oh, and got to the Circle K during a massive dust storm, they closed the 104 just past the Circle K, and the car was rocking the whole time.
Filled to 60%, and off to a few stops, Litchfield to look at their downtown, Mt Olive to check that town out, and check the coming soon charging locations in Staunton and Hamel. Problem was that wind, I was using 3 to 4 miles of range for every mile on the freeway at 70MPH. Uhhh, that might be a problem.
So, from that was surface streets to Edwardsville, for no reason but that I prefer that over freeways, though I did have to get on the interstate at that point. While in town, I did hit a Tesla station for a charge, first time despite having an adapter since last year. Seriously, I can kinda see why people like the Tesla charging experience, the only wrinkle in my experience was that as you can expect, I needed to update my billing profile, I mean it had been over a year since I set up the account. From there though was the smoothest charging experience ever, plugged in, it quickly got up to 50Kw charging, while a third of what its capable of, better than any CCS charge I've done, or at least a lot flatter, no ups and downs, just a steady 50 that caused the car to activate the battery cooling.
Then finally home, and done, right? Well, about Β½ hour or so later, I dragged m'self off to do the grocery shopping, spotted a surprise charging station in Bridgeton, well, one being built, and finally came home. Still need to get laundry done, mow the lawn (its been two weeks, gotta do it), and cook up breakfast sandwiches. Those are going to be some interesting sandwiches, couldn't get the skinny bagels I usually use, so I'm going to give potato hamburger rolls a try. Oh, and I think I need to whip up another cold brew coffee.
Yeah, good chance I'm going to be too totaled to work on Tues.
@Coaster You don't necessarily need more than a level one, what kind of driving do you normally do? I've got the level two as when my husband was alive, we needed to charge two EVs, plus with what I do for a living, I need faster turn around. Range is can be an issue, but for day to day stuff, I don't really have any problems, its just longer trips, especially when weather adds complications.
You probably meant level 3 is adequate. Level 1 is fast charging at commercial stations. But from what i gather level 2 is about 50 amps which will charge overnight. Level 3 i understand is house voltage 120v or 220v and 15-20 amps and is more of a trickle charger, I think.
My driving needs are very variable. But a few times a month i have to make an 80-100 mile round trip, and once in a while a 200 mile round trip.
They have some new charging stations about 10 minutes away so i'm covered most of the time. Just will be easier to charge it over night with a level 2 setup at home. I haven't had a chance to try the tesla super fast chargers, but i think they will work with my toyota.
@Coaster Nope, you got them backwards, the lower the number, the lower the power, Level 1 is 120V, 2 is 230V, and 3 is fast charge (caranddriver.com/features/a701β¦). My level two is currently set for 40 amps (my Emporia charger lets me pick max amp level) as you don't want to use 50 amps on a 50 amp circuit, short bursts are fine, but continuous, ie hours at 50 amps can over heat wiring or melt outlets or breakers.
You'd prolly be fine with a basic level 1 charger, I do routes of 80 to 120 miles per day, and typically end with 25 to 30% of the battery, and only need maybe 4 hours to get to 80%, a level one would take about 8 hours for that.
Your lucky with the charging station, but typically charging stations are way more expensive at home, about 56Β’/KwH here compared to 11.5Β’/KwH at my house. How cheap? According to the power company I spent $35 in the last month to charge my car, and drove 1733 miles.
lol, yes i got it backwards. Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like you've had an EV for a while. I'm just in my first few days, but should get up to speed in a while. It's hard to believe how complicated technology is getting these days. And i say that as someone who had a career in high tech for decades, but now long retired. I'm not sure the human brain has evolved to deal with it very well.
@Coaster Yep, our first was a leased 2020 Nissan Leaf (never buy one of these, only lease), then three years later my husband got a 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV, and six months after that I got a 2020 Bolt, though these days I'm driving his car as he passed last summer.
Yeah, I was lazy with this one, didn't rotate it, and could use some trimming, but still, it was fun to see this, and I wish I'd been able to record more of it.
Whelp, surfing the web before work. This is the start of my work week, I run T-Sa, and I caught up on a few things, dragged m'self out of bed 20 minutes late, shave, shower, dressed, made bed (haven't done that in over a week), cooked breakfast. After eating, load and run dishwasher and make lunch, and here we are, killing time until its time to go.
On another note, still considering buying land to build a house on out in Illinois, and found one that while at $25K is more than I want to spend, its a nice piece of land, and I'd have the fun of being able to say I live in Oblong. Yes, that's a real town in Illinois.
Nobody can accuse me of having ordinary breakfasts, today is a 2 egg chorizo and cheese omelette, Dr Pepper baked beans and re-heated instant horseradish mashed potatoes. And coffee, must have coffee
So, what's on the docket today? Not much, really only one thing with a lot of optionals that are just gotta get done this weekend, which happens to be a four day weekend. Today, prep for flea market Tomorrow, vend @ flea market⦠If'n you're in or around St Louis, consider making a shopping trip to Sunset Hills Community Center, look for Happy Hive Resale if'n you want to hunt me down. Weekend, above plus household finances (done), laundry (doing today while I prep), prep husband's e-bike for sale, grocery shopping, clean shed, household cleaning
Fairly light weekend over all really, not entirely sure what I'm going to do with m'self with so much free time. Oh, and if'n you're in the STL area, we've a few things too big for the flea market for sale, generator and the aforementioned e-bike, as well as clothing for charity if anyone wants to pick up,
Oof, bit of a sinus headache, might nap to sleep it off.
Today started well enough, was planning on cleaning the gutters and checking the roof for damage considering the storms we've had this year, but roomy must have the big ladder at his place, I'll have to ask him to bring it home if'n the weather is good this weekend. Did get the lawn mown, hour or so's work to do front and back with trimming, mower isn't sounding good, so I suppose I need to finally fix the one I got for free or buy a new one, but not a Hart. Nothing wrong with Hart, its just that that's a failed WalMart experience and the brand will be going away from the looks of things.
Not sure what I'm going to do beyond that #today , got groceries and finances done yesterday, I do need to do some forgotten proofreading, but beyond that and getting ready for the flea market, not much on the docket. My to do list is fairly short at the moment, test out one of Vik's computers, a little tiny computer he set Linux up on, I doubt he encrypted it, so I'll be able to easily get into his files there. I really need some manner of small portable monitor for the other desk, that way I can use it for projects, testing and repairs, just hang a small monitor on the wall. Need to move the decorations over to this room too, but none of that has a deadline. Oh, and re-index the book collection to make it easier to sell the remaining books.
We might pick up a trackloader/mini-skidsteer, I think I might've posted about this before, but a Chinese made one runs around $5K, rental is like $300/day, $1200/wk for a better quality one, but still, buy one, use it as needed to do landscaping work here, then sell it for $2-$3K when I'm done, cheaper than renting.
Going to be a weak week when it comes to money, something that I could offset by working today, but meh, not feeling it, and its not like I can't afford it. Friday will be flea market prep day, Sat will be flea market dayβ if'n you're in the St Louis area, its in the Sunset Hills community center on Lindbergh, rain or shine, maybe I'll make money this time, it is supposed to rain last I checked after all, last month's was on the same day as like three other flea markets and nice out.
Not that way, I may like kink, but I'm not kinky, definitely not like that. No, after I got rid of my LLC, I decided to go from a sci-fi joke for the company name to a ΓΌber generic branding this time with ΩGENERALΩ Delivery branding. Thanks to CyberGwen , I've got a logoβ¦
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From there it was just a matter of getting the logo put onto things, both a safety vest ordered from AliExpress
Quality from him is good, but I should've gone with a larger and/or custom size, and maybe had him do a coloured background, because this one looks kinda boring.
All in all, I think I'm out around $100 for this, plus picked up a pair of replacement magnets for the back, a pair of yellow diamonds, one reading delivery driver, the other frequent stops, those fit perfectly on either side of my license plat.
Ok, so last month I sold a large number of my husband's books using three apps for selling them. And on Monday I reviewed that apps, calling out one of them for dragging their heals on paying me. Gee, surprise, surprise, I got paid last night, and while they inspected my first two buys (they limit buys to 100 books) and flagged a couple books as unacceptable, the third one went from received to paid with nothing in between⦠I think someone saw my review.
Hey look, I've got jeans, jeans I'm proud of. Yeah, not everyone is proud of their genes, butβ¦
Ooops, wait, wrong type of jeans. Seriously though, tis been a long, long time since I wore jeans because of two problems, one is that within ten washes, they're shrunk versus ten years for my cargo pants. The other is right there, cargo pants, cargo jeans don't exist. I don't need all those pockets, in fact the leg pockets hold my phone, wallet and car key, and a handkerchief in one other pocket, that's it.
Still, gotta have my cargos. So, didn't like WalMart's price for cargo pants, and since my gram had given me an Amazon gift card for Christmas, I decided to see what Amazon could do for me. After looking at pants for a while, they offered me loose fit 'fashion jeans'. More like loose fit cargo jeans!Β‘! Loose fit, good, everything is slim fit these days, and trust me, if'n there's not a law about stuffing my fat old body into a pair of slim fit jeans, there should be. So I ordered a pair, there's a selection of waists, but only one leg length for each, which thankfully worked for me, little long, but that's more a matter of me being an odd numbered size when pants come in even numbers, not their choice of length. So, we ordered one pair, tried them when they got here (good), washed them and tried them again (still good). Ordered two more pair in different colours, fit just as well, and all of them after a few washes have no fit problems.
Iβm hard to find jeans for as well. Just recently got a few pairs after finding some Wrangler relaxed fit stretch jeans that worked for me. Being able to crouch without having them either try to insult or injure me is basically my go to test for pants at this point. They passed! Would be cool to have a couple pairs of cargo pants for when I go out with my cameras, you can never have too many pockets for film, batteries, etc.
Ok, seem to have an ant problem in my kitchen, that's new. Not just new here, but for how messy I am, I don't think I've ever had a problem with ants in my house. Problem showed up in force Friday afternoon, I scrubbed everything down, but woke up to a return here. They seem to be mostly staying around one corner of the fridge and there's no signs of where they're coming from. Ant traps and ant spray I guess, just make sure the spray isn't from GI Ant Company, can would prolly spray ants everywhere if'n it was
Today, what are our plans for today⦠Uhhh, that's asking too much. Yesterday sucked, I ended the day exhausted with my feet, knees and legs hurting. Decided to skip today, so here I am at home, and aside from cleaning the car, I did a mile of dirt road driving yesterday, actually I guess it was a mile each way, so its filthy. Might do the grocery shopping, dunno. Might do some on demand work, might not. Am surfing the web, and may go play a bit with my GoToSocial account, been neglecting that for weeks, I need to build a timeline there. I do wish the service I wanted existed, but it is what it is. Hmmm, anyone out there looking for Federation project ideas? I'd nudge @dansup but I think he has enough to keep him busy. Oh, I know what I need to do, couple small estate matters to sort out, e*Trade is really getting on my nerves.
This house is great for WTFs. Each bedroom has an outlet and a ceiling fan controlled by a light switch. I eas hoping they did it the easy way and used the lamp box to tie everything together, but nope, one cable in the box. So,i decided to next look at the switch, maybe that's the junction, and⦠Off the top of my head i only know two ways to wire a circuit like this, but they came up with a third, they used a 14-3 Romex cable in the switch box. Umm, i'm trying to think of what they could've done, and drawing a bit of a blank.
Ugh, overslept, which isn't a big deal as I had to take today off. Getting to sleep was a challenge, but I mostly slept it through, I got up a little near 5, but mostly slept it through, but struggled to wake up. Still feeling like I'm struggling with that, but we've made and ate breakfast, though the cooking didn't go well, tried to flip the open face omelette to early, then got side tracked and over cooked the other side, then left the cheese on too long, almost made it crispy cheese. Edible, but subpar breakfast. Coffee doesn't seem to be helping with the sleepiness. Bleah, what kind of day can I look forward to?
Stretches, "Well, guess I'm up until⦠Dunno, woke up about 0130 to go to the bathroom, and kinda drifted in and out until 0315, and gave up. Wide awake, guess it means I've gone nocturnal again, or perhaps i've gone polyphasic, either way, we're up, eating breakfast (open faced Italian sausage omelet, taters and beans), and sorting things out. Bank account over drafted, oops, not like I don't have savings to cover it, just need to figure out what happened. I'd actually go do some work, but Amazon doesn't need any drivers at this time of night, nor do any of my other apps. Well, Roadie has(had?) a pharmacy order out of Granite City, but that's 20 miles away, and it paid like $30 for 35 miles from the pharmacy, so not exactly worth my time, especially as I have to be back here at 1000. So, what're y'all up to this chilly (15°C) morning?"
It's Thursday night and thus the start of our Easter holidays! Australia takes Easter very seriously, that and Christmas are the two biggest events in the calendar. Good Friday is a major public holiday and everything is closed. Most people have Easter Monday off as well but retail shops are open on a Saturday schedule and overtime rate.
Ooops, guess I'm re-inventorying the comics, was trying to figure out how to remove some of the books and accidentally erased them all. 11000 comics⦠This is going to be a project to redo. Oh well, was already thinking of doing it as some books turned up around the library when I first did it, and around the house while doing the books, so things are a bit of a mess. Plus I used existing boxes, so I have a fair number of long boxes, it'd prolly be good to use only short boxes as there's already more of those. I think I'll be giving the graphic novels to the book buyers, they might not give me much for them, but with the scale of the collection, most shops won't give me much either, prolly 50’/book, maybe 75’ if I'm lucky, so its not like it'll hurt me, and it'll let me thin the collection down, prolly not enough to make a difference, but we'll see.
Ok, its been a rather productive week. I'd've done this as a #Loops video, but its back to crashing when I try to record there, soβ¦
Any how, as I've mentioned in other posts, I've been working on blowing out my husband's book collection using apps, three apps to be precise. Sure, they don't pay great, and it leaves me to deal with the books they don't want, but its fast and convenient, and got rid of about 900 books. The result is that the library is much smaller, with the books fitting on one wall now, plus one case in the living room. That's down from around 9 cases downstairs, 2 in the living room and 1 in the bedroom.
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Those haven't gone to waste, being used to upgrade my bookcases in the bedroom and rearrange them a bit, that narrow case for example is going to be used as a display case.
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But, this is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm also replacing the bed, dropping down from Queen to TwinXL, and I had thought about relocating it to the one wall over there, since late 60's design only leaves me two walls to use, but I'm also thinking of moving my desks and computers in there, so that won't work. Sure, I could put the desks where the bed is now, but that'd leave one sticking out into the room, and I suspect that'd make moving around the room difficult. Putting them on the back wall, aside from the standard electrical nuisance that I'll need to fix, will make for a more balanced space where the bed is in the front, and the bookcases and desks are in the back. And the TV will be floating around, as there's no good space for it. I might throw out that stereo that's sitting on the floor, I'd bought it in a thrift store, and it works⦠so long as you don't want any lights or digital displays. I'd figured it'd be an easy fix, that'd have to be a lighting circuit common wire, right? Yeah, the design and wiring of that thing is a nightmare, and with my computer room stereo coming with the computers and desks, I don't really need it as I have a record player in the living room. It was cheap new, it was cheap used, and its prolly too much work to fix it so we'll see.
Any how, this is the most productive I've been since he passed, between how much has been on my plate since November, and a lack of motivation to do anything here, not much has been done. That said, time is never on my side, and I have a lot to do, tons to sell, throw, etc. I have for the last month or so been cleaning out the shed, throwing out about half a can a week, but the house has mostly been ignored, and now I'm making it my house, or at least a test version, I'm still expecting to downsize and relocate as I live in a Republican state, something I'd like to change.
Oops, forgot to buy a headboard, need a bookshelf style, though I'll have to make sure it'll work with the short bed frame (9") that I chose, otherwise its worse than no headboard at all. Also need some 'trees' for the updated version of Vik's memorial.
Lets go spend lots of money on Amazon. Yeah, I usually avoid them, part of the evil empire and all, but convenience and price wins out sometimes, especially when you need a bed, mattress and bedding, even at their prices its like $500 I suspect, and the only local option would be a furniture store, and that'd prolly double the bill. WalMart might save me a dollar or two, but not much and they'd be less convenient.
Sure, it'd prolly be easier if'n I bought a normal bed size rather than a TwinXL, but a Twin is 74Β½ inches, and I'm 5'12, unless I sleep with my head against the headboard, my feet'll be hanging off of that, so TwinXL at 79Β½ it is. I could prolly make my existing bedding work, its all Queen size, so same length just wider, but that's the smallest part of the bill, so not much point in saving at that point.
Boy, today is going to be a mess, thankfully I have a few days to get back on track before I return to work. So, this week I'm finally starting to do stuff estate related, this week was cleaning out the book collection. No, seriously, I've basically spent something like five days working from one app to another, three apps total, selling Vik's book collection. Roughly 900 books went, and there's still plenty more if'n anyone wants a book. But, that's been this week's focus, took off work, and did nothing but that including re-arranging yesterday's plans to do one last pass. Wasn't the plan, but it kinda made sense as I went to clean and sort the downstairs bedroom, and decided I wanted the books all on one wall. This would require either moving full bookcases, emptying them, moving them and putting the books back or using some of the already empty cases and shifting books to them. If'n I'm doing that, why wait to sale scan them until after? So, about 30 more books boxed up, gotta ship that out Monday, and we're done.
So today? Time to rearrange and clean the bedroom, and we're also continuing the shed cleaning which we've been doing for a month, not because its a big job, but once a week, I sort and throw out trash until the curbside can is about half full, so maybe an hour a week if'n that. Once I get this part of the bedroom done, we'll decide on its future, I might replace the bed with a TwinXL, and move my desk and computer into there, not sure. Beyond that all the weekend calls for is a little work on household finances and grocery shopping, so not much. Oh, wait, gotta cut the lawn too.
Yeah, nothing really huge this weekend, so mostly just rest, maybe some extra cleaning, not sure.
Well, they're definitely rare at this point, most stuff is out of my hands, lawyer is working on some stuff, and its really a matter of just waiting at this point.
We were at Sunset Hills flea market selling stuff Sat, mixture of left overs from my storage unit flipping days, Vik's stuff, and some of my stuff I don't want. That didn't go all that well, but that's because I wasn't well prepared, I gathered stuff last minute, and where I thought I had stuff to sell, turns out there really wasn't all that much. Clearly next time I need to be better prepared. I'm also using a we buy books type app to sell off his massive book collection. The good news, they're buying 592 books. The bad news? I have to pack those to ship to them, that's going to be a barrel of laughs. It took about 4 days to scan and key all those in, and I've stopped working to focus on it. Their prices are kinda crap, but they cover shipping, so what do you expect? Also they'll likely reject some of the books, so the promised money will drop, but honestly, shrinking the collection is kinda more important than the money. When I have this batch gone, I use another app, and then when that one is done, I'll use another one, and after that, anything left will be sold at the flea market or dropped into free libraries along my deliver routes. Or maybe sell on WhatNot.
Now with that said, there is a collection I need to figure out what to do with, and that's magazines. Some like Asimov and Analog, relatively easy, if nothing else I'll set up shop on WhatNot and sell them or the flea market, but there's also a lot of pagan magazines like RFD, Green Egg and others, some body art magazines, as well as some gay porn and a few issues of Advocate. Sure, I could just pulp them, but that seems a shame, they do reflect the culture of the time, I kinda feel they should be preserved, but I'm not real interested in doing so.
Using an app to sell a lot of my husband's books, and they don't pay too badly, we're averaging about 30Β’ a book plus free shipping (I think). If I were selling them at a garage sale, I'd be asking 50Β’ for paperback, $1 for hardback, so the price works and its faster. This is just the downstairs box.
Busy, busy today, got up at 6, pulled all the donations out, now at Discount Tire to swap out the tires and wheels for the set that'd been on Doppel. After that, Walmart for insoles, and might as well get the groceries done. Then home to get things ready for tomorrow's flea market
I hate hold music, on the phone with the second investment firm, with a good hour so far between the two of them. Of the two, T Rowe Price has the worst hold music.
Vik was so disorganized, so far since he passed in July, I've had to deal with Fidelity, Morgan Stanley (I hate them with a passion), Merril Lynch (not impressed by them, despite knowing there was an account there, likely inherited from his mom, they can't find any record of either of them having an account there ever), and T Rowe Price. Definitely glad to be consolidating this down to a single financial planner who uses Charles Schwab. Not sure how good CS is, but if I had to choose one of the ones I've dealt with, it'd be Fidelity hands down, they've been incredibly easy to deal with.
So, about todayβ¦ Lets see, its -6Β°C at the moment, but feels like -14 and they just revised the temperatures down to a high of -3. Thank goodness I just need to be at the chiropractor in an hour, then pick up a cup of coffee (St Louis Bread ain't great coffee, but its free coffee), and come home, no more out for today. Today is my first four week chiro visit, they've been three week visits since I hurt m'self, and the next one will be in four, but after that we might go six and see how things go, these visits are basically a permanent thing. Lets see how many spoons I have left after taking care of more estate matters, gotta call two investment banks and depending on how things go, might have to tell the lawyer to unfile the probate matter and refile as a large estate, which is a double edged sword, more money for me, but instead of 2-3 months, this can take a year or more to resolve. Should do some cleaning, butβ¦ Ehhh, we'll see. Yesterday wasn't much, grocery shopping and household finances done. Oh, slightly broke the DBA registry for Missouri by trying to register β Generalβ Delivery, while the stars didn't throw an error, they did get replaced by question marks as the system has no idea how to handle that. Tomorrow will be work of course, thankfully it should be around 5 to 10 degrees warmer than today, but not sure about the wind, I think that'll less so the feels like'll be sane. Unfortunately work won't, Friday they were already making noises about it being so busy they need all drivers. Oh well, long day for me, and I'll be able to do an early start on Wed as they'll likely have routes that never went out.
Time for dinner surprise. What's the surprise? Well, I bought a couple two packs of stuffed chicken breasts on clearance at the local grocers, separated and froze them without marking them. And I forgot what flavors I bought, soβ¦
Ughh, might be time for a new phone. Yesterday my phone wouldn't charge⦠Actually that's not quite right, it will charge, but real slow and heats up. Maybe it was just a fluke, but wireless charging hasn't been working for the better part of a week. Prolly get the same one again, the 2026 G Power really doesn't offer much, dumping the flaky wireless charging and bumping the batter from 5000 to 5200, along with a couple new colours.
Thirteen months, not bad honestly, though that prolly doesn't sound great, but I do a gig version of UPS' work, 4 to 5 days, 6 to 10 hour days, breaking once or twice to hit the bathroom and grab a cup of coffee. There's no phone who's battery will last the whole day, so if'n I'm going from than 2 miles and have less than 90% battery, I usually plug in for a top off, which really isn't that much, but combined with end of day charging to full, I have a funny feeling I've done more charging cycles in those thirteen months than normal, at 2, maybe as much as 4 times as much. Kinda explains it dying so soon, right?
So why buy another? Because frankly its the best rugged phone bargain out there. Sure, Motorola at best claims its durable, not rugged, but with a mil spec drop rating and IP 68 and 69 water ratings? At $350 compared to $650 starting for a real rugged phone, its hard to beat, and I've certainly tested it, I've dropped it in the warehouse on a concrete floor, onto the street, fumbled and sent it flying, scanned and photographed packages with rain running off the phone, I've really put it to the test. Now that there's a 2026, looks like I can get one for $250 unlocked from Motorola (funny thing, the new prices haven't hit their Amazon store where the 2025 costs more than a 2026 right now), and I'll prolly keep the old as a back up.
Kenny Chaffin
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