Good morning!!!!

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I'm pretty well aware of the problems getting new medical devices and drugs to market as one of our neighbors is a consultant who specializes in guiding the manufacturers through the govt. rat holes and he tells some real tales about it.I still believe that much of it is very over priced and that is mainly because the big boys can afford to buy politicians and we the people can't. Enough of that,I don't want to get off track and have this banned to the f.p. forum. I will not accept a gout drug that costs nearly $40,000 per month and really think the cost should be disclosed up front, regardless of who is paying for it.

Wow, just wow. Thanks for your realizing the lack of pragmatism involved. I would be probably happier with a $40,000 check each month, a pair of crutches and some bowls of cherries for the gout. Hope you are able to keep the pain in check.

Speaking of which, Kyle, when I was working in aerospace, I saw a similar device used to make a bearing fit into a hole of the exact same diameter. You can indeed make two surfaces occupy the same space by cryogenically freezing the bearing until it shrinks enough to go into the hole, then re-expand as it warms again. Neat stuff.

Some diesel mechanic will use liquid nitrogen to fit new oversized (OD bigger than block ID) sleeves into old blocks, and then honing them to final size in place.

Wng, I agree, those fans are absolutely fascinating. Now if only we had a liquid nitrogen producing machine like Kyle, we could have more hours of simple fun with a train set like this for Christmas QI Experiments | A Spot Of Quantum Levitation - YouTube

Enjoyed that. Reminds me of the Jetsons cartoon.

Got to 66 yesterday, 41 now. Breezy and wintery looking skies.
Wrapped gifts yesterday.

Ellen and I have had a great time, but we both still miss our spouses, especially right now. It’s very comforting to have each other though.

God bless.

God bless you all too, and hope your busy Christmas season can create new, good memories too.


Wngsprd, glad you helped your mom out with the new phone. Sorry for your troubles. Seems the Lord above has blessed you with a wonderful family and many lucky pets. Coco sounds like a really good dog. I love smart dogs.

Drew, I'll bet you've made many of your helpers smile a bit this Christmas.

My 67 year old FIL finally went to the Doc after 13 years. Yep, he has diabetes. He is a bit overwhelmed and depressed about the diet he's expected to "life change" over to. He should be able to treat it with meds, diet, and exercise. It was like getting a camel through the eye of a needle to get him to go to the doc. But he was extremely pleased with the lady doctor's bedside manner.

Glad I got the small tractor's FEL hydraulic cylinder repaired a couple of weeks ago. I had my tandem axle trailer on jack stands and I picked up each corner to get it back on the ground and put it away. The chicken's ran to the underlying pile of leaves immediately to start scratching around for bugs.

Next, I turned over the sand pile to kill the weed growth. Then the compost pile. Finally I started patching my gravel drive with some washed and sized gravel rock I've had. Not the exact type of gravel needed, but it will work for now. Need to add some "fines" to the patches and let it settle in.

Prayers for all, and Ed and family too. Farmer, I pray for your family and for your son's improvement.

Hope you guys coughs get better. If you need meds, go see a doc. I HATE not getting sleep for days due to a stupid cough. Robitussin DM is my "go to" cough syrup.

Jay, if you take Brogen down to Drew's, and Drew makes him sleep in his new little outhouse, you guys could get busted for creating........"greenhouse gasses".....

Time to take the family to Church.

We had post card weather yesterday, 75F. So far, so good today, a bit cooler but nice.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning to all! Low of 30°, going up to 50° today, high clouds. The weather guessers have increased our chance of precipitation up to 60% for Tuesday night and Wednesday. the NW portion of the state out at the 'Four Corners' may get up to a foot of snow in the higher elevations.

I welcome the precipitation, but my daughter and family will have to drive through the heaviest areas of snow in order to get back home. I'm getting anxious already....

WNG, Coco is awesome. It's amazing how our dogs 'know' what is for them.

You guys talking about generators, way out of my league. We usually just go into "camping mode", and just make do with the minimum. When our water supply was a well, we were fortunate to have 5k in storage tanks, so my small genset was able to run the booster pump to supply water to the house. Otherwise it was just to keep the freezer and fridge running. I was always considering a whole house genset. A relative spent 18K setting up one, they haven't had to use it at all since installing it over 7 years ago......prior to getting it, they would have major outages a couple times a year.....go figure. That changed my mind, I'll just use my little one when needed.

It's been hard the last 2 days.... Wifey has been 'precooking' meals for the group coming to visit. I have been reprimanded numerous times for taste testing....

I may have to get a late Christmas present... Went out in the Jeep yesterday to the dump and the radio was only playing from one rear speaker. The subwoofer and entire right channel wasn't working. Adjustments on the radio seem to be working, but not going out to the speakers. Hopefully I will get a chance to troubleshoot it today...maybe not...wifey is still cooking. I'm still designated clean up committee.

Everyone have a great day! Prayers sent for all.

 

[sodamo]

66 °F and ,89 inches rain, still coming down.

2 things I need to do today. Neutralize my acid stain, but in the rain????
Watch some football, no problem.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[jbrumberg]

Good Morning Everyone!!!!

A 28F start to the day. Temperature may hover around 32F this PM. Not much planned today other than checking the fuses on the tractor and letting football lull me to sleep.

I should have gotten one of the full moon rise tonight, it was a gorgeous Cold Moon.- Randy It illuminated the broken cloud deck quite nicely as I studied the clouds while flat on my back on the glare ice outside this pre-dawn morning Actually I had two opportunities this morning. A very poor choice of footwear this morning. My body is not happy with me at the moment.

BEF- A nice sunset and a nice place. Some serious erosion there. Thanks for sharing.

Bill- I do not get the stove going unless the morning temperatures are <25F with expected daytime highs >32. I prefer to have the stove burn itself out before bedtime. I get less tarring running the stove hot and it tends to self-clean to a degree as well especially when the secondary burn kicks in. With a hot burn and my stainless still insulated stove pipe I get almost no creosote buildup. I still clean it out 2X/year.

Bruce- Thanks for the product information.

"... Toppop I think you have reason to worry. Glad you and Ellen have each other."- Buppies I agree. Buppies I am glad to read that you had a safe trip.

"... a locally reared, 18lb turkey. Everything seems to be about in place for a great Christmas. Hope you all enjoy the holiday too."- Eric Thanks for the wishes and it reads like you and your family and friends will have a great Christmas. We too are fortunate to have access to locally raised products which we tend to buy.

David- Thanks for sharing your power setup and your operational challenges.

Phil- I did not read about any MA earthquake yet. This earthquake activity is strange in deed.

Billy- It reads like you and your family and pets will have a great time.

Earth quakes strange weather seems to be the new norm except when one considers the sun which is going into a period of inactivity ie no solar sun spots. This is called a solar minimum and is documented in history with Earthquakes colder temperatures rain snow. Just food for thought.- Buppies I agree. The weather-sunspot correlation has been well studied and not really disputed since its discovery.

"... He is a bit overwhelmed and depressed about the diet he's expected to "life change" over to. He should be able to treat it with meds, diet, and exercise."- Kyle- It was a real shocker, but I really had no choice when I was informed of the possible consequences of IV steroids resulting in insulin dependency when I first got sick. Honestly I was heading that way anyways. I really did not change that much lifestyle-wise excepting logistics and scheduling my shots and counting calories including all the "empty" calories. Thanks for the laugh.

My + thoughts, prayers, and wishes.

 

[sodamo]

Good morning to all you night owls/early risers. It's 31F here and snowing. So far about a half inch. Started about half an hour ago.

sodamo - is some type of solar completely out of the question.

Not sure about question. If you mean me, we do have a very good solar system, but we also have cloudy days. If you mean RNK, i just question how he would protect from fire.

 

[sodamo]

Wngsprd, that’s a great Christmas picture.

 

[ronjhall]

Thanks for the heads up on the Surge Guard, Ron. I'm aiming for a system that can operate autonomously, and it'll need to cope with brown outs if I'm not around to throw a switch. Just another reason to go with a complete solar panel system with battery backup, as they've been coping with such situations for quite a while now.

I had a hard wired Surge Guard at one time. Was going to wire it up to a 200 amp relay. Installed it between my 200 amp circuit breaker and transfer switch. That way I would have the voltage monitor for high and low voltage and bad ground. But a fellow RVer needed one. So I sold it to him.

 

[PJSprog]

31°F and cloudy this morning, going up to 42° today. It's 41° now, and the clouds have given way to a mostly sunny sky. Cool outside, but not a bad day at all.

Did some errand running for The Wife this morning to pick up a few odds and ends. Was somewhat surprised that the shopping mecca of Fairview Heights IL wasn't as crazy as I expected it to be.

Nice pictures, BEF. Thanks for sharing.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Wifey decided she has done enough cooking.....sent me on a run into town to get pizza and a meat/cheese tray from Costco for a 'group' snack session this evening when everyone arrives. Holy cow! I have never seen so many people at Costco before. The 35 minute drive into town seemed extremely short compared to fighting the crowd and checking out....won't do that again.

 

[Looking4new]

Merry Christmas jbrumberg