Good morning!!!!

[Engineer42]

30F cloudy day low 40's for high.

Outside chores done E muffin time.
Feeling little stronger might give the legs back little work out later on,if not feet up watch some football think.

Enjoy your day all.

Rest up and feel better Thomas. Too early in the season to be getting sick.

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, 46 to 52 and cloudy, light rain.
More needed rain, should end later so I can do some work outside.

Ongoing saga with PA tax people, so I put in some modified paperwork that showed they owed me $483 and they agreed but decided to take $95 out of it as an assessment for no apparent reason. So I get $388. When I asked what the $95 was for, they told me it was an adjustment. Love the doublespeak.

Lots of outside projects in the queue, so will see if the rain stops.
If not, may work on garage rearrangement to see where I can put the forks while the plow in on the tractor.
Did some inside work yesterday, put grommet on wife's Christmas light that I light modified. So that should seal it up for most weather.
One of the light strings is out, wonder if the GFI tripped with all this rain.

Buppies, hope things get better, Precious looks, well precious

Be well,

It's funny how the deer seem to love hanging around the garden fence. When I was first putting it up the deer would be near it, sniffing and looking around quite a bit.
We have some kind of animal I have never heard before in the front forest, was hoping it would wander back into this area with the camera. So far no luck.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Easy to sort the things above but not sure how to store or categorize things like brake parts, cable linkage parts and things like that. Too little, or in some case to big for a separate drawer.
Probably end up with some "junk" drawers. What do ya'll do?
I

I keep old nuts and bolts, then when I need one, I hunt for hours, give up and go buy a new one.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

First time I got shingles, I had to nail them on the house. 2nd time I paid a crew to nail them. Not those shingles?

 

[m7040]

good morning, 48 going to 54 wind gusts to 16 mph

Walked 13000 steps. The foot problem has improved to where I am back to walking again. More walking today

Lab results reflected an increase in the numbers due to inactivity. Interesting how much that influences it.

Ordered a few shaft collars that will hopefully be what I need to secure the vise to the floor

Next need border elctrical supplies for welding outlets and 120 volt outlets as well as better lighting

The panel has a 50 amp breaker for the upstairs welding outlet that could be tied into but may be better to put in a new one for the welding shop and keep it separate.

At my prior job, all of engineering and CAD were in one large room, divided into about 40 cubicles

Fancy with cubicles. I was in a converted Kmart open bull pen with rows of desks and drafting tables and noisy calculators and Farmer John slaughter house next door.

 

[ponytug]

Ponytug/Peter, do you use your toter to pull a horse trailer or car trailer?
I had to look that up.

A toterhome is a specialized recreational vehicle (RV) built on a heavy-duty truck chassis, used for living and towing large trailers, such as horse or race car trailers. They are designed for individuals or teams who need a powerful and durable vehicle to transport their equipment and provide comfortable living quarters for long-distance travel, often associated with events like racing or equestrian competitions

looks like a super C motorhome toyhauler on steroids

Basically, it is an RV built to tow, with the rear axle nearly at the rear bumper. That causes a bumper pull trailer to almost exactly follow the toter in corners, and with a weight transfer hitch, really smoothes out the ride for horses.

It is an FL70, CAT3126, six speed Allison automatic that makes short work out of the hills/mountains around here. I dithered about buying a toterhome vs an F-450, as I knew we needed far better brakes than the F-350 we had. This has air brakes designed to stop 80k, so no brake fade ever, and great engine braking, and, yes, cheaper than buying a new F-450. The locking differential has saved my bacon more than once. The first time when we had an early snowstorm at a ride in the Sierras, parked well out in dirt. The toter pulled a couple of rigs out to safety in that snow fall.

Ours is a "small" one, 12' living quarters, full bathroom, large fridge, small propane stove, microwave, 75gallons of fresh water, 40 gallons of gas for the generator, AC, propane heat/cooking, sleeps six at a pinch. 75 gallons of diesel, 12mpg hauling in the hills (2,000 to 7,000') around here, and a little but more. (14mpg) doing flat trips to San Diego.

We used ours to trailer horses to go to endurance rides, 50/75/100 mile horse / rider rides, so almost always in the back of beyond. Unlike lots of class C motorhomes it has something like 9-10" of ground clearance (R22.5 tires), so unimproved roads were no worries, and the water pipes are tucked well above that. The horses arrived at ride sites in noticeably better shape, which was great.

I love it, but our horses aged out of the sport, and it really should go to someone who will use it. Add selling it to my do list. These days it mostly gets used as a guest suite, or a remote office for extra peace and quiet.

succotash tree

Which is a? I've never heard of that.

At my prior job, all of engineering and CAD were in one large room, divided into about 40 cubicles. In my first year there, one guy in our room came down with shingles, and then a second just a few days later. We all thought it was an odd coincidence.

Then about 10 years later, another guy got them, and within the same week, two more in the same room! Being a bunch of engineers, I'm surprised none of us took a moment to calculate the odds on that, exclusively-mutual cases over such a long span of ~500 weeks with no isolated cases in-between. But it seems there must be some contagious or communal factor, whatever triggers that disease to rear its ugly head must be something shared between the people who suffered from it.

I stayed another 5 years past that, and again, not a single isolated case after the last three had it together in the same week.

The Chickenpox virus takes up permanent residence in certain nerves in humans, and after the initial infection, lies dormant. So anyone who ever got chickenpox, or was exposed to chickenpox as a kid is at risk of getting shingles later in life any time they aren't 100% healthy, including the general weakening of immune systems as we age.

Stress, and other infections, can cause immune systems to weaken, at which point shingles can erupt. So getting a rash of shingles cases in a department could be due to a number of factors, and I wouldn't rule out a department of engineers being under the whip to meet some deadlines.

There was a localized outbreak break of a certain kind of rare and aggressive brain cancers in one small department where I worked once. Five guys out of 26 got a rare form of brain cancer in a three year stretch. (An incidence of 1/30,000 normally, usually in the elderly, not twenty somethings). As this was a chemistry group, I'd be inclined to blame some weird chemical, but statistical anomalies do happen (but the odds would be something like 12 in a quadrillion).

All the best,

Peter

P.S. Here is a photo of the toter. The prior owner used it for car racing around New York/New Jersey, hauling a shop and cars to races for five years. He put it up for sale when it had been fully depreciated for his business. It only had 70k miles on it. The funny thing was I tried to buy it directly from him, and he was unreasonable about the price, so it didn't work out. About eight months later, I then saw a similar one for sale by a dealer in California, and bought it (sight unseen) for the price that I thought was reasonable. When I took possession, I realized it was the exact same toter, and chatting with the dealer and the paperwork confirmed it. The dealer here had bought it in NY, and hauled a 70k lb trailer out to So. Cal. Small world.

It has FRP walls and roof, well insulated. The factory had some PR photos with cars, and tens of people sitting on the roof.

 

[WinterDeere]

Ongoing saga with PA tax people, so I put in some modified paperwork that showed they owed me $483 and they agreed but decided to take $95 out of it as an assessment for no apparent reason. So I get $388. When I asked what the $95 was for, they told me it was an adjustment. Love the doublespeak.

My 2024 Federal taxes are still un-filed for my business, over similar issues. They're claiming a particular form was needed but missing this year, despite filing the same way every one of the last 4 years. Even my accounting firm is stumped, at this point.

 

[ponytug]

My 2024 Federal taxes are still un-filed for my business, over similar issues. They're claiming a particular form was needed but missing this year, despite filing the same way every one of the last 4 years. Even my accounting firm is stumped, at this point.

Gotta love the tax filing process.

I had one state try to hit me up for overdue taxes, and penalties for not filing tax forms on a timely basis because I had consulted for a firm with a headquarters there. It took a few go arounds before they backed off, as I had never set foot in that state to work for that company. It ended up along the lines of sending them a letter from my attorney stating "Ok, prove that Peter was in state in that year." (I wasn't.) One of those, it is the principle things, as the time it cost me wasn't worth the taxes.

I try not to take it too personally. It is just someone trying to do a job.

All the best, Peter

 

[sodamo]

69°F and .04 rain

Successful Costco and brewery runs along with a very good burger for lunch. Sophie had the Ruben.

Need to visit HD today to retrieve order that was messed up last week. Good opportunity to refill the fuel cans.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great tractor day

 

[riptides]

Which is a? ...

Sassafras....apologies.