So... What are YOU doing? - Part 8

[Naiwen]

Yo sup there all man! How are you today? Today, as it’s another freezing cold, wet, dark and gloomy day outside, currently feeling like -5C, just playing some games on my Wii before heading the sack tonight.

 

[Lamb]

Watching The Polar Express.

 

[tango]

Delayed some of my work trying to patch holes in the wall because it's been too cold to spray my foam. I've drilled a few more holes and think I have everywhere I need to fill covered. I'm trying to figure out how to run a cable between two light switches so I can join both porch lights together and have both switches controlling them, but at present I'm not seeing an obvious cable route without pulling down some of the ceiling and I really don't want to go there. I may be able to drill a hole into the wall cavity from the basement and run a cable that way. It would mean I can fill another hole more comprehensively - if I run a new cable I can cut the old one off and poke the ends back through the brickwork, then stuff the gap.

My attempts to rewire parts of my basement hit a snag. An annoying snag, a shortcoming in the plan I should have spotted for myself but now it means I've got a $120 reel of cable I can't use as expected. Since I've opened it and used a few feet of it I can't return it for a refund. If I can't figure something else to do with it I'll look to sell it. Now I'm hoping I can fit all the cables I'll need into the box I planned to use.

 

[Naiwen]

Howdy morning all! How are ye all doing today? Today, as it’s another awfully cold, dark and gloomy day outside, currently feeling like 0C, just enjoying my usual TV show before heading to bed tonight.

 

[Lamb]

Playing a computer game and waiting for my daughter to arrive.

 

[tango]

Lazy morning, waiting for the rest of the fog to lift and then going for a walk in the woods with my wife. This afternoon is supposed to be warm so I'm going to do some work on my porch that involves spraying foam. It's going to be horribly messy - I need to get my air compressor into the space to clear out the dust first, which means reaching it through a 4" hole in the wood. What's resting on the upper side of the wood is literally 100 years worth of dust and debris. It's pretty grim up there. Because nothing fits quite perfectly there are loads of (long abandoned) mud wasp nests up there. What I need to do is spray compressed air in to blow everything out, then stuff it with sound-deadening insulation, then spray foam over the top of the insulation. And I get to do it all through a 4" hole either side of where I need to work. That should be interesting....

 

[Naiwen]

Happy Friday all! How are you? Today, since it’s another terribly cold, dark and gloomy day outside, currently feeling like 0C yet again, just relaxing online before tucking myself in bed tonight.

 

[tango]

Disappointing morning today.

I got my walk in the woods yesterday which was really good. Then I got covered in gunk trying to do the work on my porch and this morning it appears the sound is just as bad as it was yesterday. I still have patches on my hands that look dirty, where I got bits of spray foam on my fingers that then picked up dust from the porch. The safety instructions say to wear surgical gloves but there's no point when working in a space like that because they tear and end up worse than useless. So now I'm wondering whether I need to pull down the entirety of the ceiling on the porch (really not something I want to do, not least because it probably won't survive in a state that I can put back up, it will create a horrendous mess, and it will cost a fair chunk of change to replace) and really get into the gaps behind it, tolerate the noise until I gut the next room along (which could be a while), or make some slightly bigger holes in the roof and try to get into the gaps that way.

 

[Lamb]

Playing games on the computer.

 

[tango]

I retired my old pair of sneakers. They were pretty tired, the tread was almost completely worn off and they weren't very supportive any more. If I walked on gravel I could feel any larger stones I stepped on. The new ones (the exact same kind) are nice and springy. I took them out for a run this afternoon and even though I didn't feel particularly strong today I set a couple of new personal best times. Now I'm sitting in my recliner cooling off.

Our favorite brewpub is closing its dining room after this weekend in response to the fuhrer's latest orders. There's no way they can operate profitably with tiny occupancy limits so they're going to takeout only. Because they're open for a couple more days we're going to go and have a last hurrah there before they close again.

 

[Naiwen]

Happy weekend all! How are you? Today, just been catching up on sleep because I’ve had yet another bad night again last night.

 

[tango]

Good evening at the brewpub. There were a few other people there but not as many as I'd expected there to be. The food was great, as usual, and the beer was good as well. They've reintroduced one of my wife's favorite beers so we took a four-pack of that away with us, as well as another one I'd had my eye on for a while. We took a third four-pack that we split with a couple of friends who also love the place.

 

[Naiwen]

Yo sup guys! How’s it going so far with your day? Today, I’ve just had leftover pizza with lemon iced tea for lunch. Tonight, just playing some games on my phone before turning myself in.

 

[Lamb]

Trying to figure out what I'll do today. I didn't get the church link for the streaming yet.

 

[tango]

Gloriously sunny day today, although I don't feel very well rested this morning. Maybe I'll take a walk in the woods later on. It's been a while since I did my loop to take in the vista, and on a sunny day the vista should be particularly nice.

Yesterday I also found out why my wiring project went awry - it looks like I have a bad GFCI outlet. I stripped everything off the circuit and wired nothing except the GFCI and my socket tester reported an open neutral. So I replaced it with a known good GFCI leaving everything else the same and all was OK. So having battled to get everything wired just so it looks like I had a bad component. I don't think I've ever come across a faulty GFCI before but I guess there's a first time for everything. I don't feel like going out this weekend so maybe I'll go and get that replaced tomorrow. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I can take advantage of a rainy day to do indoor work.

 

[Naiwen]

Hello morning all! How are you? Today, I’ve just had my usual weekly 3 hours therapy session. Tonight, just playing some games on my Wii before rocking myself to sleep.

 

[Lamb]

Woke up late...it's raining so I'm not sure what I'll do today.

 

[tango]

Woke up late...it's raining so I'm not sure what I'll do today.

How about making some more of that cheesecake? I'll send you my address - you can ship me some

 

[Lamb]

How about making some more of that cheesecake? I'll send you my address - you can ship me some

ha yeah I don't have the supplies

 

[tango]

ha yeah I don't have the supplies

Awwwww.....

I need to get myself motivated to head out to the hardware store to get this defective GFCI replaced. I hope whoever is on the returns desk has enough sense to process what I'm telling them, or sufficiently little sense to just take it without question. Then I can get another one and carry on with my project. My electrician friend talked to one of his coworkers who is more familiar with electrical theory and they concluded what I'm trying to do should work. I'm still not sure but for the sake of a quick test run I might as well find out. Either way I need two GFCIs, each protecting a circuit - the setup would work with regular outlets but because it's all in the basement the electrical code requires GFCI protection so I might as well do it properly.

While I'm out I can take a look at a couple of other things. My wife is talking about wanting a new laptop - hers is really quite slow so we're looking at what we can do. I've ordered a memory upgrade for it but I might as well take a look to see what else is out there. I'm also thinking about upgrading my smartwatch - I bought a cheap one back in January to see if I liked working with it, on the basis I didn't want to drop a load of cash on a higher end model only to find I hated using it at all. Now I know I like working with it I'm starting to hit the limits of what the watch can do. Specifically it doesn't support hiking as an activity, and the battery will only last 6-7 hours in GPS mode and if I go for a long hike it's far from improbable I'll be out longer than that. The ones I'm looking at offer GPS mode of anything up to 30+ hours, and some of them can also slow the usage if you're in the sun. It's hard to gauge sunlight when hiking in the woods but every little helps. It's just a question of whether the solar functionality is worth an extra $150-250 or so.