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

[Naiwen]

Happy Friday all! How are you? Today, just playing some games on my Switch before heading the sack tonight.

 

[tango]

Thinking about how best to reframe the room I've been busy gutting. It only had 3/4" featherboards instead of proper wall studs so I'll need to reframe the windows as part of the process, which is irritating. I'm contemplating the best ways to secure everything and try and make everything as square as possible, so fitting drywall is as easy as possible. I also need to consider how much space I can afford to lose in the room, and how much I need to fit electrical back boxes.

 

[tango]

I pried the windowsill off the double window in my work room. I was expecting to find a gap under the windows but wasn't expecting a gap as big as the one I found. After lunch I'll see about prying the windowsill off the other window, I don't imagine I'll find anything prettier there. At least this lets me see just what I'm up against, and probably explains why it's so cold in specific places in the room. I'll most likely get a small can of window foam to spray around the three windows to seal up the space completely. I can get large cans for my foam gun but they are big enough to deal with a dozen windows and I don't have that many windows ready to be addressed just yet.

 

[Lamb]

Doing some crocheting most of the day.

 

[Romanos]

Out to dinner right now.

 

[tango]

Got a few more bits of crud scraped away and tucked fiberglass into the obvious spaces around the windows. The room warmed by a good 4 degrees while I was working. It's not exactly tropical in there - it got up to a sweltering 52 degrees, but previously it was somewhere more like 46-48 degrees so I'm happy. Maybe over the weekend I can come up with a longer term fix for the problem. I'll also need to take the windowsill off the other window - chances are I'll have nasty gaps around that frame as well.

 

[zaneajay]

Hi Everyone

2020 was a hard year for me, my business tanked and I’m in a whole lot of financial debt.
I also lost my mum to breast cancer, it hurts because I feel like I haven’t actually properly mourned her loss cause I’m overwhelmed with all my financial issues, business, hospital bills etc.
I’ve tried everything and at this point, all I can do is pray for is a miracle while I keep pushing on, because I can’t lie I have contemplated suicide, things are just so hard and I’m at a state of mental breakdown.
At this point I'm just hurt and so confused, I've prayed fasted and worshipped, but nothing seems to have shifted didn't he promise that when we knocked he would open, didn't he promise that he is not a man that he would lie, Nor a son of man, that He would change His mind?
Why are these mountains yet to be removed?
I stay in my faith and hold on as much as I can because I am at my wit's end.
I know this may come off lame but at this point, it is either a miracle happens or I die trying to survive. I would hope that for once the internet will be of good. I wanted to share my BCH/BTC account for anyone willing to help.
Thank you



[Staff Removal of links]

 

[Naiwen]

Happy weekend all! How are you? Today, I’ve just had leftover pizza with lemon iced tea for lunch. Tonight, just enjoying my usual TV show before heading to sleep.

 

[Stravinsk]

The cord to my lawnmower broke and I have yet to fix it so I acquired a scythe and have been learning to use it. Today I was the grim reaper for driveway grass.

Still working on same two compositions, playing some online poker and planting/harvesting as the time arrives.

 

[tango]

The cord to my lawnmower broke and I have yet to fix it so I acquired a scythe and have been learning to use it. Today I was the grim reaper for driveway grass.

Still working on same two compositions, playing some online poker and planting/harvesting as the time arrives.

Curious.... I'd have thought it would be quicker to repair the mower than learn to use a scythe but sometimes it's good to have an excuse to learn a new skill.

Lazy morning so far for me. I really should fix up some more of this brickwork but it gets so tedious going through the process of chiseling out bad mortar, brushing away the loose bits and dust, mixing cement, packing the cement, rinse and repeat. It would be nice to just chisel it all out, then mix up a honking great pile of cement and pack it all at once, but I'd probably freeze along the way because then I'd have dozens of gaps in the wall all blowing drafts.

I think it was last winter I found some nasty gaps and ended up perched on a ladder fixing the upstairs brickwork, from outside, when it was below freezing outside. It was handy I could use the porch roof as a shelf so I wasn't endlessly up and down the ladder switching between different tools. I got most of the work done before I went indoors because I couldn't feel my hands any more.

Still, at least every step forward, however small, means less money going out on heating bills. The outside temperature dropped to about 30 degrees last night and the room I'm working in held at a whisker under 50. That tells me I've nailed at least some of the problem. The cupboard that used to go below freezing seems a lot warmer - I can stand in front of it with the doors open and not feel cold air blowing on my legs, so that's also good progress. Now I just need to figure out how to get the corner floor units out without trashing the lino floor that was laid around them.

 

[Lamb]

Hi Everyone

2020 was a hard year for me, my business tanked and I’m in a whole lot of financial debt.
I also lost my mum to breast cancer, it hurts because I feel like I haven’t actually properly mourned her loss cause I’m overwhelmed with all my financial issues, business, hospital bills etc.
I’ve tried everything and at this point, all I can do is pray for is a miracle while I keep pushing on, because I can’t lie I have contemplated suicide, things are just so hard and I’m at a state of mental breakdown.
At this point I'm just hurt and so confused, I've prayed fasted and worshipped, but nothing seems to have shifted didn't he promise that when we knocked he would open, didn't he promise that he is not a man that he would lie, Nor a son of man, that He would change His mind?
Why are these mountains yet to be removed?
I stay in my faith and hold on as much as I can because I am at my wit's end.
I know this may come off lame but at this point, it is either a miracle happens or I die trying to survive. I would hope that for once the internet will be of good. I wanted to share my BCH/BTC account for anyone willing to help.
Thank you



[Staff Removal of links]

I'm sorry you've had a really rough year. God's blessings to you in the year 2021.

 

[zaneajay]

I'm sorry you've had a really rough year. God's blessings to you in the year 2021.

Thank you

 

[tango]

I got a load of mortar seams chiseled out and packed with nice fresh mortar. It's remarkable how many of them have little more than a quick shim of mortar over the top of the gap with nothing actually in between the gaps. I filled one of the larger holes, which was slightly bigger than a regular size electrical back box. That one took a few passes - the first pass filled in about an inch from all directions except the top, the next pass built on the first pass once it had had chance to try, and so on. Eventually I could put cement over the remaining hole and smooth it all off. It doesn't really need to be ultra-smooth - it's going to be concealed by insulation and drywall - but I figure I might as well do a nice job as a shoddy job when it doesn't take meaningfully longer and the practice is good for when it does need to look nice.

Along the way I used the odd scraps of cement here and there to smooth off a few nasty sections of brickwork and fill a few nail holes from where the featherboards were nailed to the brickwork. There are still a few more seams I want to address but they can wait for another day. The next major hole is much bigger - big enough to put a triple-gang electrical back box into. At present it's stuffed with fiberglass to keep the cold from seeping out, and of course it's an irregular shape. I'm debating spraying foam into the space and putting cement over the foam, or cutting it to a regular shape and then cutting pieces of spare concrete blocks as needed to match the new shape and cementing them into place. I never really looked at it to see how many concrete blocks are affected by it - if I can just cut one single piece of concrete and set it into place I'll most likely do that. If it will involve breaking more concrete away from multiple blocks I'll go the foam route - I don't want to weaken my exterior walls!

While I was waiting for things to dry I took the chance to pry off a few more bits, and cut up some featherboards and pieces of trim I don't believe are worth trying to save. Now I have the beginnings of another bag of scraps for my friend. It wasn't particularly cold today - the low was around 30 - but the room is holding steady at around 50 and the space under the sink doesn't look like it's dropping below the low 40s any more.

 

[Naiwen]

Yo sup there man all! How are you today? Today, I’ve just had leftover pizza with lemon iced tea for lunch again. Tonight, just relaxing online before dozing off.

 

[Naiwen]

Howdy sup there? How's it going so far with your day? Today, I've just had my usual weekly 3 hours therapy session both online and by phone. Tonight, just resting before falling asleep.

 

[Lamb]

Getting ready to do some laundry and looking into dog tie outs for my daughter's dog when she comes to visit. I don't think my husband wants to go through the expense of putting up a fence.

 

[tango]

How big is the dog, and is it at least reasonably well trained? My friend has a dog that's about 100 pounds, maybe a little more, that he lets out in his yard tethered to an anchor that screws into the ground. You can get different sized anchors based on how big a dog they are intended to restrain. Then it's just a matter of how long a cord you want to tie to the anchor. At my friend's house he keeps one end tied to the anchor and one end on the ground just outside his back door. When the dog wants to go outside he opens the door, clips the end to the dog's collar, and then he can let the dog run for a while. Of course when the dog comes back in and he unclips the cord, he can drop the end just outside the door ready for the next run.

 

[tango]

I finally managed to get my head into gear to get on with the code I've been meaning to write for a couple of days now. And the first thing I found was a problem with one of my modules. It turned out I'd made a silly typo in the code that sets up a data structure that shunted everything in an array by one place. It was easily resolved, the sort of thing that takes longer to find than it does to fix. Today I'm going to look at the larger hole in my wall to see how best to fix it, and then my wife and I are going to take up a local brewpub on one of their seasonal specials. Nothing fancy, but might as well take advantage of a good deal when it's available.

 

[Naiwen]

Hello morning all! How are you? Today, just been catching up on sleep as I've had yet again another bad night last night.

 

[Lamb]

My daughter brought her dog and guinea pig to stay for a few days so we're just sitting around relaxing this morning.