So the Xterra is due for inspection and I don’t have a horn. Everything seems fine from a fuse point of view and in reading an article on what it could be it said to hold the horn and turn the wheel and if it beeps then you have a clockspring on the way out. Clockspring??? Yup, never heard of it either.
I ordered and have the part and found a video on how to do it. I’ve got it changed out but still no horn and there’s an airbag error. Grrr. I think I know what it is though, I just have to take it apart and check the connections to make sure that they are plugged in right. Such fun…
The KC Chiefs are the Superbowl champs and it was a nail-biter of a game. I was happy about the outcome. While the 9ers were an amazing football team through the season, they just haven’t paid their dues. A big payment was made last night and they’ll be back.
Sandy and I went to exercise class today and then came home, got changed, and went to the Bell Station to catch the train to Dallas to see the Perot Museum. It was nice although a little cold walking from Victory Station to the museum. The museum was nice, I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t anything that blew me away. I learned a couple of things. There were a lot of kids there and I had to calm myself and remember that this place is actually for them to hopefully create a spark for the love of science and STEM. But they’re still annoying.
We had lunch there, chicken strips and fries with a large soft pretzel with cheese. Nothing to write home about and the best thing was the ranch LOL. On the way back we noticed there were a lot of homeless that hang out on the train. Nothing scary but makes you think.
Ah, another Superbowl Sunday. This was an excuse to party in years gone by but like most of those other drinking holidays, this one has faded too. I still don’t understand why the game hasn’t been moved to Saturday. They should have done that for 50 and then on. But it’s the audience that would benefit most from that as it really doesn’t matter to the teams, they’re both off the next day no matter what day it is. It’s KC vs 49ers this year. I’ll be rooting for KC as I dig their vibe this year. I like the TK & TS angle and thought that Brittany’s SI rookie shoot was pretty wow. Conversely, 9ers are just too ‘golden’, need to rub some dirt on their jerseys and pay some more dues. And this game will be one of those dues. Go Chiefs!!!
I had a really spirited debate with myself on whether or not I should get a new laptop. My current one is a Dell that’s 5 years old and the keyboard is starting to go. Now that should have been about $50 or so but I got to thinking that it’s time for a new one. I know I’m between jobs but Sarondy LLC had about $3500 in an account and I decided to run with it. Picked up an Asus FA707XV-MS94 from Microcenter in Dallas along with a 32GB RAM upgrade.
So far it’s a screaming laptop and I’m happy with it. Doesn’t seem to have an access port to install the memory upgrade but I’m still digging into it. This laptop should last me through the rest of the decade hopefully.
So a couple of days ago, we had an issue with the NAS. It was beeping and complaining that it had a power issue and that the data needed to be scrubbed. I got that fixed and up and running again but then today, it crashed, and when it came back up, 3 of the 4 drives had error conditions and it was telling me to backup everything and click here to fix. Grrr. So I did a quick backup of the pictures and while it was doing that you could hear the sickening spin-down of the drives. With only the photos backed up, I shut it down and was going to reboot.
Fortunately, because I had a power supply crash before, I had an extra power supply at the ready. This is needed because you cannot get a Synology power supply locally. Long story short, when the new power supply was put it, the drives were reinitialized without issue and then I ran the data scrubbing operation (~16 hours) and now all is good. I need to come up with a backup strategy for the NAS.
We got the twigs bound and cut up anything larger and put it on a patio tile base in the corner of the yard to dry out so we should have some firewood by fall.
More importantly than finishing up the clean-up, we got fertilizer applied and this will stand as a record of when it was first done this year. I also used up a bag of grass seed that was sitting in the barn so we’ll see if that does anything. I’ll still need to put down the pre-emergent for the grass burr but I’ll get that done later this month.
Starting exercise class yesterday along with planting the trees left me physically exhausted so we took today off and did inside stuff. I’m happy that we got the plants in but boy, I forgot how much work it can be. Oh well, it’s nice to take time and do nothing. Back at it tomorrow.
So Sandy is more comfortable getting physically fit when she’s in a class setting or working with a trainer. Which is quite the opposite to what I do which is exercise on my schedule. To that end we started the ‘Energize’ class this morning. We’re the youngest and I’m the only guy. My only iffy moment was when someone said they’ll let us know how to vote, LOL lord help me keep my mouth shut. It’s all good but given that I have some serious yard work that needs to be done, I wasn’t sure about starting my day exercising. I was right as Sandy is so exhausted she went to bed at 7:30pm.
We got some more cleanup done and then measured, flagged and planted all the plants. According to the documentation on the site, it said to plant every 4 feet for a wall and 6 for side by side trees. We did 4 foot on the back (north) fence line and 6 on the east fence line. That house is a rental so who knows who will be there next time.
Toby Kieth died yesterday and news broke of his passing today. I forgot that his music was around since the 90s and were around for a lot of good times. Stomach cancer was the cause. Sad.
Here on some pictures from the day, oh yeah, it was taco Tuesday too:)
I hate cutting trees, only because I they take so long to grow and I really like trees. But as discussed yesterday, it’s time for a change. So we spent the day taking out the old and getting ready for the new. I thought that 16 trees would be way too many but now I wish I had another 16…
Lots of years ago we tried to put fruit trees on the north fence line in the backyard. Every year we had high hopes as they grew and got green and even some initial fruit. But always a disappointment. So we decided that a green wall back there is the way to go and bought 16 1′ emerald green arborvitae from Fast Growing Trees. We’ll see how they grow this year and if they establish properly we’ll do the east fence line and part of the west side.
