It’s half way through October and we’re finally going to get a break from the heat. The high tomorrow is supposed to be 70 which is 25 or so degrees lower than it was today. It’s always so hot down here that the standard dress is shorts and a t-shirt. I’m not even sure that I have a pair of pants that fit and when I do wear jeans I’m always pissed because there aren’t enough pockets.
Blog
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Main Floor Laid
So the floor is laid except for the last row and closet. I’ve been thinking about it and I’m having to remove the frame around the doors and closet but it doesn’t seem to be that hard. I also need to get the table saw out of the shed. And out of the box now that I think of it. I bought the table saw when it was $100 off and knew I’d need one so I got it, it’s still in the box.
But the weather is changing this evening and it will be nice to work out in the shed tomorrow retrieving the saw and learning to use it.
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Loserboys in Loserville
It’s hard being a Cowboy’s fan. As fan would be short for fanatic, I’m not one. But I do like them better than any other football team so even though I’m not a Cowboy fanatic, I don’t like to see them lose, and it’s even less fun to watch them get slaughtered like they did in spectacular fashion today. If you’ve ever watched the Harlem Globetrotters play some no name team, that would have been the Cowboy’s today. Detroit just spanked them at every turn. I do think it’s funny that the football gods would do this on Jerry’s birthday, he’s still paying for pulling the trophy out of Jimmy’s hands. Still hard to watch though…
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Recovery Day
Evidently, crawling around on the floor pounding planks together is a young mans game. I’m a bit sore so I told the home owner that the project would be delayed until I felt like getting back to the job. He didn’t seem to mind at all.
I got back to studying the docker class and am making progress although I’ve got a concentration problem that I need to fix, I mean the subject isn’t super exciting but it’s not bad, I just wonder to other things even though I need to study. It’s just getting back into the groove.
Also got the new hire paperwork knocked out for the seasonal position I’m taking. It wasn’t too bad and I’ve filed the information for reference should it ever come up but I’ll probably just write exports like I’ve been doing for the last 4 or so years.
Sandy’s job is going phenomenal, she’s just doing training but this job is perfect for her. It’s better than I thought that it would be and that’s saying something.
TGIF
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RAM Acquired
I generally have maxed out the random access memory to all my computers since it’s about the easiest way to increase performance. But I realized that my main Linux box had 24 Gb of RAM. 2 x 8 and 2 x 4, so mismatched and missized memory and I was wondering why I was having some issues. But Amazon had 32 Gb of RAM for $32 and so I upgraded it to all the same RAM and the box is running much better than it was so I’m pretty happy about that. Also it’s the box I’m doing my docker training on so it helps that it can handle a bit more now.
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More Floor
We’re about 66% with the floor, probably a little more but the hard part of cutting it in is coming up so we’ll see how that goes. Also started a docker course to finally get to the next level with that. And it looks like I have a seasonal gig that should end by the end of the year so I can keep working on the house, learning and still make a few bucks. Life is good.
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Flooring Started
The floor is going down. I got 3 of 8 boxes down. As this is my first attempt at this snap together flooring, I have to say I’m pretty impressed. You basically hammer it together and it’s free floating. It’s taking me a bit of time because the saw is in the garage but I got my steps so it’s kind of nice.
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Front End Alignment Complete
As the title says, the front end alignment is complete. It wasn’t that far out of whack but it’s good to know that it’s now in spec.
Pippa has gone home, I’ve never seen an animal so happy to see their human. It’s a good thing that makes me smile. The cats, again, have free reign over the house and are busy investigating the smells left over from the dog. It’s stressful having a dog around, I forget how much work they are.
The floor is getting closer to getting laid. I did go to LL and got the spacers I needed for half price. They’re going out of business after all. Got the chop saw and stand out and set up and did a test cut on a test piece of flooring. Cut the first row of barrier and we’re ready to roll tomorrow.
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Xterra Suspension Finished
After yesterday’s debacle, I took it easy and finally got the bolt out of the passenger side and got it replaced. I was going to hold off on the driver side until I got the new impact gun but they had deep well metric 1/2 inch impact sockets and an adjustable breaker bar both on sale at HF for ITC members. Saved $20 between the two, another savings for the membership. And the breaker bar is really cool because it’s expandable. So while the impact gun is still in transit, we’re good to go with the Xterra. Now I just need to get the front end aligned. $150 for that.
I cleaned up the garage this afternoon and it looks good if I do say so myself. I’m all out of car work to do for the time so now I don’t have any excuse not to finish the back room.
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Car Repair & Injuries
We did our (almost) 10 mile bike ride this morning, I forgot to set my watch for biking but it worked out.
Got home and I finished cleaning out the garage and moved the Xterra in and got to work getting the front shocks out and ran into an issue. The lower bolt wouldn’t budge. Heat didn’t do anything, so out came the grinding wheel. I removed the head of the bolt and got it about .25 inches though, then I was trying to bang it though, well at that point I started to get mad and hit it hard, it dislodged and then my finger sliced on the brake guard, lots of blood and ended the repairs for the day.
But it did get me thinking and the impact gun I have delivers 250 ft/lbs of torque, this hasn’t been much of an issue but it was bought probably in early 2001 when I was working on the cutlass and only use it for taking off tires really. I stared looking around and it’s at the low end of power. Now you can get up to 1500 ft/lbs but that’ll set you back $150 at HF. I figured I’d check Vevor just to compare and they have a 1400 ft/lbs for $66. Long story short, I’ve got to wait for the new gun to do the other side.
