Its forecasted to be in the upper 50s again tomorrow.
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Spring has Sprung
Ten days into spring and after a 30+ degree temperature swing from this morning, this hits:
Its forecasted to be in the upper 50s again tomorrow.
Its forecasted to be in the upper 50s again tomorrow.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Green Laser
I found this little gem online, it was $19.99 and probably pure junk, but I planned to have some fun with it.
It came in very impressive packaging, a foam lined box with a magnetic closure.
It came with two mounts and two tail caps, one is push button the other is a pressure switch. I would have paid $20 for the mounts alone.
I mounted it on my AR-15 and sighting it in was easy, white plate at 100 yards and line up the dot with the scope. The dot was easily visible at 100 yards in daylight and once I had it sighted in it was fairly easy to hit a 4" plate from a hip shot, once you spent 20 seconds trying to figure out where the dot was and move it slow enough you didn't lose it again.
Unfortunately it didn't care much for the recoil of the gun and after 5-6 shots it moved. I had guessed as much so I plan to move it to my 10/22 and see if it will hold up on it. If it dosen't like that it will become a desk toy until I can think of something else to do with it.
It does make me want to buy a real one.
It came in very impressive packaging, a foam lined box with a magnetic closure.
It came with two mounts and two tail caps, one is push button the other is a pressure switch. I would have paid $20 for the mounts alone.
I mounted it on my AR-15 and sighting it in was easy, white plate at 100 yards and line up the dot with the scope. The dot was easily visible at 100 yards in daylight and once I had it sighted in it was fairly easy to hit a 4" plate from a hip shot, once you spent 20 seconds trying to figure out where the dot was and move it slow enough you didn't lose it again.
Unfortunately it didn't care much for the recoil of the gun and after 5-6 shots it moved. I had guessed as much so I plan to move it to my 10/22 and see if it will hold up on it. If it dosen't like that it will become a desk toy until I can think of something else to do with it.
It does make me want to buy a real one.
Monday, February 18, 2019
Water Leak
A few weeks ago we had gone out to eat for supper and on the drive back home Tania mentioned she thought there was a water leak on the side of the house. Its street side on which I don't normally drive so I wouldn't have seen it. When we got home I walked over and seen fresh water running from our lawn, over the curb and into the storm drain, not exactly normal for 18° weather. After looking around a little more I notice water coming out around the cover to the water meter.
Our water meter is inside a 30 gallon barrel buried in the lawn. I took the mini man hole cover off of it and seen it was not only completely full of water but over running. Like an idiot I took my coat off and stuck my arm in the pit to see if I could feel any leaks, I could hear it leaking but it was so cold my hand and arm went completely numb in about five seconds.
Not having any way to drain the barrel, I called a buddy and was over at his house at 10:30pm borrowing two of his sump pumps. One made short order of draining the barrel and within three minutes I was able to look down at everything, there was no leak in the barrel and no movement on the meter. I could see the water running down the inside of the barrel from the street side so it was obviously leaking on the water companies side of the street some five feet under the dirt.
After putting away the pumps and cords I came inside and called the emergency leak number for the water company. I told the nice lady on the phone what the problem was and what I had done. She commented on most people not going to that extreme before calling and I explained I wanted to validate it was their problem to fix and not mine. That's when she informed me the line isn't drawn at the meter its where ever the easement is, great...
The next day they sent a guy out in a van, he looked around a bit and pulled out a 12v pump that looked like it belonged in a fish tank. We stood there for 20 minutes while this pump tried to drain more water than was rushing in only for him to come to the same conclusion I had the night before. He informed me that he would need to send out another truck that could locate the leak by sound.
A week later I came home and found this:
It looks like they fond the leak under the slabs, the main shutoff for the block is about 30 feet south of where the slabs were removed. They also managed to break one of the slabs with the backhoe so now Ill have three that dont match.
It will probably be a while bfore they come out and pour them, its too cold to do it now. The more important thing is, I still don't know if they are paying for this or I am.
Our water meter is inside a 30 gallon barrel buried in the lawn. I took the mini man hole cover off of it and seen it was not only completely full of water but over running. Like an idiot I took my coat off and stuck my arm in the pit to see if I could feel any leaks, I could hear it leaking but it was so cold my hand and arm went completely numb in about five seconds.
Not having any way to drain the barrel, I called a buddy and was over at his house at 10:30pm borrowing two of his sump pumps. One made short order of draining the barrel and within three minutes I was able to look down at everything, there was no leak in the barrel and no movement on the meter. I could see the water running down the inside of the barrel from the street side so it was obviously leaking on the water companies side of the street some five feet under the dirt.
After putting away the pumps and cords I came inside and called the emergency leak number for the water company. I told the nice lady on the phone what the problem was and what I had done. She commented on most people not going to that extreme before calling and I explained I wanted to validate it was their problem to fix and not mine. That's when she informed me the line isn't drawn at the meter its where ever the easement is, great...
The next day they sent a guy out in a van, he looked around a bit and pulled out a 12v pump that looked like it belonged in a fish tank. We stood there for 20 minutes while this pump tried to drain more water than was rushing in only for him to come to the same conclusion I had the night before. He informed me that he would need to send out another truck that could locate the leak by sound.
A week later I came home and found this:
It looks like they fond the leak under the slabs, the main shutoff for the block is about 30 feet south of where the slabs were removed. They also managed to break one of the slabs with the backhoe so now Ill have three that dont match.
It will probably be a while bfore they come out and pour them, its too cold to do it now. The more important thing is, I still don't know if they are paying for this or I am.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Christmas Present
Normally Tania and I don't do much for each other for Christmas. Generally we buy what we want throughout the year that makes it the "how do you buy something for the person that has everything". This year I came up with the idea of each of us putting items on our Amazon wish lists and then we could go through the others list and pick what to get them.
Tania only had selected one of those fancy new pressure cookers so the choice for me was simple. I had like 10 different things picked, from those Tania bought me a Vortex Venom red dot. She even figured out the correct mount for it.
It was very easy to install and the past few weeks I have spent about three hours trying muscle memory exercises to allow for quick and easy sighting. It does take some getting used to along with resisting the urge to move your head to find the dot.
The thing I haven't yet decided is how I will sight it in. I don't have or have access to a sled that will hold a pistol, but since it does have a bottom rail and I have access to a good shooting table I might try this:
At least I think it will steady it for one axis, Ill find out.
I also picked up a trigger scale this week, I want to do a trigger job on my 10/22 and need a way to measure any changes. I'm less worried about the accuracy of the scale an more that it gives me a starting point to finish point.
Hopefully will have an early spring and I can go do some shooting soon.
Tania only had selected one of those fancy new pressure cookers so the choice for me was simple. I had like 10 different things picked, from those Tania bought me a Vortex Venom red dot. She even figured out the correct mount for it.
It was very easy to install and the past few weeks I have spent about three hours trying muscle memory exercises to allow for quick and easy sighting. It does take some getting used to along with resisting the urge to move your head to find the dot.
The thing I haven't yet decided is how I will sight it in. I don't have or have access to a sled that will hold a pistol, but since it does have a bottom rail and I have access to a good shooting table I might try this:
At least I think it will steady it for one axis, Ill find out.
I also picked up a trigger scale this week, I want to do a trigger job on my 10/22 and need a way to measure any changes. I'm less worried about the accuracy of the scale an more that it gives me a starting point to finish point.
Hopefully will have an early spring and I can go do some shooting soon.
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Trump Rally
Yesterday I was afforded the opportunity of attending a Trump rally as a VIP. Originally it was going to be held where I work and at the last minute, Southport High School became available. I don't know all of the logistics but I'm guessing something as simple as not needing to obtain chairs for everyone would be a big deciding factor between hosting it in a hangar versus a gymnasium. Because we had expended some effort they gave us three VIP passes. Because it was last minute these were passed down from above until I got one of them.
Trump was not scheduled to speak until 7pm but we decided to be there by 2pm. Even arriving that early I had to park a half mile from the school. Walking from where we parked there were numerous street vendors much like a NASCAR event all selling various types of Trump paraphernalia. Once we arrived at the school it took a bit to find where we were entering. Even that early there were still at least 20 people in the VIP line. I could see at least three general public lines, this is a picture of just one of them.
This is a shot of of my good friend Jack as we waited in line.
At 4pm they started letting people in, we were given wrist bands and went through a metal detector. On the other side of the metal detector was an agent dressed in full combat gear searching people. After I passed through I walked up to him and raised my arms just like everyone before me had done, he then waved me on past, and people say I am intimidating.
We were then escorted to our seats which were just to the left of the stage. Apparently this is the area that the governor and other dignitaries would be sitting. As we were walking down the stairs I asked our escort what the yellow wrist bands we were given meant (they weren't visible under the sleeves of our jackets). He stopped and said oh you have those, you can sit wherever you want. Jack told him he wanted to sit directly behind the stage. He then passed us off to another escort that seated us in the first row behind the stage.
The next three hours were fairly mind numbing as we waited for the rally to start. With so many people in that area there was no cellular service and about once every 15 minutes our escort would move us either to the left or the right along the row we were sitting in as more people were seated. In the end after moving at least five times we ended up in the same exact location we initially sat at. During this time MAGA hats were handed out along with multiple sign boards that we were instructed to enthusiastically wave during the rally. There was also much discussion about placement of children and removal of various adults from the area immediately behind the podium.
About 15 minutes before the rally was to start our escort came over and informed us if we needed to use the restroom we should now and for the next two hours we would need to stand.
All of the pictures I took were on a loaner Iphone 6 which didn't work well with the stage lights pointed directly at us, but I still managed to get a few good pictures.
Here you can see the teleprompter, this was right before Vice President Pence gave his speech.
In this picture just next to Trumps left elbow is Medal of Honor recipient Sammy Davis. Trump actually pointed at him when he walked out and saluted him. Prior to the rally start he had a continuous line of people wanting to shake his hand and meet him, going all the way up the stairs on to the mezzanine.
This was taken with no zoom, we were that close.
Trump actually stayed on que with his speech for the most part. It was neat to be able to see what he was reading and when he went off on his own. During his speech he brought out Bobby Knight, but before he came out Trump went off on his own for so long that they brought a chair into the entry tent for Bobby to sit on.
One other thing bad about where we were sitting was the acoustics, basically I could only hear about 50% of what the speakers were saying, so I tried to follow along with the teleprompter.
After the rally once I got to my truck, my phone exploded with emails, texts etc. as it started getting service again. I got messages from people who said they saw me on TV and some even took pictures of their TV and sent them to me. Tania recorded the rally on TV and I watched it last night to see how much I had actually missed. Each news feed had a different camera angle which dictated wither Jack, David and I were visible or not.
This morning Trump tweeted this picture.
Trump was not scheduled to speak until 7pm but we decided to be there by 2pm. Even arriving that early I had to park a half mile from the school. Walking from where we parked there were numerous street vendors much like a NASCAR event all selling various types of Trump paraphernalia. Once we arrived at the school it took a bit to find where we were entering. Even that early there were still at least 20 people in the VIP line. I could see at least three general public lines, this is a picture of just one of them.
This is a shot of of my good friend Jack as we waited in line.
At 4pm they started letting people in, we were given wrist bands and went through a metal detector. On the other side of the metal detector was an agent dressed in full combat gear searching people. After I passed through I walked up to him and raised my arms just like everyone before me had done, he then waved me on past, and people say I am intimidating.
We were then escorted to our seats which were just to the left of the stage. Apparently this is the area that the governor and other dignitaries would be sitting. As we were walking down the stairs I asked our escort what the yellow wrist bands we were given meant (they weren't visible under the sleeves of our jackets). He stopped and said oh you have those, you can sit wherever you want. Jack told him he wanted to sit directly behind the stage. He then passed us off to another escort that seated us in the first row behind the stage.
The next three hours were fairly mind numbing as we waited for the rally to start. With so many people in that area there was no cellular service and about once every 15 minutes our escort would move us either to the left or the right along the row we were sitting in as more people were seated. In the end after moving at least five times we ended up in the same exact location we initially sat at. During this time MAGA hats were handed out along with multiple sign boards that we were instructed to enthusiastically wave during the rally. There was also much discussion about placement of children and removal of various adults from the area immediately behind the podium.
About 15 minutes before the rally was to start our escort came over and informed us if we needed to use the restroom we should now and for the next two hours we would need to stand.
All of the pictures I took were on a loaner Iphone 6 which didn't work well with the stage lights pointed directly at us, but I still managed to get a few good pictures.
Here you can see the teleprompter, this was right before Vice President Pence gave his speech.
In this picture just next to Trumps left elbow is Medal of Honor recipient Sammy Davis. Trump actually pointed at him when he walked out and saluted him. Prior to the rally start he had a continuous line of people wanting to shake his hand and meet him, going all the way up the stairs on to the mezzanine.
This was taken with no zoom, we were that close.
Trump actually stayed on que with his speech for the most part. It was neat to be able to see what he was reading and when he went off on his own. During his speech he brought out Bobby Knight, but before he came out Trump went off on his own for so long that they brought a chair into the entry tent for Bobby to sit on.
One other thing bad about where we were sitting was the acoustics, basically I could only hear about 50% of what the speakers were saying, so I tried to follow along with the teleprompter.
After the rally once I got to my truck, my phone exploded with emails, texts etc. as it started getting service again. I got messages from people who said they saw me on TV and some even took pictures of their TV and sent them to me. Tania recorded the rally on TV and I watched it last night to see how much I had actually missed. Each news feed had a different camera angle which dictated wither Jack, David and I were visible or not.
This morning Trump tweeted this picture.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Broken Mower
I don't mow very often because Tania enjoys mowing the yard. We have a 42" Gravely zero turn which is a big mower for the size of our yard, taking at most 40 minutes to accomplish. As such it has very low hours for its age.
When I got on it, I could feel the deck where you place your feet, moving and pushing against my feet. I stopped and shut it off so I could look to see what was wrong and noticed the entire front beam had broken loose from the frame.
I slowly drove it back to the garage and started taking it apart. Once I had the cover plate off the foot deck it was apparent the only thing holding the beam on was two 1/2" welds to the foot deck. This was allowing the beam to twist and push the foot deck.
I went online and tried to find any information I could, the biggest source I found was from Gravely's website under the reviews for the mower. There were at least six other people that had posted as having the same problem and all but one were in the same situation as I was, where the mower was past its warranty by age. The one guy that did get his frame warrantied still paid $600 for labor to have everything moved from his old mower to the new frame. Even with that I don't know that the new frame wouldn't break the same exact way.
Initially I had planned to cut the ends of the frame rails to make them straight again, clean the small amount of frame off the beam and weld it back together. This would have made the wheel base of the mower less than a 1/2" shorter and not affected anything. I chose not to do this because, the metal in that area was probably highly stressed and it would more than likely just break again. I decided instead to just weld the breaks back together and add angle iron gussets to the sides and top of each frame rail. This would allow me to get better welds in a more open area to metal that had not been stressed.
As you can see in this picture the welds were very poor and had no penetration in some areas. On the right side of this picture the weld had broken in half. This put all the load on the area that did have penetration and just broke the metal.
Even as open as some of the areas appear I had a difficult time getting my mig torch in some of the areas because the foot deck was in the way. I ended up doing a lot of overhead welding which I haven't done in a long time.
I was frustrated with some of my welds and the amount of time this was taking me. Because of that I forgot to take any pictures of it when I was done, while it was still all apart. I did take a few the following week to show the gussets.
I am extremely disappointed that this happened, the quality of the welds were terrible and shouldn't be something I would deal with for the cost of this mower. I bought the mower based on the reviews of Gravely's in general. I don't know that I will ever purchase another Gravely product. Companies like this cannot control that Brigs or Kawasaki made a lemon engine and they chose to use it in their mower. They cant necessarily control that Bosch made a bad run of relays, but they can control that they made a crap frame. The lack of penetration and the poor welds would have been visible prior to the frame being painted if anyone had actually looked.
When I got on it, I could feel the deck where you place your feet, moving and pushing against my feet. I stopped and shut it off so I could look to see what was wrong and noticed the entire front beam had broken loose from the frame.
I slowly drove it back to the garage and started taking it apart. Once I had the cover plate off the foot deck it was apparent the only thing holding the beam on was two 1/2" welds to the foot deck. This was allowing the beam to twist and push the foot deck.
I went online and tried to find any information I could, the biggest source I found was from Gravely's website under the reviews for the mower. There were at least six other people that had posted as having the same problem and all but one were in the same situation as I was, where the mower was past its warranty by age. The one guy that did get his frame warrantied still paid $600 for labor to have everything moved from his old mower to the new frame. Even with that I don't know that the new frame wouldn't break the same exact way.
Initially I had planned to cut the ends of the frame rails to make them straight again, clean the small amount of frame off the beam and weld it back together. This would have made the wheel base of the mower less than a 1/2" shorter and not affected anything. I chose not to do this because, the metal in that area was probably highly stressed and it would more than likely just break again. I decided instead to just weld the breaks back together and add angle iron gussets to the sides and top of each frame rail. This would allow me to get better welds in a more open area to metal that had not been stressed.
As you can see in this picture the welds were very poor and had no penetration in some areas. On the right side of this picture the weld had broken in half. This put all the load on the area that did have penetration and just broke the metal.
Even as open as some of the areas appear I had a difficult time getting my mig torch in some of the areas because the foot deck was in the way. I ended up doing a lot of overhead welding which I haven't done in a long time.
I was frustrated with some of my welds and the amount of time this was taking me. Because of that I forgot to take any pictures of it when I was done, while it was still all apart. I did take a few the following week to show the gussets.
I am extremely disappointed that this happened, the quality of the welds were terrible and shouldn't be something I would deal with for the cost of this mower. I bought the mower based on the reviews of Gravely's in general. I don't know that I will ever purchase another Gravely product. Companies like this cannot control that Brigs or Kawasaki made a lemon engine and they chose to use it in their mower. They cant necessarily control that Bosch made a bad run of relays, but they can control that they made a crap frame. The lack of penetration and the poor welds would have been visible prior to the frame being painted if anyone had actually looked.
Monday, September 24, 2018
Vacation - Chicago
Last year I had the opportunity to take one of the "Architectural Tours" on a river boat while I was in Chicago on business. It was late fall and literally a week or so before they stopped running for the year. I thought Tania would enjoy it as much as I did so we decided to go to Chicago for the weekend.
I used some Marriott points and we stayed in a new Marriott on the south side of Chicago. Rooms facing the lake or the city were $40.00 a night more than the rooms facing south or west.
We spent the first evening there signing up and buying tickets for what we wanted to do on Sunday.
The Museum of Science and Industry was just a few miles south of our hotel. We signed up for the "Giant Dome Theater" and the U-505 exhibit in the morning with just under two hours to get to the dock for the "Architectural Tour".
The Giant Dome Theater was good but the U-505 was awesome. As you made your way to the exhibit there were long hallways that had everything from signboards to holograms that told the story of how the U-505 was captured. Just as you get to the point of capture, you turn a corner and this is your first view.
You could literally reach out and touch the sub from the mezzanine.
The lighting under the sub flickered to give the illusion of it being in water. Around the base of the sub there were multiple displays set up which contained artifacts from the sub. It was amazing the amount of items they still had that were in the sub as well as what they found years later when it was moved into the building.
The conning tower shows the damage from both small arms fire as well as a deck gun.
If you have ever been in a sub before, I would not recommend paying extra to tour the inside. Its a pain to schedule and not that much to see.
After you leave the display there are more signboards that explain how the sub was brought to Chicago, the time it spent on the lake and how it came about to be where it is currently housed.
We were able to leave the museum and make it to the dock with 30 minutes to spare. The Architectural Tour I would also highly recommend, even with doing it a year before, because I went on a different companies tour most of the information the guide narrated was new to me. The tour takes about 90 minutes to accomplish and it was a perfect day for it.
Because we went in the afternoon I didn't get any good pictures, they were all washed out by the sun. This is a picture from the last time I went.
The following day we had planned to drive though Rockford and follow the river down to St Louis. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and driving a scenic route 500+ miles in the rain didn't sound like a ton of fun so we headed home.
I used some Marriott points and we stayed in a new Marriott on the south side of Chicago. Rooms facing the lake or the city were $40.00 a night more than the rooms facing south or west.
We spent the first evening there signing up and buying tickets for what we wanted to do on Sunday.
The Museum of Science and Industry was just a few miles south of our hotel. We signed up for the "Giant Dome Theater" and the U-505 exhibit in the morning with just under two hours to get to the dock for the "Architectural Tour".
The Giant Dome Theater was good but the U-505 was awesome. As you made your way to the exhibit there were long hallways that had everything from signboards to holograms that told the story of how the U-505 was captured. Just as you get to the point of capture, you turn a corner and this is your first view.
You could literally reach out and touch the sub from the mezzanine.
The lighting under the sub flickered to give the illusion of it being in water. Around the base of the sub there were multiple displays set up which contained artifacts from the sub. It was amazing the amount of items they still had that were in the sub as well as what they found years later when it was moved into the building.
The conning tower shows the damage from both small arms fire as well as a deck gun.
If you have ever been in a sub before, I would not recommend paying extra to tour the inside. Its a pain to schedule and not that much to see.
After you leave the display there are more signboards that explain how the sub was brought to Chicago, the time it spent on the lake and how it came about to be where it is currently housed.
We were able to leave the museum and make it to the dock with 30 minutes to spare. The Architectural Tour I would also highly recommend, even with doing it a year before, because I went on a different companies tour most of the information the guide narrated was new to me. The tour takes about 90 minutes to accomplish and it was a perfect day for it.
Because we went in the afternoon I didn't get any good pictures, they were all washed out by the sun. This is a picture from the last time I went.
The following day we had planned to drive though Rockford and follow the river down to St Louis. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and driving a scenic route 500+ miles in the rain didn't sound like a ton of fun so we headed home.
Monday, August 13, 2018
M&P 2.0
Ive been researching pistols for over a year now and I finally made up my mind to buy one. I initially wanted a 1911 .45, the limited capacity and the cost of the brands I was looking at made a big part of my decision to go a different direction. I started looking at full sized 9mm's and narrowed it down to the Glock 19, H&K VP9 and S&W 2.0. The 2.0 felt the best in my hand and its cost made it the clear winner for me. I was able to shoot both it and the Glock before I made my decision. I would have liked to shoot the H&K but in the end it didn't feel as good and was substantially more expensive.
Tonight after work I stopped at my buddies house and was able to shoot 300 rounds through it, I am really happy with my choice. I noticed that I was shooting high and left, basically twisting the gun while I fired. I changed the back strap to a narrower one and it helped bring it back to center. The fatter back strap felt better but made how I squeezed the trigger different.
Tonight after work I stopped at my buddies house and was able to shoot 300 rounds through it, I am really happy with my choice. I noticed that I was shooting high and left, basically twisting the gun while I fired. I changed the back strap to a narrower one and it helped bring it back to center. The fatter back strap felt better but made how I squeezed the trigger different.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Football
I walk a lot at work, even if I spend most of the day in my office my walk is a minimum of a mile. I was also going though dress shoes like I owned stock in their companies until I started buying Red Wings. Yesterday I was walking across the hangar and realized the ball of my right foot hurt. it felt like my sock was bunched up in my shoe, I took it off and found nothing out of the ordinary. Later in the day I found myself taking it off again to check the sock. I then stuck my hand inside the shoe to feel the insole and it felt weird, when I flipped the shoe over I found this.
Immediately I start thinking to when I bought these, because they are expensive shoes and have a year warranty on them. Convinced they weren't a year old yet I jumped in my truck and drove over to the Red Wing store all puffy chested and mad.
The nice young lady working the counter convinced me that it was almost two years since I had bought them. Now that I documented it here I can just check the date when the next pair wears out.
Immediately I start thinking to when I bought these, because they are expensive shoes and have a year warranty on them. Convinced they weren't a year old yet I jumped in my truck and drove over to the Red Wing store all puffy chested and mad.
The nice young lady working the counter convinced me that it was almost two years since I had bought them. Now that I documented it here I can just check the date when the next pair wears out.
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