What Manly Things Did You Do Today?

Looks nice and peaceful @Chuck Naill ! Is this in a local/state/national park setting?

 

Thank you. Great Smoky Mountains/Tennessee side. I'm about 45 minutes away.

 

Beautiful county! My parents lived on the other side "back in the day." Skyland/Arden/Fletcher/Mills River

Other side of I26 near Asheville airport and WNC Ag Center.

 

awesome way to enjoy sundays..very cool..

 

Belt arrived,

• fire up youtube and watch a FAQ on fixing tumble dryers
• Not american top loaders....
• Video found. 6mins long. Looks simple enough
• Pull dryer out
• Look at back
• realise that the video i watched isn't suitable
• fumble around on youtube for 1/2 hr looking for something workable
• find video
• its 4 times longer than the 1st!
• sigh
• make cuppa
• begin work
• screws
• more screws
• clips
• wires
• bearings (!)
  • go to shed for socket set
  • go to shed again for correct socket set
• motors
• fans
• pulleys
• fit belt
• replace above
• unreplace above due to missing bits and bobs
• replace above correctly
• count fingers, yes i still have them all
• refit panels
• un-refit panels to recover lost screwdrive (its late, i am tired)
• Check tools and parts. all good
• plug in
• turn on to check working order
• all good
• wait, burning!
• turn off
• think
• hmm. just dust blowing through the heater elements
• plug back in
• put on non-heat mode for 5 mins
• recheck heat mode
• all good
• refit dryer into kitchen
• Go to bed

Phew!

I have dry clothes today

 

Congratulations!

You are hereby awarded this award for Dryer Repair Excellence.



However, the Dryer Repairman's union needs to speak with you!
Something about professional standards.....

 

I enjoy a good hot cup of tea myself from time to time.

I like a good, "full bodied" tea like Assam, but that's hard to find in a grocery store here. So, I drop back to Irish Breakfast tea. It's not Assam, but it's as close as I can find. Living in what is probably a more tea oriented area, what else, if anything, would you suggest?

 

Found a folding wrist rocket at a resale shop for two bucks the other day and couldn't pass it up. Haven't had one in over 30 years, since I was a teen. Took me a couple hours but I got my eye back and now my aim is pretty good.

My daughters just HAD to try it but with the wrist brace it's a little much for their shorter arms. Walmart had basic Y-type Daisies on sale for around 5 bucks, just like the one I started out with. We picked them up with some glass ammo and (after homework was done) had a blast tonight plinking junk targets in an empty lot. They're getting really competitive about it. Good...all according to plan. This is to prepare their eyes and muscle control for the next couple years when I start taking them to the gun range and introduce them to serious practicing for self-defense.

 

Good job.
My 19 yr old daughter can outshoot most men, with a 9mm or .22 cal pistol.
My 13 yr old daughter is a crack shot with a .22 cal pistol.
My 21 yr old son can shoot anything really well, since he was 12. Even my .45 Colt 1911. .44 Magnum was too much. Flinch maker.
Makes me proud.

 

Glad to see someone teach their kids to handle guns and how to shoot well.

 

I got some cut-resistant gloves (for changing rotary cutter blades, which are razor-sharp.) But they are very smooth and I needed them to be grippier. So I painted the fingers & palms with Liquid Electrical Tape (similar to Plasti-dip)

 

Did it work?

 

You tell us...

 

When last I checked it was not quite dry, though it felt like it should work. I’ll let you know later or tomorrow.

 

Put hi-vis duct tape on a bunch of long handled tools. Now I don’t get to take a tool search break every 15 minutes.

I also did a field repair (not with duct tape) on the loppers that are my main weapon in my war of attrition with scotch broom. Giant improvement!

For some reason I’ll tolerate a degradation in performance of a humble tool for days, when I get right after any issue with a shiny/new/expensive tool that is my pet.

Tool repair > manly. Hi-vis > manly. Duct tape > hu-manly impossible to live without.

 

Had never heard of Scotch Broom before your post, so I "Googled" it. Nice looking, similar in appearance to Forsythia, but apparently is not a welcome plant??

 

I was able to test the gloves last night, once the liquid had set. They work just the way I needed. They resist blade cuts and give me more grip than they had before.

 

Notice on your "signature" you say you taught high school for 32 years. What did you teach? I worked, in a non-instructional / non-school system position, in a 1200 +/-student high school for a couple of years. Interesting to say the least.

 

I taught Biology and Environmental Science in a public high school in NYC. The school’s population, for much of my career was around 4000 kids. Class size was 34 students.

 

Ok. You asked the question. Now you're going to get my answer. This morning I ended up clogging the toilet. As I sat there with the bowl filling up I figured it would stop like usual as the tank filled. Well, the water didn't stop because the handle got stuck and wasn't letting plunger cover the opening to the bowl from the tank. It wasn't getting stuck yesterday! Grrrrr!!! But it sure did today. And the water began to overflow all over the floor of the second floor master bathroom. I jiggled the handle so the plunger would stop up the tank and the water would stop flowing and ran downstairs, naked from the waist down, as I grabbed a huge bag of rags and a bucket. I then proceeded to use the rags to try, unsuccessfully to mop up the water off the floor before it leaked downstairs into the kitchen. Too late. Water leaking all over the kitchen above the stove, sink and coming out of the can lights. What a freaking mess. Wife wasn't home. After mopping up all the yuck water I filled a pail with hot water and Pine Sol and went to town cleaning. And I cranked the heat up so that the moisture in the ceiling would dry up faster from the hot steam pipes. Steam heat literally bakes the air. Yeah. I think stopping up the toilet is a manly thing to do.