Darkoshi

Luna Mae tears holes in all the doggy beds, doggy bed covers, and sofa covers. Including the ones I mended not long before. She chews up the rubber floor mats. Then she wonders why she is left with no place to lie down but the bare hard floor.
Even those green outdoor rugs which I'd think would be completely unappealing to chew on - hole!
There is no lack of chew toys on the floor. She also brings in sticks to chew on; fine. Both she and Venus enjoy chewing on conch-type shells which were originally yard decorations. At first I worried they would splinter, but they have held up well, so fine.

Errant thought: Imagine how much even harder parenting would be if human children were as voracious chewers as puppies.

I sent an initial email&text about getting the gate fixed, and got an initial reply.
I sent an initial text about getting a bunch of junk hauled away. There are a lot of wood boards and panels in the garage I want to get rid of, mostly still from the big shipping box from when my brother had his things sent here on a ship from Germany more than a decade ago.

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Qiao and I finished watching the live-action version of Cowboy Bebop on Netflix. I felt it was very good, and true to the original animated series although I don't remember many details of the latter (which I want to rewatch now). It's unfortunate that the series was cancelled after just one season. The character Ed only showed up once at the very end of the last episode; clearly a harbinger for the next season had it not been cancelled.

Ooh, I need to watch this:
Cowboy Bebop: Unlocked | FULL SPOILERS Official After Show | Netflix Geeked

Dang, looking at a couple other videos and their comments, some people really hated this live action version. Sigh.

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For over a year, the good exercise "bike" at my house has been half-disassembled. It is a cross between an exercise bike and elliptical trainer. Qiao bought it when he was living here, then ended up getting another one for his house too. Since then, I've used both of them much more than he ever did. The center part of this one's flywheel got worn out. It didn't turn smoothly anymore and began producing graphite-colored dust which fell to the floor beneath it. So in December of 2021 I removed the flywheel to inspect it and tried thinking of how to fix it. This weekend I finally did something. I cut off a piece of metal tubing of an appropriate size and glued it into the worn out hole. After giving the glue time to dry, I reassembled the bike (not an easy task) today. It works. But the flywheel is a bit wobbly and still seems to have the same problem as it did before, so it probably won't last long. I suppose next time I will take it apart for metal recycling.

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Often when I'm looking around my house for an unspecific thing of a certain size or shape, to use for a particular purpose (such as a narrow metal tube yea wide for fixing the exercise bike), I find something that is just right. This never ceases to amaze and delight me. This time, I first found a curtain rod which was the right diameter and could be cut shorter with no ill-effect on its curtain-holding ability. But the tube wasn't solid metal all the way around - it had a lengthwise slit. So I searched some more, and found a perfect solid tube on an old broken umbrella (the lime green umbrella mentioned in this post.)

I took the umbrella apart to get to the tube and to be able to cut it. Umbrellas truly are marvels of engineering. This one was a relatively small umbrella yet it had a 2-foot long spring inside the center.

Times Square had a car commercial behind the count-down numbers. Very tacky if you ask me. But the music performances were nice.

The local virtual event's headline act (Arrested Development) wasn't live, and didn't even look specially recorded for the occasion (the part I saw looked like a music video, filmed outdoors in the daytime with a pretty yellow-leaved tree in the background). I wonder if there was a technical problem that resulted in something else being shown than what was planned.

I banged my drum. A rumpa pum pum.

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I love this new Geico commercial, "Scoop, there it is!".

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My small over-sofa laptop desk broke; a weld at the bottom came apart. Today I drilled holes through the square steel metal tubes, and bolted on angle brackets to attach it back together. I hadn't expected to be able to drill through the metal, but it wasn't very difficult at all. Finding enough nuts and bolts and washers of an acceptable size among my collection was more tricky. My first try, a single angle bracket on the broken side, made the desk feel lopsided and not sturdy enough. So then I stacked 2 angle brackets on both sides, and now am very pleased with it. I sure hope it proves to be a lasting fix.
That's my New Year's Eve accomplishment.


So many things have been breaking lately:

The porch lamp; I fixed it by putting up a new one. Looks and works good.

The deadbolt lock; I fixed it by replacing it with the old matching deadbolt lock from the other door which I'd replaced a few years ago, and rekeying it to match the current key. Not sure how long this one will last, but replacing it with a new lock would be difficult as the distance from the edge of the door to the hole is non-standard, and the hole is also too small for new locks.

A connector under Qiao's kitchen sink leaks when the warm water is turned on. So for the last week, I've only been using cold water to wash dishes. I don't want to try tightening it and end up with water spraying everywhere. The water meter in the front yard was changed last year; I'm not even sure we can turn off the water to the house out there anymore.

The caulk on my tub; I recaulked it on 2 sides.

The outlets... I wanted to replace a couple of 2-prong outlets with 3-prong ones, and tried installing a GFCI one... but it doesn't work right; it indicates there's a wiring problem somewhere in the rest of the circuit which unfortunately connects to a bunch of different things, so is not easy to figure out. Especially if the problem is in the crawl space, because I went down there again, and yeah, NO. I can not convince myself to crawl flat on my belly under the HVAC duct while bringing along camera and tools and flashlights and cringing at how much dirt I'm getting all over myself, unless it's REALLY an emergency, maybe.

That storm door. I FOUND the retainer strips in the garage, yahoo (so glad I didn't throw them away years ago, not knowing what they were back then), and the glass panel is now securely in the frame.

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Ooh. #Dancelikeadad. That was a good commercial too.

Oh shucks, the Dick Clark NYE show ended before the Pacific time zone reached midnight.

Well, I suppose I should go to bed.

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A few days ago, I noticed a small rash on both my outer forearms near the wrists. The skin was red and dry, with a couple of small bumps. Not at all itchy or painful. The dry skin feels like it got a rug burn. I haven't ever had rough dry skin in that location before.

(Of course, I'm wondering if it could be a COVID symptom, even though the COVID rashes I've read about don't present like that. It's more likely to be some other virus, or an actual rug-burn scenario that happened without me remembering. Or an allergic reaction, but what could I have touched with only that part of my forearms?)

The mailbox had many items in it today, surprising me. I didn't check the Informed Delivery page first. One item that was supposed to arrive Monday is still missing; it was again nothing important, a charity appeal. I wonder where these missing items end up. In someone else's mailbox?

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The big lantana bush is so pretty, full of orange, red, and in-between colored flowers. It's as tall as I am. To think that it started out from a few small plantings. There was a monarch butterfly flitting between flowers. A smaller orange butterfly, not a monarch, chased it away... and was still chasing it when they'd flown beyond the fence.

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My mom made an audio cassette recording of her, my sister and nephew when he was one year old in 1993. I recorded it to the computer into an MP3 file. It's cute listening to them from so long ago; I plan to give them a copy. There is absolutely no noise in the recording, no tape hiss or static or anything, and I didn't even have to do a noise reduction on it which is amazing compared to all the other cassettes I've transferred to MP3s.

But after that one, the tape player started making a loud rattling noise when pressing Play, even without a cassette in it. The rattling noise comes through on the recordings too. So I need to open up the player to see if it is something I can fix or not.

Sometimes it takes me an hour of not being able to fall asleep, to realize it's because I'm feeling cold. In spite of the thick blankets, fleece sheets, and the electric blanket at my feet.

Now I got out of bed for a while and turned the heater up.

Yesterday morning, the heater wasn't working. Only the night before, I'd been reading and replying about someone else's thermostat problem. My problem wasn't due to the thermostat, though. The furnace was getting power and making the buzzy noise that meant it was starting up, but then would stop before the hot air started blowing.

I called the person who replaced the heater's control board 3 years ago when it last had a problem. His voicemail said he was unavailable til tomorrow, but forwarded me to someone else. Of all luck, they happened to be nearby getting supplies for another job, and were able to stop by in under an hour and easily fix it. Based on what I saw them do and what they told me, and what I looked up afterwards, there was some small debris that they cleared out from a tube, which had been causing the pressure switch not to close

The pressure switch is a safety mechanism that prevents the gas from being turned on and the flame from getting lit when the airflow isn't normal.

http://www.grayfurnaceman.com/gas-furnace-pressure-switch-problems.html

From looking at the documentation that came with the control board, its LEDs were actually flashing the error code for "Pressure Switch Open". I didn't realize it was an error code, because the flashing was steady, rather than a certain number of flashes followed by a pause. If there's ever a problem again, I need to remember to check those LEDs as one of the first troubleshooting steps.

I fixed holes in the tips of my shoes by cutting pieces from an old black synthetic belt, and gluing them on with Shoe Goo.

First shoe done. I used too much goo so you can see shiny stuff around the edges.


Second shoe done; this one turned out better.


To help the pieces adhere well, I stuffed some socks into the front of the shoes and used a bag of pebbles over the glued pieces to apply pressure.

The timer for the Christmas lights on my porch, the timer I used without a problem last year, isn't working. It came in a 2-pack, and the other timer still works, so it's okay sort of.

But I wanted to fix the non-functional one. Leaving the timer plugged in for a while didn't fix it. The package says that it uses a Ni-MH battery for backup, so maybe the battery went bad. The timer unit has triangle head screws. Do I have any triangle head bits in my tools? No. Not unless there are any in the tool case at Q's house, but I doubt it. And it is cold and rainy, and do I want to go outside for that? No.

Why do they keep coming up with different screw heads? It doesn't stop people from getting the screws out; it only makes them keep having to buy more tools, and makes it more of a pain.

An online video suggested using a flat screwdriver on the triangle screws, and that actually worked. So I got the timer unit open. It does have a button-battery looking object inside.

I get out my pocket voltmeter, but discover that it isn't working! ::my mood drops another 5 points:: (I've got so much to do, and mucking about with the timer wasn't even on the list.) Are its batteries bad? I use my battery tester on its 2 button batteries. They seem fine, their level shows up in the green part of the scale. But maybe they are bad anyway? I check if I have replacement batteries of the right size; I do, what luck! I put them in the voltmeter, but it still doesn't work. :-( Why would it just stop working? It's worked fine all these years. ::meh::

The can't try my battery tester on the battery in the timer unit, without getting the battery out first. It is wedged in quite tight, and might break if I tried to get it out. It's obviously not meant to be replaced, what with the triangle screws.

I stare morosely at my voltmeter. Its backside says "No user serviceable parts. Do not remove this cabinet cover." I decide to give it some whacks (when all else fails...).

I whack it against my hand, and then lightly against the floor. I turn it on, and it works. Yay!!

I use the voltmeter to check the battery in the timer unit. The battery seems ok; at 1.2V. I don't see any broken or corroded connections, so I guess there's nothing I can do.

But I feel relieved that at least my voltmeter still works. Not because they are hard to get, and not that we don't have other ones at Q's house. But this one is special to me because I've had it for quite a while, and it is nice and small.

Yesterday, I found some kind of animal skull on Qiao's front porch, right where you step onto the porch from the walkway. Creepy.

My first idea was that maybe it was from a big fish (bass?); maybe someone left fish heads in their trash, and a cat got it and ate it and left the skull on our porch while passing through. But Qiao said it isn't a fish skull. In retrospect it also wouldn't be so clean (no flesh, just bone) if a cat had left it.

Then I thought maybe it's a rabbit skull, but based on Google images, it doesn't look like that. I took a few photos of it, might post one when I have more time.

I have a slight worry that it might be some kind of gang thing, marking our house for something bad. I'd probably forget about it in a couple days, except now the skull is sitting on the fireplace mantel, where Qiao put it after I showed it to him.

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Today I put up some Christmas lights on that porch. I had bought some stick-on removable hooks, then realized they are not meant for outside use. So I had to go buy some other outside-approved stick-on hooks (they are supposed to only be used on windows, but hopefully they'll work as well on aluminum siding, even though the siding is textured and not completely flat).

Update, 2017/12/23: All the hooks have fallen down except one. It hasn't even been very cold; it hasn't fallen below 44 degrees at night. There wasn't much weight on each hook, either. So, DO NOT use Command outdoor stick-on hooks on aluminum siding. I guess I'll try to drill holes through the siding after all, in order to install some normal screw-in hooks. I hope there is wood behind the siding.

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On Friday, I took a day off work, and got so much done. Mowed/mulched leaves. Replaced HVAC filter. Replaced battery in solar light globe. Checked why another solar light wasn't working. Sewed holes in socks. Got boxes of xmas decos from garage, and put up xmas tree (still need to decorate it). Ordered some stuff; downloaded some documents. Put up some inside xmas lights at Qiao's house.

Some of our solar lights weren't working well - the batteries weren't getting charged enough - due to the plastic covering the solar panels being cracked or cloudy. I found out that you can put clear nail polish on the plastic, to get rid of the cloudiness.

I rekeyed two locks today; it was my first time doing that. One was an Andersen storm door lock, and was very easy to rekey. The other was an old deadbolt lock which both Lowes and Home Depot hadn't been able to do. Lowes had just looked at it and said "No", which makes me think they refused simply because it's a brand they don't sell. The guy at Home Depot, on the other hand, at least tried. But apparently because of it being an older style, he wasn't able to get it apart. I had watched him trying, and it looked like something was stuck. He wasn't able to get it apart, to get to the pins.

Today, I was able to get it apart fairly easily. The one end of the cylinder needed to be screwed off - maybe the Home Depot guy didn't realize that. I have a Kwikset rekeying kit. The springs in the kit don't exactly match the ones from the old lock. So I tried reusing them, but in the process lost one. I searched high and low for it, but it's disappeared into the ether. I ended up using one of the non-matching springs, which made it more difficult as it stuck out more. And my kit didn't have a tool that fit for keeping the bottom pins and springs pushed down (aka "follower bar")*, so I had to improvise. And the top pins fell out a few times, and each time the sizes of the pins didn't seem to match what I had written down before... weird. So I got out new top pins. I finally got it back together and working with the new key.

*which is probably a good thing, in hindsight. If I had found the right instructions, and if my follower bar fit, I wouldn't have seen that the springs and bottom pins had a lot of oxidation on them, which was making them stick. It was when I was cleaning off the springs, that the one sprung away and disappeared.

The door knob lock on one of my doors wasn't working right. It's the kind that from the outside locks/unlocks with a key, and from the inside by twisting a tab in the middle of the knob.

Closing the door from the inside was easy, but from the outside almost impossible. It was the oddest thing. From the inside, I'd push the door closed and it would be firmly closed. From the outside, even pulling with all my force wouldn't make the door click closed.

Furthermore, even when the door seemed to be shut and locked ok, repeated jiggling of the knob from the outside caused it to spontaneously unlock and open. Apparently this could be caused by a broken return spring. But I removed the knobs from the door, and the visible springs looked ok.

Finally I noticed that the door latch and strike plate weren't aligned well. The latch was right near the top of the hole in the strike plate and door jamb, rather than centered. The trick to closing the door from the outside was to pull *up* on the knob. However, the locked door would still open easily upon jiggling the knob.

So I filed the strike plate to slightly enlarge the hole on the top side. Now the door closes easily from the outside, and stays locked regardless of knob jiggling.