Coffee 11-10-12

Rogets Thesaurus announces brand new entry

Main Entry: boggle the mind
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: strike with wonder
Synonyms: amaze, astonish, astound, awe, be unbelievable, bedazzle, bewilder, blow one away, blow one's mind, bowl over, confound, dazzle, dumbfound, flabbergast, knock one's socks off, perplex, stagger, strike dumb, stun, stupefy, the fact that Fred was once a scout.
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2012 by the Philip Lief Group.

HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA - I slay myself

Just down in NJ, sussex county and lake shawnee area yesterday. Saw many power crews out, from many states. They are getting it done, as best they can. Supply is whats slowing them down, not the motivation. Hats off to all that left familys at home to help unknowns to them. Sister & bro in law still waiting for power in section of shawnee lake, PL said in next few days.

I hear they're bringing in Haitians to help with the repairs in NJ since they have done such remarkable restoration in their homeland. lol Power utility crews are in town here giving a ray of hope. Patched another roof and dropped a ladder off the truck on the way home. No traffic but a homeowner saw it lol. Then he wanted me to clear downed trees, job too big for me. They wanted to know if you can stand a pine tree back up hahaha. Changed the oil in a nice Kohler 2O kw ng for a customer. I thouht our little generac was losing a bearing, turns out it was background chainsaw noise from someplace! Whew. Coal fire went out, 52 here so I'll let it ride till tonite. One customer lady is so inept with her generator that I regret getting involved.

I hear they're bringing in Haitians to help with the repairs in NJ since they have done such remarkable restoration in their homeland. lol Power utility crews are in town here giving a ray of hope. Patched another roof and dropped a ladder off the truck on the way home. No traffic but a homeowner saw it lol. Then he wanted me to clear downed trees, job too big for me. They wanted to know if you can stand a pine tree back up hahaha. Changed the oil in a nice Kohler 2O kw ng for a customer. I thouht our little generac was losing a bearing, turns out it was background chainsaw noise from someplace! Whew. Coal fire went out, 52 here so I'll let it ride till tonite. One customer lady is so inept with her generator that I regret getting involved.

Utility trucks came up the street last night, woke up at O43O, power on! Not too shabby considering the unprecedented extent of the damage. Warsh machine runnin rite now boys! I can weld again iffin ah wants to! Them thar incorndessint lites are a dang site briter then ah remembered!

Nice my friend--welcome back to (I guess) civilzation???

Nice Dan! Good deal!

Welcome back, Dann!

Sorry for double posts, all were from my tiny phone by candlelight. Still trying to recover. Utility crews all over town still. Did tree cleanup day before yesterday, I'm too old for tree labor. Still tired.
Got the little generator prepped for storage yesterday. Drained tank and carb, changed oil, checked valve lash, put it back on back porch. Letting the tank dry out for a day and then I'll put a little wd40 in it and close it up. Gotta look into that SeaFoam i've herad about. If I get ambitious I'll put a little oil in the cylinder and get a new spark plug.
Landlords drove me crazy basically wanting 15 kw out of a 5500. Customer women even worse- idiots trying to be preppers.

Idiots trying to be anything is always bad. Glad your back in civilization ... for now ....


Today's project was wiring up a 50A 3-wire welder outlet. OF course, like my automotive escapades, nothing is ever smooth sailing ....

So I get this plug off eBay real cheap. Now, I need to find a way to make this thing water tight so I can mount it on the side of the house. Looking online they want from $66 onward for an enclosure! The hell with that. So I go to the hardware store and find a box and lid meant for 120v outlets. Yeah ... nothing fit NUTHIN'! The outlet didn't fit in the box ... the lid didn't fit the outlet ... and to top it all off, the holes that are present are too big for the screws to thread into for the watertight lid! Figures ... as usual!

So I MADE it all fit. I should've had this damn thing up and running in a couple hours, but instead I gotta spend most of the day fabricating. I guess that's what you get to save $55. I had to grind down the threads for the wire inlet on the back side of the box, so the plug would sit flush. Then, I had to grind the top and bottom of the box in order to install some speed nuts that I thankfully kept for 20+ years from some automotive project I've long since forgot. Then I had to carve out a circle in the rectangle of the outlet cover. Dremel came in handy for that. Luckily I had just bought a new mandrel .. because this was it's last run. It exploded, along with the disc ... & I took shrapnel to the face. It's all good - just another days work! Good thing I learned the hard way years ago to wear goggles.

Anyway, I managed to cobble it together. Tomorrow I run the wires, then try to find a way to drill through 6" of 170 year old wood to get them outside to the outlet. I think I have some old masonry bits that are as dull as *censored* ... but gotta dance with who ya brung. That should be fun. Should be done tomorrow afternoon, barring a drill failure ....

Sorry for the f'ed up pics - My phone just resizes pics to whatever direction the wind is blowing at the time - no rhyme, no reason. Boy do I LOOOOVE electronics!!

SMITTY wrote:So I MADE it all fit.

Its been Smittytized!

I guess it has!

Yep, it has. I'm off to get YAG lazered on my lft eye this AM. I hope it clears things up after having cataract surgery 3 mos ago & not being a real happy camper. Pix look good to me John, but then again, I'll look at them after this YAG crap gets done

Thanks Fred. Hope that surgery went well.

Well as I expected, this day just totally turned to *censored*. I found the big drill bit I needed to get through the sill, and it don't fit my electric drill. Fit my cordless, so started drilling. Used up both batteries to get 6" in. I forgot to take into account another 3" or so of sheathing & old wood siding. So did what I could with the wiring, and went to get the mail while the batteries charged one at a time . The distributor for the Blazer was in! YAAY! .... yeah .... Should've just stuck with the wiring job ...

Never had so much trouble with a damn distributor in MY LIFE!! Should've just stayed in and drank all day I guess. Would've been better off. First shot in, a tooth off. Second shot in, a tooth off the OTHER way. Trying to work by myself, I had no clue which friggin way I had to go. Had to get the neighbor over to hit the gas so I could see where the hell I was timing wise. Then my timing lights both quit working!!! REALLY??? WTF!!! Finally got one to work, yanked the dist. and found the correct tooth. Third times a charm ... only to find a DEFECTIVE ignitor in the distributor!! I can't f'ing win. Truck was backfiring and shaking so bad I thought it was going to tear the motor mounts right in half. Then from all that raw fuel heading downstream from the severe misfiring, the cat began to glow cherry red, which nearly set fire to the carpet on the passenger side! I had to get the hose out to blast it down, as smoke was billowing from under the passenger seat. After it cooled down, I took it for a ride to see wtf was wrong with the timing dead nuts set where it should be. Now, the problem is REVERSE of what it was before. Now it won't idle ... but runs GREAT up top!

So now I get to send it back, and wait for another .....

lasered one of my cataract lenses, the next one Dec 3--they dialated both today so I'm probably seein about as good as LS farm Time will tell. Thanx for asking SMITTY. Sounds like your day sucked