Coffee 12-01-12

Good morning. Come in, join the group & share a coffee & a story if you have one. We even got a brand new coffee filter just for you. The old sock we've been using is in the washing machine. Breakfast.... how about good ol' oatmeal & orange juice? There is some honest to goodness home made maple sugar to go on it. That'll hold us til mid morning, then maybe a doughnut or two will get us to noon.

How can it be December already? Where does the time go? Not only does the calendar say December, the 3 degrees on the thermometer and the white flakes in the air are convincing me. Man, oh, man, am I glad we are not paying the oil man!

My AHS buddy Charlie is out of the one match club!!! Hard to believe, but he's discovered that even that giant hopper will empty itself if left long enough. Heehee! He woke to a chilly house yesterday. While we're talking of Charlie, I'm going to have to get some pictures of his latest invention. The AHS's hopper is quite high & a step or two are needed to reach to empty the bags of coal into it. Just last week he made a conveyor type device to lift the bags & empty them into the hopper. It's hand powered and seems to work OK. Maybe I can get a video of him in action. He likes the idea the even his wife can do it!

Hope you all have a smooth, productive weekend!

Thanks for the coffee sock-free my friend...

It is cold here as well, but dumb me decided to fire up the stove this morning and burn wood instead of coal (NoSmoke can now being seen dropping his head now in complete shame) so I am still freezing.

I am into my 1000 match now, as I fire up my stove every morning at 4:30 AM and sometimes, at night, but always let it run out. Of course I use so many because I failed boy scouts as a kid. I had a ruthless scout leader who called all my attempts at making fires "Birch Bark Fires" which used too much birch bark for his liking and I never got my merit badge for fire making. I am still seeing a therapist about that ego burst. However...I said "take that" 15 years later when I was welding on the railroad down in Texas and started a wildfire that burnt 500 acres, two windmills and a cattle loading platform. "I did not even use a match", I said as two D-9's from the railroad went by on lowboys in attempt to put the fire out...which is a pretty good sign you got a good campfire going, but it was in Texas so no one really cared.

Going to do some shopping today. Got a little extra money by selling a truckload (10 cord) of firewood to some boys who are too silly to burn coal. Then its on a hot date with my wife tonight as Grammie is going to take my daughter for the night leaving us child-free.

I thought the coffee tasted different...must be the new filter.

Who ordered the "deep freeze" anyway? 9 degrees this morning. Some crazy guy decided to turn the heat down 5 degrees last night before bed...it took at hour to "get it back" this morning. Never again!

12/12??? Coffee has warped into the future! That's some coffee you've got there Freddy!

23° this morning here with a snow squall passing through. Still 70° indoors, and in the TV room which is heated by the coils. Not much left over heat for hot water at these temps though, so the oil burner should be kicking on after a load of laundry. Should be running out of that stuff any minute now - haven't filled the tank since 2010! My wallet is happy because of it.

Well I've officially thrown in the towel this year on the Blazer. It'll sit parked until warmer weather. Since the Focus found it's way back here, I transferred the plates to it & the wifey has been commuting in it. The #3 misfire it had was due to a cracked coil pack that was operating normally until it got a dose of winter road salt. That was the last straw for my brother & he dumped it at my parent's place for me to pick up. Only cost me a bit over $60 for the coil, so we should recoup that in fuel savings, as this thing gets double the mileage of any of our other vehicles. It is TINY though! Wife isn't used to being so close to the road. Like she says, "It'll do".

Miracles never cease! After fixing that and driving a little over 100 miles, all the monitors finally ran .. and no check engine light! You know why? Because it has a valid sticker.

Thanks for the coffee and oatmeal. I'm off to work. My partner bugged me all day to schedule some work for today. I largely ignored him because I hate working on weekends, I feel like I'm throwing them away working when I could spend them with my family. So, I scheduled one job that should take no less than an hour so I can get home to my kids.

Top o the morning gents. A balmy 11 degrees on the coast this morning. House feels warm from up here but I haven't ventured down yet. How can that be they ask? The new laptop I'm sitting in bed and typing on is the answer! Kim gave me this Christmas present early and It's a beauty. Still getting used to it a bit since I've always been a desktop kind of guy. It's a HP though and has a biometric fingerprint scanner to log on and log into whatever you want to assign to it. Synaptic's touch pad too so it works like a smart phone for scrolling and the enlarging etc...

Anyways, it's about time I get up and get moving around here. Costa Rican coffee is on tap and Freddie, the oatmeal and maple syrup sounds like a plan! I have the old fashoined steel cut oaks which take 30 minutes to cook but are well worth the wait. Heck the cookstove is on anyways and there is hot water on top ready to use so oats it is!

Good looking sunrise is greeting me over the bay out my window. It's gonna be a fine day!

Good morning all. Freddy, thanks for breakfast. Well my daughter called this past week with great news. The building inspector said she can rebuild her Union Beach house. We knew that all along but had to play by the rules for a few weeks after Sandy hit. So today I'll be putting in anchor bolts and reinsulating. All the girls are going shopping. So Scot and I can simply work without distraction. The Hitzer is really still just perking along as it is only 34 deg in this part of Jersey. Last week used 6 bags of coal. So you all have a fine day.

Mornin all, outstanding oatmeal Freddy. Coffee just don't taste right PLEASE get that old sock back for next week--let the dog chew on it, drag it in the yard, anything to get that country flavor back. I'm headed to Steve Z's for some of that Costa Rican blend ( Montazuman blend, I would suspect?) NS, you SHOULD be hanging that head in shame Rob, I hope our lil Ivan didn't get wake up cold cause of that. Smoker, it's 7:30-you got the girls house back together yet? SMITTY, please post a pix of YOU in that focus, just don't seem natural & IOF quit your whinin & get that job done. I got nothing today, except perhaps just being a PIA right here. Happy Dec. everybody.

Good morning Freddy and the rest of you guys and gals,now I know why the coffee lost that extra little taste you changed the filter.Still waiting for the cold to get here(34* this morning)but I guess if your going to have problems with heat then this is a good time for it(50's and 60's till Wednesday)one way or another I will get it but it's getting close to me redoing the chimney the way it should be.

SMITTY wrote:Well I've officially thrown in the towel this year on the Blazer.

Smitty I give you a lot of credit for pissing around with a vehicle like that, one thing I won't put up with is a car or truck that won't run right or you have to fix it all the time before you use it,well almost any thing for that matter I use the 3 strike rule if a car leaves my on the side of the road 3 times It's history no matter how old it is or what it is.

I'm On Fire wrote:I'm off to work. My partner bugged me all day to schedule some work for today. I largely ignored him because I hate working on weekends, I feel like I'm throwing them away working when I could spend them with my family. So, I scheduled one job that should take no less than an hour so I can get home to my kids.

I"m on fire,I know how you feel but I work all my OT during the week but I think 60 hrs a week is way to much,my boss is a guy who pushes his family aside for the company and thinks you should do it to but no way in hell I will!Take care boys and girls enjoy the rest of the week .Keepaeyeonit

freetown fred wrote:SMITTY, please post a pix of YOU in that focus, just don't seem natural

Naw Fred - I don't do 4 cylinders.

Smoker858 wrote:Well my daughter called this past week with great news. The building inspector said she can rebuild her Union Beach house.

Glad for your daughter they finally made their way through the red tape. Sad what we've become as a nation. You can't even rebuild your own home until THEY say you can ...

Keepaeyeonit wrote:Smitty I give you a lot of credit for pissing around with a vehicle like that, one thing I won't put up with is a car or truck that won't run right or you have to fix it all the time before you use it,well almost any thing for that matter I use the 3 strike rule if a car leaves my on the side of the road 3 times It's history no matter how old it is or what it is.

It's actually a really good reliable truck. It's just got a stupid assed problem that has frustrated me to no end. It's a combination of 2 problems I think. We ran it all last winter without one problem, aside from that persistent fuel starvation issue on hills ... but even that disappeared for most of the season! Go figure. When that engine was in the Jimmy, that thing came home on a flatbed more times than I can remember. This one here has never left my wife stranded anywhere - it just runs like *censored* for some reason. I've got a new distributor sitting here, so when I feel inclined I'll toss that in and see what happens. If that don't work, then I know it's the .060" plug gap - because 3 distributors all can't have the same issue. The front diff can wait till spring.

Now for some entertainment:

A month or so back I had this crazy possum doing circles relentlessly in my yard. It was out there for hours, just walking in tight circles! Of course, I just had to film it! Don't know what his deal was. Might've whacked it's head on a truck's axle as it straddle it .... who knows? No blood, but there looked to be a wet spot on it's head, and it's eyes looked all screwy.

After around 4 hours of spinning, the thing lay there motionless. So I figured it's toast, so I grabbed it by it's tail and carried it to the woods ... but I'll be damned if it wasn't still alive! Thought that hissing sound was his head rubbing against my leg as I walked. So I put him in the woods. The next day he was walking around the yard, doing BIG circles, but at least he'd move on from there. Strange!

Then a week later he was splattered all over the street. Oh well. I tried!

I tried my hand at movie production with some long unused program I found hiding in the trenches of my computer. Enjoy!

freetown fred wrote: Rob, I hope our lil Ivan didn't get wake up cold cause of that.

Not a chance, his bedroom has its own thermostat and it stays on 71. I tried talking him down a few degrees, but that's where he likes it.

Edit: While I was typing that he was excavating a house plant with a wooden spoon. Gotta go!

I just realized I forgot to name my movie. I shall call it ... "THE DEMOCRAT". Why not? They do the same thing! Spin round and round and expect the same results!

NICE---

SMITTY wrote:I just realized I forgot to name my movie. I shall call it ... "THE DEMOCRAT". Why not? They do the same thing! Spin round and round and expect the same results!

Thanks Fred - I couldn't have done it without you!