What I did today -instead- of Rocketry.

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Hi Johnny, if you (or anyone else) is interested, I have a 15-page house-buying checklist that we found extremely useful. I adapted it from a book by a real estate appraiser. It's obviously a chore to go thru the list---took a couple of hours each time and it required looking into the crawl space and attic, among other things. So we only used it on five houses that we were seriously considering, but...

For the house we've now owned for over 20 years, after going through the checklist I prepared a two-page report. IMHO the report sounded reasonably professional, partly because it included both the good points and the problems, along with a rough estimate of costs to fix (estimate came from the checklist). I gave the report to the real estate agent and told her that there would be no bargaining; if they didn't accept our offer we were prepared instead to stay in, and build an addition onto, our current house (not BS-ing her, it was the truth).

The seller's contract with the agent was about to expire; no doubt that had an effect. Also, it was a buyer's market at the time. Nonetheless we were stunned when they accepted 76% of their asking price... pretty decent return for a few hours work...

Found out later that we'd really ticked off the agent. Our purchase was the lowest %-of-asking-price for the entire county for that quarter...
Real Estate is a racket!
 
Hooked up the drag to the 530 this morning and used it to drag her arena. The old tractor worked pretty good, better than hers actually. The boy was up all night gaming, so he missed his chance for a driving lesson... :rolleyes:
 
Watched a heritage flight this morning, pics suck but my kids thought it was really cool. The aircraft are left to right a F7F Tigercat, B-25 Mitchell, P-51 Mustang, and a P-47 Thunderbolt aka "Jug" (pretty sure its not the P-40 as the wing span is larger and thicker and the plane is much larger than the P-51 next to it) taking the pictures I didn't get a good look at the aircraft (best view was this one). We took the kids down to the park to watch as they flew along the Columbia River between Pasco, Richland and Kennewick WA. There was supposed to be a P-40 but only 4 of the 5 aircraft flew, this event was the "Let Freedom Ring" flyover.

https://keprtv.com/news/local/wwii-aircraft-flyover-planned-in-tri-cities-on-july-4
2020 July 4 Heritage Flight 1.jpg
 
Watched a heritage flight this morning, pics suck but my kids thought it was really cool. The aircraft are left to right a F7F Tigercat, B-25 Mitchell, P-51 Mustang, and a P-47 Thunderbolt aka "Jug" (pretty sure its not the P-40 as the wing span is larger and thicker and the plane is much larger than the P-51 next to it) taking the pictures I didn't get a good look at the aircraft (best view was this one). We took the kids down to the park to watch as they flew along the Columbia River between Pasco, Richland and Kennewick WA. There was supposed to be a P-40 but only 4 of the 5 aircraft flew, this event was the "Let Freedom Ring" flyover.

https://keprtv.com/news/local/wwii-aircraft-flyover-planned-in-tri-cities-on-july-4
View attachment 423272
Cool. There is a group of veterans in my area & the Twin Cities, the Warbirds. They have a grass strip about 10 miles to the east of me. Everyonce in a while they fly in and I get to see some amazing WWII & Korean War planes. I've had B-17s & B-25s fly over the farm. :)
 
Oldest had swim practice, so took him to that...weird to see a huge pool with only 12 evenly spaced kids in it. Did the week’s grocery shopping as I am the designated store person in the age of pandemic. Installed a new security light in back yard (so nearly blind dog doesn’t fall in pool again), and more light to grill by too (very important in winter). Next, installed a Nest Doorbell and Google Hub (that I bought why the boy was swimming). You can’t see out of our new front door, and I didn’t like the idea of having no idea who was outside before opening door. I’m very impressed with both so far.

Then drank a beer and took a nap...it is hot today, and I thought this was a holiday!
 
New set of front springs fitted on the Jeep. Paid to get it done and it was apparently a bear of a job. Tried to fit them myself but wasn't happy about pulling lower control arms off or applying too much brute force and ignorance.

Tomorrow she gets rock rails and side steps.
You'll need to post a pic soon. I almost wrote "when you get it done" but I know how it goes working on older vehicles. I just had to put new springs in the rear end of my 2005 VW Golf TDI which is a pretty easy job.
 
New set of front springs fitted on the Jeep. Paid to get it done and it was apparently a bear of a job. Tried to fit them myself but wasn't happy about pulling lower control arms off or applying too much brute force and ignorance.

Tomorrow she gets rock rails and side steps.

You are getting close to having a full scale Mad Max-certified, post apocalypse vehicle...a wise investment given the trajectory of 2020 in general.
 
You are getting close to having a full scale Mad Max-certified, post apocalypse vehicle...a wise investment given the trajectory of 2020 in general.
I'm expecting Grizzy Gators in August.

Never ask what else can go wrong. Life has a way of showing it to you.
 
You'll need to post a pic soon. I almost wrote "when you get it done" but I know how it goes working on older vehicles.
It is a 2020 model :). Will post a nice pic in the near future, maybe after I wash it.

You are getting close to having a full scale Mad Max-certified, post apocalypse vehicle...a wise investment given the trajectory of 2020 in general.
It will be quite a capable vehicle when I am done. For now I am just getting ready for some off-road outback touring, especially since we can't go overseas. Give me a couple of years and I will add a winch and make it even more capable.
 
Got the first of the rockrails on the Jeep.

Also made an amusement tunnel for the cats out of the boxes.
View attachment 423627

[edit:] Back into covid lockdown too :(.
Nice cat toy. Sorry about the covid lockdown. It's happening here too as some people for some reason aren't taking it seriously and not wearing masks & practicing social distancing. I live in far NW Wisconsin which is pretty rural and COVID isn't much of a problem, but states like Florida, Texas, & Arizona and getting kicked really hard with new cases. :(
 
Yeah, and this isn't the anticipated second wave. That's expected in the fall. This is the wave one bounce-back, due to premature easing and, as you said, people not taking it seriously.
 
Nice cat toy. Sorry about the covid lockdown. It's happening here too as some people for some reason aren't taking it seriously and not wearing masks & practicing social distancing. I live in far NW Wisconsin which is pretty rural and COVID isn't much of a problem, but states like Florida, Texas, & Arizona and getting kicked really hard with new cases. :(

Greg, which county? I've been pulling the WI DHS data a directly to do my own graphing. WI shares a LOT of data, if you know where to look. I spent some time last week trying to answer my own question of why West of the I (I-94) and East of the I in Kenosha County have such a different feel, drilling down to census tracts. I didn't quite find what I thought I would.
 
Greg, which county? I've been pulling the WI DHS data a directly to do my own graphing. WI shares a LOT of data, if you know where to look. I spent some time last week trying to answer my own question of why West of the I (I-94) and East of the I in Kenosha County have such a different feel, drilling down to census tracts. I didn't quite find what I thought I would.
Charles, I'm in eastern Burnett County.

https://goo.gl/maps/9wj2z9iCAFHpwMAz6
 
I've been pulling the WI DHS data a directly to do my own graphing. WI shares a LOT of data, if you know where to look. I spent some time last week trying to answer my own question of why West of the I (I-94) and East of the I in Kenosha County have such a different feel, drilling down to census tracts. I didn't quite find what I thought I would.
Man! that's nerdy. Oh, wait, it's TRF. :)
 
New set of front springs fitted on the Jeep. Paid to get it done and it was apparently a bear of a job. Tried to fit them myself but wasn't happy about pulling lower control arms off or applying too much brute force and ignorance.

Tomorrow she gets rock rails and side steps.

What type of rock rails? I installed some Shrockworks rock sliders on my Ranger... top notch quality, bolts to the frame and are heavy duty.
 

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