What I did today -instead- of Rocketry.

[jqavins]

On Wednesday I got my brain swabbed because my brother-in-law whom we spent the long weekend with tested positive for COVID on Tuesday. He's had a 103° fever and felt like crap, somewhat better as of yesterday. (I thought I had posted that much, but I can't find it now.)

Today my result came back. Positive.

I feel fine(ish). I came down with a cold on Saturday, I thought. I had a stuffy/runny nose, a throaty cough, a headache, no fever, and nothing else. Not only are these cold symptoms, they are following a typical cold's trajectory; I'm nearly all better.

So, I'm stuck at home for ten days. With a slow and spotty internet connection that makes working impossible and what I'm doing right now unreliable.

 

[boatgeek]

On Wednesday I got my brain swabbed because my brother-in-law whom we spent the long weekend with tested positive for COVID on Tuesday. He's had a 103° fever and felt like crap, somewhat better as of yesterday. (I thought I had posted that much, but I can't find it now.)

Today my result came back. Positive.

I feel fine(ish). I came down with a cold on Saturday, I thought. I had a stuffy/runny nose, a throaty cough, a headache, no fever, and nothing else. Not only are these cold symptoms, they are following a typical cold's trajectory; I'm nearly all better.

So, I'm stuck at home for ten days. With a slow and spotty internet connection that makes working impossible and what I'm doing right now unreliable.

Here's hoping it doesn't get any worse than this! Fast recovery to you and your family.

 

[lakeroadster]

May I introduce.. "Timothy" our 2021 Christmas tree.
He's handsome and smells woodsy. What more could you ask for?
Spoiler alert: He's a bit sappy...

 

[Hobie1dog]

Finally drug myself out of bed at noon and went to the garage, met a couple of my cigar and pipe Buddies and told stories and argued religion and had a good time. Came back to the condo this evening and saw that Hey guy naturally across the country in California has paid me for a subwoofer that I had advertised on US Audio Mart site. So now I have to give it to my son so that he can take it to work and have it shipped out on Monday.

 

[jqavins]

argued religion and had a good time.

One is fortunate to have such good friends that this is possible.

 

[dhbarr]

Here's where a bunch of my time goes now.

 

[Hobie1dog]

One is fortunate to have such good friends that this is possible.

I used the quote today "people who read the Bible become Christians, people who study the Bible become atheist"

 

[Cape Byron]

...argued religion and had a good time.

I discuss religion a lot but refuse to argue about it.

 

[bobby_hamill]

I managed to get some photos of the local red tailed hawk where as before he would fly away as soon as I took my camera out

 

[Cape Byron]

Bathurst weekend. Big race is tomorrow, but I gave myself have this weekend off.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Bathurst weekend. Big race is tomorrow, but I gave myself have this weekend off.

Is this the 1K touring car race?

 

[Cape Byron]

Is this the 1K touring car race?

Yessir.

 

[jd2cylman]

Bathurst weekend. Big race is tomorrow, but I gave myself have this weekend off.

The boss allowed down time on the farm???
I heard the boss was a real slave driver…
I also seem to remember that the boss is very similar in appearance to yourself…
Uncanny resemblance even, like twins

 

[Cape Byron]

The boss allowed down time on the farm???
I heard the boss was a real slave driver…
I also seem to remember that the boss is very similar in appearance to yourself…
Uncanny resemblance even, like twins

It won't be a full day off. We had 200 kph winds through last night and there are trees to be cut up and some drainage issues to be sorted. Power went out for 7 hours, so that brings on its own problems.

I'll watch the main race though, but a day in front of the tube is out.

The boss is okay. A bit grumpy, but okay.

 

[BrendanH69]

Assisted my young lad fit two replacement driving/fog lamps into the front bumper of his recently acquired 2001 Mazda 323 Astina SP20. Also refurbished the trim around the gear shifter with some automotive paint I had left over from the Starstreak Missile fins, and we fitted a new leather shifter knob.

We scored the lights on ebay from a car parts salvage person in Perth for the very reasonable sum of A$90 including postage. Just disassembled them and gave them a good clean out.

 

[cautery]

Packed my bags...

I'm leaving in a few hours to go spend a week with my 3 grandbabies.... two of whom arrived at 2230 hrs last night!!!

 

[OverTheTop]

Went to a local gin distillery for lunch and a sampling of their gins. Must go back there again sometime .

After first checking for any gas pressure in my aircon system that was complaining of low gas, since I didn't find any, I got the bottle of argon out and did a leak test. Found the condensor coil had a big leak where some fertiliser (iron sulphate I think) got spilled on it and chewed through the aluminium piping . It is a Daikin, so this not be cheap.


Watched the tail end of the Bathurst 1000 car race. The mountain makes it a tough race on the cars. I had been for a lap of it about a year ago, at the legal street speeds. Still had my wife grabbing the Jesus straps in the Jeep.

 

[prfesser]

Drove around 300 miles with wife and elder daughter, looking for a car to replace the Corolla that daughter totaled. The last place we were going to check before heading home had a 2014 Hyundai with a nice dent in it. Daughter don't care about looks, so she now owns it.

Pickings are very slim. Toyota salesgal said that some or all of the next batch of new cars will be sold before they're on the lot. The Nissan dealer wanted to tack on $1000 to the list price of a new Versa; at another dealer it was $2500...

 

[jqavins]

Found the condensor coil had a big leak where some fertiliser (iron sulphate I think) got spilled on it and chewed through the aluminium piping .

That's why copper coils are better. But probably not enough better to be worth the price.

 

[BigMacDaddy]

So this was actually last weekend but figured I would share. Went out to Steamtown, PA with the kids. They did a great job restoring their Big Boy (well surface restoration -- it does not run like the 4014).

 

[GrouchoDuke]

I moved all my astronomy data from last week off my wife's laptop (which I borrowed to capture the data). I have 58x 10 minute exposures (9 hours & 40 minutes) of the Orion Nebula plus darks & bias frames. Really hoping I can tease a good photo out of this data. I didn’t capture any short exposures of the core. That might bite me. We shall see.

I have a few more targets with just a few hours of data each. That's more play-level, but I'll take a look at those too.

 

[prfesser]

Got the COVID booster Monday morning. Woke up 3am that night with chills, shivering, body and chest aches, etc. Last night I woke up to dry heaves. Feeling so-so today. With all that, I'm very glad I got the booster...because if those were the symptoms with the booster, well, an actual infection would probably have put me six feet under.

 

[jqavins]

prfesser, I don't know whether to give you the sad face for how you're feeling or the thumb up for getting the booster and keeping a good attitude. I hope you recover quickly.

Meanwhile, I got two calls for contact tracimg, one from the county (today) and one from the state on behalf of the county (yesterday). A couple of questions into today's call I told her that I'd done this yesterday, she tappety-tapped her computer and said yup, we're done. But...

Yesterday's caller told me that my quarantine period is ten days from the date of my positive test, but the county worker who called last week to tell me to quarantine in the first place told me ten days from the onset of symptoms, which was two days earlier. So I asked today's caller. It's from the date of test.

 

[mbeels]

Really hoping I can tease a good photo out of this data.

Post the results here! I'd love to see it.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Post the results here! I'd love to see it.

Me too. What program are you going to use to stack the images?

 

[teepot]

Went and picked my new and badly needed glasses. About 6 months ago I got paint on my old glasses and cleaned them with goof off. Took the paint off and all the coatings. left them cloudy in spots. Now I take my glasses off to paint.

 

[jd2cylman]

Went and picked my new and badly needed glasses. About 6 months ago I got paint on my old glasses and cleaned them with goof off. Took the paint off and all the coatings. left them cloudy in spots. Now I take my glasses off to paint.

Yup, been there, still do that. I save the older pairs for painting.

 

[Hobie1dog]

researched things on the web all day

 

[OverTheTop]

More design work around parts that can't be purchased short term. The part I designed in went from about 3000 in stock earlier in the week to zero today. The good news is that I am the luck recipient of the lion's share of those parts . Nice to have a win on some front. That will get us through prototyping and partly to production if we are lucky. I am happy today.

Although somebody will probably do the same to me tomorrow.

 

[tsmith1315]

About 6 months ago I got paint on my old glasses and cleaned them with goof off. Took the paint off and all the coatings. left them cloudy in spots. Now I take my glasses off to paint.

Standard "plastic" (PPG CR39) lenses with nothing more than scratch coating can be cleaned with acetone. I've soaked them overnight to release an epoxy fill used in bicentric grinding techniques long ago.

Isopropyl, 70% or 50%, is safe and effective for virtually all lenses, but can damage some frames. Soak the cleaning rag in it to help with that, don't spray directly on the lenses.