Trivial Annoyances

There was a comic of that name many moons ago. At the moment that boils down to a problem cocker by the name of Chubby. The little shit is waaay too rambunctious for a 60 plus couple who are just trying to get thru the day with the other critters we’re trying to RESCUE from oblivion and less caring owners. At the moment we can’t even find a dog trainer to show us how to cure him of his bad habits, including digging our lawn to craters and pissing on the kitchen table.

Managed to go to Dorkbot Sebastopol last night; that was fun. Spent today finishing the manifold I took there for show-and-tell. Found something like four pinhole leaks and got ’em all plugged. Then I went ahead and drilled the thirteenth hole, for a fastener to get gas into the manifold and that’s when things started to go wrong. Had it almost all welded up, saw what might have been a pinhole leak and proceeded to fill it Used a little too much heat and wound up buggering up the internal thread on the bushing so badly that I can’t even get a tap into it to clean it up! By now it’s probably cool enough that I can go in with a burr or grinding bit to get the obstruction out of the way enough to let me get the tap in there. Hope to do that later tonight, as I’m reluctant to wait until tomorrow when it’ll be so damned cold I won’t want to be in the shop at all.

Have been tweeting on Twitter, rather than posting here, just because it’s easier and because I haven’t had the wherewithal to coalesce my thoughts into something more than a sentence or two long.

In other news I went to the family ranch meeting on the 2nd; the bad news: crop yields were down about 5%; the good news: after NINE years of effort a Ranch just-in-case bankroll has finally reached its goal, so after paying taxes on 100% of my share, while banking only 80% of it in income, to set aside the other 20% for the fund I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can, indeed, take 100%  of the income to my bank. Now, barring another calamity (like the time the Caltrans truck leaking pesticides drove down our road and killed half the crop or the time a tenant farmer declared bankruptcy) I might actually have a profitable year.  

Lookin’ forward to a visit from Krisan tomorrow. Haven’t seen him in a couple of years. Maybe I’ll be able to make a little progress with getting some stuff moved out of the living room and back into the almost-completed new storage shed, thus making room for another Xmas tree.

Didn’t get the job I tried for at O’Reilly. My only consolation is that it took two college kids to do what I would have done by myself. Might have a new customer who needs some parts made for an unusual project but I’m not holding my breath. Keepin’ busy with workshop projects; maybe some of ’em will get done B4 too much longer.

Panasonic “Toughbook” that I’m writing this on is turning out to be an incredible LEMON and I’d advise anyone who’s thinking of buying one to stay AWAY from them. Incredibly shoddy workmanship: missing two keys now; CD drive no workee; flash card reader never worked, etc. As for getting warranty work: forget it; I’d have to mail the machine across the country and that’s something I’m unwilling to risk. Rats. Curiously the old IBM that I retired when I bought the Panasonic is still workin’ away, albeit slowly. Will most likely get another one like it if/when the money train ever gets to rollin’ down the track again.