The Manic Mechanic

Jeff came home early Thursday for a doctor's visit, the last few days he's been having mild flu-like symptoms. We made a trip together to the doc and tests seem to indicate it is viral in nature, so it is mostly a rest and wait it out situation. I went with him to see if there was anything I could help with at home, and to get an idea what it was, since chances are good I would get it too. I've been battling a form of exhaustion for a few days too, I can only do so much before I need to take a nap. Problem is, I sleep and nap during the day and by night time my body clock on its graveyard shift time zone keeps me awake. So, when Jeff along with By-Tor and the Snow Dog head to bed, I head into my little lab and fix stuff. This time I tackled my failing Dell 30" display. After a half hour of thermal testing the display lamp driver board I narrowed the trouble to what seemed like bad soldering in a 1 square inch section of the board. There is about three dozen components about the size of sesame seeds in that space, and out came the tiny iron and other tools I have for such work, including the 3.5-90x stereoscopic microscope I got for such things. After more thermal stress testing after the repair with good luck, I threw it back together and am now using it while creating this entry. I hope it holds out, I absolutely love this display, but I relegated it to lab bench PC duties. The irony here is the particular computer and display is connected to the aforementioned microscope. I could've had a nice panoramic view of the board on the display it it weren't the one in pieces under the scope!

Our latest pup, Snickles, aka By-Tor mentioned above, had his first day of doggie school this evening. He had fun, and seemed to react well. He's finally growing out of his puppy-ish stages and has become a very loyal companion for the two of us. He needs to learn some discipline for his (and our) sake, and I think with some "official" training he will be a model pooch. Kodi did well in his schooling about 7 years ago, and I am hoping for the same results with Da Snick.

Jeff is very close to buying a new vehicle. His '00 Chevy S-10 has been decent for these fourteen years, but it's getting long in the tooth at over 185,000 miles, and given the fact that I have two trucks as it is, he's in the market for a wagon/small SUV sort of ride that gets decent mileage, can haul stuff as well as people and will be reliable. So far he's narrowed it down to the new Jeep Cherokee, the Subaru Outback, and the Subie Forester. Friday we are going to kick tires and take test drives. Hopefully this will be with as few hassles as possible. I had a decent time with my last vehicle purchase once the dealer was finally able to get the model I had settled on to the lot.

I'm happy to see some more old, familiar faces showing back up here in LJ-Land. The more I sit here and take the time for a "real" entry as opposed to a handful of words scooped up and thrown at Facebook, the better I feel about "socializing" online. I see usernames in my friends list of people who have cast off this mortal coil and are no longer with us. Those names seem like pictures hanging on a wall, and their journals acting as memorials as well as places to visit and remember the days gone by. None of the other popular "social media" behemoths have this. Nor do they have the control or accessibility of everyone's posts like LJ does. I think people are feeling this too, and while making entries here is a bit more work, it definitely pays us back in the depth of contact and interaction. Let's keep up the good work.

Well, the display has been performing like new as I've been writing this between other tasks and not flashing and shutting down like it had begun to do several months back. I wasn't about the scrap a thousand dollar display. These things are supposed to come with 3 year warranties, but I bought this from Newegg, and, disappointingly, it showed no warranty from Dell when I started the process. I've since reconsidered a lot of purchases from there, a shame, since I've generally had good luck over these many years. I hope my repair lasts until it somehow becomes obsolete, which I don't see happening for at least another ten years or more.

Cheers, everyone!

A lot has been happening up at Jeff's dad's place, since the fire. He's got a new house.



Things are about 80% complete at this point, the basement stairs both inside and outside need to be made and installed, some final plumbing, and the electrical service needs to be connected, the latter being the only holdup at this point. If enough people can get the local utility supervisor to get off his ass and not needlessly delay the task for a few more weeks, we'll be golden. The walkways, front porch and landscaping/cleanup are all that will be left in order to be move-in ready. Eventually a deck will be built out back as well, in the meantime some temporary steps will be put in for egress. Not bad progress at all, from the fire to a new house in the same spot in less than two months time.

Talking with Jeff's dad today was nice. He's practically giddy with excitement. He can't wait to have his own place once again, and we'll have our travel trailer back in time for our trip to P-Town in July. There's still the question of having the minor heat damage repaired on the trailer. If the RV shop doesn't get the parts in before a certain time window, we'll forgo the repairs until after the vacation. We are not very pleased with this outfit that we tasked to do the repairs, and there's a good chance we'll be having some issues with them. They've been given the money from the insurance company to do the repairs, and if they stall or otherwise misbehave, we can have the insurance company itself breathing down their neck.

Dad has furniture already picked out and bought, once the green light is given, stuff will be delivered. I have a list of all the light bulbs needed in all the rooms, there are lots of built-in fixtures. Everything will be getting high-efficiency LED lighting. Couple this with the decent insulation and the high-efficiency heat pump, the electric bill should be enviable.

Oh, those big gable-end windows? This is what they overlook:



More pics, inside and out, are here.

I still have to get busy with some Photoshoppin'. I have a lot more surprise family pictures to restore and print, now that there is a place to hang and place them. I want another one of those hugs. ;-)