so waht ya doin today?

[Chandler]

I don't miss ice scrapers. I've been through 5 hurricanes but the worst storm I was in was the blizzard of 77 in Buffalo NY. We were in the bosses 4x4 with a plow attached 73-74 Chevy single cab with the heater/defroster full blast scraping ice from the inside of the windshield. That was an ice hurricane. The boss put us up at his house that night and the wind seemed to just blow through the room and drop the temps below freezing. I went to work that day wearing a leather MC jacket and no long johns and heard nothing about what was fixin to happen. That February I was on my way to Houston with all my tools LOL.

 

[Chandler]

I finally got the wiper motor connected to the new transmission on our 99 Ford E350 today. What a pita that was. It broke 4 months ago and it is so hot here, jobs get prioritized and after I installed the new transmission, I could not get the wiper motor to connect. I made some blocks and shims to prop the arm up and forced the motor into the clip. I swear Ford built the truck around the wipers as access to repairs is non existent.

 

[462]

Many years ago, I said the same thing. One of my worst repair jobs was removing a Mercedes-Benz muffler. Afterwards, I told my friend, the shop owner, that the car had been built round the muffler.

 

[freebullet]

I been known to make "access panels" when dealing with such.

 

[Ian]

Damn right. I bought a Milwaukee hole saw set and a big assortment of chrome hole plugs when I was a full-time tech, many a Jeep Grand Cherokee and Town Car have one under the firewall carpet. A bunch of GM sedans also have a non-stock fuel pump access panel under the back seat. If the manufacturer didn't have the courtesy to make certain things accessible, well, I do.

 

[Rick]

It's not a matter of courtesy, it's nothing more than the engineer sitting at the computer drawing up blue prints knows damn well HE will NEVER be working on it. Add in that if it costs even $1 to put an access point like that during manufacturing and they make one million of those cars . . . Well you get the idea.

 

[Bret4207]

Where I grew up, in NYS's Central Adirondack region, we didn't have ticks. In fact, here 100 miles north of there, we didn't have them 25 years ago. Now it seems they are as common as deer flies. We went out and cut a load of wood yesterday. We have lots nad lots of dead Elm here in our pastures, usually surrounded by overgrowth. Got right into the brush and suddenly I remembered "TICKS!!!" I didn't find single one on me and neither did Gordy, but soon as I hit bed last night that was all I could think of. Every hair bent the wrong way was a tick. Every wrinkle in the sheet. Funny how the mind works.

Chainsaw training with Gord is going good. His older brother wouldn't listen to me no matter what, it was gonna get done his way. I sharpened a lot of chains for that boy. Now that he's got his own saw he's so careful I get impatient. Gord listens and since it's hands on work with no reading involved, he picks it up right away. Kind of a nice change.

 

[Chandler]

Back in the early 80's we were camping at Lake Travis near Austin Texas and a few days later I felt a snag in my beard. It was a big fat TICK. I called the wife at work in a panic. How do I get this dang tick out. It seemed like it was embedded in my jawbone. I still run my fingers through my beard checking for ticks what seems like hourly.

 

[Bret4207]

What a fun day! Dropped the kids off at Sunday school and came home. Decided I'd better take care of some kitchen chores. Got up and started walking across the floor and that stupid knee started doing the "Snap, crackle, pop" garbage! Jeeze it hurts! Had stuff to do, so on with the stupid brace, think about church and see that the goats are out. Oh boy. Stagger around getting those idiots back in and debate my next move 'cuz it's too late for church now. It's gonna snow soon and the old Chebby plow truck bit the dust last year. So I'm going o fix Old Faithful the 59 Willys CJ5 with the bad steering box- as in spin the wheel all you want, the wheels aint moving. Dragged that out of the fence line and got it up to the house. Picked the kids up and they helped me back it in front of the garage. I bet there are things more fun that trying to get a steering box out of a 59 Willys that never spent a day inside in it's life and has been abused beyond anything ever imagined for it, but I can't think of what that might be. Water boarding maybe or dating Rosie O'Donnell. What a circus. You have to pull the left fender off to get it out! You are also supposed to drop the exhaust pipe from the manifold, but fortunately that pipe apparently took off for parts unknown somewhere in the field. I'll probably find it with the haybine next summer. The good news is that not having any floor pan made handing tools back and forth to Gordy real easy.

I gotta get a hobby...

 

[Ian]

It was 55 and breezy with high cirrus clouds this morning, first real break in the rain since Labor Day. Finally I got to sand, wire brush, wash, and paint the pipe fence posts and side gateway. Can't set the corner post because the 6' hole is full of water, and all the springs are running. Can't do any dirt work because mud. So I cleaned up and took a nap.

 

[Chandler]

Perfect weather here today with low humidity and calm air so I decided to smelt my waste radiator scrap. I rolled a mesh metal cart into the yard and put a electric burner and a fan on it and filled a cast iron dutch oven on it. Filled the pot and put the burner on high and backed away. It smoked like crazy for most of the day and it is full of trash. Cigarette butts and you name it was in that bucket. But, no explosion so my confidence went way up. The ingots I got totaled maybe 20# and I have half a bucket to go plus all the slag I skimmed. The ingots need smelted as well as they are far from clean. All around a good day for me.

 

[Brad]

Work

 

[Paul Gauthier]

Today my two sons in law and myself moved 3 tons of coal and 2 tons of wood pellets into my basement for the upcoming time of despair that will last until next April.

 

[fiver]

took the SIL up hunting this morning,,, we missed getting him a buck by about 10 seconds.
those things can move up hill and through stuff I can't even crawl through at an amazing speed without even hurrying.
probably would have got him if we could have identified him as a buck sooner he was the only deer we seen all morning, and we seen nothing in the afternoon.

probably go fishing tomorrow and pull a couple of 2x4's out of the wood pile.
the weather is calling for rain Tuesday and Wednesday, I don't know how it's gonna rain when it's like 25 [shrug] but I ain't the meteorologist.

 

[uncle jimbo]

Well my shooting partner for today called and said she couldn't make it. Kids are sick. So that ended that. And having nothing else planned for today, I decided to watch a pro football game. What a joke. After 20 minutes actual time and about 3 minutes game time, the commercial drove me away, and I shut the tv off. I don't know who writes these things, but they are some of the stupidest and brain dead people around.

Ok, I will get off the rant stage and be quite now.

 

[JonB]

Today, I took the day off.

Last night, I stumbled onto a craigslist ad for a New Braunfels TX Smoker grill.
Now I have had a 'plain' New Braunfels TX Smoker for 30 years (I bought in new in 1989), I've replaced the grates twice and made new metal heat shields (for below the fire/brickets) to protect the bottom from rusting out. It is still in decent shape and would probably last another 30 years? I do love it, but I regret not buying the one with the side firebox...But my Dad didn't see the need for it, so I bought the 'plain' one without it, because Dad knows best.

This smoker on craigslist has the side firebox, and it looked pretty good on the photos. I contacted the seller and made the 1 hour drive to go look at it this morning. Well, it looked nice, MUCH nicer in person than in the photos. The ceramic coated grates looked new. I asked if he recently replaced them? He said they are original, and that he only used the smoker grill a dozen times since he bought it a couple decades ago. He preferred the standard 22" weber. He said this New Braunfels TX Smoker grill spend most of the time in the shed. WELL Hot Diggity Dog! Besides some spider webs and flakey rust on the inside and some light surface rust staining on the outside, it's like a new grill, ....and for the low price of a couple replacement grates (it was a steal).

Right after I got home with it, I cleaned it up and started a fire in it. After an hour, I put some Brats in there to drop some grease in it. After those got eaten, I put some Beets in there and keep the fire going for about 3 more hours.

What a great afternoon, weather was pretty good as well, about 60º and sunny and a pretty good breeze.

 

[smokeywolf]

A day with a smoker. Only way to better that is a day at the range then an afternoon with a smoker.

Weather was quite good in Nevada, Oregon and Idaho. Left Saturday morning, arrived at our hotel in Nampa, Idaho shortly after midnight. Picked up a new puppy Sunday morning. Arrived back in SoCal shortly before midnight. 1,600+ miles in two days. I'm bushed. Tomorrow (Monday) is going to be a day of rest.

 

[Rick]

Picked up a new puppy Sunday morning.

Could say a little more about that like what kind of puppy? How old? Male? Female?

 

[fiver]

someone say Puppy?
I got a puppy you could have.
she only eats like 5 lbs of dog food a day, every day , plus whatever else she can find or steal.
not bad for 3 months old.

 

[Pistolero]

Best wishes for you and your new friend, Smokeywolf.

Bill