What did you do today?

[AD5MB]

Eleven more day shifts and two weeks from today I’ll be retired.

I still get up at 5AM, three years into retirement

I lose track of what day it is. holidays mean nothing, except don't bother checking the mail. people ask me what my plans are for the weekend. dude, it's all weekend.

what I'm doing today: I have a potato peeler. I have a pile of arrows with torn up fletching. I am peeling the fletching and glue off the arrows. It's like shucking corn, your hands stay busy but your mind does not.

[Arcane]

Just came home from my final 12 hour night shift. Eleven more day shifts and two weeks from today I’ll be retired.

Congratulations on your up coming retirement!

[Peter.]

Oh for a mere 10%. Called Value Added Tax in the UK at 20%. When you've already paid 40% income tax on the money you don't get much for each £100 you earn.

Only about 15% of the UK population earn enough to pay 40% tax and the ones that do only pay it on whatever they earn above £46k, so it's not as grim as you're making out.

[Dave C]

Finished a project that I started a few days ago. Something that I've wanted to do since acquiring this lathe. The sheet metal stiffener under the machine wastes a lot of space that could be better served by some shelves.

Much better. got rid of some things, got some off the floor, and finally got the mill vise off my work bench. Also there's some room for parts from the mill that need a home until ready for reassembly.

[Dave C]

Added the avatar. Used a pic of my '74 sportster taken in 1980. Still have the bike but it's been in several boxessince 1982. Getting the pic resized to fit the allotted space was not fun.

[Boats69]

I eventually replaced the photos in several of my posts that got nuked in the Photobucket disaster. The new forum software worked a charm. Thank you George.

[PStechPaul]

Added the avatar. Used a pic of my '74 sportster taken in 1980. Still have the bike but it's been in several boxessince 1982. Getting the pic resized to fit the allotted space was not fun.

I just positioned and sized the cropping widget on an 800x600 image and the forum software took care of the rest.

[PStechPaul]

I'm still working on hand excavating my shed foundation. Dug a big rock out of the SE corner:

And laid a block in the corner to check depth and level:

Got the site pretty much leveled:

I found this old rusty iron in the dirt of my driveway:

[DennisCA]

Made a sandwich.

[Cenedd]

Ah we've reached that delightful time of year when some idiot decided it would be a good idea to give us Brits access to black powder. So my evening is consoling the cat and cursing my idiot neighbors for setting the fireworks off at point-blank range and seemingly pointed at our house.
There's a month of this as Diwali and Guy Fawkes night run back to back. Yay!

Machining content? Marked out the block I'd squared and dimensioned. Suddenly realised I'd missed the key on it (obscured in the diagram - clearly Fusion's fault and not a PEBCAK error!) and hence my block was too small. Cut a new one, squared it, dimensioned it....and ended up about where I started the day at. And you guys wonder why my progress is so glacial!!

[plunger]

Ah we've reached that delightful time of year when some idiot decided it would be a good idea to give us Brits access to black powder. So my evening is consoling the cat and cursing my idiot neighbors for setting the fireworks off at point-blank range and seemingly pointed at our house.
There's a month of this as Diwali and Guy Fawkes night run back to back. Yay!

Machining content? Marked out the block I'd squared and dimensioned. Suddenly realised I'd missed the key on it (obscured in the diagram - clearly Fusion's fault and not a PEBCAK error!) and hence my block was too small. Cut a new one, squared it, dimensioned it....and ended up about where I started the day at. And you guys wonder why my progress is so glacial!!

You are lucky you have your cat. My cat has gone missing and my dogs are terrified. I live in a country with the second biggest indian population in the world. I feel like I have gone back in time and fighting in our border war.Cant wait for it to end and hope my cat comes back.

[mattthemuppet]

made a lithium ion battery for the B&D dust buster in the kitchen as it has an entirely useless NiCd battery. Went all pro this time with a battery management board (BMS) with balance function, as the wife and kids will be using it, and 5 of the old cells from my bike battery.


spot welded the Cu-Ni sandwich on the cells, took next to no time to do.

plugged it into the dustbuster and wheeze-nothing. Works fine in my hand drill, so it's all wired up ok.Tested another li-ion battery without a BMS (dumb battery) and the voltage sag isn't enough to trip the low voltage protection. My guess is that a 50A cutoff isn't enough for a high power draw appliance like the dust buster or leaf blower (didn't work in that either). Bugger. I'll try a 100A BMS next, that should hopefully do the trick! Still, at least I have a nice new smart battery for my hand drill

Also did a drain and fill on the Subie's CVT.

BTW, really easy to post pics now, thanks George!

[Cenedd]

You are lucky you have your cat. My cat has gone missing and my dogs are terrified. I live in a country with the second biggest indian population in the world. I feel like I have gone back in time and fighting in our border war.Cant wait for it to end and hope my cat comes back.

I'm lucky (at least so far) in that my car has conveniently been having a nap on the sofa each year when it's started. New Year's Eve is as bad but at least it's predictable and quite limited. The tradition has evolved that there's four of us in the bed come midnight. My wife and I, our son and the cat....well, to be strictly accurate he's usually UNDER the bed but still. Found that waking our son was better than waiting for one to go off right outside his window.
Hope your cat returns safe and well. Make sure you have something nice for him/her to turn his nose up at

[danlb]

Today I fully charged the battery in my new (to me) plug in hybrid and locked it into EV (Electric Vehicle) mode while I explored the area. I'm at my mom's place in Oregon, so there's lots of nice scenery. I knew most of the area but I wanted to get a feel for the differences between the EV mode and the Hybrid mode. The weather was nice and a good day for a drive. It was nice to buzz around the mountainous area in a car where the loudest noise was from the tires on the asphalt or gravel. The ride was sort of anti-climactic since it was very, very much like driving it in hybrid mode.

[MattiJ]

We got first snow(or sleet/wintry mix) also to southern Finland and I change car tyres to studded winter versions.