Everybody’s out taking pictures.

-----Original Message-----

Not unless you count taking photos of the busted fanblade in my clothes dryer.  Sometimes I really envy people with no mechanical skills who are forced to buy reliable appliances rather than being consigned to kludging things back together long past their “good by”, or their “goodbye” date.

I did waste a few megapixels on local fauna yesterday: turkeys, juncos, a robin and a couple of cows.  If you’re already bored nearly into a coma this may be slightly less boring:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/albums/72157718487879546

There are two flocks of turkeys on my ride around the block. This is the small flock on the near side of the hill.

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Larry Colen
lrc@red4est.com

I like the turkeys, but especially the last cow (3360.

Dan Matyola
https://tinyurl.com/DJM-Pentax-Gallery
https://tinyurl.com/DJM-Pentax-Gallery

On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 5:21 PM Larry Colen lrc@red4est.com wrote:

Thanks Dan.  On second thought it looks like I should crop a bit off the top and left to put her forehead in the “thirds point”.

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Larry Colen
lrc@red4est.com

Larry -

Doing your own repairs can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes,
but...revel in the fact that you can still do it.  As you get older
you'll find that the repairs you make still give you the satisfaction of
completing them, but they take longer to accomplish.  But...even more
difficult...is admitting to yourself "I have the skills; I have the
tools, but I can't do this anymore."  It took me until about 75 to begin
to give up on some household repairs, and now, nearly 5 years later it's
still difficult.  When you spend a lifetime working with "the tools"
maybe it never goes away.  Marcia has finally convinced me to stay off
the roof.  😁

Back to photography...the turkey pix, I think, are better in this series
than the last.  39960 is a pretty classic tom turkey look and 39968 -
the tom with is harem of hens is fun.

-p

On 3/2/2021 4:21 PM, Larry Colen wrote:

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Paul Sorenson
Studio1941

Sooner or later "different" scares people.

The ideal is to be able to do it, but not be forced to do it. I’d happily settle for owning things that didn’t break down and need constant repair.

Last night was a case in point. I glued the fan back together, let it set and before covering things back up decided to test it to make sure it actually worked. It turns out that a wire had  come off a spade lug, had shorted out and pop!  The weird thing was that I looked at all of the 220V breakers, in both panels, and didn’t see anything popped.  I figured that I had blown a fuse in the washer.  I then spent  an hour or so trying to track it down, in the mean time I dropped various tools and screws where they fell into the dryer, and disappeared, and I had to spend more time looking for them.
No matter what I did, the machine was dead.  Last weekend on my ride I found a greenlee toner on the side of the road, a handy $60 tool that in addition to acting like a signal generator also checks continuity.  Everything checked out, I finally grabbed my DMM and checked the outlet, which was dead.  Long story short one of the breakers just didn’t look tripped.  I reset it, turned the dryer on and the pop and smell of magic smoke let me know that I had forgotten to disconnect the toner from the switch I was testing.  I just fried a couple of $1 ICs, but they’re surface mount.

There is, I’m afraid, a difference between being able to do repairs and being competent at doing repairs.

Falling off a roof can be even more inconvenient than needing to get someone else to go on it, not only for you but for the people stuck with taking care of what’s left of you.

Thank you.  This group is separated from the other by only a relatively small amount, and only has one tom.  I wonder if they split off from the other group.

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Larry Colen
lrc@red4est.com

Paul, you are so right, it does get tougher with age but will always be
in your blood. I still do everything myself but never more that a metre
or 2 above ground level. It takes ages for old toppies to heal. Two
friends of mine had severe bruising & broken arms. One fell off a ladder
while cleaning his gutters & the other off the edge of his empty
swimming pool which he was about to paint. Both were fitters who had
progressed to Foreman level.

Alan C

On 03-Mar-21 05:51 PM, Paul Sorenson wrote:

I used to do all my home and auto repairs, but now at 73, I’m hobbled by arthritis in all my joints. I can barely wash my hair.

Paul

On 3/3/21, Larry Colen, discombobulated, unleashed:

Confused.com. I thought US domestic mains voltage was 110?

--

Cheers
Cotty

Cotty -

Most household circuits in the us are 110/120V.  Electric cook stoves,
electric clothes dryers and a few other items with a high power
requirement use 220V.

-p

On 3/3/2021 11:58 AM, Steve Cottrell wrote:

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Paul Sorenson
Studio1941

Sooner or later "different" scares people.