What's under your lip/in your nose right now? - Part 2

[rothenbj]

Well that didn't take much, just a little sweat. I have a long handled garden trowel I picked up years ago, what a beast, nothing like the junk you buy from something like Walmart. I dug about a 6 inch circle a few inches off the flag he planted to indicate where to dig. I had to go down about a foot and a half and I hit the PVC pipe. Then I expanded the hole with a shovel and got on each side of the pipe. Then I used the garden trowel and worked under the flag and, bingo, that's where the break is. It's only the Wye piece that crumbled. I didn't dig out to the observation port yet but I can't believe this should be that expensive to repair.

When I woke up this morning I had visions of the FIOS run. When they brought it in, they ran it parallel the underground electric, up the drive and then cut across somewhere close to where the digging needed to talk place. I was real careful the first six inches or so just in case but I was pretty sure it was on the other side of the access pipe.

 

[rothenbj]

It doesn't even look like the wye broke from how far I've opened up, it almost looked like it shifted and separated, possible settling on filled in land, that happened a lot in the house.

 

[hittman]

Well done Roth! I knew you could do it.

 

[rothenbj]

Buried the pipe and saved about $1,000 to $1,500 on the project. I could have saved the $500 I paid to have the replacement done, but my thought process was that I would have had at least one trip to HD (and history indicates it could have been two), it was pretty yucky under the pipe and they needed to use a shop vac to suck out liquid, I wouldn't have had the stone for the bed of the pipe which would have incurred another trip and the drain cleaning came with a 6 month warranty which I might have screwed up if I did the work myself. Then of course there was digging out anything backed up behind the dirt that dropped into the open pipe before they got here. A $500 well spent.

I also had a successful day yesterday. My gf's nephew had been cut off from disability income from Hartford Ins and they weren't going to continue payments until they got paid $35k for over payments. I analyzed the issue, sent a long fax then got permission to speak with them. I put together the perfect explanation and package and had their $9,500 for the last two months reinstated. Now I'm working on how I can kick SSA in the .... to move quicker on the SSDI approval process.

I found a Compassionate Allowance program and his diagnosis seems to qualify. I found an email for the group that helps with this and am hoping I hear from them quickly. Hartford wanted me to get an attorney involved but they would get 25% of the final nut awarded up to $6,000 and I hate seeing money needed by the family going to a lawyer that may not be able to do any more than I can. Plus, he's eventually going to be approved and I believe Hartford is on the hook for the monthly payments until SSDI is approved so the lawyer is actually working more for the insurance company's benefit more than the disabled.

I wasn't real happy about what I learned about his cancer though. Life expectancy is something like 24-40 months with the median around 34 months and he's already at month 25. Unless I get him approved fast, he may not be around to know he got it. This stuff sucks.

 

[hittman]

Awesome job Roth!

 

[rothenbj]

Anyone ever get contacted by Nielsen? I got a card in my mailbox. Not sure if I want to get involved. From what I read, they put boxes on all your TVs and there's some surveys and maintenance involved.

 

[hittman]

I didn't know they still did that.

 

[Waho]

My Aunt and Uncle had a Nielsen box not too long ago, maybe 7-8 years? They said it was fun for a while, but became a hassle compared to "just watch TV like you normally do" and gave the equipment back after a few months.

 

[hittman]

Sounds like you might want to say no Roth.

 

[rothenbj]

Thanks Waho, I was hoping someone knew someone. That was my first impulse after reading what reviews I could find. Plus I'm not sure how much I want anyone spying on my television viewing habits considering much time is spent in the KODI program. If I could find a good, reliable source for sports, I could become a cord cutter.

 

[rothenbj]

The septic tank clean out came in $250 or more less than I expected so the damage wasn't near as bad as I feared. He even had to locate the lid and dig it out. It was a good day.

Anyone mess around with any drones. The gf had bought a Quadrone Tumbler Cam from her sister that she was going to give to her grandson but decided to get him something else. I unpacked it yesterday and only got it hung up 20 feet off the ground once. I have just too many trees and the battery doesn't last long enough to run out to an open space to learn. I guess I'll need to buy more batteries or break it so I won't be so fascinated.

 

[hittman]

I've looked at them but never tried one. My neighbors adult son took one on a trip to the Grand Canyon and got some amazing pictures.

 

[rothenbj]

Yeah, you really need to get into the hundreds, or thousands for that matter, to get something that 1. Gets great pictures 2. Stays up in the air more than a few minutes and 3. You're good enough flying or have enough money, that you don't mind the real possibility of flying away your investment. The better ones have altitude control and even obstacle sensors that make it a bit less hazardous. However $600-$700 and you start getting something on the upper end of top quality.

 

[rothenbj]

Darn, I should have just left the drone in the box, lol. Amazon just delivered 6 batteries and a charger for $20 so I'm waiting, right now for the batteries to charge up. I let it sit all yesterday as I had things to do but I was on the net looking at different, real, drones. Then today I waited until the mail came and the batteries weren't there so I decided I'd spend 10 minutes and see if I could improve on Monday. I learned a lot not flying it and just listening to stuff. I had that thing up most of the time and zinging around. I didn't even plant it in a tree this time. lol

The bad thing is I started looking at one that was $500-600 then found one that is a bit over a thousand but folds to about the size of a cordless phone. That means I could throw it into a bag on one of my bikes and take it anywhere. I need to distract myself off this until the price drops and I get as good backing up as I am going forward. Spending that kind of money and sending it out beyond your line of site a mile or two takes a bit of a leap of faith.

 

[hittman]

That does sound like fun.

I'm having a pretty crappy day. I had a machine come in a few days ago with a really weird problem that I had to end up calling a couple engineers at the manufacturer in on. I thought I had it figured out and ordered a stabilizer coil for it. I put it in, tested it, and sent it back to the customer. They called a little bit ago and said they were having problems again. I'm know I'm going to end up losing money on this thing. I just don't have a clue at this point as to why the problem has returned.

 

[hittman]

I drove my oldest daughter's car this morning to get tires put on and either her front right tire is cupped really bad or she's got a wheel bearing going out.

 

[Waho]

I hear you on the car trouble. My Saturn has been leaking from the rack and pinion for a few years now. Not real bad, about a quart of fluid per year, so I've just been letting it go. Then a few weeks ago it started dumping the entire reservoir as you made a sharp turn.

I dropped it off at the shop June 22nd after they called to let me know they got the new rack in. I called them the 29th and they still hadn't gotten it in to the shop yet. Kinda irritating as we've got some traveling to do this holiday weekend and I was hoping to have it back to keep the miles off my truck. Not to mention it gets almost double the mpg's.

Getting close on my current project. The finished part of my basement is L shaped, so I walled out the corner to make it into a man cave/extra bedroom. Painted the plywood black as a backer for some super gnarly/knotty reclaimed shiplap to finish the outside. We wanted a barn door for space reasons, and a prebuilt solid wood door is expensive as heck, so I just built one.

If anyone is interested in doing a barn door, don't spend $150+ for the track/hardware from Home Depot. I bought this one from Amazon (with free Prime shipping) for $47 and its very well made. The only downside is the holes in the rail don't match up with 16" studs so I used that backer board for extra support.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[hittman]

It's been a really expensive summer. I spent about 5-600 trimming the outside of the house, a couple hundred fixing the AC, tires on oldest daughter's car today, and now wheel bearings are definitely needed. I don't want to but might have to take some money out of our mutual fund. I've already given the painters the green light so I'm on their list to have our house painted. That's another 2700. I'm feeling rather poor right now.

 

[rothenbj]

Hitt, it's always something. Hopefully it's minor.

Waho, the Barn door looks great. To bad about your car.

So much happened on my end. Thursday I talked to SS,. the doctor,. SS again, tried to call SS again and have up to send them an email instead. Then I got a request to become PoA which I'm reluctantly looking into.

Friday, I took my charged up batteries and the drone to a park, flew it once and when I got it high, the wind wouldn't let it return so I had to chase it down. Walking back, the wind lowered to ground level so I abandoned my effort.

The trees around my house let me fly at home and I went through two batteries and loaded the third. One rotor will wouldn't turn. It was causing trouble before but this time nothing worked so that was it. (I thought I finished this earlier today)

I took it apart, all 20 little screws. Got it running, shut it down and it wouldn't start again. Spend the rest of the day looking at alternatives. Found a model that could use the batteries, cheap, with available motors, cheap- $8 for 4. Found motors for the one I have, $8 for one and I didn't check shipping. Hopefully something besides the batteries will be salvageable, like the blades.

I know what interrupted me now. While I was fiddling with the drone, she and her sister's ex were taking Justin to be fitted for an electric wheelchair. He's got an '11 VW Jetta Diesel that they can only get a class one hitch for. They came back with a plane to buy a 4x6 trailer which I was totally against. His wife just got her license this year and little trailers are a bear to deal with beside the $3,000 cost.

I started researching mobility vans and how much their car is worth and think that's the way to go. He can currently transfer from the wheelchair to vehicle but there's no delling when that might start to be impossible. A decent used one might be attainable for what he can sell the car for plus the cost of the trailer and she only needs to get used to a larger vehicle.

 

[hittman]

We used to have a customer that built custom vehicles for handicapped people.