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

[Waho]

That's a reason I'm not super interested in los, mudslides. [emoji14]

I see enough dip mishaps at work. You could smoke in the plants pre MI indoor clean air act, and afterwards lots of folks have taken to cramming a third of a can of Copenhagen into their lower lip and spitting little bits of tobacco at you while talking and making every trashcan reek of wintergreen. I have a trashcan inches from my work areas clamp fixture where the guy on days hits it with two cans worth of spit, and it's hellish until the facilities maintenance guys come by to change the bags, ewwww.

I let my stock of General mint run out from the $1.99 sale and had to grab some at regular price, $5.05. I may just grab a few cans of los on my next order and train the dippers at work how to upper lip it, ha!

General white
Black coffee

 

[hittman]

That sounds like our forecast Hitt.

Well, I did it again. Baked one when I got up early, started watching the news and feel back to sleep. I'll never Los away from home.

That reminds me of the experiment where the mouse goes for the cheese and gets an electric shock and keeps going back. Los and naps obviously don't go together.

 

[rothenbj]

I need a new snow blower. This one didn't keep the snow away enough years. I think I only got one year where we had none to speak of, probably because I bought it used. I know I got at least three years of non-use on my first one and when that one got weary I bought a new one that sat in the garage at least 5 winters without any work.

I'm so ready for spring. We got a freezing rain/snow mix Tuesday night that was like a rock yesterday morning. Fortunately it warmed up enough and rained so by 2 it was this sludge that I was able to make ice bricks out of (sometimes) and pull out of the blower or pushed a pile of sludge in front of the blower so I could shovel it. grrrr. I knew I had to get it up before last night or I'd have a nightmare this morning. The stuff that's falling now is heavy, but it's at least snow. I've got to clear it out as they're coming to pick up two of my bikes on Saturday to service and inspect since I haven't ridden one for almost two months. As soon as I stopped being sick, the nasty winter took over. Oh well, it's almost over.

I got a real bargain on a couple cans of snus yesterday. Two cans cost me $2.37. I think the guy miscalculated since I had a $1 off coupon and a can for a $1 coupon. I figured it would be more like $3.50 but I'll take it. So I'm sitting here now waiting for the snow to yield and enjoying my

Wintergreen
Ice water

 

[hittman]

Sorry about the bad weather. We had that storm Saturday that I had to drive thru but it's been a pretty light winter here and I haven't gotten enough snow to make it worth getting the snowblower out of the shed. I guess the new snowthrower thing does work. We are waiting to hear if my daughter is going to be accepted to the BFA program but she has decided that either way she wants to go to Missouri State. If she doesn't get accepted this time then there will be another audition in November. I have my fingers crossed for her and honestly can't think of why she shouldn't be accepted. It's in her blood and has been involved in theater for about seven or eight years now.

 

[rothenbj]

Halfway through the storm. They're now talking 6 to 10 and we already have 6. Think I'll give it a first pass in an hour or so to make it go easier.

 

[rothenbj]

Just realized another milestone hit-

$30,000 in Cigarette Savings! Yay!

 

[hittman]

Does that track your spending on snus and vaping?

 

[rothenbj]

No, but it also hasn't been adjusted for the increased price of cigarettes. I was tracking my snus and e cig costs back in the beginning, but it seemed useless after a while. If I order snus it's once a year usually, usually a sale like Northern's last year and I only spent about $100. My previous order was maybe $200 when they had that good deal for mint a couple years ago. The only time I buy locally is if I have a coupon. Perhaps $300-400 all year And e cig stuff is even less often. If I spend $50 on juice a year, I'd be amazed. I've got so much juice I really wouldn't need to buy any for ever. I've been using the same mod and RBA for well over a year. I've worn the finish off it so badly that I've been thinking of getting something to strip it with and reapply a finish to rejuvenate it a bit.

Speaking of rejuvenation, I could use one after the snow fiasco and they're still calling for another three. I dread to think what I might be facing tomorrow. In 3 1/2 hours, I was only able to open the lane portion and that involved a lot of shoveling. There was about 6" of snow on top of 1-2" of slush. I think the rain must have some in, then the wet sleet to give a base of the wet snow. I spent more time cleaning snow out of the blower then I did actually using it. That went on for 2 hours or so and finally it got cold enough to harden it a bit and I was able to use the blower more, but no fun. This has been the worst snowfall since I moved here. Not nearly the biggest but the hardest to deal with and I still have the parking area and cars to deal with. Plus the temp is dropping to near zero so tomorrow could be ugly.

 

[hittman]

Yikes roth! That is awful. Starting tomorrow we will be in the 50's for at least the next week or so. I won't rule out any further snow but I'm already thinking about winterizing the snowthrower. I regret now that I put gas and stabilizer in it. I just wanted to make sure it ran good.

 

[elenamylove]

Hello all! General White Mint

 

[rothenbj]

We lost electric at 8:30 totally unprepared. No battery in the generator, no gas and no way of getting the car out to get any until morning. Fortunately it was only out until 10:15 and I'm back in business.

Well, I'll battle through the balance of the winter with what I've got, but the snow blower will get upgraded before next winter. The first thing I did when I powered up my notebook was googled chute jams. There's a fellow that sells kits to put rubber on the impeller blades that are supposed to eliminate the blockages. He had a youtube link he sent me to and before I even watched, I saw another youtube that a guy made a before and after.

He used old rubber blades from a single stage and cut them to fit on the metal blades on the blower and attached them with self tapping screws. He said mud flaps work just as well. His explanation made perfect sense. They build the metal blades with clearance as they're spinning. That clearance is where the ice and crap starts attaching to the blades jamming up the chute. The rubber attached filling that gap eliminates the buildup. When you first start it up there will be some rubbing until the rubber wears to perfectly fit the cylinder. Makes perfect sense.

He demonstrated with them on and off and the difference was amazing. I'm going that route and see if I can avoid another snowstorm like this one. He had a friend that bought a $600 machine constantly jammed for the previous owner. Of course he had the same issues until this guy fixed him up. We'll see.

 

[hittman]

That's a great idea. With all the snow you're getting, you could use one like we have at work. It's a Honda 13.5hp track drive. It'll throw snow 50' or better.

 

[rothenbj]

Much better this morning, but my feet are frozen. I took a heat gun to the impeller blades. They had at least a half inch of ice covering them. Once I got them back to metal and the surrounding area ice free it was smooth sailing. The sludge hardened up so the snow above shot out well. Let's hope that's the end for this year. Somewhere like New Mexico sounds good right about now.

 

[firechick]

We had minus 1 this morning. I've certainly had enough.

 

[rothenbj]

In with you FC, enough is enough. I as thinking this morning about all those years we got very little snow. I've been at my house 19 years and these last three have been the worst. I need someplace that the temperature varies a bit off 80, I think it's called nirvana.

 

[The Rebel]

Yikes! We made it to page 666. Never considered a good sign with the religious folks. Thankfully my religion only runs shallow so I'm not too worried about three numbers. Still bitter cold here in Michigan but at least we've seen some sun over the past couple of days. Little bit of snow on Tuesday, but when you get as much as we do in a year, what's three more inches. I feel for you forks east of here. Getting more than your fair share. I heard Boston just up and decided to move the whole city 500 miles south.

Basketball for the boys has finally wrapped up so I have a little free time for a change. Or at least I did, until my youngest got invited to play on an advanced indoor soccer team. So much for my Saturdays for next couple of months. Tough to look forward to them getting their drivers licenses and also dread it at the same time. I thought once they could walk it would get easier...

Our washing machine decided it was time to retire last week. Rear bearing started making noise like a helicopter taking off. Not a good sign. So after much research on replacing it myself (Ungodly hard) and a few quotes (Ungodly expensive), I bit the bullet and bought a new one. Got a nice price match and extended warranty through Lowes along with an additional 5%. Not bad, but still ain't cheap. But mama's happy and that's all that matters. Got delivered today and now the wifey is playing catch up on the laundry. At 4.5 Cu it shouldn't take too long. It's a biggen.

Enough flapping my chips, time to go home. Have a good weekend all.

 

[hittman]

We bought a whirlpool cabrio set for big money about eight years ago. It was a total piece of crap. It was repaired under warranty several times and I fixed it a few times myself. The bearing on the washer was part of the drum and the part alone was around 350-400. We decided to scrap it and went back to a regular unit with an agitator. For what it would have cost to have someone fix it, we paid for a new washer and dryer.

 

[rothenbj]

Rebel, if they're anything like I was, once they get their driving licenses, you'll feel like an empty nester. There was always somewhere to catch a game of something, somewhere. I did manage to catch dinner though and the winter was slower. It might be a bit different today. There seem to be a lot less pickup games than when I was young. Everything seems to be organized anymore. Nothing just for the love of the game.

I'm with you on the washer/dryer deal. Give me basic and if I can find a lightly used one, I take that one. My mom's died about 3 years before she fell. I found one on CL where they used it a year at their new house and found they "needed" a bigger set. One of their relatives took the dryer and the washer got stored in the garage for a couple years. They became she and she wanted it gone. So for $60 mom had a washer that, well, washed clothes.

I kind of wish that I'd thought about my situation because mine has to be approaching 19 years that I've had it and I bought it used.

 

[hittman]

The cabrio set was about 2k and it lasted seven years with multiple repairs. The set before that was 500 and lasted 15 years. The set we have now was 800 and I bet it'll outlast the cabrio.

 

[Waho]

Seems like they just don't make things like they used to when it comes to large home appliances. My parents had the same GE washer/dryer set from before I was born up until 10 years ago and have been through two new sets in the last 10 years. We had this old GE fridge that shook the house when the compressor ran that simply refused to quit but they replaced it with a new Kenmore that my Mom has replaced within the last year.

I bought a Kenmore 4.8cu washer and 5.3cu dryer when I moved in to my house. They've been running strong for a year and I hope that continues. I paid $1000 for the set despite my lovely girlfriend urging me to get the $2500 front loading pair.

The previous owners left their ancient broken KitchenAid dishwasher, I'll pull it out and look at it when it warms up a bit. Probably something simple as neither of the the previous owners were "mechanically inclined" and hopefully a cheap fix. It'll probably outlast anything new I could get.

Ettan
Coffee