Sense of accomplishment

[Wallingford]

This is the biggest post I've made here ever.

[Deep breath] I got a new job!

I quit the old one with no parachute. I was employed within three weeks. I got my first paycheck today.

I work Monday through Friday, weekends off. I'm off by middle of the afternoon, eight hours a day. I'm making the same money I was making.*

In the last five weeks, my jaw pain is gone. My skin is better. I sleep regularly. I'm finishing things in the evening after work. My neighbors tell me I'm a different person.

My supervisor is considering retiring. Mangement has already talked to me about taking his position should he decide to leave. My wife's best friend predicted that would happen. That took all of ten days.

WBF: "With all your experience, they're going to ask you to be in management."

I'm checking my finances very carefully to avoid that if possible.

*vacation and tenure are shot out the window, but I consider myself a survivor of a bad situation.

[Wallingford]

Update on 6th December and 5th January.

Sold the big filing cabinet, room was destined to be in disarray until after Christmas. All the furniture is in place now, still have lots of sorting and storage to tackle, but the heavy lifting is finished.

I keep a list of my projects taped to the inside of the door to my "room." Mancave, office, whatever you want to call it. Three computers, a couch, a dresser, three filing cabinets and three bookcases. My butt just said there's a chair in here as well, just didn't see it when I looked around the room. So call the room what you will.

Frequently, I update the project list by transferring the unfinished items to a fresh sheet of paper and taking down the one with crossed off items. The sad news, six of the 2023 projects were transferred to the new list. The first item, put away Christmas decorations. Consider about 22 of the 56 quart bins of decorations. I decorate four houses in the neighborhood.

Last year three of the bins never made it to the attic. They sat at the end of a hallway next to the attic door, but never made it in. Top box had a big note in it, "troubleshoot lights." With 70 (sometimes more) strands of lights every year, some are going to have dead places when you take them down. Some might be three or four lights here or there. Some could have a section of 50 to 100 lights not functioning when taken down.

Typically, a long section of nonfunctioning lights means one or more are literally broken. These are sometimes easily found and replacing one or two bulbs restores the whole strand. I had four strands from Christmas 2022 in the "troubleshoot" box. I simply put up new ones where those would typically go.

When I took down Christmas of 2023, I added eight more strands to the "troubleshoot" box. With my new job allowing more time for a life, I have restored and repaired what I could and replaced what I couldn't.

Also, the whole moat and gator is in proper storage.

The 2023 leftover list is down to four. The 2024 list has only accumulated four. This is the shortest list in years.

Wife and I have our share of disagreements over the list through the years. Her point of view is I put 28 things on a list to do over the weekend and I accomplish 15, that's success.

My view is typically, "shit, look what I didn't get done."

Two items on the leftover list are finish the bowling alley in the living room and build custom tool rack.

For the bowling alley in the living room, see previous posts. Still got a few design issues to work out on that one.

For the custom tool rack, I've got a rough draft, all the parts and all the tools to do it. Even if I go to plan E, F, and G, I should be able to complete it in about half a day. That's half a day I didn't have with my old job.

I know this has been long, but that's why I started this thread, to encourage myself as much as anyone.

I've given up on new threads here. That's me riding off in the sunset in my avatar. But I decided not to abandon the existing ones.

[Wallingford]

Time for a small achievement here. The last couple of days I have repaired "the guard shack." I'll explain.

I buy Christmas decorations in bags or boxes at yard sales or thrift stores in a "this entire container" type of purchase. Of course, I keep what I like and take what I don't back to the thrift store on my next trip, sometimes the same store. I have been known to take two or three items out of the bag, and leave the bag on the counter.

So, several years ago I acquired a small wooden decoration, a little larger than a deck of playing cards. It was in terrible shape, all of the glue joints were busted. It had obviously been shaken or stirred in a bag of much larger, heavier objects. But I kept it because it was an interesting piece.

What I call "the guard shack" is a wooden Buckingham Palace Guard standing in his (some of you Brits help me here) Tardis, PortaPotty, whatever that is. The shack is made of peppermint sticks, wood, painted as peppermint sticks of course.

Over the last few years, I have attempted to repair it, I've even hung it on the tree a year or two. But the glue joints just never held. I finally bought some very small clamps and did a proper repair this time. I painted it and drilled out the hole for the string. It is now better than new.

Here's a fun side note to this story. When I bought the eight pack of clamps

the Chinese girl at the register asked, "Ah, [long pause and looks off to the side] what exactly do you do with these?"

I told her I use them to repair small objects and hold them while the glue dries. In the back of my head I continued, "but if you want, we can give them a shot at what you've got in mind."

The reasons I did not say that out loud, married, obviously, sometimes I'm not as bold as other times, did I say married? Yeah, and I'm not sure if she is the significant other of a Chinese Mafia Boss, so I passed on the opportunity.

I also wouldn't want to be told I can't shop there anymore. I go there for lots of little craft parts.

*yes, I know, some of you notice. I said eight pack, the picture is six. I guess the people who shop Etsy didn't get the deal I did. That makes me just a little bit superior and that's all my Dana Carvey for the day.

[naturals]

Stopped toilet from leaking by replacing rubber washer in the tank.

[DJboutit]

My adult forum is back up after 2 months now attachment uploads for images are allowed on the forum.

I had to rebuild my forum I was hosted on a friends server for 2 years then the server was no more without any warning and still no word from him. If it were up another week I would have gotten backups of my sites.

Next I need to rebuild my Wordpress for my internet radio station Phat beats Radio

[Grey8Np]

Just completed every task in the flash game Backyard Baseball.

[Wallingford]

Originally Posted by naturals

Stopped toilet from leaking by replacing rubber washer in the tank.

Did you know you can do that by cutting a washer out of an old inner tube? I've saved lots of money in several applications cutting my own seals out of old inner tubes.

[Wallingford]

Originally Posted by Wallingford

22nd September 2023, 22:26

Wife and I bought a new piece of furniture, it is being delivered next week. We have moved ten pieces of furniture to make room and given away four pieces. I also spent two hours with the vacuum cleaner behind and under the pieces we moved.

Five months now, and we have not been completely satisfied with the final settings of the furniture. Yesterday we moved two end tables to different rooms and rearranged every piece on four tables. We think this has cured our dissatisfaction with our previous efforts.

Primarily, we have a place at the end of each sofa to set a drink.

The last three to four weekends, I've done absolutely nothing. All this time off finally, and I've done the day to day, dishes, laundry, cooking. But I have not addressed any items on my list until the furniture project last night.

[Wallingford]

Originally Posted by Grey8Np

Just completed every task in the flash game Backyard Baseball.

I really do want to thank posters who participate in my threads. But I'm gonna need some clarification here.

Are you talking about the video game from the 80s? Are you mocking us?

I like to give the benefit of the doubt, but this post looks sketch.

On the other hand, if this is an attempt at humor, such as the three hot cheetos and tiger balm post from another thread, then, meh. Meh? No.

By the way, if you haven't seen the three hot cheetos and tiger balm post, you should find it; its awesome.

[Wallingford]

Keeping with the theme of kicking myself for being so lazy the last three to four weeks, I was determined to knock something out today.

In addition to changing jobs about 10 weeks ago, I changed vehicles five weeks ago. Five weeks is plenty of time to take everything from the first vehicle and organize it in the new one right? Not so fast, Junior.

The new truck has double the passenger capacity, but about 20 percent of the storage capacity. So it has taken me a while to sort everything, prioritize what has to be in the new truck and organize the rest into the garage.

The first thing I addressed was a place for the emergency lights. I probably carry as much rain and foul weather gear as two state troopers. I had tools, backup tools, and lots of quick repair parts.

All of the quick repair parts have been moved to the garage. I was upset at first when I discovered a wrench missing, but after a complete inventory, it was the only wrench missing out of four sets. And it still might turn up in the garage or a coat pocket.

It took about three hours to sort everything that would fill three bathtubs; but I'm going to call the project almost complete. Some items will be donated and that will clear a little more space to organize.