Minor Win thread - Life is good!

In reply to Peabody :

If you look at the stitching, one side of the bag is single stitched and the other is double.

Make sure the single stitched side is facing you.

The end of the the stitching on your RIGHT is the RIGHT one to pull on.

Unravel the knots a little bit until you have two ends of thread to pull on.

Pull on both threads and everything should come apart easy. I found that sometimes you have to pull the knots apart a few times to get everything just right but once you've done it a couple times, you get the hang of it.

In reply to ShawnG :

They use that stitching on malt bags for brewers. I've figured out the quick and easy shortcut to speed things up.

On the side that you've identified (I think of it as the left of the double-stitched side), cut the first TWO loops of the double-stitched side. Then it pulls apart easy without having to pull the knots apart. (Occasionally it will get tangled. Just repeat the process.)

Picked up a new client that is outside my usual space, but not too far. I've been trying to diversify and not be 100% dependent on the automotive industry for my income. It's weird stepping outside a zone that frankly I can do pretty much from memory to one that now needs me to spend time doing research. I'm looking forward to digging into the new project and learning.

After way too much trenching (with shovels, the old-fashioned way), we found the leak in our water main today and got a repair patch spliced in. It cost a grand total of $36 to fix it. We've been spending that much extra in water every eleven days or so.

I'm so tired. Tomorrow is going to be miserable. It's done, though.

Some of you know.  I've been keeping mum until all hurdles were cleared, and what a nail biting month it has been.

This is easily the scariest thing I have ever done, and the biggest, but also the most win.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Congratulations! That rules!

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Outstanding!  Congratulations!

My doctor wrote an excuse to get me outta jury duty.

Big win.

And there's another hurdle, but it's jumpable 

3 weeks later, after rebuilding my expensive backpack sprayer twice, ive finally layed down pramitol on the driveway. With a 10 dollar one gallon sprayer.

Minor win #1: We were in need of 2 bikes, and found a perfect pair of new bikes for used bike pricing.

Minor win #2: Apparently getting the right bike, for the first time in their life, can convert even an adult from life-long reluctant to newly excited about cycling.

I actually went and worked on a car for fun for the first time in 2 years.

Got my original challenge car ( 84 Caprice)started and moving today.

The valve covers are leaking like a siege, it seems stuck on high idle, the lights and such are all strobing when it's running for whatever reason and the heater fan is currently not working but it started and shifted multiple times today.

Woot

I was already super stoked to find out that WingStop has a $5 lunch combo with 5 boneless wings, fries, ranch, and a drink. Then i got home and found 6 wings in my lunch! Inflation who?

It's Spring and greening-up around here!

Horsepower Restoration Day has arrived!

Following on the heels of last weekend's hot, dirty plumbing action, today I managed to replace the old gate valve at my side of the water meter with a new ball valve. Also replaced a foot or so of galvi pipe that looked rather rustier than it should, and a few few of poly pipe that got a few apprentice marks beat into it by the savage who did last week's work. And then threw some tracer wire in the ditch while it's still open.

I wanted to replace a sillcock as well, but the length of the old one is a little funky, and the new replacement wouldn't quite reach the old pipe. Through some miracle or another - perhaps the karmic rewards of righteous living - I managed to put the old parts back together and seal it all up with a judicious slathering of pipe dope on the female thread of the sillcock, despite not getting under the house to wrap the male end of the supply branch in teflon tape. This may be all the good luck I'm allocated for the year. 

Testing continues, but preliminary indications are that cold beer goes great with a stationary leak indicator and a couple hundred bucks unspent.

The buckle on the chest strap on my camera backpack was broken recently. It's 7-8 years old and up until now I've been really happy with it. I sent an email to the manufacturer and explained the situation. In less than an hour they said that they would send me a new strap, asked for my address, and sent me a tracking number. All for a backpack that I bought secondhand. They didn't even ask me how old it was, where I bought it, or even for a picture of the backpack. There are still some companies that stand behind theor products.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Some of you know.  I've been keeping mum until all hurdles were cleared, and what a nail biting month it has been.

 

This is easily the scariest thing I have ever done, and the biggest, but also the most win.

All hurdles cleared. Looking forward to the next chapter in life with my person

In reply to RBCA :

It's a weird shaped yard and a weird shaped driveway but we're a weird people.

Flat roof residential garage is also weird, at least around here it is.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

It's sloped, it's just that the peak is forward.  Almost all garages here are like this.

Band practice last night. Couple things went wrong that led to arguably our best practice yet.

New vocalist wasn't going to be able to make it, so I learned to do vocals for several songs while playing bass. Did much better than I expected to. Fun experience seeing just what my actual muscle-memory skill is on bass. We didn't have our normal practice space, so we moved to my brewery taproom (closed Mondays) - and we really liked the space and thought we sounded better here.

We're not great, but this was effectively our first crack at this, and I'm pretty certain I've gone out and heard worse bands. Overall, i think this one sounds best, we mostly just struggled to coordinate how to end it:

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

We're not great, but this was effectively our first crack at this, and I'm pretty certain I've gone out and heard worse bands. 

walking that fine line between deprecation and aggrandizement. 🤣😎🤘🏻

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

You can sail over the bar like a hero if you set it low enough.

I only started playing bass about 6 months ago. I've stumbled in the past trying to hold a straight bass line while singing. I'm really happy to have been able to play something more complex than just chugging even root notes while singing.

I used to be more of a singer, but lately I've been focusing on learning bass. It's exciting to think that my skill level has progressed to a point where I can work on *both*.

This morning I set my alarm for about 40 minutes earlier than usual, actually got up when it went off (technically a few minutes early since I woke up before it went off and it was close enough to not matter), put on my biking gear, and went out and went on a quick ride around the neighborhood for the first time in 3-4 years. It was only a short ride- about 15 minutes/2.5 miles- but I'd not been on the bike since at least last summer so wanted to start off slowly. I've over the last few years on occasion ridden the bike to the store, but have not taken it out to just ride for exercise for quite a while. Back before the lockdown and my working from home, I would ride my bike to work and back about 1/3-1/2 of the time and thus had a lot more exercise just inherently build into my normal days. While I am now swimming- something started back up, ironically, right before the lockdown- I've wanted to get back to being more active so am going to be trying at least a few mornings a week to get up and ride the bike.

As another minor win, I actually remembered enough from when I commuted to dress appropriately for the 40-degree temps this morning (biking shorts, short-sleeved biking shirt, and lightweight long-sleeved biking shirt- it's definitely cold initially but is perfect after a minute of pedalling).