n_maher

Yesterday, removed half the sod to clear a 14' x 16' tract of land. For context, that took about two and half hours. This morning, continued to remove sod to clear the rest of the area. Took about an hour since I'd already used the edger to cut the sod into roughly 1' square pieces. Project then moved from demolition to construction, which involved raking and grading the area. Then moved approximately 5,000# of crushed stone by hand along with installing permeable paving forms to make Lily a parking space beside the driveway. Grandma and grandpa chipped in. The somewhat rough finished project. I did a bit more raking/sweeping to level it out and smooth the high spots. The paver box-out in the back is for an irrigation control valve that was annoyingly just at the edge of the excavation.

Happy Birthday, Marc!

Before we miss another Peter's birthday, I'll do the honors. May your day be gloriously black. Or purple. Or perhaps both.

Continuing the theme of "fix shit yourself" I completed the two week journey that was bringing a Ryobi One+ battery back to life. It had sat (incorrectly) on a charger for too long and discharged itself to the point where it could no longer be charged. I suspected the batter was fine. Problem one - it has one effing torx safety screw so a quick shopping trip to Amazon for IFIXIT's smallest kit with the right bit and the chassis was opened. From there I could check the cells, see that none were shorted they just all had very low voltage. Problem two - how do you trick the charger into thinking the battery is ok? A few YouTube videos and some hacking of wire later and I was able to float the battery up to ~13V which was enough to get the charger to recognize it and fully recharge the battery. Sure, I spent $15 on the torx bit but I didn't put an otherwise functional battery in a land fill. I call that a win.

Well shit, happy belated birthday Peter.

Not today, but Thursday night, the northern lights made a return visit. Quite visible to the naked eye this time with pretty striking red and green hues across the whole night sky. Wild to see in southern New England. Today, replaced the rear brakes on the Volvo which my mechanic had said were "metal on metal". That was a slight exaggeration but the pads were down to the wear bars so it was time. The rotors actually looked pretty good (essentially no lip) but decided that it made sense to do them while I was in there since I already had the parts. I did not end up doing the fronts as they still have a good 1.5mm to the wear bar and the rotors look fine as well. I'll keep the parts on hand and plan on doing them next spring summer depending on how inspection goes in March.

Almost bought one, did a bunch of research, if I was going to it'd be a Primo. https://www.primogrill.com

Looks freakin' delicious, Steve.

Feels early, like three months or so, but happy birthday anyway, Wayne. 🎅

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday, tall man! Haven't found an excuse to get down to ATL...yet.

Happy birthday!

Job done. Great day, some hurtful winds but survived.

Hydrating.

Sincere thanks again to everyone was able to offer support this year. Between you, family, and some other friends I successfully exceeded my fundraising goal again this year. I’m headed up to Vermont now and the ride is tomorrow. I’ll post some pictures at some point, but the weather is looking good and everyone is healthy so here’s hoping for a grade ride.

Likely the last long solo before the ride in two weeks, hammered pretty good but tried not to ruin myself given the activities planned for the rest of the day. Getting close to the fundraising goal now, thanks again largely to this group.

I haven't been online much this week but I'm glad you posted this, Steve. Some friends and I were having a discussion the other day on the anniversary of the suicide of another friend. Never underestimate the simply act of letting someone know that you see them and care.

Thanks, Ric, too kind (seriously). F&F finally starting to roll with a few donations last night and Andrew and Lily chipped in this morning. So we're now in striking distance of $2k and well on the way to meeting the goal of $2,500.

Disparage away, F&F are slower than molasses so far this year. Meanwhile, this place continues to carry the water for everyone else. #NFLO

Hell yeah!

Thanks to everyone that's been able to donate so far. I'm about 50% of my way to my fundraising goal with 2-1/2 weeks to go. Time to go prep to ride to work tomorrow.

@jose - good man.

I got the team hat logo designed and two prototypes of the hats made the other night. Pretty pleased with the results from the little laser. Maybe there will be d-_-b hats in the future.

Prototype complete.

Love you guys, thanks for the quick start. Time to head out for a training ride in the balmy 85F/85% humidity. 🥵