35 replies to this topic

[V.T. Eric Layton]

... with the Internets. Some of you may have noticed that my appearances are usually very short and not all that frequent. I've even missed a couple days entirely here and there. Meh... summertime doldrums? computer burnout? I dunno... I've been reading (books) more, doing a lot of crossword puzzles, watching a bit more TV (a lot of edoomacashunal PBS programming), etc.

So, if you don't see me around for a few days, don't panic. I'm not dead (hopefully not, anyway). I'll pop in eventually... unless I am dead. In which case, I won't be popping in much after that.

Have fun!

[ebrke]

I'm having some back trouble and trying not to sit at 'puter for long periods of time, so I'm kind of in the same status.

[securitybreach]

Start learning a programming language or something. There is no good reason to get bored when you have the world's information at your disposal..

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Programming makes me nauseous.

I surf Physics and Cosmology sites online when I'm in search of knowledge.

[securitybreach]

[zlim]

I've decided I spend too much time at the computer so since the end of May I've decided to read more.

I go to 3 different libraries and I have 2 apps on my tablet. Between the library, the tablet and some unread books I have at home, I'm reading 2 - 5 books a week.

I've also caught a few mysteries on PBS that I never saw before (British and Australian) so I'm watching tv. I really don't watch much tv.

Our church has a flea market every August and I collect things over the course of the year to donate. We just hauled 2 large cartons of things and a computer chair I bought in December which was very uncomfortable out the door.

I found another item yesterday to donate so I'm turning a critical eye to everything out in the open to see if anything else needs to go out the door. They'll collect until the beginning of August. If it doesn't go this year, it will be donated next year.

Last week we discovered we had a leak in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. We decided as long as a pipe needed replacing, we'd also get a new garbage disposer. Ours acted up from time to time and when I looked up when it was installed (the original owners of the home installed it), it was going on 39 years old!

After the work was done, my husband removed the old vinyl under the sink and put down press on vinyl tile. It looks nice and fresh. It is light colored where the old tile was dark. Then came my part: go through all the items under the sink and decide if they were needed. hehehe  We now have more room under there.

Then I mentioned while he was fixing up, could he also remove the old vinyl under the stationary tub in the cupboard of the laundry room. He did. We had more of the press on tiles so after putting in new wood underlayment, he put the same tiles in there. That cabinet is smaller so I didn't have much to go through but I was able to empty some refill bottles and move things to the cupboard over the sink so that cabinet now has more room. (I acquired lots of laundry detergent and softener when we cleaned my mother's house. She stockpiled; I don't!)

Who thought I'd be doing "spring cleaning" in July.

Our upright freezer is old and not frost free so we usually defrost in the summer when the temps are high outside and we don't mind getting rid of ice. In a few days we'll be tackling that.This week the temps will be in the 90's.

Last, I bought a USB turntable a few months ago so from time to time I'll be playing my vinyls and turning them into mp3 files.

No boredom here!

[securitybreach]

Sounds like you are staying quite busy Liz.

[raymac46]

No boredom here as long as we are part of the sandwich generation. If it isn't the grandkids, it's my mother-in-law. According to my wife, MIL's TV is now acting up (bad LCD display) and she's helpless to do anything about it. So we have to order a new TV and install it this weekend. She lives 2 hours away so we need to plan to bring the TV, go to the cable store, get a new cable box and hook everything up.
I have to make sure to program the cable controller so she only has to push one button to get everything working right. Most of the time she gets the box and TV out of sequence so one is switching on while the other is switching off. Also I have to hope she doesn't start dusting the buttons on the TV and switching the source to a second HDMI connection. Fun times.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

@ Liz... BUSY!  BUSY! BUSY!

It's good to keep busy. Keeps the body from freezing up and the mind from deteriorating. That homeowner stuff is always necessary. The ol' saying is, "Fix one thing and three other break." Story of my life. Just a couple weeks ago, I found that I had a very bad leak on the incoming main waterline to the house. The leak was actually somewhere below ground under my house. YAY! The galvanized piping down there is only 65 years old. I guess it was due. My brother and I retrofitted the house with a new water line (all PVC now). The job wasn't too bad... some shovel work, drilling into concrete blocks, running pipes and hooking up. It took us three days all told (over two weekends) to finish the job. All's well now. I won't have to worry about that again in my lifetime. I love running water and flush toilets.

A couple pics of the materials...





My neighbor next door (she must have jinxed me) had the same issue at her house just a couple weeks before me. The difference is that I did this job myself and it cost me about $150 in parts. She paid a plumber, concrete crew, and other misc.  tradesmen to do her house. Price? $6,800.00. D***** thieves! That's all those contractors were. I feel sorry for her.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

raymac46, on 18 July 2017 - 11:38 AM, said:

MIL's TV is now acting up (bad LCD display) and she's helpless to do anything about it.

Ah... new technology strikes again. Sure seems that the technology I grew up with was ever so much more durable and long-lasting than the carp we have nowadays.

[ebrke]

raymac46, on 18 July 2017 - 11:38 AM, said:

I have to make sure to program the cable controller so she only has to push one button to get everything working right. Most of the time she gets the box and TV out of sequence so one is switching on while the other is switching off. Also I have to hope she doesn't start dusting the buttons on the TV and switching the source to a second HDMI connection. Fun times.

I can certainly relate to that! Had to get mother a new cable box for her bedroom (Comcast's crappy equipment dies regularly) and it came with a different remote than she's used to. Hairy few days there.

[ebrke]

V.T. Eric Layton, on 18 July 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

raymac46, on 18 July 2017 - 11:38 AM, said:

MIL's TV is now acting up (bad LCD display) and she's helpless to do anything about it.

Ah... new technology strikes again. Sure seems that the technology I grew up with was ever so much more durable and long-lasting than the carp we have nowadays.

New technology, ha. The TV in my living room probably dates to late '80s or early '90s--it was mother's before she moved in here. TVs in kitchen and bedrooms are newer, but none date later than 2002. The Comcast technician tries hard to keep a straight face if he has to come in to troubleshoot a cable box.

Edited by ebrke, 18 July 2017 - 02:34 PM.

[Robert]

I don't get bored as often since I got more involved in genealogy. There is always something to do or a new email to answer. I've even started to tackle some of the internet sites with big one world trees, trying to disconnect the fake English nobility connections. It's crazy how many people think their dirt farmer ancestor in colonial Virginia was really royalty. I have an online tree on Ancestry which is where I do most of the research.

[securitybreach]

V.T. Eric Layton, on 18 July 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

raymac46, on 18 July 2017 - 11:38 AM, said:

MIL's TV is now acting up (bad LCD display) and she's helpless to do anything about it.

Ah... new technology strikes again. Sure seems that the technology I grew up with was ever so much more durable and long-lasting than the carp we have nowadays.

Well that is because they are built to fail. Planned Obsolescence has always been around but they incorporate it more so nowadays with cheaper manufacturing costs and Society is more about buying New versus repairing a broken item. They are built to fail after a certain amount of time. Sometimes you luck out but more often than not, you will have to replace items eventually.

[raymac46]

M-I-L's TV is an early Samsung LCD about 10 years old now, She has always used it as a standard definition TV and in my view it has always looked awful. With the new one I insist that she gets an HDTV box. Since a new 32 inch TV costs around $300 Canadian it isn't worth fixing.

[abarbarian]

No time to be bored.

DIY on  house -- running in background

Garden creation --- maintenance only for the present

Computing ---- weather permitting

Motorcycling  --- all the time weather permitting.

[zlim]

We got rid of a tv like Eric posted in 2013 only because after my mom died, we had her 32" LCD tv and didn't want 5 tvs in the house.
Elizabeth our other 3 tvs are all old analog sets too. I refuse to simply get rid of something because something newer comes along. In fact, the sound on the older tvs is much better than on the newer ones.

Thank goodness when we moved my mom, the cable company in assisted living did not require a box. Since my mother was legally blind, I was able to get a simple remove with just a few buttons.

Trying to find a new phone with answering machine for her was much harder. Old people can't see light gray type on black. We were finally able to find something in a light color. I had to program our phone number along with the code so we'd pay the cost of long distance. I had to use red magic marker to color the quick dial buttons so she could call us.

Cable and phone companies need to realize that the aging population, which is probably most of the customers still using wired phones and cable tv, need devices that they can SEE!
It would have been so much easier to get my mom a cellphone which has free long distance and just keep it plugged in, in her room but the buttons are too tiny even to answer a cellphone for a legally blind person with arthritic fingers.

[securitybreach]

zlim, on 19 July 2017 - 11:37 AM, said:

We got rid of a tv like Eric posted in 2013 only because after my mom died, we had her 32" LCD tv and didn't want 5 tvs in the house.
Elizabeth our other 3 tvs are all old analog sets too. I refuse to simply get rid of something because something newer comes along. In fact, the sound on the older tvs is much better than on the newer ones.

Thank goodness when we moved my mom, the cable company in assisted living did not require a box. Since my mother was legally blind, I was able to get a simple remove with just a few buttons.

Trying to find a new phone with answering machine for her was much harder. Old people can't see light gray type on black. We were finally able to find something in a light color. I had to program our phone number along with the code so we'd pay the cost of long distance. I had to use red magic marker to color the quick dial buttons so she could call us.

Cable and phone companies need to realize that the aging population, which is probably most of the customers still using wired phones and cable tv, need devices that they can SEE!
It would have been so much easier to get my mom a cellphone which has free long distance and just keep it plugged in, in her room but the buttons are too tiny even to answer a cellphone for a legally blind person with arthritic fingers.

Now they sell cell phones with large buttons for older people. Here is an example of one of them: https://www.amazon.c...dp/B01DRV2AV0/?

[V.T. Eric Layton]

securitybreach, on 18 July 2017 - 04:50 PM, said:

Well that is because they are built to fail. Planned Obsolescence ...

Indeed that is very true. It started to be the primary business practice in the mid-70s or so. Well, gotta' support that Red Chinese army, you know. The Chinese will rule the entire world one of these days... or turn it to a blackened cinder trying.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I don't have any fancy-schmancy new LCD or Plasma type TVs in my house. The only thing LCD around here are my computer monitors. That pic of that old Zenith I posted above was not my actual TV, but from the time I was about 13 years old till I was 25 or so, we had one just like it in my living room. Before that, we had a B&W Zenith. That one was around since before I was born. Carp was made to last a bit longer back then.

[ebrke]

securitybreach, on 18 July 2017 - 04:50 PM, said:

V.T. Eric Layton, on 18 July 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

raymac46, on 18 July 2017 - 11:38 AM, said:

MIL's TV is now acting up (bad LCD display) and she's helpless to do anything about it.

Ah... new technology strikes again. Sure seems that the technology I grew up with was ever so much more durable and long-lasting than the carp we have nowadays.

Well that is because they are built to fail. Planned Obsolescence has always been around but they incorporate it more so nowadays with cheaper manufacturing costs and Society is more about buying New versus repairing a broken item. They are built to fail after a certain amount of time. Sometimes you luck out but more often than not, you will have to replace items eventually.

My refrigerator just went on strike last night. Six months ago, same thing happened and I had the thermostat replaced. Same situation started again--refrig has to be turned up to coldest to actually refrigerate at all. I opted not to spend more money on a 6.5 year old appliance and bought a new one today, hoping that mine will continue to function at a minimal level until Friday when new one will be delivered. Salesman at the appliance shop says that on average, 6 to 7 years is all you get from an appliance now. I buy at a basic level--brand name but not high-end. I also know a woman who bought both a high-end dishwasher and refrig who had miserable luck with both. You really can't win, and I decided I wasn't willing to throw good money after bad. I did buy a different brand this time, although it probably won't make much difference.

[raymac46]

Our fridges:

• GE we got when we bought our first house - lasted 18 years. It was still working but we were not sure if it would last too much longer.
  
  
• Sears Kenmore - 14 years old and we left it when we moved to Almonte.
  
  
• Maytag - bought new and lasted 9 years (compressor died.) Maytag was basically a rebadged Amana machine at the time. Now Whirlpool makes Maytag stuff.
  
  
• Samsung - had it 3 years - works OK but my expectations are not high. The Samsung has a nice double door design.

None of these were particularly feature filled. The Samsung has an ice maker but I never bothered to plumb it in.

The funniest thing about our fridge dying was that my sweetest little granddaughter Veronica thought that we would starve without milk and yogurt in the house and got really worried and upset.

Edited by raymac46, 19 July 2017 - 08:29 PM.

[Robert]

I keep hearing of bad luck with newer refrigerators. I'm told that to save electricity they now use little motors that have to run longer and take much longer to cool things back down when something warm is put inside. Many only come with a one year warranty. Next time I need one I might get one of those gas/propane models as they are still made in the USA and have a 5 year warranty .

Edited by Robert, 19 July 2017 - 10:47 PM.

[zlim]

Josh, my mom had something like this

those phone for seniors aren't designed for people who are legally blind! She had detached retinas, macular  degeneration and glacoma. She had trouble seeing the big E on the eye chart with one of her eyes.
They are also not designed for seniors who have difficulty holding things.

Ah, refrigerators. We made my mom get a new one because her's was something like 52 years old! I knew it would die some hot Saturday night in July and she'd call us (we lived 1 1/2 hours away) and expect us to find a solution - quick! She kept her refrigerator packed to the gills. There'd be no way we'd preserve all her food in the tiny, old, but newer, spare fridge in the basement.
She complained about the new fridge but every time she did, I'd point out that the freezer was frost free and so much larger than her old freezer. Eventually she stopped complaining.

Quote

Many only come with a one year warranty.

Boy, I'll need to study the warranty when we need a new refrigerator. We currently have an obscure brand called Wood. It is all refrigerator - no freezer, which is what we want. Between the spare refrigerator with freezer and the upright freezer, we have more than enough freezer storage.

Edited by zlim, 20 July 2017 - 11:55 AM.

[ebrke]

Robert, on 19 July 2017 - 10:47 PM, said:

I'm told that to save electricity they now use little motors that have to run longer and take much longer to cool things back down when something warm is put inside.

Also, salesman told me that not using freon anymore as a coolant puts a strain on the thermostat, although I'm not sure I understand why that would be.