Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Rambling and New Stuff

Things have seemed a little busy around here recently.  A couple larger purchases and gearing up for the end of the fiscal year at work.  Football has begun so I have games I like to watch every weekend, and some weekdays.  Outside chores are beckoning as the weather continues to cool and this coming month will be time to get a good start, but really the weather will dictate and it's still too early for much yet.

Out in the back yard the woodpile is getting smaller, (not quickly but I hope to get another load delivered before the end of October), the walnuts are piling up in the corner and their litter is all over the yard thanks to the squirrels.  I don't have the count handy right now, but it's not turned out to be so many as I thought it would be.

There is nothing to report on the stump in front of neighbor Jane's, but I still think they may get it removed yet this year.  I actually used the city website to report a couple private property trees in the area that made the sidewalks impassable, and on our walk yesterday we noticed both trees had been trimmed.  I'm tall, so still have to watch out in some areas where we walk, but these two were pretty bad and worth reporting.

Four years already?  It seems that every 4 years I have to get a new computer, or at least since 2014 now.  Two or three months ago we had a very short power outage, just a few seconds, three separate times in about as many days.  Each time the computer was on and it took a lot of time for it to come back to life.  The last time it wouldn't even turn on for hours after.  This prompted me to finally buy an uninterrupted power supply, and one just a bit bigger than what I need.  Now if the power goes out the computer and monitors will run off the battery for 45 minutes to an hour, but I have it set to shut down 5 minutes after the power goes out and doesn't come back on.  Anyway, I sat down one day and hit the space bar to wake it up.  The screen came on for half a second then it was off.  The computer just shut off abruptly.  Again I went through the process of watching the computer piece itself together after not shutting down properly.  I believe I ordered another computer with a day or two of that incident.  I went through that tedious new computer setup process last weekend and am now humming along again.

Another big purchase was a treadmill so we can continue to walk when winter comes and it gets much easier to be sedentary.  My wife has used it a few times so far, even for jogging.  I've tried it a few times and I need to get used to it.  The first time I tried really threw my equilibrium off, but that did get better on the next short tries.  Still, I prefer to walk outdoors so will mostly continue those daily walks until weather forces me in.

So now we have two pieces of exercise equipment in the basement, side by side so we can both exercise at the same time.  For regular reader's perspective, from this angle the washer and dryer are behind and the cat drawer and stairs are on the left.  This quarter of the basement has, from left to right, the furnace, my basement workbench, the chest freezer and the kitchen gadget/cookware overflow shelf.  Also the brightest part of the basement, for sure on sunny days.  No, not a finished basement, but still good, useful space.

I wanted to get some of this written before the weekend gets here as I think we may be busy again.  Hopefully a few fires in the near future, I want to get the wood down to next to nothing before ordering more, and it usually gets here within days when ordered.  It hasn't been unusual in recent years to enjoy a fire right up to the winter solstice, and the autumnal equinox just happened recently so that helps my perspective - plenty of time for fires yet.

Cheers, everyone.  Have a great upcoming weekend and may all your sports teams win.  (Mine, too!)

5 comments:

Blue Witch said...

Basements are a great thing. I wish houses in the UK had those. Only old houses have 'cellars' and they are usually damp and dank.

Having to replace computers so often is very frustrating, not to mention expensive, isn't it? I don't think we have home UPSs over here.

So that is flat edge shovels, basements and home UPSs that we lack. And that's just one week's worth!

Enjoy your home gym!

delcatto said...

I do like your basement and looking at your work bench and thinking a modelling room! We used to have an exercise bike and I would like another one but I think I'd need advice about my knee although a recumbent exercise bike could be better for me.

Scoakat said...

It does seem often to replace them every 4 years, BW, but I get a lot of use out of them and at least it seems to be consistent. And yes, that was an expensive week.

Surely you must have some kind of battery backup for computers and the like? But I thought for sure you'd find that garden spade, too. I just peeked at Amazindotcodotuk and you might want to look again. Can't do anything about the basements, though.

Thank you, delcatto, I used to use the bike more rather than not at all now! Once the weather forces me inside I might change it up day to day. My reassembled knee would be the only thing that could get in the way, and it does get tight at times even now. But we do need to exercise somehow.

Nic said...

I wouldn't be without a UPS on my computer since we moved down here, we get so many little blips that wipe it out otherwise. Mine last somewhat longer than yours though..I bought a new one last year and the previous one was seven years old and is actually still fine but not quite cutting it for music production which needs a pretty powerful machine. Thus is becomes my day to day machine.

Hope you enjoyed the new music, thanks for the support, much appreciated. Cheers!

Scoakat said...

I try to take care with my computers, Nic, but I'm sure there's more I could do. Still, with those recent happenings then the computer just shutting off like that, to me it just wasn't worth taking a chance. I need it every weekday for work, too, otherwise they could tell me to go back in the office! I've been working from home long enough now that I really don't want that.

We got another one of those 3 second power outages yesterday. I was on the computer at the time, and it was a nice feeling seeing the UPS in action for the first time.

I wound up not having a fire last night, but I did give it a listen. I enjoyed it, but want to listen more. I want to pay attention to see if I hear the 80's influence. ;) (I'm curious of the band name now, too.) Thanks, Nic!