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What are you doinng during CV-19

this virus is scaring alot of people.
I think Ive fallen a victim myself, although Im just trying to be ultra careful.

finally got my delivery today from home depot.(I didnt have to pay delivery charge, they took it off due to their delay in shipment)

one of the items, 30 feet of 4 inch pvc pipe, it was challenging.

first, I took all the small items, and wiped them all down with a clorox wipe.

then lined up each pipe, separate from each other so as to not contaminate one once Ive cleaned one other one. Wiped them all down, laid them out to dry, then hot water and soap, used my truck brush(looks like a broom), to wash them down again before I dare bring any of them into shop.

all the paints that arrived over the past few days, everything wiped down, cardboard handled like it was TNT, gently, with gloves, wearing a respirator, thrown in yard for a few days, then carefully handled again, with respirator, cut up and tossed out into plastic bags.

then washed the clothes I was wearing, and took a shower, never touching my face at all during the work. I have a real problem because I tend to touch my face all day and night long, maybe 1000 times a day.

now Im getting so paranoid about bringing the virus into my shop, as it seems to love metal surfaces and plastic surfaces.

everything else gets sprayed with lysol spray.

now that Ive spent days cleaning the materials, I will begin to make pvc lawn birds. alot of them. it will keep me busy until my next woodworking project, which will be on hold because Im not going up to the bronx to lumber yard to pick lumber or have plywood delivered. but Im happy I will be able to work on birds.

if that doesnt cut it for me soon, I still have some of that delicious spalted maple jim sent me, (I like to look at it, dont want to slice it up), maybe a box or two, and then when I get back to my lathe, Im still holding those stone like blanks for mechanical pencils Ted gave a while ago. I hope this lockdown releases soon , Im getting low on p;rojects and material
 
Ryan Mooney said:
Prepping garden beds.. one shovel full at a time.

View attachment 110388

Flip it over, fill it in. The bare strip on the right will be the walkway, the stuff on the left gets piled back on top effectively at least tripling the soil depth from the original 6" over original hardpan.

View attachment 110389


Ten more to go!
Click to expand...


I had to take some advil after looking at that picture. it must be nice to be such a young healthy man.
 
allen levine said:
this virus is scaring alot of people.
I think Ive fallen a victim myself, although Im just trying to be ultra careful.

finally got my delivery today from home depot.(I didnt have to pay delivery charge, they took it off due to their delay in shipment)

one of the items, 30 feet of 4 inch pvc pipe, it was challenging.

first, I took all the small items, and wiped them all down with a clorox wipe.

then lined up each pipe, separate from each other so as to not contaminate one once Ive cleaned one other one. Wiped them all down, laid them out to dry, then hot water and soap, used my truck brush(looks like a broom), to wash them down again before I dare bring any of them into shop.

all the paints that arrived over the past few days, everything wiped down, cardboard handled like it was TNT, gently, with gloves, wearing a respirator, thrown in yard for a few days, then carefully handled again, with respirator, cut up and tossed out into plastic bags.

then washed the clothes I was wearing, and took a shower, never touching my face at all during the work. I have a real problem because I tend to touch my face all day and night long, maybe 1000 times a day.

now Im getting so paranoid about bringing the virus into my shop, as it seems to love metal surfaces and plastic surfaces.

everything else gets sprayed with lysol spray.

now that Ive spent days cleaning the materials, I will begin to make pvc lawn birds. alot of them. it will keep me busy until my next woodworking project, which will be on hold because Im not going up to the bronx to lumber yard to pick lumber or have plywood delivered. but Im happy I will be able to work on birds.

if that doesnt cut it for me soon, I still have some of that delicious spalted maple jim sent me, (I like to look at it, dont want to slice it up), maybe a box or two, and then when I get back to my lathe, Im still holding those stone like blanks for mechanical pencils Ted gave a while ago. I hope this lockdown releases soon , Im getting low on p;rojects and material
Click to expand...
Did you scrub the inside of the pipes, or just the outside?
 
Since I've been home ( a week tomorrow)I have put wide pine flooring in our upstairs hall, cleaned and organized my garage, wired a new drop outlet for my table saw, put a dozen lights up in our attic, which had no lights before, installed a new railing at the top of the stairs in the house and started work on the biggest project of them all...the remodeling of the master bath and bedroom. That one will keep me busy for weeks.
 
Still walking...it keeps me from going crazy. After putting in over 9 hours telecommuting today, we took off at 2:30 (I start real early!) and did 7 miles. Love my Strava, as it keeps track of my walks...if I remember to start it. That's over 21 miles in the last 3 days. Sunday we did our longest walk, 8.5 miles. There is hardly anyone on the trail and it is easy to forget about a pandemic or noisy neighbors.

Funny thing is, if we continued on this way for another 140 miles we would be at our home in the Twisp. Problem is we would have to cross the North Cascades and the pass is closed (buried in snow) as it is each winter. They had started to clear the pass, but it was stopped because of the coronavirus. It takes anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to clear the way. The nearest open pass turns a 3 hour drive into a 5 hour drive.

Some pics of our walk from the last two days. There is a section where the trail is washed out and requiring a small fording. Adds a little excitement and amusement watching my wife cross.

IMG_20200406_154511005.jpg
IMG_20200405_104546539.jpg
IMG_20200406_144022710.jpg
IMG_20200405_105057520.jpg
 
Make fun of me all ya want
I live now in the worst area of infection in the world
I worry about my daughter and 2 of my friends daughters carrying babies inside them
I worry about the people who are passing and they were in better shape then me before they caught the virus


Minor things 2 weddings we had in April and one on June also will be cancelled
The stock market killing my next egg that I worked hard for
I can't see my children other than facetime
I have to yell from my house to my favorite neighbor because he is very high risk don't want to go near him and he stands behind his screen door


I am most likely the only person on the globe today that is building a seesaw for pvc lawn ornament birds
I really need this disaster to end soon
I'm about ready to order a wood carving beginners kit

The world is suffering horribly and it disturbs me

I have to choose each day now do I want to get a few hours in the shop or walk a mile with Elen
My knee can't handle both yet
We walk with Elens friend she needs to get out of her house each day so she walks in street 10 to 15 feet away from us
Everyone is afraid of infecting me


And I take this seriously
I've made sure Elen has all the passwords for all our investments and knows what to do in case

I hope all my buddies their lovely wives and children listen and stay home as much as possivle

I still intend on road trips when this passes and hope to visit with some members here and meet up with some old friends
 
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One more thing I'd like to mention not about virus
This morning I was cleaning up the tarps I hung to spray some cabinet doors
I dropped a blade I was cutting them down with and bent down to pick it up
The edge of a shelf caught my eye head on
It hit so hard my safety lenses popped out of my frame but my eye was safe

Stupid mistakes but safety glasses are so important
 
allen levine said:
... I still intend on road trips when this passes and hope to visit with some members here and meet up with some old friends
Click to expand...
Ditto for us!

We had two driving trips planned that are now on hold. We're booked on an 8-day cruise in February for our 25th anniversary, which should be well beyond this 'event'.
 
allen levine said:
I'm about ready to order a wood carving beginners kit

And I take this seriously
I've made sure Elen has all the passwords for all our investments and knows what to do in case
Click to expand...
Got a specific kit in mind?

And good idea. I keep all of the important ones shared with my wife in a password keeper, I share just what she needs since I have 1000's of passwords (different for every site). From time to time I ask her to login and check something for me. Of course she asks me for the login and I tell her to use her password keeper (mostly to make her remember her password for it).

allen levine said:
Stupid mistakes but safety glasses are so important
Click to expand...
Yeah, been extra careful working in the shop lately, last thing I want is to go to the ER.
 
Today's project... I'm hoping the bats will
leave my attic because it's too bright up there now and move to this bat house.

bat house 2.jpg
I also raked old leaves off about half of an area that I removed all the trees and brush from over the past couple of years, I think it's close to 1/4 of an acre and will end up being more lawn. It;s been a fun project, but I'm getting anxious to see grass out there,
 
Still working on the leaves. Almost done now. Yesterday and today I used my Jeep and utility trailer to move the leaves to the back of the property. Was working well, but was making huge ruts. Today I planted the trailer pretty deep in the mud and got the Jeep stuck. Used a Harbor Freight 2500 lb ATV winch, a piece of old plow cutting edge and miscellaneous wire rope and straps to get it unstuck. By then it was raining, which is supposed to continue or turn to snow for today and tomorrow, so I'll be back on inside projects now.stuck jeep 7.jpgstuck jeep 6.jpgstuck jeep.jpg
 
Kerry Burton said:
Thinking about making a "laptop battery conditioner" system. The idea is to leave my laptop plugged in, but allow its battery to charge / discharge to varying levels over time.

My plan is to write a Win32 program to collect battery stats every so often and send messages to a microcontroller circuit that will send RF signals to turn on/off the smart outlet that the laptop itself is plugged into.
Click to expand...


Last week I got the first prototype to work fairly well...

PrototypeHardware.jpg

Screenshot1.jpg





This week I tightened up the code, swapped out all the hardware except for the 433MHz transmitter, and assembled the circuitry into a tidy package:

FinalHardware1.jpg

FinalHardware2.jpg




The system is working great. I would like to come up with a "real" user interface, but that will take quite a while longer...

The materials cost was around $15, including the remote outlet and the 1-foot extension cord it's plugged into. Without those (re-usable!) items the cost was about $8. Comparing that to the cost of a new battery (for my laptop) of around $35 ... well, I haven't decided if it's "worth it" yet.

But ... besides (hopefully) allowing my laptop battery to last longer, I'm thinking that the setup might save an appreciable amount of electricity too. (The outlet stays off more than half the time that my laptop is running.) I'm currently using a Kill-A-Watt to run a series of 8-hour tests, to compare power usage with and without my "ChargeOn" module.

Stay tuned!
 
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