New Toy Or Headache??

Bought another 4wheeler this week. Didn't pay much, it hasn't been run in 8-9 years. It's probably never been under cover since it was new in '94.

New Toy or Headache??

When he said it had a plow I offered more than I had originally thought to give.

It will be under cover soon, I plan on putting it in the barn for the winter while we are SnowBirds. When we get back in the spring I'll work on getting it working. Right now I know it needs brake work and probably work on the front driveshaft. Hopefully it's only need U-joints. If it needs a yoke for the U-joint, then it'll get pricey!! The back tires are shot, but it came with replacements, all I have to do is get the old tires off and mount the others. I'm going to go see my neighbor and see if his tire machine will work on the ATV wheels.

When I told The Old Lady that I was considering buying it, she said that when I get it running we could both go riding with the two machines. I bought a used machine in working condition 5 years ago and have been using it around the place. Also used it to go icefishing a couple winters.

The machine I bought 5 years ago.

Now I think I'll head over to the neighbor's and see if he can change the tires on the rims.

I Think I Finally Got The Hang Of It??

Making sourdough bread that is. Last winter I created a sourdough starter from scratch. No yeast other than that which is in the flour and in the air. I've tried several times to bake bread with the starter with varying results.

This was my first attempt and it came out OK, a little overbaked and burnt on the bottom. Then I tried baking the bread in a breadpan and less time. Those turned out to be underdone and doughy in the middle. The Old Lady compared some to a brick!!

This is my latest attempt. I made these the other day. Figured out I was rushing things. I didn't allow enough time for it to proof and rise. These loaves took almost 24 hours total from start to finish. I started the proofing the night before and 12 hours later started mixing the dough. Then 2-3 hours to rise, a couple more hours to rise again, and finally a couple hours to rise in the pans. They finally came out of the oven in the evening.

Before I made these loaves I shared my starter with The Oldest Daughter who is a cook. She took it to work and everyone there was excited about it. Haven't heard yet if they have baked anything with it or how it turned out.

Scrubbing Bubbles??

The flash really highlighted how beat up the table is!!
This is actually a brush with a soap dispenser. It said it works best with Dawn detergent because that's who makes it.

When I took this out of the package and set it down it reminded me of the scrubbing bubbles in the TV commercial.  But this post is not about scrubbing bubbles, but about a power scrubber.

When I bought this I wasn't sure how hard it would be to just get the brush part. Turned out all I had to do was twist it a little and it came apart. The screw and washer and nut is so I can attach the brush to my drill.

And here is my power scrubber. After I put it together I used it to get rid of the soap scum in the bathtub. It looked so clean The Old Lady took a bubble bath in the evening!!

It's Still Fucking Magic

I thought putting a new battery in the wireless mouse fixed the internet problem, I was WRONG!! Tonight while trying to watch a show on NetFlix we got the "internet connectivity problem" message again when the picture froze and it started buffering. I pulled the dongle for the wireless mouse and refreshed. We were able to watch a few more minutes of the show then it froze again. Tomorrow I get to call tech support at the phone company again. Whatever it is, it is worse in the evening from 8:30 to 9:00. It's like the internet feed stops completely. It's about an hour after it screwed up and we seem to have service, but I haven't tried streaming anything, just checked emails and now doing a blog post.

The battery in the mouse was weak, but it hadn't started acting up like it usually does when it goes dead, the mouse was still working.

Electronics Are FM, FUCKING MAGIC!!

Recently we've been having problems streaming stuff on NetFlix and other sites.  With Netflix it seemed like we could watch most of a show and then it would freeze with about 5 minutes left to go!! We spent the better part of a week trying to watch an episode of Inspector Lewis on PBS. It would play for awhile and then freeze and start to buffer. We tried various things to get it to stream, would pause it, sometimes we would back it up a minute or so in the hopes that it would continue. Usually it would play up to the point where it froze and freeze again. In trying for 4 nights we managed to get about half way thru the episode.

Occasionally we would get a pop-up saying "Internet connectivity problem." I called tech support at the phone company that provides the Internet. The guy had me hook up the laptop directly to the DSL modem and it still had the problem. Could hear the audio stopping and starting as I tried to play a video. That eliminated the router as the problem. Was wondering if it might be the laptop as it is 6 years since I bought it and it was a refurbished one at that. Borrowed another computer and it worked fine. Tried the laptop again in case the phone company had fixed the problem. Laptop still wasn't working right.

Then I thought maybe the dongle plugged into one of the USB ports might have something to do with the problem. Unplugged it and it seemed to play normally. Then The Old Lady said, "I wonder if the battery is going dead in the wireless mouse?" The wireless mouse is what the dongle is for. Anywho, I replaced the battery in the mouse and plugged the dongle back in while the laptop was playing the episode we had so much trouble trying to watch. It continued to play normally and last night we watched several things on NetFlix with no problem.

What I can't figure out is how the hell a weak battery in a wireless mouse could affect the streaming of stuff from the intratubes??? Like I said in the title of this post, "ELECTRONICS ARE FM, FUCKING MAGIC!!!