analog_kidd

As a whitewater kayaker, I love it when it rains long and hard in the summer. It brings up the creeks and rivers. Although, I'm not sure this event is going to be quite enough. Probably will be great river levels on Monday, when I have to be at work.   Here's a song that is my kayaking mantra. Maybe it will pick up your spirits:   http://youtu.be/esEdC0c3YI4

I was really expecting to see an article written about "assault weapons", you know EBR's such as AR-15's, AK's, etc. I would not have been surprised to see an article about Hi-Cap pistols. I also thought it could have been about 3D printed guns. I could have respected an article about guns that may be poorly made and dangerous to the owner. Any of these topics at least had points that could have been argued why they are dangerous.   But, no. We find out the most dangerous guns are pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and (snicker) Derringers. So basically ALL guns are the most dangerous.   I submit that the five most dangerous tools of an idiot journalist are 1. Computer, 2. Typewriter, 3. Pen, 4. Pencil, 5. Crayon. 

One time, our dryer was taking forever to dry stuff, even though it was hot and spinning. We had maybe 15' of dryer hose running from the dryer to the flapper, all of it in the crawl space. I crawled back to the hose and noticed it was drooping in between the ties that fastened it to the floor joists. I felt them, and they were very heavy. I took a screwdriver and poked a small hole in one, and a couple gallons of water poured out. Not sure if it all came in from the flapper, or if it was moisture that built o\up over time. Regardless. the dryer worked much better after that.   I also replaced the hose, and noticed there was a ton of lint build up in the old hose.As mentioned above, you really need to keep them clean to avoid fires. And, teh longer the duct, the more lint build up you'll have. I know at my local Home Depot, they sell a brush with a long cable that you insert into the duct and attach to a drill, that will sweep it out. I think it only works if you have the solid sheet metal style ducts, not that flexible stuff made out of mylar.

My dad always says that the teen age years are God's way of helping to cut the cord, so you're ready for them to leave when they become an adult.

Looking at this link:    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_update/windows-update-failure-error-code-0x80070005/01b44c30-9ae1-4f10-b151-df1e610ee5df   It appears that you may not be the only one experiencing the problem. I found a few others too. This particular person discovered that it finally updated after waiting for a while.   Have you gone to the Control Panel / Windows Update and tried installing them one by one?   For grins, you might try this: Close all windows. Open My Computer. Right-click the C:\ drive and select Properties.Make sure you are on the General tab, and click on Disk Cleanup. From the window that pops up, click Clean up System Files. from teh next window that pops up, you can select a couple dozen options of junk to remove from your PC. Select anything you wnat, but be sure to select Windows Update Cleanup, and maybe Temporary files. When done checking boxes, click OK.   You might reboot once more, run that wuauclt /detectnow   command once more and see what happens.

You can also go to Start / Control Panel / Windows Updates and look there to see if any pending updates are waiting.

I'd reboot, then log back on and click the Start button. From the run box enter this: WUAUCLT /DETECTNOW       <enter>   That will force wi\\Windows to recheck for updates again. After a few minutes, look in the area over by the clock to see the Updates icon. Click on it and follow the prompts to install the updates. Hopefully the second time is the charm. Often an update fails because it depends on another update to be installed first. Hopefully those were installed in the first round last night.     Good luck

Is it just me or do they all look like they are 15 years old?

Just heard today that Pink Floyd will release "Endless River" in October. It's their first studio album since Division Bell 20 years ago. (Dang I feel old). It's supposed to be a continuation of some stuff they were working on during DB, but it's all new stuff. Of course Roger Waters will not be on it.   I wasn't a huge fan of Division Bell, but Floyd is my all-time favorite group. Just the thought of getting some new Pink Floyd material has me all excited. It may suck, but I don't care, it will be Floyd.   To me "The Wall" is a masterpiece that will never be topped. I could listen to that album on a continuous loop. I've listened to it thousands of times and still hear some new nuance in it somewhere.

There's an emotional aspect to renting your "home", as in a place you have raised kids, had Christmas at, etc. It's difficult to see someone else living there. We recently moved to a new home, and briefly thought about converting the old house to a rental. Neither my wife nor I could get past the idea of having to come to a repair and seeing someone else living in our home.   If it is an upscale home, with lots of nice stuff in it, then it's probably not going to be a good rental. Renters will not take as good of care as you did on the house. That pool that you took loving care of will be green and full of leaves. That beautifully landscaped showpiece backyard will be overgrown with weeds. They'll run the A/C at 60 degrees. They'll lose your garage remote. You get the idea.   Our rentals are very basic. They are comfortable, well maintained houses, but have no amenities outside of a dishwasher. I put a lot of blood and sweat into fixing them up, but at the end of the day, they are an investment and a way to make money. If a renter burned one down, I'd cash the insurance check and not shed a tear.

We have 2 rental properties, but they are right here in town, and we bought them to be rentals, so our situation is a bit different.   If I were in your situation and decided to rent it out, I think I would go with a management company. The renters won't even know you exist, they'll deal with the company. Of course the company will take probably 10% of your rent, plus you're still on the hook to pay for repairs.   If you're making $300 a month, I think I would put all of that into a savings account and get ready for a new roof / AC. Although 11 years old is not bad for a roof these days, and an 11 year old probably still has a few years left in it too. Keep in mind you can also deduct the repairs from your taxes.    Getting good renters is always the thing with rentals. We do all our own interviewing of potential renters, and my wife has a finely tuned BS detector behind her left ear, so we weed them out. We are very strict about no smokers or pets. I don't care if they have never once smoked in the house because their wife has emphysema, if they have even a hint of smoke odor on them, we won't consider them. Little Foofoo is the absolute best dog in the world and has never even laid on the carpet?. Glad you have a nice dog, see you later. To do that, I've left a house empty for a month while looking for the right renter, I'm willing to take that hit on income. Living far away from the property you may not have the luxury of personally interviewing each renter.   If you do rent it out, read up on "Depreciation of Basis". It's a tax thing, that you need to know about. Basically it's a break you get on your taxes every year, but then you pay capital gains on those breaks when you sell it. It's not terribly complicated, but the IRS expects you to claim it, and WILL charge you the capital gains when you sell it.   Good luck

Except for the vernacular, it sounds like that could have been written to our own government.   I'm ashamed to say, I can't recall ever reading the entire Declaration of Independence. I know I've read the first couple of paragraphs, but not the whole thing. Thanks for posting this!

Wait! So you're saying there's other forums out there besides TGO??

If you are going to test it, test it a couple of different times. Once during a dry spell, once after a lot of rain, and once on a typical day. We have ground water contamination where I live, and the neighbor had it tested several times. It only tests contaminated after a heavy rain. the neighbor thinks that the ground water flows from our place toward the contamination, but all the water backs up after a lot of rain.

Reminded me of the old Blonde Joke, where the blonde had TGIF written on her shoes. When asked about it, it was to remind her that "Toes Go In First"

I have one similar to the one on the left, and love it. Solar powered and atomic clock syncing. I've owned it for years and never have had to replace a battery or set the time. i replace the band every few years and never think about it otherwise. i wear it everywhere... kayaking, work, play.

we just watched "Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit" this week, and we couldn't recall any of the really bad swearing (GD or F-bombs) or sex scenes, and the movie was pretty good. We could just be desensitized to the swearing, but  I really don't think there was any in there. It just goes to prove that you don;'t have to have all that to make a good movie these days.   Seems like more often than not these days, we watch TV from the DVR with a finger on the fast forward button to skip over the sex scenes. remember the days when, IF they showed a couple in a bedroom, they had two layers of flannel jammies, she was wearing cold cream, and they slept in seperate beds.

Nobody's even mentioned the so called "disrupted customers". If they exist, and they actually did go complain to the manager about a 3 year old girl with facial scars. they need to occupy a special  place in hell. And soon!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash   Here's a story I just heard about for the first time, about a nuke carrying bomber that crashed in North Carolina in 1961. The bomb was one safety measure away from turning that part of the state into a wasteland. All other arming mechanisms had activated.

We moved twice in three months!    We lived in our previous house for 15 years, and had 15 years worth of treasure to move. We decided, after 25 years of dreaming of leaving the city, to go ahead and make that dream a reality. We put our house up for sale and it sold almost immediately. We could not find another house to buy before closing so we moved into a rental house that we own, and that had just gone vacant.   We found a house in the country that was perfect for us, and bought that. We now have 5 acres, and I can see one neighbor. Nothing but woods and hay fields all around. Best of all, my back yard is my new shooting range.

They probably named it after him because it wasn't a road that was needed, It cost three times what it should have to build, and the contract was given to a foreign company, who hired illegal immigrants. 

My son had a family of skunks living in his crawl space. He got a live trap and caught one. There is a TWRA officer stationed at his work, so he asked him if TWRA would come get it, and they said "no". My son asked if he could relocate it himself, and the officer said it was illegal to transport a live animal. My son asked what his options were, and the office said "Shoot it". Son said, I live in Oak Ridge and can't discharge a weapon. Officer said fill up a garbage can with water and drop the whole trap in it and drown the skunk.   :dropjaw:

I recently discovered a coon making nightly trips into my barn to steal chicken feed. There are several web sites describing simple DIY ways to make a trap.   The most common one is to take a trash can and fill it with enough water to make it have to stand on it's hind legs to breathe. Put the can next to a table, one that is taller than the can. Place a board on the table, overhanging the edge where the can is, and place the bait at the end of the board. When the coon tries to get the bait, he upsets the balance of the board and falls in. The water makes it so that he can't jump out.   The other one I saw a lot of was taking a piece of 1" PVC pipe, and place four nails through it, each on an angle. Cap the end the nails point toward, and tie the whole thing to a tree. Place the bait in the capped end. The coon will stick his paw in to get the bait, and get it stuck on the nails.   I've been looking at Tractor Supply, who has a pair of traps, one coon sized, and one squirrel sized, for around $35. I think that will be money well spent for me.

Two years ago, I found a place right along a road, that was loaded with blackberry bushes. Unfortunately, I got to them at the end of the season, and most of them were dried up. I kept my eye on them last year to make sure I got there in time. One weekend, I went and checked on them and determined that they would be perfectly ripe by the following Wednesday, which I happened to have the day off. There was an outstanding crop, and I could already taste the wine that I was going to make with them.   Wednesday comes, and I get all my gear together and head on over. As I rounded the corner, I was horrified to see that someone had bush-hogged the entire area! They couldn't wait one more week. They completely destroyed all the bushes and berries.

We all read that sign wrong. Go back and look at it again. He wasn't calling us D-Bags, he was signing his name.   :cool: