Prepare for the future!

It is coming to life, and will run around digging up rocks on its own soon! JK. But I absolutely LOVE what you have created around that place, you do an Awesome job!







That little 'Cavator sure does a lot of tough chores around there! Some of those rocks and stumps you move around with it look heavy enough to break the boom on it, lol.





Many times over from what I've seen!







Yes, Mirocu makes his own permanent-type housings for his equipment; and does an extremely professional job of it! I saw both that "tent" and shed go up picture by picture on this thread - it was Awesome to see it from start to finish!









What an Awesome job you did (once again!)

Oh, yeah. That li'l excavator has proved its worth many times over. Without it we couldn't have done anything ourselves since basically all our projects have required the removal of rocks and tree stumps. Sure, we needed full-size machines too in the beginning and even then the operators told us they hadn't seen anything like it.

I said back in 2014 when I got it that I'll keep it for as long as I need it and then I'll sell it. That day is still nowhere near in sight


And tbh, I think by now I would have a very hard time getting rid of it

If it served you so well, it deserves a place in your home permanently; not tossed aside because you run out of work for it! There is always neighbors yards that need work, lol. (Howdy, neighbor?) BWAAHAA!

By now I think that running out of work for it is more fantasy than Tolkien

Ugh.


Just dug down a pretty big tree stump with a rock attached to it. Very hard to get it loose but I finally managed. Now I'm yet again in the process of filling the hole with rocks, as big and as many as I can, before finishing off with dirt. This area is the most difficult one so I'm glad it didn't take longer than a couple of days, to get to this stage at least.

As I will be otherwise occupied from here on out I better do as much as I can while I can

Gee, I hope your new job pays you to dig big holes then fill them back in.

If only, if only

As it is I will have to work about three weeks for free before I get full pay. Outright moronic but them's the laws, they can do that. I will still get the pay I have now though, and gas money from the agency. Would still prefer full pay..

But it does look like they are going to hire me and then I will have a steady job for at least two or three years, unless it simply doesn't work out.

Work... for free?!!! What the hell kind of BS is that?

Current law BS. They say it's so that companies would be more willing to try people out who can then be hired but all it really achieves is people getting used as free labour and as someone who's actively seeking job and has been off work for so long I don't have any choice or say in this.

They could make it cheaper for companies to hire instead but nope, free labour it is. At least I won't lose too much on it since I get most gas payed for. But still --->

Politicians come up with the stupidest things.

So what keeps them from simply using people for the free labor period, letting them go, and moving into the next poor soul?

Regulations. They can't do it forever, at least not via the agency. However, they can do it as much as they like if there's a school nearby from which they can take student after student after student. They did that where I worked in 2014.

After overlong procrastination, this being Windows Vista's "end of life" day, I bit the bullet and bought a copy of Windows 10 Home at BestBuy. I've spent hours getting the darn thing installed, with little to show other than finally getting Firefox up and running with all my old bookmarks and must add-ons in place. Also got the one game my brother likes to play every time he visits linked to the desktop with an icon. (It's such I simple title it did not need to be installed again. The old install works fine. (Note that I did a "clean" install of Win10, an upgrade from Vista not being an option.) Right now Win10 is busy updating itself, choking my bandwidth in the process. Loading even these simple pages can take a while. (I'm on my beloved Win7 computer.)

Win 10 is gonna be a pain in the rump to configure. So many useless figure than bog things done and in a number of cases invade privacy. Gonna have to research how to best get rid of 'em. I swear I once read about a freeware program that specialized in easily tweaking all or most of those settling. Can't find it now for the life of me. Course with Win10 tying up the net searches are a bit of a struggle. It'll hopefully get easier once the new OS is fully up to date.

In the meantime, here's the first helpful advice I've found on taming Windows 10. Not a lot here, but every little bit helps.

If you prefer the Win 7 look, you may want to use Classic Shell and configure the UI that way. You can go even more retro with it if you want, but 7 seemed to me to have got it about right.

Aye, it's on my must-have list. I'm gonna hold off until I've got the basics down.

Nice thing about installing Win10 the day I did is that I was updated to Creators Edition first thing. RIght now I'm in the process of installing Avast Antivirus (free version) which has been my preference for years. Gonna add Malwarebytes anti-malware free too. I'm very glad to see that FreeCommander file manager (free) works with Win10. Once the pains are set up right it's hands down my favorite file manager. I'd hate to be without it.

Bloody 'ell, I'm hemorrhaging green this month. Worse, much of it has gone toward unwanted and/or unexpected purchases. It started with my unplanned but needed purchase of a replacement Oral-B electric toothbrush. There is of course my recent acquisition of Windows 10, planned but most definitely unwanted. Then this past Saturday evening I was sitting in front of the computer when the seat back attachment piece of my desk chair broke. I've owned that chair more years than I can recall. It was a cheap piece of excrement when new, and hadn't aged well. What little padding the seat had disintegrated long ago. I've gotten by placing a pillow atop it, along with another pillow cushioning the seat back. The break up an end to that.

This morning, on the way home from getting a CT at the clinic I frequent all too often, I stopped at Office Max to check out their selection of office chairs. I had a firm $90 limit, and hoped to pay less. When all was said and done I spent DOUBLE my limit of the bloody thing. But out of all the chairs they carried it was the one that seems most comfortable in the style I wanted, mid-height seat back and no arms. (High-back seats tend to bother my neck.) Actually, the chair has arms that swivel up out of the way, making for a best of both worlds situation.

Wouldn't ya know it? On the way to the checkout register I spotted a very good sale on a Logitech cordless ergonomic keyboard/mouse combo. I've been dissatisfied with the keyboard used with my secondary (Win10) computer from the start. Its mouse page-back side button is beginning to misbehave. How could I resist?

The month's not even half over and I've roughly $45 left in my "spending money" budget to see me through to May. (I've a decent slush fund to see me through emergencies so am in no real peril.)

Khajiit hates it when things start stacking up to which you have devote funds to that you'd rather spend on fun stuff.

I think I may have overdone the cleanup in Windows 10, based on the link in Decrepit's post. Now Edge launches, but never opens a window. I think I managed to ban all "apps" from my desktop, as all regular ol' windows executables work. I'd install Firefox, but I need to launch Edge to download it.

Not a big loss, as I hardly ever use that machine, just annoying, and now I have to fix it.

Yipes! This taming Win10 business is proving tricky and fraught with potential pitfalls. One major problem, as I've discovered over and over again, is that MS seems to change where and/or how Windows controls its various functions with each major "update" if not more often. What worked in the initial Win10 release might not work in the Anniversary Update. What worked in the Anniversary update might not work in the Creators Update. And so on. Also, to my horror I've found that a good many fixes that work in Win10 Professional Edition simply aren't available to Win10 Home users. Or if they are it takes a good deal of hacking rather than simply switch on / off a setting's controls. Lessened learned...if and when I shell out for Win10 for my primary computer (or assemble another machine) I'll bite the bullet and spend extra bucks for Professional.

While ago I attempted to disable Win10's habit of automatically re-downloading and installing programs I do not want. Only, the Win10 Registry section where that's supposedly controlled simply doesn't exist.

I've not done an awful lot more tinkering with Win10 yet. Replaced Defender with Avast Free just this morning. If I was the only one using the secondary computer I might have left Defender alone...or not. On a positive note, I was surprised to find that Creative has Win10 versions of my Headset's control panel. Old as that headset is I expected I'd have to settle for the stock MS supplied driver and do without a lot of features I'm used to. On the other hand, Installing my printer's driver on Win Vista and 7 was/is simple. Not so with Win10. I've not yet figured it out.

A bit more success taming Win10. Found another web article, this one on disabling Win10 ads, that for once is fairly up to date. (It includes details for the Apr 2017 Creators Update, despite being dated Sep 2016.) Implemented many of its suggestions. None caused unpleasant surprises...yet. Following advice elsewhere, I created a Registry Key to transform the Cortana question bar into a simple Windows Search bar. (Yes, I backed up the Registry first, just in case.) Wanted to select when I'd allow Win10 to automatically reboot itself following updates. Sadly, its control is grayed out for me. On a VERY simple note, I removed File Explorer from the Task Bar. Can't stand the thing. I pinned my beloved FreeCommander in its place. Explorer is still available via Start Menu those extremely few times I need it.

Speaking of FreeCommander, here's an image of it in action, configured as I like it.

As is obvious, I have it set to dual pains in horizontal mode. Each pain is subdivided so that the right-hand side shows the contents of whatever is highlighted on the left. (The lower pain is a portion of my BAIN Installers workproject directory.) Makes directory/file management a breeze. For those interested, here's the program's download page. For the version I prefer, do NOT DL the XE versions. Instead drop down and get the "Old Version" 2009.02b. Reason? I've never been able to configure XE to what you see in my image. Not saying it can't (or can) be done, just that I figure it out. In any case its file is "safe", I've DL'd and installed it a number of times over the years, as recently as a few days ago for my new Win10 install. It (2009.02b, not XE) has a few limitations as what can go in right-click menus. Only on rare occasions have a found that a hindrance, solved by launching File Explorer.

Holy Crap, this is exactly why I don't like getting the new OS's when they come out! WTFH !!!!

Not much to report on the Win10 front. Got to feeling poorly (more so than usual) by mid-day yesterday so didn't do much additional tinkering. Got Minecraft up and running, though I doubt I'll ever play on that machine. Too slow, even without hi-res texture packs. Am trying out Adblocker Ultimate rather than my old standard Adblock Plus. (Too bad there's not an Adblock Plus for Win10 in its entirety rather than just Firefox and some other browsers.) So far they both seem to block the same amount of ads. Neither has one feature I'd appreciate, the ability to allow ads on selective individual YouTube channels I don't mind supporting. (ABPlus looks as if it can unblock individual videos (rather than channels), but my attempts using the "feature" didn't pan out.)

Project Clear-up-area-by-the-tent is finished!


Well, as finished as it can be for now. As with most things I can keep working on it forever but it's all done and ready to be used now. Just being able to park a vehicle out of the way there is nice, and if someone wants to donate an insulated workshop we now have a place to put it!

Khajiit is filling out forms for the Imperial tax collectors. Ugggh.

Which Imperial tax collectors would that be? I mean if you don't pay up do they send Legion soldiers after you or Stormtroopers?

Lol, Legion. They say "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!!"

Looks like I'll be involved in a couple of projects for my brother.

The certain: My brother's Birth Certificate can't be found. He has some weird looking Hospital Certificate that doesn't count for official purposes. Since he doesn't have internet, and our birth state isn't where we now live, I'll be researching and ordering a new Certificate online. This will hopeful be easy. I'll do it some Sunday he's here visiting (so I can readily get any needed vital statistics). No great rush on this one, so far as I know.

A maybe: My brother complained that his AC wasn't adequately cooling his home unless he set its temp control to "0". This, he says, cools the house, but the fan is constantly on (though set to AUTO). I looked at it today on the way back from a medical appointment. As I pretty knew, the fan is almost certainly constantly on because the cooling unit itself is. Looking at the outside unit, I notice a good bit of white foam at the junction of the big black tube and the unit itself. Also, there is more wetness on the concrete pad beneath the unit than seems normal to me. Where I might come in is that, being a working man, my bro might not be available when the repairman is. I'll house-sit for him if that's the case. Somewhat complicating matters, I have medical commitments this week. If I'm indeed needed, the repairmen will need to contact me beforehand and work out a time I available to be there.

As to my secondary computer's new Win10 install, I've not monkeyed with it since before my bro's visit this past Sunday. One good thing, it looks like my modifications somewhat reduce internet activity, especially while the Win10 PC is "off". Still getting a bit more of it that I was before the OS "upgrade," or so it seems to me, but every little bit helps.

Read the results of my recent Chest CT online this morning. Pretty much same old same old except this: "There is a new 7mm groundglass focus in the superior segment right lower lobe, likely inflammatory/infectious." Later on it says, "New groundglass nodule superior segment right lower lobe likely acute infectious/inflammatory component. However, this can be reevaluated at short follow-up." During this afternoon's Pulmonary visit the doc said that at this time the new nodule is nothing to worry about, and that such things are expected to occur with my chronic condition. He further stated that while my affliction is obviously not a good thing I seem to be doing about as well as can be hoped for "under the circumstances." He's not overly concerned with my current state of chest/lung health unless some of my symptoms worsen.

I had to order a new birth certificate a few years ago. Like you, I live in a different state as well. But thankfully it was easy enough to do over the internet.

Hopefully your nodule will improve!

I may have forgotten to mention that, while configuring Win10 on my secondary PC, I switched Firefox's default search engine on BOTH computers from Google to DuckDuckGo, which claims to not track users and protect search history even from themselves. Its lack of providing dates for result entries can be annoying for certain searches, but with snooping becoming more and more the norm I feel it's an acceptable trade-off. Besides, I can temporarily switch to Google when dated results are essential.


I found a site called VitalChek that should suffice for ordering birth certificates. The lady I spoke with at the local DL issuing office affirmed that it's a legit operation.

Sounds like you've been born again, SubRosa. How does it feel to be a youngster?

Finally done ramrodding my brother's AC "repair". Leastwise I hope I am. In the end, it was much ado about nothing. Seems the AC thermostat mysteriously set itself to "0". (My brother swears he had nothing to do with it.) This caused the outside unit to overstress itself and eventually freeze up. Leaving the AC off several days eventually returned it to normal. So far as we can tell, no harm done other than an $83 repair bill.

No progress on my planned computer assembly, other than change case-of-choice from the Corsair r400 to a Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX full tower. It's not my ideal case...those are beyond my budget. It seems a very good case for the money, and is a bit more up-to-date feature wise than the Corsair.

Oh yeah. I'm doing more shredding of no-longer-needed documents for my bro.

Bloody 'ell! What have a gotten myself into?

While perusing *COUGH* ever-glorious *COUGH* Bethesda.net I noticed that our own Renee Gade has began a new thread dedicated to Oblivion character fact-sheets. Being for all intents and purposes new there (though I signed up early on) I decided to take the plunge. My original plan was to copy-and-paste a similar fact-sheet remember filling out elsewhere. I thought it was here. If so, I've yet to find it. Nor do I see such a thread in the now defunct old official forums. Admittedly, I don't have the heart to delve too deeply there.

That being the case, I pasted Renee's template into LibreOffice Writer and went to work. I intended to keep it as short and simply, with a few "corny" responses thrown in for good measure. Then I got to thinking how I have never divulged much of my avatar's pre-Crisis history. What little I have revealed was, for the most part, posted years ago, likely forgotten by all and sundry (of the zero who care).

I began padding my responses to include some of this info. To keep it simple, the darn thing has grown to over six letter-size pages of text. Its end is not yet in sight. Fortunately, the bulk of my text will NOT extend beyond my avatar's meeting with Uriel Septim VII on the eve of Crisis. Before too much longer I will enter those years he has largely remained silent about. What little I know consists of generalities and few details. Still, the final result as apt to be a monstrosity, considering my pathetic writing skills (or lack thereof).

Been working on it off and on all day. Hope to finish the first draft ere bedtime, at most some time tomorrow.

If I decide to post the entire debacle, I might not, prepare for boredom, or at best unintended hilarity. My avatar's pre-Crisis existence is NOT the stuff bards wet their harp strings over.

You have been warned.

Wow, Decrepit! I encourage you to linger with your avatar's background and do not constrain its volume.

Once you and he are satisfied, you might consider opening a thread in fan fiction for the sole purpose of sharing it. The secret there is serving up bite-sized installments (~1000-1500 words) and doing so no frequently than once a week until complete. That is the best way to avoid intimidating readers with too much/too fast when you have something lengthy to share.

Do not be concerned about any precepts of 'story' or conventions of fiction. Simply share it with your friends here. We will come. We will read. We will enjoy.

Khajiit agrees with Acadian, if you do it in installments it's like the old pulp fiction serials they used to sell at news stands = fun to read!


Meanwhile, in Khajiit's world...
This one is gearing up for another go at brewing hard apple cider. Khajiit received good XP from his last attempt so he's optimistic about his new attempt. Wish us luck!

I added a brief outline of Clark, and bold went missing on most lines, and the line breaks were bad, so I tried to edit it. Any corrections are being rejected as spam!

That editor really needs taking out behind the barn, and shooting - slowly.

I intended to add link to his story, but that may never happen.

*wishes luck*



And I do hope Khajiits sends me a batch to sample...

Well if it's good this one might would send you some. Khajiit wonders what are the rules for sending something like that overseas.

After a day, it let me make some of the changes, but I'm not pushing my luck. I think the Akismet filter sees the almost-identical repost as an attempt to post the same thing repeatedly and treats it as spam. I linked to Clark's narrative on my own site, instead of here, as it has it without comments, making it easier for a first-time reader. I must make sure it's easy to find here from there.

It still boggles my mind how scrolling something off the visible area in the editor loses the formatting. So most of the lines still don't have the bold labels, to separate them from the associated text.

Decrepit, when you paste yours in, beware of hard line breaks in the source. Doing it from and rtf or doc file will probably be ok, as those don't have so many.

Today's Projects:

Drop off monthly utility payment at City Hall:
Left the house. Drove as far as the end of my street. Realized I have let my utility payment on the stand next to the living doorway. Returned home. Grabbed payment. Left home. Drove as far as the intersection near the "old" City Hall building. Realized I had forgot to drop off utility payment. Returned to "new" City Hall, which is no more than a block and a half or so from home. Dropped off payment. Done!

Buy new GFCI electric receptacle:
Drove from City Hall to Home Depot. Bought receptacle following much solicited advice from helpful associate. Remembered to show ID for a 10% military discount. Done!

Buy Groceries:
Drove from Home Depot to Walmart. Bought groceries for the week...$28.xx...about my lowest weekly food bill ever. Also bought a small box of envelops and a bottle of White Out. Done!

Put away Groceries:
Drove from Walmart to home. Put away groceries. Done!

Install new GFCI electric receptacle:
Following lunch I removed ancient gone-bad receptacle and installed new receptacle in its place. Was very apprehensive, never having installed GFCI before. Thought I'd screwed up when outlet didn't seem to work. Reread instruction. Noticed that receptacle came tripped by default. Pressed the appropriate button. VOILA, working receptacle. Done!

Balance Checking/Savings accounts with newly arrived Bank Statements:
Did so. Done!

----------------------------------------------------

Between our recent stormy night, computer snafu (thankfully temporary), my brother's Sunday visit, and GFCI receptacle replacement, I've not touched my recently begun avatar historic documentation project. Not really in the mood any more. Maybe I'll get enthusiast again after some R&R?????

Not much of a project, but I just scrambled to put a few things on the curb for our town's yearly Clean Sweep trash pickup day, when they'll take stuff not normally allowed. I almost missed doing so, not for my normal excuse of being forgetful, but because there is an error in the announcement flier. It lists the event as being between 5 and 7 May. That's what I planned for. Then while ago I noticed that, according the flier, the 5th is a Tuesday, the 7th Thursday. That can't be right. Event details further down the page tie Clean Sweep Day with our normal weekly trash pickups. For me that's today, Thursday the 4th.

As mentioned I had little to curb... the recently broken old computer desk chair, the paper shredder that went bad a few months ago, two ancient piece-of-crap ultra-cheap weed-eaters that haven't worked worth a darn in years. Had I been on the ball I might have curbed an old Athlon based computer that is too slow to run anything at all these days. Thing is, I believe it still houses a copy of Ami-Pro, my word-processor of choice for many years. Several important early medical reports are written in Ami-Pro's .sam format. I never bothered to convert 'em to other formats. Modern word-processors no longer recognize .sam. (I recently read of one that claims to, but it's not free.) What I need to do is get that old computer up and running again just long enough to launch Ami-Pro, load those old docs, and convert 'em to something LibreOffice understands. The old computer can then be trashed. Talk is cheap of course. I'll likely do nothing unless the need for those med records becomes dire.

Thursday afternoon addendum: A mini project of sorts. Just emailed my two Washington representatives to urge them to vote against a certain proposed piece of legislation up for vote in the immediate future. I normally don't see eye to eye with these fine gentlemen, but to my surprise and delight at least one of them, maybe both, did not support it when last is reared its ugly head.

Am being to wonder if I guessed wrong on the special trash pickup date/day error. Regular trash HAS been picked up. The special stuff still sits at curbside. It's getting a bit late in the day for them to swing by and grab it. We shall see, I reckon.

Hard apple cider round 2 is underway!

*drools*

Khajiit wouldn't want to drink what's in that jug right now, lol

Forgot to mention that I recently ordered an Nvidia GTX1070, this being the exact make and model. It will eventually go in my proposed new PC build. I'll more than likely use it with my current primary PC until then. (Just downloaded its most recent Win7 64bit drivers.) It'll be bottlenecked in my current rig, but should net me a few extra FPS, hopefully more. Yeah, a 1080 or 1080ti would be even nicer. But I have to be realistic. Besides, I have no plans to move beyond a 1080p monitor for the foreseeable future.

Well that one should still be a nice addition. What CPU are you thinking about getting?

Intel i7 7700k. I might or might not overclock at some point, but want the potential just in case.

Oooh nice!

My GTX 1070 arrived during lunch. Installation went smoothly except for one minor unforeseen snag. After removing GTX 670 graphics drivers, powering down the system, and removing the 670, I physically installed the 1070. My Corsair full tower case features screwless PCIe card securing, which normally works like a charm. Not this time. The 1070s housing is too close to case rear. The PCIe securing devices couldn't snap into place. (NOTE: I do NOT refer to the PCIe Slot securing mechanism.) Thankfully Corsair provides normal screw holes for this scenario. I dug two screws out of my accessory bag and, after several failed attempts due to very tight clearances, secured the card. It was smooth sailing from then on. (Had the card been only a bit bigger it might well have interfered with my side-panel exhaust fan.) Once the computer booted into Windows I installed the latest Nvidia drivers, configured 3D settings via Nvidia control panel, and launched Oblivion.

The game successfully loaded. I noticed no anomalies during its brief run. I intended to get in a decent length session. It was not to be, but not due to the graphic card switch or any other technical issue. My avatar and Vil exited Anvil and untethered their mounts when an Arrow-Proof Assassin came barrelling down the road toward them. No big deal. Those fellows are about as inept as assassins can be. Indeed, this fellow went down fast. However, the short fight triggered one of the immersion breaking donnybrooks where everyone close by begins annihilating each other. I won't put up with that sort of nonsense so exited the game.

ADDENDUM: I returned to Cyrodiil to observe the gang travel from Anvil to Chorrol and replenish their Sales Shoppe coffers. I am happy to report that my Black-Screen issue seems resolved, nor did the graphics card swap cause instability or obvious visual anomalies. I noticed no vast FPS improvement, though camera movement might be a tad smoother. I wasn't expecting more than a minor improvement, my CPU and SATA controller chip being my chief bottlenecks, even with the GTX670. The GTX1070 should come into its own once I transfer it to a more up-to-date PC, which if fate is kind I hope to assemble before too many months pass by.

ADDENDUM 2: DL'd the latest free version of Unigine Heaven GPU demo/benchmark. Thing about this one is that it supposedly relies solely on the graphics card so that my CPU doesn't slow things down. Holy crap. Though minimum FPS was 25.? and I did noting very occasional minor stutter, average FPS was darn good (sorry, I forgot what it is) and maximum FPS was reached just over 300! Big improvement over my GTX670. I might have to fire up ARK: Survival Evolved sometime these next several days and see if I can crank up its settings. Too bad Oblivion is darn CPU centric.