… heard on the radio this evening where the phrase was in a holiday commercial from Shane Co. Wish I could remember the entire script. LOL !!!
Category Archives: Personal
Deck repairs
For a while now we’ve noticed the deck has been sagging near the house. When you walk in that area there is a noticeable bounce and my best guess was the joists were no longer attached. So this weekend I pulled the decking in that area off and found my guess was correct. I’m no builder but where are the hangers on the header board ? Maybe that is optional depending on materials, size, etc …. not sure. None the less will need to add this to the weekend “to do” list before something bad happens.
Internet going down after hours of use
For the last month or so our internet connection has been going down after a few hours of use. The fix was to do away with the splitter between the cable modem and the TV. One might think a permanent solution is to replace the splitter or cables, but that didn’t prove to be the problem. If I didn’t need access for work a few hours of use might be good enough but with no internet when working from home means not getting anything done and messing with it every other day needed to stop.
I was frustrated enough at the beginning of the week I ran another line from the junction box in the garage to get away from splitting at a TV. There are three lines that run from it to various parts of the house and one of those runs is split a second time. If I didn’t run another line I’d always be splitting the signal again and that was the only piece I hadn’t replaced or taken out yet. I figured it wouldn’t be to difficult since the splitter in the junction box already had four outputs, one was empty, and I had a quality cable long enough for the 25ft run. I guessed it would take 20 minutes, it was more like 2 hours.
The delay was a first for me, stripped connection on the splitter after threading the cable leaving pieces of the male connection from the splitter still in the cable end.
- In other words thread a bolt onto a nut, cut the head off then drill a hole through the bolt (long ways) leaving it still threaded on the nut.
After about 15 minutes of trying to unthread what was left on the cable end I gave up. It was off to Home Depot to get a new splitter and cable end. The only problem with what I picked up was the cable end is to be crimped on and I don’t have a crimper…. needle nose pliers didn’t work either, but that could have been operator error. So I’ll have to replace that end at some point with a twist on. For now it is doing the job (I couldn’t get just one end as they come in packages of two or more).
I don’t know what changed to start this the cable modem was in the same place for months before, but none the less there has been no down time this week. The only draw back is it puts the router in the basement and I work two stories up. The signal is not bad but if I have to switch to VOIP, via Cisco’s Soft Phone, for work that might put a kink in things. So if your having problems keeping you connection up limit the number of splits between the junction box and the cable modem, it has worked for me.
Pics on the sidebar
Note the change to the side bar and link to the pics posted on Flickr, there is no more list of 10 below the tags. I don’t have all the albums created yet but that will come. Didn’t realize the widget offered that look until after making some changes I lost it on the side bar. After “paying attention” to the options, vs just fixing it, thought it’d be a nice change. Now we just have to keep the pics current !!
Heart Worms
About a week ago at the dog park I found some worms in Coopers’ stool. A trip to the vet the following day confirmed they were whip worms. While there they asked if I wanted to do a heart worm test, I couldn’t remember the last time Copper had one so I said “sure”. That test came back positive.
The vet started treatment that day and we’d be back to pick him up two days later. When picking Cooper up we took Roscoe along to have him tested as well, he came back positive too. Roscoes’ treatment was only half what Coopers was. Roscoe has a few challenges when it comes to “drugs” and temperature so we opted to do half now then go back for another round in four weeks. It has been an interesting the first week to say the least.
Cooper has been running a tempature, 103 this morning, so I had the vet check him and picked up some drugs in hopes it would get it under control. He hasn’t been eating very well so getting that back to normal is key. Roscoe on the other hand had a couple rough days but he’s back to his old go go go self. Unlike Cooper he’d prefer walks or the park to hanging out on the deck all day. They are opposites in many ways.
The coming weeks will be a challenge, balancing limited activity the medicine needs to kill off the heart worms but still keeping the boys from being restless. Time will tell and we’ll hope for the best.