Fun With Cardboard, Reynolds Wrap, and Packing Tape, and an EDC Question

 So The Little Guy and I built a house in the garage:

His Mom and Dad have the same chest freezer we bought, and they built a "house" for him to play in with it. I had cut-up the box ours came in to make it easier to store, and while we were out in the garage the other day playing with the bubble machine, he spotted the box and said he wanted to play "In My House". I thought he wanted to go play IN the house, but after realizing what we wanted, I grabbed my trusty packing tape gun, some extra cardboard from the "Chewy" boxes we have, and we proceeded to put his house together.

It's a nice little house, with a window:

 

And a comfy chair:

 

And even a wall-mount TV so he can watch "Paw Patrol":

And up on the roof, we have a Satellite, and a chimney for his pellet stove!

When he said he wanted a "Satellite!" on the roof, I think he meant a satellite dish for getting his "Paw Patrol" fix on his TV, but he said "satellite", so I made him one.

If you squint your eyes a bit, and put on some blue lenses, it kinda-sorta resembles a Hughes HS-376:

Maybe.......

Anyway, we had fun building his new house here, and I suspect he'll want some "improvements" in the near future.......

EDC Question:

All my training has been with a 1911 pistol. I can run it in the dark, and keep it running, and just about do a field-strip and clean in a black bag, and get it back together with no left over parts. I can smoothly transition from/to pistol, rifle, or shotgun, and prior to that tragic boating accident some time ago, I had two full-size Kimbers, a TLE-II, and a Custom Shop Eclipse. Also had a Sig P-226 in 40S&W, and the barrel to convert it to 357SIG. The magazines are the same.

BUT, a full-size 1911 is a bit hard to CC on me, unless I'm out camping or "off roading", so something "smaller" is desired.

Browning makes a sweet little "1911" in 380, and I'm sorely tempted, but I'd prefer something with a bit more muzzle energy.

I've never fired a "Compact" 1911, or even a "Colt Commander" sized one, so I'm hesitant to just jump on one of those.

Yes, I have a strong "1911 Bias" here, and I freely admit it. Perhaps a compact 1911 in 9mm?

What say you?

Shingles Vaccination Side Effects and Local Wildfires

 Well now that the email is back working (network problem; not my yob, mon!), and things are getting somewhat back to normal, I just thought I'd mention the reaction I had to my #2 dose of the Shingrix vaccine.

I got my #2 shot a day or two after I was "over" whatever 48-hour bug I had. It happened in the two-day window when I was starting to feel "OK", and SLW got clobbered with it. I was busy tending to her and doing the housework, so I only noticed a bit of discomfort from having the spike pounded in to my upper arm that gave me the Intramuscular Injection, just like shot #1 gave me. Eh, no biggie, just a little soreness.

So while she's in the throws of that nasty little bug and I've "Got the Con" trying to run the place, I didn't notice anything until about 24~36 hours after the shot. Hopped in the shower, and........what's this?

Had a big, red, swollen patch on my arm below where the injection site was. Called the people at urgent care, and asked if it was anything to be worried about, and they said to just watch it, and if it got much bigger, more swollen, and started causing a lot of pain to get back to them. If I started having ANY breathing problems, and/or broke out in hives, then I should go post haste to the ER.

Nothing happened, the swelling went away, and all is well again. I've had some reactions to other shots (the cholera one was the worst, IIRC), and had a pretty severe reaction to some of the meds I was on for a few days when I had the stents installed, so kinds BTDT.

In any case, the reaction I had to the #2 shot was minor, and FAR better than getting clipped with a Shingles outbreak, as some of you know all too well, which is why I got the two shots in the first place. I tend to take medical advice from my peers seriously.

And the Chambers Lake / Cameron Peak fire is up to about 5,500 acres, with ZERO per cent containment.

This is located about 40 miles due West of us, and the smoke is very noticeable, with some ash fallout. The ash is more like "dust", and it's enough to make you use the windshield washers to clean it off. I knew it was ash the first time I hit the squirters and saw the color of the mud that it made.

They have three helicopters doing drops, but it's too hot, too dry, and too dangerous to start hitting the fire directly. The crews are doing "Structure Protection" duty, and clearing paths and fire breaks.

And there's NO rain in the forecast until Tuesday, and then it's a "10% chance".

Gonna be a long, hot dry Summer and Fall, I fear, and I hope they can get a handle on this one. These guys are in the "Hero" category for going up against these fires as far as I'm concerned.

Verizon / AOL email Down

 I keep getting various "Gateway" error messages indicating "Bad Gateway", "Gateway Down", etc.

Not sure if it's on our (Comcast) side, or their side.

Oh, well.....

And now it's working again.....

More Neighborhood Changes Pending....

 The house at the end of our cul-de-sac is being sold. I received a listing for it in this morning's email, and the listing stated "Under Contract before Publishing", indicating nice houses in nice neighborhoods are still "hot" here in FoCo.

 

4br, 3ba, 3100sqft, 11,400sqft lot, and it sold for $475k. One across the street at the end of the cul-de-sac recently went for $550k, but it was bigger, and extremely nice inside, with a gorgeous yard.

I've received listings for what appear to be decent houses at decent prices here, and the house sits on the market for 30, 60, 90 days -or longer-, and then either drops off the MLS rolls, or goes up for rent.

Even though I've been watching the market here about 7 years, I'm still surprised when I see some properties languish, while others never really make it market, or sell in a week.

Of course, since we're no longer actively seeking a house, I haven't seen any of the properties that look "OK" in the listing, but fall apart when you open the front door and go inside, or get a close look at the exterior trim, windows, siding, roof, etc.

And whoo-boy, did we ever see a few of those when we were looking!

Still, it's good to see life go on, and I'm wondering who the new neighbors will be.

Fort Collins Residents Attack Antifa Thugs after Veteran In Wheelchair Assaulted

 Totally missed this yesterday, but thanks to extexanwannabee, now I know about it.

 

I usually have a scanner running, but unless it's a call to/from the Larimer County Sheriff, or the Colorado Highway Patrol, I won't hear it. Ft. Collins turned on the encryption for ALL police radios after a one-term Chief of Police thought it was a good idea.

Full article is here:

Antifa Beaten After They Allegedly Went After Man In Wheelchair: ‘You Guys Came To The Wrong City’

Holy Smokes.....What Hit Me?

No, not the truck, it's sitting in the driveway just fine.

 

Had a really bad night Wednesday, stayed in bed all day Thursday, and now it's Friday.

 

No fever, but plenty of chills, shakes, sweats, and going "projectile" at both the ends. Really made a mess in the bathroom, but SLW cleaned it up while I was sleeping.

 

Yeah, she's definitely a keeper!

So I don't think it's "The VIRUS!" because no fever, and I almost feel OK today, but a bit weak from no food for two days.

Been drinking water and Gatorade, and maybe (that's maybe) I'll have a slice of bread later.

I'm thinking more along the lines of "Food Poisoning", or maybe some "24-Hour Bug", but never had much belief in those.....

Back to bed. See you all tomorrow.

Bedliner and Tonneau Installation

The people at Colorado Bullhide called last night informing me they had a cancellation, and asked if I would be interested in bringing the truck in today to have the bedliner and tonneau installed.

YOU BETCHA'!

So I dragged myself out of the rack this morning at 0630, jumped in the shower, got dressed, and headed down to Windsor. I got there about 5 minutes after they opened at 0800, talked with the owner Dan a bit, and then they pulled the truck in the shop and got to work on it.

I was back on the road and headed home at 1230, pretty good service! I'd been corresponding with Dan over the last week with questions about it, and was satisfied that they knew what they were doing. He confirmed what I'd read on several pick-up truck forums, that the materials used were all very good, and the surface preparation is the most important thing, just like doing bodywork.

The three big suppliers are Rhino, Line-X, and Bullhide. Rhino and Bullhide are a bit softer than Line-X, and are easier to crawl around on without leaving scraped off skin on the liner, and also easier on your knees when you're in the cargo bed. Line-X has the reputation for holding up slightly better if you regularly haul thing like gravel, bricks, and concrete blocks, but it's a small difference. He also had samples of the various products, removed from junked trucks where he knew what materials were used. One interesting thing were the several sections of OEM (factory applied) bedliner. If you held the stuff up to the light, you could see pinholes and voids in it, indicating it hadn't been sprayed on very thick, resulting in it not being as durable as an aftermarket applied coating.

Here you can see the thickness:

They removed the access panel in the tailgate, sprayed it separately, and reinstalled it:

Sure is dark in there!

Even though it's cured enough to use, I'll wait until tomorrow to install these "Bullring" cargo tie downs:

The above picture shows them in the "stowed" position. When you need to secure something, the U-shaped ring pulls out and snaps into position:

Ant the tonneau cover is really nice. Very solid, and easy to latch/unlatch, and fold the sections up.

These are the two new LED light fixtures I installed. The "four tube" one is 6000 Lumens, and really lights up the engine compartment, and the "two tube" fixture over the bench provides extra fill-in light.

The orange extension cords run to the garage door openers, and no, I did not install them! The black hanging cord on the four-tube fixture *is* my responsibility, and I'll be extending it a few feet so it can be dressed-in properly and reach the new switch boxes I built a couple of weeks ago.

Later tonight I'll take some pix of the tires from the Jeep, and that %$^#^(! "Snow-Joe" electric snow blower so I can get them on nextdoor.com, and get rid of them, freeing up a bunch of space on SLW's side of the garage.

Katy Lied!

Well, "Katy" doesn't speak much, so I can't verify the truth of the post title.

I *know* I've lived where these little guys live, but I can't remember seeing any before....

For reference to the post title:

Man, this "new" Blogger interface SUCKS! Tried FOUR times to link the song from YouTube, and no dice.

Why do they have to screw with this stuff? It was working...LEAVE IT ALONE you morons......

And Down in the Basement....

We have some R/C stuff going on, or soon will be.

I FINALLY got the Pandora Celica XX clear body I ordered, along with some wheels that look "kinda-sorta" like the ones I have on Ms Swan.

Imagine this in white, without the crazy negative camber on the wheels, and not lowered so far.

Body still in box.

And the rims.

These were as close as I could get to the rims on my "1:1 Scale" out in the garage, and while they're not very much like the ones I have, they are "period correct", so they'll do.

These are what's on the "real" car now.

This will probably be a winter project, except for masking it and painting it, which has to be done in a WELL ventilated area, and by changing the body and wheels/tires on my little Trans Am car, I can run in a different class to get more "seat time". I'm typically a bit better than "middle-of-the-pack" when I'm racing the little car, which is about where I expected to be. These old eyes and reflexes can't keep up with The Kids, but I've surprised a few people with some of the moves I've done (pulled?) out on the track. Hey, one of the Rules of Racing is that if you see an opening, that will advance you, go for it!

And I've been really good at avoiding pile-ups, which happen occasionally.

Still tinkering on the "Speed Run" car, and should have that one ready to go back out in a week or so. Had some "issues" getting the correct "bullet connectors" for the power wiring, and had to modify the chassis a bit to fit the new speed controller. I was really hesitant to take it out and let it rip because the brakes on the speed controller I started with were soooo bad. Even going into the set-up menu and turning the braking force to the maximum (only 50%) didn't help much. The new controller is a high-end model from Castle Creations, about the best you can get (and Made In America!!), and has much, much more adjustability, up to 100%, which generally locks the wheels, so some experimentation is required.

And the new truck is very, very nice. Great ride, brakes, handling, good stereo, and so far (with 255 miles on it) we're averaging 20MPG, better than my Jeep which was doing about 15MPG. Our insurance went up a whopping Twenty-Eight dollars, which really surprised me, as I thought it would go up enough to maybe add another zero to that figure, but nope.

Meanwhile, Back IN The Garage......

We have stuff to finish my Supra front bumper!

This is the special primer, the Bumper Bite, and some more of the urethane repair material. This time I got it in the tubes, vs the syringe-type container. You get three times the amount of product, for 50% more in price. A much better deal.

And some plastic covers for the two window wells in the front of the house:

These should help with keeping leaves and other wind-blown trash out of the well, and hopefully will help mitigate some of the heat loss out of the two downstairs windows in the workshop, and maybe help with the drafts, too.


And I built a couple of switch-controlled outlet boxes for the new work lights I hung in the garage.

These will go on the wall behind the workbench, and control two the 48" LED fixtures I hung a week or so ago.

And Sweet Little Wife got new shoes for her little Hyundai, Pirelli Strada "All Season" tires. She also got a less-expensive 5th tire on a steel rim for her spare, as Hyundai did NOT give you any kind of spare tire at all. Just a little air compressor, a container of tire sealer goop to use with the compressor, and a can of Fix-A-Flat.

She was not happy when she found that out! Now I have to go online shopping for a suitable jack to stow in the trunk.

And since we traded-in the Jeep, I no longer have a need for my "summer tires", and as soon as I take a couple of more pix, SLW will put them on nextdoor.com, and out they go!

Plenty of tread left. They're not even half-way down to the tread wear indicator bars.

Now I can get back to this, and then put the front end back together, and DRIVE her....

My "Little Red Truck"

As promised (with mediocre photography), here she is.

When they named this color "Red Hot", they weren't kidding.

It's RED!  Like Fire Truck red, but redder.

Took it out today to run some errands, pick up stuff from Home Depot, and took a longer way home than I usually do.

It runs great, rides nice, has good power and great brakes, now has 220 miles on it, and I'm learning and customizing all the different screens on the "Infotainment" and Navigation systems.