Good morning

[meanstreak]

Good morning all.
John, glad you and family are on the road to recovery. I reckon this is one of those things that is going to be around forever now, just like colds, flu, and other assorted viruses. I have been fortunate I think in that I have not gotten it. I am vaccinated and boosted, have always had a good immune system, and quite frankly lucky. so far anyways.

To the rest of you scoundrels, have a great day.

 

[John A.]

Thank you very much buddy. We're doing better. Little bit every day. Maybe eventually we'll be back to our normal selves. Seems that it is a slow road to get back to how you felt before. But, every day shows some improvement.

I was sick, but mine was mostly mild. More like a head cold and some chilling from having a low grade temp. It didn't even shut me down and I still kept the house going. My wife however, ended up with pnuemonia and couldn't keep her oxygen levels up, which was bad. She seemed to have the worst of it. Tomorrow makes 2 weeks since she started showing symptoms and she said she still barely has the energy to walk up the front porch steps.

It seems to have affected each of us differently. Completely weird.

 

[MikeD]

I have either avoided it or had it asymptomatic.

I've not played it safe based on CDC protocal outside of my workplace. One thing I have done is be religious with suppliments. I haven't even had a cold or serious allergy issues in over two years, Which is unheard of for me.

Or maybe I've just been lucky.

 

[John A.]

I don't believe that anyone could have it and not know it.

Nope. That's a false positive test result. If you had it, you'd know it.

I hadn't been sick either.

Until I was.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

The weather here has been traditionally August hot meaning in the mid to high 100s.

I’ve been riding the bicycle every morning and I did 10 miles yesterday around Clovis.

I’ve also been working on it daily, trying to finish everything in time for a bicycle contest that ends in September.

 

[CaddmannQ]

I thought I posted this picture here, already, of the new shifter I am building. I guess I am getting preoccupied . . . Alzheimer’s . . . one of those.






@John A.
I have been keeping my fingers crossed and staying out of public places but sometimes you just need to go for parts. And well yeah food and gas. Otherwise I’ve been pretty much hunkering down waiting for everybody else to get sick and recover.

In the meantime I’ve been sick on occasion, mostly due to digestive issues, but I haven’t had anything presenting a persistent cough or a persistent fever, or congestion and stuffiness that last longer than half a day.

All that stuff I just attribute to allergies like hay fever.
But who knows maybe I caught the 12 hour Covid?

Does anybody remember the jokes about People skipping work with the 24 hour Ebola?

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning to all of yous. Monday and Tuesday we were 102 and 105, yesterday the high was 74, and we got about a tenth of an inch of rain. That was a nice change of pace. High 80s to low 90s now seem to be the order of the day.

Personally, I don't mind 80 at 6am, but that's just me.

You all have a great day.

 

[John A.]

Yeah, I can deal with heat a lot better than I do cold.

When it gets cold, my old joints and bones get stiff, hard to move and just plain hurts.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Yeah, I can deal with heat a lot better than I do cold.

When it gets cold, my old joints and bones get stiff, hard to move and just plain hurts.

That’s why I live in the desert. Now I just wish I could get my wife to turn the air conditioner down. It’s ridiculous that I have to sleep with blankets in the summer in the desert.

Here’s a photograph of the Greenbelt that leads to the Blossom Trail. This runs just south of us. The Green belt runs on three sides of our neighborhood.


The belt on the fourth side doesn’t start till the next block, but it leads to the newest park in this part of town.




Deputy Festus still stands guard outside the bank. (EECU)


The new shifter works OK after I made a leaf spring tensioner.
The flat spring wire came from a windshield wiper.



It works but it’s not pretty. I may do something else with it.

The weather here is perfect this morning as per usual, although we did get a little bit of rain the other day just as I was putting up a new awning over the boat yard.

I’m gonna go out and get in another ride, so you guys have a lovely day.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

It’s a beautiful day in California if you don’t read the newspaper, and they quit delivering on Saturday.

Today, I am still customizing the bike, and then I have to go move my sister in-laws furniture.

I found a set of Dungeons and Dragons dice, that evidently belonged to a former son-in-law. I have five of those now.

Ex son-in-law’s that is.
There were a dozen dice.

Anyhow I thought these would make nice bicycle ornaments & I want to turn them into valve stem caps.

That’s a weird photo and not just because it turned out upside down. The shadow thrown by those purple dice from a rather cool blue LED lamp turns brown. I wanted it to shine so I put them on chrome wrenches on a piece of white paper and then put an LED light on them.

 

[CaddmannQ]

oooohhh….Prime numbers!

 

[Scoop]

Nine ain't prime.

Oh, yeah... Good morning, Mossies!

 

[CaddmannQ]

No not very, huh?

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning all. Nice day here. It's cloudy with rain showers south of us. Hopefully they will make their way here. The high temp is to be mid 80s, very pleasant.

You all have a great day.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

Well evidently, yesterday was so stressful that I could not factor the number nine.

Physically, I’ve been feeling punky for a couple days, with stomach distress. I spent most of the day moving furniture around & waiting around to move furniture. It was over 105, dry and sunny.

I recovered enough to ride the bike this AM. Sorta recovered.

I think I have enough energy left over to read the funny papers. Then I’m probably gonna flake out the rest of the day.

Praise the Lord, and pass the Alka-seltzer.

 

[Coyote56]

Hello all…
So begins another week in Appalachia.
Leaves are turning already. Gonna be an early autumn it seems. Works for me.

 

[John A.]

Yeah, I've noticed a bunch of trees getting lighter shades of green and yellow so far here too. And my apple tree has already lost about half of its' leaves. I'm just a bit north of you in the corner where KY/TN/VA meet.

With as dry and hot as its' been this summer, I haven't noticed a lot of mash and acorns on the trees this year either. So, it's going to be long winter for the deer and squirrels and stuff too I'm afraid with not as much to eat.

Persimmon seeds are also indicating a long cold winter. I haven't seen any caterpillars yet. That's another way to tell by the black and or brown stripes on them.

 

[CaddmannQ]

John, you are a regular Jed Clampett with that kind of data.

About all I can tell you is moss grows on the northside, never touch poison ivy, and don’t feed a bear.

If I could tell you what kind of rainfall we’re gonna have this winter I could probably make $1 million in commodities here, because some high demand crops cost a fortune to irrigate.

Almonds for instance. Big biz here for sure. But if I knew we were gonna have a big rainfall I could buy unpopular futures.

We’ve been in the trough of the boom and bust drought cycle here for a while. While generally the climate has been warming slowly for 12 thousand years, there are big fluctuations to the general curve.

Anyhow, I expect this year or next year that the rains will start increasing, and because of global warming they will increase at a different rate than expected previously.

Good morning Mossberg Owners!

It’s a beautiful day in California after a very cool night.

I was loafing a lot yesterday, but I did work on my bicycle.

I put these magic crystals on as valve caps.

OK maybe they are just official Dungeons and Dragons dice, but look close at this one. When you zoom in, you can see the little demon inside who holds the air in for me!


He’s holding onto the number five for balance because I spin him pretty fast. He enjoys that, but if I don’t ride the bike for a couple days he starts to let the air out because he gets bored.

Actually, Schrader valves are just designed to get tighter when the tire spins, but he doesn’t know that, and I’m not gonna spoil his fun by telling him. He just thinks that his job gets easier when I ride the bike.

Meanwhile, a final ride with the old beater bar.

Sayonara old sissy. You served me well, but you were always just a stand-in for the chrome musclebar.



But first, I never did really finish bending the rear stays to match the new hub. This time I bent them permanently into place and corrected the parallel alignment of the drop outs. I bent them a lot more than last time, because of extreme spring back, and I used four tourniquets to help distribute the stress is so I wouldn’t kink anything.


I used this long bolt & pipe as a press to correct the parallel situation.

By my calculations that was something like 3000 pounds of pressure required. Seven wraps of paracord held it nicely, and that paracord has been aging in the sun for 9 mos, because it was holding up my tarp.

Beware the Walmart designer paracord. That stuff rots away in the sun in one season. The whole cover turned to fluff, leaving only the strands inside (although they did hold.)

Finally, the frame is straightened correctly, and brake aligned Successfully, and now I can start setting up the new chrome.


I bought this new tension adjuster, which is not chrome, but it is alloy and it will polish up nicely once I remove that black paint.

Clearly, I didn’t loaf as much as I thought I did. Well the valve caps I did the previous day but that was the least of it all.

I guess working on a bicycle just feels like loafing compared to fixing a truck. Or a garage door. Or a fake Jaguar. All of which need attention here.

I hope you folks get all the attention you deserve, and have a nice day.

 

[John A.]

Caddmann, I learned stuff like that from my Grandmother. Who was taught by her parents and grandparents before them.

Most of which comes from the Cherokee ways.

There are multiple things that I can often point out to for certain things. Like when to plant certain things. We have lots of little "winters" between winter and spring. Dogwood winter. Blackberry Winter. Redbud, etc. All of which are indicated from when they bloom out.

I was raised simple. And honest.

I like how your projects turn out. You have an eccentric side that I enjoy seeing what comes out of your creativity.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Fortunately they cannot lock you up for “eccentric” yet. You pretty much have to be a full on loony to get any attention here.