Another Saturday. in Random Thoughts

I came in after work yesterday afternoon and decided to start on the knee high grass. Yeah. Oops. I got outside the front of the fence done, and most of where I have been parking the car, before I was outpacing getting the batteries for the mower recharged. I have 3 batteries, and two chargers. If I don’t let the grass get too high, or try and mow when it’s too wet, I can usually keep time with the chargers, and never be stuck waiting on a battery. Although, at this point, some of the grass is almost hip high now that I think about it. Unfortunately, I only have one battery for the weed whacker, and it ran out after trimming the areas where I did actually mow.
After I gave up waiting for a mower battery to recharge I was talking to the neighbor, who told me that it’s supposed to rain today. Well… she was right - kinda. She said it was looking like it would be this afternoon, but it started this morning. So I’m boned on finishing mowing. I may try and get the weed whacker back out and use it to shorten this jungle till it’s dry enough to break the mower back out. I should probably sharpen its blade too, come to think of it.
Also discovered this morning that I need to get new wipers for the car. I’ve already done the truck and the van, but I don’t think I’ve put wipers on that car since I bought it 6 or 7 years ago, and they’re not clearing the windscreen as well as I’d like. I can’t go any bigger on the passenger side. If I go bigger than 19”, it’ll hit the A pillar. But the 21” on the driver’s side, I have room to make it a 26”. More visible real estate.
I started this idea when I got my new (to me) work van. First rainy day I had it, I saw the wipers were bad, and noticed I had room to go bigger and get more clear visibility. I went from a pair of 20” to 22” on the passenger side, and 24” on the driver’s side. That has been substantially better, although I do need to bend in the bottom of the driver’s side blade frame a little, as it lifts a little bit at highway speed. Not a big deal, really.

I was complaining last time about that near miss with the Nissan, then found my dash cam behind the seat. Funny thing is, since I put it back in the windscreen, people have been keeping better clear of me. I’m not complaining about that. Leave me the hell alone, and let me drive in peace. I’m still going to upgrade the dash cam system. I’ve been looking for a better system, but honestly, it’s one of those things I’m having a difficult time deciding on, since I can’t try them out, and reviews are all hit and miss on all of them I’ve looked at. I have an issue with wanting immediate gratification when I buy something like this, so I’ve been looking to get a Cobra system from BestBuy, but it’s a 1080p resolution system, and it’s not clear if that’s each camera, or the combined res of both. I’m still looking and thinking. I watch a fair bit of dash cam videos on YouTube, so I always take note if it says the brand on the overlay, when I see image quality that I like. This day and age, I feel like I should be able to get one that is 4K on each camera, for a fair price, considering most new smartphones are 4K. There’s another one to talk about.

I’ve never been one who can justify always having the newest phone. I have the money to afford to upgrade with each new cycle, but what’s really the point of it? Half the time they’re a rehash of the last generation, and when they do a full redesign, the hardware isn’t usually what I would call a substantial upgrade. My personal phone is a Galaxy S7. It works, but it’s laggy, and a bit of a bitch sometimes, so I know it needs to be replaced. I’m thinking a Note 10+ 5G Exynos variant. (I have my phone rooted currently, for privacy and some other functions I like.) I bought myself a work phone on a prepaid account early last year, an iPhone XS, which I like, but I’m not going to replace it for a while. It’s going to be relevant for a few years, and it’ll be a few generations before it’ll be substantially upgraded. I am considering jailbreaking it. I don’t use Apple Pay, and I have iCloud turned off, so I don’t see much reason to leave it stock. I’m a tinkerer. I can’t leave things alone.

The garage organization is going… decently. I’m almost to a point where I can reach the outlet on the side wall, so I can put an outlet on the outside of the garage, and run new power wiring for my gate opener off that. Currently, I’m running it on low voltage, with the transformer plugged in by the garage door opener, and I think that’s causing the current issue. If I open the gate from any remote or keypad or key switch, especially in damp weather, somehow or another, the gate opener causes the garage door opener to run. Thankfully, my garage door still has the mechanical lock installed, and when I rekeyed my house, I put a lock cylinder in the garage door that works off my house key. The garage door hasn’t been connected to the opener in several months. I ended up having to take the arm off the door because somehow the opener kept getting reconnected, and when it would try to open, it would bend the shit out of the top of the garage door. To make matters worse, I have a garage door that isn’t made any more, so if the opener breaks the top section, I have to replace the whole damned thing.
I’m thinking this whole issue has to do with the power supply for the gate opener going bad, and when I use the gate, that power supply is giving off some kind of RF interference that’s screwing with the door opener. So when I can get to the plug and put one outside, I’m going to run mains voltage out to the gate opener from that outside plug, and that should stop this issue. First thing I need to do is unplug the power supply try and use the gate on its batteries and see if I still have the issue. I just need to be able to get to the outlet on the ceiling to unplug it. Another reason I need to finish the garage cleanup.

I was looking though pictures on my phone the other day, and found pictures of my poor sweet mutt. She’s been gone a little over a year now, and I do miss her. She was this sweet goofy thing, who was really smart, but loved to play stupid to try and get away with things. It took me a long time to figure that out. I took pictures of her, the day she died. It still hurts to see that. She was so sweet. I still feel like I let her down, even though I know putting her through all the tests, there was likely no way she’d ever have any quality of life. The only thing the vet could really say is that she may have had a stroke, from the way she was acting. I just hope she knew how much I loved her. Poor mutt.

Nothing out of M or BL the last few days. I’m not making a big thing of it. Still shocking to see BL’s posts pop up in my feed.

I think I’m going to go get the wiper blades for the car, since it’s stopped raining now, and get my laundry done, so I don’t have to do it tomorrow. Then perhaps I’ll work on the garage some more. My heart is acting a little funny the last couple of days, so I may shoot an email to my doctor and see if I need to up my dose on my heart pill. Yes, I really do have a broken heart, and it all started after a breakup with the other good ex, JP. Another relationship I screwed up.
Have I mentioned I was a real shit in my younger days?

EDIT: Just got back and finished up. New wiper blades are a big help, and having more cleared area on my side is nice. Bought a pair of Bosch MicroEdge, and got a free gallon of RainX Bug Remover windscreen cleaner. That topped off the car, the truck, and the van, and I still have a little left over. Chalk that into the win column. :-)

Last updated May 16, 2020