Cables, Coffee, Cycles, and Cocktails

[Islander]

11 minutes ago, dtel said:

It can be or not. 

 

Went to one many years ago, all boys school. Went with my best friend and our girlfriends, walked in and thought this is the same bunch of jackasses we remembered, left and never went to another. Anyone we liked we still kept in toouch with, the rest were people we didn't bother with so there was no point.

 

Now it had been boys and girls it may have been different ? 

 

In my school, the boys and girls were on different floors and had different lunch hours.  The only time we could actually speak to the girls was after school or at occasional sock hops.  As well, I lived a 45-minute bus ride from school, like some other groups of kids who commuted into the city from the sticks.  That didn't help, since going to an after school sock hop meant missing the school bus and finding our way home, and weekend dances were a hassle to get to, until I got my motorbike in Grade 11.  That came in real handy, as long as it wasn't snowing. 

 

Since many of us primarily English speakers tended to leave Quebec City to live in places like Montreal, Ottawa, or Toronto, for better job prospects, the turnouts at reunions weren't all that big, considering that all the grades and years were invited.  It also made it harder to keep in touch.  I met a handful of classmates, and it was surprising to see how much some had changed, and how little some others had changed.

 

I had an amusing encounter at the 1993 event.  When I introduced myself to a person I didn't know, I was told that I wasn't him, he was taller.  That was intriguing, so I went looking for the guy with the same name as me, whom I'd never heard of.  Within 15 minutes or so, I found him,  and he was taller than me.  Older, too.  It turned out that he had graduated just as I was entering the junior high next door, so when I got into the high school, he and all his friends were long gone, which was why I'd never heard of him

 

[Marvel]

5 hours ago, dtel said:

It can be or not. 

 

Went to one many years ago, all boys school. Went with my best friend and our girlfriends, walked in and thought this is the same bunch of jackasses we remembered, left and never went to another. Anyone we liked we still kept in toouch with, the rest were people we didn't bother with so there was no point.

 

Now it had been boys and girls it may have been different ? 

 

Never went toany, but wife and I decixed to go to my 50th, then I could show her wher I grew up, etc. Didn't go... something came up. They decided to have a 70th birthday party the next year, juzt so those who could make one from the year before could come. We had a blast, over 100 showed up. None of my friends came. Still, the class prezident made a nice speech, talked about how we could be there without the cliques, just as friends. Just got an email that he passed away. He had survived a couple cancer battles. The grim reaper draws nearer every year... 

[dtel]

2 hours ago, Marvel said:

The grim reaper draws nearer every year... 

True

 

My mother before she died went to all her class reunions, it ended up being 3-4 people toward the end.

[Islander]

2 hours ago, Marvel said:

 

Never went toany, but wife and I decixed to go to my 50th, then I could show her wher I grew up, etc. Didn't go... something came up. They decided to have a 70th birthday party the next year, juzt so those who could make one from the year before could come. We had a blast, over 100 showed up. None of my friends came. Still, the class prezident made a nice speech, talked about how we could be there without the cliques, just as friends. Just got an email that he passed away. He had survived a couple cancer battles. The grim reaper draws nearer every year... 

 

In our twenties, we go to all our friends' weddings, then in our seventies, we go to their funerals.  It's the Circle of Life.

 

Mary Walsh, one of our great comedians (comediennes?) from Newfoundland (that one province seems rte be our greatest source of English comedy talent, while Quebec is where the French-speaking comedy comes from, of course) had a great comedy TV series about a family-owned business that had it all.  They had a midwife service, a wedding chapel, and a funeral parlour.  The name of the show was Hatching, Matching, and Dispatching, naturally.  It just ran for one season, unfortunately.  Maybe I should have watched it.

 

https://gem.cbc.ca/season/hatching-matching-and-dispatching/season-1/c5645d12-e7bc-456e-8b66-535bb740cc0f

 

[dtel]

To move away from the grim reaper a little, as if we could.

 

I have been working on putting lipstick on an old pig lately. Cleaning up my old planer, it goes back to the late 70's and works great. There was nothing  wrong with it except a little rust and plenty of dust and dirt so I cleaned it up and painted some of the parts. I left all the working parts as one and just cleaned them up a little because there are many chains and things I was afraid to not put back exactly the right way. I mostly cleaned up the stand and a few easily removed parts to repaint. I also added some rollers to the top, when  a board comed out you usuially set it on top to run it back through again and the rollers will help the top from being messed up and easier to slide the boards to the other end. It's on a metal frame with wheels because it is very heavy, I had to get help just to remove the main part to a table to work on the rest.

 

 

[Islander]

16 minutes ago, dtel said:

True

 

My mother before she died went to all her class reunions, it ended up being 3-4 people toward the end.

 

At the 1993 event, there were several hundred people, most of them younger than me, since it was a school reunion, rather than being limited to any one class or year.  I remember this one old guy in a suit, possibly in his eighties, who was looking for anybody from a class in the 1930s, or something like that.  I felt sorry for him, because I don't think he found any of his friends.

[OO1]

1 hour ago, dtel said:

To move away from the grim reaper a little, as if we could.

 

I have been working on putting lipstick on an old pig lately. Cleaning up my old planer,

 

 

 

That black  rubber handle and  red  rod ,looks very familiar ,   is that stock to this unit  ------or an add-on

[dtel]

It's stock, it was just cleaned then painted because it had rust, I only used red so it would stand out, I did the same to where the off/on switch is. That lever releases tension on the infeed rubber rollers so if for some reason you want to stop a board from feeding in you just lift that lever. 

 

I used a different color for those two pieces so they stand out if you have to look for them in a hurry, I never had to use either in an emergency before but figured it couldn't hurt.

 

Old tools "most of the time" are made way better than newer tools, from my experiance anyway, this thing has had NO problems and it's over 40 years old. 

[OO1]

8 hours ago, dtel said:

It's stock, it was just cleaned then painted because it had rust, I only used red so it would stand out, I did the same to where the off/on switch is. That lever releases tension on the infeed rubber rollers so if for some reason you want to stop a board from feeding in you just lift that lever. 

 

I used a different color for those two pieces so they stand out if you have to look for them in a hurry, I never had to use either in an emergency before but figured it couldn't hurt.

 

Old tools "most of the time" are made way better than newer tools, from my experiance anyway, this thing has had NO problems and it's over 40 years old. 

     I like to see levers on various machines that can disengage the pressure rollers and cams in a drive system ,  most current machines , use sensors in series to feed , and power the drive systems  , but there are no release levers that raise and stop the motors in case of a jam   , these savings cut down on the amount of parts in new machines , but in the end , the machines dont last as long  -

[Islander]

That did sharpen up the looks of your machine, and choosing a contrasting colour for the parts that could need to be accessed quickly is a good idea.  Nothing like making a favourite piece of gear look years newer!  Nicely done, and thanks for taking the thread in a less morbid direction.  We don't just live in the midrange, we live in the here and now, so we can do better by thinking about today now.  Tomorrow will come, for good or ill, no matter what we do, but it will turn out better if we deal better with today today.

[CECAA850]

@dtel , that thing is a beast.  Nice, I like it.

[grasshopper]

I agree, Carl... Built to last. I won't go off on a rant about life-expectancy of new stuff... but, when one puny  guy like me can lift a freezer... here's your sign.

 

Elden, your shop remind me of my uncle's place.  He was a machinist...and he had the stuff to do it at home.

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

 

I can start saying it's warm.... not so bad today. 55` now. Almost cool at 103`....It will be quite warm tomorrow through, well, if it cools to a normal 100`... June is NOT the time to visit southern AZ.   Don't leave change on your car seat or you might have Jefferson's face branded on your butt..

I'll be found soaking in the kiddie pool with a glass of scotch and a bowl...

[babadono]

On 6/10/2021 at 6:36 AM, oldtimer said:

Poignant.

Thank God it is not a total eclipse yet🙏

[JohnJ]

8 hours ago, dtel said:

Old tools "most of the time" are made way better than newer tools, from my experiance anyway, this thing has had NO problems and it's over 40 years old. 

I hear you

And your planer looks like a Deere now!

 

You guys sticky where you are? We got gulf weather again for days, I had to mow the lawn wet before more inspections yesterday. That and running the dehumidifier almost non-stop to keep it around 50% inside. Made me wonder, if I have to go west of the Appalachians all the storms especially in the spring that got blocked by those mountains would get to me if I did.

Prices on the cabin type homes I like have practically doubled since last autumn when I started scanning possibilities.

[grasshopper]

in spite of our temps, in the 105 - 110` range,I bet our heat index is close to or lower than yours. Our humidity was 3%. You can feel bread crisp in your hand."Toasted" sandwiches are easy... Leave it in the sun for a minute or two...

[JohnJ]

3%

That is literally unheard of around here 20s are our low levels year `round!

[CECAA850]

11 minutes ago, JohnJ said:

3%

That is literally unheard of around here 20s are our low levels year `round!

If we got down to 40% here everyone's skin would start to crack.

[grasshopper]

we all have the dreaded "alligator skin". Wife was trying to put lotion on my back and she couldn't get it spread before it soaked in.

[JohnJ]

15 minutes ago, grasshopper said:

we all have the dreaded "alligator skin". Wife was trying to put lotion on my back and she couldn't get it spread before it soaked in.

I had some of that due to decades of serious sunburn on my Scotch/English pale shoulders & back of my neck. This stuff from amazon Opti-MSM gel got rid of it. Then folks complained about an integral part of the formula that helped it absorb into the skin. Something used for eons in cosmetics framed as a possible carcinogen.

Martians won, another product rendered impotent a year or so ago. Now its just $$$ aloe-vera.

[CECAA850]

24 minutes ago, JohnJ said:

Now its just $$$ aloe-vera.

That stuff grows and multiplies like weeds around here if you let it.