[Donewrken]

Touching story.
Thanks.
A friend in school had a pair of Basset Hounds, I always laughed when they would bark. It was more of an "arrru arrru" than it was a bark.
They were stout little things, tank is very descriptive. Sort of stocky and low to the ground. Made them corner well I suppose.
LOL!

Don

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[Joe/GA]

My son's dog just died this past Sunday. His name was Chase, a Beagle, and he was 18 years old. They had a cat that lived to be 20. I don't know how they do it. I've never had a dog live past 15. It's so sad when a family pet dies.

 

[Joe/GA]

Hmmm...got a duplicate somehow.

 

[Donewrken]

It sure is sad. A family member.
We had a Seal Point Siamese who was 22, her daughter made it to 20.
Others we had made it to 19 and less.
It is always hard to say goodby. I take a lot of pictures of them.
Don

 

[Donewrken]

Hmmm...got a duplicate somehow.

Yeah, but always good to click them so it doesn't drop you from being notified.
Found out the hard way several times.

Don
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[Nathaniel]

The only bad thing about having a pet is having to say goodbye when the time comes..

 

[Donewrken]

A hard thing to do.
🙏

Don
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[Kubota Ronin]

Part of the game... give them a good life, and give them a good way out when the time comes... which it inevitably does.

We're gods to them, we have that responsibility.

 

[Donewrken]

give them a good life, and give them a good way out when the time comes... which it inevitably does.

We're gods to them, we have that responsibility.

Yes, we are and yes, we do. It's still one of the hardest things we have to face. They trust us to the very end.

Don

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[Mark in Portugal]

I had a crash course in oil burner repair today as the house got colder and colder...
The burner is 25 years old and my repair guy is 1,500 miles from here.

Fuel supply was my first suspect, but eventually I accepted the fuel tank's alibi. The filter had some explaining to do too.
I suspected the fuel pump but couldn't find evidence; finally I put a tap on the pressure feed tube.
Hmm, 11 bar, 160psi, I suppose that puts it in the clear [although I don't know what the correct pressure is].

Last thing to try was a spare nozzle I had from an old burner that came home with me long ago [for just such an occasion].
Hooray! case solved, sustained burn is achieved.

At first I thought it was just a screw with a hole in it like a carb jet, but it's got some tiny little valving in there like an injector.
Like I said, crash course.

I hope you're all well and keeping isolated.

 

[Donewrken]

Yeah buddy! With that much pressure it's no carburetor. I'm glad you got it sorted out especially with everything as it is you don't want to be depleting any extra energy keeping warm. It's been colder here than normal, it seems. Enough to keep me inside with hopes of an early spring.
I was hoping this was going to be a update on your mill progress, were all hoping for good news on that endeavor.

Still isolated here, with all heck breaking loose around me.

Looking forward to some good news that things are getting back to normal, it will happen sooner or later.

Hopefully sooner.

Don

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[Joe/GA]

Glad you got that furnace working, Mark. We've been hovering just above or below 30 degrees F. most nights, so I'm thankful for heat. We heat with a heat pump, but I do have a standby propane heater hooked to a 250 gallon propane tank. I think it is about 30,000 or 38,000 BTU's. Enough to keep the icicles from forming on our noses!

Last Sunday, we went to lunch with another couple. On Tuesday, they found out they have COVID. So, we are self quarantining and, so far, we have no symptoms. I hope it stays that way. Y'all be careful!

 

[Donewrken]

We've had lows to 21 last week, this week is a bit warmer. Propane backup is always good when your heating with electric.
Darn, Joe you be careful!!
I've had one visitor in the last few weeks, we kept our distance.
I keep putting off a trip to Walmart. I could go another three weeks except for cat food, I think I'll have it delivered!

Don

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[Kubota Ronin]

I had a crash course in oil burner repair today.

An oil burning furnace or boiler should be fully serviced annually... in addition to swapping out the nozzle for new (they wear and the pattern goes wonky) you need to clean and adjust or if it has been a long time possibly replace the electrodes.

Get inside and look for soot, that will tell you how it is running... once again if it has been a long time you'll probably find a lot, which severely inhibits heat transmission to the water jacket or heat exchanger. Use a double-filtered shop vac and a brush to get it outta there, taking care not to damage any insulation.

Show me a picture and I can tell you more.

 

[Mark in Portugal]

Thanks; I can't get pictures from the camera into the new computer until I get a new card reader.
Expensive new computer has no card slot...
Anyway, it's a terrible old furnace that I bought new and then removed from a boat because it was too old.
Then I installed it as a temporary heater in our house in Portugal, 11 years ago.

It seems to be working ok now, but I ordered a new nozzle from Germany anyway.
These things do exist in Portugal, but they're rare here and I have no idea who services them or might stock parts.

 

[Donewrken]

New computer, woohooo!!

Don

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[Mark in Portugal]

It's not much of an upgrade; but I did spring for an SSD instead of the spinning HD.
It does some things really fast.
My old one was killed without warning; the HD survived so transferring the data over is easy enough, but getting all my things back where I want them with their data and logins is a bore.
No dvd or cd drive, no expansion ports, no serial port, and [as I just discovered] no card slot.
I thought it had one...

 

[Donewrken]

USB is about all you need now. Adding another disk is plug and play as well as any other drive CD, DVD, sound cards, printers.
WIFI?
SSD very good!!
Don

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[Joe/GA]

Going with a SSD is one of the best things you can do. In 2014, I sprung for a MacBook Pro with the SSD. Best move I ever made. Apple cleans old junk off a drive when it adds new updates. Microsoft just keeps adding to the junk which slows the machine because it has to search through so much stuff. Also, hard drive crashes was the cause of death for every computer my wife and I owned before the Macs.

 

[Donewrken]

Three cheers for your success with Macs!

I just try and keep my hd's in good condition, If I have any issues it gets a new hard drive, I've replaced four total. I had two hard drive failures, both Western Digital's. I have repaired several PC's that had the same brand hd's fail. I've used IBM now Hitachi hard drive since the failures for 20 years now and have not had one fail in mine or any computers that I've built for others, all running Windows. Yes, they have gotten viruses but I've been able to recover from them, not mine but ones that I have built for others.
Windows10 is a good OS, I have not had any issues running 10 pro 64 bit or Home on my laptop, still using Vista on my older Hp lap top.
I did replace the hd in my new laptop but that was due to going to a solid state drive.
Don

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