have bussiness ceased?

[ck]

Is anybody there?

[Leon]

No we are all at home.

[John Grossbohlin]

Was busy cleaning my shop and putting "stuff" away from my renovation, natural edge walnut slab window stool project, snowblower repairs, and other projects that I hadn't made time for previously.

I found a new shop tool that I fully endorse. It's ZEP sweeping compound.

The sweeping compound keeps the dust from becoming airborne. It also attracts dust and seems to pull it out of the concrete surface. It offers a light scrubbing action when pushed around with a wide broom that removed some of the shop grime from the floor too. It got fire extinguisher "dust" off the concrete that had escaped sweeping and vacuuming in the past--somehow or other my son accidently discharged a fire extinguisher that was in a box of stuff he had stored in my basement.

It worked so good in the shop and basement that I used it in the rooms I'm renovating... I addition to the construction dust I have an English Setter so little white hairs were everywhere too. It all came up and the dog hair accumulated on the broom instead of taking off into the air.

Wonderful product!

[Sonny]

I'd been away from home, out in the country.... checked on the chestnut trees, also. They have a bit of insect-chewed leaves, not much, and seem to be doing well, otherwise. Initially about 18"-20" tall, now they are about 4' tall. Initially planted 10, only three have survived. The area is about 200 miles south and west from the historical chestnut southern most growing area, so I'm satisfied these few have survived. Five of the dead were trampled by cows..... I should have known better than to have planted them, there. They are not the hybrid chestnuts and I'm hoping the blight aspect is not in this far SW area, for them to be subsequently affected/infected.

There's and old 50' tree that has long ago fallen in the area, seems nice solid wood, still. The middle 35' of the trunk is about 14" dia. one end and 10" dia. the farther end. I might collect and mill it, see what reasonable wood is there..... hoping it might be white oak. Also, nearby, a large red oak has fallen recently.... 30" dia. and 40' long nice straight trunk. I may collect and have it milled, also. As if I don't have enough lumber, but I dislike seeing potentially good wood rot away.

Sonny

[Leon]

Very cool! So does that sweeping compound have a color, red maybe?

Way back when, 60's, the small town that my grand mother lived in had 2 grocery stores. Both within eye site of each other and my grand mother's house. Her preferred store delivered groceries inside her home and put her grovery bill on her tab. Boy, those were the days. Anyway the store had red wooden floors. Red because of the red sweeping compound that was piled up in all the corners.

[DerbyDad03]

I was there, but now I'm on my way to not there.

I didn't feel like driving 10 hours in the rain and snow, so I got a room for the night, halfway between there and not there.

My son and his GF bought a house there. Nice place. Too bad there is a 10 hour drive from not there. I'd like to spend more time there.

[krw]

Smart kid. It's good to get away from the parents for a time. 10H is perhaps a bit much. Our first place was at least twice that. Remember the national 55mph speed limit? CB radios and RADAR detectors? ;-)

I didn't pick up my new truck from not there, either. Four month order cycle. Could be worse but having SWMBO chaffering me around wasn't fun (but could drive anyway).

[Puckdropper]

ck [e-mail] wrote in news:61a1fa68$0$6456$ [e-mail]:

Yeah... Got to do some "woodworking" if you can call it that. The tree has decided our drainpipe is the way to be, so now I have to either find a plumber or an electric root cutting auger. I'm very tempted to go the root cutting auger way. The last guy was excellent but it cost nearly $2000 for the camera, auger, and removing roots every 3' along the pipe.

Puckdropper

[DerbyDad03]

They've been away from the 'rents for a while. 9 years I think.

First it was 2500 miles away. Only drove there once, sort of. Flew 2300 miles to Son #2's house, then drove 8 hours over 2 days (sight seeing) to Son #1's place.

Then it was a 6 hour drive, but only for 1 year. Drove that twice. That's easy.

Now it's 10 hours. Maybe I'll drive it in spring/summer, but driving in the snow and rain @ 31° really sucks.

A warm bed and free breakfast is so much better.

I like the stretches of 70 MPH limits from this trip. I always add 9 MPH, don't even slow down when I see the po-po.

Son #2 spends time with his truck in the dunes of NV and CA. They still use CB's when there's no cell coverage.

[krw]

We moved out on them. They're still in the People's Republic of Vermont. 1200mi, IIRC

I put my food down. May to October. I never want to see snow again. We have a couple of times in the ten years. Everyone freaks but the strategy is simple. Stay home until the nuts are in the ditch.

It's 70mph on the Interstates here but speed limits are just suggestions. They drive in the big city at 80-90 in 55-65 zones, zig-zagging, driving on shoulders, whatever, all the way. On local roads we're blown off if we're going the speed limit. If the powers that be wanted to eliminate all taxes, all they'd have to is enforce traffic regulations. They'd need a *lot* more officers though.

[Michael Trew]

Sorry to derail, but do any hotels still offer breakfast? I've stayed at 3-4 hotels since COVID, and every one that used to have some sort of a breakfast was no longer doing it, "due to COVID". I figured it became an industry-wide thing to dump hotel breakfast, so they can charge the same for a room and save money. I miss staying at a hotel with the waffle iron in the lobby... that was the best part, lol.

[Michael Trew]

Have you tried copper sulfate down the drain? I have to have a guy come out an auger tree roots form the sewer, sometimes 80 feet out, because eventually the greywater starts backing up into my cellar (thank God, typically not the toilet). Seems to happen every 2 years. He told me last time that if it happens again, I really should pay for the camera line inspection. It's the old terracotta pipes.

Anyway, I bought a bag of copper sulfate on eBay, and they jammed the 10 lbs of sulfate into this flat rate bubble mailer... I have no clue how it fit, but they REALLY got their monies worth out of that little envelope from USPS... haha! I'm going to dump some directly into the clean-out in the cellar with water, and flush the rest. Supposedly if you do it annually, it will kill all of the tree roots that get into the pipes, without killing the tree.

[Bob La Londe]

I started out 2021 very strong, on schedule, with lots of work, and a little working capital to smooth over any bumps. A death in the family, a brain surgery in the family, elderly relatives that needed extra care and took it as opening for demanding care for months, a couple jobs that went badly, and 2021 may well be my most hated year in business since I started my first business back in the 1980s. I feel like I've been treading water. The reality is it could have been a very good year. The work has been there, and its profitable work.

I've been working seven days a week trying to get back on level ground, but when you have a bad day you can't just leave it for somebody else to clean up your mess when you are self employed. Yesterday working late I managed to destroy 11 work pieces simultaneously on three different machines. I have stacks of parts that just need a little hand finishing to ship I never even got to.

Personal projects? Not flipping likely. Not any time soon. I have a whiteboard in the back of the shop with a list of necessary personal and shop projects. They are prioritized with numbers from 1-10 with 10 being urgent. Lots of 9s on there, but the only one labeled 10 is clean up the shop. The list hasn't changed in months until Thanksgiving day when I finally moved my construction tool cart of of the house and back to the shop after installing a shop made stainless surround behind the stove. That was NOT on my list. It was on my wife's list. Getting the tool cart back was an 8 on my to do list. A new (earlier this year) milling machine in the shop really needed its own tool cart. I was very happy to cross that off my list, then right below it add a new one. Empty tool cart. Still I felt good about it. Friday I got a couple small jobs done in the shop. Saturday was about the same. Sunday was on track to be a banner day bringing me a lot closer to being on schedule until it wasn't.

[Leon]

My wife and I travel quite a bit and October last year, June of this year the hotels that we stayed in all offered continental breakfast as a minimum.

Now this was in Texas , Tennessee, Mississippi,

Hampton, Hilton, and Menger.

[krw]

Yeah, things are a lot more open in the South (red states) than the North. Here, everything has been pretty much back to normal for over a year. A few cities/counties imposed a silly mask mandate for a couple of months earlier this year but nothing spectacular now. RSV, often mistaken for covid, is much of the problem now.

[DerbyDad03]

What's to derail? This is a strange thread anyway. Just look at the OP. ;-)

Free breakfast hasn't been an issue for me recently. I stayed at a cheap Comfort Inn in New England, a nice Marriott in the Great Lakes Region (twice) and booked a Hilton (Home2 Suites) in the mid-west for my daughter. All had free breakfast, although the breakfast offerings at the Comfort Inn left a lot to be desired. I was traveling alone, so I went cheap. SWMBO wouldn't have approved of my choice and I wouldn't have blamed her. What a dump.

If I want to complain about something, it would be the Pet Fees. Both the Marriott and the Hilton list their properties as "Pet Friendly" and then charge $100 and $75 respectively for bringing a pet. When you are only staying one night, that's one heck of an upcharge.

I booked the Marriott directly through the property and talked them into reducing the fee to $50 for each single night stay. However, when I checked in for the second stay, I was politely informed that as of January 1st, they would no longer be discounting the fee. I don't have plans to stop there again any time soon, but I'd really like to test that claim.

As far as the Hilton, I had to book that through their (offshore, I suspect) reservations desk. They couldn't discount the Pet Fee, but when I threatened to reserve elsewhere, they took $25 off the room rate to essentially get the Pet Fee down to $50.

[Bill]

I agree with you that "lists" are a really valuable tool--surely under-rated ones! Your note serves as a gentle reminder to all to be a bit humble and thankful, and not to just take everything for granted. I wish you, as well as everyone else here, a sincere good luck with your various projects going forward, into and including 2022!

Cheers!

-Bill

[Leon]

I meant to mention the exception to the places we stayed at. We were going to eat on the way, lunch, in Arkansas. Arkansas was like a ghost state unless you were in the bigger cities. Many FF places had boarded up and closed..

[Michael Trew]

Ah, typically I'm looking for a room that costs less than $100/night for a quick over-night stay and a shower during a long road trip. I usually have good luck with the free hotel magazines at truck stops and rest areas, honestly. An older guy told me to look for those, and it's always a cheap, clean room so far. Perhaps these cheap places in the mid-west are the last ones clinging to "No breakfast COVID".

[Michael Trew]

The guy at the front desk gave me the "COVID" excuse at the last hotel I stayed at, somewhere in the (distant) outskirts Chicago-area, this August.