What did you do today?

Daris, I've found that insurance companies will almost always say it was someone else's fault/responsibility to get out of paying for it. Electric company will also turn around and say that it's on your end and that you have to pay to fix it. I had power company people refuse to fix something that was before my meter-- so it was on their end-- and they said I had to hire an electrician (although they gave me the number for one) and tried to say I would have to pay for it. Fortunately, when the electrician got there and I told him what was going on, he said "This is on THEIR end" and refused to bill me for it. Wish I could find that guy again. Lost his number. That was back before I had a cellphone to store numbers in.

It's still hot AF out here. 82 outside 84 inside. I'm sweating. Just put the new repair strikeplate on the back door. Discovered that my new locksets did not come with strikeplates-- which is surprising for how much they cost-- so it's a good thing I got a 4pack of the repair ones. Used my new Spyder bits to predrill. Biggest problem I had was that the box with the new strikeplate fell and one of the screws disappeared into the nether. I searched for it with a magnet stick to no avail. Then I shifted to Plan B-- find a screw from another old strikeplate. I knew my brother had taken off his old strikeplate and saw he used the new screws for the new one so I searched around his door and in the hallway with a magnet stick until I found one. It was shorter but stronger than the new screws. New screw started stripping out-- old one did not. So, strikeplate is on and door is secure. Now I need to clean up the hallway. I wanted to steam clean the carpet but not when I'm already sweating so much.

A few years ago I helped a customer do some finish work on a large triangular TV shelf he'd designed and installed in the corner of his living room. He had pre cut pieces of a special orange colored wood to fit the stepped face of this corner mount TV holder-upper. The top was a dark gray granite called leather..... a smooth but pebbly surface kinda like spray wall texture. It turned out really
When all was completed, he asked if I knew anyone that could use his old TV, 70" Sharp Aquios. He said it works just fine
I said, he could probably get a few hundred bucks at a garage sale or just advertise it.
Nope, he just wanted it gone.
Well, my place is small.... but the TV "got gone"
Sharp made the first 70" Flat screen and this was it.
He gave me the owners manual and the receipt from Walmart was in the instruction book also.
$2499.
That's been a few years ago and the picture is still beautiful. The buttons on the remote have been getting harder to push, soooo.
...it was time for a tuneup.
Took it apart and cleaned everything with warm water and Windex, then cleaned the circuit board and contacts with 99% isopropyl alcohol and a butt load of Q-tips.
That was the easy part. This second part, I did to my Optimus stereo remote a few weeks ago.
You can buy a bottle of graphite or do as I did, slowly scraping the lead from a #2 pencil until you have enough to do the job at hand. You very carefully re-coat every contact on the silicone keypad with new graphite.
Man, does this remote have a lot of em.
Most aren't used, but.... gota do em all at this point.
I used a Bic click pencil as an applicator. You dip the pencil lead into the pile of graphite and a tiny amount adheres to the exposed lead. Using it like paint brush, you lightly rub it on each contact. It takes two or three dips into the graphite dust to apply enough for each contact because very little sticks to the pencil lead. You just go back and forth and round and round till the contact has a little shine to it, then move on to the next one.
When I got done with all of them, I kinda slapped it against a paper towel in case any of the graphite fell where it shouldn't be or if there were any loose particles of it.
The off on switch was the worst, but hot damn, it's like new again.
Works great and they keys are sensitive again. Ain't YouTube the greatest creation ever?

Now that it works, the hard decision.
Astro Monster, Leave it to Beaver, Steelers Vs Titans, Martinsville 500, The Flintstones, NFL today, 4 PBS channels...... and more. All over the air. I dropped cable 15 years ago.

I haven’t seen the Flintstones in years.

I was wrong... The Flintstone Kids, whatever that is.
Lucky to get enough over the air I don't have a cable bill.

....84 keys, not that I counted correctly.
The keys on the remote are super sensitive now..... No wiggling or pushing hard.
I'm gonna pay myself $100 for fixing the thing. I could get another one for $16 on eBay...... But I'd lose out on the $100.

Took the dog to a couple different parks today. One of the parks had a few kids and a few dads having a nerf gun war. I watched them for a few. It was impressive! They came prepared. They had a couple appliance boxes they brought with them for forts and some other barriers to hide behind. They even had a couple Gatling guns. Now that’s the way to have fun.

I'm trying to visualize the fixing up of the remote. Do you have links to any of the videos. Never heard about graphite being in them. That is very interesting. Using #2 pencil lead is a good idea.

As an aside, when my late elderly friend started to have trouble with his old TV remote I got him a giant universal remote with huge buttons (easier to see). He laughed when I first got it-- it was actually a gag gift initially, but when his old remote was having trouble I programmed the big one and he used it all the time.

Remote looked something like this:


I had total brainfreeze. LOL.

highup said:

Lucky to get enough over the air I don't have a cable bill.

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It’s impressive the amount of channels available on regular ol antenna tv, especially if you have a good antenna up on the roof. I built a simple quad antenna out of speaker wire and two wooden dowels and hung it up on my tower and I was able to pick up a radio station I liked that was maybe 100 miles away.

Don’t remember the website but you put in your location and it tells you all the stations available in your area. It has a tv guide for those stations as well as a map you can click on to see where the different stations broadcast from so you know which way to point your antenna. Kinda cool.

We used to get stuff via antenna but we're not in range of anything now. Had the antenna on a 50ft tower, but a hurricane knocked the antenna down. Tower is still standing.

When I visited my friend earlier today, little Kelebrimbor came running up to me and wanted to be held & petted. My brother said "We're going to have to bring him home". He followed me to the truck when I was leaving. Had to get my friend to feed him to distract him long enough for me to leave.

Saw this on Youtube. Wonder if it really works that well.

C.J. said:

It’s impressive the amount of channels available on regular ol antenna tv, especially if you have a good antenna up on the roof. I built a simple quad antenna out of speaker wire and two wooden dowels and hung it up on my tower and I was able to pick up a radio station I liked that was maybe 100 miles away.

Don’t remember the website but you put in your location and it tells you all the stations available in your area. It has a tv guide for those stations as well as a map you can click on to see where the different stations broadcast from so you know which way to point your antenna. Kinda cool.

Click to expand...

I think it's antennaguide ...maybe
I'm 2+miles from town, but the local antennas are probably 6 or 7 miles, line of sight.
There are hills to my north and east side, but I'm kinda between them because of a slough.
I can't see anything in the direction towards the towers, because of trees, but they aren't like a deep forest. I feel pretty lucky that way not having to fork out ridiculous money for more channels than I need.
Get ABC, CBS, NBC, 4pbs stations there are others that change old TV stuff like Gunsmoke, Leave it to Beaver.... Ya never know, it might change to Wild Wild West or Gilligan's Island. Batman was on for a few months and years ago Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol, Dragnet.... the corny old good stuff.

We probably get 12 or 15 channels.

zannej said:

I'm trying to visualize the fixing up of the remote. Do you have links to any of the videos. Never heard about graphite being in them. That is very interesting. Using #2 pencil lead is a good idea.

As an aside, when my late elderly friend started to have trouble with his old TV remote I got him a giant universal remote with huge buttons (easier to see). He laughed when I first got it-- it was actually a gag gift initially, but when his old remote was having trouble I programmed the big one and he used it all the time.

Remote looked something like this:
View attachment 20263

I had total brainfreeze. LOL.

Click to expand...

Hardest part is cracking the case open. The guy shows how it's opened on most of em. You need to remove the batteries to see if there are any screws... If so, they'll be tiny and they're easy to drop and lose.
He doesn't show it, but I don't think I'd clean the actual contact pads, just splash em against the water and rinse them in warm faucet water. I never added detergent to the sink full of warm water, I just sprayed a little Windex on the plastic shell and the silicone keypad then gently scrubbed/brushed em with a toothbrush.... again, not the rubber contact side.

I used a bunch of Q-tips to clean the TV's remote circuit board. If dip the Q-tip in the alcohol, rub it gently across 4 to 8 keys at a time, then dry it off with the other side of the Q-tip.
If the wet Q-tip comes up really dirty, do the process twice.
Just continue a few keys to a half dozen the same way until you get all of it clean.

There were a LOT of small key contacts, so I didn't use the Q-tip to apply the graphite like he did. I used a pencil in hopes I wouldn't get graphite dust in parts of the keypad that shouldn't have any.
I made the little pile of graphite, then dipped the dull pencil tip in it as if using a paintbrush. Not much transfers to the pencil tip, so you might need to apply it twice to do each key. Run it around till the contact gets a little shine on it. Doesn't have to be perfect.

zannej said:

We used to get stuff via antenna but we're not in range of anything now. Had the antenna on a 50ft tower, but a hurricane knocked the antenna down. Tower is still standing.

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I dream of having a tower again one day. I sold two towers when we left Portland under the condition that my wife would buy me a new one when we got settled in our new house. That was 8 years and 3 houses ago and I still haven’t gotten my tower yet. Come to think of it she was gonna buy me a riding mower as well. I did get the mower but I had to buy it myself.

highup said:

Now that it works, the hard decision.
Astro Monster, Leave it to Beaver, Steelers Vs Titans, Martinsville 500, The Flintstones, NFL today, 4 PBS channels...... and more. All over the air. I dropped cable 15 years ago.

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PBS 1,2,3,and 4

MSLI said:

PBS 1,2,3,and 4

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That’s where the good shows are.

I was tell in my buddy how I was going to buy another sheet of plywood for the top of my bench. He reminded me that was gonna be $100. Yeah, you’re right. So I filled it, again, with some black filler where it needed it. After it sat for the weekend I sanded it and gave it a coat of wax. Ooo it feels so good. Now if I spill my coffee it’ll just run right off the bench onto the floor

C.J. said:

I dream of having a tower again one day. I sold two towers when we left Portland under the condition that my wife would buy me a new one when we got settled in our new house. That was 8 years and 3 houses ago and I still haven’t gotten my tower yet. Come to think of it she was gonna buy me a riding mower as well. I did get the mower but I had to buy it myself.

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Unless she's making 7 figures, I think she needs a stern reminder.
If she is..... Then I'm on her side, you don't need 'em.

MSLI said:

PBS 1,2,3,and 4

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Rush, Hannity, the The Nuge, and Chris Plante aren't on their playlist..... Best to totally defund them since they are one sided and no different than listening to MSNBC.
I love the camera work on the nature stuff, but usually it takes about 5 minutes or astounding videography before they begin telling us that humans are destroying the earth.... and we're all going to die soon.


...a little girls life changes as she becomes a tool because she speaks well and with emotion.
I'm not without compassion. She absolutely needs an award... NO, not a Darwin. Something shiny and fake like the Some People's Choice Award.

C.J. said:

I was tell in my buddy how I was going to buy another sheet of plywood for the top of my bench. He reminded me that was gonna be $100. Yeah, you’re right. So I filled it, again, with some black filler where it needed it. After it sat for the weekend I sanded it and gave it a coat of wax. Ooo it feels so good. Now if I spill my coffee it’ll just run right off the bench onto the floor


View attachment 20270View attachment 20271

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I paid $84 for some 5/8 to make a "lift" to put my low profile "racing jack" on . Expensive but worth ever quarter. Yeah I had leftovers.
....wondering about the price now after the devastation back east.

highup said:

Unless she's making 7 figures, I think she needs a stern reminder.
If she is..... Then I'm on her side, you don't need 'em.

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I remind her and she just laughs. Mmm hmm.

highup said:

Rush, Hannity, the The Nuge, and Chris Plante aren't on their playlist..... Best to totally defund them since they are one sided and no different than listening to MSNBC.
I love the camera work on the nature stuff, but usually it takes about 5 minutes or astounding videography before they begin telling us that humans are destroying the earth.... and we're all going to die soon.


...a little girls life changes as she becomes a tool because she speaks well and with emotion.
I'm not without compassion. She absolutely needs an award... NO, not a Darwin. Something shiny and fake like the Some People's Choice Award.

Click to expand...

I don’t watch PBS news but I do like watching their cooking and animal shows from time to time. Listening to the same ol climate **** doom n gloom gets old. Anymore I just tune it out cus it really doesn’t matter what I do on an individual level so there’s no point in even listening to that crap. That’s where the cooking and animal shows come in