Potty touch continued…

Remember I spoke about the potty touch? Today I sat in one of my newly re-skinned chairs and guess what? Yep.


I had just called the shop anyway to redo them because I was not happy. The bottom sling was way too loose and little did I know, they didn’t use the right size spline, hence the reason it pulled out of the chair. The guy that picked them up couldn’t believe what he saw. He agreed the slings were too loose. They were supposed to have them corrected by today but I didn’t hear from them. I figure they have to order the right size spline.

Potty touch

That’s what a co-worker of mine used to call it. You know, when everything you touch turns to KaKa. This seems to be what I got lately. Everything seems to be falling apart around here. Today’s was the humming bird feeder. After cleaning and refilling it I was screwing it back together and the neck of the GLASS bottle snapped off. Yes glass. The base is plastic and it won over the glass. I am trying to eliminate a few things on my To Do list but I’m afraid to touch anything. Ha! As I am typing this Susan looked out the window and noticed that two pictures fell off the patio wall and of course they broke.

We got the chairs back. Here is the before and after photos.

Hopefully they will last a bit longer than 2 years this time. The place that did them assured me this is better material than the last. I guess my next project is the chase lounges. I think I have decided to change the color so now I need to not only fine the right color vinyl but I have to find paint to match. I thought I found the right paint but after looking further into it I noticed it was for indoor use..Huh.

Got a mini air show today.

Four of these guys came over in formation and after passing over the airport they split off one by one then came around and landed. The airport is only about ¾ mile from us as the crow flies. Pretty cool!

It seems to refuse to cool down around here. Today was still 108 on my patio. At least it is under the 100-teens. I have been waiting for cooler weather to get some things done around here.

Got it

I got my new camera so I am back in business. I am totally happy with it and am glad I did the research. If I had it to do again thought I might have got another model. There is a model that is exactly the same as the one I got with the exception of Resolution, Zoom, and Cost.

The resolution on mine is 14 mega pixels as opposed to 12 on the other model. You might say, that’s better. Well, it is if you intend to print wall sized photos. I realized that even though my last camera was capable of 7 mega pixel, I only used it at 3 mega pixels. Here are 2 photos,

This one at 3 mega pixels

and this one at 14.

I can’t tell the difference. Even when I enlarged them and looked closely I could tell very little difference.

My new camera has an optical zoom of 8 and digital of 4. The other model had an optical zoom of 5 and digital of 4. Not much difference as you can see in these 2 photos. I was focusing on the power pole.

This one is at 5x

And this one at 8x.

However, with the higher Mega Pixels and the capability of an Extended Optical Zoom plus Digital Zoom mode My camera is capably of a 67.5X zoom as opposed to a 39.1X on the other model.

Now that’s a big difference.

I use zoom a lot and am glad I got the extra 3x.

The last difference is cost. The other model was about $20 less than the one I got. I am happy with the model I got.

For your own research, the model numbers are
The one I bought Panasonic - DMC-FH20
The other mode - DMC-FH1

Be persistent

Sometimes being persistent pays off, sometimes it’s just a waist of time. This time it paid off. As I said before, our patio furniture is in need of some new clothes. I scoured the internet and found the best price for the material already cut and sewed. All I have to do is install it. Well this is all well and good but there is a problem…Of course! The measurements they want me to do won’t work with the style of chairs I have. So I headed down to a place in town that can order the pieces for me to see if they know how to measure it correctly. No joy with them either but they referred me to another place in town that will custom make them. Turns out I can get them done with better material including pickup and delivery for the price the other guy wanted for material alone. Not only that but they can do my motorhome upholstery and windshield screen also, yes those need to be done too.

Won’t be long and I won’t have anything left to do, YEAH RIGHT!

It’s never easy

Why are things never as easy as they seem? Today I decided to tackle the toilet job. We have been putting up with a leaky toilet for quite some time now. I ordered the parts a few weeks back and they arrived right away. Since Susan was off doing grocery shopping I figured this would be a good time. I have a tendency to turn a 5 minute job into a 5 hour job and this was no exception. After pulling everything apart I thoroughly cleaned everything before reassembling. Everything went well. 3 hours later I was ready for the installation. They sure don’t give you much room to work with these things. I did my best to attach the water line after mounting the toilet but of course it kept leaking. After several attempts I decided it was time to pull the damn thing out again and figure out what deal is. Turns out the rubber seal got catawampus. This time I connected the water line before mounting the toilet. This is not the correct procedure and was more difficult to do. Anyway, it’s in and we now have a brand new toilet…at least the innards.

Now on to the clock since the parts arrived while I was rebuilding the toilet. Everything went fairly well with that project except the hands from the old clock (which I wanted to reuse) didn’t fit the new one…Go Figure! No biggy, since the new hands are the same style as the old, except I ordered the clock with brass hands thinking I might like them better than the original black ones. So the new hands are on. If we don’t like the brass, I got some black spray paint. The real trick is to sync the chime with the time on the new clock. The old one was easy, there are buttons on the back to set the chimes hour and minutes. Not so on this one, and of course it didn’t come with instructions. I searched the internet and finally found instructions.

Summer Photos

I just added the photos of our summer trip with our Grandson to our photo site. If you take the time to scan through them you will see why he is looking forward to next summer. We sure had a great time.

Click on the thumbnail in the left column.

Ordered

I did it today. I ordered the camera today. After breakfast I was back on the computer looking further into cameras when Susan asked, are you looking at cameras again. That did it. I was pretty much set on which one I wanted so I pushed the order button. I mentioned to Susan that I placed the order and she asked, are you OK? I ordered this camera in spite of the last review I read. A professional wrote it so I took that into consideration. This is not a professional SLR camera, it is an inexpensive digital point and shoot. The review discounted the camera because of lack of manual control for a lot of the settings. I never used the manual settings on my last camera. I tried once and not only did it take me a lot of time to set everything (the photo op would have been gone by then) but the picture looked like crap. I am a point and shoot kind of guy. I know there are probably going to be things I don’t like about this camera but that is true with any of them. If I really can’t get along with it I can send it back.

It wasn’t long after I put the computer away that is was back in my lap. Now I am researching material to rebuild our patio chairs and loungers.


(These photos were taken with our phone since I drowned my camera.)

They take a real beating here in the Arizona sun. Turns out there are many choices in color for the new material. I tried my best to narrow it down to 4 colors and ordered samples.

Analytic

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so analytic. I guess it comes from my engineering background. I have spent days trying to figure out what camera to buy. Most people will just head down to their local Walmart, look at the cameras in their price range and within a few minutes they are walking out with a new camera. I know because I have witnessed this. Today I went to Walmart to do some touchy feely with a couple of cameras that I narrowed it down to while online. Unfortunately someone ripped off the power cord for one of them so I didn’t get a chance to do a real comparison. I thought I had it narrowed down to two cameras until I got home and did a little more research. I found out that if I signed up for an Amazon (Visa) credit card that they will give me $40 off my first purchase. Well that just upped my spending limit by $40. So I started looking into more expensive units. I found one that had one of the best reviews of all the cameras sold on Amazon, even the higher priced ones, and it fit the bill. Now I will have to go back to Walmart and play with it, or it’s equivalent to see if it’s really the one I want.

By the way I did filled out the short form for the Amazon credit card online and was approved within seconds. They have added the card to my Amazon account for immediate use. They said I will get the card in the mail in about two weeks. Man was that easy or what?

If it aint on the internet

…It doesn’t exist, right? Wrong. I scoured the internet for a new original Dometic refrigerator roof vent. I found only one. Every were else either did not list one or stated it was no longer available. So I ordered the only one I could find. I promptly got an email that it was also no longer available. After a long search I figured I would give my local RV parts placed a try thinking one might have one left over in a storage room or something. Well it only took 3 stores and there it was, on the shelf. So I snatched it up. So much for the internet.

I have been also scoring the internet for a replacement clock movement for our pendulum/chime clock that gave up the ghost. The chime and pendulum still work but the hands don’t move. I discovered that the gears inside the movement are very light and fragile and years of bouncing down the road just took a toll on them. After days I finally found a suitable replacement and ordered it this morning. At least I hope it will work…we will see when it arrives. I think I can make it work no matter what.

The next internet search is for a new camera since mine doesn’t seem to want to recover after the drowning. I may have narrowed it down to 2 models but have to do more research before I order. It’s funny that I can get twice the camera now-a-days at about one third the price as the last one I bought.

Too much to do

Man have I been busy. Seems everything needs attention at the same time. I have a “To Do” list that won’t quit. The problem is I can’t just replace the broken parts because it seems everything has been discontinued, so I have to find an alternative or do some modifications.

We did find time to heading out on the lake last weekend. Yes we went out on the lake on Labor Day weekend.



This is a friends boat. He says he’s done 120 mph in it. He is looking for something faster. We spent all day Friday on the lake before all the weekenders showed up and Saturday we just parked the boat in the channel a watched.

What a show.

This is some lucky guy, what’s he got that I don’t. Oh yeah, a boat.

The pictures in this post will be the last for a while because my camera went swimming this weekend…Well it was in my pocket when I went swimming. I let it dry out and a few functions work but some refuse to. It takes pictures, at least it thinks it does but the pictures are just black.

107 Today

The temperature climbed to 107 degrees on our patio this afternoon. It is supposed to get hotter as the week goes on. We are heading out on the lake this Friday with some friends on their boat. I know, it’s a holiday weekend in Havasu. Not a good time to be on the water but hey…It’s not my boat. At least we don’t have to worry about the crazies at the launch ramp since the boat is already in the water. Should be interesting!