- Recycle Batteries #3
Renew my prescriptions.- Get exercise pads from storage.
- Check on Home Owners insurance for storage.
- Fix Jacoby account
- TurboTax
Next Year ACOCG- Make Dentist Appointment
- Mount HA#2 and Pi-Hole.
- Change owner of storage
- Fill batteries with water
- rebuild Attic fan power switchbox.
- Wells Fargo Advisors
- Good Will
- Hand truck
- Fertilize the lawn
- Buy a water hose
- Repair radiator on Blue.
- Repair the eves on our home
- Replace back door of garage
- Repair window in garage
- Replace seal under garage door
- Locate part number for seal
- Repair the brakes on Blue.
- Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.- Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
- Put tape over door seals on Blue.
- File estate taxes.
- Research Lawyer for Arizona
Monday 8 January
Started downloading the information off these old hard drives laying around.
Sorted through trash box
Dinner was cold, the dishes in the cabinets take the heat out of the food.
Spent a great deal of time organizing our time using our Day Timers. The wife now has three of them. One is a standard Day Timer that’s organized by date. The second is a small #6 one that is to keep track of routine tasks. The third one is to keep track of projects/stories that span large amounts of time but are important enough to organize.
Defrosted a pretty large hen using a Kroger freezer bag.
Ordered a defrosting plate so that we can defrost food in the fridge.
Received sink strainers that are easier to clean than the 1980s sink strainers.
Watched Charlie St. Cloud for our evening entertainment.
Tuesday 9 January
Received a defrosting plate to put meat on in the refrigerator, meat doesn’t tend to thaw very quickly at 36 degrees.
Spent a great deal of time looking for transfers from mom’s accounts.
Looked at heated and insulated bowls to serve our food on these cold days. The problem with the insulated ones is that they cannot be used in the dishwasher.
There are also heated plates that we can put the serving bowls on to keep them warm. The end result of the research is that we heat the heavy serving bowls in the microwave before we put the food in them. We’ve also toyed with the warmer drawer, but for now heating the bowls has worked best.
Watched “Get Santa” for our evening entertainment.
Wednesday 10 January
Ordered some more serving stuff so that we’re not eating cold food.
Heated the serving bowls in the microwave so that they didn’t cool off the contents. Our cabinets are on outside walls, and the serving bowls get pretty cold.
Received two 1/2 sheet cooking sheets with trays.
Put a tray under the thawing plate to increase the airflow around it.
Ordered two Callaway Impressions Correlle Bowls, they are light weight and shouldn’t take the heat out of the food being served. They were a tiny bit expensive, but I guess you have to pay to match the set.
Received a couple of books I ordered for the wife.
Church took up the rest of the evening today.
Thursday 11 January
Spent the entire day visiting with some friends, didn’t get much done other than that.
The turkey breast seems to be still frozen, my son recommended putting it under running water.
Watched “The Holiday” for the evening’s entertainment.
Friday 12 January
Washed my feet and used a fan to dry them before spraying my slippers.
Made an extra pot of coffee since it’s storming today.
My favorite IDC connector for projects!
A long time ago I was looking for a small connector to attach the small wires on almost all “Wall Wart” power supplies to a project. The default connector on these power adapters is a 2.5mm barrel connector.
There’s no convenient way to attach to a barrel connector. (Most come with a very short pigtail.)
I found these IDC (Insulation Displacement Connectors) on Amazan several years ago, they were terribly overpriced. ($0.67 Ea) is an unreasonable price for these tiny connectors.) This year there are a few vendors on Amazon with this connector and I got 60 of them for $0.32 which is far better. I also found them on Ebay for $0.33 which is also competitive price. (Maybe still a bit high) None of these are sold under the manufacturer’s name of “QUTE” which makes them hard to search for. (All of the vendors connectors thus far are manufactured by the same company QUTE.)
These connectors ARE a bit finicky; they have a very narrow range of insulation and wire size that’s compatible. They are also a bit difficult to attach to the wires without damaging them.
The clear plastic cover has to be bent up to provide the clearance to get the wires past the 2nd set of forks.
If the cover is bent even a little too much, it will not grab the catch on the end of the connector to hold it in place. Having used several hundred of them I worked out a process that seems to be consistent enough to be reliable. I clip the underside of the insulation just a little so that it doesn’t grab the 2nd jaw of the connector. I then use a pair of pliers to close the connector slowly until it clicks.
One more difficulty with these connectors is that power supplies don’t uniformly identify the positive lead with the striped marking on the wires. Most power supplies use the striped wire as positive, there are also a number of them that are oppositely marked. (I have to verify them with a DVM every time.) Also it’s quite easy to load the connector in either polarity which can destroy the connected device. Even the vendors on Amazon don’t identify the positive side of the connector the same way!
I chose the left side of the connector to be positive on all my devices. I also identify the device voltage with colored electrical tape.
(White = 5V, Yellow = 12V, Orange = 18V and Red = 24V or higher.)
Watched “The Secret” Dare to Dream for our evening’s entertainment.
Saturday 13 January
Slept in, my O2 monitor stayed connected to my phone until the battery was exhausted. I wish Google would close programs instead of letting them run in the background constantly.
Got a message from MyPay that my tax documents were ready. The medical document and my retirement pay W2 were all that was needed.
Broke out the new “Desk” size Daytimer refill and loaded it into our third desk size book. #1 is our combined Daytimer, #2 is Last Year combined and #3 is just me for this blog.
Checked the weather, it’s not going to be near as cold as predicted. Switched our Heat back to Heat Pump about noon today.
Went to our Grandson’s soccer meet this afternoon, they are amazingly quick at that young age. Family meeting was entertaining with all the snow out west.
Sunday
We treated ourselves to Longhorn after church for dinner then took a good long Nap. We cooked the turkey breast in the Insta Pot pressure cooker and then put it in the fridge for Monday’s meal. Watched “The Secret” Dare to Dream again for our evening’s entertainment and went to bed.