Categories
Adventure

Buddy

Buddy the dog, also known as Buddy girl, Buddy the girl, and good girl passed away. Buddy was 16 1/2 years old and the easiest dog we ever had. Rarely if ever did she need any instruction or correction, she also just knew what to do.

Frank found Buddy on Facebook at the age of 5. Her previous owner had to move and he wasn’t able to keep a dog Buddy’s size (which was pretty big). He wanted to make sure that she went to a good, loving home and we did our absolute best to give her that and more.

My very first impression of Buddy was how wide and dark she was. Her fur was jet black with a little bit of white on her one paw and her chest. Her most striking feature by far was her one blue eye. It was so blue it almost appeared to be pure white and that’s what pretty much anyone who met her would comment on.

Buddy’s favorite things were going for walks and eating treats. She was always up for a walk, regardless of weather or time of day. Pouring rain out, snowing, heat wave, none of this bothered her. She wanted her walk. When it was hot I would make sure to walk her early or later in the day and in the shade where possible, but besides that the elements would have to bow to her joy of the walk.

Our walks will be certainly what I will miss the most. As much as she loved her walks, I was just behind her (literally as she always took point). It was often the high point of my day too, we really were a great walking team.

She also enjoyed belly rubs, and any attempt to pet her she’d cleverly maneuver herself and your hand to rub that belly. You could start petting her head and within a few seconds somehow have your hand rubbing her belly. It was a true skill.

While Buddy never begged or attempted to steal food, my dad did eventually teach her the joy of treats. In time she had my parents fully trained to deliver kibble or treats whenever she demanded it. She was really running the show over there.

One thing that I will always be amazed by and thankful for was her longevity. She was a big dog and made it to 16 1/2 very happy years. In fact I think part of her secret was her happy personality. I don’t think she ever had a bad day in her life, stressed over nothing, and was just a happy dog who didn’t worry about human affairs.

While I will miss my Buddy very, very much I do consider myself the luckiest guy for having to have the honor of having so much time with her. She really was the best.

Categories
Uncategorized

Recent Around the House Fixes

Over the past week I’ve had 2 fun little fixes around the house. Just yesterday my very old, but also very awesome Maytag combo washer/dryer stopped working.

Looking up the model number, I’m pretty sure it’s from 2003? Which is pretty crazy, but it really does such a solid job that I’d rather not replace it until it’s absolutely necessary. I know this makes me sound like an old man, but they really don’t make appliances as dependable as they used to.

So, the dryer wasn’t powering up. God bless the internet and all its wisdom, it suggested I check to see if the power tripped, the door switch or a thermal fuse.

I started with the the circuit breaker since that was the simplest for me. All seemed fine there, but I turned it off and on just to give it a shot. No difference.

Next I looked into the door switch. Reading up on it a bit more, it seems like that can be a fairly common issue. I read up on how to replace the part, where to order it and all that good stuff. When I went to test it out, I was in luck (for a change). Just pushing it in all the way and letting pop back out a few times seemed to do the job!

Not 100% sure if it was a little stuck or if something got a bit loose where it’s connected, but I think I might be able to squeak a bit more time out of this fine, reliable appliance!

My other fix was my dishwasher racks. Sadly I didn’t take before and after photos, but both the top and bottom dish racks were getting quite a bit of rust on them. One tine had snapped off from so much rust a few months back, and it looked like a few more were on their way to joint it.

When I looked up the cost of replacing the racks, it wasn’t crazy expensive, but close enough to think about just replacing it altogether.

Doing a bit more research I noticed that its possible to sand of any rust and paint the exposed metal parts of the rack with some special paint that protects the metal and matches the current look of the rack.

I went with UberGoop, and ordered it off of Amazon. It came in a little nail polish looking bottle and also some vinyl caps that could be used to fix tops of the tines that were rusting (though my rust was mostly towards the bottom of the racks).

I had some sandpaper around the house that I used to sand down the racks. I probably could’ve used a Dremel too, but I like the accuracy I get using my hands when I can do it. Once sanded down it was really just applying 2-3 coats of the paint at that point.

I did wear a disposable glove and made sure to keep a finger on the bottle when not dipping into it, to keep it from drying up. Apparently this paint drys very fast!

It dried to a fairly rubbery texture, similar to the texture of the coating on the rack. Honestly, it was very hard to even notice where I applied paint, their light gray color was a perfect match to the rack.

Where I had a lot of damage, I did cut the top of a vinyl cap so there was no cap, and cut the other end so that I could slide it over the tine and the base of the rack. I applied some paint before sliding it on the tine snugly, and also applied some paint where the cut up cap met the tine, to attempt to seal it up for future water. I think it did add a bit more extra support to the really rusted bottoms, but I’ll have to wait and see how it holds up.

All in all, glad I was able to come with 2 fixes that seemed to work without being too duct taped looking.

Categories
Adventure Projects

Fixed a Randomly Running Toilet

Recently (overnight of course when I needed to get sleep) I noticed the toilet was occasionally running on its own every few hours. So I suspected there must have been some sort of slow leak that was causing it to want to refill.

I had a similar issue a few years back with a faulty fill valve and was able to fix that, so I figured it was likely something different this time. Did a little research and it sounded like an old flapper was the possibly the culprit.

Initially I tried removing some sediment around the flapper and that seemed to resolve the issue for a few days. Then of course as I was getting ready for work one morning I noticed it occurring again. So, this time I figured lets see how hard it is to just replace the flapper.

A few tutorials later, I was very confident I could do the replacement. On my way home from work I stopped at the hardware store to get a new flapper. Of course I didn’t think of taking a photo earlier in the day, but it is a pretty standard toilet so I got a nice, fancy universal one and thought it looked about right to me.

I got home and drained the toilet tank after I shut off the water to it by flushing it. Then used an old sponge to soak up the remaining water in the tank to make it easier for me to work in there. The water was really gross and rusted looking, so I’ll look into cleaning that up a big more another day.

Removing and snapping the new flapper into place was as simple as can be. I was really excited to attach the new flapper chain to the handle rod to give a flush test when I realized that the handle rod was bent funny.

Upon close inspection I snapped the metal rod in half. Apparently it’s been in pretty bad shape for a while, and I suppose rusted at some point? Not sure, but it snapped more like paper than metal. So alas, now I needed and new handle and rod too.

Back to the hardware store I went to get a new handle and rod. They had quite the selection, but I found one that I felt looked like it would fit and seemed rather sturdy.

Installing the handle and rod was easy. Instructions said you can bend it if the tank requires, but luckily mine did not. Which is good as at this time I felt I might break anything I could touch,

I connected the chain, turned the water back on gave a test flush. It was beautiful, it was like a brand new toilet to me.

I was able to then adjust the flapper to use less water turning a dial on the flapper itself and testing the strength of the adjusted flush. It really felt great to figure something new out!

The only thing remaining for me is that I noticed that when I flush the top of the handle rod in the tank seems to be just barely touching the top of the tank. I don’t think it’s anything too serious, but the instructions did say I could trim the row with a hacksaw if necessary to fit the tank. Then plan is to give that a shot and then call it complete.

All in all I was impressed that I was able to solve the issue at around $25 (it’s cheaper if you go with lower end parts) and probably a half hour of labor if you don’t count running to the hardware store twice. Good times!

Categories
Video Games

Elden Ring

Elden Ring cover artAfter 166 hours and probably thousands of “You Died” screens, I am finally the Elden Lord!

I picked up the game back in May with gift card I received for my birthday, and have been giving it a go for the past 6 months. Though very difficult, it was very, very good!

I went with a strength/tank build starting off as a vagabond. I dd want to try out some spells and such, but once I got going I felt like I had to build up my vigor and strength just to get by early on.

The world to explore was huge. Just when I thought I’d found everything in an area, I’d continually stumble upon a new region or detail. Not sure if this game would have been beatable before the internet, as I certainly had to turn to it for some tips and tutorials many times.

I think Starscourge Radahn. was my favorite boss. Getting slaughtered repeatedly by a huge boss on a tiny little horse was pretty great. Then finding out he used his gravity magic to make it possible to ride his childhood horse was an amazing touch. Almost brilliant.

I don’t think I even was able to defeat a crucible knight, so I pretty much avoided them when I could. Parrying was not my strength at all.

The final Radagon/Elden Beast gave me quite the fit. Must’ve had around 100 attempts before I got him. I think I originally attempted to take him on at level 147 or so, and ultimately would up getting him when I was level 171. So I really have to power up quite a bit to finally get him.

Such an amazing game, and really got my moneys worth out of this one.

Categories
Adventure

Escaped the Hellevator

I’m a big fan of Escape Rooms and any puzzle really, and had a blast successfully completing the Hellevator at Escape at the Shore.

Stacey and I took on the challenge. The room was very small and shook and simulated like an old elevator. It was really impressive. Don’t want to give away any secrets, so I’ll keep it vague.

The beginning was great. Everything in the room was setup perfectly for experience. There was a pay phone that could be used, all sorts of combinations, locks, and drawers to open. Pretty nice.

A creative twist is that we did have to interact/combat zombies at some point, but again will keep it vague on the exact details.

I did have a piece of the room break or malfunction on me, but I shared it with the game master through the camera in the room and they promptly remedied the situation. Ha, always my luck!

The end got pretty intense as we saw the time ticking down. We knew we had to hustle with only seconds remaining, but I ran to save every last precious second and we wound up beating the room with a scant 13 seconds to spare. We really cut it close!

Lots of fun, good teamwork and highly recommended!

Categories
Design Development

3D Printed a Broken Bike Part

A little plastic part that worked to support the magnet above an exercise bike’s flywheel had broken, making the bike only work on it’s hardest level. Not fun to pedal against such a harsh setting.

So we decided to see if we could 3D print a replacement piece, since the supply chain is making getting access to parts pretty tough.

This was my first attempt at 3D printing. So I starting with tinkercad, and watched a few of their tutorials. The web interface seemed fairly easy to pick up, just had to set aside some time to try to recreate the broken part in CAD with the assistance of a metric ruler to make sure I was being accurate.

Turned out I really enjoyed drawing the part. Took me back to my mechanical drawing classes back in Shop class in grade school. Always enjoyed mechanical drawings.

All I had to do now was export my drawing to a .stl file format and find a printer to create it. I checked to see what options were nearby and some online options too. The nearby Ocean City Library had a 3D printer and only charged $1 an hour. Couldn’t pass that deal up.

So I emailed them my .stl file and had it all ready to pick up the very next day. They were really awesome about it. Asked me what color I preferred it be printed as, very helpful.

Got home with the new part, swapped it only the bike and like magic all seems to be working well again. Will be interesting to see how it holds up in use, but thus far seems to be quite durable.

It was awesome, I’m still excited it worked! Eager to try printing more 3D things.