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What did you do this weekend?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Friday afternoon I purchased some beer from a local brewery for pickup, but I accidentally chose delivery. I phoned to make a change and didn't get an answer, but since I had to run some other errands (groceries, grass seed, gasoline) I just stopped by the brewery to see if they'd give me the order, or to pick up a six pack to tide me over until the order shipped. They gave me the order, no problem, except I noticed that there were seven extra beers in the order after I got home. When I called to point this out, they said "no problem, enjoy." The next day, they delivered the order onto my lawn. I called to ask how to pay for it, and left a message, but I imagine I was garbled, because the result that I got was they refunded me the $10 for delivery because I had picked up the beer. The manager did end up calling me back and we laughed and worked it out; I now have a tab to come in and pay off at my leisure, along with about a six month supply of beer, since I generally don't drink much. As a result, I drank more beer this weekend than the entire rest of the year put together (that's only 5 beers) and I feel a little gross this morning. Not hungover, just fat.
On Saturday, I delivered some stuff to my parents, who are very serious about isolation - when we go to their house, we stay 20 ft away, and don't go inside. I brought my two younger kids with me, and their bikes, and a disc golf basket. There was bike riding and disc golfing - we're playing with the idea of putting in a 9 hole course at my parent's house, and we played a couple of test holes with my travel basket. My dad has had some awful arthritis in his hands lately, and he had a half dozen different things that he needed me to do for him, so I helped with the lawn, rototilled the garden beds, clipped some tree branches, set up the pool filter, and more. When I got home, I found that our lawn mower had decided to stop working - they just don't make 'em like they used to, I can't believe this one stopped working after just 35 years - and I went out and bought a lawn mower and mowed the lawn. Then I dove back into Elite Dangerous and played for a couple of hours. I bought a new ship, leaning into the trade aspect of the game. it worked out fairly well; though I'm certainly still a beginner, I made a couple of million credits in an hour by focusing on trade and "freebie" courier quests.
On Sunday my son and I went to the newly re-opened disc golf park near our house and played a (terrible for me, ended +5) round, then we went to our friend's 40th birthday parade, where we stayed in our van across the road and yelled pleasantries at their family for 10 minutes. Then we did yard work for most of the rest of the day until we stopped to play Road Tennis with the kids in the evening. Sunday night my wife and I had "date night"; we ordered dinner from one of our favourite local restaurants and watched a movie - Red Sparrow, about Russian Sex Spies starring Jennifer Lawrence. The movie was okay, the food was great, and the company was best.
Man, I wish my in-laws were more serious. My FIL had a 3x bypass last year with pulmonary complications, but he's a social butterfly. My MIL would sit inside and watch HGTV all day unless you told her she couldn't go out, in which case she has a compulsive need to go shopping. We caught them walking the aisles of the local big-box lumber store because "they were bored and there are so many interesting things to look at". We've stopped doing the shopping for them because suspect they've been doing it themselves and are just making up things on a list for us to get for them.
If you want a "friendly face" in the galaxy, shoot a FR to Grey Top in Elite. I'm not on all that frequently these days, but you never know. I'm about 1/2 solo and 1/2 open, but will jump into US or EU Mobius group if I see someone I know there.
My in-laws are also not particularly serious, and my FIL has also had heart troubles, and is the sort of person who needs to take these things seriously. My MIL is the sort of person who will admonish someone for not following the guidelines while fragrantly flouting the guidelines, so we're just only spending time with them virtually; no visits, because they get upset if we won't go in their house, or won't let them in our house.
I will send you a FR once I figure out how to do so. I'm an infrequent player as well, though I only play open right now. I don't see a lot of people though; I think I'm pretty small time in my Asp, so nobody really pays me much bother.
Sounds like a pretty awesome weekend!
Really jealous of that deal and your proximity to ATV trails. I have been missing the days when I used to ride a dirt bike all day.
I finally recorded a clean version of Tragos Amargo and put it on YouTube and now I can go on to other things.
That sounded great! Thanks for sharing.
I should get an accordion.
Playing both the melody part and the accompaniment and keeping (relatively) in time is one of the things I'm struggling with most while learning guitar right now. You seem to have it down; good job!
Thanks!
Playing different things with each hand is indeed one of the tricky parts of learning accordion - it's similar to piano that way. Though, it's easier to start getting impressive results with an accordion than with piano due to the chord buttons.
I'm not sure what you mean for guitar? I've learned to play chords on a ukulele and I can see playing lead but both seems hard?
Here’s a few YouTube tutorials of playing melody and chord accompaniment on the same guitar:
https://youtu.be/rxF_gkKVJ1s
https://youtu.be/Pr7qWXClmpk
Finished a project that I started two years ago. Part of my lazy-not-lazy series where I make a ten minute task into a five minute task by spending a hundred hours making the process more efficient.
This biennium's completion: pressure washer for the car. To save the time of dragging out the washer and having to put it away, I bought one that could be disassembled from it's frame and mounted on the wall of my garage. With 3D printed brackets. And a modified reel because the one that came with the washer is really, really bad. Then ran a dedicated hose line to it. And added an in-line instant water heater. Which meant running power to the spot, but I didn't have a panel in the right place so I had to run a new sub-panel. With conduit through a 12" thick masonry wall.
No, I didn't get around to washing the car.
One of my plans was for pressure washing this weekend, but I never got my dad's washer started, even with some fire starter to help it along. I think it just wasn't getting a spark, but I got too frustrated to really deal with it, so I just delivered it back to him instead. I think I'm going to be renting one, though I've thought about purchasing an electric one instead since I anticipate washing things twice a year, and this brings me to the part where my comment actually becomes relevant to your story, which is what PSI is yours? I feel like the one my dad has (which is ~3500 psi) would just strip the paint off my car if I tried to wash with it.
It's a SunJoe 4001x - maybe 2100psi? Got it for <$150, maybe as a refurb, and it's got a Low and High setting. Low is great for the cars, High is good for light house work, small wood decks, and light cleaning of concrete and masonry.
For cleaning off the deck and large/dirty masonry gasoline is the way to go. I've got an old Craftsman that's ~3200-3400 psi. It let's me use a wider tip to get more work done and scrape the really tough lichen off the brick on the north side of the house. A good electric will work (something better than my SunJoe), but it'll probably cost as much as a gasoline. Look at flow+pressure. In that way they're like leaf blowers - 200MPH doesn't help you if you're only moving 150CFM.
Awesome, thanks for the advice! It's much appreciated. I'm thinking for now I'm going to just rent one (unless my dad gets his to actually start), but I'll continue to look for one that suits my needs.
I slowly built an incandescent rage about the behaviour of Dominic Cummings and the moral and ethical failures of the shit show of UK government who failed to reign him in.
Hey me too!
I don’t even know what are weekends anymore. The days are the same and I think I’m going crazy.
I wrote a gemini browser in bash and felt generally bad, mentally. Went on a hike Sunday which was really nice though!
Following @Tygrak's rant about how he has already cramped his muscles/unhinged his joints at 25 from sleeping on his stomach I tried to sleep up and it worked.
...Now that I think of it though, he never said he was certain about the cause of his problems so I probably shouldn't act like he is and take it as advice.