In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2) by SIGNYM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 28, 2026 02:32
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VIEWED: 308187
PAGE 159 of 159

Monday, July 27, 2026 7:46 AM

I don't imagine I'm going to be good for much today.

I stayed up all night cleaning.

Basement is almost entirely clean now. I'd say maybe another half hour to organize some final things staying down there and to move things out to the garage, and maybe another hour and a half if I wanted to deep clean everything. Not including the bathroom.

Got yet another bag of trash out, and everything that was going to the garage I had ready so far is out there in my big work bench to sort through.

At 5:30AM it was disgusting out there. Had to be 80 degrees already and so humid my glasses fogged up and I could barely see anything.

I think I'll run my errands this evening for sure. I've got to remember to go to the hardware store and buy those screws for the ceiling vent diffusers. Should only be about $10, and that's a steal compared to trying to find the half of them that are missing and cleaning off all the crud and rust from them. I'll just zip them up in there and then paint them white with an artist brush.

If I get up early enough to do some more work and take a shower to go out when it finally starts cooling off a bit, I may finish that basement before I go out.

Going to bed now. See ya on the flip side.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 27, 2026 1:58 PM

BRENDA

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:

Yeah. I also like watching snow falling too. That's pretty good as well.

I used to until I owned a home.

Quote:
I know and I live in a province where outside of fishing, logging was the other big industry. We have been replanting trees here but we are far behind the game it isn't funny at times. And a seedling has to be in the ground over 20years before it is ready to be logged. Which is why the logging companies want to go onto protected lands. Not good. There are trees in my province that are between 500-1,000years old and they are huuge both in trunk width and just height. Those are called "Old Growth" and are protected.

Huh...

Not trying to get political or anything, but perhaps tariffs on Canada for lumber would actually deter some of that potential behavior?

How good are the local/regional/countrywide politicians when it comes to protecting all of that. Do you trust those in power to keep good on those promises.

Native Tribes and promises aside, nobody should ever think of touching trees with that kind of history anywhere in the world that they're still growing is my belief. Regrow everywhere we can, and use that to replenish our needs. We don't need to destroy everything with history like this. Because if we do that, we'll still be in the same position we were, short on everything we need, but now nothing is still left that wouldn't take another 5 to 15 lifetimes to regrow from scratch, assuming that our planet is even capable of doing that under different circumstances than those which these large trees flourished.

I would think if it's too expensive for logging companies in Canada to even consider cutting that stuff down, it can't be a bad thing. I don't even know, Brenda... are there even still tariffs against Canadian lumber imports?

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

I hear ya. I asked my dad one time when I was little if he liked snow answer, "Nope. Seen too much of it when I was growing up." Have to remember that he grew up in Southern Alberta and if wanted snow believe me they got SNOW. And with capital letters.

No worries and it is a fair question. There are tariffs on what is called soft wood lumber that goes to the States has been for years.

Areas of trees that are old growth fall on the provincial government to protect. Local governments at the city level can't do anything. But there are large parcels of land that provincial governments have protected over the years. Some have been made into parks by both provincial and federal governments. In the last few years the provincial governments have been skirting the line between keeping their word and letting logging companies in.

Oh, I agree those old growth trees should never be touched because they can't be replaced. It would again take centuries for trees to hit the height and width these trees are. And seedlings like I said have to be in the ground at least 20years before they can be logged. There are rules about how much width and height a tree has to have before the companies can go after it.

Depending on where they want to cut it is expensive. It means lots of heavy equipment as they are going farther into steeper areas of the province. My province isn't that flat. We have coastal mountains on one side and other almost mountains then we have the Rockies which are our natural border with Alberta. As I said up there are tariffs but that has been a back and forth thing between BC and Washington State for years. They up the tariffs and then we tariff something.

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Monday, July 27, 2026 2:00 PM

BRENDA

Well, I got the recycling done and still gotta find something better to get for the kitchen sink. Frustrating.

Anyways out to find that and do a couple of other things. Jacket and umbrella day.

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Monday, July 27, 2026 5:24 PM

BRENDA

Well, what I got today sort of works. Still frustrating.

Other small things done. No rain so far. Have to see.

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Monday, July 27, 2026 10:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Overall, a pretty awful day in JackWorld...

After working all night well into the morning, I didn't get much sleep, because I was woke up by thunderstorms. Not too bad at first, but then the air raid sirens came a few hours later and things got BAD again. Hail, stupid winds, so much rain at one time the gutters can't do their job, etc. Looks like in total over 60,000 houses were without power again.

Don't know why they fixed me pretty quick this time. I thought it wasn't a bad outage until my power was back up about 4 or 5 hours later and I found out that many houses lost power again.

After my power went out, I figured I'd run my errands early but during the time I took a shower, the city sewers were not working again and the goddamned street was flooded so I was trapped. Well... Fuck me.... I figured I was going to let the sump ride for a while before getting the generator out, but if the city sewer isn't working that's not an option.

So I had to move all the damn closet doors and horses and the bookcase far out of the way of the window so I could get the generator plug outside and not screw up any of my pieces while I made a big mess again after finally getting everything cleaned up from the last catastrophe.

Sump was going every 7 minutes or so for about 4 hours, so no way I would have gotten away with waiting until the power came back on because of that fucking city sewer not doing its job for the 5th time so far this year.

I managed to install the ceiling lamp before the power came back on and do some more reorg in the basement. After the power was back on I ran my errands and that was a joke.

My Menards sucks ass and has such a small selection of screws compared to their megastores or just any Home Depot, so I wasted about 30 minutes there and didn't buy anything. I needed self-tapping #8 screws that were at least 2" long and apparently those aren't important enough to carry at the small stores.

At least Aldi was open.

But the Dollar Tree wasn't. Their power must have been down too. I knew better than to try it because one car was leaving and there weren't any cars in the parking lot. I stopped anyway and thought maybe I finally got lucky and wouldn't have any lines for a change, but the doors were locked. All the lights were on and one of the register lights were on. Power must have been out for them and all the employees left and they didn't think to turn off the Register 2 light, I guess.

I got 3 of the vents installed and it took me about 2 hours. They're the biggest bitch in the world to put back up just like I knew they would be. The kitchen one was where I finally figured out what I need to do to get the rest of them up without my murderous rage manifesting tomorrow, but by that time I already did damage to the paint job on one living room vent, and I think I damaged the ceiling paint by rubbing the back of the other living room vent along it to try to line up the 2nd screw. I don't know if I can wipe that off or if it's damage to the finish. I'll find out tomorrow. But I might be doing both spray paint and ceiling touch-ups after this crap.

I figured out the trick is to just get one good screw into the octopus vent that's just resting on the drywall, then just drill new holes for the other 2 or 3 screws that need to go in, depending on how many holes that particular vent needs, then screw them in by hand. The other 3 shouldn't be bad, but it's dark out now and I'm cooked.

I was up all night and had to deal with nothing but bullshit today.

Here's hoping it's a nice Tuesday.

Weather should be cool and freakin' normal for once, so at least we got a head start...

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 27, 2026 11:26 PM

BRENDA

Well, my right hand shook or clicked something and now icons like Windows and such is gone. Can't use search bar either and can't bring up anything on the little windows next to the type search here. Don't know how to fix. HELP!!!

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Monday, July 27, 2026 11:42 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Are you still stuck, Brenda? Sorry. Just saw this now.

If you hold the CTRL and ALT buttons to the left of the space bar and then press the DEL or Delete Key, which should be somewhere to the right of the main keyboard, it will bring up a menu. From there you can just reset your computer and everything should be fine when you bring it back up.

(You'll probably have an option pop up in the center of the screen to log out and then you could log back in and it should be good too, otherwise you'll need to locate the power icon which looks like a circle with a little vertical line at the top. It will pull up a menu and restart should be one of the options).

Worst case you could just power it down and power it back up, but I don't recommend doing that unless absolutely necessary.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:24 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

BRENDA!!!!!!!

You there????

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:36 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I had a chance to finally relax and feel better about the day.

Despite the challenges, some work did get done. And it appears that I didn't need to spend the $13 on a 30 ct box of self-tapping screws, although that would have made it a LOT easier to do than using these regular sheet metal screws that need existing holes, otherwise they just push the vent higher the more you screw them in. I think I figured the trick out and now I know why there were already so many existing holes that didn't seem to have a rhyme or reason.

I have some pics... I wanted to show the both of you the two chests I still have out there. One is the really nice hope chest I was telling you about, and what appears to be some sort of ancient tool chest. I want to do a little research on that one before I do anything to it.

The nice chest actually looks pretty good as is except for that unfortunate hole in the top. Maybe all I would really need to do is fix the bottom and put some more poly on it or something. I dunno... I'm not going to be messing with that for quite a while. Hopefully I can clear out enough space elsewhere to put it where it is no longer in the way of other stuff until I get to it. Maybe I'll even bring it in the house and keep it in the small bedroom after I finish dehoarding.

Inside are the legs to my Grams old huge dining room table. Don't know exactly what I'm doing with them yet, but you can see the two end chairs that had arms on them in the background too. They'd need a serious reupholstering, but they're in pretty nice shape otherwise.

Here's my light for the basement bedroom. Before work shot, shot of the old fan, and final shot of the fixture installed after it got cleaned up and spray painted.

And exactly one half of the ceiling vents finally done after 15 years.

Slow and steady wins the race. That rabbit can get bent.

I still have my gay chef that my sister-in-law and brother bought me while they were out antiquing. I also have a cool wood piece that was beveled nicely on the ends and had all 3 of the gay chefs painted on it from them too. I know it's packed away in the attic in one of those boxes, so I'm bound to find it soon. I'm going to have to find a home in the kitchen for that too.

They really loved that kitchen. Not that they'd EVER think of doing that in their house, but they loved that somebody else had it.

Yanno what... I'm going to go back in time and see if I can find a shot before I pulled any of that Chef border down and repainted the walls. I'm sure I have a similar before shot of the kitchen to the one I just posted.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:46 AM

BRENDA

I'm still here and still stuck. Will go back and read what you said. I've written down what you said. I wish I knew what I did. I know my hands have been shaking. Both of them and I know this has nothing to do with anything but I brought up a menu about sticky keys. That came up because my pinky on left hand was shaking on a letter key. Should also mention weather icon is stuck as well as clock.

But won't doing something like that mess things up instead of fixing it. It's not that I don't trust you. I'm just nervous is all.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:49 AM

BRENDA

Not having a good afternoon evening anyways. My trip maybe cancelled because of WestJet and its flight attendants can't reach an agreement. I put a cut ear of corn into air fryer and had it on at a wrong temperature. Burned it a little but at least I didn't make popcorn. Then this happened. Ugh!

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:51 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I'm still here and still stuck. Will go back and read what you said. I've written down what you said. I wish I knew what I did. I know my hands have been shaking. Both of them and I know this has nothing to do with anything but I brought up a menu about sticky keys. That came up because my pinky on left hand was shaking on a letter key.

I'm not sure what you did, Brenda, and without seeing a screenshot of it I don't think I'd be able to figure it out. I can tell you that you most likely did a "Hotkey" function of some sort. As in you were possibly holding down the CTRL or ALT keys, or possibly SHIFT and then you accidentally pressed another key while one or several of those were held down, and Windows automatically did the thing it's supposed to do when you hit that key combination. But since I don't know what you did or what you're looking at right now, the best thing to do is just restart the computer one way or another.

Honestly, if nothing else works you can just hold down the power button until your computer shuts off and then start it up again and it should work.

I just don't like recommending that because Windows really doesn't like that, and I can't remember which version of Windows you're using.

Chances are very, very good that it would boot right back up and everything would be fine, but it might force a disk check that would take a while if you have anything before Windows 10. I'm sure you've lost power before and your computer was on and it ended up being okay. Powering the machine down wouldn't be worse than a power outage.

But try my notes above first. It's just press CTRL , ALT and DEL all at the same time to get that menu, then either log out and log back in, or find the power button so you can get the menu to allow you to restart the computer the right way and it should all come back up fine.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:53 AM

BRENDA

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I'm still here and still stuck. Will go back and read what you said. I've written down what you said. I wish I knew what I did. I know my hands have been shaking. Both of them and I know this has nothing to do with anything but I brought up a menu about sticky keys. That came up because my pinky on left hand was shaking on a letter key.

Honestly, if nothing else works you can just hold down the power button until your computer shuts off and then start it up again and it should work.

I just don't like recommending that because Windows really doesn't like that, and I can't remember which version of Windows you're using.

Chances are very, very good that it would boot right back up and everything would be fine, but it might force a disk check that would take a while if you have anything before Windows 10. I'm sure you've lost power before and your computer was on and it ended up being okay. Powering the machine down wouldn't be worse than a power outage.

But try my notes above first. It's just press CTRL , ALT and DEL all at the same time to get that menu, then either log out and log back in, or find the power button so you can get the menu to allow you to restart the computer the right way and it should all come back up fine.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

I'm using Windows 10.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:58 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

You should be fine. Just hold the power button down. Give it about 20 seconds. Then press power again.

It should load up fine. It may ask you if you want to perform a "chkdsk" operation on your primary "C:\" drive. If it does, you could press any key within the first 10 seconds to skip it, since it's almost certainly fine.

You've had a power outage with that computer before, I'm sure. Right?

Never had any problems starting it back up, did you?

This isn't as bad as your computer getting a power outage jolt as its being powered down incorrectly, and it's still working.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 1:01 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Yeah. I just had another power outage on 3 computers. About the 6th one in 2 months, probably. Except for a few issues I had on one of the computers running Windows 11 that I had to fix and babysit until it came back up, everything else came up fine every time. None of the Windows 10 installations gave me problems.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 1:19 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I still have my gay chef that my sister-in-law and brother bought me while they were out antiquing. I also have a cool wood piece that was beveled nicely on the ends and had all 3 of the gay chefs painted on it from them too. I know it's packed away in the attic in one of those boxes, so I'm bound to find it soon. I'm going to have to find a home in the kitchen for that too.

They really loved that kitchen. Not that they'd EVER think of doing that in their house, but they loved that somebody else had it.

Yanno what... I'm going to go back in time and see if I can find a shot before I pulled any of that Chef border down and repainted the walls. I'm sure I have a similar before shot of the kitchen to the one I just posted.

Got it...

WOW. I can't believe the filth I lived in for so many years before I got serious and knocked that kitchen out.

I almost throw up a little in my mouth just looking at what it looked like when I moved in. Especially seeing that can of Icehouse sitting on the left side of the sink.

And the wrought iron overlook, and that gross and peeling chessboard floor.

YUCK!

And what it looks like now.

It's pitch black at night when this photo was taken, and the room is that bright from the single light under the stove hood. If that room were still dark stained wood and crazy chef colors, that would suck up so much of that light I probably would have had to turn the fan lights on to even snap a picture you could see.

When I find that picture of the gay chefs in the attic, I'll be sure to snap it. It's a picture of all 3 chefs that I think is exactly the same pose on the right side of this wallpaper banner.

And since I showed the vents in the living room, these were the closest pics I could find before I started doing work in there.

Yup... Another room where the windows were just plastered right in and given the weakest little windowsill you've ever seen.

But because I didn't want to make a new large sill from scratch like I did for all the windows in the 2nd floor bedrooms, I just fabricated 4 blocks, 2 for either side of the small and big window. I cut them to the exact sizes I needed them, then I probably spent about half a day running back and forth to my work bench in the garage to use my belt sander to shape them to match the end of the windowsills exactly.

Once they were perfect, I CAREFULLY made counter-sink holes from the sides of them and put some beefy wood screws into the sill and used wood putty to make it all look like one piece before covering up the painted plaster with proper wooden jambs and a nice wide frame.

Oh... and those leather pieces in there now are the real deal. They were my buddy's basement furniture we used to lounge on while watching movies before we put the pool table in the basement and there wasn't room for them anymore. I got those, and his fireplace heater that's like $500 or $600 new (and that's the one out in the porch with the TV on it).

That leather was never treated right, and I thought I'd never fix the place where he had his greasy hair on the back of the single seat recliner, but the leather cream I got on Amazon was amazing. I can't remember the first step, but I do believe that I washed it down and scrubbed the hell out of certain parts like that with water and baking soda, if memory serves. Only after that was done and wiped off completely did you start applying the cream. 2 coats, each with a buff-out, and aside from a few spots on the sides where there are some very minor tears, they look brand new. I should give them just one more coat soon just to get that really nice smell they had for about a month afterward.

My dad LOVES that 1-seater recliner when he comes over to watch movies.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 1:38 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

How we doing, Brenda?

I was hoping to hear back from you before I finished my photo update.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 2:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Okay Brenda...

Now I'm worried that a power down restart brought you right back to the same problem, but now you might not even be able to get on your browser and that's why you haven't gotten back to me yet.

Oh geez... I didn't even think of that possibility.

I'm sorry if that is what is happening.

If there's any possible way that you are able to read a post here but you just can't reply for some reason, please try the following because I think you may have turned on the "Magnifier Tool" on accident. If that is what happened...

HERE IS THE FIX:

Press and hold the "Windows Logo Key" (the key with the 4 squares on the bottom, to the left of the Space bar) and tap the Esc key (top left corner) at the same time.

If you're in the Magnifier tool now on accident, doing that will make your screen normal again.

***NOTE: If your keyboard is old and you don't have a Windows key, you will instead need to hold the CTRL and the ALT keys to the left of your space bar and then hit the letter "M" and that should get you fixed.

I hope you can see this Brenda!!!

I hope you're not freaking out and you think to go to the Library to see if there was an update before you go to the trouble of packing it up and taking it somewhere.

I'm sorry...
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026 2:32 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Damn my Old Dog brain...

I should have seen this as a potential problem.

But even if I didn't just say screw it and do a hard restart with the power button and I walked her through a proper restart, it wouldn't have fixed this issue and Brenda still wouldn't be able to reply. If she's in the Magnifier Tool, that's an Accessibility Option and it's persistent between sessions even if you reboot your computer with purpose through the Windows restart.

The ONLY way she can get out of that the Magnifier Tool is if she can read this and knows to Hold Windows Key and Hit ESC, or she has somebody come to her place or takes the computer somewhere to somebody who would know to do that.

And that's even assuming from the limited description she gave of the scenario led me to the correct conclusion. If it's not the Magnifier Tool that was triggered and it's something else, I don't know if Windows Key and ESC will even work.

What an ASININE TRAP.

Are you kidding me? This shouldn't even be a remote possibility that somebody with limited computer knowledge could ever accidentally screw up their settings so bad they can't use the computer even after a restart. Make it a 3-key combination at least M$!

If she's in the magnifier tool, everything is zoomed in 200% and the screen pans to the sides and the top and bottom with the mouse. If she's moving the mouse around quickly and panicking, the screen is just flying around all over the place. The big problem is that the task bar disappears completely, so she can't even scroll down to the bottom and at least see the start button.

WHY WOULD THEY MAKE THAT PERSISTENT BETWEEN SESSIONS????

If it didn't start her right back where she was with her browser open to this page, what benefit is it to anybody with vision issues to restart Windows into this state with no task bar? I don't even get it.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE
6ixStringJack	07.28 00:24
6ixStringJack	07.28 00:36
Brenda	07.28 00:46
Brenda	07.28 00:49
6ixStringJack	07.28 00:51
Brenda	07.28 00:53
6ixStringJack	07.28 00:58
6ixStringJack	07.28 01:01
6ixStringJack	07.28 01:19
6ixStringJack	07.28 01:38
6ixStringJack	07.28 02:07
6ixStringJack	07.28 02:32