Sledgstone
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Status Updates posted by Sledgstone
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Got my pool setup last night. All thats left to do is hook up the filter and order a water delivery.
This same time last year we were digging out that pool spot for all of June. I'll always remember that back breaking digging. This year we put a light layer of sand down since the level is good and we wont have to worry about the pool shifting at all. I'd like to get a permanent pool at some point. It looks like buying a new ground tarp and water delivery every year will be roughly $200 a year for expenses. And these intex pools are only meant to last roughly 2-4 years, but the pool was roughly $280 on sale I think. Even then its still cheaper than a $2-$5k pool. I might stick with using these cheap pools for years.
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I'm assuming you need water delivery because the well would be overburdened to supply the pool? Living on city water my entire life, all I've ever seen people do throw the hose connected to the house over the side and and let it rip. Took a long time granted, and no telling what their water bill was for that month, but it was convenient.
I guess the ground tarp can't handle a single NY winter? I know people here can use their tarps until the sun bleaches it from dark blue to baby blue so long as a major tropical system doesn't rip it. People anchor those down pretty good.
You also have to consider the cleaning of a legit ground pool. Gotta climb down in there and scrub it out, who knows what can crawl up under that tarp all those months. I guess it depends one which cons and pros you prefer. Either way its more work that ever want to deal with. One thing I have is an extremely solid long term memory. I can remember things all the way back to when I was 3 years old. I remember when I was 5 til I was about 7, I went to a day care that had a pool. I swam in it a few times, but one year I guess they decided it was too much of a hassle and they just filled it in with concrete. That seemed to be the popular thing to do back in the 80s and 90s. I dunno how it is now when you don't want a pool anymore. I guess buying a ton of concrete is cheaper than demolishing the pool, having the debris removed, and the ton of dirt to fill it in.
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Yeah it'll be too much of a burden on the well that and I have hard water. It seemed more cost efficient to order water that is already chlorinated and balanced than slow fill with well water and buy alot of chemicals. Last year the pool test strips I used once a week were all good. The only thing I had to do was keep using chlorine pucks. My friend that lives near me has well water he filled his kids 2x10 foot pool. 2 tests this week and his alkalinity and ph is all super high. He'll have to call a local pool store for the chemicals since we can't find an alkalinity reducer. Looks like he'll have to add a small amount of a specific acid to the water and then a ph up afterwards.
We took the pool down before winter and stored it in the garage.. the ground tarp didn't even make it to winter. I think the weight of the water stressed the tarp because the legs of the pool settled an inch deep with every leg. Once the pool was down that tarp was brittle and wrecked. Lol.
I'm getting my water delivery on monday.
This is what the pool looks like so far. It looks filthy because I read it was best to baby powder it when folding it up for storage so it doesn't stick to itself when putting it back up because it's vinyl. Seemed to work because it unfolded just fine.
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And harbor freight ftw. 19x19 foot tarp for $19 with tax after coupon.
I kept the old tarp. I threw it in the garage thinking I'd reuse it, but man it was beyond destroyed.
I need to throw it in the garbage. What's really stupid is amazon sells "pool ground covers" for $89. All it is is a plain blue tarp. Lol. Screw amazon BS listings.
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Got my taxes done yesterday. I hate doing taxes. x_x H&R Block software works good for me tho.
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I've used TurboTax for years. I did mine the day i got my w2, and got my return last week.
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This year was odd for me because I had to wait for 2 w2s and some bank forms for the mortgage. Now I know what to wait for next year so I can get them done asap next time. My taxes are already getting spent. New summer tires for the car and propane to finish heating for the winter. Ehh.
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Guild Wars 2 released a statement that the pvp legendary back piece will still be obtainable in upcoming seasons... which means I don't have to grind out pvp that much now.
I'll get my 3 matches a day in still to progress the meta achievements but I'll be turning on my PS4 more often again. I need to play some more Tomb Raider. That game is OCD inducing in a good way.
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Guild Wars 2 spring update has got my interest. I must get that fractal back piece.
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The Ranger sword is amazing now. S/A is just beastly. I'm so happy they fixed that. I took my ascended sword away from my mesmer and gave it to my ranger.
I want bolt now.
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My full ascended armor is complete. My agony resistance gold sink is done too. All thats left is to get some more fractal relics and I'll have full AR for that fractal 100 boss fight. All I've done the last 2 evenings is craft. Starting tomorrow I can actually resume playing.
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GW2 had a balance patch yesterday and my necro had 2 specific skills changed. Epidemic got nerfed, and plague form got turned into plaguelands. I tried them both out last night. In a small mob of enemies epi looks like it works about the same, but I need to test it out more thoroughly. I haven't used the plague form in over a year, but when I did use it, it was for pvp and wvw because it gave stability and basically guaranteed an un-interrupted enemy stomp. Now it is a completely different skill that makes a small aoe field that pulses massive conditions. When I used it on a mob, that mob melted faster than anything. Holy crap. But even with my traits set to reduce cool down on corruption skills, I can only use this skill every 80 seconds. This skill is only useful against large zergs of strong enemies and bosses. This skill was designed specifically for raid bosses imo. Its aoe is too small and the cool down too high for normal pve. I'd rather keep flesh golem on for the cc against champs and legendary enemies. Sure plaguelands can pump out the damage, but the utility of flesh golem cc is too good to give up for me.
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Had a busy weekend. A cousin from out of state visited, another day we put a second coat of paint on our garage and the third day was all yard work. It was a nice having a 3 day weekend. I have another one coming up this weekend, but I have to replace the dip tube in my water heater, hopefully that doesn't take me all day. My water heater is in an awkward location in its own utility closet and I'll have to disconnect 3 water lines to pull it out far enough to get the tube down the top because theres a shelf over the water heater and it has no clearance. I'm sure it'll be a pain in my ass. x_x
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^
fortunately it turned to the right as soon as laura made a landfall. not a drop of rain and no wind. greetings for that day was like "hey, we dodged a bullet" or "hey, we are so lucky" lmao. have to see next week though, 2 new tropical storms heading this way from atlantic
lol damn..8 hours sounds like a nightmare. i hope you dont have to go thru that everytime you clean it. O_o the waterheater that got replaced had no problem for 20 years. or at least i dont remember it needing any maintenance. but the new one is electric, maybe little more than a year old, and it already had an overheating issue a couple months back. a technician said it was an error due to power outage but idk. i hope it lasts as long as the old one bc just by calling someone to check on it is like $120.
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It was only 8 hours because I had to drive to Lowes 3 times, lol. That was probably 2ish hours just in driving and going through the store. But it did take a long time. Mostly because I had to clean all the connections thoroughly because the original owners screwed up the connections and caused a corrosion issue. At one point I had to wait about an hour for the tank to finish draining. x_x When I go to do a yearly maintenance on it, as long as I set the water heater to drain in the morning, I could get the job done in an hour because the elements are facing the front of the heater so I don't need to disconnect anything again. So about an hour once a year not counting the time to drain it isn't too bad.
That gas water heater probably lasted that long because you must have decent water there. The gas burner is under the tank while an electric one has two heating elements that are inside the tank. Both the gas and electric ones get mineral deposit buildup all over the inside heat sources, that eventually builds up, flakes off and settles to the bottom of the tank, or for electric will build up so much it completely damages the elements until they break. Because I have well water and its heavy with minerals, that build up really builds up very very fast compared to public water that is already treated from a water company. The maintenance I'll have to do is drain the tank, take out the two elements and replace them, only $27 for a set, and vacuum out that mineral buildup at the bottom of the tank. I might get a water softener at some point and then I'd only have to do the maintenance for the water heater maybe once every 10 years. Your gas tank probably had 20 years of mineral buildup that eventually filled up so high it was causing heating issues. and btw, that mineral build up is heavy as hell. I bet those guys struggled their assess off removing that thing. lol.
Plumbers are expensive. x_x
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Oh and I forgot to say, that dip tube I installed in the water heater turned my 8 minute warm showers into 30+ minute hot steam showers. Night and day difference. It's like it's brand new. Not bad for a $30 part off amazon.
This is what the calcium buildup looks like that's in every water heater. Google water heater calcium buildup for some nasty looking pictures. Lol. I'm lucky tho, the inside and outside of my tank looks practically new still. But some really old tanks look so unhealthy and unsafe. Lol.
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Had another busy weekend that spilled over into the beginning of the week. I replaced my dryer belt and cleaned out 15 years of built up lint out of it. Its amazing how much lint gets past that lint trap and just builds up. No wonder dryers are fire hazards. Lint burns so damn easy and with as much lint builds up in a dryer its like gasoline ready to ignite into a massive fire with the smallest spark inside it. wtf.
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Holy crap I've been sick as hell for the last 4 days. Its a combo strep throat and flu. I've been off an on sick for the last month but this is kicking my ass on a whole new level.
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Sometimes if it's real bad it lets me freely shoot giant snot rockets until I empty out my sinuses.
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Yeah the menthol burns like crazy, but damn it works. It reminds me of Listerine, and why I don't use any of that "no burn" stuff Crest and others make... it just doesn't feel like its working unless my gums feel like they are being bathed in acid and fire.
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I beat Killzone Shadow Fall the other day. WTF kind of ending is that.
The mechanics of the game were decent. I liked having my own personal drone. It could attack, heal me, put up a shield, emp and zip line. Using that OWL was fun. But I never played the first 3 games and even tho you didn't need to play those to play this game since it takes place 30 years after the last game, I felt like I was out of place. The plot wasn't that good and some of the missions were down right aggravating with horrible checkpoint locations that caused me to waste 5-10 minutes repeating content because I died on too many occasions. I hated the scan for enemies function. It was so pointless half the time because the majority of enemies wouldn't even spawn until you went into a new location. I'd be sitting outside a door, scan for enemies, think I'm safe and just run right in. Then I'm ambushed by 4 enemies that just appeared. Because you die after taking about 4 bullets, I'd have to start at a checkpoint again and repeat crap. wtf. I got into the habit of running into a room and running right back out and rescanning for enemies. So annoying.
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I never got into KZ because the first game had shit controls that you could only turn into more shit controls. Stick wasn't ADS.
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I was glad the controls were good in the game and I could set crouch to right stick, but man that crouch was too realistic. This guy would take a knee all slow like he was actually carrying the 100 pounds of gear I had and he didn't want to break a hip.
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I beat The Walking Dead: Michonne tonight. Poor Michonne. The end really makes you feel for her. The action in the game was decent but was very short. It was only 3 episodes but compared to the original two TWD games Telltale has done, the Michonne game's length is equal to 1 and half of those episodes. I was also confused as to the time line of the game. I kept wondering why she had a machete and not her katana. I looked it up just now and the game takes place after some event in the comic where Michonne leaves the group for some reason. And this is the side story of that. But they don't hint at that at all.
The entire time I thought the game was taking place before she even met Rick's group at all. Overall it was worth playing for the $5 is cost me. But aside from a few choices that could have changed things, this game could easily be watched on a lets play instead.
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I beat Uncharted 3 today. It was a good game and it was quite visually impressive on many occasions. But overall it felt like uncharted 2 was a much more enjoyable game to me. 2 was full of constant action, exploring and adventure. While 3 felt more like I was always trying to escape from somewhere instead of exploring. Different parts of the game didn't tie together well for me and left many plot lines unanswered that would be irrelevant in a sequel considering how the game ended.
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I do look forward to playing uncharted 4 but I'll wait to pick it up on black Friday.
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I borrowed a friend's air fryer last week. I let it sit for a week and then cleaned it good, just in case of conoravirus. I was pleasantly surprised with how it cooked shake and bake chicken tenders. They had a nice crispyness. I reheated some pork chops in it yesterday and it turned out good. But the home cut potato fries didn't turn out crispy, but super fluffy inside. I think I used too much oil. I'm still experimenting with this air fryer but so far I'm liking it. I think I might have to buy one.
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I use to love ranch dressing... and I still do, but only fresh made like from restaurants. I guess I eat out so much I got spoiled and I find Hidden Valley, Kraft, and even Ken's to be just nasty. I can taste all the preservatives. Next time I do baked potatoes I'll just buy that $8 canister of Hidden Valley ranch dust and see how that works.
I love ranch flavoring, just not the bottled stuff.
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lmao!
Be careful not to spoil yourself too much, you might eventually have so many fresh tortilla chips that Doritos start tasting stale right out of the bag. You could ruin snack foods for yourself. I actually want to buy that ranch dust too. That looks really good to me.
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I don't think Doritos has guar gum. The local chicken tender place here makes the best ranch ever. I've eaten it so much its probably the main culprit. I've said it before but my liking for soda has been ruined too. I'd never buy coke from the store, but I'll enjoy a fountain coke any day of the week. its night and day.
Oh and Hostess sucks now that it's owned by a Mexican company. Due to regulations it now has to be frozen before it comes to the US and into the stores. So everything doesn't taste fresh. Twinkies are garbage now, even the chocolate covered one... so in a way some snacks have been ruined.
Oreos are still good though, I guess freezing them doesn't matter if they have to be frozen.
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I bought a new 480 gb sandisk ssd hard drive off jet with a 30% coupon for only $75. I'll get it sometime next week. I'll finally get to see how fast these things really are when I put it in my laptop.
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I bought a new air conditioner today. LG 6,000 btu with remote and digital controls. I have an older model like it in another bedroom window and it works amazing. But this is the first time I've used eBay to buy something so big. Bestbuy was the seller and i would have gone right thru their official site but the 15% off eBay coupon was to good to pass up. I won't buy a GE air conditioner again. The majority of the insides of all these units are Styrofoam while the other 2 LG air conditioners I have are all solid plastic and metal construction.
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Oh, buying a new air conditioner means something completely different down here.
It's still expensive I bet, but I was thinking you paid way more. Window units are nonexistent in the south since the early 80s probably unless the house is super old. Everyone has central air units here. If you have to buy a new one of those, its thousands of dollars for a decent system. With temps in the 80s or higher from May-October window units are definitely not cost effective here.
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I could imagine. Lol. I usually run 3 window air conditioners here during the summer. They're pretty energy efficient for this small house. My parents and grandparents had whole house AC units that were beastly outdoor units. I'm trying to pay off some debt so even a $170 AC is cash is rather have spent on something else right now. But the old AC it is replacing was insanely loud. Nothing could stop that damn rattle noise. It was duct taped, foamed inserted, etc. I even took it apart and put it back together and that damn thing still sounded like it was going to explode. Lol. I'm looking forward to the new unit. I'm planning on moving this year so hopefully my current air conditioners will be effective for some other house to. That's the other reason I'm trying to pinch pennies.
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I bought a new couch today. Couches are so costly. I think I'll hold off on buying premium for bf1 until the first dlc comes out to save some cash. 6 months zero percent financing was a good deal but all my extra cash will be going to my couch payments now.
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I bought a new modem off amazon so I won't have to pay time warner a modem rental fee of $10 a month anymore. I'll be hooking it up sometime tomorrow or friday. Hopefully I don't get any new NAT errors. x_x
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I bought a new power tool set on saturday:
I checked that brickseek site and one of the home depots near me still had one in stock so I grabbed it quick. $70 off is a pretty damn good deal to me and comparable to the black friday deals last year. Most of last years BF deals for these tool sets were mostly larger combos with tools I didn't necessarily need and at a higher price, but still damn good deals. This set however has just about every tool I've been wanting except for an angle grinder. Its not brushless, but brushless tools would be more costly. That and all the brushless tool combos last black friday lacked multiple features the regular tools had like basic LED lights on the tools so you can see what you're doing.
Now that I have tools I can do repair work on my deck. Which is how my weekend went. lol. I fixed a support piece with a new 1x6. I'll replace a couple deck boards this upcoming weekend and the deck should be good enough for winter.
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Lmao. I felt like that when I was using the impact driver. That tool is a beast for driving deck screws.
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I bought a new reciever last week to replace my broken one that died about 6+ months ago. I finally got a new hdmi cable from amazon the other day so now all my stuff is full surround sound again. Oh man I didn't realize how much I missed surround sound until I heard it in all its glory again. I love that all the receivers now have all the hdmi inputs on them and then it has an hdmi out to the tv. No more audio sync issues ever again. The only game I've tested so far is Starcraft 2. I stream it from my PC over 5ghz wifi to my nvidia shield. I love that shield, it auto recognizes its 5.1 surround and the game auto adjusts to the shields audio settings. And because SC2 is such an old game my PC has no problem playing it in 4k. So I've now played SC2 in my living room in 4k with surround sound. It's awesome.
I need to try some ps4 games. I have genshin impact downloaded so I'll try that soon. Hopefully the deck work I need to do doesn't consume my entire weekend again.
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https://www.amazon.com/BlueRigger-Rugged-High-Speed-Cable/dp/B003XM1WE0
Best hdmi cables ever. Fully supports 4k, HDR, 60htz high speed, etc.
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I bought a Nvidia Shield yesterday with that 20% off ebay sale. (These random once a month one day ebay coupon flash sales are really really nice.) I'll get the shield delivered sometime tomorrow or monday. I'm looking forward to trying it out and hopefully it'll serve great as a plex server for me. I've been using plex for a while now on my pc and it great, but I really want to have access to all my movies/anime/series to watch in bed without having to have my main pc on acting as a media server. Its also nice, that it fully supports 4k. When I eventually buy a 4k tv, all my 4k streaming needs will already be in place.
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I bought a used 500gb super slim PS3 today from gamestop. Damn that thing is quiet compared to my old 120 gb slim one. Before my old ps3 died it sounded like a box fan even tho I've cleaned it repeatedly over the years and it had no dust build up in it. With all the free games I've been getting from PS+ over the past couple years, I think I'll install some to check out now that I have the hard drive space to install them. I didn't even realize I owned Beyond good and evil hd remaster. That sequel trailer for ps4 looked good. I might give it an hour and see if it holds my attention... after I play Uncharted 4.
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I cancelled my amazon prime membership. I wasn't getting nearly enough benefit out of it to justify the $120 price per year. Sure its got alot of benefits but its become like a cable package, everything all bundled together. I don't need 70% of what amazon prime even gives anymore. All I wanted was the free two day shipping. Amazon Prime video sucks ass compared to netflix since every app I used for it forces me to go and set a filter for prime only movies and the search always gave me results not included for free in prime. It felt like a constant advertisement and I stopped using it almost a year ago. eh.
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I'll keep mine around. I order way too much from amazon to give up my shipping. I order 2-5 times a month. I order bulk items like snacks and coffee. I get a 48pk of Quaker chewy bars for $11, and sometimes $8 with a coupon. A 8pk at the store is almost $4. If I order it on Sunday I can expect to get it on Wednesday every time. I just have to make sure I order anything I want before Thursday to get it in two days.
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I checked error logs but I couldn't find anything. So I changed a couple settings for the gallery and did a couple test uploads. One image loaded fine, the other upload was 3 images at once. Everything worked ok. One of the issues might have been a file size limitation. Anything around 4mb might have been timing out. I increased the upload size for all usergroups. If anyone wants to test some image uploads, go for it.
10 mb is now the largest image the forum will take at the moment. All of my test images were no bigger than 1.5 mb. We still might get an image upload timing out for large images but that might be a hard server setting I'd have to look for.
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I'll try fucking with the image size because I'm still getting the 504 Gateway Timeout error every time I try to upload a screenshot of my character (which might be the problem since it is 1920 x 1080).
I also have no comment on the absurdity that has proceeded this comment (I really should check the show out but its just to weird, even for me).
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Not gonna lie, One half is male sailor moon on LSD, the other have is a deep, emotional story.
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504 error. I'll look into it!
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I did a minor upgrade to the site today, but a couple of themes are not running the most recent build so there might be a few issues with the text editors or some links not displaying everything 100% properly. If anyone notice any discrepancies, let me know.
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Guests can now view sigantures. I'll fully update the themes sometime this weekend.
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