Sledgstone

I marathoned Breaking Bad over the last 2 weeks. I really enjoyed it. But it had one of my least favorite cliches.... and that's when there are two characters, and they're never in sync with each other. One is always on the up while the other fucks it up. Walter and Jesse just couldn't keep it together at the same time the whole series. Saul Goodman was such a good character I marathoned what Netflix had of Better Call Saul after that. Kinda slow at times, and not what I was expecting.. but still a good watch as well.

My neighbor came over with his bulldozer on sunday. That was one hell of an experience. lol. He dozed my driveway to get the big hump out of the end of it. My driveway is almost flush with the road now.

I got a new phone. Galaxy S20 FE. I bought it from best buy with an early black Friday sale. $350 with my Verizon plan. I'll pay $15 a month for it for 2 years. I just got it in the mail but I'm not going to activate it until monday when ladys phone gets here, she got the same phone except different color. I read it had a touch screen issue that was fixed with a patch. Hopefully I don't have any issues with the phone. It looks like a significant upgrade over my old galaxy s7.

I got a new phone. Galaxy S20 FE. I bought it from best buy with an early black Friday sale. $350 with my Verizon plan. I'll pay $15 a month for it for 2 years. I just got it in the mail but I'm not going to activate it until monday when ladys phone gets here, she got the same phone except different color. I read it had a touch screen issue that was fixed with a patch. Hopefully I don't have any issues with the phone. It looks like a significant upgrade over my old galaxy s7.

Fruits Basket ep 16.... the onions.... so many cut onions.... 😭

I got a new phone. Galaxy S20 FE. I bought it from best buy with an early black Friday sale. $350 with my Verizon plan. I'll pay $15 a month for it for 2 years. I just got it in the mail but I'm not going to activate it until monday when ladys phone gets here, she got the same phone except different color. I read it had a touch screen issue that was fixed with a patch. Hopefully I don't have any issues with the phone. It looks like a significant upgrade over my old galaxy s7.

I got a new phone. Galaxy S20 FE. I bought it from best buy with an early black Friday sale. $350 with my Verizon plan. I'll pay $15 a month for it for 2 years. I just got it in the mail but I'm not going to activate it until monday when ladys phone gets here, she got the same phone except different color. I read it had a touch screen issue that was fixed with a patch. Hopefully I don't have any issues with the phone. It looks like a significant upgrade over my old galaxy s7.

I want to strangle the person and/or people who installed the deck at my house. They did everything wrong. x_x I think two more weekends of work and another $100 more in wood and hardware and I'll be done fixing its supports for this winter. They installed the deck right to the concrete blocks that act as a skirt around the house. These blocks do not provide any structural benefit to the house, its just a wall for the crawl space.. but these blocks are just stacked on each other and stucco'd so it all looks like a normal basement wall.. well the deck settled over the years and caused the back wall to start collapsing.

These idiots didn't connect the deck hardware correctly and they had the far support beam that all the joists are connected to attached to those blocks.. Because the hardware wasn't secured the board bowed outwards into those blocks causing them to shift.. the weight of those blocks pulled on the board more and the issue compounded itself. So could I just jack up that board? Nope.. because I had to reinforce the corners and connect all the joists to that board first or the entire back of the deck would collapse. And its a big deck, 1,000+ pounds of wood. I fixed the corner, added support pieces, disconnected the concrete blocks from the wood, used these beefy ass clamps that I bought from Lowes to pull the board back into place and secure it to the joists with structural exterior screws.. and now I have to add 3 new 4x4 supports to distribute the weight away from that wall. Pain in my ass. I'm glad I have my 3 ton jack from when I used to do car work. That jack can lift any part of this deck no problem which has been very helpful during these repairs.

Turns out that entire back beam was being secured to all the rest of the wood of the deck with only 10 nails and 4 screws. I can understand cutting corners to save money, but holy f*ck that was dangerous. And deck hardware is expensive as hell. I've dropped $100 easy on 4 boxes of different screws, nails and structural screws. Those structural screws are just over $1 a piece. It all adds up quick. After last weekend that board and the corner its attached to is now connected with 40 additional screws and 14 structural screws. Thats no even counting all the extra nails I put in on the corresponding opposite ends of all the joists. Each joist hanger is supposed to have 8 nails, four 1 1/2 nails and four 3 inch nails. These jack asses used 2 small nails for each joist hanger and literally set all the joists in them without connecting them.. all that weight just free floating. The only thing keeping them all in place was the deck boards we walk on on the top.. of course all of those deck boards were only connected with 4 screws each instead of 8 or 12 depending on the length of the boards. So when I was doing all the work, I had to leave those top deck boards in place to keep everything together while I crawled under there, only a 2 foot clearance, and did all that work. wtf.

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.

I want to strangle the person and/or people who installed the deck at my house. They did everything wrong. x_x I think two more weekends of work and another $100 more in wood and hardware and I'll be done fixing its supports for this winter. They installed the deck right to the concrete blocks that act as a skirt around the house. These blocks do not provide any structural benefit to the house, its just a wall for the crawl space.. but these blocks are just stacked on each other and stucco'd so it all looks like a normal basement wall.. well the deck settled over the years and caused the back wall to start collapsing.

These idiots didn't connect the deck hardware correctly and they had the far support beam that all the joists are connected to attached to those blocks.. Because the hardware wasn't secured the board bowed outwards into those blocks causing them to shift.. the weight of those blocks pulled on the board more and the issue compounded itself. So could I just jack up that board? Nope.. because I had to reinforce the corners and connect all the joists to that board first or the entire back of the deck would collapse. And its a big deck, 1,000+ pounds of wood. I fixed the corner, added support pieces, disconnected the concrete blocks from the wood, used these beefy ass clamps that I bought from Lowes to pull the board back into place and secure it to the joists with structural exterior screws.. and now I have to add 3 new 4x4 supports to distribute the weight away from that wall. Pain in my ass. I'm glad I have my 3 ton jack from when I used to do car work. That jack can lift any part of this deck no problem which has been very helpful during these repairs.

Turns out that entire back beam was being secured to all the rest of the wood of the deck with only 10 nails and 4 screws. I can understand cutting corners to save money, but holy f*ck that was dangerous. And deck hardware is expensive as hell. I've dropped $100 easy on 4 boxes of different screws, nails and structural screws. Those structural screws are just over $1 a piece. It all adds up quick. After last weekend that board and the corner its attached to is now connected with 40 additional screws and 14 structural screws. Thats no even counting all the extra nails I put in on the corresponding opposite ends of all the joists. Each joist hanger is supposed to have 8 nails, four 1 1/2 nails and four 3 inch nails. These jack asses used 2 small nails for each joist hanger and literally set all the joists in them without connecting them.. all that weight just free floating. The only thing keeping them all in place was the deck boards we walk on on the top.. of course all of those deck boards were only connected with 4 screws each instead of 8 or 12 depending on the length of the boards. So when I was doing all the work, I had to leave those top deck boards in place to keep everything together while I crawled under there, only a 2 foot clearance, and did all that work. wtf.

I want to strangle the person and/or people who installed the deck at my house. They did everything wrong. x_x I think two more weekends of work and another $100 more in wood and hardware and I'll be done fixing its supports for this winter. They installed the deck right to the concrete blocks that act as a skirt around the house. These blocks do not provide any structural benefit to the house, its just a wall for the crawl space.. but these blocks are just stacked on each other and stucco'd so it all looks like a normal basement wall.. well the deck settled over the years and caused the back wall to start collapsing.

These idiots didn't connect the deck hardware correctly and they had the far support beam that all the joists are connected to attached to those blocks.. Because the hardware wasn't secured the board bowed outwards into those blocks causing them to shift.. the weight of those blocks pulled on the board more and the issue compounded itself. So could I just jack up that board? Nope.. because I had to reinforce the corners and connect all the joists to that board first or the entire back of the deck would collapse. And its a big deck, 1,000+ pounds of wood. I fixed the corner, added support pieces, disconnected the concrete blocks from the wood, used these beefy ass clamps that I bought from Lowes to pull the board back into place and secure it to the joists with structural exterior screws.. and now I have to add 3 new 4x4 supports to distribute the weight away from that wall. Pain in my ass. I'm glad I have my 3 ton jack from when I used to do car work. That jack can lift any part of this deck no problem which has been very helpful during these repairs.

Turns out that entire back beam was being secured to all the rest of the wood of the deck with only 10 nails and 4 screws. I can understand cutting corners to save money, but holy f*ck that was dangerous. And deck hardware is expensive as hell. I've dropped $100 easy on 4 boxes of different screws, nails and structural screws. Those structural screws are just over $1 a piece. It all adds up quick. After last weekend that board and the corner its attached to is now connected with 40 additional screws and 14 structural screws. Thats no even counting all the extra nails I put in on the corresponding opposite ends of all the joists. Each joist hanger is supposed to have 8 nails, four 1 1/2 nails and four 3 inch nails. These jack asses used 2 small nails for each joist hanger and literally set all the joists in them without connecting them.. all that weight just free floating. The only thing keeping them all in place was the deck boards we walk on on the top.. of course all of those deck boards were only connected with 4 screws each instead of 8 or 12 depending on the length of the boards. So when I was doing all the work, I had to leave those top deck boards in place to keep everything together while I crawled under there, only a 2 foot clearance, and did all that work. wtf.

Haven't been on much, posting much, replying much lately. Lots of things going on in my life. About 12 years or so ago I moved out for the first time with a friend. I wasn't making any more than $11 an hour but I just wanted to live the bachelor life. Needless to say, I didn't make enough to support my lifestyle. I swiped the credit card for groceries, dates, emergencies, etc all to make rent/power. I got myself into about $30k in credit card debt. Eventually I had to move back in with my parents. I spent the last decade paying all my mistakes off and saving up thanks to my old company shutting my store down and me getting into a better company that pays significantly better.

I signed a lease today on my own place. This will be my first time I'm truly living on my own. I kinda sorta did the first go since my roommate was never home... but its all me this time. found a nice little 1br apt and will be moving in over the next several days. I shouldn't miss too much as I have AT&T Fiber Optic internet being installed the day of move in. 1000mbps FTW! I'm really pumped about it. Hopefully soon I'll be back to posting nonsensical YT videos on various topics. lol

Street Fighter V was free last month. I loaded it up for the first time, played 4 matches and now my forearms are on fire... yeah I'm too old for this.

Street Fighter V was free last month. I loaded it up for the first time, played 4 matches and now my forearms are on fire... yeah I'm too old for this.

Cellular service has become more shit the more advance the technology has become. I went through Hurricane Ivan and Katrina.. both Cat 4-5 storms with extreme wind damage and didn't have any loss of service the entire time, even with the power off for a week. Sally rolls through almost 2 decades later as a cat 2 hurricane and cellular service is unreliable for many people in my area. I wish SMS could work off WIFI like calls can, because having to rely on some shit tower that might be too far off or isn't operational is irritating.

Cellular service has become more shit the more advance the technology has become. I went through Hurricane Ivan and Katrina.. both Cat 4-5 storms with extreme wind damage and didn't have any loss of service the entire time, even with the power off for a week. Sally rolls through almost 2 decades later as a cat 2 hurricane and cellular service is unreliable for many people in my area. I wish SMS could work off WIFI like calls can, because having to rely on some shit tower that might be too far off or isn't operational is irritating.

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

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

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

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

I've lost a lot of interest in Anime recently with the COVID stuff. With the dubs at a crawl, I haven't consumed anywhere near as much stuff or kept up with it. the Fire Force dub is only on ep 3... and I finally got current with Fruits Basket Season 2 yesterday. (My god the feels are about to explode it seems). I also lost interest in mobile games... just one day I just stopped playing AL and Arknights. They started becoming a chore that I felt I had to play, and in the end it just wasn't enjoyable anymore I guess. I've lost interest in a lot of stuff recently, and regained interest in other areas. I guess its just a part of getting old. I ordered TWD Compendium 4, So I'll be reading that tomorrow to get ahead of the TV show again. Other than that I just really sit around, drink coffee and watch science videos on YT. I guess that's what I'm content with now these days.

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

I've lost a lot of interest in Anime recently with the COVID stuff. With the dubs at a crawl, I haven't consumed anywhere near as much stuff or kept up with it. the Fire Force dub is only on ep 3... and I finally got current with Fruits Basket Season 2 yesterday. (My god the feels are about to explode it seems). I also lost interest in mobile games... just one day I just stopped playing AL and Arknights. They started becoming a chore that I felt I had to play, and in the end it just wasn't enjoyable anymore I guess. I've lost interest in a lot of stuff recently, and regained interest in other areas. I guess its just a part of getting old. I ordered TWD Compendium 4, So I'll be reading that tomorrow to get ahead of the TV show again. Other than that I just really sit around, drink coffee and watch science videos on YT. I guess that's what I'm content with now these days.

The latest windows update defaulted everything to light mode including the task bar and start menu. x_x Thankfully there is a setting to change that in the taskbar settings. Its like windows decided to burn my eyes first thing this morning. x_x

I've lost a lot of interest in Anime recently with the COVID stuff. With the dubs at a crawl, I haven't consumed anywhere near as much stuff or kept up with it. the Fire Force dub is only on ep 3... and I finally got current with Fruits Basket Season 2 yesterday. (My god the feels are about to explode it seems). I also lost interest in mobile games... just one day I just stopped playing AL and Arknights. They started becoming a chore that I felt I had to play, and in the end it just wasn't enjoyable anymore I guess. I've lost interest in a lot of stuff recently, and regained interest in other areas. I guess its just a part of getting old. I ordered TWD Compendium 4, So I'll be reading that tomorrow to get ahead of the TV show again. Other than that I just really sit around, drink coffee and watch science videos on YT. I guess that's what I'm content with now these days.