Morning and happy hump day Bill, Jason, Ron, Bud, Craig and followers. Just a tad chilly up this way this morning with the temps in the mid teens to start with. It sure was nice to walk out to a warm truck thanks to the remote start....lol.

 

Howdy Neil. No remote start here, and it's actually snowing fairly heavily at this point...which I wasn't expecting. Not much accumulation though.

 

Hey, Gang! Happy Hump Day! I guess I got lost on the way to the chat this AM. That's what a busy day will do to you! Been snowing on & off all day here.

 

Yeah the stuff that you are getting now will be heading this way. Sounds like we may see some snow off the lakes either tomorrow or Friday.

Bill, you would get a laugh from this. My counter part and I were just doing some sorting through stuff that has piled up in our map/printer room in preparation of our upcoming move. We came across an old drafting machine arm that was tucked away on the shelf. I have not seen it used at all in the almost 19 years that I have been here. The last time that I used one like this was in the early 90's when I was going to community college for Mechanical Design. Even though the work was done on CAD, first semester was done by hand on a board. As my instructor said, you need to know how to do things manually/by hand in order to understand how the CAD program draws things.

 

Howdy Jason. Yeah, been spitting flakes off and on all afternoon. Right now, nothing here at work but I hear it's snowing pretty healthily up home.

I remember those old arms, Neil. That instructor was 100% right - guys have to know how to draw by hand before knowing how to run a computer in order to understand it. The concept isn't different - just the means. A lot of guys coming out now just know how to run the program - at least that's what I've been finding out. They don't really quite grasp how to draw.

 

I can see that happening today. Fortunately for me, I learned on the board in high school and did everything at my old job as a survey draftsman by hand. I self taught myself the basics for CAD and did not change to using it until late 2002/early 2003 at my current county job. Here we were using Leroy sets to do all of the lettering but still manually drew everything else.

Ironically when I was going to college, the first semester for the drafting class was pretty much the same as my Freshman year in high school. Heck we even used the same text book and I even drew some of the same drawings in both.

 

Good Thursday morning PA!

 

Morning PA people....thirsty Thursday (my Saturday) is upon us ! Ya'll behave up there.

 

I don't trust nor like the budget plan though: someone told me i could get penalized if i go too far over the budget, and i happen to like have 22 dollar gas bills come summer time . My problem is the house is 82 years old and was last insulated sometime in the late 70s or early 80's, with blown in insulation (which has now settled quite heavily). I get the feeling that if i were to pull the chinsy paneling down and throw in new insulation, i'd save money on heating bills: trouble is im a single guy with one income and no one around to motivate me

Hence why i usually come up with creative censoring on this forum and in real life: i realize that the older i get the more little ears i'm surrounded by, so i better start learning now while i still can. Trust me i have a mouth like a sailor if i know people can handle it, and maturity goes out the window when i'm around like minded folks

 

Morning Ron, Bill, Jason, Bud, Craig and followers.

 

Morning folks, running way behind this morning with a lot going on.

Ron, I feel you on cheap summer gas bills, for sure. My house had the boiler all redone before I bought it, and it's pretty well insulated, so I don't get hammered real hard in the winter, and so far I don't see a lot of penalty for "going over" in winter months by staying on a budget plan. Like you, I'm single with no kids so that plays into my favor in terms of where the heat gets set and how I use utilities as a whole...so I can live somewhat frugally and still not really want for anything. More money for truck parts.

 

Morning Bill, sounds like you have been busy this morning.

 

Yeah, just a lot of things hitting all at one time, and top managers have been in meetings all morning so I've had to handle it. Not a big thing, though.

 

Sadly my boiler is a bit older, like around the time i was born older, so i have a feeling its working harder than a newer one would be, and the house is poorly insulated, which i need to address. Unfortunately i've already turned things down to as frugal as i'm prepared to go . I'm gonna go grab some of those pipe wrap things from a hardware store and wrap all the exposed pipes in the basement, try and keep as much of the heat in the water as possible. That and i think after this winter i'll need to go through the whole system and replace the fill-trol valve: its been slightly stuck since i moved in, so i don't think the system is completely full of water

Oh the joys of home ownership: like an old Ford truck, its tough, but the rewards are great

 

Well good Friday morning PA folks and visitors!