![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 27th, 2008 10:59 amYesterday, along with more cleaning of the house (whihch I made a lot of progress on!), I took a bicycle ride along one of my old circuits. South on Sheridan Road to the bowling alley, east across the railroad embankment behind it, and then along the south fence of the water treatment plant. There's a spot along the fence that was often a bit boggy. Yesterday, it was flooded half way up the bicycle wheels. So, I sidled up to the fence and used it and a few partially submerged tree branches to get through, checking my feet for ticks and leeches and whatnot afterward since I was wearing sandals. That was great! Then I went north along the lake shore to 75th street and back home.
I noticed while I was down there that the drain in the area (one I named 'Griller' due to the big iron grating on the front) had, at some point in the years since I last looked at it, lost one of the bars on the grating and was now easily accessible. Ok, you still have to climb down a steep embankment of large concrete blocks then hop over a bit of flowing water to get to the mouth, but easy is relative, right? I was excited to see that; I was thinking about popping a manhole further up the way to get in this Spring when the rains stop, but that probably won't be necessary. Yay!
I have broken down and bundled all the cardboard boxes, ending up with four decent sized stacks of cardboard, tied up with twine. As I sharpened my bundle tying technique, it occurred to me how, back fifty or sixty years, people used twine to tie things up so much that there were household, wall-mounted twine dispensers. It's fascinating how what makes up common household skills and methods changes so much over the years. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it though. My last couple of bundles were much more tightly tied than the first one.
I found a Radio Shack branded programmable scanner at Goodwill for a whopping $2.99 this week. I bought batteries for it at Aldi and found that it works just fine. The speaker wasn't working at first, but after inserting and removing a headphone plug into the jack, it worked. The mechanical cut-out for the speaker must have been stuck. I bought a car power adapter for it yesterday and Chester's and, at $4, it cost more than the scanner did! The guy behind the counter thought that was pretty amusing.
While there, I picked up another IBM Type M keyboard that was mixed into the big beige pile on the keyboard shelf. Three dollars; that's a steal! It's missing a single keycap and is kind of grungy, but it's easily washable and I have another type M in the basement with problems that I can take a keycap from. As I told the woman at the register, these are simply the best keyboards ever built. *bounce*
I noticed while I was down there that the drain in the area (one I named 'Griller' due to the big iron grating on the front) had, at some point in the years since I last looked at it, lost one of the bars on the grating and was now easily accessible. Ok, you still have to climb down a steep embankment of large concrete blocks then hop over a bit of flowing water to get to the mouth, but easy is relative, right? I was excited to see that; I was thinking about popping a manhole further up the way to get in this Spring when the rains stop, but that probably won't be necessary. Yay!
I have broken down and bundled all the cardboard boxes, ending up with four decent sized stacks of cardboard, tied up with twine. As I sharpened my bundle tying technique, it occurred to me how, back fifty or sixty years, people used twine to tie things up so much that there were household, wall-mounted twine dispensers. It's fascinating how what makes up common household skills and methods changes so much over the years. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it though. My last couple of bundles were much more tightly tied than the first one.
I found a Radio Shack branded programmable scanner at Goodwill for a whopping $2.99 this week. I bought batteries for it at Aldi and found that it works just fine. The speaker wasn't working at first, but after inserting and removing a headphone plug into the jack, it worked. The mechanical cut-out for the speaker must have been stuck. I bought a car power adapter for it yesterday and Chester's and, at $4, it cost more than the scanner did! The guy behind the counter thought that was pretty amusing.
While there, I picked up another IBM Type M keyboard that was mixed into the big beige pile on the keyboard shelf. Three dollars; that's a steal! It's missing a single keycap and is kind of grungy, but it's easily washable and I have another type M in the basement with problems that I can take a keycap from. As I told the woman at the register, these are simply the best keyboards ever built. *bounce*
