(no subject)

I was going to use my jump-start box to start the car and go out to get a new battery this morning. I didn't try to start it last night because I was worried I'd be stranded at the shelter if it wouldn't start again.

This morning though, even with the battery box, I couldn't get it to start and I used up most of the charge. I'm letting it charge so I can try it one more time. If that doesn't do it, I might have to cancel my dentist appointment today and beg a ride from someone to an auto-parts store to buy a battery. We shall see.

I've known the battery was going for a while. Once again, we see the costs of deferred maintenance and/or squeezing the last bit of life out of your important stuff.

It is so cold out there right now I can't even tell you.

(no subject)

ETA: Well, funny enough I just got off the phone with the dental clinic. Turns out they'd left me a voice mail (which I missed) saying the doctor couldn't make it today. Maybe her car wouldn't start? Anyway, I'm not missing an appointment after all. I'll have to schedule another one and trade a weekday for a weekend with someone at work again, but I can do that.

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It looks like I am not getting to my dentist appointment today. Maybe I can get the car to start on a warmer day to drive out to get a battery.

(no subject)

My friend Erik drove an hour from his place to rescue me by getting me out to buy a battery! Thank you so much! *hugs* We got to hang out and be social for a while too. It was nice to catch up after a while.

After he left I went back to my workbench.

My function generator and frequency counter work! *bounces* Well, the square wave on the generator doesn't seem to work, but no biggie. The frequency labels on the generator bear only a loose relationship to reality, but I can check the frequency on my scope and compare/confirm with my counter.

Generator Range | measured frequencies

1-10hz | .8 - 18
10-100hz | .6 - 192
100-3khz | 156 - 4.1k
3k-65khz | 333 - 7.1k
65k-1mhz | 58.8k - 740k

And my frequency counter seems to read "0" above about 99khz even though it's supposed to be good to 75mhz. For test equipment that cost me less than $15 a pop, I can live with that for now.