Nice! I like fixing things but have never had the nerve to open up my digital piano.

My two 8 month old, not-quite-kittens anymore have been tag teaming each other going into heat. We have had almost non stop yowling now. We need to wait 2 more weeks for their appointment. It’s a good thing I have earplugs, or would not sleep too well.

Other news, we made them a climbing wall with lots of activities, and they love it. We decided to keep them indoors. I have never done this before, felt pretty bad about it, but they don’t seem to mind too much, and we are determined to keep them from getting too boired.

That’s the problem, it doesn’t snow enough now… I used to be able to XC on trails in my hometown, now the snow is too thin and patchy. The ice is too thn on the lakes to be trustworthy. We get an extra 3 months of stick season, almost no snow season.

Have you considered GrapheneOS? Not an open source phone as you say, but it is at least open source software, running on hardware with published specs. It should be capable of everything you want.

Yum. All good stuff. Healthy too.

Have the same brand. We just used ice trays for a while, while I made some attempts to repair (epoxy together) just the little broken part. Ultimately, I dropped the $300 and it’s been flawless since.

If you ask me, ice makers are just another thing to break, but my wife considers them essential.

Fuq yeah! I have a fancy Japanese bum-washer, it’s far better than anything in an office, and you don’t have to worry about what sounds or smells you make.

I help out people where I can. Some are great, and grateful. Some break things much worse, or insist that the computer spontaneously deleted their data. You do need to set boundaries, and be candid about your own: “You call yourself a computer guy?” “No, I call myself an embedded software developer, I haven’t touched a Windows box in ten years, other than yours”.

Do realize that a lot of people are genuinely victims of their own tech, these days. There are people who’d probably rather not use a computer, but have no choice.

How does one go about touching more turtles? We have plenty of snapping turtles in the area but I think trying to touch them would be risky.

The company I work for has few fixed holidays, but lots of discretionary time off, and very little direct customer service, so it’s an individual choice. Many people take the week between Christmas and New Years off. I don’t; I’d rather have extra time off when the weather is warmer and I can play outside.

Low key, but enough tradition to feel like an occasion. We had some ethnic food at my mother in law’s and went to the village green to look at the decorations. Small group for dinner, that’s good (for me) actually. The decorations are mostly for kids, and our child is in their 20s now, but still nice.

We have 3 of them: misc kitchen utensils and tools, misc containers, and misc stuff that does not even belong in the kitchen, but ends up there because that’s the only drawers in the house that don’t have clothes in them.

If you want to organize it some, you can build or buy dividers and split it up.

Precisely where it was intended to go, thank you.

Hooks on the back of the bedroom door.

Been there. With drain plumbing especially, disassembling and cleaning the old stuff is usually some combination of frustrating, anxious and gross, and working upside down in cramped spaces is not great either. Once you get out the nasty bits it usually goes OK.

The 50s were in a lot of ways the pinnacle of home construction. Framing was way better at least.

“Good”, as in " Good morning!", also directed at the cat, who had been sleeping on top of me.

I wake up each day with a beautiful female who loves me. The that she’s a cat does have some effect on the relationship.

Work Sharp something or other, and, yes. We have a fancy set of knives, it’s a shame to let them go bad. I try to avoid looking like a product placement, but since you asked…

It works better than doing it manually, for me at least, and requires not much skill or patience, which means I will do it often enough.

I used to really not like working on carburetors, you get fuel all over your hands, and they seem so delicate. Took me years to get reasonably good at it.

It is very nice when your engine runs so much better, though.

You can also pull off the spray arms and clean them out. I dug out a pebble and several little balls of plastic wrap from mine, I think it works noticeably better.