June 2022 Chat Thread

[Bean]

Happy June everyone!

All I'm hearing about on the news here this morning is the queen's platinum jubilee celebrations - we have a four day weekend coming up to mark the occasion. It's pretty much going over our heads here though!

I was mightily amused by the crocheted queen my friend made though!

[3piggles]

It's adorable, though it kind of reduces the queen to a child's toy Congrats to the queen for making it this long

Wow, I was busy today and forgot it had changed months!

[bazookagoof]

Jun 1, 2022 21:17:17 GMT 3piggles said:

Wow, I was busy today and forgot it had changed months!

Yeah, but it's only the first day and not, say, a whole week into it!  

(Thank you Bean for being on the ball this month- I probably would have forgotten myself.) 

[3piggles]

I also haven't been on Facebook lately, so haven't had all the White Rabbit posts indicating the beginning of a new month. Never did understand that, but apparently it's tradition for some people. June arrived cool and rainy, which is normal. We have a cool 10 days. Then it should start to warm up a bit. Highs will only be in the mid 70sF, so nothing too hot. July starts the bad summer heat around here, and August is the Dog Days, even in rural NH.

[bazookagoof]

(Just putting the update in this thread, since it's a new month)

Got my new vehicle registration today! It was surprisingly easy- I drove to the facility, walked in and as soon as I could produce my driver's license, they printed out a new one! I was done in less than five minutes... which is a miracle these days. 

[3piggles]

Wow! That's great! We can renew our registrations online, but have to go to the registry of motor vehicles to renew our licenses. Last license renewal was a major pain, as we were changing to the red star licenses that let us cross friendly borders. I guess next time that won't work, and a passport will be needed for any border crossings. Said, because we used to go to Canada, but it's just too much trouble to bother to get a passport. Since the pandemic, it seems as if government agencies have gotten really lax in customer service, so hopefully getting my license renewed when the time comes won't be a major problem. When we lived in Massachusetts, doing anything with the registry of motor vehicles was hell on earth. Absolutely no need for it, either. Glad you got through without any problems

[Bean]

That's great something you thought would be a pain ended up being done really efficiently, Baz - hope there are more of those kinds of surprises in the month ahead, and less of the leaky/ annoying ones!

[3piggles]

Alien landscape. They're actually prefab concrete steps, but the way they're placed, and being in a lot where there's no building made me think of buildings on an alien planet 🤗

[bazookagoof]

Had a bad night yesterday- we had a storm that knocked our power out in the last 5 minutes before the storm ended! We were out for 14 hours! 

This answers my question as to whether or not our solar panels help us when the power goes out. (They don't help us.)

Luckily, none of the food went bad- although I'll know for sure in a few more hours if I'm not throwing up. Nothing tasted funny, so I should be safe.

Our back porch's awning also got partially ripped off, and it damaged our storm door. We can't get out the back door, which is a big pain. (The struts that held up the awning are pressing against the back door.)

Power is still out in some of the streets, so the traffic lights don't work. Getting anywhere takes a lot longer.

Had a dream that I woke up and found out I would be late for work, and didn't know how to handle it. (I had to use my watch to see what time it was, because I shut off my phone to save the battery.)

[Bean]

Blimey, that sounds like a dramatic storm. Sorry it's caused damage to your home, but glad all people and pigs are well. I hope the nesting birds are okay too?

I hope it doesn't take too long to get back to normal, and that you're not upchucking when you read this... Fridges and freezers tend to be okay for quite a while if you don't keep opening them, so I'm sure your evaluation was spot on!

Interesting about the solar panels not powering you up when the power's out. Do you have batteries? I'm trying to get quotes to have some fitted, but so is the rest of the country with the ridiculous energy price rises, so it's not proving easy!

[3piggles]

Wow! That was quite a storm! I'm really surprised the solar batteries didn't kick in and run until they were empty. Might want to get that checked out. Might have a loose connection or something. My daughter has solar. I'll as her if hers kicks in during power failures. We have a generator, so we'll have power until the propane tank runs dry, which is quite a while.

We haven't had that much interruption in our schedule since the Blizzard of '78 snowed up over our front and back doors. I hope you get the awning struts taken care of so you can open the back door. Just won't have an awning

I've seen the weather reports from your area, and have to say I'm glad we have a front coming down from Canada to keep yours away from us. You can keep that relentless heat, too!

I hope you get power back, traffic lights, etc., really soon!

[bazookagoof]

No food went bad; I went to work and didn't throw up breakfast, so that settled the matter.

My wife checked and we do not have a battery for our panels, so we'll look into possibly getting one so this doesn't happen again.

Before cage cleaning today I went out and managed to remove most of the awning so we can get out the back door if necessary. The top of the door scrapes the remnants above, but it will do in a pinch. 

Oh, before I forget- the nesting birds were in the front awning, and they appear to have left a week ago. It's been quiet around the front door, so I think it's safe to remove the nest at this point. 

The heat is pretty bad over here- it gets to 100 degrees, and I'm leaving work while wearing a winter coat and thermal underwear... so yes, I'm vastly uncomfortable while commuting. Good thing my commute is five minutes! 

[Bean]

Oh I can imagine! It's like a free sauna on your commute. We're supposedly getting up to 28c (82f) here today - that's a scorchio for us!

Glad you're getting your home back in shape, and thanks for reassuring me about the birds - Ill be able to sleep again tonight!

[3piggles]

Bummer about the wardrobe. Too bad there's no way for you to strip off most of it, and just wear something lite under it all. 100F while wearing winter coats and thermals would probably cause me to pass out. Are you losing weight, not that you need to after working at UPS?

We're having some cool days, but we have rain coming in sometime tonight through tomorrow, when another Canadian cold front is going to drive it out for a cool weekend. Tomorrow is the only hot day, in the 80s. A/c hasn't come on today, and came on late yesterday afternoon, so it's nice not to be paying for that.

Been talking to Facebook friends in other states. California, New York and Connecticut have high state taxes on gasoline, which push up the price at the pump. We don't tend to, but we're pushing $5/gal in some places. Hubby paid $4.80/gal last time he got gas, and we don't get gas at name gas stations. That means in the cities it's probably over $5/gal. Daughter paid $6.19/gal in a city off the Route 495 beltway around Boston, but a friend in Gloucester, Massachusetts, down on the north shore of Mass, said she's paying $5/gal. I think a lot of this is price gouging captive audiences. By the time it's gone through court and been proven, the crisis is over and prices are back to normal. Then it just slides, so there's no reason for people to stop price gouging. Most prices are set by the corporations that own the stations, not by the locals who run them.

Also read that North Korea is in the midst of a major COVID outbreak, and has recently been hit with another pandemic-level virus It's not as if it would kill off the leader, and the people would finally get someone decent running their country. It will kill off millions of the people he hasn't already starved to death. Going to end up being the leader of an empty country Those people deserve so much better, but they're brainwashed to believe he's some kind of god, so they're lucky to have him leading them

[bazookagoof]

If the birds were still there, I'd have been relieved that they chose the front porch instead of the back! The collapsing awning also took out our back porch light, so that would have been a disaster! Again, they're all long gone somewhere safe.   


I think my weight fluctuates slightly, but only a few pounds here and there. Some days I work incredibly hard, and some days are steady but somewhat light. I'm okay with it; at least here I have good days, where at UPS I don't remember having a good day- ever. 

Gas over here is fairly close to $6 a gallon. (about $5.89 in most places) Another reason to enjoy my short commute, and my wife works from home most of the time.

Not much we can do about North Korea, unfortunately. We already have enough of our own problems, but maybe with a little luck we can vote out the Republicans next election and get things back on track. 

[3piggles]

We have an old Toyota Prius, so we can always drive that. It's hubby's car, so he takes it when he goes food shopping. He takes my car sometime just to drive it, and if he needs more space to bring home things. I also have a trailer hitch on the back of my car, so if he goes to the garden center, he takes my car and the utility trailer. Otherwise, we don't go many places, so don't go through a lot of gas.

Daughter just bought a Kia Telluride, which must cost about $50/fill up! Her husband is supposed to be getting her a commuter car. He buys old VW's and fixes them, so he's probably working on one for her, if he hasn't gotten it finished already. They just got a bank loan to build a 3-car garage, so he'll have someplace to work on the cars, and to keep all the stuff. The yard gets looking like a junk yard during a major car overhaul, until they get around to cleaning up all the parts lying around.

NH hasn't had bad gas prices compared to the rest of the country. Our's have dropped slightly. The news said that's only temporary. I'm not really upset about the price of gas, as it's all because of the war in Ukraine. Nothing they can do about that

I saw the supreme court of getting ready to vote on Roe v Wade. One more assault on a woman's right to control her own body We'll have to wait and see, but at least the threat of losing Roe V Wade finally got women out picketing and marching, again. We worked so hard to get all these things, and the women who came after us did nothing.

I saw Biden signed a law making it illegal to implement anti LGBTQ laws. Why aren't women as important as anyone else? I'd really like an answer to that question.

[bazookagoof]

One of the contractors sent us a quote to replace the awning- $1800 for the whole job. We're using a project manager for this, and I hope he can find us a few other options. I told my wife about the initial proposal, and she went ballistic as if it were my fault. 

[Bean]

You're a patient man, Baz!

I had someone out to quote for a minor gutter repair last week. I was expecting it to be a maximum of £200. The man started by saying their minimum job charge is £1,200 (partly because they always work with scaffolding, not ladders), and so if I was paying that, I might as well get all the rest of the gutters, facias and soffits on the house replaced for a few hundred quid more, making it just over £2000 for my little job! The search continues...

[3piggles]

We got sticker shock when we were looking for landscaping quotes. I realize they use crews of people, and have to buy major equipment, but we just couldn't afford $20K to get a yard we don't own, covered with decent dirt and have some grass seed spread over it all. I don't begrudge workers their due, but just can't afford them.

If you are buying a new awning, with all the pandemic supply chain issues, the cost has probably increased greatly since you bought the one that got wrecked. I'd just want to make sure I'm not getting price gouged. I hope your project manager can get you a good deal.

Bean's right. You are a patient man. Your wife is not a patient woman from the sound of things, and also tends to have ideas, even if they're not right, about what things should cost. It's hard when you remember what you spent the first time, and think add X% to that for a new one. Inflation is out of control, and it's probably better to add 50-100% to the cost of the old one.

It was on the news that all the state public utilities are asking for rate increases, some over 100% of the existing rates. They're claiming the war in Ukraine has caused supplies to become extremely expensive. Oh, goody. Another way to pay more without getting anything extra for it

[bazookagoof]

Our project manager informed us that there are no other contractors interested, since they mainly deal with projects that start at $5k and up. I tried calling a few other places, and one of them will send a representative next week. Oddly enough, there are a few other awning places, but they all were closed after 3 pm, and don't open until 10 am. Very short hours for these businesses.