What do you do for a hobby when the weather is nasty outside? ...........

[Kelley (Texas)]

I am sitting here at this computer, bored and trying to think of something interesting to do. The temperature is in the 50's with light misty rain, nasty type of weather. The dog is stretched across the couch taking it's morning nap, and the cat is off someplace looking for a bug or mouse to eat. I have already read and studied the sports section of the sunday newspaper...did that hours ago while eating some pancakes that Debbie made for me. It is just a normal boring sunday morning...give it another hour and I will probably do a few things for the sole purpose of making Debbie yell.

One hobby that I could do would be coin collecting. I already have some old coins that I could clean up and shine by using some 0000 steel wool and brass cleaner. You put the coins in a little white cardboard fold-over coin holder, write the year and type coin on the coin holder with a ball point pen, and then store everything in a old shoe box. The only problem that I can see with coin collecting is you will soon run out of coins to clean and would then have to buy some from a coin shop...could get expensive over the long run.

To heck with everything, think I will get a thermos of coffee ready, put new batteries in the camera and head out somewhere in the pickup truck and take a few pictures...need to wake up that lazy dog and take her with me too! Kelley (Texas)

 

[TexasCharley]

When the day gets rainy & nasty I tend to read a lot, or write. Sometimes I play with my model trains. Sometimes I just sit & think, which is dangerous, considering what I think about. I also clean my weapons on bad days. That gives me the chance to think about politicians.
CFE

 

[George-CT]

split up among a lot of hobbies. Ham Radio, mostly CW Moresecode and RTTY code. I build web sites for friends and work on the dirt bike web site. I try to redo it for each year so it looks different. If weather is clear, I do a little bench rest off the back porch on the days above freezing, reload when it isn't nice. Mostly small bore stuff for my .222 and 22-250. Working on some trim in the house here that has been a long term project. I am doing it all in red oak. Lot of it is window trim, where you can spend all day and someone will come and ask you what you been doing on it. Slow process, lot of cuts, not a lot to see at the end of the day. IN between that, its feed the wood stove, help Jane with the horses, keep the driveway open which is a chore in itself if a lot of snow, or ice... usually both.
Also try to squeeze in a little GPSing for geocaches on ones I feel I can get at or are hidden above the snow line. Go metal detecting at the ocean in either CT or RI at the big beaches. Those nor-easter storms make it worth while to give it a shot, it is nice to get out. The first 20 feet of shoreline at the ocean seldom is frozen or snowbound. Weekends, we usually hold ice races with the bikes on a few private ponds for the bike club and on occasion have snowmobile races on our track at the club on Wed nights if enough snow. Really not the best track for that, but they do it anyhow.

Still riding here Fred on the bike. Got out a few days ago for about 3 hours and would have today but had to finish loading the hay loft with square bales we had at another barn that we usually can't get to in winter because of the snow and ice. Waiting for my daughter and her boyfriend to show up now so we can unload the truck into the loft. This old body is getting tired of this stuff. My mind says sure, but the body don't. I still think, youth is wasted on the young.

I havn't been on to much lately. More on that at a later date. Pictures included....

George-CT

 

[ojm bc]

n/t

 

[Royal]

especially if you have an electric stove in your kitchen is to take your coins, especially the heavily incrusted ones and lay them on the burner, turn it on high. While the coin heats up, the burner will become cherry red, get a pan and fill it full of ice and water. When the coins are as hot as you can get them, get tongs because they are hot and you would not want to do anything stupid and throw them one at a time in the water.

Man that encrustation will just fly off. Works great! Try it. I have done hundreds of coins that way. No dang slow electrolisis for this yankee!!

 

[Wayne in BC]

doing the "internet tourist" thing and i have to say that you Americans have some odd ways to attract tourists

Turkey Nutz!

 

[ojm bc]

n/t

 

[Royal]

Heck, I guess it is no worse than eating monkey turds!

 

[ojm bc]

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[ojm bc]

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[Wayne in BC]

the Youtube player does not show? Have you updated your "Windows media player"? You will need version 10 at least. Can you watch videos on Youtube?
What browser are you using? IE or Firefox?
A couple things you can do are clear your cache (disc cleanup) and check your Firewall or Anti Virus program to see if it is allowing or blocking scripts.
If no luck with that you could run CHKDSK, in start menu go to "computer", right click on OS(C), click on properties, select tools, top option says "error checking" click on "check now". It will give you a message that it cannot work while computer is in use, will ask you if you want to run CHKDSK after restart, click OK and restart your computer and it will run.
Depending which option you select this could take only a few minutes or an hour or so. I would choose option 2 and let it do a check and repair errors. You may want to do this when you do not need to use your computer for an hour or so. It can fix some strange errors that are hard to locate at times. It is a safe procedure and recommended by Microsoft.

If you need help let me know.

 

[ojm bc]

n/t

 

[Royal]

Well a couple weeks ago I was having computer problems. I decided to do a format and reinstall. I have been hearing good things about the new operation system, Windows 7 so I had preordered a copy. Since I was going from XP to Windows 7 it was going to do a format, erase everything and load Windows 7.

I did the precheck thing and Microsoft scanned my old computer and told me that everything was fine. Great!

The new disc came and I backed up everything on my external drives. All set! I loaded the disc and let it do its thing. When it was loaded it looked great and I went on line. I could not get on line. I went into the doc and it said help was available on line. I could not get on line. I dug out a phone number for Microsoft tech and dialed them up. I gotta admit they were right there to help. In fact I went through 8 different people before I could get one that could help me. They were Indians and I had to try to understand them trying to help me with a tech problem. Jabber talk-them-huh-me-jabber talk-them-huh me that is the way it went. One lady hung up on me when I told her she was stupid but they all seem to do that. I had one guy that jabber talked and he had a bad connection. I finally hung up on him.

The last guy I got was good and helpful. We figured out that it was my Intel Driver that was the problem and Intel was not going to upgrade it for my computer. I could use it if I would just go into the device manager EVERY time I shut down my machine and deleted the driver. Then when it restarted windows 7 would see it had no driver and install a generic one that would work, until the next reboot. Pain in the buttox I will tell you.

well I was having other problems with it too, this would not work right and that would not work right etc. No sound etc.

I went to bed and at 3:15 am my cat decided it was time to play and jumped on my sleeping head, all claws. Well it woke me up. I threw the little black bastud across the room and turned over. Now I dun it. I could not sleep because he thinks getting thrown across the room in the dark is fun and was back at me for more. I got up and locked him out of the room and went back to bed.

Now I was awake and my mind went to the friggin computer. I kept studying on it and getting more pissed as I thought.

I got up and put on my duds. I grabbed my keys and headed 20 miles to Walmart! I was tired of this crap. I was gonna buy a bran new computer with windows 7 on it and be done with it! I was fed up and headed out.

I got to walmart and looked at the computers. They had few and were in boxes so I grabbed one that looked good,there was the windows 7 logo and I headed for the cashier. I gave him my credit card and he slid it through. Rejected! Pissed me off. I carry no balance and have a 25k limit!!! I asked to use their phone and called Visa. The guy asked me if I was traveling and I said no. Then it dawned on me. My billing address is Waterford Mi, I have not changed it and I live in Roscommon. Here I was buying a thousand dollar computer at 4am in the morning at Walmart. It put up a flag and they blocked it. I gave them the last four numbers of my SS number and they cleared it. Well I was glad they watch but it pissed me off at the time.

I went home and set the thing up. It set up smoothly but when I started it I saw Vista! What the hell is this with Vista? I look at the bloody box and the Windows 7 logo and saw it was just saying that there would be a free upgrade to Windows 7. Crap! Now I was gonna have to set it up again.

I tried to register it with Dell but they said it was out of warranty. OUT OF WARENTEE?? I just bought the dang thing three hours ago. I called Dell and got the dame yabbydabby that helped me for Microsoft, at least it sounded like him. I told him my problem and he assured me that he would take care of everything. Yeah, right.It took a week to get the title transferred from Walmart to me but I did it. Then it was time to request my copy of Windows 7. While waiting I had already installed the copy I had tried to install on the XP machine on the new one and figured when I get the disc from Dell I would put it on my laptop. Clever feller I are!! Well I went to the web page and punched in my numbers and got the message that they had no computer with those numbers in their records! WTF!!! I lost it and called again and again some yabbydabby hung up on my old self!

They called me the next day and we ironed out the problems and the Windows 7 is on the way and I have windows 7 on my machine and love it. The only problem is, My printer will not work with Windows 7. Crap! I went on line and bought a new Lexmark wireless printer scanner fax. I hooked it up but have not figured out how to hook it up wirelessly. Oh well.

Now I have three computers here, one for me, one for Mary and one for the heck of it and I needed to network them. Back to getting pissed. I had to buy a wireless dongle for my old computer because I did not want to run a wire to it from my wireless router so I did that. Now what. Two machines have XP and one Windows 7. I messed with it and messed with it. I googled the problem and got some ideas and tried them. No good. I kept messing with it and finally got the network working, I think, so far I tried to print from all three machines and the printer would not work with the two XP machines.

I started going through all the settings, like I know what the hell I am doing, Right? and finally got the printer working from all of them but not wirelessly, I am still plugged into the main machine with a USB cable. I am suppose to be able to put the printer in a closet and all will print to it. Well that will be a project for tomorrow I guess. I am a bit tense but Crown Royal is helping

I have also gotten the garage finished and much of the inside set up. I put up some insulation yesterday and have all the yard work finished. I got all the big rocks from the neighbor and home. Busted my arse for three days on that one but goterdone.

Oh yeah, I went out and got half drunk the other night and thought about my bloody computer It helped.

Some times it just helps to get away from those things and give the old brain a chance to chew a while on the problem.

That is some of what I do on a bad day. Problem is, the last few days have been absolutely beautiful up here in the north woods.

 

[ojm bc]

n/t

 

[Royal]

work wirelessly over the network Man I am a happy camper now

 

[Wayne in BC]

volume control? Right click on volume icon, select "sounds" it should say windows "default".
There was some problems with sound in Vista. The Realtek 97 codec was problematic and your not the first i have heard of having that problem.
You could go into "device manager" and delete/uninstall the sound drivers, then download fresh ones.
Did you get the youtube videos working?

 

[Wayne in BC]

i know that XP and Win 7 do not get along. Hope you get it worked out, only thing worse than troubleshooting windows is believing the hokey about Apple/Mac, ask Willy
The lastest Mac commercial shows a buncha dimwits with boxes in their arms and saying they are gonna move their "stuff" from Windows PC to Mac, dummies......it can't be done and you got to start over with Mac, including learning a whole new OS which is quite different. The "hokey" about Mac being more reliable is like Oceanfront property in Arizona but the sheeple will believe it

 

[Wayne in BC]

n/t

 

[Royal]

there are not all that many virus's but that is only until there are enough Mac's out there for the bad guys to bother with. They are as easy for the bad guys to attack but there are just so many Windows machines out there that it is much more profitable for the Hackers to attack them. They do it for money. At one time there were only a couple virus for Mac but that is changing.

All my programs are for windows operating systems and I am not going to buy special ones to work with Mac's. Now you can double boot the things with Windows and Apple operating systems but why bother. My computer gets screwed by virus occasionally but it is because my dumb old arse will download anything if it is interesting

Windows now has a free anti-virus and spyware you can get and I have it on two of my machines. It is called Microsoft Security Essentials and it seems to be doing ok. We will see

 

[George-CT]

not take sandpaper to them or anything else that would devalue them more. I'm not a coin buff, but those that are
seem to say don't even rub them with your fingers taking them out of the dirt as it will devalue them. I had one coin
buff lecture me on cleaning them with with a fine tooth brush and tooth paste on silver coins. It was just a really nice 1916 mercury dime I think and he about had a stroke for cleaning it that way. I still think it looks nice....

George-Ct