Celebrating Positives (offset of the Gripes Thread)

[old man emu]

Actually to an underground tank where a wide variety of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, and other microscopic lifeforms recycle organic and inorganic material conveyed there by the washing water. 

[red750]

For the righteous, it is sent down from heaven and caught in a tank.

[facthunter]

Does your cup runneth  over.. What about the dead birds, their poop and frogs.?    Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sounds like a normal natural day... Righteous I would say. 😉

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

Does your cup runneth  over.. What about the dead birds, their poop and frogs.?    Nev

Thought of that, I installed a First Flush diverter which basically dumps the first twenty or so litres (I'd have to calculate the volume of the diverter pipe), then the diverter outlet is plugged by a float and after that the water goes into the tanks, filling them until they overflow. I have mosquito barriers on the inlet and overflow pipes so they, nor froggies can get into the tank.  

[nomadpete]

Good onya OME. I got one of those first fish diverters too.

 

Where do ya get the dead bird diverter to go with it?

 

Incidentally, it is a good idea to put a self closing flap on the tank overfow pipe. The frogs will appreciate a way to escape the tank when they grow up.

[facthunter]

Tank water us soft. It lathers well with soap  Chlorine and Fluoride added to most domestic supplies and  are  terrible poisons. and quite reactive things coming from the group of elements called Halides.   Nev

[spacesailor]

My. Main reason to stop drinking reticulated water .

They said it would only take five years off your lifespan. 

And it doesn't do anything for your teeth.

( or Dentures ). 

Now we are being fed " foliate " like it or not .

spacesailor

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, nomadpete said:

I got one of those first fish diverters too.

Is it a store-bought one, or did you make it yourself?

[pmccarthy]

Do grey nomads drink grey water?

[nomadpete]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

Is it a store-bought one, or did you make it yourself?

Home made. Next to the tank entry, I fitted a 90mm tee piece, pointing down. Then a dead end piece of 90mm downpipe with a screw cap at the bottom.

Leaving the seal out of the screw cap makes it leak slowly. When it rains, the vertical trap fills with the first runoff, then all following rain flows across the tee, into the tank. When the rain stops, the trap slowly drains itself. (Resets).

Every so often I  remove the screw cap and discard the accumulated muck that it has caught. No skeletons so far!

[nomadpete]

40 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Do grey nomads drink grey water?

I don't resemble that remark!

[Jerry_Atrick]

They drinking grey water... or the grey nomad bit?  (or both) 😉

 

OK.. celebrating more positives.. My ex-manager has some condition that the docs are unsure of. She has lost her voice and it returns for a short period, and then goes again. She has been off work for over a year (we have insurance to cover extended absences of employees at about 80% of their pay). It has been mentally traumatic for her on many fronts, which is completely understandable. I keep in touch with her onece/month to see how she is going and let her know we are looking forward to her coming back.

 

She has decided that she is not going to mope around and is now starting a pottery business with her friend. They are already selling stuff, and she is now looking forward to closing one chapter in her professional life and opening another. And despite the challenges of a fledgling pottery business, she is much happier she tells me. Although she would no longer be my manager anyway, I am going to miss her in the office because she was a vey pragmatic sounding board when I would come up with crazy ideas.  But it is a positive to celebrate nonetheless.

[nomadpete]

That's a tough one to find a celebratory aspect of. Although I don't know her, I  hope the business and the health works out well for her.

[Jerry_Atrick]

The celebratory thing is she has found a positive path forward and is really happy; I forgot to mention, her mental health seems so much more stable, too..

[nomadpete]

1 minute ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

The celebratory thing is she has found a positive path forward and is really happy; I forgot to mention, her mental health seems so much more stable, too..

That is indeed good news.

[old man emu]

Not really a positive for myself, but maybe for the person involved.

 

Coming home from Dubbo the yesterday, I picked up a hitchhiker. From his first words I determined that he was a North American. I think it pleased him when I asked him what part of Canada he came from. When he asked how I knew he was from Canada, is simply told him that it was better to misidentify a Yank as a Canuck than a Canuck as a Yank.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yes.. I fell foul of going the wrong way. It was when I learned, "Whee abouts are you orginally from?"... So the positive is, I learned something 😉

 

 

[old man emu]

For the past couple of months I have been trying to get my WLA Harley running after having it sit for nearly two years. I had all sorts of problems - failed ignition coils, flooding carburettor bowls and grossly out of tune engine. I decided to throw some money at it, and was lucky enough to be introduced to a H-D mechanic who knows about real Harleys. I gave him the bike and let him loose. I got it back last week, but had all sort of trouble with the electrical system and could not start it.

 

The problems related to the ignition switch. The mechanic told me to pull the switch off and clean the terminals, which I did. When I refitted it, all the pretty lights came on and I started the engine. BUT.... the generator warning light would not go out. I decided that instead of diving in at the most complex reason for that, I should take a hint from the cure for the switch and clean all the terminals associated with the generator and regulator.

 

So with some steel wool and stiff brush, I polished the terminals and the posts. At one stage I was having difficulty refitting a wire to the regulator and I wondered if it wasn't supposed to go where I thought it did. It had come from underneath the regulator and I wondered if it didn't go on the terminal, but was an earth wire, connected elsewhere. Luckily I had written a detailed set of instructions for installing the regulator, so I was able to get the wire connected correctly. Once everything had been tightened down, I tried to start the engine. I turned the ignition switch and everything lit up. I started the engine and as the revs rose, the generator warning light went out.

 

I'm trailering the bike in for a rego inspection tomorrow. I decided not to ride as I am so out of practice, although there would be not traffic to worry about. I'm hoping that the weather holds over the weekend so I can do a couple of runs back and forth for a few kilometres to get back into the swing of things. 

 

I'm so relieved that the bike is back in service. That makes me happy enough to now attack that bloody bathroom and get it finished.

 

[Marty_d]

Good result OME!  Hopefully you'll soon be cruising the highways with your CHiP uniform...

[old man emu]

Those guys are wearing body shirts. I need a body bag. 

[old man emu]

Well, I should have remembered not to count my chickens before they hatched. Got the bike started this morning all well and good. Turned off the ignition and heard a sizzling sound. Turned it back on and the fuse blew. Tried another fuse and it blew as soon as its contacts touched the fuse holder. 

 

So I couldn't take the bike in for an inspection and teh rego runs out today. I'm hoping that it's the ignition switch that's faulty.

[onetrack]

Well, I'm back - with some positives. Just over 3 months to the day, after being unceremoniously booted out of my factory/workshop by a greedy landlady, I have finally finished moving all my precious restoration items, tools, parts, components, vehicles, engines, forklifts, containers, steel and hardware, out of my factory unit/workshop, and transported 130kms away to my industrial/commercial block in the country.

The total tally is 140 tonnes in all-up weight moved - 17 trips with the traytop Hilux and tandem car trailer - 9 trips with my 5 tonne Isuzu truck (6 pulling the tandem trailer as well), 4 trips by tilt-tray operators (they moved 4 dead forklifts and a 10 tonne 4WD front-end loader) - 6 vehicles moved - and 5 forklifts shifted as well.

 

In that 3 months, I spent the first 2 months working around 12 to 14 hrs a day, 7 days a week, sorting, packing, loading, transporting and unloading - with the last month down to about 10 hours a day working on the moving. I only had assistance for 10 days in early April from a mate who came up from down South - the rest of the time, I worked at the massive shifting job alone.

I'd been in this factory unit for nearly 25 years, buying and selling parts and equipment, and repairing and restoring equipment on a modest scale - and I have certainly accumulated way too many "projects".

 

The eviction came about because my landlord died from a plethora of cancers in December 2023 - and as soon as his widow took over, she turned out to be the ultimate ruthless corporate animal, with only one aim in mind - to capitalise on every asset the family trust owned, and to turn it into cash.

The landlord and landlady owned this piece of industrial land comprising 3.2Ha of prime industrial estate, which contained a large truck parking area, where around about 70 or 80 truck owners parked their trucks and semis each night, and where they could also park a sea container for their storage. Alongside the truck parking yard there were 12 factory units they owned as well. 

They sold bulk fuel and had a repair workshop and washdown facilities for the truckies, that they hired out to lessees, as well.

 

She gave notice of lease termination to all the truckies and factory lessees unceremoniously on March 20th, with a deadline of April 30th.

Of course, very few of us had the ability to find new premises (at a reasonable rent, as industrial rents have gone ballistic here in recent years - tied to ballistic land prices, of course), sort and pack and move all our collected items, within the specified time frame - and it all got quite stressful as May approached, and a lot of equipment was still yet to be packed up and moved.

 

Fortunately, she relented and extended the termination date to June 5th, whereupon we were all given official notice of eviction. This was just a legal move, of course - those of us still moving, still kept at it, and the worst part was the sorting and packing of the small items, as the moving finalised.

We all took sizeable amounts of usable materials, old vehicles (I didn't have any scrap vehicles), metals, and other items of value to the scrappers. I think I cleaned up about $2000 in scrap steel, copper, aluminium and lead - some of the other blokes pulled in a lot more for their scrap! 

 

I took 2 x 5 tonne truckloads of good used truck and industrial tyres and rims, surplus new ground engaging tools (cutting edges and teeth) and surplus industrial items to auction, and grossed $7000 for those two loads - tempered somewhat by the greedy auctioneers ripping me off for 30% commission!

I shouldn't complain, they got good prices for everything that was sold, and the entire 2 truckloads probably cost me less than $1500 in total, to purchase at auctions previously.

I tool 5 pallets of surplus new industrial and truck and machinery filters to another auction house, and was disappointed that they only grossed $250 - which ended up $200 in my hands after they took their 25% commission.

I shouldn't complain there, either - the filters owed me virtually nothing, I previously brought hundreds of them, and sold substantial quantities at serious profit levels, and this was just the "leftovers".

 

So, now I can report my final positives for this year - I have virtually every item I own, on my own property, and I no longer have to find rent every month!

The only downsides are that I have more driving to do now, when I want to do something repair or sales-oriented - and I no longer have the protection of a large shed/workshop, as my block doesn't have any kind of building on it - so everything I own is stored under tarps, in crates, in boxes, in sea containers, or left out in the weather, if the weather doesn't substantially affect it!

 

The next stage is the planning, purchase and construction of a shed of considerable size (the former factory unit was a 9M x 15M shed) - hopefully around 10M x 20M or even 12M x 24M in dimensions - which is going to occupy most of the rest of this year, I'm guessing! There's planning approval to be sought from the local Shire Council, levelling of the shed site, engineering plans to be submitted, approvals sought from probably half a dozen Govt and semi-Govt Authorities, addressing various laws applying to land development - not the least of which is Aboriginal Heritage laws. It's going to be an interesting year!

I have found a shed builder in a nearby country town, whose products meet my requirements for a robust and very good design shed, and his pricing appears to be reasonable - all I have to do is find the $40K or $50K needed, to set myself up with a new shed!

 

https://theshedfactorywa.com.au/gallery/

 

Edited June 27 by onetrack

[nomadpete]

Congratulations !

 

And welcome back!

[nomadpete]

I tip my hat to you, Onetrack.

 

I just spent a fortnight at an old friend's place helping him 'reclaim his workspace'. All I managed to achieve was a half ton trailerload to the tip. At least he can now get into his hangar to work on his beloved Reo.

 

Now I am in Toowoomba to 'help' mother-in-law tidy up. But that is more of a psychological workload than a physical one.