AUDub

Turn him loose in my house. Brown Recluse infestation over with the quickness.

Battleship in the dark with the power out.

Manly nerds

If working with HVAC and electrical wiring isn't manly, I don't know what is.

Home automation is my hobby as of late. There are several protocols on the market, but I chose the Z-wave wireless protocol to control my lights, thermostats, and door locks. Lowe's Iris branded home automation equipment is Z-wave and will work with any other Z-wave control units, even if it doesn't say so on the packaging. It's an industry standard. Buy a head unit, in my case a Mi Casa Verde Vera, then all you need to do is buy and install components like switches, dimmers, thermostats, deadbolts etc. They form a mesh network and communicate with each other, passing commands to where they need to be. You can then control them, either through an app, or with some tweaking like I've done, Google Home. Need to be comfortable working with electricity to do it, but it's not a tough DIY project. As for the AC, on most air handlers there is a transformer stepping down the line voltage from your breakers, generally 220V like most large appliances, to 24 Volts 40 Amps. This stepped down voltage is what operates the contactor (Basically a big relay, an electrically operated switch. I've replaced several in the past.) if you have electric heat to turn on the coils, the gas valve if you have gas, and the compressor relay on your AC outdoor unit if you have a heat pump or just to run the AC. 24 volts always goes to your thermostat so it can send cooling and heating calls to those relays or valves, but what it lacks is a ground, or common in electrical parlance, hence the name C-wire. If you ever get a smart thermostat like a Nest, you'll need to run a C-wire, otherwise you'll be replacing batteries constantly. There you go. Clear as mud.

My nerd project for the day. A Z-wave controlled thermostat. Previous owner didn't follow code installing the prior one, so it took me a good 2 hours to find the C wire to keep from destroying my new thermostat. Spent the day wiring new 5 conductor thermostat cable and metering it out. The end result: The batteries are metered at 97, but that's deceptive. Since I wired up the C wire, it's powered off the 24V circuit on the transformer. It dropped from 100 because I disconnected it from the wall and programmed its wireless capability on the Z-wave unit in the basement by taking it down there on battery power. I'm kind of anal about these things, so I may replace the batteries just so it gives me a nice even 100.

Best Hank Hill voice: "That boy ain't right"

War Eagle!

He loves his little sissy. Sleeps by her. Shadows her everywhere. He's the sweetest dog I've even owned.

Kisses

For Joey: First play is a read and he's eaten up for a big loss. 2nd play a dropped pass. Third play runs for a five yard gain but carries loose and fumbles, picked up by his RG. Rats. Three and out.

Force her to compromise and watch the Rifftrax version with you.

Cartersville up 7-0. Damn I can't wait until next week when my Huskies, and then Tigers the following day, kick off.

Yep on now Cartersville with the first possession and driving. Hope Joey lights it up.

He was so fast. I still have flashbacks of him gashing us in 08/09.

No purge. You can still access your photos, at least. What they did was disable third party hosting, which was really PB's only reason for existence, then asked for 400 dollars to unlock that feature. A feature that's been free for as long as they've existed. A lot of blog posts and online sales pages are now ruined as a result. This applies to paid accounts too. Unless you pay 400 a year, no third party hosting. They've effectively killed their business. I migrated everything over to imgur and deleted my account.

SMITE

I've migrated to Imgur and it's been serviceable. Photobucket effectively erased 6 years of images I've shared online, and I'm one of the lucky ones, as I never used it for business. Really jacked up my presence in the beer thread. I wouldn't have bitched about a small, maybe $10 a month fee, but requiring users to pay $400 and making massive changes to your TOS without sufficient warning in advance is extortion.

If you haven't listened to either that album, his first album 10 Day, or his new one, Coloring Book, you're really missing out. Guy is the next big thing in rap.

They make a hell of a racket when she's playing with them.

Their molts are everywhere this time of year. One of my cats makes a sport of catching live ones.

FYI, @ShocksMyBrain. I realize you're on mobile and that's probably why you don't see it, but the pic in your sig has been replaced with photobucket's stupid "upgrade to our new extortion plan to enable 3rd party hosting" graphic.

Dawg, I'm two shots of orchata rum, one shot of Milagro and three Goin' Coastals down. I am lit with a capital L

Down here until Saturday,

Yeah it was in the 60s in PCB this morning. So pleasant. Never thought I'd feel the vaunted nip in PCB, but I guess it finds you no matter where you are.