How are you passing time and staying entertained during the pandemic?

[NEfan508]

Summer wheels going on, RIM quartz ceramic coating

70 degrees today

And yes I cursed every spoke as I applied the coating then buffed out each (all 80)

[M_Six]

Installed wall shelves today and didn't have to go to the ER. Rather amazed at myself.

I even had to use a power tool and yet I still remain injury free.

[P1]

Cursed? Looks like a chill little job to me.

[NEfan508]

Originally Posted by P1et

Cursed? Looks like a chill little job to me.

Edit, I just like to complain, honestly it was very enjoyable

3 thin coats can take 1 hour per, take a break for lunch then you kill all afternoon (goal)

In a couple days I'm going to sand and coat my dump trailer with my son

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Installed wall shelves today and didn't have to go to the ER. Rather amazed at myself.

I even had to use a power tool and yet I still remain injury free.

We dug out the 6 posts that I set in the ground to hold the chicken wire, all bent metal and sharp edges. Then in the hole next to the block wall we actually made it so the new post could be correctly placed with 2" of the wall. After swinging a 3lb hammer for a bit, I bought a hammer drill and knocked that shit OUT.

Not a single scrape in all 5 of us.

My shoulders and forehead are quite Larry the lobster though . . .

[mtrisi]

Spending money at fcp euro and doing a valve cover gasket and new plugs for my f30 335

[Donatello.]

Lots of cooking, baking, cleaning, modding of 1 of my cars, redecorating the house, eating & drinking too much...

[UncleWede]

When this is all over, I'm joining (or maybe creating) WWAA

[vreihen16]

My DW was grabbing her stuff to go out on a grocery run a little while ago, and going over her checklist before stepping out. Bags, check. Gun, check. Mask, check. It sounded like she was going out to rob a bank!!!!!

[BimmerDimmer6]

Originally Posted by Donatello.

Lots of cooking, baking, cleaning, modding of 1 of my cars, redecorating the house, eating & drinking too much...

You're a chick right

[vreihen16]

I had another first-world crisis thrown in my face last night. Home automation company WINK sent out an email to all customers, advising us that our lifetime free cloud service was ending in 7 days and that we have to pay up for a monthly subscription or they'll shut our home hubs down in a week. Reading between the lines, their venture capital has run dry and have to figure out how to pay the bills when they never planned to monetize their products/services. There has been no innovation out of them in years, and it was obvious that the handwriting was on the wall for them.

So, I have 6 days to select a new home automation ecosystem, get the equipment, and set everything up...with Amazon's turnaround time on orders being more than 7 days for most stuff right now. Just what I freaking needed this month.....

[M_Six]

I started to get into that. I wanted a non-cloud based system that I could run on my wifi but that did not "call home" to anyone and didn't include microphones. I just wanted to be able to VPN into my home system and turn lights on and off and maybe lock/unlock doors. I had the receiver and some light switches, but then set it aside for a while because we were traveling. Never got back to it. Can't say I've missed having it, but I do sort of lament spending the money on the parts. Not that it was overly pricey.

Here's the controller I bought. Probably obsolete by now.

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I started to get into that. I wanted a non-cloud based system that I could run on my wifi but that did not "call home" to anyone and didn't include microphones. I just wanted to be able to VPN into my home system and turn lights on and off and maybe lock/unlock doors. I had the receiver and some light switches, but then set it aside for a while because we were traveling. Never got back to it. Can't say I've missed having it, but I do sort of lament spending the money on the parts. Not that it was overly pricey.

Here's the controller I bought. Probably obsolete by now.

Pretty happy with Apple Homekit so far. Still cloud risk, but apple is at least outwardly pro-privacy. I generally buy products that work with as many protocols as possible so not locked in to one standard. Using a variety of Wemo smart plugs, Arlo cameras, ecobee thermostat/sensors and Chamberlain garage door. Drawing the line at locks for now and there’s only one camera inside which is primarily for intrusion detection and not an overly private place.

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

You're a chick right

More like renaissance person (if not a man). There are notable men in each of the categories listed. Don’t be a knuckle dragger..

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Spent the last couple days clearing out the neighbor’s front yard for weeds. They’re in their 80s and the husband has Alzheimer’s/dementia so they can’t really keep up with maintenance. Not even 100% done and the weed pile for pickup is 3’W x 5’L x 3’H. Temps are going to be in the 90s next few days so calling it quits for now until it’s cooler and I can get more of the detail weeding, hedge trimming and lawn mowing/edging finished.

Can’t imagine how long it’s gonna take if I help out with their backyard since it’s way more overgrown and larger area...

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

My shoulders and forehead are quite Larry the lobster though . . .

Get a lifeguard style straw hat for outdoors - got one from Quicksilver that got delivered earlier this week. Lifesaver, but my forearms and calves still got fried, on top of the top of foot burn from wearing flip flops while pressure washing the patio stairs this past weekend.

[BimmerDimmer6]

Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ

More like renaissance person (if not a man). There are notable men in each of the categories listed. Don't be a knuckle dragger..

It's a joke relax bud

[Rmtt]

Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ

Spent the last couple days clearing out the neighbor’s front yard for weeds. They’re in their 80s and the husband has Alzheimer’s/dementia so they can’t really keep up with maintenance. Not even 100% done and the weed pile for pickup is 3’W x 5’L x 3’H. Temps are going to be in the 90s next few days so calling it quits for now until it’s cooler and I can get more of the detail weeding, hedge trimming and lawn mowing/edging finished.

Can’t imagine how long it’s gonna take if I help out with their backyard since it’s way more overgrown and larger area...

Hat's off to you for doing that. We have some older neighbors in our area....and I try to help out as well on the weekends.

Since I don't sleep......I could probably cut all of their yards in one day if not for the fact that a mower at 3:00am would piss people off.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I started to get into that. I wanted a non-cloud based system that I could run on my wifi but that did not "call home" to anyone and didn't include microphones.

I bought a window-mount AC unit several years ago, and it included WINK for remote control. I added a WINK hub, two light switches, and two Kidde smoke/CO detectors, choosing to standardize on WINK to keep things in one app and DW-friendly. Not a large investment, but one of those switches is in our detached garage and used to turn the flood lights on to chase bears off in the middle of the night. (We installed central AC after this, so the WINK AC unit is in the garage on a shelf not being used.) The only pitfall of WINK is that it is mostly cloud-based, so them going out of business or pulling the 7-day extortion on their customer base will brick your hub and home automations.

Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ

Pretty happy with Apple Homekit so far. Still cloud risk, but apple is at least outwardly pro-privacy. I generally buy products that work with as many protocols as possible so not locked in to one standard. Using a variety of Wemo smart plugs, Arlo cameras, ecobee thermostat/sensors and Chamberlain garage door. Drawing the line at locks for now and there’s only one camera inside which is primarily for intrusion detection and not an overly private place.

For all the gripes about HomeKit never panning out, I find that it makes a great Alexa-less UI when paired with HomeBridge using an Apple Watch. I have HomeBridge running as a WINK gateway to HomeKit, linked to my Tado HVAC controller, and using Alarm Decoder to interface with my home alarm system which provides door/window/motion sensor events for HomeKit triggers. When I hear a bear out by the garage in the middle of the night, I just push the crown on my watch, say "turn garage lights on" to Siri, roll over, and go back to sleep.

We also have a standalone remote-monitored home alarm system (with the aforementioned bridge to HomeKit via Alarm Decoder), as well as a standalone NVR with 5 outdoor cameras that I can access remotely via VPN. When we had the alarm system installed, the vendor (a good friend) was reluctant to install wireless smoke detectors due to the cost and lack of UL approval at the time. He installed one wired detector, and we back-filled with the Kidde/WINK detectors over the years as our old standalone ones aged out. Long story short, Honeywell alarm system wireless smoke detectors are cheap enough now to ditch the Kidde/WINK ones and do the job properly (monitored by alarm company) now, so that takes care of my WINK vendor lock-in issue.

The switches are standard Z-Wave, so they should be simple to migrate to a new hub. After some crash research yesterday, I chose Hubitat (even though they raised their price by $30 on Wednesday evening when the WINK news broke). Their platform philosophy is to do as much as possible locally, with no cloud dependency except for initial configuration. They seem to have an active community of third-party developers creating integrations to everything, and there is allegedly a mature HomeBridge link to integrate HomeKit and Siri. It looks like it will do the job, and I can add a few more switches and sensors to finish everything that I've wanted to do.

Time to start researching ceiling light/fan integrations with only switched power in the ceiling and no attic access to pull additional wires.....

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ

Get a lifeguard style straw hat for outdoors - got one from Quicksilver that got delivered earlier this week. Lifesaver, but my forearms and calves still got fried, on top of the top of foot burn from wearing flip flops while pressure washing the patio stairs this past weekend.

I wore my cowboy hat on Saturday and a shirt on Sunday, work boots both days

Putting the three together all at the same time is just too much work

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

For all the gripes about HomeKit never panning out, I find that it makes a great Alexa-less UI when paired with HomeBridge using an Apple Watch.

Yeah, I’ve found it to be pretty good so far. It’s super convenient to be able to turn off the lights or open/close the garage door from my watch and if it falls behind, most of what I have can move to another protocol. Firmly anti-smart assistant other than built in Siri which you can’t really avoid in your watch/phone. I specifically ordered the ecobee 3 so it wouldn’t have Alexa built in..

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by Sheeen

Literally the same here because why not? If I'm not allowed to go to work as everyone I have plenty of stuff to do at home. I also decided to remember my childhood when I was living at the farm and set up a small indoor garden. Just one 4x4 tent which is usually enough to grow onions, parsley or something more complicated.

They’re good life skills to have. We were already growing herbs and some basic vegetables because it was more convenient to be able to go snip off a handful than to have to buy it from the store and half of it went bad or was wasted. Plus side of a shelter in place is people re-learn basic skills to be self sufficient and less dependent on others for simple needs.