What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread) Showing 6,451-6,500 of 8,509

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim, hope you find that tank! Then take a rest!

[Nina]

Not fun Joy but what if you lived here? It was nine degrees below zero on Sunday and next Sunday(Christmas) it is predicted to be sixty four degrees. I guess we could consider this our Christmas present.

[Nina]

Looking for a septic tank would be way down my list of favorite things to do. Good luck.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Not fun Joy but what if you lived here? It was nine degrees below zero on Sunday and next Sunday(Christmas) it is predicted to be sixty four degrees. ..."

Nina, they say that variety is the spice of life. :)

"Novelty is the great parent of pleasure.” -Robert South :)

[Jim]

Nina wrote: "Looking for a septic tank would be way down my list of favorite things to do. Good luck."

It's not one of my favorite jobs either, but not cleaning the holding tank every 5 years or so means the system is more likely to clog & then it can require replacing part or most of the system. It costs under $200 to get it pumped & several thousand or more plus days or even weeks to get it repaired.

2 houses (almost 20 years) ago, we were renting & the septic clogged in the middle of the winter. It took over 2 weeks to repair it. I had to use a jack hammer with a spade blade to break up the frozen ground along the pipe & over the holding tank so the backhoe could dig it up. Tree roots had infiltrated the old stone tank & clay pipe so it all had to be dug up & replaced.

In the meantime, we had to use a port-a-pot (portable outhouse) with sleet banging against it, do dishes in buckets, wash clothes & ourselves at friends &/or my mother's. Her place was 15 miles away. We had 2 young teens & a 6 year old & lived on a farm with a stream 150' from the house. I worked as a remodeler & Marg worked part time as a groom - a lot of dishes & clothes to wash. Needless to say, that made an impression on just how important a properly working septic system is!

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Something else to worry about!

[Nina]

I guess you could say the lesser of two evils/cleaning and or repairing it after it is found.. Hope this happens to be finished before Christmas.

[Jim]

I never did find the damn holding tank. Jay & Tracy, the original owners were split on where they thought it had been, so I started probing about 9am this morning. Then I dug & probed. Then I borrowed the neighbor's little backhoe so I could trench & probe. Jesse, the septic cleaning guy came by & helped for over 30 minutes, but about 1pm I finally gave up & started filling in holes. We're hoping the health department has a sketch from the inspection.

It was a long, cold morning. If the real world handed out A's for effort, I'd get one, but the damn tank is still lost & I didn't even get lunch until 2pm & now I'm really tired.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim, Eddie says that septic tanks are usually placed near where the exit pipes come out from the house. Isn't this the case with the newly bought house you're working on?

He also says that their not very deep down.

[Nina]

Good quotes Joy. "There is no path to Happpiness. Happiness is the Path." Gautama Budda

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Good quotes Joy. "There is no path to Happpiness. Happiness is the Path." Gautama Budda"

That's another good one, Nina.

"Happiness is a direction, not a place." ---Sydney J. Harris

We have to be sure we're going in the right direction.

"You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction." ---Alvin Toffler

[Jim]

Joy H. wrote: "Jim, Eddie says that septic tanks are usually placed near where the exit pipes come out from the house. Isn't this the case with the newly bought house you're working on?

He also says that their n..."

Thank Eddie for me, Joy. I appreciate the ideas, but I've installed, found, & dug up a number over the years & do know most of the tricks. So does Jesse, the guy that cleans my tank. We're both stumped.

It's probably just really deep, hence the trenches with the backhoe so we could get down another couple of feet to bury a 3' probe to the hilt. Not an easy job in this clay. We must have poked 1000 holes with the probes, plus I'd dug numerous holes & a few dozen feet of trenches in likely areas. The lagoon (no drain fields on this side of the road) is several hundred yards behind the house in the woods. The cleanout is obvious, but the Y is over 3' deep.

As for the depth of the tank, that's a function of the fall of the pipe between where it comes out of the house & enters the lagoon. The pipes enter & leave about a foot down from the top. Roger, who has the property south of the kids & whose backhoe I borrowed, had his tank put in by the same company that did mine & the kids'. The top of his tank was over 5' deep even though there's a lot of fall between his house & the lagoon. Mine is only about 8" down, a more normal depth.

I'd think with those clues we could have found it. I was wrong.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim, I'll read your post to Eddie. I think he made it sound easier than it is! :) Let us know when you solve the mystery of the whereabouts of the tank. It's a good thing the awful "stuff" knows where it is! lol

[Nina]

I remember reading long ago Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock." And it was a good book.

[John]

Hi Joy and all Group Members,

I just wanted to wish all of you a joyous holiday season.

Years ago I wrote a holiday song—a musical Christmas card, if you will--called “The Spirit of Christmas.” I just wanted to share it with you during this special season.

All the best

--John

Here’s the video link:
https://youtu.be/n8zYJKEr5BU

[Jim]

Nina wrote: "I remember reading long ago Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock." And it was a good book."

Very good. I read it not too long after it was published as a teen. I still remember how he broke down our history into lifetimes. 50,000 years was/is fairly distant & incomprehensible, but 800 lifetimes laid end to end made our timeline far more immediate & understandable. It also taught me a general & very important lesson in dealing with large numbers.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

John wrote: "Hi Joy and all Group Members,
I just wanted to wish all of you a joyous holiday season.
Years ago I wrote a holiday song—a musical Christmas card, if you will--called “The Spirit of Christmas.” I..."

Merry Christmas, John. Thanks for the musical Christmas card. It was very pretty! Enjoy the holiday!

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "I remember reading long ago Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock." And it was a good book."

Nina, all I remember about Future Shock was the part about the little girl who went on an errand and couldn't find the building. When she returned home, instead of saying she couldn't find the building, she matter-of-factly stated that the building had been demolished. In other words, the demolishing of buildings will be nothing new to young people in the future. In fact, it will be a common occurrence.

[Nina]

Unfortunately it came true.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Unfortunately it came true."

We can thank Jackie Kennedy for saving Grand Central Station in NYC.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/283953-how-...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/nyr...
http://mentalfloss.com/article/62979/...
http://www.nypap.org/preservation-his...
http://www.mas.org/programs/awards/jk...

[Nina]

Joy, that was a good summary in the NYT about Jackie K's interest in saving the Grand Central. Sometimes I think it is my age that I come across written things that aren't really wrong but not quite right; thus, it is mentioned in the article that the drama program, "Grand Central Station," was even listened to by the 1940's. In reality it was the 1930's when it really originated as I used to listen to it as a child then. Maybe it was still on the radio in the forties but as I said they didn't get it quite right. That's what comes from being older than those writers out there that don't bother to check. Even Pultizer Prize winners like David McCullough.

[Jim]

We had a pretty good Xmas. It's pretty much another day to me now that the kids are grown & gone. We did have Josh & Erin around half the day, but I started out like any Sunday morning by calling my mother at about 5am. She was out trying to get the horses in, so we kept it short & I got the bills done, then went out to the shop for a few hours. The kids came by & we opened presents.

I got a Nerf 6 shooter & a USB camera pinhole camera with a 16' cable. I just hooked it up to a cheap Win10 laptop here at work & it worked immediately with the camera app. It should be really handy. Best of all, I didn't have to go down to the kids' house & do any work at all. That's a first for weeks.

We phoned the boys & some other family, but I spent most of the day out in the shop working on Inkle loom designs. I've worked out one really good, simple one. I'm still fiddling with a couple of other designs. Won't know for sure how well they work until a couple of weavers spend some time with them, though.

[Nina]

Did you ever find the septic tank?

[Jim]

Nina wrote: "Did you ever find the septic tank?"

No, as I wrote earlier, we're waiting until Erin can get to the Health Dept to see if there is a drawing with the permit. No sense digging more blindly if we can get any dimensions from them. Unfortunately, they're closed today & only open for an hour each weekday morning. Not sure why.

I did take my tractor down there tonight & pick up the end of Josh's shop a little & shim it up. It's one of those 14'x36' prefab garages & it was all my front end loader could do to pry it up a couple of inches, but it did it. Now the window on that end moves easily & can close. I also graded the path for the back yard fence which dips down into the woods where it runs into my fence on the west side. The ground was too wet for good grading, but there was a big, old stump in the way that I tore out plus a lot of brush, so we have a clear path now.

[Jim]

Today only, Amazon has 80% off GoodRead's Choice Award books for the Kindle.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html...

[Nina]

A quote I like, "We are the choices we make," Sarte

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Joy, that was a good summary in the NYT about Jackie K's interest in saving the Grand Central. Sometimes I think it is my age that I come across written things that aren't really wrong but not quit..."

I remember that radio program years ago. I still remember the opening fanfare:
"Grand Central Station! The crossroads of a million private lives, a gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_C...
"Grand Central Station was an American anthology radio series which had a long run on the major networks from 1937 to 1954. ... the story content ranged from romantic comedies to lightweight dramas."

"Grand Central was (and is) actually a "Terminal," not a "Station".

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim wrote: "We had a pretty good Xmas. It's pretty much another day to me now that the kids are grown & gone. We did have Josh & Erin around half the day, but I started out like any Sunday morning by calling m..."

Glad you had a good Christmas, Jim. We did too. The kids were here and we enjoyed their visit. But it's always a letdown after they leave.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Jim wrote: "Today only, Amazon has 80% off GoodRead's Choice Award books for the Kindle.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html..."

Thanks for the link, Jim. I'll take a look at it.

[Nina]

I think there is definitely a let down after Christmas which is why I only take down part of my decoration. That way I can still "think" Christmas at odd times in the day. My husband put the train he bought for the new baby/three months old/ on top of our covered hot tub and that baby would look and look and move his head. His parents were amazed and he seemed to love looking at it going round and round and the other great grandchild who was two yesterday so loved her soft pink pajamas she tried to take her clothes off so she could put them on. Everyone I gave the Family Picture Album to said it was their favorite gift. In our family several of the first cousins have never seen one another so this is a clue to what they all look like. All in all a satisfying holiday.

[Nina]

Thanks Jim for the Kindle link

[Nina]

I listened to Grand Central Station that came on after Let's Pretend; two of my favorite radio shows after Little Orphan Annie.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "I listened to Grand Central Station that came on after Let's Pretend; two of my favorite radio shows after Little Orphan Annie."

Those were the days, Nina. Little did we know what was coming... with TV and then the Internet!

[Nina]

Did you ever listen to "The Shadow Knows?"

[Jim]

I have quite a few of the old Shadow programs, even a cassette with several episodes on it. They're probably available for free on Archive.org. They have a lot of the old time radio programs there. I even got all the X-minus One shows there.

[Nina]

That's good info Jim. Can you believe as a little girl I was really scared when I listened to that program.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

I too remember the Shadow! That's going way back!
Was that the one with the squeaking door?

[Jim]

I can believe it, Nina. The Shadow could be pretty creepy.

You can stream the programs directly from their site, if you want. This is the link:
https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

One of my favorites is "the Six Shooter" starring James Stewart. I reviewed several episodes here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I reviewed a bunch of different OTR programs here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Thanks for the OTR links, Jim!

[Nina]

Thank you Jim. I will certainly check those sites out.

[Nina]

Did you ever watch on TV Upstairs, Downstairs or the Jackie Gleason show or the Dick Van Dyke series? My kids loved Red Skelton, Mary Tyler Moore and Davy Crickett..

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Yes, Nina, we watched all of those... some of those were when we had to get up to change the channel. :)

Don't forget the Sid Caesar show! And Steve Allen!

[Jim]

I remember watching most of those at one time or another. We didn't watch much TV back then, though. The Jackie Gleason show was one we always tried to catch.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Yes, the Jackie Gleason show was a big favorite.

We haven't mentioned The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour . I used to watch it at my friend's house. Kids from all around the neighborhood gathered there to watch it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hor...
"Launched on Oct 31, 1927... later aired on NBC Radio in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s... The television premiere was ... in 1948... Horn and Hardart's slogan was "Less work for mother..."

I can still hear that in my head! (Couldn't find it at YouTube or on the radio online. I guess there is no radio audio or video of it available.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_%2...
"Horn & Hardart was a food services company... noted for operating the first food service automats in Philadelphia and New York City."

My mom used to take us there in NYC.

YouTube re the Automat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrbyq...

[Joy H., Group Founder]

PS-Here's a scene showing the automat from a 1962 movie with Doris Day ("THAT TOUCH OF MINK")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTqjO...

[Nina]

Fun to see the Automat but never actually heard of The Horn ...Maybe it wasn't shown here.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Fun to see the Automat but never actually heard of The Horn ...Maybe it wasn't shown here."

Nina, the "Horn and Hardart Children's Hour" was among the very first TV shows I used to watch, thanks to the fact that my friend had a TV. :)
Perhaps it was a local show. Wiki mentions NYC and Philadelphia.

[Nina]

Did you watch "Those Were the Days?'

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Did you watch "Those Were the Days?'"

Was that a movie, Nina?

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Nina wrote: "Did you watch "Those Were the Days?'"

PS - Nina, if you mean the 1940 movie with William Holden, no, I didn't see it.
"Those Were the Days!" (1940)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033155/?...
Did YOU see it?