What are you doing right now?

I’m off today PTO. We can only carry over 80 hours to next year and I had 95 so I took this day off asked for it a couple weeks ago. Might as well use it. I still have an extra 8 hours they will pay me for. They would not give me the day off after Thanksgiving that I needed so I told them I was taking this day off no matter what since can’t be off Monday because then we won’t get paid for the holiday. Dad got called into work so I’m just chilling and watching The Santa Clause I’ve never seen it before.

I’m very excited for Christmas can’t believe it’s less than a week away. I’m really excited for my mom to open her new pots and pans and maybe make Christmas breakfast with them.
 
I’m off today PTO. We can only carry over 80 hours to next year and I had 95 so I took this day off asked for it a couple weeks ago. Might as well use it. I still have an extra 8 hours they will pay me for. They would not give me the day off after Thanksgiving that I needed so I told them I was taking this day off no matter what since can’t be off Monday because then we won’t get paid for the holiday. Dad got called into work so I’m just chilling and watching The Santa Clause I’ve never seen it before.

I’m very excited for Christmas can’t believe it’s less than a week away. I’m really excited for my mom to open her new pots and pans and maybe make Christmas breakfast with them.
You are a young soul.
 
Reading up on tax loss harvesting. Want to sell a stock and pocket the cash, although it will be tempting to flip into a Roth and get that done and over with. Should go work on a vacuum cleaner and see if it works, was a freebie.
 
For the first time in over 18 years, I am able to take off (unemcumbered) a bunch of time over Christmas. Starting the 21st and back on the 2nd. Usually we have to swap days, trade, barter or work two weeks in a row to get 4 to 5 days off.

Still got some last minute shopping to get done. We had a big postal strike for over a month now so everything is backlogged and several things I could not get at all. Oh well.
 
Every time I respond to this thread, I'm working on BITOG stuff. Trying to figure out why the OS is swapping so much memory to the page file.
 
I have a lot of free time on my hand right now. I only need four hours sleep. I got time to burn on flights of fancy.

I frequently use my 2 mm Muli-8 clutch pencils. They are plasticky and cheap as chips but awfully useful. They usually come with 7 colored leads, including a non-copy blue one for safety, and one graphite lead. They also have colored ballpoint pen inserts that fit this pen. You can configure the pen to your liking but with 8 choices finding the right lead gets a little tedious.

I made a custom lead indicator for one of my Multi-8 pens. At first I was going to either leaser-engrave or etch the markings into thin sheet steel before forming int into a sleeve. Then I decided that for a cheap plastic pencil this would be overkill and I fabricated a plastic lead indicator band.

Home-fabricated lead/pen refill indicator installed. The lead or pen is chosen by twisting the clip to the corresponding marking and releasing the pen clutch by pressing the rear button. My configuration gives me a red and a blue 0.7mm pen, 8B, 4B, 2B, B, HB, and H graphite lead for drawing, technical drawing, and writing. If I so desire I can swap the two ballpoint leads out for 2H and 4H, a highlighter, or a 2mm silver point, etc.


Red and Blue contain colored led refills at this time but I have red and blue ballpoint pen insert on order.







The pocket clip is the lead/pen selector The indicator band is a ring-shaped piece of thin plastic that is friction fit.



Next on my to-do list is eating pie.
 
Last edited:
Oddly just came back home after a shopping foray with this:


IMG_9396.webp
 
Now Pablo got me started on writing and drawing utensils. Here are a few of my most-used pencils.

Top to bottom

Pentel Multi-8 2 mm clutch pencil/ballpoint pen (ca 20 years old),
Fend Norma 0.9 mm 4-color/0.9 mm (used to be 1.1 mm) twist pencil (ca 60 years old)
Staedtler Mars Technico780 (>30 years old) 2 mm clutch pencil - that one has a neat sharpener in the cap
Faber-Castell TK9400 (>15 years old) 2 mm clutch pencil
Faber-Kastell Vario-TK 0.9 mm automatic pencil - I have that model also in 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7mm in multiples with graphite and color lead. This model has hard setting for drawing and soft setting for writing. A cushioned tip is less likely to break when writing but an uncushioned tip allows for improved feedback when drawing.

If you want a pencil for writing that doesn't develop a flat spot unless you constantly turn the pen a little in your fingers, you can get a Kuni Kura Toga that rotates the lead a little when you take the pen off the paper. This works best for writing kanji and hiragana rather than cursive.

 
Last edited:
Going to Walmart for last minute Christmas shopping. Also to check prices on Apple Watch because I want one lol. I’ll even take refurbished just to have one. We do Christmas at grandmas tomorrow which I hate I’d rather do it on Christmas Day like we always do. I don’t like change lol.
 
Checking the fluids on a U-Haul to help some relatives moving. Not touching my stash so used the 'bulk oil 4 junks' bulk oil I took from the bulk oil can at work.

Ass-Haul. 6.8L V10 in all its glory in this 2013 Ford Econoline cutaway van-chassis, like the POS 1997 E-450 20' I rented 15 years ago.
IMG_0102.webp


Saving the 5qt bottles for taking the bulk shop oil at work. The ⅂IO ƎNI⅁NƎ cap says 03-M5 ƎⱯS and there is '5W30' in the bottle if you ignore the receipt used as a label so I don't put this in anything I work on.
IMG_0103.webp
 
Back
Top Bottom