Shopping was a neccesity

Yes, today was Harbor Freight day. I went to get a replacement step bit for my drill. Sadly they come in packs of two so I now have a duplicate and redundant step bit. I’d blunted the previous one trying to cut through thick steel. This one will not be used for such an arduous task!

Of course, before I went out I had to inflate my car tire which had mysteriously dropped from 35.5psi to 23psi. Pulling out my pump I set it going and stopped a couple of times to check the pressure. On the last stop the pressure had reached 29psi whereupon the switch on the pump disintegrated. That’s not the first electric pump to fail on me. The first I remember went crunch after half inflating a flat tire and wouldn’t work any further. It just seems those things are just not built to do the job for which they are sold.

Thus at Harbor Freight I picked up another tire pump. It’s supposed to reach 150PSI but honestly, good luck to anybody that thinks they’ll get more than 40psi out of it before it goes bang and pieces of pump go flying about the yard. It doesn’t matter what the price is or what brand is on them. They’re all made by Comrade Phock Yew in the People’s Republic of China as are most of the things on eBay, Amazon and in the stores.

Anyway I purchased my step drill which was my main reason for going to Harbor Freight together with my new tire pump (which on my return I used to pump my front tire to 35psi) and a couple of things for other people. Now, while I was out I also went to a store I know called EmbroidMe. I know the manager and he’d done some good work for me in the past. Sadly the store had moved for the umpteenth time and I had to Google it to find it. They’re now on one of the main drags so business must be good. I never managed to order the top I wanted because he’d taken it upon himself to have Saturday off - the rotter! All I wanted was a top in black with white lettering that says (front and back) “Area 51 - Crash Survivor”. I feel people around me are so odd that I must be on some alien planet.

Anyway, inside the bus I found that for some unknown reason my phone is now refusing to take correctly focused images. Maybe I’ll have to do a factory reset. I’d allowed several apps to have several goes at updating and the thing is now slightly slower than a snail swimming through treacle. It happens with these Android things but who can really afford an iPhone now they’re such stupid prices? I stop when I’m asked to pay more than $50 for a phone that I know isn’t going to last more than 2 years. I’ve been taken on that ride before. I had a Nexus 4 that I paid $250 for and 3 years later it just died. I’m never being taken on that ride when all the darned thing is, is a phone. The internet on it is nice but hardly essential. I can get my internet in many other ways.

The first thing that came to my attention was the two solar garden lights. They were utterly useless light producers and clearly some kind of inscrutable Chinese joke. The glass off them was rather good however. Removing the glass and spraying them with frosting spray I drilled a hole in the base of each that fitted nicely over the base of my light holders. It was then I realized that I could just pop them in place and didn’t have to spend time fastening them. That was quite a relief.

Well that was the square garden light and it looks pretty darned good if I do say so myself. Curses on Google for making the camera suffer from its bloatware updates. Making the glass fit was a simple matter of trimming the top off and drilling a hole in the base the same diameter as the lamp base. That was where my step drill came in very handy.

The other (cheaper) garden light didn’t look as spectacular and looks even worse since the camera decided to adjust the white balance all on its own. The previous and very expensive garden light cost me $2 while this one cost $1. Neither is really worth more than about 20 cents but I suppose the Dollar Store needs to pay its minimum wage staff.

Having done that, the next thing I did was to crawl under the desk in the bedroom. I’ve spent quite a while on my hands and knees under things during this bus project. So, I stripped the ends of the cables under the desk. That was two twin cables. Once I’d done that, it took a while but I put spade connectors on the cables. The next thing was to touch a wire from each connector to the body to see if the red light came on, on my fuse block. I’m very pleased and relieved to report that it all worked and that there are no obvious problems with the wiring.

About then I’d pretty much had enough for the day. Pumping those tyres took a very long time. Those electric pumps are so darned slow. The next stage will be to drill holes in the aluminum box I received a few days ago. I’d almost decided to use the plastic box I’d already go and had drilled holes in it ready to use but since my USB connectors are Chinese, I think I prefer a metal box since it’s more likely to contain a fire and to dissipate heat build up.

I connected my bedroom light to a spare battery and put one of my new light shades over the thing. The light emitted was usable - very usable but disappointing. What could be wrong? Well, I’d put one of my 1.2 watt bulbs in instead of my 2.5w. That was the answer. Switching bulbs produced plenty light. I found the small bulb was very usable and I could read using it but light drop off toward the end of the bedroom was quite noticeable. I compare that with those useless LED lanterns. I’ll have to rip the guts light of those things and put an 8 AA battery pack and a 12v LED  light in place. That’ll make them much more usable.

Who knows what progress will happen tomorrow. Stay tuned, children...