The “what I did during quarantine” thread

Ted DuPuis said:
That is probably what will happen to it. We started selling off some of the pices of old family furniture that didn't go with our decor, we didn't want, mom didn't want, and nobody else wanted in the family. At a certain point, you have to realize that you can't hold on to everything just because it belonged to a family member.
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I've already given away a ton of stuff; some to my relatives and friends, some (a lot) for a museum white elephant sale, some on a neighborhood sharing group. That's not to mention all the things I gave away out of my Colorado house, since I knew I was moving to a half-furnished condo. The thing is, they were accumulators. They never got rid of anything. Plus, I think they each kept their own set of things when they moved in together. I remember specifically that there were five irons and an incredible number of pots and pans, not to mention dishes. I'm not a cook or an entertainer. It's not hard for me to get rid of things, it's just sorting out and finding the best way to do it.
 
Everskyward said:
I've already given away a ton of stuff; some to my relatives, some (a lot) for a museum white elephant sale, some on a neighborhood sharing group. That's not to mention all the things I gave away out of my Colorado house, since I knew I was moving to a half-furnished condo. The thing is, they were accumulators. They never got rid of anything. Plus, I think they each kept their own set of things when they moved in together. I remember specifically that there were five irons and an incredible number of pots and pans, not to mention dishes. I'm not a cook or an entertainer. It's not hard for me to get rid of things, it's just sorting out and finding the best way to do it.
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I can't remember when your mom was born, but I'm assuming she remembers the depression? My grandparents were born in in the early 1910s and were young adults during the depression - they always had a very strong depression-era mentality and would never throw anything away either. Mom is better about it but now we live in the world where you not only assume you'll be able to buy something again, but you assume you'll be able to get it overnighted from Amazon Prime. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I can't remember when your mom was born, but I'm assuming she remembers the depression? My grandparents were born in in the early 1910s and were young adults during the depression - they always had a very strong depression-era mentality and would never throw anything away either. Mom is better about it but now we live in the world where you not only assume you'll be able to buy something again, but you assume you'll be able to get it overnighted from Amazon Prime. :)
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My mom was born in 1917. I'm sure they didn't have much money growing up or as young adults. I guess that's why I'm surprised they acquired so much stuff that I'm sure cost a lot. I never thought people who lived through the depression would turn into spenders. But it does explain why they never got rid of anything.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Honestly when my mom dies I'm not sure what we'll do with the nicer dishes.
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My Mom died this past December. We put her silver flatware to auction, and it was basically worthless. The same was true for some colonial era furniture - a highboy, a tip table, a candlestand. Nobody wants this stuff anymore. -Skip
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I can't remember when your mom was born, but I'm assuming she remembers the depression? My grandparents were born in in the early 1910s and were young adults during the depression - they always had a very strong depression-era mentality and would never throw anything away either. Mom is better about it but now we live in the world where you not only assume you'll be able to buy something again, but you assume you'll be able to get it overnighted from Amazon Prime. :)
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How many people will find carefully stored face masks in our back closets when we die? LOL.
 
Everskyward said:
Finished putting my kitchen, living room, and dining room back together. Installed rods and sheer curtains. Went through more of my mom and/or aunt's stuff in the condo; the stuff I have glanced at before, then decided not to do anything with it until "later". I have a lot more of this to do. Why did people think it was a good idea to use silver for stuff you eat or drink out of? Other than giving it away, what do people do with it? I know there are antique dealers in town, but that will need to wait for another day.
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Sterling silver has substantial value. But, if it's silverplate, not worth anything. Talked to a local coin/precious metals shop early this year - 25 cents/pound. Not even worth gas money to take it over there. Tried eBay. Lots of stuff there, no one wants it. Then I called a number of antiques shops around Denver - same story - the millenials aren't interested. Then I called my cousin in NY - she's got the same problem! Her mom left all this silverplate and she hates it too!

Best suggestion - Goodwill. If they get enough (and they're getting plenty!) it's worth it the 25 cents/pound for them.
 
denverpilot said:
We sold two of three full sets of China over the last X years. There’s some sentimental value but at some point we just never used it. We don’t even have a table big enough for 12.
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I took Mom's Wedgewood (settings for 12! with serving accessories) to the Children's Hospital antique store about 15 yrs ago. They were delighted and I got a huge tax writeoff. Give them a call, see if they're interested. Otherwise, for 10cents/dollar, you can sell them to Replacements.com who will turn aroun and sell them as (you guessed it) replacements for broken items in people's place settings for 75 cent/dollar or so.

I had zero sentimental value over that stuff. I still have the waterford crystal sitting on a shelf in the closet. Been there for 20 yrs. Sounds nice when I ping it.
 
Everskyward said:
My mom was born in 1917. I'm sure they didn't have much money growing up or as young adults. I guess that's why I'm surprised they acquired so much stuff that I'm sure cost a lot. I never thought people who lived through the depression would turn into spenders. But it does explain why they never got rid of anything.
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Do you know if they bought the silver stuff themselves or if they inherited it from their parents? I think my mom's silver had come from her grandmother. My grandparents did well for themselves and so they did have nice things, but they certainly were never living a lavish lifestyle. In the 60s they did buy the most extravagant new cars they ever had - a Lincoln Continental and a Thunderbird. But that was about it.

Skip Miller said:
My Mom died this past December. We put her silver flatware to auction, and it was basically worthless. The same was true for some colonial era furniture - a highboy, a tip table, a candlestand. Nobody wants this stuff anymore. -Skip
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That's more or less what I figured. I seem to recall that mom's are sterling, not plate. We'll see.
 
murphey said:
I took Mom's Wedgewood (settings for 12! with serving accessories) to the Children's Hospital antique store about 15 yrs ago. They were delighted and I got a huge tax writeoff. Give them a call, see if they're interested. Otherwise, for 10cents/dollar, you can sell them to Replacements.com who will turn aroun and sell them as (you guessed it) replacements for broken items in people's place settings for 75 cent/dollar or so.

I had zero sentimental value over that stuff. I still have the waterford crystal sitting on a shelf in the closet. Been there for 20 yrs. Sounds nice when I ping it.
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I took stuff to the Children's Hospital antique consignment store before I left Colorado. I was surprised what they sold the stuff for. In particular, I remember a bronze goddess. It sold for around $1,000! I've been looking for a store like that in San Francisco. Nice to both get a little cash and support a charity. I think they split it 60 (for the seller)/40 (for them), or something like that. The stuff that didn't sell, I donated. But it had all been appraised. They want real antiques, though.
 
murphey said:
Sterling silver has substantial value. But, if it's silverplate, not worth anything. Talked to a local coin/precious metals shop early this year - 25 cents/pound. Not even worth gas money to take it over there. Tried eBay. Lots of stuff there, no one wants it. Then I called a number of antiques shops around Denver - same story - the millenials aren't interested. Then I called my cousin in NY - she's got the same problem! Her mom left all this silverplate and she hates it too!

Best suggestion - Goodwill. If they get enough (and they're getting plenty!) it's worth it the 25 cents/pound for them.
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The flatware is sterling. The bowls, cups, etc. are a mixture of sterling and silverplate. I'll offer it first on the local Buy Nothing group. They have already taken many assorted items. I was on a roll before lockdown. Now they only want us to offer "essential" items. I like doing that better than giving it to Goodwill, although I can't write it off.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Do you know if they bought the silver stuff themselves or if they inherited it from their parents? I think my mom's silver had come from her grandmother. My grandparents did well for themselves and so they did have nice things, but they certainly were never living a lavish lifestyle. In the 60s they did buy the most extravagant new cars they ever had - a Lincoln Continental and a Thunderbird. But that was about it.
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That's what's strange. I remember a few things, including the flatware, from when I was growing up, but most of the things I can't recall ever seeing before. Some things may have belonged to my paternal grandmother. That side of the family was better off than my mother's family.
 
Making meth, going to the grocery store, or farming.... you decide.....
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Today’s report.

Got to help one of our staff in Indianapolis. VPN doing oddball things.

Ended up in a nice chat about life and plans and stuff.

We rarely work with our Indy office because for various reasons their IT is still outsourced locally there, but when we pushed everyone out the door to work from home, we have them on our phone system so we were able to get them home too.

That led to making sure they could use the desktop phone control apps and adding our Denver VPN to their arsenal of tools.

The grand plan was to get them a secondary phone satellite system for site redundancy this year sometime as well as start slowly figuring out how to bring their hardware and software under the bigger automation and tools banner, but it’s kinda... on hold at the moment.

Which, kinda forced our hand and now a significant chunk of it is kinda half assed done now.

But it’s nice to virtually meet folks and let them know we want them not to feel like we Denver geeks can’t help them if they need something.

I’ve been hoping to be the guy to visit Indy in person and work through the on site stuff.

Have an old radio friend there I would love to see, and catch up with, and I always love the beginning of new “customer” projects clear back to when I was a lowly traveling Appeasement Engineer (Field Service Engineet, later Advanced Customer Support Engineer) when I traveled weekly to install and train folks on new stuff.

And Indy is a cool mellow town to hang out in for a few weeks.

Also got nervous about some odd phone system errors accumulating and decided after 18:00 to bounce the whole stack just so it doesn’t decide to go all flakey during a business day.

The lady I talked to has a fledgling business she took over after her mentor died and wants to grow it, but is being careful about it. Super happy she hasn’t flipped to it as her full time gig yet, considering this month’s events. :)

Doing my little part to keep things rolling. The Indy group does a lot of DOT work and I chuckled that it’s the first time at work that I’ve ever seen someone have the FAA Airman Database bookmarked at my day job! LOL.

I jokingly showed her my entry and the entry for one of our Doctors on staff. :)
 
Everskyward said:
That's what's strange. I remember a few things, including the flatware, from when I was growing up, but most of the things I can't recall ever seeing before. Some things may have belonged to my paternal grandmother. That side of the family was better off than my mother's family.
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When my grandmother moved into nursing and my mom and aunt were going through the attic, there were boxes that had been up there since my grandparents moved in (40 years prior) that were still taped up. Lots of things my mom didn't remember ever seeing.

Some of the cool things we found in the attic, though, included my grandparents diplomas from college/grad school (I have them hanging in my office now) as well as certificates showing one of our ancestors as having been postmaster general in her little town in Illinois, during the Theodore Roosevelt presidency. The cool part was that in those days there wasn't social media, so the president apparently did things like sign those certificates. My mom had them framed and they're hanging in her apartment. She told me I could have them when I got my first house. Three houses later I've determined I'll get them when she dies.

But, those really cool pieces of paper were just rolled up and stuffed in a box somewhere. Didn't mean much to my grandparents, obviously.
 
I like "Traveling Appeasement Engineer" as a title. It fits the job...
 
Jim K said:
Making meth, going to the grocery store, or farming.... you decide.....
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Man.. You're fancy. All I had when loading and handling NH3 tanks was those cheapo plastic goggles that you used in high school biology class and some black pvc-coated gloves. Luckily I'm pretty tall so it was easier for me to stay above the blow-off when working the riser.
 
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CJones said:
Man.. You're fancy. All I had when loading and handling NH3 tanks was those cheapo plastic goggles that you used in high school biology class and some black pvc-coated gloves. Luckily I'm pretty tall so it was easier for me to stay above the blow-off when working the riser.
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I got a face full of the stuff about 7 years ago... Thank God I had my goggles on. I got it flushed off my face, but it soaked one of my sleeves and I got to learn about the fun of abrading dead skin off if a chemical burn for a few weeks.

I can't believe how well the respirator works. No smell at all, makes working on the bar MUCH easier when necessary.
 
Jim K said:
I got a face full of the stuff about 7 years ago... Thank God I had my goggles on. I got it flushed off my face, but it soaked one of my sleeves and I got to learn about the fun of abrading dead skin off if a chemical burn for a few weeks.

I can't believe how well the respirator works. No smell at all, makes working on the bar MUCH easier when necessary.
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Nasty!

We had a young college kid that would come help us in the fall (usually just driving trucks). He was asking if the stuff was really as bad as they make it out to be in the safety videos. I took a leather glove out of his pocked and held it in the cloud of a blow-off valve for a bit then threw it on the ground and of course it broke into pieces. I said "Yeah... it's pretty bad."

I haven't messed with the stuff in over 10 years now but I was going through a box of winter clothes recently and uncovered my old Carhartt insulated jacket and I could still smell slight smell the ammonia and N-serve on it. Brought back memories. ha
 
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Sold my dental practice last year and retired, so things aren’t too much different for me. No travel to see grandkids, so progress on my Hatz Classic is booming.

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Also starting the conditional inspection on the RV.


A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.....
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I think that for our parents/grandparents generation having "nice" flatware and dishes was a bigger deal for special occasions. My mom has the silver flatware that we would take out a couple of times a year when I was growing up, but that was it. I doubt that any of it has seen the light of day in a decade or more.

One thing I've thought about as to a motivation for that was that in the old days, there were fewer things that you could spend your money on for luxury items and it mostly came down to nicer/larger residences, nice furniture/dishes/flatware, and to a certain extent nicer cars. Having "nice dishes" was a luxury that meant more in those days.

Nowadays there are a lot more things for people to spend money on and as a culture I think we'd rather spend the money on more practical items we can use. So things like that new iPhone, big flat screen TV, various high end luxuries on cars, just to name a few. Plus I don't feel like entertaining or having formal parties is something that's done as much anymore.

Honestly when my mom dies I'm not sure what we'll do with the nicer dishes.
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When mom moved into a retirement apartment a few years ago she had a number of sets of dishes and the like. She kept her good china for every day use and sold the rest. The china was only used for special occasions before that. I like that approach. We certainly have the "good stuff" and then the every day stuff here. The fancy china typically gets used 2 or 3 times a year. This year it won't come out for Easter for some funny reason.
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
When my grandmother moved into nursing and my mom and aunt were going through the attic, there were boxes that had been up there since my grandparents moved in (40 years prior) that were still taped up. Lots of things my mom didn't remember ever seeing.

Some of the cool things we found in the attic, though, included my grandparents diplomas from college/grad school (I have them hanging in my office now) as well as certificates showing one of our ancestors as having been postmaster general in her little town in Illinois, during the Theodore Roosevelt presidency. The cool part was that in those days there wasn't social media, so the president apparently did things like sign those certificates. My mom had them framed and they're hanging in her apartment. She told me I could have them when I got my first house. Three houses later I've determined I'll get them when she dies.

But, those really cool pieces of paper were just rolled up and stuffed in a box somewhere. Didn't mean much to my grandparents, obviously.
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While I was cleaning Dad's house after he died, I found his college transcripts. I didn't know he had a business degree. His grades weren't all that great but at the time, who cared? He was married with a kid, had other things to worry about.

For those cleaning out houses, my recommendations
1) go thru and take only those items that are meaningful to you
2) Don't spend a lot of time, it'll just take longer and you'll keep more stuff than you should
3) If there's any medical equipment, check if any of the nursing homes will take it
4) In Arizona, St Vincent DePaul will send a truck to pick up everything! Check with your local shelters and such.

I wanted a few of the good pieces of furniture that I needed (sleeper sofa, etc) and Dad's record collection (Mom & Dad owned a music & appliance store when they first got married). Sold his car, gave the hardware tools to his neighbor (wish I'd kept the drill press), donated all the linens and clothes. Tossed the appropriate garbage that no one wanted, or should want (don't ask). Called St Vincents, they took everything else. Rented a small truck to put the stuff I wanted, and drove back to Colorado.
 
Good advice, @murphey. I will say that my family did a good job overall on not keeping too much stuff when my grandmother moved into nursing and then died. If anything they got rid of too much - they threw out/donated a number of things I wanted! Oh well.
 
When moving my mom into a care facility a few years ago, we had a big auction for the whole place ... house, land and contents. Before the auction, clothing, kitchen goods, etc got donated to different charities that could use it which was nice to believe people actually got some use out of it. A lot of stuff got dumped into boxes and sold for pennies. Pretty sad, but nobody wanted it. We pulled their flatware after seeing what things are going for and decided to use it ourselves for holidays, etc. In the end, there wasn't a lot that got hauled to the dump. Granted, not everything was pennies per pound - some things brought more than I expected. The house and land sold for top dollar. Creek front property brings a premium in the Black Hills of SD.
 
asicer said:
Looks like you took those pics while on the water?
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Standing on a high point of land. I was out for my morning walk and was surprised to see a cruise ship in the distance. I have since learned that she is returning to resupply then will be headed offshore again for an undetermined period of time.
 
gkainz said:
When moving my mom into a care facility a few years ago, we had a big auction for the whole place ... house, land and contents. Before the auction, clothing, kitchen goods, etc got donated to different charities that could use it which was nice to believe people actually got some use out of it. A lot of stuff got dumped into boxes and sold for pennies. Pretty sad, but nobody wanted it. We pulled their flatware after seeing what things are going for and decided to use it ourselves for holidays, etc. In the end, there wasn't a lot that got hauled to the dump. Granted, not everything was pennies per pound - some things brought more than I expected. The house and land sold for top dollar. Creek front property brings a premium in the Black Hills of SD.
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My folks downsized considerably when they moved from a house into a senior living duplex. It helped they could keep some things, but they still needed to let go of a lot of other items. When they were talking with one of their docs about getting referrals, they mentioned needing to get rid of furniture. Their doc said, "I think I know someone." Turns out the receptionist was a recently divorced mom of 3 that was moving into an empty apartment. They let her come over and take anything she wanted - the dining room set, chairs and couches, dishes, and a lot of other things. Then they said the same thing to their realtor - who also knew someone, and they said the same thing to their trash guy - who also knew someone. By the time they were finished, they called Goodwill (or similar) who brought a truck over and took the rest. There are people that specialize in estate sales and do a pretty good job of getting the most they can, but my folks felt better knowing it was going to someone that needed it and not some pickers.
 
I took all the tests in the Sporty's ifr course. 12 modules, a few hundred questions, 2 modules scored 88, the rest above 94. Thought I'd do worse.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Years ago when I bought my first spoke wrench, the bike shop owner said, “we could sell a lot of new wheels if we gave one of these away with every bicycle.” ;)

FWIW, the bike shop I use had to petition the county to stay open as an essential service provider. Good thing...I needed to buy parts today.
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Yes. You can really hose it up quickly. I realized that it's something that needs to be done in small increments. No more than 1/8-1/4 turn on those things.

I used a dial indicator ... because I was really bored that day!
 
We've been making more progress on the runway. The western half is completely cleared of tree stumps. The eastern half has one tree remaining (a real pain) and there are trees in the middle that need to be cleared as well. We'll see how those go. I have a couple other trees that got cut down and I'll remove for aesthetics but not so much because they need to be removed.

The eastern half is going to require more tree removal, or at least trimming. While the main path is clear it isn't as wide as I'd like it to be in certain spots. But pretty soon the full path will be cleared. Maybe with plane prices going down we'll buy our plane this year. Just have to see what happens.

One thing that's important to point out also in terms of things that have been getting done is more time with family. I haven't set an alarm in weeks, my wife and I actually get to stay in bed for a bit in the morning. The initial flurry of project progress has slowed down somewhat and will slow down more when Laurie heads back to work. But I'm spending more time pushing kids on the swings, teaching my son how to weld and do other things around the garage/shop, driving gokarts, things like that. We are getting to spend far more family time with this arrangement and it's a wonderful thing.

I'm still not a fan of home schooling and so far I continue to think it's not optimal, at least not for our household. But this temporary home school status for a few months is creating a period that will make for good memories (if sub-optimal learning) with the kids at their ages, as long as it stays temporary.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I'm still not a fan of home schooling and so far I continue to think it's not optimal, at least not for our household. But this temporary home school status for a few months is creating a period that will make for good memories (if sub-optimal learning) with the kids at their ages, as long as it stays temporary.
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Yeah, we tried home schooling my son many years ago. He got expelled after the first week.
 
I got handed a project that if the customer actually wants what they said they want and they’re paying for it... could take 6-8 months. Neat.

Initial scope, pricing, and planning along with some vendor discussion and quoting... now in progress.

Guess I’d better fix my “desk” phone. :)
 
Tuesday, I cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and all the traditional sides. Because it was a Tuesday and there was nothing else to do.

Yesterday I opened up the sailboat and looked it over for the first sail of the season, which won't happen for at least a few days now because winter is coming back here. Low of 35° here tomorrow.
 
I work.

Getting up at 5:00 am every day, going to office, work.

Love the way that the first legislation the morons in congress came out with was a federally-mandated two week paid vacation for employees of small businesses.

I do not believe the public at large has the faintest clue what it's like, trying to keep a business going; we're still "open" (albeit with most working from home, which works better than I'd ever have hoped, but still reduced productivity), but a huge swath of small businesses are simply dead in the water.

So, I work.
 
SCCutler said:
I do not believe the public at large has the faintest clue what it's like, trying to keep a business going; we're still "open" (albeit with most working from home, which works better than I'd ever have hoped, but still reduced productivity), but a huge swath of small businesses are simply dead in the water.
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Good luck, mate. I hope your business survives this and what comes later. My work, apartment maintenance, is just kinda kicking the can down the road, unless it's an emergency. Flooding, fire, health and safety issues, HVAC repairs are the only thing I have to go to work for.

I'm not spending any of the owner's money on parts and such, but the list of minor repairs and preventative maintenance is going to be longer than a CVS receipt when things get back to normal. I haven't requested to be paid for anything I didn't earn, and I have no intention of doing that. I need a place to work once this over, bankrupting the property isn't good for that goal.

Our complex is lower income, the state suspended evictions. I bet at least a few units see that as an opportunity to live rent free for a while and deal with the consequences later. Hoping that doesn't hurt the property too bad financially.
 
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