Now that it is over I should probably skip the blog post tonight but if I do, then I will not remember that I have those days a lot anymore.
I started out sleeping late – well not really sleeping as I was drifting in and out of sleep but really didn’t want to get up and really didn’t feel like staying in bed but bed won out. When I did get up I decided to get started on the finish of the “raised garden” bed we started to build yesterday. Yesterday we got most of the holes dug but in the end we find that I was not measuring the holes properly and it is not real square. However I figured I could fudge a little here and push a little there and it will be ok. Besides we were not using square or straight lumber anyway. I was using what scraps I had in a pile that needs to be cleared out anyway. The final dimensions were to be 3’ by 10’ and about 12 inches deep. The spot we had for it was not very level so there was a lot of adjustment for that as well and the ground was DAMN hard. Anyway I got the last of the holes dug this morning and proceeded to locate enough wood pieces to put it together, I first decided to put a long one on the low side and that one would be put in level and tie the ends together. I didn’t have a long board for that so I had to piece one together. In fact we had to piece them all together as we moved around the thing. This made it clear that it was not square and I had to “edge” out some holes to get them in a little closer to square. During all this morning work, I was feeling dizzy a lot? Could have been that I didn’t really eat breakfast, I had a banana. I have to say my daughter-in-law was out there as much as I was and pitched right in with the planter.
During one of my breaks for water I was checking out the camera on the front of the barn and it was down? Strange it was working yesterday. I started working on it and found that it appeared to be dead. That is great, that camera is only 2 weeks old. Well, I can work on it after I get the box done but first some lunch. Lunch came late as well – about 2pm. After the sandwich for lunch I went back out and got totally involved in the damn camera problem… What to do? I decided that since it appeared to be dead, I would take it down and move the original back out there for now… Ok that means getting out the ladder as the camera is 16 ft. off the ground. Not to mention that the wind was blowing about 25 MPH today and it was already 90 out. That ladder issue pushed me and I decided that I would get that damn planter box finished up first, so gathered up the tools and headed back down to finish putting the boards on. Of course as I stated I didn’t have new or full size boards so all of them had to have patches made to get them mounted. Anyway I got that done with some help. I Will put in a picture tomorrow morning when I can get back out and do that… was too busy for pictures today.
Once the box was finished I headed back to the camera problem. I got the ladders out and took down the old one from inside the shop and then climbed up on the inside to get the new one unhooked, then moved outside to take it down and replace with the old one. Once I got the old one working again I took the new one into the shop to inspect. In all this my wife’s little dog , who shadows me around outside all the time, had found one of the rat poison cubes I had set out several years ago. I thought I had picked up most of them and put them way up high so only the rats and mice would get to them but NO! that dog found one and had already crunched off one corner of it. I grabbed here up and took her to the house and told the wife – “ Your dog got into the Rat Poison – She didn’t get too much but maybe you better check out what to do”… They (wife and son) immediately took her to the vet. Guess I should have gone but I was pissed that she did it, and pissed that I didn’t see here getting it out. Also pissed that I had not found that one behind the welder. I know there are several more out there as we didn’t use to have a dog that cared to dig out and eat or chew everything you leave laying. This one will chew up old plastic electric fence insulators or anything plastic that you don’t get in the trash. Hell she eats oak kernels and even dirt if you throw it out there. Just what I need one more thing to watch out for. She is supposed to be ok but will have to take Vitamin K? pills for a month. While they were off to the vet I decided to stay busy working and get the rest of the stuff done I had started,
With the ladder out I figured I should reset the motion lights on the house that keep going off. I had replaced the bulbs with LED bulbs in one corner set and had , I thought, turned the sensitivity down but no I had turned it up. So last night it was on and off and on and off, all night long. And that sucks. I went back and re-adjusted the sensitivity and moved the sensor down to a lower angle as well as covered the bottom sensor. AS I write this it is still on an off and on and off… guess tomorrow I turn it down some more… eventually I will get it working. I also adjusted one of the others that has the same problem and hope it will settle down some?
After those adjustments and before I put the ladder back up, I went in and started checking the camera out… for some reason it would connect to the network but I could not connect back to it to change any settings and it would not show on the video system? The only thing I could think of at the point was reset it completely and that requires that you hold the reset button for 15 to 30 seconds… Once I did that I opened up the software to find it and it was there but not logging to the network? so I played with getting it back on the proper network sub-limits and finally there it was. How it got off on a totally different set of sub-limits I have no idea? But once I got it back to the proper IP area it works fine. Now what? the old camera has a very narrow field of view the new one shows more of the front? Well Hell, just put the new one back up and see if it holds up for awhile? so back up and down and up and down that 16 ft. ladder. Got the new one back up where it was originally, got the old one back to where it was originally, but now it would not log in? hum – the heat had taken away the wireless – could have been the problem all along? so I got out some more cat5 and proceeded to hook the old one up to the new switch. But first I had to get ends on the cable, well not really the cable I had was way too long so I had to cut off one end and find that it was not wired straight through? Well that meant changing the ends several times and finally it came up working and I just plugged it in and now have all the cameras back up and working…
This was one of those days everything I started to do seemed to go bad before it got better. Everything had to be done more than twice to get past all the errors… I hate days like this… makes you feel like you should have stayed in bed… -WD0AJG