Well it’s been almost 5 months since I said I was back.
I’ve been wanting to post for a while, mainly rants, muses, and other things that just get on my nerves. But, this year has been pretty much hell on earth, and I’m burnt out so I never made it to the ol’ puter.
Fujupz HQ office is not quite complete, although the floor is level now, so I’m not slowly rolling away from the desk as I type. Drywall is up on most of the walls, though not completely taped. Climate is fairly comfortable, though sometimes a little chilly due to the open AC duct. It’s coming along.
Fujupz HQ office is in my basement, and running along side the office renovation I’ve also been remodeling the main bathroom of the house. I most of the drywall is installed there, but the wet wall with all the water lines is not yet complete. I wanted to install a water system to soften the water and remove iron so I don’t replicate the orange fixtures covered in mineral build up that I currently have in the new bathroom. After 2 years of buying components of the system, then having to run new natural gas lines and vents to the Tankless Water Heater, leveling the floor under the Catalytic Carbon filter and Water Softener, I finally have it up and running. I’ve been running some PEX tubing for the bathroom fixtures with the intent of converting all of the fixtures in the house to the home run PEX system eventually.
I’ve been working on my Bridgeport mill that I bought about a year and a half ago for the Fujupz Machining Division, AKA Hoffenplonker Maschinenwerks. It’s an old machine with quite a bit of wear, but it’ll be a good start to entering machining. I have the lower section complete, and need to finish off the top end before I can get it running. There’s quite a bit of wear in the table gibs, and I have them currently shimmed. It’s should be good enough for when I plan on starting with machining. I decided not to scrape the ways in mainly because I don’t have the equipment to do so yet, and also I don’t have access to other machine tools, so either everything would be a lot of scraping or I’d have to ship out heavy parts to be machined. Not really in the mood to do that. I do however have plans to buy a new Lathe once the bridgeport is up and running. I could buy another old used machine for cheap, but I’m a little tired of having to re-engineer everything I need and would like to actually MAKE money with the Fujupz endeavor.
My day job, as I’ve mentioned multiple times before, is as Head of Maintenance at a Printing Company here in town. I have 2 buildings and countless machine I take care of. Last year I had stumbled into a second job, which was at my very first job. I stayed about 6 months, but working 12 hour days 7 days a week was wearing me out. We never did get to do our annual bike trip between my schedule (which I would have dropped everything like a hot pile of shit) and Plonkers worldwide travels.
As such, I’ve basically completely checked out of work. Side note: Did you know printing is an “Essential Business?” Mainly due to printing bank and medical forms. That means that while everything is complaining about sitting at home, not being able to work and/or collecting unemployment with bonus payments, I was at work like any other day. True, some people were laid off in our company to save on costs due to less orders coming in. I’m not saying I don’t want to work…. I just would have liked to have had like a week off.
Anyway, Plonker is fed up with the work he’s been doing and trying to focus on his own business again (which I’ve been telling him to do for years), and we’re definitely doing the Bike Trip this year. In a few days as a matter of fact.
We’re leaving Monday for the longest trip we have yet to attempt, 650 miles starting is Western Pennsylvania, heading toward Mason, Ohio, up to Sandusky, Ohio (with a one day break to possibly check out Cedar Point during the pandemic) and then back home. It’s 13 travel days, ranging from 35 to 62 Miles (on paper) per day. I tried to hit as many trails as possible. I’ll have the GoPro working with multiple battery back ups for the camera and my Phone GPS. I’ll also have my laptop for daily updates to the blog (finally).
Stay tuned for updates, and maybe Plonker will also get back into things!
