Power Tools

I've made some purchases of some cordless power tools recently, and thought I'd share.

The earliest ones I'd gotten were drills. My parents had bought me a 1/2” chuck Craftsman years ago that was really nice, but back then most of them used NiCad batteries, and it didn't last more than a few years. I replaced it with a Hitachi with NiMH batteries back when I used to frequent Woot, and it's served well and has lasted.

Around 3 years ago I replaced the second corded hedge trimmer with a cordless version. It cost about twice as much as the corded one, but it was also a duo, with a leaf blower included. It's from Westinghouse, and if the battery ever gives up on it, I don't think I'd be able to locate a replacement!!! Works very well, though, and the leaf blower is handy.

About a year ago I bought a tire inflator off Ebay. It was super handy!!! I wasn't able to locate any mention about it, but after I'd bought the new tires for Kutcher, the front ones would always lose air. I'd taken it back to the place I'd bought the tires, but they went out of business!!! I took it to another tire store, and they checked it out, and couldn't find any leaks, but re seated the tire, and recommended filling them to a higher level. The issue persisted, but recently got better on it's own!!! A few months ago, the inflator quit working right, not showing an accurate pressure and not inflating properly. I'd bought a warranty from Square Trade when I got it, and they turn out to be a real pain in the ass to deal with!!! Finally got them to make with the purchase amount (in two checks, since they wanted to underpay by a lousy $3.25 at first) and I bought another one.

Around the time I did the front end on Kutcher, I bought myself a cordless impact wrench, since up to that point I'd been very happy with the no name tire inflator I'd bought. It could work better, it struggled to loosen lug nuts, but it did work for some of the suspension bolts. The bonus, it came with two 3.0 amp batteries of the same style and voltage that the inflator uses.

And since I'd had pretty good results with both of those, I just recently bought a cordless weed eater. This one uses a higher voltage battery, but comes with two of them. It came with some plastic blades, a couple of metal blades, and what looks like a circular saw blade. I've used it for the area across the street where I park the cars, and for the uphill side of the house. I have yet to run a battery out using it!!! It's got a smaller cut diameter than the corded one I've got, and less power, but it will get the job done. Oh yea, it's a lot lighter, too!!!

Speaking of the corded weed eater, I recently replaced it as well. I think it may be the third one I've bought, the Black & Decker GH3000, which is an excellent machine!!! Most electric weed eaters spin quickly, but without much torque. This model has a gear reduction on the motor, giving it the torque of a gas powered unit. The brushes on the old one had worn out, and the contact area was pretty torn up as well. Since I had it apart to check the brushes, I noticed that the plastic body has a nice shape to it, that with a little paint could be modified into a steampunk look blaster gun of some sort, so I've held onto it.

Also pictured, my dad had a DeWalt cordless drill with two batteries, and I got it when my mom moved out. It's an older model, but it still works very well. Also pictured is one of the batteries from the impact wrench.

A lot of the reason I've bought several of these is because the price is pretty low. I'm thinking I might buy myself a cordless pressure washer, too!!!

New Toys

I should have made this post yesterday. Not only was that the day that I got this delivered in the mail. Additionally, yesterday was 5-12 and this is my 512th blog post!!! It's a pretty good one, I think.



My wife thought this was pretty cute, so she pulled out the camera and took this picture. The big boy laptop I bought at the very end of last year, just before the sales tax increased. It's a Toshiba with an AMD dual core processor, with 3 gig RAM and a 250 gig hard drive. It also has some advanced video hardware, not real common in laptops. It is running the Vista operating system. It is neither as bad as you may have heard, nor that much improved over XP that it seems to have been necessary. I got it for $499, I haven't seen too many priced and equipped as well since I bought it. I've been quite pleased with it, but it is a little bulky. My original thought, before buying a laptop, was get as much screen as you can, probably a 17". Ended up with a 15.6", and it seems larger than I really needed.



Prior to buying this, I'd been kind of looking at netbooks. They didn't seem to be quite enough, but the prices were better. Last week I got an E-mail for this little beauty. Less than half what I spent on my Toshiba for an Acer 8.9" netbook!!! Intel Atom processor, 1 gig RAM and 160 gig hard drive. It also has a few things I would like to have had on my laptop, a built in webcam and microphone, as well as a card reader that works with the media from my camera. The webcam does amazingly well in low light conditions, but the audio doesn't seem to sync quite properly with the video. I've only had it one day, but so far, I'm rather liking it better than my laptop!!!

Could It Get Better???

The other day was my birthday. It worked out really nicely. This is the first job I've ever had where I've gotten a day off for my birthday (it doesn't need to be on the very day, but they ask that you make it somewhere near it) so I asked for today off to make it a three day weekend.

On my actual birthday, when I got to work I was scheduled on printer #5, with a half hour float to my normal printer #73. I'm used to #73, but if I had my choice of any printer, it would have to be #5. And how's this to top that off, two of my normal #73 crew members were also assigned to #5 with me!!! Nice. One of 'em wrote the birthday wishes on my water cup, as well as writing me up a pass to skip a cycle. I told her that was a very cool present, as it had no expiration date, nor restrictions on cash value or transferability.

I bought myself the pliers in the picture. I don't really need them, but I've had my eye on them for a while. They're slick, they have a button that must be pushed before they'll adjust, so they won't be trying to slip around without my consent. I also bought myself a pizza from Papa John's for dinner. With the exception of a Chicago style pizza I once had, Papa John's is the best pizza I've ever had. There is no Papa John's near my home, but there is one less than a mile from my work that I've been thinking of patronizing for a while.

My parents had taken the oldest for a little trip with his cousin. He called me with birthday greetings, and then we were able to get the younger to bed easily to clear the way for some good 'ol birthday nookie from the wifey.

Could things get any better??? Well, yeah, they actually did!!! Remember the court case I had pending??? It had made for a few stressful days leading up to and including the first couple of days of the vacation, but finally the postponement came through. The court clerk was a real hardass about it, but due to my high functioning dyslexic tendencies I was finally able to get the hearing moved from the Friday I would have been on vacation. Turns out I had a couple of the digits in the defendants' addresses transposed, so the court mailings were coming back undeliverable. Got that squared away and the case was moved. Moved to the very day that I had requested off for my birthday, weeks prior to having any idea!!!

Had to wake up early today to get to court, and things went well. There was a different commissioner from the one I'd presented my case to last time, but other than that it played out quite similarly to last time. The defendants didn't show, the judge asked a few questions, then awarded me every dime of the amount I had prayed for, as well as court costs. Happy birthday to me!!! Now, on to collecting...

I guess 17 is pretty lucky, too!!!