Well my Invisible Fence Battery Subscription has run out, and I am going to need new batteries soon. While I can say that I am very happy with the Invisible Fence and the installation, however the batteries cost a fortune. For 1 year renewal battery plan, where Invisible fence ships you their batteries, the cost is $49 for 4 batteries. You do the math, you can go about 4 months before having to replace the batteries but they do last about 3 months. I found some instructions on taking the battery apart since the only thing unique about the battery is the housing. About the only thing you have to do is remove the black ring that is at the two prong (contact) end. You can use a small jewelers screwdriver or use a xacto knife. I used a stanley knife and stuck the tip of the blade in between the black ring and the grey housing. Be careful because the ring can fall off and is fragile. The battery is a Duracell 3V DL1/3N, which you can probably get at radio shack. Be sure to place the + end on the inside of the housing and the—(negative) end on the end where the two prongs are. I will post price and pics later.

First I would like to say that life is good, and I am happy with everything in my life right now. Today nothing extremely special happened. Just an ordinary day working at Market Motors. Detail some cars here, pick up some cars there, and talk to some customers everywhere. Devin came and visited us at the lot on his fancy new motorcycle that Katy and I sold him. He bought Katy’s old motorcycle and is pretty excited about it. I got home and Katy was taking a nap with Mozart. I took a ride on my bike down “River Road” ( CR 8 ) a couple times since I had time before Mike was going to show up. I kinda wished Brian was with me to enjoy the ride. I took it pretty quick feeling considering I’ve only had this bike for a couple weeks. I felt pretty confident in the speed that I took the corners. The suspension felt incredible compared to my SV. The suspension on my RC is fully adjustable Showa which came stock with the bike. I got home and Mike showed up to help me on my drywall. He’s awesome at cutting out the receps and cutting pieces to fit. He has helped me on a lot of the drywall and I feel like I owe him more than I could ever repay him. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have any of this done except for the part Brian helped me on. Katy cooked us some Pizza which Mike turned down because he already ate, and after he left Katy and I cleaned up. I think Sunday I am going to go to his house and help him out. I feel like I’m really indebted to him. Thank you again MIKE!!

So tonight is our third night we have worked on our kitchen and dining room. This little project of tearing up our carpet and laying down new flooring has turned into a huge renovation project. Pretty much Katy and I were sick of the half assed work that the previous owners did to the house and decided we were going to do it right. For example, when the previous owners were sick of the flooring, they just put down new flooring on top of the old. WTF!! Are you freaking retarded! Another thing they did that pisses us off is when they got sick of the drywall, they nailed wood paneling over top of the drywall. We also experienced this with the roof last summer. But that is another story altogether. It seems as if the previous owners chose the cheap way out whenever they decided to do something. This is something that I frown upon. I figure if you are going to do something, you might as well do it right. Especially if it’s with your own home that you will live in for a while.

Today Brian, David, Katy and I went to the dump and unloaded the two S-10s at the dump which put us back about $20 for both of them. Brian, and Craig worked on the kitchen tearing the wall coverings out. Last night we all tore the wall covers from the dining room area as well as the blow-in insulation that were on the outside walls. Blow-in insulation is about the dirtiest thing you can inhale, and it seems to not take much agitation to send it airborne. Again, thank you for everything guys.

Today I made the decision that I was going to tear up the carpet in my kitchen/dining room area. Well, after dropping Katy off at work I decided to stop by David’s house and see what he was up to. He wanted to help and so we went to Brian’s house and got him to help us. We started ripping up the floor which was carpet that had been glued to tile and just ended up ripping up the tile which was on top of 2 other floors that had been put down. The previous owners of the house had done things the cheap and lazy way and now Katy and I were paying for it. After an hour or so we decided to call up Craig and he showed up to help pretty quickly. We ended up getting all of the flooring ripped up in the kitchen and dining room. The only thing left to do is too pull up all the nails and do some clean up. Katy and I will then lay down some wood laminate flooring and new trim. Katy and I are really lucky to have good friends around that are willing to help. We would like to say thank you to Brian, David, and Craig. We are very lucky to have kind and loving friends around. We love you guys.

This is a relatively new way to bypass a lock which involves using a key that has been cut to it’s deepest setting and has a modified tip and shoulder so that the key can be inserted deeper into the lock with a little whack which drives the pines vertically. The crazy thing is it only takes seconds to open the lock if you have a bump key. And obtaining a bump key is easy, just obtain a blank key that fits the lock and get a locksmith to cut the key or cut the key yourself with a file. Supposedly this works on 90% of locks and will not leave a trace of evidence. This poses a huge risk for homeowners since homeowners and renters insurance will not cover losses if there is no evidence of a break in. The insurance companies will assume you left your door unlocked. For more information check out these videos and PDFs.

Bumping Explained AVI 50.11Mb

Bumping Shown AVI 13.48Mb

Bumping PDF 544kb

More Bumping PDF 3.14Mb

Bump Key Presentation PDF 607kb

As many of you already know, I purchased a home back in June of this year. The person that lived here was old and had the washer and dryer on the first floor because walking up and down the stairs to the basement was not feasable for her age. The washer and dryer was installed in the kitchen/dining room and was very awkward. So about a month ago I called up my dad and he came over to help me move the two appliances to the basement. He then helped me run the 220 that was needed to power the dryer and the 110 to power the washer. I then ran the water to the washer with copper pipes. This is where I taught myself how to solder copper pipes. The first try turned out to be my practice session. I then had to heat the pipes back up to pull them apart and I ran new ones which turned out to not leak and was much easier to do given the practice that I already had. Lets just say the two tips I learned were: Use lots of flux and Clean the pipe ends thoroughly.