What Irked You Today?

[Falcon Ranchero]

26 minutes ago, peter31a said:

Snow! I'm running out of places to put it!

Would it blow your mind if I said we got even more snow up here LOL.

[slusher]

On 2/12/2025 at 9:02 AM, A modeler named mike said:

Not so much an Irk, but more of a saddening. Our sweet little Chihuahua Zoey, 

Mike, I am very sorry for you, cried over every pet I had when they passed. 

[slusher]

1 hour ago, peter31a said:

Snow! I'm running out of places to put it!

Now that’s a snow bank!  Going to take a while to melt..

[A modeler named mike]

14 minutes ago, slusher said:

Mike, I am very sorry for you, cried over every pet I had when they passed. 

Thank you Carl.. same here, I'm a bit of a softy when it comes to letting go one of our little loved ones. It's the only part of having pets that literally sinks. 

[TonyK]

"Wow" about the snow pile!

[peter31a]

4 hours ago, Falcon Ranchero said:

Would it blow your mind if I said we got even more snow up here LOL.

No, I know you guys have been getting hammered as well.

[Engine 51]

Flight sim computer. A very pricey gaming machine that, when its behaving is absolutely wonderful. However, it has what I am sure to be a video card problem. Out of nowhere the screen goes black just as if you had shut off the monitor. The video card fans go to 100% and the only way out is to shut down and start over. Research has shown this to be a fairly common issue with this model, and the remedy is replacing the video card. That's a $2800 item. It's under warranty and is going in tomorrow, we shall see how it goes.

[johnyrotten]

Low oil pressure code on my truck. And modern mechanical packaging of failure prone parts. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

One whole day, no significant irks. Wonders never cease.  

[LennyB]

My irk is with myself today. I was pouring out some casting resin last night and I had some excess. I have a mold of an 86 T-Bird body I made about 35 years ago and I thought I would pour that out. I generally don't need mold release these days but for this I thought maybe  should spray it. Looked but couldn't find it and as the clock was ticking I let it go without.  This morning I am regretting that decision as the mold is one solid block. Been working at it while but it's not looking too good.

[Zen]

Man, you had me at 86 T-Bird. Please tell me you can save it, would love to have one of these bodies.

[LennyB]

It’s not looking good. Wondering if I might be I might be able to soak the whole mess in something like alcohol.  

[rattle can man]

Actually the last few days. How can they say something is free, and then charge you for it? I've been trying to find a free radio station to stream the Four Nations hockey games (I can't justify another TV streaming service). All the searches for "Free radio" brought up streaming services you have to subscribe to and pay a monthly or yearly fee.

[mk11]

On 2/13/2025 at 9:26 AM, peter31a said:

Snow! I'm running out of places to put it!

Oof. I'll take our twenty five below with sunny skies over that   

[89AKurt]

See everyone is still hogging ALL the snow!  😳  I would love to take some from you.

I have the very last drafting job I've done, driving me absolutely crazy with the bloody building department.  I will always say the government has caused the lack of "Affordable Housing" because of kleptocrats forcing everyone to beg for permission to make a living.  Picked up this client about 3 years ago, for an addition to a house.  Finding a builder who wouldn't quote a price for more than the house originally cost a few years ago, was a delay.  The department doing the plan check, the woman was told me I was doing something wrong, that I've done for decades, I emailed an explanation why she was wrong, never got a response.

The Flood Control District woman is hassling me about what the Finish Floor Elevation is on this existing house.  I used the County G.I.S. website to get what I thought would be close enough.  It's a gentle slope, I put red boxes around the topo lines.

The bureaucracy has their own website that is not available to the public, here is what she sent me.  (address is pubic so I didn't redact it)

This subdivision has it's own regulation about the F.F.E. being minimum 12" above grade, which the existing house has.  The addition is going where the grade is LOWEST, Uncommon Sense says it will be fine.  But now she is suggesting that a Surveyor will have to come out, before they can get a Certificate Of Occupancy.  I asked if the floor is too low, would they have to raise the whole house, or would there have to be a step up?  No response, other than sending the screenshot.  If she bothered to do a site visit, it would be obvious there is no problem, but oh no, submit peon!

This Flood Control District was going to fix a washed out street in my Water District, which is in an area that hasn't been built with homes, yet.  Their Engineer's design cut through the street with a gabion basket wall, which would have forced you to drive across adjacent lots.  I'm on the water district board, we meet with a bureaucrat who said they had to stay with the current path of the stream.  Board Chair used to work with ADOT, he asked their local Engineer about this, was told that the County just didn't want to get a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.  So they dropped it!  And I know of a guy in my neighborhood who had started building a house 8 years ago without a permit, was caught, he submitted garbage as-built drawings, has flagrantly violated zoning regulations, and the County lets him slide for some reason.  The Double Standard must be nice.  But don't worry, same government is going to provide "Affordable Housing" for us.  I will be so glad to officially declare I'm retired.

/end rant/

[Ace-Garageguy]

44 minutes ago, 89AKurt said:

...I have the very last drafting job I've done, driving me absolutely crazy with the bloody building department.  I will always say the government has caused the lack of "Affordable Housing" because of kleptocrats forcing everyone to beg for permission to make a living.  Picked up this client about 3 years ago, for an addition to a house.  Finding a builder who wouldn't quote a price for more than the house originally cost a few years ago, was a delay.  The department doing the plan check, the woman was told me I was doing something wrong, that I've done for decades, I emailed an explanation why she was wrong, never got a response.

The Flood Control District woman is hassling me about what the Finish Floor Elevation is on this existing house.  I used the County G.I.S. website to get what I thought would be close enough.  It's a gentle slope, I put red boxes around the topo lines.

The bureaucracy has their own website that is not available to the public, here is what she sent me.  (address is pubic so I didn't redact it)
 

This subdivision has it's own regulation about the F.F.E. being minimum 12" above grade, which the existing house has.  The addition is going where the grade is LOWEST, Uncommon Sense says it will be fine.  But now she is suggesting that a Surveyor will have to come out, before they can get a Certificate Of Occupancy.  I asked if the floor is too low, would they have to raise the whole house, or would there have to be a step up?  No response, other than sending the screenshot.  If she bothered to do a site visit, it would be obvious there is no problem, but oh no, submit peon!

This Flood Control District was going to fix a washed out street in my Water District, which is in an area that hasn't been built with homes, yet.  Their Engineer's design cut through the street with a gabion basket wall, which would have forced you to drive across adjacent lots.  I'm on the water district board, we meet with a bureaucrat who said they had to stay with the current path of the stream.  Board Chair used to work with ADOT, he asked their local Engineer about this, was told that the County just didn't want to get a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.  So they dropped it!  And I know of a guy in my neighborhood who had started building a house 8 years ago without a permit, was caught, he submitted garbage as-built drawings, has flagrantly violated zoning regulations, and the County lets him slide for some reason.  The Double Standard must be nice.  But don't worry, same government is going to provide "Affordable Housing" for us.  I will be so glad to officially declare I'm retired.

 

This kind of garbaaage is SOP everywhere today: bloated middle-management more concerned with avoiding action that could potentially have blowback, and backside-covering and blame-spreading taking precedence over anything else.

Not exactly the same, but close parallels.

Take car body design for example. Rather than having one gifted designer do an entire concept layout, and a few skilled underlings doing the donkey work of finessing the details and ensuring the thing can be manufactured as envisioned at a reasonable cost, most designs appear to be the result of a multitude of C students working as a committee where everybody gets to put a line or squiggle on the piece. Ooooooh coos the HR department. TEAMWORK!!!

The inevitable result is a bunch of cars from different makers that all look remarkably alike overall, with very few of them having any sort of visual coherence or sculptural integrity.

Like it or not (I do; it's a real head turner in person), this is one of the current few that looks like everyone involved was working on the same car, they had one boss, and they weren't afraid to try something different.

                                                          

 

Edited February 18 by Ace-Garageguy

[Rodent]

Kurt, you are going to spoil the notion that Aridzona lets you whatever you want, wherever you want, and where you want to do it. Their "Steal Unhappy Residents From California Board" is going to be really unhappy with you.......    LOL.

Hope you get through this.

[Tom Geiger]

I hear ya Kurt!  Over 40 years of dealing with building departments here!  Both corporate and on residential properties I owned. I swear they make stuff up just to mess with ya!  

Here's my gripe of the day.  I was at my daughter's house and she asked me to put up a new towel bar.  Of course they have no tools. My son in law hands me a bag with this in it.  It does have a drilling template.  I tape that to the wall and level it.  My daughter approve the position and height.  I question that this is really short for a towel rack.  My daughter counters that it's just for one hand towel... okay!  

The hardware provided with this piece is just wrong... made in China of course!  The anchors provided are HUGE, and once poked into the wall, they tear the sheetrock between them.  The screws provided are longer than the anchors and cannot be fully buried. Those are the holes you see.  I search their garage  and find a set of anchors / screws that didn't get used on its intended project.  I poke new holes and get the darn thing mounted!   THEN she says,  "Oh!  That's the toilet paper bar!"  and comes up with a smaller hoop thing she intended for the fricken towel!  Now I'm pissed, but I have to swallow it!   So I put the toilet paper on it and declare the project done!

This morning, with a new attitude I pulled the whole thing down.  It appears that the towel ring uses one of the same brackets so I left up the left one, which was screwed into a stud.  I filled in all the holes, showing son-in-law how to properly fill them with spackle.  He needed that lesson based on the work he and his father previously did and just painted over without sanding!   

Which brings me to the George Washington's Birthday image I found on the wall!  I will be there next weekend and will sand / paint the area. The wall was recently painted so it should match!    Did I say Argh!? 

 

[slusher]

37 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

I hear ya Kurt!  Over 40 years of dealing with building departments here!  Both corporate and on residential properties I owned. I swear they make stuff up just to mess with ya!  

Here's my gripe of the day.  I was at my daughter's house and she asked me to put up a new towel bar.  Of course they have no tools. My son in law hands me a bag with this in it.  It does have a drilling template.  I tape that to the wall and level it.  My daughter approve the position and height.  I question that this is really short for a towel rack.  My daughter counters that it's just for one hand towel... okay!  

The hardware provided with this piece is just wrong... made in China of course!  The anchors provided are HUGE, and once poked into the wall, they tear the sheetrock between them.  The screws provided are longer than the anchors and cannot be fully buried. Those are the holes you see.  I search their garage  and find a set of anchors / screws that didn't get used on its intended project.  I poke new holes and get the darn thing mounted!   THEN she says,  "Oh!  That's the toilet paper bar!"  and comes up with a smaller hoop thing she intended for the fricken towel!  Now I'm pissed, but I have to swallow it!   So I put the toilet paper on it and declare the project done!

This morning, with a new attitude I pulled the whole thing down.  It appears that the towel ring uses one of the same brackets so I left up the left one, which was screwed into a stud.  I filled in all the holes, showing son-in-law how to properly fill them with spackle.  He needed that lesson based on the work he and his father previously did and just painted over without sanding!   

Which brings me to the George Washington's Birthday image I found on the wall!  I will be there next weekend and will sand / paint the area. The wall was recently painted so it should match!    Did I say Argh!? 

 

Tom, where I go my smaller tool box goes to do most projects. I don’t have a drill or saw buts that is next, fathers days coming and my helper is 20..

[peteski]

Welcome to the world of today Tom, where ineptitude is rampant.  Who will fix things when the older experienced folks are gone?  At least we, older folks won't have to worry about it.

After reading your towel bar adventure I was ready to tag it with a sad icon, but the Washington image in the unsanded spackle on the wall made me smile.  You're a good father Tom!

[89AKurt]

16 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

This kind of garbaaage is SOP everywhere today: bloated middle-management more concerned with avoiding action that could potentially have blowback, and backside-covering and blame-spreading taking precedence over anything else.

Not exactly the same, but close parallels.

Take car body design for example. Rather than having one gifted designer do an entire concept layout, and a few skilled underlings doing the donkey work of finessing the details and ensuring the thing can be manufactured as envisioned at a reasonable cost, most designs appear to be the result of a multitude of C students working as a committee where everybody gets to put a line or squiggle on the piece. Ooooooh coos the HR department. TEAMWORK!!!

The inevitable result is a bunch of cars from different makers that all look remarkably alike overall, with very few of them having any sort of visual coherence or sculptural integrity.

Like it or not (I do; it's a real head turner in person), this is one of the current few that looks like everyone involved was working on the same car, they had one boss, and they weren't afraid to try something different.

[...]

Pontiac Aztec comes to mind.  My '16 Civic is a busy design, I hate how the creases along the side make doing a two-tone paint theme awkward.  The A-pillar to the front hump, seeing it on many other brands, has to be a safety or aero thing.  The way the window chrome ends at the back is silly.   But it's paid off and gets good MPG, to make up for the pickup and "new" car I will be getting.  Seems like every SUV looks the same, again has to be driven by safety standards, and whatever sells.  I find it amusing how Lamborghini's SUV and Chevy's Blazer look the same.  Corvette and Huracan, don't get me going.

14 hours ago, Rodent said:

Kurt, you are going to spoil the notion that Aridzona lets you whatever you want, wherever you want, and where you want to do it. Their "Steal Unhappy Residents From California Board" is going to be really unhappy with you.......    LOL.

Hope you get through this.

😅 Um, yes AZ is extremely restrictive, the weather is horrible, and there isn't any more room, so don't move here like everyone else, who then complain about the growth.  I'm serious, almost everyone who whines about the growth, just moved here a few years ago, I was born in AZ so guess how the conversation goes?  Thank you.

12 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

I hear ya Kurt!  Over 40 years of dealing with building departments here!  Both corporate and on residential properties I owned. I swear they make stuff up just to mess with ya!  

[...]

Thank you too!  They have a very large book to pull from.  They love to flex their Power by knowing every element of the codes.  The Engineering can be different between two guys, one using the IRC, the other the IBC, can result in how many holdowns are required.  Add the local codes, we have always been confused what the City, or the County requires.  Got so bad several years ago, the Contractor Assoc. held a meeting to get the confusion cleared up with the trades.  Lasted about a year before it was back to "normal" when the newest Codes were adopted.  Add neighborhood HOA requirements, sure the City allows a deck to go into the rear setback a little, the HOA does not.  Despite having acquired knowledge and experience, customers whined how much we charge for our work.
I spent time in an Airnib in Bellingham WA.  A very nice remodeled house, the towel bar came off the wall, so I feel your pain!

[Tom Geiger]

12 hours ago, slusher said:

Tom, where I go my smaller tool box goes to do most projects. I don’t have a drill or saw buts that is next, fathers days coming and my helper is 20..

I wasn't expecting to do any work on this visit so I didn't have any tools with me.   I am going to put together a tool box and just leave it there on my next visit! 

[Old Buckaroo]

Out of 25 plus years of buying model kits off ebay - I got one.   A kit wrapped with paper only and mailed from New York to Montana.  A sealed OOP desirable kit at that. Box was mushed and a bonus hole in it from the abuse the USPS is known to dish out.  I haven't been brave enough to break the seal and check contents.

Edited February 19 by Old Buckaroo

[89AKurt]

I'm not out of the woods yet.  This is the response from the County on my last revision:
Please remove my name from the plot plan.  I won’t be sending a Floodplain Use Development Permit until it is removed. I am in no way designing this house or defining it’s elevations.  The contours on the Interactive map are from 2012 at this parcel. It says the year (below) The USGS 3 Dep Kaibab contours are unavailable here.  

Those recent contours I sent are a kindness I extended to you and the homeowner.Your choice to use them is on you. Just like these elevations. If you chose not to use a surveyor or someway to measure the elevations at site and then the surveyor goes out before final and returns numbers that different from your reflection on your plot plan that is on you. If we do not have an accurate reflection we cannot approve the Certificate of Occupancy.  You can purchase contours from the GIS department for areas where you cannot retrieve it or you can shoot the elevations.

How nice, just pay more, because it will make such a HUGE difference. 🤬  Layer upon layer, do this to do that, jump through this hoop, grovel, whatever it takes.  I know it's CYA for the County.  Good thing I'm not living check to check now, I would be ticked off about this delay.

[Ace-Garageguy]

23 minutes ago, 89AKurt said:

...I know it's CYA for the County.  Good thing I'm not living check to check now, I would be ticked off about this delay.

Looks like it. "We take no responsibility for the accuracy of the data we provide."

It's really time for Atlas to go ahead and shrug.